#θ thread

[victorlimadelta]

@panickypaladin

“Please, Pidge? It is just for a night and two days. And you get to eat mom’s food the whole time! What is there to lose?”

Not much, honestly. Pidge and Hunk already get along so well and fit together so easily that her own father has already commented on it. Speaking of, “so long as we don’t get into any arguments about modulation, this should be easy, right? we just act the same way we always do and they’ll believe it. maybe some over-the-top hand-holding, some sappy canoodling while we watch the sunset, some feeding me laulau right off your fork—wait, something tells me your folks are gonna have fresh ground kona coffee. if i sip that and tell you i love you, believe it.”

Pidge reaches down for Hunk’s arm and drapes it around her shoulder. Nice and protective and comforting. He always gives good hugs, even the sideways half-assed ones. “just... tell me they don’t know how old i am. there’s only so much teasing about kids i can take. do you think your parents will like me?”

[victorlimadelta]

@palidinus

“... Pidge, I...”

He needs to be careful.

Careful, a word that may be an understatement.

There isn’t anyone else around— maybe, just maybe luck is on his side— but as luck would have it, his deeply threaded in need to squirrel the darker parts of himself away has not gone unnoticed by Pidge, and he can no longer avoid the topic being breached.

Voice lowering, Shiro winds his fingers through his fringe, dropping his voice.

“Katie,” he corrects himself. “I... don’t know. It’s nice of you to offer, but... crying doesn’t do much for me.”

“maybe not,” Pidge says, walking on the same eggshells he is. She waltzed them into this minefield and she doesn’t even know where the bombs are hidden, how much of an idiot is she? She just wants to help and has no idea how. “i just...”

She sighs out, curling up in her designated chair. There’s no one else on the bridge at this late hour; she and Shiro are surrounded by nothing but empty space and the starmap projecting from the controls. “i don’t think i could do it,” she says eventually, flinging herself headfirst onto whatever explosion this is going to cause. “i don’t think i could be you. it would be too much for me. the muscular dystrophy, the chronic pain, the galra, your arm--you freeze up, sometimes, and no one says anything about it, but i notice, and i see it, and--” Her throat’s gone all tight with everything she hasn’t said, eyes stinging as she chokes the words out. “it would be too much for me. if i started crying i don’t think i’d ever stop. i’d never be able to do what you do.” She swallows, hard, around a lump in her throat, voice shaky. “i’d be dead right now if i were you, but we’d all be dead right now if it weren’t for you. i just don’t know what to do, or how to help, or what to say, or how to make it right.” Before Shiro can look at her, she hurriedly wipes her face onto her sleeve.

[victorlimadelta]

keith // cont’d

“keith? you have blood on your face. i can’t even tell if that’s your blood.” She can see extra red on him, streaked across his features, and his hair is matted in all the wrong places (even for him). “let me take a look and make sure you don’t have a head injury.” As stubborn as Keith is, Pidge is just as bull-headed - an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

“come on,” she insists, reaching an arm up to wrap around his shoulders when he won’t get a move on. Kind of pathetic, when she’s so much shorter than him, but he looks like he needs all the help he can get. “med bay. now.”

[victorlimadelta]

“shiro?” Pidge raps at his bunker door twice, sharp, quiet. Her tablet is tucked into her armpit, her other hand clutching (what else) a mug of coffee. “i think i have something, but i’m not sure how fast i can do it, and i need to know from you whether i’m even on the right track.”

She trips her way into Shiro’s room, a little uncoordinated, throwing out her hand to catch herself on the wall. Heh. A little dizzy, seeing stars. Once she’s steady, she pushes off and gets her tablet in hand to show him her to-do list. She’s gently vibrating, jittering so hard that the text is unreadable. “look--these are some of the medications that kept coming up in my research. do you remember if you were on any drugs while you were at the garrison? did they tell you the names?” She’s talking just a little too fast. “i mean, there’s about twelve trade names and three generic names for each of these, they’re hard to pronounce, if you don’t remember it’s okay--i just want to get started on this. i can’t lose any time.” i can’t lose you.

[victorlimadelta]

panickypaladin​:

“Let me check…”

He was quiet for a moment behind the strange device. After a few seconds he perked his head up over the open panel to peer at Pidge. “Tongue tingle levels.” His words slurred slightly while he spoke. He lifted up one of the Olkarian headbands so she could see it.

“oh, wow.” He’s been working on an Olkari tiara all this time? Trying to get it powered, to make it work for the rest of them as easily as it does for her? “that’s incredible, hunk!” He’s such a talented cadet, he can reverse-engineer anything given enough time and material, but she never imagined he could make one of these himself. Just goes to show she should never underestimate her teammates!

“go on,” she encourages him, “put it on! i wanna see if this’ll work.” She’s on standby in case there are any terrifically bad technological malfunctions, but she has a feeling Hunk’s got this totally under control.

[victorlimadelta]

@panickypaladin hunk // cont’d

Okay, she hasn’t seen Hunk this sick since their Garrison cadet days, when he regularly hurled into the simulator components. “you’re collapsing on me,” she points out, “this isn’t just some little cramp. when did this start? how fast did it come on?” A little on the nose, but, “was it something you ate?” She wants to pull him up off the floor, but she’s convinced that if she tries, she’ll dislocate a shoulder or two. “you look horrible. do you need water?” With narrowed eyes, “are you going to throw up on me?”

[victorlimadelta]

@infernoforged​ from here

Keith was quiet for a while, not really sure how to respond. Sure, they were all really hyped after winning the battle, and there was a party going on, but at the same time, Keith still had to process the fact that he almost ended his own life just now.

But on the other hand... it would be a great way to distract himself from that. Maybe get some actual sleep after. He could use the rest. He lift an eyebrow, a slight smirk showing on his face. ‘’Why the sudden interest, huh?’’ He asked then, not wanting to say yes so fast. Especially not since this could be some kind of weird ass joke.

Keith held a glass of nunvil in his hand, the party going on in the background.

“Come on,” Matt says, using an elbow to jostle Keith’s side. “If you’re anything like me, you’re still jumpy as hell after the fight’s over. Burn off that adrenaline, get some oxytocin going instead--best way I’ve found to wind down, so far.” Horrible coping mechanism? Probably. Only one he’s got? Definitely. At least this is someone he half-knows, secondhand through Shiro at least.

Still, without a solid yes, Matt’s hedging. He’s got some fruity abomination of a liqueur in a fluted glass that he twists between his fingers, looking carefully at his beverage instead of the man next to him. He won’t take it hard if he’s turned down, he just wants to know, sooner rather than later, so he can get on with his night (and make some alternative plans, if needed). “We could always talk,” he says, lighthearted enough that it’s teasing but the subject matter bleak. “About why you felt like you needed to do that. Or you could just remind yourself that you’re alive, and you have a reason to live. Pick one. There’s millions.” And maybe I can be yours, for the night.

[victorlimadelta]

shiro // cont’d

“when keith was about to kick me out of the training room, you--y’know.” Slapped him across the face, with his human hand, right in the scar. “stood up for me. that’s the first time anyone’s ever done that.” She underscores it again, “ever.”

Years of going through that, being literally pushed around, verbally assaulted, bullied, and it took being in space with Shiro for someone to actually step in and do something about it. She’d tried to defend herself, back when it first started, but she was the one who’d gotten in trouble for it. To have someone fight back on her behalf was... overwhelming. As much as it hurt for Keith to have lashed out at her like that, and as much as she had wanted to believe that it was over, at least she had someone, now, who could do something about it.