Title: “The Drift’s Edge”
The airlock was half-ruptured, the hum of the ship’s failing life-support systems echoing through the corridor like a dying heartbeat. Smoke drifted lazily in the low gravity, mixing with the metallic tang of blood and burnt circuitry. The two paladins lay slumped against each other — armor cracked, breathing uneven.
Pidge’s hands shook violently, not just from exhaustion but from the tremors that never fully went away since the crash on Eltar-7. Her wrist brace — a lightweight stabilizer she’d built herself to manage nerve damage — buzzed weakly as she tried to keep pressure on Lance’s side. Blood seeped through her gloves, dark and slick.
“Stay with me, you dumbass,” she muttered, voice breaking. “You can’t tap out on me now.”
Lance gave a weak grin, his voice slurred. “You kiss your teammates with that mouth?”
“Only the cute ones,” Pidge shot back, though the panic in her eyes betrayed her attempt at humor. Her chest hurt — anxiety spiking hard, the kind that felt like drowning from the inside out. She fumbled for the injector clipped to her belt, the one that helped calm the episodes. Her prosthetic fingers — cold titanium replacements for what she lost years ago — clicked as she loaded it and pressed it against her thigh.
The hiss of the medicine was sharp. She steadied, at least enough to keep her head clear.
Lance’s breath hitched, and she noticed his armor’s glow fading — the faint blue light of his suit flickering like a dying star. “You’re not dying here, not after everything,” she said. “I didn’t drag your stupid ass through a meteor storm just to—”
Her voice cracked, and she bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying. “Damn it.”
He coughed, crimson on his lips. “You always… had a thing for heroics.”
“Yeah, well, someone has to keep you alive long enough to buy me a drink when this is over.”
Lance laughed softly, wincing. “Deal. But you’re paying. Equal rights, remember?”
Pidge rolled her eyes, even as tears slipped down her face. “You wish.”
The lights flickered one last time. She pulled him close, their armor clinking, the scent of metal and burnt ozone heavy in the air. In the dark, they held onto each other — two broken, bleeding idiots with matching scars and too much history.
Somewhere, distant thunder from the ship’s engines began to fade, and Pidge whispered: “Don’t you dare leave me, Lance. We’ve still got a galaxy to piss off.”