Chapter Text
He’s six, and his abuela stands behind him as they look over the ocean, his siblings looping lazy circles below them, watchful in case they are needed.
“You can do this, mijo.” She says in her thick accent, a hand between his shoulders. “We are here for you.”
He is shaky, but he is braced for it.
He nods.
She pushes him over the edge, and the air is cutting him, biting into his cheeks, and his mind is blank and he’s going to crash-
but then his wings catch him and he is flying, gliding with the instincts that awoke in him to keep him safe. His eldest brother calls to him in a wild whoop as he descends to them, and his abuela appears next to him, her own long wings growing silver with age.
“They will carry you, mijo.” She encourages with that wry grin, banking toward him. “Carry you on the winds and to the sky and even beyond.”
He is nine, and his first growth spurt hits, and he cannot crawl from beneath his covers as his back aches with a pain he has never felt before. His family joins him throughout the day, siblings crooning softly to him as he cries, his mother rubbing gentle circles in between his aching shoulders. It hit him hard, they say, but he’ll be okay -
Twelve, and hurling himself over the edge of the same bluff his abuela once pushed him from, screaming his pain to the skies in grief because she is gone-
Fourteen, lanky and self-assured as he dives into the ocean, his wings folding an instant before impact-
Seventeen, shivering in the shower because he knows he should have been able to complete that simulation but didn’t, his shoulders aching as he curls himself tightly, wishing more than anything he wasn’t so useless-
Eighteen, turning on Hunk when he asks why he won’t show his wings to the world, his feathers molting from the stress of his secret-
Eighteen, alone, awkwardly preening his single wing, his lip curled in frustration because he just can’t do it-
Nineteen, his birthday. Pretending it doesn’t exist because he refuses to remember the ones that came before, refuses to remember the things he lost but knows it was his fault-
Nineteen, correcting Pidge when he realizes that his wings are at the wrong angle-
Twenty, his first birthday in space. Spending it fighting for his life against a Galra attack, refusing to go into the healing pods because he is worthless enough as is-
Worthless.
Useless.
He screams silently in his nightmares, screams for someone to help him, anyone to help him, but there is no answer. Alone. He doesn’t remember what is real and what is fake. Everything blurs together until his mind feels ready to explode.
He screams, and no one answers.