My Heart Is Nuclear

It’s the cycle of guilt and shame, sounds about right. 
 

Shiro says something punny and awful, and Lance feels like shit because Kuron didn’t do that nearly as much, he should have noticed, he should have realized sooner that something was wrong, he’s so selfish for not noticing. 
 

Shiro does the Dad Eyebrow Arch of Disapproval after something blows up in his face and Hunk mentally shrinks even as he gives a sheepish grin. Kuron would have given him a lecture but it would have been edged with aggression and more anger than disappointment and worry and Hunk feels awful for not noticing the difference. He thought it was just the stress of everything finally catching up with him, not…damn, he really wishes he could make some chicken katsu because he knows that’s Shiro’s favorite. Maybe he can get his hands on some alien animal that is similar to chicken…
 

Shrio and Pidge space-skype Matt and her older brother seems to lose a bit of tension that she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying until it was gone. Shiro and Matt trade inside jokes that she hasn’t heard in years and at one point Shiro absentmindedly halfs a loaf of pseudo space bread and hands half of it to her and she holds it in her hand, just staring. Kuron never shared his food without thought like this and it hadn’t even occurred to her that was strange. 
 

Shiro talks with his mother and Keith pets Yao-Pyon. He had left the others with an imposter with his brother’s face. He had loved, had trusted, had liked Kuron and didn’t notice anything off about him. He had believed, even after seeing the other clones, that the Shiro in front of him, fighting him, snarling at him, was his brother. Maybe he was. He had the same memories, the same knowledge, the same feel, the same experience. Did that mean he had murdered a version of his brother to get the original version back? He piloted the Black Lion so he clearly had a soul….was it the same as the one inside Shiro? A warped shadow even down to that level? Haggar could probably do something that evil, that unnatural. 
 

I died, Keith.

And then they had brought him back and put him into another body. He had done it out of love and compassion, sure, but at the end of the day was his action any different than what Zarkon had done for his beloved wife? Any different than what Haggar did to Zarkon? 
 

Any different than what she did to Kuron and Shiro? It was just as unnatural. 
 

Yao-Pyon licked his face and he pushed at her weakly, mostly for show, and she knew it because she just teleported directly onto his chest, pushing him over easily. 
 

Shiro had folded back into their group easily, but what would be the cost of this? 
 

He didn’t know. 

(I have indeed joined everyone in Voltron Hell. I’m catching up on S4 right now, myself and my friend group are on episode…3? I think? Anywho..)
 

Keith had no idea what he was doing, but then again, when did he ever? 
 

When he went to get Shiro from the Garrison, he hadn’t known what he was doing; when he found and flew Red for the first time, he’d had no idea what he was doing; when he joined the Blades he’d known nothing and that really does seem to be the summary of his life. He never knows what he’s doing because he’s so bad at everything that makes things meaningful and real - he doesn’t know what to do with his emotions, doesn’t know how to read other people’s, has never known when to let people in and when to hold them at bay, and this is just more of the same, really. Hunk is sobbing into his shoulder and Keith is frozen, unsure of what to do, and he tries to think of what Shiro would do in this situation. Hunk isn’t physically hurt, Keith already checked for that, and he can breathe just fine - if he couldn’t, his suit would be chirping loud enough that Keith would be able to hear it form this close - and Keith knows that he’s upset because he’s upset too, just to broken to be able to cry like this. He tentatively touches Hunk’s back and when he doesn’t get shoved away, he settles his hands more firmly on his friend’s back (they’re friends, Lance said so; Pidge said so, Hunk said so, so they’re friends.) and rubs his back the way Shiro used to do for him when everything was too much and Keith ended up screaming and breaking things or hitting someone.