#suddenly I'm a control freak and the bad guy and I'm just too bitter

[catsnuggler]

the highlights of today were that I ate dinner at the table, finished the practice math test for the sheet metal job I'm looking to get, and I finally sat myself down and sewed the side of my boot that was slowly starting to come undone a bit. it should be solid now.

[squirenonny]

For the Turn Left meme, because I'm an awful person: What would have happened if Lance had killed Keith on sight when they first met back on Berlou?

[Turn left meme]

FUCK YOU, that's what (j/k You know I love the angst.)

(But seriously, this AU is dark as fuck, so trigger warnings: death/grieving including multiple potential instances of major character death, depression, PTSD, re-traumatization, mind control, uhhh I think that’s everything? Putting this under a cut because it’s long and dark. You’ve been warned.)

Okay, so let's take this in chronological order, because there are a fucking lot of implications of this.

Immediate Ramifications:

I meant, Shiro was right there. He was sprinting to cover Keith, and he was close enough that Lance still would have got the message even if Keith was dead before Shiro got there. So there's always the possibility that Lance panic-shoots the second dude in Galra armor before he realizes that it's Takashi Shirogane. So there's bad end #1, because the paladins didn't know about Haggar or her weapon when they arrived; it was Keith and Shiro who told them. With them dead, Haggar fires, and there goes five paladins and three lions. Congrats, Matt doesn't even really have time to process that Shiro is dead, and Lance sure as hell doesn't have time to feel guilty for it.

So we have to assume Shiro survives, because that's not nearly enough angst to do this left turn justice.

So Shiro survives, but the rest of that scene plays out more or less the same. Matt arrives, freaks out a little, not least because Shiro's cradling the dead body of a Galra officer and not even making an attempt to defend himself against a potential follow-up shot from Lance. Allura arrives to confirm that Shiro's a friend, and Lance goes deadly quiet as the horror begins to set in. It doesn't help that Shiro is so dead-eyed he barely reacts to Matt, just sort of... collapses into sobs until Matt eases him away from Keith and the focus slowly shifts back to the ongoing battle.

The Battle for Berlou:

The battle continues largely unchanged, right up until the battle to destroy Haggar's weapon, where they start to feel Keith's absence. Allura takes a couple of the rebels with her when she goes hand-to-hand, and she manages to make it out--barely. Except Matt's been hit by the druids' Quintessence attack and is out cold, the Red Lion falling from the sky, and there's no Keith to take the controls. The fall doesn't kill them--Red has that much control, at least, but Matt and Allura are both banged up after it. Matt definitely can't fly for the rest of the battle, and Allura honestly isn't in any shape to try to emergency pilot Red, either. So Voltron's out for the rest of the fight.

They probably still win, eventually, but it's a long, hard battle, and a lot of people die. It's definitely not the resounding victory that it was in Duality canon, and even worse, the team isn't in good shape after it's over. Sure, Keith isn't there to be the focal point of the friction, but Shiro is bitter and grieving, and there's no one else who can help him with it, really, because no one else even spoke with Keith, except for the brief, anonymous exchange after the fight with Sendak. Matt tries to help Shiro, but Shiro just sort of shuts down about it--and as hard as he tries not to let his grief bleed through, there's gonna be some bitterness directed at Lance, which just sort of makes everything a million times worse.

Dual Paladins:

Figuring out the whole dual paladin thing suddenly becomes a million times harder, because see... the thing is Keith and Matt happened first because instinct is Red's whole shtick. They needed to sync up, so they did. Boom. Easy as that.

That doesn't happen this time, and Shiro is still deep in mourning for Keith and suuuuper doesn't trust this team (Matt is the sole exception and even there there are walls for days). So that's a no-go, and the lack of awareness of the potential means no one even realizes Shay's a paladin for ages.

Assuming no one dies because they're suddenly fighting this war on hard mode, Pidge and Ryner are probably the first to sync up and the entire team has zero clue what's happening. They eventually figure it out, and Hunk and Shay sync up, and Shiro and Allura start to work on it, but it doesn't happen quickly. Or at all. Shiro's... Frankly, Shiro's acting like canon Shiro/Ryou in late season 3-season 5, but ten times worse--tense and short-tempered and just constantly criticizing everyone because not only is he traumatized and grieving, but he also does not feel safe on the castle-ship. He's just always waiting for someone to turn on him because he worked for the Galra. He says absolutely nothing about what happened to him for fear of it getting turned around into an accusation, and he has a really hard time opening up to the others enough to form Voltron. It gets so bad that once Ryner joins the team and they all realize that Allura is a legit paladin, after all, Shiro throws in the towel. He'll fight on the ground, but he lets Allura fly, because she doesn't have the same problems forming Voltron as he does.

Lance, meanwhile, is guilty as fuck over killing Keith. He didn't know the guy, and Shiro won't talk about him, but it's obvious that Shiro isn't evil, so the fact that he not only trusted Keith with his life, but is visibly devastated about losing him, even weeks later? Yeah, Lance feels like a fucking monster, and there's nothing he can do to make up for that. He can't apologize to Shiro, because Shiro can barely stand to be in a room with him, and he can't go back and un-kill Keith. Hunk and Allura and Coran help him as much as they can, but Lance keeps beating himself up, to the point that he starts freezing in battle, afraid to kill anyone, because what if they're another Keith?

Shiro has growing concerns about his arm and the knowledge that Haggar can use it to control him, but he sure as fuck doesn't say a word to anyone. Are you kidding? They'd kill him in an instant.

Dark!Shiro Arc:

Hoooo boy. Hoo boy. You thought this was bad in canon. HA.

The Battle for Kera goes down largely the same way, but with Shiro going in on foot with Pidge instead of Allura. Lance still goes in on his rescue mission, and he still runs across Haggar, but when the team finds him, Shiro is at the end of his rope. Rather than fretting about Lance's wounds, he launches into a lecture (a lecture which is, to be fair, a highly stressed expression of genuine concern, just. He hasn't processed yet, and he definitely hasn't made up with Lance. It's been six weeks at this point, and Shiro has spent most of that time actively anticipating being murdered in his sleep. I cannot emphasize enough the degree to which these kids are not in a good place.)

Regardless, this gives Haggar Ideas, so instead of capturing Shiro, she possesses him but keeps a low profile, leaving Shiro to act as her agent from within Voltron.

(So there's bad end #2: Shiro kills everyone. Fuck.)

Miscellaneous

If??? We somehow make it past all this hell without killing anyone besides Keith????? (Technically freeing Shiro is the same as always, but even easier because Allura isn't also possessed, so as soon as they realize what's happening, they can probably stop it.) It still doesn't really get better??????

Shiro just. Shatters. He's been through too much, he can't trust anyone or anything, not even himself. He can't make himself care enough to be mad at Lance anymore. He can't even look at Black without feeling sick about how he's only fucked things up since he got to the castle. He slides into a deep depressive episode and just sort of ghosts around the castle, struggling to care enough to perform basic functions like eating and showering. Matt helps as much as he can, but Shiro is in a very dark place right now.

(This isn't helped by the fact that Matt is still struggling with his own trauma, both emotionally and physically, and he doesn't have a copilot in this verse. He’s exhausted, frustrated, and has no clue how to help himself, let alone Shiro.)

Val arrives on the castle-ship, and Lance--neck deep in self-loathing because he blames himself for what happened to Shiro--almost loses it. He killed an innocent person for no goddamn reason, he single-handedly destroyed Shiro, and now it turns out he also completely failed to protect his own family.

The first slightly less-awful thing happens in this AU, and Nyma becomes a Red because Matt is fucking drowning and he needs someone to fill the hole Keith left behind. They don't click as well as Keith and Matt did right off the bat, but they get there, and Matt really appreciates that Nyma's got his back without babying him.

...Let's just say the paladins are all harder for their experiences by the time they get home. After the battle, Shiro stays on Earth to get some fucking therapy, and Akira stays to take care of him. Meri joins the team as the third Blue, but honestly she probably ends up working something out with Black even though they aren't very compatible, because Allura needs some help. Fuck.

I don't even know where it goes from there, because there's still a war to be fought, and they're all already hurting for allies. I like to imagine Shiro slowly heals once he's away from the war, and eventually he and Lance meet and talk and hug it out, because deep down, Shiro doesn't blame Lance at all, for any of it, and Lance needs to hear that from Shiro before he can let go of his crushing guilt.