Disclaimer - I don't own Voltron: Legendary Defender. This was written in response to a prompt for the Autism Acceptance Challenge over on A03, but was also inspired by ThePinkTeenager's stories The Little Things that Hurt so Much and College: the New Frontier.

Crush Squared

"I'm not the best person to ask. Maybe you should ask your brother?"

Pidge glared at Keith, super frustrated that the one person she thought might get what she was going through in fact did not get what she was going through. The words thought and not were so definitely emphasized in her mind that she wanted to go crazy on him, yet crazy was honestly not the right word.

"Or maybe we should both ask?" Keith continued, quite oblivious to the fact Pidge didn't want to ask her older brother Matt for help when it came to dating. In the back of her mind, she knew that was a bad idea. Keith continued prattling on, which was so unlike him. "Or maybe we should ask Shiro? Shiro's really good with this social stuff, right?"

"Right..." If they asked Shiro, it would most certainly get back to Matt and her life would be over. She picked up her trey, deciding she wanted to end the conversation that she'd started with Keith, only to have him stand up and follow after her.

"Is it Allura? Because I like Allura. I mean, she's really nice and stuff," Keith continued prattling on, making Pidge want to turn and say to his face that his autism was showing, yet the strange thing was, this was normally how her autism ended up showing while his ended up showing up the way hers currently was. A sigh escaped her lips.

"Is it Lance? No wonder you don't want to..."

"Want to what?" Pidge turned and glared at Keith, making her companion flinch. "Are you saying he's not worth my time?"

Keith glanced away, fidgeting like he normally did. "Um. I was kind of thinking that, but not. It's more of..."

"What Keith?"

"That you just didn't want to deal with him constantly flirting with other girls as it's rather annoying and there's no telling if he'd stop kind of thing."

"It's not Lance or Allura."

"Oh." Keith stopped speaking, thankfully.

Or, not thankfully given the fact right after she dumped her tray of food into the trash, stacked the trey on the other treys, left the cafeteria, and got to the first hallway intersection when Keith started talking again.

"It's not me is it?" Where Keith came to that dumb conclusion she didn't know. "I do not reciprocate."

Pidge stopped in her tracks and turned to look at Keith. "Please tell me you've not said that to a girl." She watched his eyes blink. "Oh god. You did."

"It might have been more than once," Keith confessed.

"How many?" Keith's eyes blinked again. He then shuffled slightly before going to count on his fingers. Pidge reached out, closing his hand, not wanting to know how many times Keith fumbled with someone confessing to him. "It's not you, okay?"

"Somebody I don't know?"

"No, you know..." Pidge stopped. With how bumbling he was in their conversation; she didn't think she wanted him to know. No, she didn't want him to know.

But then, his facial features started paling, almost as if he'd gotten the most ludicrous idea into his head. "It isn't James."

"N..."

"Or Shiro."

"Keith." Pidge recognized when her friend started panicking.

"Or your brother."

"It's Hunk. Okay!"

"It's Hunk," Keith parroted as if thinking that over carefully. He then parroted again, "It's Hunk."

Warning bells went off in her head. "Keith..."

"It's Hunk," Keith nodded his head, then grabbed onto the sleeve of her cadet uniform, dragging her away from the place, the hallway intersection, back into the cafeteria. "It's Hunk."

"Keith, what are you..." Except, she knew what he was thinking. This was also one of those times she hated knowing what he was thinking.

"Hunk. Are you dating anybody?" Keith blurted out.

Pidge hated the way Lance's mouth twisted into a curl, one of his eyebrows going up; he was yet another person she had to worry about teasing her. Hunk gave Keith a rather confused look. "No."

"I didn't know..." Lance started up, only to be nudged by Hunk in the ribs.

"Why do you ask?" Hunk had that tone in his voice that he typically used with Lance when he thought Lance might say something he was going to dread hearing.

"Would you go out with Pidge?" Keith askedfor her.

"Keith! I'm going to kill you!" Pidge yanked her sleeve out of his grip, but watched the look of horror appear on Keith's face when he realized he'd done something wrong; he then bolted from the cafeteria, hurtling away at a rather high speed. She took off after him.

"Woah!" She heard Shiro call out as he grabbed onto Keith, only for Keith to duck behind someone who could shield him from her, what with how large Shiro was compared to how small Keith was. "What's going on!"

"That moron confessed my crush on Hunk to Hunk!"

"You have a crush on Hunk?"

Pidge then realized Matt was there. Her cheeks heated up. "Wait. Matt. It's not..."

"Well, if it were, say, James or Lance, I'd have to beat them up, wouldn't I?" Keith let out a snorting sound, indicating he found that as preposterous as Pidge did, yet he kept just out of sight so she couldn't clobber him for confessing for her. Matt rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'd have Shiro and Keith beat them up for me."

"Hey. I'm trying to keep Keith out of trouble."

"But Hunk..."

"Hunk says yes," an all too familiar and annoying voice stated. Pidge could already imagine the cocky look on Lance's face as her facial features reddened even more. "I mean, we are playing the pass the message on game, right, so..." He stopped. "Wait. Your brother and Shiro are here."

She then heard the sound of Hunk huffing from behind them. "Yes. I mean, Lance didn't do what he said already and..."

Pidge watched Keith peek out from behind Shiro. "Why's Hunk turning red?"

Pidge felt her eye twitch. "Keith. When I figure out who you have a crush on, I'm going to make your life a living hell."

"Well, when you figure that out, let me know. I'm still trying to figure that one out myself," Keith stated, not at all phased by what she just said.

Keith was definitely the worst person to turn to regarding her crush on Hunk.

"Uh, are we..."

"Yeah, you two are going out on a date. Brother approved and only chaperoned because the two of you are such dorks and need a bit of help," Matt laughed.

Yes, Keith was definitely the worst person to turn to regarding her crush.