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Keith blinked at the sight in front of him.
“C’mon babe, who’s the best boyfriend? Me, obviously.” Lance shoved the wrapped box into Keith’s arms. “Aren’t you surprised? Dazzled?”
“Well, yeah. Considering we aren’t… ya know… celebrating anything.” Keith shrugged awkwardly and tried to hand the box back to Lance.
Hunk walked into room, Pidge on his trail. “Dude, just take it. He spent the entire time at the Space Mall trying to find something.”
“Hunk!” Lance sheepishly looked towards Keith again. “Hey, but you don’t want it… that’s cool. I can just… take it back.” He reached for the box, only for Keith to clutch the box to his chest.
“No! No, I’ll take it.”
Pidge snorted, shoving past them to get to her station. “You two are such dorks, my gosh.”
Shiro took that moment to walk in. “Hey Keith, whatcha got there?”
Keith shrugged. “I don’t know, Lance got it for me at the Space Mall.” He opened the box, pulling out a small object shaped sort of like a can opener. “It’s a… can opener? Um, thanks Lance.”
“Aw, babe, it doesn’t open cans… actually it might, I don’t know. I mean, technically, maybe it will open cans. I didn’t ask the shop keeper, so you could always try…”
“Lance! What is it?” Keith looked in the box for any sort of translatable instruction manual, but found nothing.
“Oh, yeah, it’s a knife sharpener. Enjoy!”
The rest of the team froze, looking at the couple. “Lance,” Shiro started to say, a hint of wariness on his voice. “Are you sure this is a good idea…?”
“It’s everything I ever wanted….” Keith whispered reverently.
“See, I’m the best boyfriend.” Lance finger-gunned in Keith’s direction, but the boy was too distracted, nodding slowly.
Keith’s head whipped up to look at Lance. “I need to try this out.” He ran out of the room, leaving the rest of the team in silence.
“Well, I guess he likes it.” Pidge looked back down to her screens. “Good job Lance.”
Lance stood silently, sending a disappointing glance towards where Keith had run off. Hunk threw an arm around his friend. “Hey, he likes it, you did good. We all know Keith is distant and your relationship is still… somewhat new.”
Keith burst back into the room, running towards Lance. Grabbing the boy’s shirt, he pulled Lance down into a painful, face smashing kiss before running back out of the room.
Lance broke out into a dopey grin. “Heh, like I said. Best boyfriend.”
Shiro laughed. “Well, I’m glad you two are finally getting along.”
Suddenly, Lance jumped towards the table, where the remains of the box were sitting. He pulled two large gloves out of a second box. “I almost forgot. I’m gonna need these babies.”
“Wait, why do you need gloves?” Pidge asked. Lance laughed, walking towards the hallway. “Lance, wait. Wait! Why do you need gloves?!”
But only Lance’s laughter echoed through the ship.
~~
It was a full day before the consequences of Lance’s actions were seen.
Hunk was in the kitchen, prepping lunch for the team. He grabbed a kitchen knife, ready to cut the homemade alien bread into slices.
It slid through the bread like butter.
Hunk stared at the knife. That was weird, normally it took a bit more effort. He cut the next slice, again it was just like butter.
15 minutes later and having gone through all the knifes, Hunk found they had all been changed. Even the strange knife that reminded him of a cheese knife (Coran had said what it was originally for, but he hadn’t been familiar enough with Altean food) was sharp enough to cut through any food he tried like butter.
Frustrated with whatever had manipulated his knives, he placed the knife on the counter. Pidge walked in. “Woah, Hunk, why are there knives all over the table?”
Hunk picked up one of the knives with a deadpan glare, dropping it onto the table. Pidge watched in awed horror as the simple cheese knife embedded itself in the countertop.
“Isn’t that…”
“Yep.”
“Keith?”
“Keith.”
“I’ll talk to Lance about it.”
Hunk sighed tiredly. “Thanks Pidge.”
~~
It was Shiro that found Keith’s handiwork next.
He had just finished training and grabbed a towel for the showers. He opened the door to his room, seeing Keith standing there facing away from him.
“Oh hey, do you need something?”
Keith jumped, spinning around and throwing something behind his back. “Hey Shiro. I was just leaving. Heh,” Keith dodged around him and ducked out the door.
Well, that was weird. Shiro shrugged and stepped into the bathroom. He looked around, but didn’t notice anything different. Humming to himself, he stepped into the shower.
After drying off, he reached out to grab his comb. Immediately he flinched back in pain and stared at the comb. Picking it up carefully, he chucked it at the wall. He watched as the comb embedded itself in the wall…. the indestructible wall.
Looking down, he watched the blood from the cut on his hand drip onto the floor.
Sighing, he wrapped it in his towel. Talking to himself, he shook his head. “Coran is not going to be happy about this, Keith.”
~~
Pidge glared at the computer as another error message flashed on the screen. “This shouldn’t be that hard.” She murmured to herself. “If I can just get the data from the secondary drive…”
Sighing, she leaned back into her chair, throwing on a random alien music track, making it so loud she couldn’t hear her own frustration. She also couldn’t hear the giggling from under her work table as the disks on her table were slowly taken and replaced.
Pidge spun in her chair before moving back to her desk. The figure under her desk slowly left the room.
It was only a couple minutes later when she moved to pick up a disk that she drew back, staring at the cuts now on her hand. “Ow, why are these disks so sharp.”
She reached for a cloth, her hand brushing against a memory stick laying innocently on the desk. She flinched, pulling her hand back to see more blood. “Keith!” She yelled out in frustration. “How did you even sharpen these things! What the fu-”
~~
The whole team, including Allura and Coran, were sitting around the table.
“Lance, you need to take it away from him.” Pidge complained. Hunk nodded along with her statement.
“I’m his boyfriend, not his mother. He’s happy… look at him!” He gestured wildly to Keith, who was sitting quietly, slowly running his own butter knife through the knife sharpener. He had a small smile on his face.
“Lance, everyone keeps cutting themselves on everything… maybe a knife sharpener wasn’t the best idea.” Allura shied away from her own place setting. “I think even the plates are sharp at this point.”
Shiro picked up his own plate, ignoring Coran’s protests, and threw it at the wall. It stuck.
Lance, the only one eating, shrugged. “I mean, maybe it’s a little overboard, but you guys could grab some gloves like me…. I thought so ahead for this plan guys.” He waved his hands, showing off his gloves.
“It is amazing how those have held up.” Pidge muttered under her breath.
Shiro stood, walking quickly over to a distracted Keith. “I think it’s time to take a break from sharpening things.” He moved to take the device, but Keith curled around it.
“Shiro…. It was a gift, I can’t just get rid of it.” He whined.
The team looked at Lance, who’s expression turned guilty as he looked down. “Alright, alright. Hey Keith, maybe it’s time to take a break from the knife sharpener?” He held out his hand to his boyfriend.
Keith stared back and forth between Lance and his outstretched palm. “Fine.” He grumbled, handing the knife sharpener over. Shiro immediately took the device from Lance.
“I’m just going to go hide this… somewhere.” He held it away from him. “Maybe later Keith can work on finding a way to sandpaper all the… sharp edges around here.”
Keith crossed his arms, pouting as he walked to his room.
Everyone else sighed in relief.
~~
Keith looked up as someone knocked on his door. “Go away Shiro.”
The door opened, revealing Lance standing awkwardly right outside his door. “It’s… me. Hey.”
Keith stood, shuffling to the door. “Hey.” A small smile spread across his face.
“Sorry about the whole… gift thing. I really thought it was a good idea. I guess, I’m not as, heh, sharp as I thought.”
“Lance,” Keith reached out, grabbing Lance’s hand. “Yeah, I get it, I’m obsessed with knives, but I would have liked anything you gave me.”
Lance looked up. “Really? I could have got you anything?”
Keith nodded, pulling Lance into his room. “For a sharpshooter, I guess you really aren’t that sharp.”
“Hey!” Lance laughed, pulling Keith into his arms against Keith’s struggling. “You’re not allowed to make dumb jokes like that. That’s my job!” The boys fell over, leaning against each other and laughing.
When they calmed down, Lance pulled something out of his pocket. “Hey, I got you something else. It’s kind dumb, but it was my back up plan in case, ya know, the sharpener didn’t work out.”
Keith shook his head. “I told you, you idiot, I’ll love whatever it is.”
Lance turned around, holding a bow on top of his head. “Hey babe, I got you a boyfriend.”
Keith leaned closer. “Oh, and what’s the occasion?”
Lance smirked. “I like you, does there have to be a reason?”
Keith huffed a laugh, inches away from Lance’s face. “No, I guess not.” He smiled into the kiss, his heart feeling something sharper, and yet softer, than that knife sharpener could have ever done.
Yeah, this was infinitely better.