Keith blew across the surface of another cardboard box. Dust flew in the air and he squinted as they spread around his eyes. He blinked hastily before using the sleeve of his jacket to dust the box off further. Next to him was Pidge, bent down into a crate. Every body part from their torso and up was in the crate, the lid discarded at the side. Keith watched quietly as one of Pidge's feet rose off the ground, the Green Paladin on their tip toes. Keith chuckled and resisted the urge to smirk.

Pidge popped from the crate and sent him a playful glare. Their hair was covered in white, silky cobwebs and their glasses were clipped onto the front of their shirt. Pidge stuck out their tongue before exclaiming, "I heard that!"

Keith couldn't hide his laughter anymore as a smile graced his face. Pidge let out a small giggle before seeing the box in Keith's hands. They shot him a questioning look and Keith shrugged.

"Find anything good?" They questioned as they set down a few dresses that they had been rummaging through in the crate. Keith identified a few from the pictures Allura had shown the Paladins of her family and what Altea used to look like. Keith sighed and shook his head.

"I don't think so, but who knows. It's all alien stuff, for all we know I could be holding a toilet brush, or the cure for cancer." Pidge let out a snort and shook their head.

"Well then, let's find out!" They told him as Keith lowered the box. The edges were frayed and it looked beaten up. There were drawings littering the sides of the cardboard. Vibrant reds, purples, and pinks covered the box sides. Keith made out a few letters of Altean, but the words were otherwise meaningless to the two. Pidge peered at the sides with fascination. Their brows furred and they softly gnawed on their bottom lip. Keith tried, and failed, not to notice.

Pidge finally spoke after a few minutes of silence and examining the box's exterior.

"It's Altean, obviously, but I think it says "Love Meter"?" Their statement sounded more like a question.

"Better than I did. I made out the letter Q," Keith half-complimented as he pointed to a red letter. Pidge looked at the alien dialect for a moment. "Dude, that's not even a Q." They corrected, "It's an L."

"Well fuck." Keith said bluntly, with the most calm expression he could muster. This sent Pidge in a small fit of laughter before prying open the box. Keith pulled back the rest of the tape that held the inner layers of the box closed. He balled it up and threw it, Pidge did the same but threw it on Keith's head.

"Hey!" He yelled with little shock, grinning to where Pidge could tell he was not truly angry.

"Now you're a pretty present!" Pidge shot back as they pulled out the box's contents. Keith laid out the items neatly from the pile Pidge was making. In the box there was a pad of paper, a few crayons, a bottle, and a rock. The rock was shiny and Keith felt drawn to it. The rock was a swirl of colors. A red gleam from the rock changing to a solid purple, and then switching to a mint green color with the cracks and chips filled with gold. Pidge sat the bottle upright and picked up the rock. It pulled Keith out of his trance.

"What do you think it is?" Keith asked them as Pidge turned the rock in their hand. They rotated the, now mustard yellow rock, and shrugged silently.

"Maybe it goes in the bottle?" They suggested weakly. Keith scoffed and looked at the bottle. It looked like an old coke bottle, except the top was thinner and there was no bottle cap. The glass was well kept, with no smudges or fingerprints, despite what the box holding it looked like.

Keith touched the pad of paper. Running his fingertips over the smooth surface. The edges of the first page was burnt and flaking in black specs. Two words were written on it, one in pink and the other in red. Pidge put the rock on the top of the bottle and frowned.

"Guess that doesn't do anything." Pidge sighed before looking through the crayons. They smiled, "Hey, they have all the paladin colors!" They pointed out, lifting a blue, yellow, green, red, and black crayon into Keith's vision.

"So they were obsessed with color coding even before we came along." He remarked. Pidge handed him the red crayon. Pidge fiddled with the green crayon in their hand.

"I mean, there were other Paladins before us," They pointed out as Keith shifted the notepad to be in between the two.

"True," Keith replied and he pressed his crayon against the paper. He did a small scribble and red covered a small corner of the page. Pidge smiled before slowly bringing their crayon to the adjacent corner. They did a small scribble and a pale green layered the paper in their corner.

"You color really nicely, for someone who has chicken scratch for hand writing." Keith teased and Pidge mocked offense.

"How dare you!" They shouted with a hand against their chest. Their face was exaggerated to the point that it was comical. Keith pretended to yawn and look at his nails.

"I regret nothing!" He shouted with a false sense of confidence.

"Well, if it's gonna be like that... I challenge you to a write off!" Keith laughed but took the challenge.

"We write the others name, on 3."

"1..."

"2..."

"...3!"

They raced to messily write the others' names. Keith did a play shove into Pidge's shoulder. Pidge proceeded to get him back while he was doing the G in their name by elbowing him in the jaw. Keith swung his arm around Pidge and pulled them to his chest. Pidge screamed for a moment only to start writing without looking at their work.

"Done!" Keith said and raised his arms, and in the process, let Pidge go. Pidge threw their crayon at Keith before holding up the pad of paper. Their names were messy and overlapping. The K in Keith's name looked like a V with a like going vertically through it, right dab in the middle. Keith looked at his and noticed, amongst other things, the D looked kind of like a leaf.

"This is bad." Pidge said, causing Keith to laugh.

His laughter stopped when he noticed the smoke. The bottle was still upright, but the stone was smoking. It's smooth top exhaling thick fog as flames danced around it. The flames grew larger and Pidge cursed. Keith pulled Pidge closer and the pad of paper was thrown at the bottle. The bottle knocked over the the flames spread, going in a straight line to the paper. Pidge started to search for the fire extinguisher they kept in every room in the case that Shiro had to cook again. Keith then threw his knife at it.

"You can't stab fire, Keith!" Pidge screamed as they knocked over a few empty boxes. The fire hisses and flooded the page the two Paladins had written on earlier. The fire then sizzled out, the edges of the paper burnt and curling.

"Well it worked, so fuck yes I can stab fire!" The two slowly put the contents of the box away after that.

"No evidence, no guilt." Pidge remarked as they threw the bottle in the box. Keith shrugged and nodded before using his knife to flip the rock into the box. They both made a point not to touch the bottle or rock directly. Pidge had used tissue paper from previous boxes they had opened.