Klance - Beat Drop (Complete)

Chapter 18 Travel Home

"Hello?" Keith mumbled into his phone. It was 4 o'clock in the morning, Sunday.

"Hey, Keith," Pidge's words were long and drawn out; he sounded guilty.

"What do you want," Keith groaned.

"Well, I'm in holding."

Keith bolted up in bed, "You're in jail?!" he bellowed. Lance murmured something inaudible at Keith, blindly smacking him flatly in the chest with the back of his hand before burying his head under his pillow.

"No! Not jail!... holding." Keith shook the sleep off his weary body and started pulling on his sweatpants.

"Sit tight... I'm coming."

...

"Yeah, she was being rude to a police officer," the deputy told Keith, sounding bored. Her southern accent pulled out her vowels, turning 'rude' into 'rooduh', and 'police' into 'puh-leese'. Keith bit his lip to prevent himself from correcting Pidge's pronouns. He knew Pidge's Tumblr bio... My gender is science.

Keith fidgetted as they waited for Pidge to come out of the heavy wooden door. The police station was clean and bright, with a receptionist desk and soft waiting room chairs and scrubbed linoleum tile floors.

When Pidge walked in, Keith stood, shoving his phone in his back pocket. A police officer handed Pidge his belongings in a plastic bag, which contents included a bulky laptop and several other strange devices. Pidge's green headphones were slung casually around his neck, and Keith ruffled his hair as Pidge smiled up at him apologetically. His arm slung around Pidge's shoulders, Keith led the two outside to the parking lot, where Keith's motorcycle stood patiently.

"So, what happened?" Keith asked, Pidge sliding behind him on the seat, clutching his plastic bag to his chest. The air was muggy and cool, but not cold yet. Keith would have to start borrowing Hunk's old Jetta soon... He drove slowly so he could hear Pidge over the wind.

"I was on a task from the agency I work for. They've been suspicious of this gang for a while so they sent me to their hideout. I was supposed to mess with the gang's computer systems so their tracking devices shut down, but they had a backup generator for their security cameras so they caught me. After they called the police, I told them what agency I was from, and they got all scared and shit." Pidge laughed, "It was actually pretty funny.

"Anyways, they decided not to press charges or anything, I guess they didn't wanna get my agency's top hacker jailed, so they just told the police I looked suspicious. But the police officer that came kept calling me 'she' and 'her', even though I told him almost a thousand times that I identified as a guy. So I think I went off a bit too much, ended up yelling, I think." Keith sighed, but he was smiling.

"Thank you, by the way. I know this is a hassle."

"It's no problem, Lance told me I was being a blanket-hog anyways." The two boys grinned and Pidge leaned his head against Keith's shoulder, breathing in the strong smell of shaving cream and espresso.

The town was quiet and dark at this time of the morning, with only a few cars on the road. Keith's engine purred gently underneath the two as they palled under streetlights and stars. The tall brick buildings dwindled as they got onto the side roads, past the bay where the ocean was calm and quiet, the breeze that blew off it sending salty air to Pidge and Keith's noses.

Small sandpiper nests were sewn upon the grass on the slopes leading down to the beach beside the road, abandoned from their migratory makers. Keith could drive on the yellow lines as he drove alone on the road, pushing his motorcycle faster as Pidge's breath came fast, exhilarated. Keith couldn't remember the last time Pidge had been on his motorcycle. He took Pidge's happy whoops as a good sign though, as they dipped through curves, leaning into the slopes and turns of the road, his fingers curled perfectly around the handles.