They're exactly twenty-three minutes into a graveyard shift Keith's been dreading all week when they get the call.

 ―request assistance, we have a 2333 at 217 Albany Street. Please respond.

"Ugh." Beside him in the driver's seat, Lance throws his hands up momentarily. He'd wound up behind the wheel for the third night in a row, by virtue of sheer obnoxiousness and the hand he’d shoved in Keith's face as they'd made their way out to the squad car. "Is it too much to ask that we get a half-decent call on this garbage shift? We gotta be stuck with Drunk and Noisy again?"

Keith rolls his eyes. He questions Commander Iverson's decision to pair them together every night, thinks about begging for a transfer at least weekly, but he doesn't think he'd ever get it. The day he'd been paired with Lance, he swears Iverson had laughed. "It's not all glamour and drug busts," he says for the thousandth time, though secretly he agrees with his partner. Their precinct is near the University, and the disproportionate number of calls for noise complaints and unruly, drunken students makes it one of the more redundant beats. Still, beggars can't be choosers, and he checks his badge and his weapon as Lance makes a left on Albany, turning them towards the address in question.

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chapter 1

Keith spends the next several quintants making preparations for his departure. There are supply runs to approve and outposts to contact, and he has to debrief Acxa, who will be in charge of the Blades in his absence. His friends help, and he’s grateful when he sees Hunk and Coran patching up the engine on one of their downed ships, Pidge coding fixes to a system that hasn’t seen an upgrade in at least three deca-phoebs. Shiro falls easily into helping wherever he’s needed, loading crates of food goo onto cargo ships, playing with the wolf when he gets bored during Keith’s meetings, and lending his expertise and advice to the meetings themselves. It makes something warm swell up inside Keith’s chest, to have them all working alongside him for the first time in deca-phoebs.

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Keith comes awake like he always does―suddenly, and from half-remembered dreams. The bed beneath his back is hard, a threadbare blanket draped over a thin mattress stuffed with some kind of dried local plant, but he doesn’t need much. He’s always run hot, he supposes by virtue of his Galra blood; and then there’s the wolf, sprawled inelegantly at his side and putting off as much heat as a small sun. Keith rakes a hand through his hair, dragging fingertips through the sweat-damp strands before he sighs and pushes himself upright.“Hey buddy,” he croaks, patting the wolf on the head when he looks up blearily from the bed. The wolf leans into the touch, yawning cavernously. “Time to go.”

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