Travis Li Montgomery (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
designateddadfriend) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2021-07-20 12:02 pm
designateddadfriend) wrote in fandomhigh2021-07-20 12:02 pm
Entry tags:
Fire & Rescue Bootcamp, Tuesday, Period 1
Oh hey! Travis was finally getting a chance to run his class. Having spent the last few days doing not much more than sleeping and sunbathing and procrastinating on putting the fire station back together, he was wholly unprepared.
But he was here. In uniform. In something called a "danger shop", which seemed entirely too appropriate for this godforsaken island.
"Right," he said. "So. Uh. Welcome to Fire & Rescue Bootcamp. Two weeks late. Which makes for a good first lesson for this sort of class: nothing ever, ever goes like you think it will. Ever."
He clapped his hands and pointed to a rack of turnouts he'd brought from the station (cleaned post-hole, thank you very much).
"One of the most important piece of equipment a firefighter has are his or her -- or their -- turnouts. That's what we call this lovely set of very heavy clothing I'm wearing." He tugged on his jacket. "Your turnouts include pants, usually held up by suspenders, boots, and a jacket. Now, these suckers weigh . . . a lot. And an average shift, at least back in Seattle where I trained and worked, is 24 hours long. Unless something has gone very very wrong, you're not going to be wearing your turnouts for the full shift. But when a call comes in, you need to be able to get into them quickly, or you will get left behind. So: that's what we're going to do today."
Travis pointed to a puddle of clothing on the floor, that looked a bit like someone had been raptured out of it. "Allow me to demonstrate. If someone wants to keep time?" He glanced around at the group, then nodded, assuming at least one of them would do it. Then he stepped into the puddle, sliding his legs into his boots and turnout pants all in one movement, and pulled them up, dragging the suspenders over his shoulders. He shrugged his jacket on a moment later, and his helmet followed, all in the matter of about two seconds.
He was a little rusty.
"Firefighting and rescue services are all about being prepared," he said. "So we train. We train hard. We train a lot. Most of the job is actually training, honestly. Even in regular towns that get fires on an ordinary basis." He shook his head. He was getting off on a tangent. "So today, each of you is going to find your own set of turnouts on this rack. It'll have your name on the back of the jacket, like this." He turned and showed them the bright yellow "MONTGOMERY" printed on the bottom hem of his jacket. "Locate your turnouts, put them on, and then run around the classroom. When you get back here, you're going to strip them back off and start all over again. First person to complete three rounds wins . . . something. TBD." He set his shoulders, stepped away from the rack, and yelled in his best drill sergeant voice: "On your marks! Get set! Go!"
But he was here. In uniform. In something called a "danger shop", which seemed entirely too appropriate for this godforsaken island.
"Right," he said. "So. Uh. Welcome to Fire & Rescue Bootcamp. Two weeks late. Which makes for a good first lesson for this sort of class: nothing ever, ever goes like you think it will. Ever."
He clapped his hands and pointed to a rack of turnouts he'd brought from the station (cleaned post-hole, thank you very much).
"One of the most important piece of equipment a firefighter has are his or her -- or their -- turnouts. That's what we call this lovely set of very heavy clothing I'm wearing." He tugged on his jacket. "Your turnouts include pants, usually held up by suspenders, boots, and a jacket. Now, these suckers weigh . . . a lot. And an average shift, at least back in Seattle where I trained and worked, is 24 hours long. Unless something has gone very very wrong, you're not going to be wearing your turnouts for the full shift. But when a call comes in, you need to be able to get into them quickly, or you will get left behind. So: that's what we're going to do today."
Travis pointed to a puddle of clothing on the floor, that looked a bit like someone had been raptured out of it. "Allow me to demonstrate. If someone wants to keep time?" He glanced around at the group, then nodded, assuming at least one of them would do it. Then he stepped into the puddle, sliding his legs into his boots and turnout pants all in one movement, and pulled them up, dragging the suspenders over his shoulders. He shrugged his jacket on a moment later, and his helmet followed, all in the matter of about two seconds.
He was a little rusty.
"Firefighting and rescue services are all about being prepared," he said. "So we train. We train hard. We train a lot. Most of the job is actually training, honestly. Even in regular towns that get fires on an ordinary basis." He shook his head. He was getting off on a tangent. "So today, each of you is going to find your own set of turnouts on this rack. It'll have your name on the back of the jacket, like this." He turned and showed them the bright yellow "MONTGOMERY" printed on the bottom hem of his jacket. "Locate your turnouts, put them on, and then run around the classroom. When you get back here, you're going to strip them back off and start all over again. First person to complete three rounds wins . . . something. TBD." He set his shoulders, stepped away from the rack, and yelled in his best drill sergeant voice: "On your marks! Get set! Go!"
Try out your turnouts!
Get them on, run a lap, get them off, repeat! Three times! Go!
[RNG says Miguel is our winner!
2. Yang,
3. Nell,
4. Prompto,
5. Nina,
(considering the fact that Travis made no effort to differentiate between the two Argentums on the turnouts, that's pretty good, you two!)
6. Arabella,
7. Beaker, and
8. Dwight.
Sorry, Dwight.]
Re: Try out your turnouts!
He may have actually slowed down a bit so as not to show off too much.
Re: Try out your turnouts!
For once, sizing was not an issue as the turnouts were naturally oversized, but they were still a bit cumbersome to get in and out of. And while he was far from winded and worn out too much by the end of three laps, he definitely could have done better under different circumstances.
To be fair, his mind was anywhere else at that moment so yeah, chalk it up to another day of island inanity messing with him.... this wasn't going to become a thing was it?
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"You, uh. Doing okay there, big guy?"
Re: Try out your turnouts!
Travis totally bought that right? That was convincing wasn't it?
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"Uh huh. You lost to the hot dog guy."
Very convincing!
Re: Try out your turnouts!
He looked at Travis and shrugged. What could he say other than that? This was just not his day to be out of bed it seemed.
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"You got trapped in a gun shop?" Travis boggled. "How?!"
He had managed to avoid this layover nonsense thus far.
Re: Try out your turnouts!
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"That's --" Travis cut himself off with a shake of his head. "I am so glad I'm leaving for Seattle this afternoon."
Re: Try out your turnouts!
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"Fandom's not getting rid of me yet," Travis assured him. "If I left now, you guys really wouldn't' have a fire department. And I don't care how many superheroes there are, every town needs a fire department."
Re: Try out your turnouts!
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"Thanks. I'll do my best. Maybe bring you a souvenir."
Re: Try out your turnouts!
Re: Try out your turnouts!
"Well, maybe you should think about heading west on your next vacation, then. Everyone should see the pacific at least once."
Re: Try out your turnouts!
Re: Try out your turnouts!
He put his helmet on first and his neck accordioned right into his shirt because Muppet physics. "Meep meep mee," he said, sounding resigned.
Re: Try out your turnouts!
On the down side? These outfits were absolutely hideous and, ugh, yeah, there were two of them labeled Argentum and Prompto definitely couldn't fit in shorter one. Darnit. There went the emergency plan of 'pretend both belong to her brother'.
"Prompto!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This one's yours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she called, holding up a set that was decidedly too long for her, before setting it aside for him to grab at his leisure.
Then she was going to grumble the entire time she got into her Argentum outfit and, oh lordy: "I have to wreck my hair?????????????"
The hat was maybe going to be A Problem for Nina? Definitely more of a problem than the weight of the outfit was, despite the fact that she was a) going to be playing up the weight problem and b) looked a lot more delicate and waifish than she really was.
Re: Try out your turnouts!
. . . Travis was just going to make a mental note of 'protective hairstyles' as a possible future topic for this class.
Re: Try out your turnouts!
However, she was also tiny and running while carrying that amount of weight was, well, a lot!
Still, third wasn't bad and if she had only had to do three laps she was pretty sure she could have maybe pulled off second.