fandomtownies | At the corner of Mallard and Sphinx, Thursday morning

Travis had gotten a call.

A collision on the corner of Mallard Way and Sphinx Street, vehicle versus pedestrian, aid car--such as it was--requested.

Finally!

Not that he was excited someone was hurt, mind you. Of course not. It as good when first responders got bored, because it meant everyone was safe and comfortable. He was glad no one had needed his help all week, of course he was!

--Yeah, okay, screw that, he was definitely excited. He could only polish the damn fire pole so many times, okay?

He pulled up to the scene, siren blaring, and hopped out. The driver of what looked like a perfectly intact rickshaw came rushing over, frantic.

"Thank god you're here!" she shouted. "You've got to help him. He came out of nowhere."

Travis put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, hefting his kit. "It'll be okay, ma'am. Just show me where he is, okay?"

The woman pointed. "He's right there."

Travis looked. All the excitement bled right back out of his body.

".... Ma'am, that's a raccoon."

"I think he works at the brewery," the driver said. Her hands were shaking, and while her face was still dry, she was clearly close to tears. "Oh god, please tell me I didn't kill him!"

".... But it's an actual raccoon."

"Help him!"

The real distress in her voice snapped Travis into action and he hurried over to where the ... raccoon lay, its--his?--tongue lolling out the side of his--its--mouth, all four paws in the air. Travis gingerly put his fingers to its neck, and wondered if you checked a raccoon's pulse the same way you did a human's.

"He's alive," he said. He bent down, ear to the thing's snout, and hoped it didn't bite him. "Breathing sounds okay." He palpated its chest, then pulled out his penlight to examine its pupilary response, all the while wondering what his life had come to. He was not animal control! "Ma'am, I think he'll be okay."

"Oh thank god!" The rickshaw driver threw her arms in the air. "Thank you, Jesus!"

The raccoon's tail twitched, and as Travis sat back on his heels, it rolled over and climbed unsteadily to its feet. It gave them both a half-hearted hiss, then wobbled its way into the alley.

"Thank you!" the rickshaw driver crowed, flinging her arms around Travis's neck. "Oh thank you, thank you so much!"

"Just--doing my job, ma'am." Travis gingerly tried to remove her arms from his shoulders. ".... We should probably both get rabies shots."

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"The raccoons are not rabid."

Jesse had watched the whole thing play out with a mixture of amusement and resignation, but now she was walking up to the new guy.

"They're just weird."

"It's out here in the day time," Travis said. "Hanging out around humans. I'm pretty sure it's better to be safe than sorry."

"Trust me," Jesse said, walking up to him with her hand outstretched. Her expression was serious. "I'm the mayor."

That still feels weeeeird.

Travis took her hand for a shake on pure reflex, even as he side-eyed the alley the thing had wobbled into. "Nice to meet you, ma'am. Travis Montgomery, Fire and Rescue." He let go of her hand. "I'm still going to get a rabies shot."

"Do whatever makes you happy," Jesse said, and now there was an undertone of amused. "I'm Jesse Faden, and you're the reason I've been filling in so much fire station-related paperwork lately, huh."

"I'm the reason why you now have a functional fire station, yes," Travis said. "You're welcome."

Someone's touchy.

"You are the first firefighter we've had in... I don't know how long," Jesse agreed, deciding not to go along with that attitude one way or another. "Before Mayor Summers started keeping records, that's for sure."

"And that never struck you as a problem?"

Look. Travis had been very patient with the island so far. But now he was actually talking to someone in charge, and yeah, all that judginess had to go somewhere.

"People on this island have their own way of handling things," Jesse said.

Yep. Very touchy.

"Uh huh. And there's definitely no way that could go wrong." He jerked his thumb at the rickshaw driver, who was looking over her--again, perfectly intact--vehicle behind him. "You have rickshaws running over perfectly innocent--brewery raccoons, here."

Holy crap. Did he really just say 'brewery raccoons' out loud?

...Wait, hang on, what about the woman who said she'd been one?

Jesse's mouth twitched briefly, before she settled back into her regular poker face.

"I'm not saying we don't want or need you here," she said. "I'm always glad to have more capable hands on deck. But it's a resilient island, raccoons included. I've only been here for under a year. I don't think my predecessors ever looked into setting up a fire department."

"Right. Because that's not basic infrastructure or anything."

He'd had a very frustrating week, okay?

"How about you take a month to get acquainted to the island, raccoons and all," Jesse said. "And then write me up a report about any fire safety issues or other infrastructure problems you've found."

She sounded perfectly businesslike.

Travis gave her a measuring look, trying to decide if she was just giving him busy work to shut him up.

"You can definitely count of a report, Madam Mayor."

She was going to get a goddamn book.

"Good," Jesse said, "Because if there's a way to improve infrastructure, I'd be happy to get to work on it."

She glanced in the direction the raccoon had run off to.

"Sometimes they do that just to try and steal your wallet, by the way."

"Get hit by rickshaws." Travis did not at all sound like he believed it.

(He was checking his pockets, though.)

Jesse crossed her arms and waited patiently for him to finish checking his pockets.

Travis pulled out his wallet and held it up triumphantly. "Still got it."

He'd be really annoyed when he got back to the station and realized his shiny new lieutenant bars were missing from his lapels.

"Good," Jesse said. "Just... be careful with the raccoons. They can be pretty wily."

Travis nodded slowly. "I mean ... they're raccoons."

Jesse just looked at him.

"Who run a brewery," she said, "and might have some kind of underground mob ring going on."

"Okay, raccoons do not run a brewery," Travis said. "I'll buy that might have been the mascot for a brewery running gang of humans, but raccoons don't have thumbs."

Right, do I just rip off the band-aid here? There's a rock right over there...

"They don't have thumbs," she said, "But they run a brewery. Don't ask me how it works. We barely know how half of anything on this island works."

Everyone kept underestimating the sheer force of Travis's stubbornness.

"Yeah, I don't know how plenty of things work. That doesn't mean I don't understand that some things just shouldn't."

Jesse sighed.

She stretched her arm out and reached for the rock, which laid several dozen feet away, and yanked it into her hand.

At the corner of Mallard and Sphinx, Thursday morning

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