The Perk, Wednesday Morning

[doctorgingerspice]

Look, just because Will had committed to cutting certain things out during Lent, didn't mean Kol had. So while Will was at a table with his (ugh) black coffee and (sigh) bagel with plain cream cheese, Kol was flopped under said table, face happily buried in a puppucino.

Were dogs usually allowed in the Perk? Well, probably not, but it had been kind of drizzly when they'd made their way over, and Will had made a sad face at the barista until they'd relented and said it'd be fine.

[ooc: opennnn.]

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[designateddadfriend]

Travis hadn't made a habit of stopping into the coffee shop -- it wasn't as much fun when he wasn't buying it for a whole crew back at the station -- but he was on his morning jog with Probie and it's started to drizzle, so he figured he'd stop in and see if it let up.

He nodded to the guy at the table. Probie lit up at the dog under it.

Fandom really needed a dog park.

[doctorgingerspice]

“Morning,” Will greeted in response to the nod.

“And who’s this?” he added, tilting his head towards Probie.

Yeah, that’s right, he was asking for the dog’s name ahead of the name of the person accompanying said dog. Priorities.

[designateddadfriend]

Travis didn't even blink, which showed you where his own priorities lay.

"This is Probie," he said proudly. "Fandom's very own fire-dog-in-training."

Probie wagged her tail so hard her whole body wobbled.

[doctorgingerspice]

“Hi Probie,” Will practically cooed. “This is Kol,” he offered, and the dog in question lifted his head up at the sound of his name, padding over to give Probie a friendly sniff in greeting.

“Fire dog in training, huh?” Will echoed. “That must make you the other firefighter who works with Buck.”

[designateddadfriend]

"It does," Travis agreed. "Travis Montgomery. Technically the other firefighter in charge of Buck, but since there's just the two of us, it doesn't really feel like we need much of a hierarchy."

[doctorgingerspice]

“No, I guess not,” Will said with an amused shake of his head. “Will Halstead. I’m running the clinic here in town.” Which had done a perfectly good job of running itself before he’d arrived, but the NPC staff had been all-too-happy to hand off the paperwork to someone else.

[designateddadfriend]

"Oh yeah?" Travis asked. "Good to know we've got someone to send people to if we ever have to rescue them!" He shook his head. "Think closest I've gotten so far -- when we weren't in the bottom of a giant sinkhole run by raccoons -- was when I patched up the kid who'd made vines grow through her to help me get away from a mud monster. And oh my god I sound like I'm insane. I hope you've been here long enough that you don't think you have to start medicating me or anything."

[doctorgingerspice]

“I was here about three days before I turned into a kid for the weekend,” Will said drily. “That’s how I ended up meeting Buck, actually. So yeah, I haven’t seen half the stuff people keep warning me about, but enough to accept that it’s not as impossible as it sounds.”

[designateddadfriend]

"That's probably the way to do it. I was still in denial for . . . wayyyyyy too long."

And now he was just fed up and resigned to his fate.

[doctorgingerspice]

“I gave myself a lot of headaches trying to figure out the how.,” Will admitted. “I still want to know, but I’m starting to accept I probably never will.”

[designateddadfriend]

"Yeah, pretty much. Even when the question I'm asking is 'how has this whole town not burned down without a functional fire station before I showed up."

[doctorgingerspice]

“Well, from what I can gather, things don’t seem to end up on fire all that often around here,” Will pointed out. “That’s probably part of it.”

[designateddadfriend]

Travis let out a long sigh. "I am very aware of that, yes."

And he hated it. And he for sure hated that hating it probably made him a bad person who wanted people to get hurt.

[doctorgingerspice]

“But see, that’s why I kinda like the weird shit,” Will admitted. “Keeps me from being bored enough to wish someone would fall out a window and break something or whatever.”

[designateddadfriend]

"And here it just makes my head hurt," Travis said. "I've started considering volunteering at a station on the mainland once a week."

[doctorgingerspice]

“There’s also that,” Will nodded in agreement. “I’ve done a few CMEs at hospitals on the mainland since moving here and was thinking of asking about casual on-call work myself.”

[designateddadfriend]

"It's probably not a bad idea. There's only so many ways you can run drills to keep your skills sharp."

[doctorgingerspice]

“Exactly.” Well, there were the various holosuites available on the island that could theoretically be used for that purpose, but Will didn’t actually know those existed.

[designateddadfriend]

Travis knew about the one at the school, but hadn’t found out there were ones that were publicly available.

“So, uh. What are you getting up to instead?”

[doctorgingerspice]

Enjoying not existing in a constant state of anxiety now that the people who’d wanted him dead were back in jail?

“Suffering, at the moment,” Will said drily, with a nod to his incredibly boring breakfast. “But thankfully that’s temporary.” And also self-inflicted.

[designateddadfriend]

Travis followed his look and raised an eyebrow. ". . . Lent?" he guessed.

Crap, he'd forgotten about Lent. His dad would be so ashamed.

It was the least of what his father was ashamed about.

[doctorgingerspice]

"Yup," Will confirmed. "I suppose I shouldn't really complain, and yet. Here I am. Complaining," he said, with a rueful grin.

[designateddadfriend]

“Well sure! That’s how you know it’s really a sacrifice.”

[doctorgingerspice]

Will laughed. "Pretty sure I'm supposed to very stoic about the whole thing."

There was absolutely nothing stoic about William Halstead.

[designateddadfriend]

“Please. When have Christians ever been stoic about anything?” Travis asked.

[doctorgingerspice]

"Maybe serious, then, is a better word." Complaining aside, this was something he felt it was important to do, or he wouldn't be doing it.

[designateddadfriend]

Travis’s expression softened a little. “Serious,” he agreed. “Though now I feel kind of guilty I didn’t do any for Lent this year.”

[doctorgingerspice]

"Conscious choice, or it just kind of snuck up on you and you didn't think about it?" Will wondered.

[designateddadfriend]

“. . . Little of both, I think,” Travis admitted. “I’m half-Irish, half-Korean. And fully gay, which my church was not into. So I started making the choice ages ago, and these days it’s about a fifty percent chance I even realize Lent’s happening without someone’s attempt at Margo Gras going up in flames to remind me.”

[doctorgingerspice]

"Yeah, I can see how that'd be hard to reconcile," Will nodded. "Well. As much as any straight so far as he knew white guy can, anyway."

[designateddadfriend]

"I appreciate the attempt anyway," Travis assured him with a smile. "You check out the church here in town at all? I keep meaning to go to a service. . . ."