Cabbie let a long, slow sigh out through his teeth, just one of quite a number so far today. He gave an idle spin of his starboard propeller before letting his gaze slide to his left. He eyed his port prop before setting his jaw and giving it a slow quarter turn. Huh, that didn't feel so bad, how about another—ooookay, that hurt. He winced as something inside his engine ground against something else, and he shut that motion down as swiftly as he was able.
It had been a long time since Cabbie had been grounded for an injury (read also: decades and the amount of things you could forget about therein), and he was reminded that he hated it. It was not so much that he had any pressing desire to return to the skies, more that he didn't have the option. That, and until Maru returned him to active duty, the smokejumpers would be taking the long way to work.
It was his own fault, really. A small campfire had gotten loose at around daybreak, and Blade had decided to snuff it aggressively before it became something requiring greater attention. The little blaze, however, was surrounded by a big problem. Namely the walls of a box canyon, home of one of the springs that fed into Anchor Lake. The campsite had been one of the most remote in the park; surrounded on three sides by rock, and with an outcropping high overhead that meant you had to fly either low under it or high over it. While Blade and Windlifter found this to be merely annoying, it was a far bigger obstacle for Dipper, who had a stall speed to stay on top of, and did not have a turn radius tight enough to make a level one-eighty inside the finger of the valley; she had to either gun it at the end of her drop to pitch up and out before the canyon ended, or pull into a steep chandelle. There was a meadow close to the fire that was a suitable size for the jumpers to land it, but Cabbie had some of the same issues as Dipper, and "rocky outcroppings" were on the list of things to be heavily avoided if one was parachuting out of a plane.
If he were smart, then Cabbie would have dropped them in the next closest clearing and let them hike in. If he didn't have so much faith in the old plane's abilities, then Blade would have taken that safer, more reasonable solution and worked with it. But when Cabbie took a slow lap around the small canyon, eyed the meadow, and told Blade that he had this, Blade let him do it.
Cabbie chuffed to himself. Foolish, on both their parts.
Cabbie had given Dynamite a heads up that read basically as "once I'm level again and pop the hatch, bail immediately." She'd readily agreed, but in the time it took her to ask about the level part Cabbie had thrown all his power to his engines and raced over the fire. Once over the stone outcropping and cleared, he rolled himself into the tightest, fiercest Split-S he could manage (or had ever managed; if the sharp yelps and indignant squawking from inside his hold were any indication, the g-forces achieved during the dive must have been considerable), which brought him under the outcropping and over the meadow. Rather low for a jump, but Dynamite's crew had handled worse conditions before. The jumper captain had bailed out almost before Cabbie's hatch was fully open, and they were all free and clear in just seconds more. He did catch a few clipped curses from the lot of them as they realized how little space they had to work with.
Cabbie had taken a much more leisurely pull up and out from the immediate fire airspace, to a few moments of stunned silence before Blade crackled over his coms.
"Holy hell."
"Can you do that again? I think I missed the part where that was believable." Dipper had pulled back off the lake into her holding pattern. "Guess I have no excuse anymore. If Cabbie can get into the canyon like that, then I can sure get out of it without looking like a Pregnant Guppy."
"I knew you had it in you, but I never thought I'd see it." Blade's smirk was a tangible thing, even through the radio. "And at well past your payload, too. What kind of engines do you even have?"
Cabbie was only half-listening. As he gained altitude from his acrobatic maneuver that could have well and killed him if he so much at tweaked an aileron wrong, he felt…something. Of the not-right kind. His port engine made a funny sound and shuddered, accompanied by an uncomfortable tingle deep in the core. He pointed his prow back towards the base; it felt like the kind of issue he should really have Maru look at.
"Cabbie?" The air boss could feel his lack of focus. And was probably wondering why he was making a beeline home; Cabbie often circled a couple times to make sure the smokejumpers made it safely to the ground.
"I'm alright, Blade. Whew, haven't had that kind of fun since—"
And then he gasped as something hot and sharp laced up from his left crankshaft, radiating out through all his nerves along the leading edge of his wing. His propellers ground to a stop with a sound that was more appropriate for a sander on wood. He briefly lost altitude before stabilizing.
"Okay, less alright now." Understatements. It was an issue that Cabbie was fully aware that he had, sometimes.
"What's wrong?" Blade had made the switch from relatively at ease to blizzard-in-the-arctic serious in the same time it took to blink.
"I haven't the foggiest. Port engine just failed, and it hurts something fierce in there."
"Can you make it back, or should I tell the lodge to expect you?"
Cabbie's left prop was starting to spin freely, and he feathered it immediately. Which felt absolutely atrocious. Cabbie just bit through it; unfeathered, the vanes would create even more unneeded friction, and he didn't want to be slowed down for any reason. Specifically, stall speed reasons. Or, y'know, for his prop to create enough drag to either fly off completely or damage his engine. Fortunately, he was within eyeshot of the last ridge before the small valley that sat at the foot of the air base.
"Naw, I got it. Its painful as hell, but my other engine still has enough power to get me home." He passed Canopy Dome, and could not be any more relieved when he actually put eyes on the airstrip.
It was a rather close landing; with only one engine doing all of the work, he did not have as much of the ability to moderate his speed in, never mind his altitude. His main gear hit the tarmac much closer to the edge of the cliff than he would have liked. He didn't bother applying his breaks, as he wasn't moving anywhere near fast enough to prevent his weight from slowing him down on its own. He let his coast carry him as far as it was able, before making the trip towards the repair bay.
Maru was waiting for him; since he kept a close ear on the radio when the team went out, he had started placing tools out on the apron of the garage as soon as it had become apparent that he would have work to do. Easy, since most of his jobs were proceeded by the word "ouch." That, and Cabbie's rough landing was probably as telling as anything. Patch was peering down at them from the tower.
"Oh, I am expecting good things from this one." Cabbie sustained the fewest number of injuries out of all the field crew. The running joke had been that the only major wound Maru would ever treat from him would be the one that finally killed him.
"If by 'good' you mean 'I was an idiot,' then yeah, you'll like this one."
"You did something extreme, I could hear it. What was it? Pugachev's Cobra? Tailslide? Barrel roll?" Maru spared the briefest moment to push over the scissor lift.
"Split-S into the box canyon east of Canopy Dome."
"Wow. And considering how heavy your kids are, that is damn impressive."
"They're all going on diets, I swear on my life."
"No amount of not-eating can make either Pinecone or Avalanche each not obliterate your rated load on their own." Never mind that people with hydraulic drives needed to consume far more than others of a similar size; unlike a car or plane, which could maneuver on the ground without any help from their engines, loaders and handlers didn't really have "free spinning" wheels. If their drive system was moving, their engine was engaged. This gave them strength, but made them hungry suckers. Maru began to remove Cabbie's engine covers. "And your boys are all earthmovers. Weight is power, and power is pride. You'd have better luck convincing an F1 to get heavier."
"Little dirtbeasts and their ridiculous standards." He was mostly kidding. While every vehicle family had their own quirks of nature that seemed downright incomprehensible to other craft, earthmovers were a pretty grounded lot. Often intense, but otherwise their immediate needs tended to be down-to-earth (pun both intended and not intended) and practical. Oh, they loved any real chance to show anyone how hard they could work, especially other movers, and both genders tended to find any test of physical ability to be normal at large gatherings, but only the most macho would rub it in your face (which was asking for someone bigger and brawnier to come kick some aft). This held true of track loaders and skid steers, in addition to true bulldozers and backhoes. In reality, Avalanche was only half the size and a third the weight of the average true dozerkin. Cabbie had seen some monsters in his life, and if you were fortunate to see pictures of Avalanche prior to his arrival at PPAA, it was evident he had butted blades with some very hefty Volvos and Zettelmeyers. Unlike pristine aircraft or car bloodlines, most true dozers couldn't give two ugly rocks about such things; as long as they could do the work, they gladly folded their smaller loader cousins into their families. Blackout had explained that makes and models for earthmovers were almost like loyalties to sports teams; you could be damned proud to be a Caterpillar, or a Bobcat, but it rarely devolved into any real superiority or enmity. And if you could square your grill to someone else of a different make, dig in your tires and win, you could make the loser pay for the next round of drinks.
UTVs were an entirely different brand of Completely Nutty that Cabbie had yet to figure out, although it often included a rugged piece of wilderness that they would insist was every bit as drivable as a proper thoroughfare. The jury was still out on telehandlers.
Cabbie spent a good portion of the rest of the morning at Maru's bay. After removing more than a few pieces from Cabbie's engine, the tug determined that he'd make a full recovery, but he was going to need time to make the repairs. Until then, the Fairchild was approximately as flight worthy as a blind tractor.
Which meant that Cabbie spent the rest of his day doing nothing.
While he could usually find plenty to occupy his time, he found that he had consumed all his readable material by early afternoon. Patch had saved him from a few hours of boredom by supplying him with a forkful of her substantial stash of magazines (which varied from highly intriguing to utter tripe), but once he had burned through those, Cabbie found himself oddly bored again. His radio was free of anything interesting, and while it was almost tempting to bother Maru for a game of either chess or cards, that was detrimental to getting his engine repaired. He gave the mechanic's bay a wide berth. As such, left alone with his niggling unrest, Cabbie decided to actually park himself in the main hangar and make use of the television (not often something he ever did during the day, although he had been know to keep other people company while they did so).
There were a lot of channels. Patch had recently finished reassembling their entertainment system around a newly acquired satellite dish. The smokejumpers may or may not still be worshipping at her tires whenever she cruised by. She had also, with some clever paperwork, had been able to add it to the lodge's usual satellite bill, which meant that for the first couple weeks, all the younger members of the base had gone a little wild with the pay per view, mostly to see if they would get caught. So far, nothing had come down the pipe. Cabbie highly suspected that whatever bill happened to end up on Spinner's desk due to media consumption by his guests was paid off promptly. "Luxury necessities," and all that.
As Cabbie perused most of the content, much of it was drivel. They had almost a thousand channels. Who, in their right mind, had time to watch that much tv and still have any cognitive ability when they were done? He was about to head back towards the sports he had passed a good three hundred channels ago, when something caught his eye.
These… these shows were old. Almost as old as he was. In between deployment, and from what could be gleaned in dark hangars with static filled, jury-rigged equipment on stateside bases, he remembered all these shows from his youth. Some in black and white, others in color, most had sat in the back of his mind gathering dust. Seeing them on the massive hi-def screen Patch had gotten from who knew where was a good, hard poke in the nostalgia.
Well, it wasn't like he really had anything better to do…
Cabbie didn't realize how much time had passed until he heard a small cacophony of excited shouts waft in from outside. They must have snuffed that fire but good, if Blade felt confident enough to bring the jumpers off the line. Given that it was still before dinner, he was not surprised to hear the whole lot of them head straight for the power washer; while they had been known to show up absolutely filthy for fuel, they had all also been caught fast asleep, still under the sprayer heads.
It didn't take nearly as long as he imagined, then, before he got his first visitor.
"Hey Cabbie." Drip was sucking down a can of low grade like he'd keel over and die if he didn't. There was also still water sliding off his plating, creating little puddles as he went.
"Heya kid. Back in, finally?"
"Yeah." He took a moment to take another deep draw off his beverage. "You doing alright? We saw you book it back towards base after you dumped us." Drip's face lit up. "Which was awesome, by the way."
"Yeah? Don't let me do that again. I forgot my age for a moment."
"I promise that I'll restrain you with all my might, but I make no guarantees of my success."
Cabbie smirked. Cheeky punk. Drip gave Cabbie another quick once over, moving from the threshold of the hangar to a spot under Cabbie's wing.
"But really, are you okay?"
"Yeah. I've been hurt worse than this." And suddenly Drip was starting to make That Face again. "No, I won't tell you about it right now."
"Aw." Can still stuck to his mouth, he seemed to finally notice that the tv was on. "What are you watching?"
"Eh, old stuff. Way before your time. Possibly before your parents' time."
"No kidding. All my shows were in color."
Cabbie scoffed. Cheeky.
He fully expected Drip to take his leave in short order; kid had the attention span of a drunk bee. After more than a couple minutes, though, he realized that his ammpullae were still prickling off the loader's compact field. Drip was still sitting under his wing, canopy just outside the reach of Cabbie's propellers.
"You still here?"
Drip didn't even bother to look his way.
"Yeah. Is this a detective show?"
"Pretty much. More lawyers than detectives, but its got the same feel."
"Mkay…" and he continued to sit right where he was, engrossed.
Cabbie wasn't really expecting any company, but he didn't object. He should have known, though; you could never have just one smokejumper for much longer than it took to fly around Anchor Lake.
He heard the next two well before he saw them. One in particular.
"HEY, CABBIE!" Avalanche, obviously, with Pinecone. Also fresh from the power washer, but at least these two were dry.
"Hey there."
"You doin' alright?" Pinecone gave him the same brief if intense visual inspection that Drip had; her eyes never lingered on his port engine (Maru had at least put the covers back on), and he didn't really feel like elaborating on his new injury. The smokejumpers worried like a group of old ladies. Loud, beefy old ladies. He'd seen the rough nanny-ing they'd give to each other; he would much rather avoid the constant, smothering attention.
"Yeah, just feeling my age, mostly."
Drip was still facing the tv, but he rolled his eyes and looked at his teammates.
"Cabbie's pretending that he's old and feeble."
Oh, please.
"Wasn't that you the other day asking if I had seen any dinosaurs when I was growing up, you snide little brat?"
"Well, yeah. Because you're old. But you're not that old. And definitely not feeble."
"'Feeble' was your word, not mine."
Drip snorted, and Pinecone's face split into one of those grins that was a stark reminder that, while she may be the most polite of the group, they had still accepted her for a reason. She had enough impish streaks running through her to hold her own with the brattiest of them.
"How did you start this argument by losin', Drip?"
"I don't see you doing any better."
"WE'RE NOT TRYING, BECAUSE WE DON'T CARE."
"Just shut your face and come see this, 'Lanche."
"What are you two watching, anyhow?" Pinecone peered under Cabbie's starboard wing.
"Something awesome."
"IF IT'S NOT AS DOPE AS WHATEVER CABBIE DID TO GET US INTO THAT MEADOW TODAY, I CANNOT BE IMPRESSED." Even so, Avalanche rumbled up next to Drip, partway under Cabbie's wingtip.
"Yes you can. Grab a can and join me in taking in a show that's like Law and Order's cool older brother."
"What's it called?"
"I don't remember. Perry Something."
Pinecone looked suspicious.
"Does it feel like it ends in a Pyrrhic victory every other episode?"
"Nope. Takin' down bad guys, and feels good every time."
"I'm in." And she parked herself opposite of Drip, next to Cabbie's starboard propeller.
"Are Dynamite and Blackout still at the power washer?" Drip made to take another sip out of his can, only to be extremely disappointed to find it empty.
"Yup." And this was said with the long-suffering knowledge that both Dynamite and Blackout could be counted on to be first into the washer, and last out. The ones caught in there asleep the most? Those two, by far.
"Alright. If Avalanche will move his fat skid plate over, we can have room for them when they show up." The smirk on Drip's face let Cabbie know that he was well aware that he was goading the monster into a rough play fight that could result in some bruising. Which is exactly the result he got.
"OR MAYBE I CAN JUST MOVE YOU OVER!"
Dirtbeasts, seriously. And since one of them had the personality of almost every stereotypical bulldozer, Cabbie knew this would only get louder and more vigorous before it ended. The hell if the two of them were going to scrap it out next to his injured engine, though.
"Children." And he used that tone of voice reserved for when they took his stuff or he could see evidence of little prank traps around the door of his hangar. Both loaders simmered down in short order.
Pinecone snickered, and moved forwards enough to shoot them a wide grin.
"Ladies, you're both pretty."
Avalanche didn't miss a beat, lip curling back into one of those wide, lopsided smiles that were almost large enough to cause permanent damage.
"LIES! I AM CLEARLY FAR MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN HE IS!"
Cabbie could feel his evening getting longer…
There was a lot of noise coming from the main hangar. Given the hour, Maru figured it could be the jumpers prepping for dinner, although the general consensus was that you should never let all of them cook together unless you wanted either a fantastic show or some sort of catastrophe. Fifty-fifty chance of either. And both of those options had a chance of terminating in some kind of spontaneous, wild party.
Upon looking up from his tools and taking a peek outside, he could see the massive, distinctive shadow that was the hallmark of the largest member of the base. Maru grinned; Cabbie could be anywhere on base right now, and his jumpers would follow him. You knew they were worried about you when they parked themselves in your presence and then proceeded to entertain themselves with whatever was nearby. They also got crazier; for the benefit of the injured, Maru knew, because it was hard to dwell on your own damage if the people around you drew ghastly amounts of attention to themselves. And if that required their own embarrassment, then so be it.
Maru decided to take a look inside the hangar, for his own amusement. He was not disappointed. Cabbie had the benefit of all five jumpers as company, and they carried on around him with the usual gusto. The big Fairchild was evidently enjoying himself more than not, because otherwise he would have relinquished his spot long ago. Most surprisingly, he currently maintained control of the tv remote, a task difficult for anyone not named Blade or Patch. Maru usually just gave up that fight before they could start to take it from him.
He idly wondered what sport Cabbie had landed on to command all their attention, but the conversation dictated anything but.
"I want a magic lamp with a cute magical genie in it." Drip, from around the spout of what was certainly not his first can of oil this evening, if the clutter around him was any indication.
"So desperate that you have to ask for magic, huh?" Pinecone was on Cabbie's other side from the loaders and Dynamite, with Blackout. Both were hogging a substantial bowl of popcorn.
"No, but really. Magic lamp contains hot genie that loves you. How is this bad? Lucky bastard."
"Call the papers: Drip is Desperate." Pinecone was getting better at sniping the more time she spent out here. Maru wondered what her poor family though about them after she spent six months a year at the park.
"I am not!"
"Well, if you ever become an astronaut, maybe you can pick one up off a beach, too."
"Please. Only Dynamite could ever make weight to be sent up in a rocket."
"WAS THAT THE LAST EPISODE ON TONIGHT?"
"Naw, the guide says that there is one more after this one." Dynamite was right up against Cabbie's injured engine, close enough to fiddle with the remote, and trusted enough to not start changing the channels.
"WHOOOO!"
"How have we never heard of this show?"
"Because none of us were born before it stopped airing."
"Is this whole channel nothing but stuff like this?"
"At this hour, looks like it."
"Sweet, new favorite channel."
"You're just in it for the sexy genies."
"No! …but it helps. But all the other stuff is good too. You know, the stuff you and Blackout missed while you were preening in the shower."
"We do not preen!"
"Yes you do."
"Someone explain the word 'preening' to me, please." Poor Blackout just sounded confused.
"Like what Spinner does. That paintjob doesn't maintain itself."
"…those are fightin' words." Less confused, now. Maru could at least be confident that his saw would stay sheathed before he hit Drip about the canopy with it.
"You sure you wanna do that? It'll scuff your clean self up real good."
"I can flatten you without scuffing anything but your face."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah!"
And the rest devolved from there. There were few things more entertaining than watching the jump team train wreck a conversation. And Cabbie sat through it, all the while. Made Maru smile just watching it.
"You guys are all adorable."
He grinned through five pairs of eyes staring at him from under Cabbie's wings. The warplane just grunted, gaze not moving from the screen.
"I think you mispronounced 'abhorrent.'"
"Nope, I meant what I said."
"Spare me."
"There is nothing more precious than watching a man with his children." And the tug knew well that he was poking the gaps in Cabbie's plating.
This time, Cabbie did look back at him. That mock glare was almost intimidating.
"Don't you even start with that. I know where you sleep."
"That you do. But do you also know how to put your own engine back together?"
"Medic Armor. Be lucky you have it."
"I am, that's why I can slide through the line of fire like this."
Blackout blinked hard, before looking at Cabbie.
"Wait, Maru took one of your engines apart?"
"No, just took out the parts that make it functional." Which, honestly, could have been anything inside his engine.
"I've grounded your old man until tomorrow morning."
"Aw. We'll keep you company." Dynamite gave him a wide smirk.
"Joy."
So dry. It hardly stopped the feels from coming out though. Maru wondered what would happen if he pushed just a little…
"Stop being stubborn. You like them and you know it."
"Tch." His eyes narrowed and his lip curled. The old carrier had his Grumpy Old Man façade down pat. Maru had to forcefully tame his smirk; too bad. He knew how to bust that up real good.
"You look like you could use a snuggle, Cabbie."
"No, I do not." Cabbie's glare got fiercer, and Maru watched as a rippling realization washed slowly over the faces of the jump team. Dynamite's smirk turned into something quite a bit more conspiratorial.
"I think it's time for a group snuggle, guys."
"GROUP SNUGGLE!"
"No, you will not!"
"I can feel this about to happen." Pinecone shared a look with Dynamite. With Cabbie stuck firmly between the both of them, they could ensure he had few options for escape. Cabbie noticed this too, and puffed himself up as much as he was able.
"There will be no snuggling, not as a group and certainly not with me!"
"Bring it in, everyone, Uncle needs a snuggle."
"NO!"
It was far too late to stop it. At this point, the only way Cabbie would have been able to free himself from the crush of his teammates would have been to struggle violently, and no matter how often he'd threaten it, old plane hadn't the heart to hurt any of them. Especially not now, while he was surrounded as they pressed themselves up against his sides, and each other, never mind personal space of any kind. Maru bolted back towards his shop; this was the kind of moment Polaroids were made for. His movement did not go unnoticed.
"You started this, Maru! Get your sorry aft back here and fix it!"
"He cannot save you from us, Cabbie."
"THIS IS WHAT LOVE LOOKS LIKE!"
There was a collective combination of sighing and laughter.
"…you're such a cornball, 'Lanche."
"That was downright painful."
"I swear kid, I will bite you."
"LOVE!"
Maru cackled quietly to himself. Made for each other, the lot of them. There would be a lot of posturing and grumpy hissing on Cabbie's part for the next couple days after this event, but the jumpers could read it for the affection it was.
And when Maru's photo of the occasion mysteriously disappeared, only to reappear the next week, unharmed, the tug was pretty sure he knew who the thief was.
AN: I'm not sure what happened here. This was spawned from watching way too much Perry Mason and I Dream of Jeannie, and I'm sorry. I can't tell yet, but some of this feels OOC. I'll give it another check in the morning.
Its been a rough few weeks, but once my finals are done by Friday, hopefully this will get more regular attention. I make no guarantees, though.
Blah blah typos blech. You know this song and dance by now.
Words!
Aero Spacelines Pregnant Guppy: This is an actual plane used to haul cargo for NASA, no joke. Look up pictures, this sucker was huge and funny looking.