U is for UBI
"Do I want to know?" It was just before midnight on the second to last day of the fire season, and Blade had arrived back from an administrative meeting at the lodge only to find his entire smokejumper team sitting inside of his mechanic's hanger, looking as guilty as he had ever seen them…which given how many seasons Drip had been with them, that was a major feat.
The looks that Maru and Cabbie were giving him also spoke volumes. The mechanic's lopsided grin indicated that while several of the jumpers looked pretty darn scruffy at the moment, there wasn't going to be any permanent physical damage...though with as amused as the tug appeared, the helicopter suspected that all bets were off which it came to mental damage.
While the Maru looked like a cat that had just swallowed the canary, Cabbie's reaction to the whole situation appeared a mixture of paternal protectiveness and a strong desire to pretend that he had never laid eyes on the jumpers in his life. Under Blade's sharp gaze, it almost seemed like the C-119 was trying to sink into the pavement, but the warplane did hold his ground…even if the fact he also didn't answer the Chief's question was glaringly obvious.
'Interesting,' Blade mused to himself, though he made sure his serious expression even has his curiosity grew. Glancing away from the jump plane and towards the jumpers themselves, Blade started to put a few of puzzle pieces together. For one thing, the smokejumpers had been exceptionally diligent when it came to winterizing the base this year, completing the task in record time. Then there was the fact that Dynamite was actually softly giggling, not laughing but actually giggling between hiccups. Clearly whatever the smokejumpers had chosen to imbibe as part of their end of year celebrations had been….potent…
The helicopter sighed. Well, there was nothing he could really do about the situation now. "Didn't think so."
With that Blade turned on his wheels and headed back towards his hanger. He had reports that needed to get filed and as long as the jump team was functional by the next morning he could allow them a bit of latitude. As for the story of this evenings adventures? Blade knew that he had all winter to pry it out of Cabbie. Based on just how tight-jawed the jump plane was being, he suspected that effort was going to be completely worth it.
Term- UBI- A UBI, otherwise known as Unidentified Beer Injury, is a term used to describe when a consumption of alcohol leads to an accident. Due to regulations, this tends to only happen to a firefighter when they are off duty. The use the term UBI to indicate that they were either too inebriated or too embarrassed to give their teammates the whole story.