FAKE Fic: Off The Charts - Part 2
Title: Off The Charts - Part 2
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1718
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: With the fog thick around them, and no way to navigate, the boys are hopelessly lost and soon find themselves somewhere they never intended to go.
Written For: spook_me 2023.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Set after Like Like Love.
Previous Part
The stillness within the fog ate at them. Although they tried at first to keep a conversation going, they kept losing the thread, and eventually trailed off into silence again, all but hypnotised by the swirling fog just beyond the windows. The only thing that kept them grounded in the present was the feel of the boat’s engines thrumming reassuringly somewhere beneath their feet. How long they stood there, feeling cut off from the rest of the world like they were last two people left on earth, neither could have said, but they were dragged back to the present when something pinged on one of the boat’s instruments.
They stirred, blinking dazedly at each other, as though coming out of a trance. Then the pinging sound came again, and Ryo realised what it was: the boat’s radar. Turning to check it, he could see the fogbank showing up on the screen as a faint greenish haze, and he felt a surge of relief. “Looks like we’re almost through the worst of it,” he told Dee, then… “Shit, no! We can’t have been pushed that far off course!”
“What’s up?” Dee leaned over his lover’s shoulder.
“Land, practically in our path!” Ryo dived to cut the engine; the sudden silence sounded deafening.
“Hey, aren’t ya overreactin’ a bit? It’s not that close,” Dee protested, glancing at the image on the radar.
“Not that close? There shouldn’t be any land there at all, and what if there’re underwater reefs? If we hit one of those we’re sunk, literally!” Ryo snapped. “I don’t know where the hell we are thanks to the fog messing with the GPS. Until we can figure out our exact position, we’re better off not moving; that way we can’t run into anything.”
“Okay, good point.” Dee reached across and pulled the lever to drop anchor.
Ryo drew a deep, steadying breath, calming himself. “Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to panic. That was just unexpected, and a bit hairy.”
“We’re fine though, no harm done.” Dee studied the radar on its next sweep. “Looks like a small island. Damn, we really did go off course if we’re this close in. Must be Ocracoke, unless we’re further south than we thought, in which case it could be Portsmouth. Either way, we shouldn’t be anywhere near ‘em. Didn’t think the current hereabouts was that strong.” It wasn’t the first time they’d sailed this stretch of coast.
“Dee… Something’s not right.” Ryo was staring at the radar, frowning. “That island… it’s on the wrong side of us. There’s no way we could’ve sailed right into the Sound without our instruments registering anything. The inlets are too narrow, and with the fog this thick we’d never have gotten through without running aground.”
“Huh.” Dee reached for the charts, found the right one and set about locating their last known position on it. “Welp, let’s see where we’re at. How far d’ya think we’ve drifted since the fog rolled in? Are we still somewhere off Raleigh Bay? We can’t have gotten much further south than that, but I’m not seein’ any isolated offshore islands.”
“That’s because there aren’t any; I should know. If there were islands out here, they’d be on the charts.”
“Well, whoever made the damn charts must’ve missed somethin’, ‘cause it’s right there on the radar, unless it’s not an island. Maybe it’s a bunch of fish, enough of ‘em that it registers like land. Pretty sure I’ve heard about that happenin’.”
“No, it’s definitely an island.” Ryo’s voice sounded tense.
“What makes ya so sure?” Dee glanced in his partner’s direction. “Oh.”
Ryo’s back was towards Dee, and he was staring out the window. The fog, which had been gradually growing thinner, had cleared, the moon and stars were shining down, and ahead of them, slightly to port, was a low, rocky island, crowned with trees and dense undergrowth.
“Okay, you’re right, that sure looks like an island. Hey, maybe it’s one of those that kinda drift around on the ocean from place to place.”
“I don’t think islands can really do that, Dee. Floating masses of seaweed, yes, but an actual island, with rocks and vegetation…” Ryo trailed off, shaking his head.
“So what d’you think it is? A mirage or somethin’?”
“I don’t know!” Ryo ground out. “I just know that according to all the information we’ve got, it shouldn’t be there!” He didn’t usually get so rattled, but he was uncomfortably aware that if the radar had failed, they might not have known the island was there until it was too late to prevent disaster.
“Right, so maybe we should stop worryin’ about it and just try to get back on course. Soon as we get to where there’s less interference, we can get on the ship to shore radio, and ask about islands in the vicinity.” Dee didn’t often get the opportunity to be the voice of reason; Ryo was usually the level-headed one, reining in his lover’s flights of fancy.
“Good plan, except that the GPS is still down.” Ryo tapped at the display, but it remained blank. “I guess the fog must still be blocking it.” He pointed past Dee.
Turning, Dee looked behind him, and sure enough, there was the fogbank, stretching as far as he could see, both fore and aft. They must have sailed right through it at an angle and out the other side, but he’d been so distracted by the island that he hadn’t noticed it was still there until Ryo had pointed it out.
“Damn. So whaddaya wanna do, just stay here until the weather clears and we can verify our position?”
“What else can we do? This is one of those times when the best course of action is no action at all. I don’t particularly want to try sailing through that fog again, do you? It was a lot thicker than I thought, and if we go back into it, we might wind up even more lost than we already are.”
“Good point. Doesn’t mean we haveta just sit around doin’ nothin’ though.”
“What d’you mean?”
Dee shrugged. “We’re here and there’s an island right there, so why not lower the dinghy and go ashore, take a closer look at it? Might give us a better idea of where we are, and even if it doesn’t, it’s a mystery island! What’s the point of just sittin’ here pretendin’ it doesn’t exist? Aren’t ya the least bit curious? Might be treasure buried there, or a lost civilisation!”
Ryo grinned, beginning to relax. “Are you sure you want to risk it? We might run into zombies, or aliens, even a secret military listening post, or a supervillain’s lair.”
“Now you’re makin’ fun of me. I’m just sayin’, if we’re stuck here until the fog clears, which it don’t look like doin’ anytime soon, we might as well explore. Ya know if we don’t, we’ll just be left wonderin’ about it for the rest of our trip. We stumbled across it by chance, and no matter how hard we try we’d probably never be able to find it again, even if we wanted to.”
“I guess you’re right, it would be like one of the cold cases we’ve never been able to solve, always in the back of our minds, nagging at us. Fine, we’ll go ashore, but we’ll have to keep an eye on the fog. We don’t want to get stuck on the island if it starts closing in again, there might not be much in the way of shelter, and we’d never be able to get a fire lit. I’d rather not end up suffering from exposure.” Ryo stared out at the fogbank, puzzled. “Don’t know why it’s still just hanging there. It hardly seems to be moving now.”
“Wind’s dropped.” It was true, a kind of hush had fallen over everything and the sea, which had been quite rough before, now seemed smooth as glass. “Kinda like bein’ in the eye of a storm.”
“We’d better hope we’re not.” Ryo checked the radar again, but the fogbank to starboard was the only one showing up on the screen, and the island ahead was the only landmass. He turned to his partner. “Looks safe enough for the moment. Guess that means we’re going exploring.” Tossing his blanket back onto the nearest bench seat, he dug a couple of flashlights from a storage locker underneath it and handed one to Dee. “I know the sky’s clear at the moment, but we still might need these once we get in among the trees.”
Stepping out onto the deck, they found the temperature had risen again, so they shed their jackets and shirts, leaving them behind. Grabbing a length of rope, just in case it might be needed, Ryo tossed it into the dinghy, then went below and fetched a backpack, stuffed a couple of bottles of water, some snacks, and a first aid kit into it, and put that in the dinghy too. Between them, the two men lowered the small boat into the water, before climbing down the stern ladder. With Ryo sitting in the bow, Dee fired up the small outboard motor, and steered them towards the island, angling around to the righthand side of it, looking for a suitable place to land.
It didn’t take them long to find a narrow strip of beach where a shallow stream flowed into the sea. Ryo hopped out onto a flat rock, and from there onto the sand as Dee cut the motor, then they pulled the dinghy up onto the shore, tying the mooring line to the trunk of a sturdy tree just above the beach.
Ryo picked up the backpack, Dee looped the coil of rope over his shoulder, and they set off up a shallow slope, following the stream as closely as they could to avoid getting lost. It wasn’t a massive island, judging by the image on the radar it was approximately a mile and a half wide, and a little more than twice that in length. Still, with all the trees and bushes it would be easy to get turned around, and they didn’t want to spend half the night trying to find their way back to where they left their boat.
Part 3
Fandom: FAKE
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1718
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: With the fog thick around them, and no way to navigate, the boys are hopelessly lost and soon find themselves somewhere they never intended to go.
Written For: spook_me 2023.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Set after Like Like Love.
Previous Part
The stillness within the fog ate at them. Although they tried at first to keep a conversation going, they kept losing the thread, and eventually trailed off into silence again, all but hypnotised by the swirling fog just beyond the windows. The only thing that kept them grounded in the present was the feel of the boat’s engines thrumming reassuringly somewhere beneath their feet. How long they stood there, feeling cut off from the rest of the world like they were last two people left on earth, neither could have said, but they were dragged back to the present when something pinged on one of the boat’s instruments.
They stirred, blinking dazedly at each other, as though coming out of a trance. Then the pinging sound came again, and Ryo realised what it was: the boat’s radar. Turning to check it, he could see the fogbank showing up on the screen as a faint greenish haze, and he felt a surge of relief. “Looks like we’re almost through the worst of it,” he told Dee, then… “Shit, no! We can’t have been pushed that far off course!”
“What’s up?” Dee leaned over his lover’s shoulder.
“Land, practically in our path!” Ryo dived to cut the engine; the sudden silence sounded deafening.
“Hey, aren’t ya overreactin’ a bit? It’s not that close,” Dee protested, glancing at the image on the radar.
“Not that close? There shouldn’t be any land there at all, and what if there’re underwater reefs? If we hit one of those we’re sunk, literally!” Ryo snapped. “I don’t know where the hell we are thanks to the fog messing with the GPS. Until we can figure out our exact position, we’re better off not moving; that way we can’t run into anything.”
“Okay, good point.” Dee reached across and pulled the lever to drop anchor.
Ryo drew a deep, steadying breath, calming himself. “Okay, sorry, didn’t mean to panic. That was just unexpected, and a bit hairy.”
“We’re fine though, no harm done.” Dee studied the radar on its next sweep. “Looks like a small island. Damn, we really did go off course if we’re this close in. Must be Ocracoke, unless we’re further south than we thought, in which case it could be Portsmouth. Either way, we shouldn’t be anywhere near ‘em. Didn’t think the current hereabouts was that strong.” It wasn’t the first time they’d sailed this stretch of coast.
“Dee… Something’s not right.” Ryo was staring at the radar, frowning. “That island… it’s on the wrong side of us. There’s no way we could’ve sailed right into the Sound without our instruments registering anything. The inlets are too narrow, and with the fog this thick we’d never have gotten through without running aground.”
“Huh.” Dee reached for the charts, found the right one and set about locating their last known position on it. “Welp, let’s see where we’re at. How far d’ya think we’ve drifted since the fog rolled in? Are we still somewhere off Raleigh Bay? We can’t have gotten much further south than that, but I’m not seein’ any isolated offshore islands.”
“That’s because there aren’t any; I should know. If there were islands out here, they’d be on the charts.”
“Well, whoever made the damn charts must’ve missed somethin’, ‘cause it’s right there on the radar, unless it’s not an island. Maybe it’s a bunch of fish, enough of ‘em that it registers like land. Pretty sure I’ve heard about that happenin’.”
“No, it’s definitely an island.” Ryo’s voice sounded tense.
“What makes ya so sure?” Dee glanced in his partner’s direction. “Oh.”
Ryo’s back was towards Dee, and he was staring out the window. The fog, which had been gradually growing thinner, had cleared, the moon and stars were shining down, and ahead of them, slightly to port, was a low, rocky island, crowned with trees and dense undergrowth.
“Okay, you’re right, that sure looks like an island. Hey, maybe it’s one of those that kinda drift around on the ocean from place to place.”
“I don’t think islands can really do that, Dee. Floating masses of seaweed, yes, but an actual island, with rocks and vegetation…” Ryo trailed off, shaking his head.
“So what d’you think it is? A mirage or somethin’?”
“I don’t know!” Ryo ground out. “I just know that according to all the information we’ve got, it shouldn’t be there!” He didn’t usually get so rattled, but he was uncomfortably aware that if the radar had failed, they might not have known the island was there until it was too late to prevent disaster.
“Right, so maybe we should stop worryin’ about it and just try to get back on course. Soon as we get to where there’s less interference, we can get on the ship to shore radio, and ask about islands in the vicinity.” Dee didn’t often get the opportunity to be the voice of reason; Ryo was usually the level-headed one, reining in his lover’s flights of fancy.
“Good plan, except that the GPS is still down.” Ryo tapped at the display, but it remained blank. “I guess the fog must still be blocking it.” He pointed past Dee.
Turning, Dee looked behind him, and sure enough, there was the fogbank, stretching as far as he could see, both fore and aft. They must have sailed right through it at an angle and out the other side, but he’d been so distracted by the island that he hadn’t noticed it was still there until Ryo had pointed it out.
“Damn. So whaddaya wanna do, just stay here until the weather clears and we can verify our position?”
“What else can we do? This is one of those times when the best course of action is no action at all. I don’t particularly want to try sailing through that fog again, do you? It was a lot thicker than I thought, and if we go back into it, we might wind up even more lost than we already are.”
“Good point. Doesn’t mean we haveta just sit around doin’ nothin’ though.”
“What d’you mean?”
Dee shrugged. “We’re here and there’s an island right there, so why not lower the dinghy and go ashore, take a closer look at it? Might give us a better idea of where we are, and even if it doesn’t, it’s a mystery island! What’s the point of just sittin’ here pretendin’ it doesn’t exist? Aren’t ya the least bit curious? Might be treasure buried there, or a lost civilisation!”
Ryo grinned, beginning to relax. “Are you sure you want to risk it? We might run into zombies, or aliens, even a secret military listening post, or a supervillain’s lair.”
“Now you’re makin’ fun of me. I’m just sayin’, if we’re stuck here until the fog clears, which it don’t look like doin’ anytime soon, we might as well explore. Ya know if we don’t, we’ll just be left wonderin’ about it for the rest of our trip. We stumbled across it by chance, and no matter how hard we try we’d probably never be able to find it again, even if we wanted to.”
“I guess you’re right, it would be like one of the cold cases we’ve never been able to solve, always in the back of our minds, nagging at us. Fine, we’ll go ashore, but we’ll have to keep an eye on the fog. We don’t want to get stuck on the island if it starts closing in again, there might not be much in the way of shelter, and we’d never be able to get a fire lit. I’d rather not end up suffering from exposure.” Ryo stared out at the fogbank, puzzled. “Don’t know why it’s still just hanging there. It hardly seems to be moving now.”
“Wind’s dropped.” It was true, a kind of hush had fallen over everything and the sea, which had been quite rough before, now seemed smooth as glass. “Kinda like bein’ in the eye of a storm.”
“We’d better hope we’re not.” Ryo checked the radar again, but the fogbank to starboard was the only one showing up on the screen, and the island ahead was the only landmass. He turned to his partner. “Looks safe enough for the moment. Guess that means we’re going exploring.” Tossing his blanket back onto the nearest bench seat, he dug a couple of flashlights from a storage locker underneath it and handed one to Dee. “I know the sky’s clear at the moment, but we still might need these once we get in among the trees.”
Stepping out onto the deck, they found the temperature had risen again, so they shed their jackets and shirts, leaving them behind. Grabbing a length of rope, just in case it might be needed, Ryo tossed it into the dinghy, then went below and fetched a backpack, stuffed a couple of bottles of water, some snacks, and a first aid kit into it, and put that in the dinghy too. Between them, the two men lowered the small boat into the water, before climbing down the stern ladder. With Ryo sitting in the bow, Dee fired up the small outboard motor, and steered them towards the island, angling around to the righthand side of it, looking for a suitable place to land.
It didn’t take them long to find a narrow strip of beach where a shallow stream flowed into the sea. Ryo hopped out onto a flat rock, and from there onto the sand as Dee cut the motor, then they pulled the dinghy up onto the shore, tying the mooring line to the trunk of a sturdy tree just above the beach.
Ryo picked up the backpack, Dee looped the coil of rope over his shoulder, and they set off up a shallow slope, following the stream as closely as they could to avoid getting lost. It wasn’t a massive island, judging by the image on the radar it was approximately a mile and a half wide, and a little more than twice that in length. Still, with all the trees and bushes it would be easy to get turned around, and they didn’t want to spend half the night trying to find their way back to where they left their boat.
Part 3