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mokuyoubiTitle: The Bootstrap Paradox and Other Tips for Finding True Love
Author: Mokuyoubi
Pairing: Jon/Spencer (background Brendon/Ryan, Travis/Gabe/William, Frank/Gerard and Pete/Patrick); POV 3rd, Spencer
Rating: NC-17
WC: 43k
Summary: In response to the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
harlequin_bands challenge: Swept from her dismal present in the 1990s (facing unemployment and the singles scene), Phoebe Turlow takes a wrong turn at a hotel (while attending a “free” vacation in the Caribbean, sponsored by a condo company) and winds up in the seventeenth century in the company of a sexy, witty pirate named Duncan Rourke. As if Rourke does not have enough to do fighting the British in the American Revolution, he has to determine whether short haired, strange speaking Phoebe is a spy, a witch, or worse. Instead, he falls in love with her.
Okay, so Ryan was going to be Phoebe and Brendon Duncan, except then somehow Spencer and Jon took over the story, and so this really tells the story of Phoebe and Duncan’s best friends…I’m working on the Ryden side story that will actually end up more closely resembling the book summary. Oh, also changed it to the eighteenth century, since I’m *pretty* sure that’s when the American Revolution actually took place…*shrug*
Thanks to Muse for beta-ing and giving me a million and nine lolarious ideas when I got stuck towards the end. Thanks also to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lolab for cheering me on and demanding more. Without those two, I don’t know if I ever would have finished this…
Ryan declared Creative Writing as his major on the first day of the first quarter of his college education. He’d never wanted to do anything else, except maybe make music, but he was realistic about things. His scholarship would pay for an Arts and Sciences major, but not a Fine Arts one.
Spencer hadn’t decided so easily as Ryan. He’d started off as Mathematics major and switched to Computer Engineering at the end of freshman year. Ryan teased him about being fickle, but Spencer knew it was a reasonable choice. Maybe he wanted to make music, but there wasn’t money in that. Besides, if Ryan was going to pursue his dream to make poetry, one of them had to be able to pay the bills.
Ryan finished at the top of his class and was accepted to a graduate programme on the east coast. He and Spencer got into a fight about how practical a master’s degree in Creative Writing could possibly be, but in the end, Spencer followed him, taking up a graduate programme himself in a neighbouring school.
It wasn’t so bad for Ryan; he wasn’t paying for any of it. In fact, the university was paying him to attend. He wasn’t a big fan of teaching, the condition of his acceptance, but though he grumbled, Spencer said it was better than the McDonald’s job he could have looked forward to, otherwise.
Spencer finished with his master’s degree in a year and a half, and landed a sweet job in the city. They moved out of their shitty apartment on the east side and into the trendy downtown area where all the young, single professionals congregated. If Ryan noticed that his portion of the rent was significantly less than half (or, like, less than a third), he very magnanimously refused to acknowledge it. He’d grown accustomed to Spencer taking care of him; it didn’t even offend his pride anymore to accept the help.
Then Ryan said, “I’m think I’m going to apply for the joint master’s and doctorate programme,” and Spencer just stared at him in disbelief. Because. “That way I can finish them both in three years.”
“In Creative Writing?” Spencer said. “So you can be Doctor Ross, the drive-through operator?”
Ryan threw a grape at him and sipped daintily of his tea. “There are plenty of things I can do with my Ph.D.”
“Like what, teach?” Spencer asked. “You hate to teach. No one would hire you. You’re like…Snape. You terrify the freshman.”
“If they can’t distinguish between their as possessive, they’re as a contraction of they are, and there as a location, then I have no pity. They deserve to be terrified, Spence. I’m doing them a favour!”
When he was twenty-five, George Ryan Ross earned his master’s and doctorate simultaneously, and proceeded to turn down every offer to teach at university he was offered. Spencer sputtered and protested and turned red in the face and Ryan said, plaintively, “I want to be a poet, Spencer.”
Spencer didn’t even bother to talk about in the meantime. Ryan’s brain didn’t work like that. And it wasn’t that Spencer didn’t totally believe in Ryan. His stuff was amazing, beautiful. It really moved Spencer, made him hear music. Ryan had even had a lot of it published in magazines and anthologies.
Spencer loved those times, when Ryan’s oppressive negativity and sadness lifted with the arrival of a letter of acceptance and a check. Still, it wasn’t fame, and it wasn’t consistent, and it wasn’t a realistic way to live. And Spencer didn’t mind caring for Ryan, but he knew that Ryan wanted to be self-sufficient.
Fall quarter began, and having turned down every offer, and still owing Spencer three months’ back rent (which, if he ever did pay, would find its way back into Ryan’s bank account, anyway), Ryan broke down and began applying for jobs.
It wasn’t the jet-setting life of a critically acclaimed and world-renowned poet that Ryan had dreamed of, but it wasn’t McDonald’s either, thank you very much, Spencer Smith. It was a position as night receptionist for a local radio station. They played music Ryan liked, and there wasn’t a lot to do overnight except patch the occasional call, which meant he had plenty of time to read and write, and he didn’t have to deal with very many people, especially not freshman English students.
Spencer knew it wasn’t a permanent fix. He knew Ryan wouldn’t be content to work at some dead-end job, lost and obscure. At night Ryan brought home the new singles and demos the station got, and would put on his headphones and listen with his eyes closed and a look of naked longing on his face. It made Spencer’s chest ache, because he didn’t know how long he could keep holding Ryan together. He didn’t know if he was enough to keep Ryan together.
Spencer was pretty damned sure that Ryan had some sort of seasonal depression going on. It hadn’t been so noticeable in Vegas, where winter dropped maybe required a light jacket in December and January. Their first year in New York, towards the middle of fall semester, Spencer got his first glimmer of it.
When the days grew short and a sharp chill permeated the air, Ryan just withdrew even further. The shawls and sweaters and gloves that everyone else wore for protection against the elements, Ryan used as some sort of armour against emotions.
They were still poor students then (Ryan was still essentially a poor student now, but), and Spencer’s parents had offered to fly them home for the holidays. At that point Ryan had still been uncomfortable with the charity. There was no way that Spencer would have left Ryan by himself that winter, so instead, he’d borrowed his roommate’s Oldsmobile and they’d driven down the coast until they’d reached Georgia.
They had saved their money for gas and food, so they’d found an abandoned stretch of beach where they could park the car and sleep at nights. It was the first time he’d seen Ryan smile in months, all the tension just melting from his shoulders. They’d goofed off around on the beach or bummed around the boardwalk during the days. At night they’d sit in the open hatchback and Ryan would play his guitar and sing bits and pieces of things he’d made up.
Since then, it had become tradition. When the weather turned from crisp to bitingly cold, they left the city for a week. Road trips during their undergrad, and then when Spencer had started making money and become a bit more insistent, flights back to Vegas. Last year, Spencer had casually slipped the plane tickets into Ryan’s bag and waited for the worst.
But when Ryan was searching for his keys later and stumbled upon them, his eyes had just got really wide and his mouth had dropped into an ‘o’ of surprise. He hadn’t fought it at all. And so they had a nice apartment and Spencer had upgraded his wardrobe, but he didn’t have a whole lot of other expenses, and he wanted to go to Hawaii, anyway.
Spencer hadn’t decided where their trip would be this year. He was tempted by the Mediterranean, but he wasn’t sure that Ryan’s pointed ignorance of cost would extend that far. But it was only the end of October and he hadn’t thought Ryan was so desperate as to make his own plans for them. It was a mistake, Spencer knew, when he came in the front door and Ryan flashed a pair of tickets at him.
“What did you do?” Spencer asked warily, before he’d even set down his bag and taken off his coat.
“I told you I wasn’t going to let you buy us another trip to Hawaii,” Ryan said.
“I can afford it—” Spencer began.
“And I can afford this,” Ryan interrupted. He waved the tickets in Spencer’s face, and Spencer caught sight of their destination.
“The Bahamas.” Spencer alternated between staring at the tickets and at Ryan, disbelieving.
“But it’s okay,” Ryan assured him, in a calm voice. “The station has this give-away going on, and the company sponsoring it extended this offer to all the employees. 9 days and 10 nights, plus airfare for two, for three-hundred dollars.”
Spencer just stared. “And the catch?” Ryan pulled his blank face, but Spencer was totally not buying it. He arched a brow and Ryan scowled.
“Okay, so, we have to attend a meeting one afternoon. And it’s supposed to be for couples.”
“Ryan. Did you sign us up as a gay couple for a timeshare sales week?” Spencer asked evenly.
“There’s no obligation to buy anything,” Ryan said.
It was ridiculous, and Spencer knew there was no fighting it. Ryan was a stubborn bitch and he’d already paid for it. It was a horrible idea. Everyone knew what a scam these sort of things were, but at least if he went along he could make sure that Ryan didn’t actually buy one of the things.
“And, not so much a gay couple,” Ryan said. Spencer gave him a dangerous look, but Ryan didn’t even blink.
So they went on vacation.
Spencer wanted to be annoyed, he really did. But it was difficult when Ryan was so ridiculously happy. He’d shed most of his layers and was running around the beach in what Spencer suspected was an outfit cunningly crafted of shimmering, shear scarves. Even though he kept referring to Spencer by increasingly absurd pet names, Spencer didn’t say anything.
Ryan wasn’t fooling anyone, anyway. Everybody knew they were both men. Their tour guide and several of the middle-aged housewives along for the tour kept cooing over how cute they were. But Ryan was having fun fucking with Spencer and Spencer was having fun watching Ryan having fun.
Though he’d been resigned to the trip from the beginning—he couldn’t let Ryan go on his own; this was the guy who’d been bullied into buying rhinestone hair clips from the kiosk in the mall, Spencer wasn’t going to trust him alone with a bunch of aggressive salesmen trying to unload condos—it turned out to be pretty decent.
They had their seminar on the third day of the trip. No matter how wide-eyed and believing Ryan got, Spencer kept his lips pursed and his brow arched. When the guy got finished with his spiel, Ryan opened his mouth to say something and Spencer stepped hard on his toe. He said, “Thank you, but we’re really not interested right now,” and dragged a sputtering Ryan off with him.
Ryan eyed him balefully. “That guy’s gonna think I’m totally pussy whipped.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “If that guy thinks one of has a pussy, it’s you.”
Ryan flipped him off and Spencer punched Ryan in the arm. Over the traded insults that followed, Spencer heard a couple of the housewives whisper something about youthful displays of affection. Spencer had to hide his face in Ryan’s shoulder, he laughed so hard. Ryan just stared at him in bewilderment, and put an arm around his waist to steer him. It wasn’t any wonder people thought they were a couple, Spencer mused.
One of the guys involved with the programme was a sort of crazy dude named Pete. He was closer to Ryan and Spencer’s age than to any of the other guests, and after the first night, he’d taken it as his duty to make sure Ryan and Spencer were entertained. They didn’t mind; Pete knew all the best local spots, and while he was crazy, it was in a fun, contagious sort of way.
Though they started in different places each night, they kept ending them in the same place. It was called The Littlest Mermaid and it was Pete’s favourite club, with live music and awesome djs and themed parties most nights. It was always crowded, but never so much that it was uncomfortable, and there was always a table saved for them in the balcony because “the owner’s a friend,” Pete had said.
“How did you end up here?” Ryan asked, awed, when they’d ended up at the Mermaid again. The music was loud and the lights alternately dim and blindingly bright. “I mean, this poetry is really good,” gesturing to the notebook Pete had given him to read earlier in the evening. “And you’re working selling timeshares?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said dryly. “Really strange. Sort of like you working as a receptionist at a radio station,” he muttered. Ryan shot him a glare.
Pete shrugged easily, taking a long drink. That was another great part of hanging out with Pete. The bartenders at the Mermaid—all three they’d met named Alex—made their drinks strong and refused to let Ryan and Spencer pay.
“It’s something to do,” Pete said. “It passes the time. I don’t see myself doing it forever.” He got this look in his eye then, like he did sometimes. Spencer couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it made him uneasy.
“Besides, you might say that working selling timeshares is my destiny,” Pete added. His goofy smile was back. “You don’t fuck with destiny, yo.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s destiny to sell timeshares, Pete.”
“Oh. You’d be surprised,” Pete said loftily, and then dragged them off to the dance floor.
Spencer wasn’t usually big on dancing. He liked to hang out by the bar and enjoy the music and maybe some conversation. But Ryan and Pete were persuasive, and it was fun, letting go and dancing with them, knowing they weren’t rating his skill and using it as a basis for how he might perform elsewhere. Also, the music was really fucking awesome.
“Travie’s spinning tonight,” Pete said, like he’d read Spencer’s mind. “Wait ‘til you guys meet him.” Pete said that about all his friends, wait until Spence and Ryan met them. Pete had this way of talking, like his friends were going to be theirs, too, no question.
It made Spencer a little sad to think he probably wouldn’t get a chance to meet all of them in the short time they had in the Bahamas, and it would matter anyway, because it wasn’t like you could daytrip from New York to the Caribbean.
The crowd started thinning at four in the morning, and by six Travis had come down from the booth. He hooked his IPod up behind the bar and let Spencer and Ryan pick whatever they wanted. Pete had been right about Travis, too. He’d hit it off with Spencer and Ryan right away, and given them a dime bag ‘on the house.’
“Have they met B&J yet?” Travis asked, passing around the third joint of the night. His shit was really nice. Spencer supposed that was at least in part due to living in the Bahamas. It was like, a rule.
“Are you hitting on us?” Ryan asked, tone belligerent. He was always totally ineffectually quarrelsome when drunk or high. That, or he’d get really quiet and just stare at the backs of his hands for hours on end. “Because we’re not gay.”
Travis and Pete shared a knowing smirk. “I’ve heard that before,” Travis said.
“B and J,” Pete repeated. “And no. They’re out of town.” His smile turned a little dangerous and his tone became pointed when he directed, towards Travis, “on business.”
“Whatever, yo,” Travis said, holding up his hands. His eyes were big and sleepy. He reminded Spencer of a puppy dog.
“Oh my god, I need to go sleep,” Spencer muttered.
Ryan half-dragged Spencer back to their hotel and flung him on the bed unceremoniously. At least he pulled off Spencer’s shoes before crawling into bed alongside him. He laid an arm over Spencer’s waist and buried his face in Spencer’s shoulder. His breath was warm on Spencer’s neck.
“I don’t ever wanna go home,” Ryan said.
Spencer hummed his agreement.
When they woke up in the early afternoon of the fourth day, Ryan announced his intentions to rent a boat. Spencer only saw this ending in disaster. One time Spencer’s parents had taken them on a vacation to a lake in Oregon. Ryan had been banned from using the rowboats after flipping one and almost drowning the first day. It went without saying that he wasn’t even allowed to try with the sailboat.
“There’s this awesome place right down on the beach, Pete said. They’re cheap and the owners are apparently pretty cool,” Ryan assured Spencer, like that would somehow make all of this a better idea. Unless the owners were going to be the ones piloting the boat, Spencer didn’t think so.
The place was clear even from the distance—wedged between a touristy memorabilia shop and a surfboard place, the boat rental place stuck out like a sore thumb. The front façade was done up like a pirate ship of old and the sign out front was hand painted and aged from wind and water. “Awesome,” Ryan said emphatically.
Spencer went in expecting the worst. He was a little distracted by the guy loitering in the waiting room—he was in frayed jeans and flip-flops and the hood of his black hoodie was drawn but Spencer could make out a scruffy looking beard and brown hair. He had a sort of shifty look to him, standing in the corner and scuffing his shoes on the floor.
The receptionist was just sort of...indolently lounging at the front desk. The phone was ringing and the guy wasn’t making any move to answer it. “Um,” Spencer said.
The guy looked up, blinking slowly at them from behind shaggy hair. Spencer couldn’t really see his features very clearly. “We’re here to rent a boat,” Ryan said.
The phone kept ringing. The guy didn’t say anything. “Er. Are you going to answer that?” Spencer prompted.
“No,” the guy said. “You can, if you want to.” He shrugged. He looked really fucking high, and just plain out of it.
“Bill!” A woman came out of the back—pretty with bright blonde hair spilling down her back and a flow-y summer dress. “I’m sorry,” she said to Spencer and Ryan, and then added, words pointed, “Bill’s probably the worst secretary in the history of. Ever. He doesn’t even answer the phone about sixty percent of the time, and when he does, his conversations are remarkably useless. Also, he refuses to do filing.”
Ryan gave Spencer a look that Spencer was sure was a reflection of his own. But Spencer wasn’t going to judge. When Ryan got excited, as rare a thing as that was, he had a tendency to babble, too. Besides, her account seemed pretty accurate. All of that, and also, apparently, he let bums wander around, Spencer thought, with another wary glance at hoodie guy.
“We wanted to rent a boat,” Spencer said slowly.
“Of course you did,” Bill said back, smirking. There was something arrogant about his tone that made Spencer sort of want to hit him.
The woman smacked Bill on the back of the head so hard it made Spencer cringe in sympathy. “You boys got here just in time,” she said. “We’ve only got one boat left this morning. It’s a little big for just two, though. Are you sure you can pilot it by yourselves?” She sounded honestly concerned, which Spencer thought was sweet.
“We’ll be fine,” Ryan said quickly, and his eyes dared Spencer to argue.
“The least I can do is give you a discount on it,” she said. “I wouldn’t feel right, charging two people the same price I would a group of ten.”
Spencer felt maybe he should point it that isn’t how it worked, but she hurried off into her office, muttering about keys and paperwork. Spencer looked around the suddenly much more silent office. Bill stared back at him blankly. The hoodie guy was watching them shiftily from under his hood. Spencer could just see a lot of facial hair and dark eyes.
The front door swung open and hit against the wall with a resounding bang. “Fucking tourists!” the man shouted. He looked big and hulking at first glance, but then Spencer realised it was more about the clothing he was wearing—a huge leather coat over dark layers—underneath it all, he looked smaller than Spencer.
“Yeah, yeah, Gee,” Bill said, and rolled his eyes.
“Where’s Greta?” ‘Gee’ demanded. Bill flicked a casual wrist towards the open office door and Gee stormed through it. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him.
“Gerard,” Spencer heard Greta say, in a voice one might usually reserve for a small child.
“I can’t do it,” Gerard said back. “They’re questioning my artistic integrity.”
Spencer could almost see Greta sighing. “You need to stop taking this so personally,” she said.
“Stop taking it personally?” Gerard said back, voice incredulous. “Those are my personal logs. How am I supposed to take it any other way? Gabriel makes his drug runs down to Eleuthera and he’s everyone’s hero and I do my little part to help preserve history and I get accused of being crazy. Or lying.”
“Gerard,” Greta began.
“No. I’ve had enough!” Gerard said. “I’m not taking those fuckers out tonight. I’m going to the Mermaid, and you can tell Bren—” there was a sound like something had just muffled Gerard’s speech followed by the sound of someone stumbling against the wall.
“Should we come back later?” Spencer asked Bill, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Bill shrugged. “It shouldn’t take very long. They have this same argument every week. About his logs.” He said the word with accompanying eye roll and wiggly fingers, as if that conveyed something.
There came low words, hissed too quietly to be understood, and then Gerard came storming back out. He called over his shoulder, “whatever.” He turned his glare on Spencer and Ryan, like this was somehow their fault. “I’m going to go find Frankie,” he said to them.
Ryan watched him go in wide-eyed horror. Greta came out fast on his heels. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Sometimes Gee can get a little…”
“Yeah,” Spencer agreed. “I mean, who wears a jacket like that in the middle of the Bahamas?”
Ryan muttered something under his breath about how Spencer had no appreciation for fashion, nor any flair for dramatics. Spencer thought it was pretty decent of himself that he managed to bite back a comment about how any one of Ryan’s scarves contained enough dramatic flair for ten men.
“Well, we have a few historical pirate tours, and Gee captains one of the ships—takes people out, tells stories, improvs, you know,” Greta explained. “So he dresses up for them.” She bit her lip like she felt she’d somehow slighted Gerard and Spencer felt just slightly bad for saying anything.
“Anyway, he’s really awesome, and he has all these amazing logs he keeps. He recreated them with a bit of artistic flair, but they’re entirely historically accurate…but when people who think they’re history buffs argue with him, he gets a little defensive,” she said.
Ryan perked up at the mention of artistically historically accurate pirate ship logs, and when he expressed his interest, Greta pulled a couple from the office. They were really neat, Spencer had to admit—lots of panelled artwork and song lyrics and paintings depicting the events of the day. But while they were really aesthetically pleasing, Spencer didn’t see how they could be historically accurate. Some of the events portrayed were just a little too far-fetched. He refrained from saying as much.
Bum guy shifted over to look at the book, angling his body and face away from them. Then he cleared his throat pointedly and Greta jumped. “OH! But you’re not here for this,” she said hastily, and closed the books, sweeping them to her chest. “Let me get you guys set up on your boat!”
It went smoothly, until it didn’t. Ryan’s scarves got caught in the steering wheel, which wasn’t so much dangerous as potentially embarrassing. But once they got past the other casual sailors, swimmers and surfers and into the open sea, it was alright.
They dropped anchor with no land in sight. It gave Spencer the feeling that he and Ryan were the only two people in the world, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was peaceful, really. They lathered each other in a fresh coat of sunscreen, took a dip in the ocean and ate the lunch the picnic Ryan had packed.
“It’s kind of awesome,” Spencer said.
Ryan knocked their shoulders together playfully. “You always doubt me, Spencer Smith,” Ryan teased. “You should just learn by now that I win at everything.”
Such a bold proclamation necessarily led to Spencer proving that Ryan did not, in fact, win at everything. Their game of full-body thumb war soon devolved into wrestling, which turned into a ship-wide battle, and it wasn’t until the first clap of thunder that either of them even realised how dark the day had suddenly become.
“Um,” Ryan said. He had this way of sounding entirely innocent that Spencer stopped buying, like, ten years ago. “Maybe we should head back.”
“Yeah,” Spencer snapped, and then the sky opened on them.
Ryan pulled anchor while Spencer called in to let Greta known of the situation. Greta sounded…off, somehow. Her voice was too bright, too forced. “Everything’s fine,” she said, and Spencer wasn’t very reassured. “It’s probably best if you just wait it out where you are.”
“Stay here?” Ryan demanded, when Spencer told him. The boat rocked dangerously and a wave crested over the side, almost knocking them both off their feet.
“Maybe we should wait in the cabin,” Spencer suggested.
“And then the boat sinks and the water pressure on the door traps us and water slowly trickles beneath the frame and we don’t know whether the room will fill with water, or run out of oxygen first, but either way we’re left with a slow, painful death? No thanks,” Ryan said, and managed to look prim, arms crossed over his chest, even with his hair and scarves plastered to his skin from rainwater.
Spencer opened his mouth to say something about Ryan’s histrionics, but instead he got a mouthful of seawater. “Fuck this noise,” he said, salt bitter on his tongue, stinging his eyes and throat. “We’re going back.”
“Greta,” he called, “what does the weather report say? Because I’m not sure how much longer we can manage just waiting this out.” It was growing darker by the second, almost night black around them and the rain was so thick he couldn’t see anything beyond the ship, not even the water of the ocean.
“This isn’t right,” he heard Greta hiss and someone growled something Spencer didn’t understand. “Pete, I’m not…I can’t, this is just…”
Pete’s voice cut through the static-y call, voice as cheerful as ever. “It’s fine, Spence,” Pete said. “I wouldn’t steer you boys wrong.”
The transmission cut out before Spencer could argue, but it didn’t matter. He liked Pete, and all, but that didn’t mean he was just going to sit still in the middle of a fucking hurricane or something.
The ship lurched hard to bow, knocking Spencer against the control panel. Ryan gave a cry of distress and Spencer paused in his preparations to return to the dock. He hurried up the steps to the deck, but Ryan wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Ryan?” he called, and there was no answer. Ryan was an okay swimmer at best, but in a storm like this, he’d be dead. Spencer held fast to the railing and looked over into the turbulent water, but there was no sign.
Another wave sank over the edge of the boat, sending Spencer back down the stairs. He didn’t even have a chance to struggle to his feet before yet another wave crashed over him. His head didn’t break the surface at once, and when it did, he barely got a lungful of air before he was submerged again.
Spencer got to his knees and managed to drag himself back to the deck, fingers scrambling for any handhold on the wall and floor. The sky had gone almost completely dark and Spencer couldn’t see very well, but he thought he may have heard Ryan say his name. Then the boat tilted sharply and Spencer’s head hit the deck, hard, and everything went black.
Ryan had opened the fucking blinds again. It wasn’t that Spencer minded when Ryan snuck into Spencer’s bed, but it was really annoying when Spencer finally had a chance to sleep in and he was woken at sunrise by the glare of light on his face.
Spencer rolled to his right and the light got brighter. Spencer frowned and noticed several things at once: he was lying on a hard wooden surface, he was uncomfortably hot, and the ground was moving.
Ryan groaned in pain and Spencer’s eyes snapped open. The ship was mostly in one piece, but there were cracks and parts where the paint was gone, exposing wood. Ryan was buried under one of the sails, shredded and piled on the deck.
Spencer scrambled to his feet and staggered to Ryan’s side. The bench wasn’t very heavy, but it had Ryan at a weird angle. Spencer lifted it off, his back screaming in protest when he bent over.
“Next time you try something like this, I’m going to punch you,” Spencer warned him.
Ryan put a hand to his head and pouted at Spencer. “It isn’t my fault. That storm came out of nowhere. Pete and that Bill guy at the rental place both said it was supposed to be clear out today.”
Spencer still felt a little dizzy as he made his way to the control board. He kept his hand on the wall to stay steady. “Yeah, well, that guy at the rental place was fucking high. And Pete’s a spaz.”
Spencer tried the radio first, announcing their call and location. The only response was silence. Not even a crackle of static. He tried again and a third time with the same result.
“Let me see that!” Ryan jerked on the mic and Spencer let him have it. He focussed his attention on the array of buttons on the board. None of them were lit, which gave Spencer a sinking feeling in his stomach. He pushed a few anyway, but nothing happened.
“Shit,” Ryan said. He threw the mic aside. “Fuck.” He stormed up the steps, Spencer on his heels.
“Don’t freak,” Spencer said. He put a hand on Ryan’s back. “We’re pretty much in the same place we were before. They got our last distress call before the storm. They’ll find us.” Ryan must have heard Spencer’s sincerity, because he relaxed a little.
Then, as if conjured by Spencer’s word a ship appeared on the horizon. For a moment it was but a speck in the distance, but when he could make out the details, it looked like something straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean—mermaid over the bow, unfamiliar colours flapping in the wind. The sails were caught on a strong breeze, drawing them close, fast.
“It must be one of those tours Greta was talking about,” Ryan said. “Maybe they sent someone out after us.” They ran to stern, waving their hands frantically, as if that would somehow make them more noticeable than their huge boat.
The ship came up along portside, close enough that Spencer could make out the features on the faces of the crew hanging over the railing of the deck.
“Good thing you found us,” Spencer shouted. “I was worried we’d be waiting a while.” Ryan looked so completely done in by their costumes that Spencer half feared what new crazy fashion he’d adopt when they got home.
A grumble went through the crowd. Spencer didn’t catch all of it, but he heard the words British, weapons, and spies. No one sounded very happy about any of it.
“Could you give us a tow back to the docks?” Spencer asked.
One of the men held out a pistol, aimed at Spencer’s chest. “Get your hands up. Both ‘a you. I’ll shoot a woman just as soon as a man.”
Ryan let out a sharp burst of laughter. “He was talking about you,” Spencer hissed at him.
“Whatever,” Ryan drawled. “Look, guys, we appreciate the authenticity of your…re-enactment, but we’d really just like to get back to our hotel.”
The pistol went off with a deafening crack and the wood of the deck by Spencer’s foot splintered. “What the fuck?” Spencer shouted.
“Next one goes through your knee. After that, I stop being nice. Hands in the air.”
“Frank. What have we said about you maiming people while you’re on our ship?” The man who spoke had an easy, lazy look about him. He was wearing, Spencer was convinced, Jack Sparrow’s costume. Right down to the hat. Thankfully, his facial hair lacked the full beard and beaded accents. He looked, Spencer thought distantly, like a man off a cover of one of his mother’s romance novels.
‘Frank’ looked crushed at the prohibition on violence and trounced off.
“Forgive our rudeness,” the newcomer said, smiling warmly at them. “But we’re going to have to board your vessel.”
Ryan, even with his hands in the air, managed to look singularly unimpressed. “What. The fuck. Is going on?” Ryan demanded, from the corner of his mouth.
A board was extended between their ships and the man strolled down it. “Where is the rest of your crew?” he asked.
Spencer looked at Ryan and saw in his eyes what Spencer was already thinking. They both shut their mouths tight.
“Look,” the guy said easily, “no one’s going to hurt you. Frank’s just a little antsy. But you have to understand with things being the way they are, we can’t just leave you here.”
Spencer kept his lips sealed, even though there were a few questions he really wanted to ask.
“Okay. Well, let’s start this way. I’m Jonathan, but seeing as how you’re our captives, you can call me Jon. I’d really like it if we could be civil about this, if that’s possible.”
Ryan rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. Spencer sighed. “Look, we’ll go along without your stupid re-enactment, but when we get back to dock, I’m filing a complaint.”
Jon gave a sweeping bow. “As it pleases you, sir. Now, the rest of your crew?”
“We’re it,” Spencer said.
Jon gave him a sly smile that, inexplicably, made Spencer’s stomach flip. He was cute, sure, but he was also a crazy asshole. “The two of you pilot this ship yourselves?”
“Not so much pilot,” Spencer muttered at Ryan, who not so subtly flipped him off.
“Blow me,” Ryan said.
Jon gave them an amused look. “Adam, Butcher, search their ship,” he called, without taking his eyes off Spencer. “I’ll show our guests to the Captain.” He gestured to the plank between the ships.
Spencer looked at Ryan again, who looked almost angry enough to kill with his glare. When we get back, Spencer urged with his eyes, and Ryan conceded, shoulders slumping.
“Alright,” Spencer said. He helped Ryan climb up the side of the ship and followed, arms out for balance. A big, warm hand steadied Spencer’s hip when he wobbled and it made him jump and almost topple off the side. Jon’s arms went all the way around Spencer’s waist. For a second, Spencer was held steady against a solid body.
“Careful,” Jon whispered in Spencer’s ear. He was so close his beard scraped Spence’s throat as he spoke. “If you fall in and drown, who’s going to report us?”
Spencer pushed away as soon as they were on board. Jon looked amused. Spencer sort of wished he wasn’t so charming or good-looking. It made Spencer want to punch Jon in his ridiculously docile face.
Jon led them across the deck, passing as they went almost a dozen men similarly dressed. They were engaged in various activities, some cleaning, some making repairs, a few sitting on the upper deck cleaning sword and guns.
The doors of the captain’s cabin were open, and Jon went through them and pushed open the inner doors without knocking.
“Jonny!” a cheerful, bright voice called.
“Captain,” Jon said. His tone was indulgent. “I’ve brought you the crew of the enemy ship.”
The captain came into view from behind a large chest. He looked young to be a captain, maybe twenty, with large eyes and an unguarded smile. He was dressed in a ruffled shirt and plain coat, left open over tight fitted breeches and leather boots that came just below his knees. It was a good look on him, and an odd contrast to Jon’s dress.
“You always bring me the best presents,” the captain said, and gave Ryan a sly look.
“I count on my captain’s generosity,” Jon said. “And his willingness to share.”
The captain gave a knowing wink to Jon. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I apologise for our imposition. I am Captain Uriel, but you may call me Brendon.” Polite, these weirdos. Except for the Frank guy with the firing of the gun and all.
“Yeah, and you can suck my cock,” Ryan said dully.
Brendon either didn’t hear or chose to ignore that comment. “I promise that we shall endeavour to do all that is within our power to make your stay behind the sea is as pleasant as possible.”
“Our stay behind the sea?” Spencer repeated dully. Ryan made a strange sucking, choking noise beside him.
“Yes,” Brendon said, and smiled brilliantly. He looked even younger when he smiled like that. “It’s the name of our ship. Behind the Sea.”
Spencer crossed his arms. “That’s just stupid,” he said. “Your ship is on the sea, not behind it. God. Learn your prepositions.” It occurred to Spencer, after the words left his mouth, that he’d been spending too much time listening to Ryan bitch about his students.
“But...but!” Ryan sputtered ineffectually for a minute and finally spat out, “but that’s my phrase. I used that. In my poetry!”
“Yeah,” Spencer said quickly, going into damage control mode, “but it makes sense in your poetry. As like…a literary device, or something. But not so much on a seafaring vessel.”
Ryan gave Spencer an I’ll deal with you later glare and then turned back to Brendon. “This is plagiarism.”
Spencer felt they were getting off track, which tended to happen when someone got Ryan started on plagiarism. “You never even published that poem, Ryan,” Spencer muttered, and Ryan gave him a wounded, betrayed look.
Brendon cleared his throat and Spencer caught the tail end of a look of shared confusion between Brendon and Jon. “I am sorry to have to detain you, but I’m afraid we are unfamiliar with this make of ship you sail.”
Spencer snorted. “Let me guess,” he drawled, “it’s way more advanced than anything else on the sea, blah, blah, blah. Can we cut the bullshit? We’re not going to play your game. You’re wasting your time.”
Jon and Brendon shared another look, this time devoid of amusement. Spencer wondered, vaguely, if they’d been friends as long as he and Ryan had been; if they could read each other’s expressions as easily.
“Is that so?” Brendon asked. He sounded too casual. There was something calculating about it. He moved to his desk, gesturing that they be seated before it. “And what, might I ask, were you doing here in your most advanced ship?”
Ryan set his jaw again and glared pointedly at Spencer, a clear sign of his unwillingness to share any further. Spencer bit his tongue and crossed his arms over his chest. He gave Brendon his fiercest glare, which had sent weaker men scampering. Brendon blinked as if startled by it.
“We would prefer to think you harmless,” Brendon said slowly, almost cautiously. “But you really should cooperate.”
“Yes, yes, you’re friendly pirates who shoot holes in people’s ships and drag them off at gunpoint,” Ryan muttered.
Jon cringed and Brendon began rummaging through the top drawer of his desk. “Really, Frank wouldn’t shoot you,” Jon said. “He’s just a little cranky right now.”
Brendon nodded sagely. “He gets that way sometimes when he’s away from…” he paused, brows drawn together and shook his head. “At any rate, we aren’t pirates,” he said. He presented a roll of papers with a flourish.
Spencer wrapped his fingers around his biceps, but Ryan leaned closer to read. A knock came on the door and Frank entered without waiting for a response.
“There’s no one else on the ship,” Frank said. “The Butcher and Adam are bringing aboard some of the foreign objects we found.” He dumped Spencer’s bag and Ryan’s backpack on Brendon’s desk.
“There were no rifles or cannons,” Frank continued, “but they have some suspicious items that were too big to be moved. You should come see for yourself.”
“Look, you can’t do this,” Spencer blurted. He grabbed the strap of his bag and jerked it close. Frank’s fingers twitched near his gun. “You can’t just go through our things.”
Frank didn’t look impressed, but Spencer refused to be intimidated. The guy was like, half Spencer’s size and despite his numerous tattoos and dark glower, he looked about as dangerous as a puppy. Except for the gun thing.
Ryan looked up from the papers. “Is this…Spencer…” he paused and held the paper out for Spencer to read. It looked like something in a museum, crinkly, yellowing paper written on by quill. It proclaimed itself to be a Letter of Marque issued by the State of Connecticut, granting the Behind the Sea permission to search, seize and destroy any enemy vessels.
“You’ll have to forgive the doodles,” Brendon said, in a hassled, amused way.
Spencer hadn’t noticed them until Brendon said anything, but now he saw the sprawling, scrolling vines and delicate flowers woven around the margins of the paper. They resembled a lot the ones they’d seen…
“Those are Gerard’s,” Ryan said. “Look, we know Gerard, okay, so can you just give the game a rest and take us back to dock?”
Frank made a strange noise and squeezed his fist hard near his gun. Brendon’s eyes went wide, and Jon laid a restraining hand on Frank’s shoulder. “You know Gerard?” Brendon asked.
“Well, not know him,” Ryan hedged. “We met him this morning, at Greta’s shop.”
“You met him this morning?” Jon said calmly. “With Greta?”
“Yes,” Ryan said, exasperated.
All three of their captors were exchanging looks now. Frank let out a growl and produced a knife from nowhere. He was across the room in three steps and had the tip pressed against Ryan’s throat. Spencer jumped, but Jon calmly drew a gun and pointed it at him.
Frank said, “Where do you have them, then?”
“What are you talking about you freaks?” Ryan hissed. “I don’t have them anywhere! Gerard said he was going to have drinks at the Mermaid with someone.”
“You aren’t very amusing,” Frank said, and pushed hard enough that Ryan made a high-pitched sound of pain and blood began to trickle down his neck.
“Frank!” Brendon said sharply, and stood. Frank gave up on the pressure and Ryan clapped a hand over the spot. “Please,” Brendon said, pinning Spencer with a look. “If you know where Gerard is—”
Spencer interrupted. “We told you,” he said. “He’s at a bar called The Littlest Mermaid, in Nassau.” He began fumbling through his bag and Jon cocked his gun. “I’m just getting my phone,” Spencer said, and pulled it out. “I’ve got Pete’s number in here. He was at the rental place. He could tell you himself.”
“What is that?” Brendon asked, eyes lighting on the phone.
Spencer didn’t even dignify that with a response. They could do their play-acting, and he would use it all to get them arrested as soon as they got off the damn ship. He flipped the phone open, but the display showed no bars.
“Jon,” Brendon said, and tipped his head toward Spencer. He made grabby fingers and Jon crossed to Spencer, snapping the phone out of his hand. He passed it to Brendon and Spencer watched with pursed lips. Brendon’s frown grew more pronounced as he pressed buttons.
“Please see our guests to the brig, Frank,” Brendon said slowly. “And Jon, have our course altered to take us to Nassau.” He lifted his head long enough to look at Ryan and Spencer. “Of course, as soon as we have spoken to Gerard and confirmed your story, we’ll be happy to release you.”
“You have got to be fucking me,” Ryan squealed. His throat was red and sticky with blood, and this had officially stopped being funny ten minutes ago.
Frank led them below deck, followed by curious stares all the way. He shoved them roughly into the barred off section at the back of the cargo hold and locked them in. “If you’ve done anything with Gerard, if you’ve hurt a single hair on his head, I’ll murder you,” Frank said. “And I’ll do it slowly. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Fuck you,” Spencer said sharply, and waited until Frank had gone to turn his attention to Ryan. “Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” He pried Ryan’s hand from his neck to get a look. The cut wasn’t long, or very deep, but it was still seeping blood.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Ryan said weakly, and his knees buckled. Spencer caught him around the waist, helped him stay on his feet. Spencer helped him sit in the corner, propped against the hull. He unwound one of Ryan’s dozens of scarves and tied it around Ryan’s throat.
“It’s okay,” Spencer said. As soon as they got to Nassau it would be, anyway.
The journey didn’t take very long. Spencer and Ryan had only gone a few miles off the coast and the storm hadn’t taken them very much further. Without an engine, it was longer, but the Behind the Sea made good time. Spencer could tell when they got near, heard the crew shouting orders back and forth, readying the ship to dock.
They were brought up to the main deck by the man called the Butcher. He had a pleasant enough disposition and told them cheerfully, “I had to get you ‘cause the Captain was worried Frank might accidently stab you to death or something if he sent him after you.”
“Gentlemen,” Jon greeted them. “We’ll be making land shortly.”
“We are unfamiliar with this bar you named,” Brendon said. “If you will show us, I am certain we can have this whole misunderstanding cleared up quickly.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “And you can explain to Greta why her ship is just hanging out in the middle of the ocean where anyone could take it.”
Brendon and Jon shared another look. Spencer was starting to get a bit annoyed by it, really. “Greta will understand, I am sure,” Brendon said at length. “But even if she does not, to see her, and Pete, and Gerard safe, I am willing to risk her wrath.”
Ryan huffed, but didn’t say anything else, turning to stare at the approaching harbour. “Spence,” he said. There was something funny in his voice. Spencer turned and saw Ryan’s gazed fixed straight ahead, expression fascinated. Spencer looked out.
It took Spencer several moments to realise what he was seeing. The shallow waters around them were filled not with swimmers and surfers, but with other ships—lots of other ships, all similar in make to the one on which they sailed. The colours were mostly French, though several bore the American colonial flag.
The shore was bustling with activity, low slung shops and businesses dotting the near distance, and where there should have been skyscrapers and bright lights in the far distance, there were only trees. “What is this?” Spencer asked.
Brendon raised a brow. “This is Nassau,” he said.
“Where’s the city?” Spencer said.
“Spencer,” Ryan whispered. “Spencer, that is the city.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Spencer said, but his voice felt shaky. His whole chest felt shaky and empty and loose. “This is just some weird…Greta said there were other ships. This is just where they make berth.”
“Spencer,” Ryan said. He suddenly broke away from the railing of the ship, running toward the Captain’s cabin. Jon made to drawn his gun but Brendon waved a dismissive hand and followed. Jon and Spencer were fast on their heels.
Ryan was tearing through his book bag when they found him. He had his cell out and held it up. “There’s no fucking service, Spencer,” he said.
Jon shifted uneasily, but Brendon shook his head. Spencer went to Ryan’s side. “Yeah, but we’ve been getting shitty reception since we got here,” Spencer reasoned.
“You know all those philosophical talks we used to have?” Ryan asked. “All those hypothetical scenarios we came up with when we couldn’t sleep, and we said what the point would be. If something like this ever happened to us, what the point would be when we finally understood it? When we finally accepted what exactly had happened to us. I think this is the point, Spencer.”
Ryan pointed towards the doors. “That’s Nassau. And if we’re here, and they don’t know where their Gerard and Pete and Greta are, maybe we switched, somehow.”
“I think you hit your head harder than I originally thought,” Spencer said.
“Spencer,” Ryan said, and lowered his voice. He angled their bodies away from Jon and Brendon. “You saw that paper. It had Gerard’s drawings on it, and Gerard isn’t here. That Frank guy is really worried about him.”
“Or they’re all freaks who take role-playing a little too far,” Spencer said.
Ryan sighed and gave Spencer a look like Spencer was being the unreasonable one. “They’re going to look for Gerard in town, and they’re not going to find him there, and then they’re going to think we lied to them, and they’re going to think we’ve done something with him.”
“No,” Spencer said. He didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to say no, you’re wrong, this is insane, but he couldn’t make his throat work.
Frank stuck his head in the cabin and said, “We’re ready to go ashore, Captain.”
Ryan gave Spencer a wild-eyed look. Spencer was the one who planned things, who kept Ryan out of trouble, whether it was keeping him from sleeping on the streets or keeping him from getting his throat slit by fucking pirates.
“I’ll figure it out,” Spencer said, “but we have to get off this ship first.”
Part 2
Author: Mokuyoubi
Pairing: Jon/Spencer (background Brendon/Ryan, Travis/Gabe/William, Frank/Gerard and Pete/Patrick); POV 3rd, Spencer
Rating: NC-17
WC: 43k
Summary: In response to the
harlequin_bands challenge: Swept from her dismal present in the 1990s (facing unemployment and the singles scene), Phoebe Turlow takes a wrong turn at a hotel (while attending a “free” vacation in the Caribbean, sponsored by a condo company) and winds up in the seventeenth century in the company of a sexy, witty pirate named Duncan Rourke. As if Rourke does not have enough to do fighting the British in the American Revolution, he has to determine whether short haired, strange speaking Phoebe is a spy, a witch, or worse. Instead, he falls in love with her.Okay, so Ryan was going to be Phoebe and Brendon Duncan, except then somehow Spencer and Jon took over the story, and so this really tells the story of Phoebe and Duncan’s best friends…I’m working on the Ryden side story that will actually end up more closely resembling the book summary. Oh, also changed it to the eighteenth century, since I’m *pretty* sure that’s when the American Revolution actually took place…*shrug*
Thanks to Muse for beta-ing and giving me a million and nine lolarious ideas when I got stuck towards the end. Thanks also to
lolab for cheering me on and demanding more. Without those two, I don’t know if I ever would have finished this…Ryan declared Creative Writing as his major on the first day of the first quarter of his college education. He’d never wanted to do anything else, except maybe make music, but he was realistic about things. His scholarship would pay for an Arts and Sciences major, but not a Fine Arts one.
Spencer hadn’t decided so easily as Ryan. He’d started off as Mathematics major and switched to Computer Engineering at the end of freshman year. Ryan teased him about being fickle, but Spencer knew it was a reasonable choice. Maybe he wanted to make music, but there wasn’t money in that. Besides, if Ryan was going to pursue his dream to make poetry, one of them had to be able to pay the bills.
Ryan finished at the top of his class and was accepted to a graduate programme on the east coast. He and Spencer got into a fight about how practical a master’s degree in Creative Writing could possibly be, but in the end, Spencer followed him, taking up a graduate programme himself in a neighbouring school.
It wasn’t so bad for Ryan; he wasn’t paying for any of it. In fact, the university was paying him to attend. He wasn’t a big fan of teaching, the condition of his acceptance, but though he grumbled, Spencer said it was better than the McDonald’s job he could have looked forward to, otherwise.
Spencer finished with his master’s degree in a year and a half, and landed a sweet job in the city. They moved out of their shitty apartment on the east side and into the trendy downtown area where all the young, single professionals congregated. If Ryan noticed that his portion of the rent was significantly less than half (or, like, less than a third), he very magnanimously refused to acknowledge it. He’d grown accustomed to Spencer taking care of him; it didn’t even offend his pride anymore to accept the help.
Then Ryan said, “I’m think I’m going to apply for the joint master’s and doctorate programme,” and Spencer just stared at him in disbelief. Because. “That way I can finish them both in three years.”
“In Creative Writing?” Spencer said. “So you can be Doctor Ross, the drive-through operator?”
Ryan threw a grape at him and sipped daintily of his tea. “There are plenty of things I can do with my Ph.D.”
“Like what, teach?” Spencer asked. “You hate to teach. No one would hire you. You’re like…Snape. You terrify the freshman.”
“If they can’t distinguish between their as possessive, they’re as a contraction of they are, and there as a location, then I have no pity. They deserve to be terrified, Spence. I’m doing them a favour!”
When he was twenty-five, George Ryan Ross earned his master’s and doctorate simultaneously, and proceeded to turn down every offer to teach at university he was offered. Spencer sputtered and protested and turned red in the face and Ryan said, plaintively, “I want to be a poet, Spencer.”
Spencer didn’t even bother to talk about in the meantime. Ryan’s brain didn’t work like that. And it wasn’t that Spencer didn’t totally believe in Ryan. His stuff was amazing, beautiful. It really moved Spencer, made him hear music. Ryan had even had a lot of it published in magazines and anthologies.
Spencer loved those times, when Ryan’s oppressive negativity and sadness lifted with the arrival of a letter of acceptance and a check. Still, it wasn’t fame, and it wasn’t consistent, and it wasn’t a realistic way to live. And Spencer didn’t mind caring for Ryan, but he knew that Ryan wanted to be self-sufficient.
Fall quarter began, and having turned down every offer, and still owing Spencer three months’ back rent (which, if he ever did pay, would find its way back into Ryan’s bank account, anyway), Ryan broke down and began applying for jobs.
It wasn’t the jet-setting life of a critically acclaimed and world-renowned poet that Ryan had dreamed of, but it wasn’t McDonald’s either, thank you very much, Spencer Smith. It was a position as night receptionist for a local radio station. They played music Ryan liked, and there wasn’t a lot to do overnight except patch the occasional call, which meant he had plenty of time to read and write, and he didn’t have to deal with very many people, especially not freshman English students.
Spencer knew it wasn’t a permanent fix. He knew Ryan wouldn’t be content to work at some dead-end job, lost and obscure. At night Ryan brought home the new singles and demos the station got, and would put on his headphones and listen with his eyes closed and a look of naked longing on his face. It made Spencer’s chest ache, because he didn’t know how long he could keep holding Ryan together. He didn’t know if he was enough to keep Ryan together.
Spencer was pretty damned sure that Ryan had some sort of seasonal depression going on. It hadn’t been so noticeable in Vegas, where winter dropped maybe required a light jacket in December and January. Their first year in New York, towards the middle of fall semester, Spencer got his first glimmer of it.
When the days grew short and a sharp chill permeated the air, Ryan just withdrew even further. The shawls and sweaters and gloves that everyone else wore for protection against the elements, Ryan used as some sort of armour against emotions.
They were still poor students then (Ryan was still essentially a poor student now, but), and Spencer’s parents had offered to fly them home for the holidays. At that point Ryan had still been uncomfortable with the charity. There was no way that Spencer would have left Ryan by himself that winter, so instead, he’d borrowed his roommate’s Oldsmobile and they’d driven down the coast until they’d reached Georgia.
They had saved their money for gas and food, so they’d found an abandoned stretch of beach where they could park the car and sleep at nights. It was the first time he’d seen Ryan smile in months, all the tension just melting from his shoulders. They’d goofed off around on the beach or bummed around the boardwalk during the days. At night they’d sit in the open hatchback and Ryan would play his guitar and sing bits and pieces of things he’d made up.
Since then, it had become tradition. When the weather turned from crisp to bitingly cold, they left the city for a week. Road trips during their undergrad, and then when Spencer had started making money and become a bit more insistent, flights back to Vegas. Last year, Spencer had casually slipped the plane tickets into Ryan’s bag and waited for the worst.
But when Ryan was searching for his keys later and stumbled upon them, his eyes had just got really wide and his mouth had dropped into an ‘o’ of surprise. He hadn’t fought it at all. And so they had a nice apartment and Spencer had upgraded his wardrobe, but he didn’t have a whole lot of other expenses, and he wanted to go to Hawaii, anyway.
Spencer hadn’t decided where their trip would be this year. He was tempted by the Mediterranean, but he wasn’t sure that Ryan’s pointed ignorance of cost would extend that far. But it was only the end of October and he hadn’t thought Ryan was so desperate as to make his own plans for them. It was a mistake, Spencer knew, when he came in the front door and Ryan flashed a pair of tickets at him.
“What did you do?” Spencer asked warily, before he’d even set down his bag and taken off his coat.
“I told you I wasn’t going to let you buy us another trip to Hawaii,” Ryan said.
“I can afford it—” Spencer began.
“And I can afford this,” Ryan interrupted. He waved the tickets in Spencer’s face, and Spencer caught sight of their destination.
“The Bahamas.” Spencer alternated between staring at the tickets and at Ryan, disbelieving.
“But it’s okay,” Ryan assured him, in a calm voice. “The station has this give-away going on, and the company sponsoring it extended this offer to all the employees. 9 days and 10 nights, plus airfare for two, for three-hundred dollars.”
Spencer just stared. “And the catch?” Ryan pulled his blank face, but Spencer was totally not buying it. He arched a brow and Ryan scowled.
“Okay, so, we have to attend a meeting one afternoon. And it’s supposed to be for couples.”
“Ryan. Did you sign us up as a gay couple for a timeshare sales week?” Spencer asked evenly.
“There’s no obligation to buy anything,” Ryan said.
It was ridiculous, and Spencer knew there was no fighting it. Ryan was a stubborn bitch and he’d already paid for it. It was a horrible idea. Everyone knew what a scam these sort of things were, but at least if he went along he could make sure that Ryan didn’t actually buy one of the things.
“And, not so much a gay couple,” Ryan said. Spencer gave him a dangerous look, but Ryan didn’t even blink.
So they went on vacation.
Spencer wanted to be annoyed, he really did. But it was difficult when Ryan was so ridiculously happy. He’d shed most of his layers and was running around the beach in what Spencer suspected was an outfit cunningly crafted of shimmering, shear scarves. Even though he kept referring to Spencer by increasingly absurd pet names, Spencer didn’t say anything.
Ryan wasn’t fooling anyone, anyway. Everybody knew they were both men. Their tour guide and several of the middle-aged housewives along for the tour kept cooing over how cute they were. But Ryan was having fun fucking with Spencer and Spencer was having fun watching Ryan having fun.
Though he’d been resigned to the trip from the beginning—he couldn’t let Ryan go on his own; this was the guy who’d been bullied into buying rhinestone hair clips from the kiosk in the mall, Spencer wasn’t going to trust him alone with a bunch of aggressive salesmen trying to unload condos—it turned out to be pretty decent.
They had their seminar on the third day of the trip. No matter how wide-eyed and believing Ryan got, Spencer kept his lips pursed and his brow arched. When the guy got finished with his spiel, Ryan opened his mouth to say something and Spencer stepped hard on his toe. He said, “Thank you, but we’re really not interested right now,” and dragged a sputtering Ryan off with him.
Ryan eyed him balefully. “That guy’s gonna think I’m totally pussy whipped.”
Spencer rolled his eyes. “If that guy thinks one of has a pussy, it’s you.”
Ryan flipped him off and Spencer punched Ryan in the arm. Over the traded insults that followed, Spencer heard a couple of the housewives whisper something about youthful displays of affection. Spencer had to hide his face in Ryan’s shoulder, he laughed so hard. Ryan just stared at him in bewilderment, and put an arm around his waist to steer him. It wasn’t any wonder people thought they were a couple, Spencer mused.
One of the guys involved with the programme was a sort of crazy dude named Pete. He was closer to Ryan and Spencer’s age than to any of the other guests, and after the first night, he’d taken it as his duty to make sure Ryan and Spencer were entertained. They didn’t mind; Pete knew all the best local spots, and while he was crazy, it was in a fun, contagious sort of way.
Though they started in different places each night, they kept ending them in the same place. It was called The Littlest Mermaid and it was Pete’s favourite club, with live music and awesome djs and themed parties most nights. It was always crowded, but never so much that it was uncomfortable, and there was always a table saved for them in the balcony because “the owner’s a friend,” Pete had said.
“How did you end up here?” Ryan asked, awed, when they’d ended up at the Mermaid again. The music was loud and the lights alternately dim and blindingly bright. “I mean, this poetry is really good,” gesturing to the notebook Pete had given him to read earlier in the evening. “And you’re working selling timeshares?”
“Yeah,” Spencer said dryly. “Really strange. Sort of like you working as a receptionist at a radio station,” he muttered. Ryan shot him a glare.
Pete shrugged easily, taking a long drink. That was another great part of hanging out with Pete. The bartenders at the Mermaid—all three they’d met named Alex—made their drinks strong and refused to let Ryan and Spencer pay.
“It’s something to do,” Pete said. “It passes the time. I don’t see myself doing it forever.” He got this look in his eye then, like he did sometimes. Spencer couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it made him uneasy.
“Besides, you might say that working selling timeshares is my destiny,” Pete added. His goofy smile was back. “You don’t fuck with destiny, yo.”
Ryan rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it’s anyone’s destiny to sell timeshares, Pete.”
“Oh. You’d be surprised,” Pete said loftily, and then dragged them off to the dance floor.
Spencer wasn’t usually big on dancing. He liked to hang out by the bar and enjoy the music and maybe some conversation. But Ryan and Pete were persuasive, and it was fun, letting go and dancing with them, knowing they weren’t rating his skill and using it as a basis for how he might perform elsewhere. Also, the music was really fucking awesome.
“Travie’s spinning tonight,” Pete said, like he’d read Spencer’s mind. “Wait ‘til you guys meet him.” Pete said that about all his friends, wait until Spence and Ryan met them. Pete had this way of talking, like his friends were going to be theirs, too, no question.
It made Spencer a little sad to think he probably wouldn’t get a chance to meet all of them in the short time they had in the Bahamas, and it would matter anyway, because it wasn’t like you could daytrip from New York to the Caribbean.
The crowd started thinning at four in the morning, and by six Travis had come down from the booth. He hooked his IPod up behind the bar and let Spencer and Ryan pick whatever they wanted. Pete had been right about Travis, too. He’d hit it off with Spencer and Ryan right away, and given them a dime bag ‘on the house.’
“Have they met B&J yet?” Travis asked, passing around the third joint of the night. His shit was really nice. Spencer supposed that was at least in part due to living in the Bahamas. It was like, a rule.
“Are you hitting on us?” Ryan asked, tone belligerent. He was always totally ineffectually quarrelsome when drunk or high. That, or he’d get really quiet and just stare at the backs of his hands for hours on end. “Because we’re not gay.”
Travis and Pete shared a knowing smirk. “I’ve heard that before,” Travis said.
“B and J,” Pete repeated. “And no. They’re out of town.” His smile turned a little dangerous and his tone became pointed when he directed, towards Travis, “on business.”
“Whatever, yo,” Travis said, holding up his hands. His eyes were big and sleepy. He reminded Spencer of a puppy dog.
“Oh my god, I need to go sleep,” Spencer muttered.
Ryan half-dragged Spencer back to their hotel and flung him on the bed unceremoniously. At least he pulled off Spencer’s shoes before crawling into bed alongside him. He laid an arm over Spencer’s waist and buried his face in Spencer’s shoulder. His breath was warm on Spencer’s neck.
“I don’t ever wanna go home,” Ryan said.
Spencer hummed his agreement.
When they woke up in the early afternoon of the fourth day, Ryan announced his intentions to rent a boat. Spencer only saw this ending in disaster. One time Spencer’s parents had taken them on a vacation to a lake in Oregon. Ryan had been banned from using the rowboats after flipping one and almost drowning the first day. It went without saying that he wasn’t even allowed to try with the sailboat.
“There’s this awesome place right down on the beach, Pete said. They’re cheap and the owners are apparently pretty cool,” Ryan assured Spencer, like that would somehow make all of this a better idea. Unless the owners were going to be the ones piloting the boat, Spencer didn’t think so.
The place was clear even from the distance—wedged between a touristy memorabilia shop and a surfboard place, the boat rental place stuck out like a sore thumb. The front façade was done up like a pirate ship of old and the sign out front was hand painted and aged from wind and water. “Awesome,” Ryan said emphatically.
Spencer went in expecting the worst. He was a little distracted by the guy loitering in the waiting room—he was in frayed jeans and flip-flops and the hood of his black hoodie was drawn but Spencer could make out a scruffy looking beard and brown hair. He had a sort of shifty look to him, standing in the corner and scuffing his shoes on the floor.
The receptionist was just sort of...indolently lounging at the front desk. The phone was ringing and the guy wasn’t making any move to answer it. “Um,” Spencer said.
The guy looked up, blinking slowly at them from behind shaggy hair. Spencer couldn’t really see his features very clearly. “We’re here to rent a boat,” Ryan said.
The phone kept ringing. The guy didn’t say anything. “Er. Are you going to answer that?” Spencer prompted.
“No,” the guy said. “You can, if you want to.” He shrugged. He looked really fucking high, and just plain out of it.
“Bill!” A woman came out of the back—pretty with bright blonde hair spilling down her back and a flow-y summer dress. “I’m sorry,” she said to Spencer and Ryan, and then added, words pointed, “Bill’s probably the worst secretary in the history of. Ever. He doesn’t even answer the phone about sixty percent of the time, and when he does, his conversations are remarkably useless. Also, he refuses to do filing.”
Ryan gave Spencer a look that Spencer was sure was a reflection of his own. But Spencer wasn’t going to judge. When Ryan got excited, as rare a thing as that was, he had a tendency to babble, too. Besides, her account seemed pretty accurate. All of that, and also, apparently, he let bums wander around, Spencer thought, with another wary glance at hoodie guy.
“We wanted to rent a boat,” Spencer said slowly.
“Of course you did,” Bill said back, smirking. There was something arrogant about his tone that made Spencer sort of want to hit him.
The woman smacked Bill on the back of the head so hard it made Spencer cringe in sympathy. “You boys got here just in time,” she said. “We’ve only got one boat left this morning. It’s a little big for just two, though. Are you sure you can pilot it by yourselves?” She sounded honestly concerned, which Spencer thought was sweet.
“We’ll be fine,” Ryan said quickly, and his eyes dared Spencer to argue.
“The least I can do is give you a discount on it,” she said. “I wouldn’t feel right, charging two people the same price I would a group of ten.”
Spencer felt maybe he should point it that isn’t how it worked, but she hurried off into her office, muttering about keys and paperwork. Spencer looked around the suddenly much more silent office. Bill stared back at him blankly. The hoodie guy was watching them shiftily from under his hood. Spencer could just see a lot of facial hair and dark eyes.
The front door swung open and hit against the wall with a resounding bang. “Fucking tourists!” the man shouted. He looked big and hulking at first glance, but then Spencer realised it was more about the clothing he was wearing—a huge leather coat over dark layers—underneath it all, he looked smaller than Spencer.
“Yeah, yeah, Gee,” Bill said, and rolled his eyes.
“Where’s Greta?” ‘Gee’ demanded. Bill flicked a casual wrist towards the open office door and Gee stormed through it. He didn’t bother closing the door behind him.
“Gerard,” Spencer heard Greta say, in a voice one might usually reserve for a small child.
“I can’t do it,” Gerard said back. “They’re questioning my artistic integrity.”
Spencer could almost see Greta sighing. “You need to stop taking this so personally,” she said.
“Stop taking it personally?” Gerard said back, voice incredulous. “Those are my personal logs. How am I supposed to take it any other way? Gabriel makes his drug runs down to Eleuthera and he’s everyone’s hero and I do my little part to help preserve history and I get accused of being crazy. Or lying.”
“Gerard,” Greta began.
“No. I’ve had enough!” Gerard said. “I’m not taking those fuckers out tonight. I’m going to the Mermaid, and you can tell Bren—” there was a sound like something had just muffled Gerard’s speech followed by the sound of someone stumbling against the wall.
“Should we come back later?” Spencer asked Bill, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Bill shrugged. “It shouldn’t take very long. They have this same argument every week. About his logs.” He said the word with accompanying eye roll and wiggly fingers, as if that conveyed something.
There came low words, hissed too quietly to be understood, and then Gerard came storming back out. He called over his shoulder, “whatever.” He turned his glare on Spencer and Ryan, like this was somehow their fault. “I’m going to go find Frankie,” he said to them.
Ryan watched him go in wide-eyed horror. Greta came out fast on his heels. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Sometimes Gee can get a little…”
“Yeah,” Spencer agreed. “I mean, who wears a jacket like that in the middle of the Bahamas?”
Ryan muttered something under his breath about how Spencer had no appreciation for fashion, nor any flair for dramatics. Spencer thought it was pretty decent of himself that he managed to bite back a comment about how any one of Ryan’s scarves contained enough dramatic flair for ten men.
“Well, we have a few historical pirate tours, and Gee captains one of the ships—takes people out, tells stories, improvs, you know,” Greta explained. “So he dresses up for them.” She bit her lip like she felt she’d somehow slighted Gerard and Spencer felt just slightly bad for saying anything.
“Anyway, he’s really awesome, and he has all these amazing logs he keeps. He recreated them with a bit of artistic flair, but they’re entirely historically accurate…but when people who think they’re history buffs argue with him, he gets a little defensive,” she said.
Ryan perked up at the mention of artistically historically accurate pirate ship logs, and when he expressed his interest, Greta pulled a couple from the office. They were really neat, Spencer had to admit—lots of panelled artwork and song lyrics and paintings depicting the events of the day. But while they were really aesthetically pleasing, Spencer didn’t see how they could be historically accurate. Some of the events portrayed were just a little too far-fetched. He refrained from saying as much.
Bum guy shifted over to look at the book, angling his body and face away from them. Then he cleared his throat pointedly and Greta jumped. “OH! But you’re not here for this,” she said hastily, and closed the books, sweeping them to her chest. “Let me get you guys set up on your boat!”
It went smoothly, until it didn’t. Ryan’s scarves got caught in the steering wheel, which wasn’t so much dangerous as potentially embarrassing. But once they got past the other casual sailors, swimmers and surfers and into the open sea, it was alright.
They dropped anchor with no land in sight. It gave Spencer the feeling that he and Ryan were the only two people in the world, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was peaceful, really. They lathered each other in a fresh coat of sunscreen, took a dip in the ocean and ate the lunch the picnic Ryan had packed.
“It’s kind of awesome,” Spencer said.
Ryan knocked their shoulders together playfully. “You always doubt me, Spencer Smith,” Ryan teased. “You should just learn by now that I win at everything.”
Such a bold proclamation necessarily led to Spencer proving that Ryan did not, in fact, win at everything. Their game of full-body thumb war soon devolved into wrestling, which turned into a ship-wide battle, and it wasn’t until the first clap of thunder that either of them even realised how dark the day had suddenly become.
“Um,” Ryan said. He had this way of sounding entirely innocent that Spencer stopped buying, like, ten years ago. “Maybe we should head back.”
“Yeah,” Spencer snapped, and then the sky opened on them.
Ryan pulled anchor while Spencer called in to let Greta known of the situation. Greta sounded…off, somehow. Her voice was too bright, too forced. “Everything’s fine,” she said, and Spencer wasn’t very reassured. “It’s probably best if you just wait it out where you are.”
“Stay here?” Ryan demanded, when Spencer told him. The boat rocked dangerously and a wave crested over the side, almost knocking them both off their feet.
“Maybe we should wait in the cabin,” Spencer suggested.
“And then the boat sinks and the water pressure on the door traps us and water slowly trickles beneath the frame and we don’t know whether the room will fill with water, or run out of oxygen first, but either way we’re left with a slow, painful death? No thanks,” Ryan said, and managed to look prim, arms crossed over his chest, even with his hair and scarves plastered to his skin from rainwater.
Spencer opened his mouth to say something about Ryan’s histrionics, but instead he got a mouthful of seawater. “Fuck this noise,” he said, salt bitter on his tongue, stinging his eyes and throat. “We’re going back.”
“Greta,” he called, “what does the weather report say? Because I’m not sure how much longer we can manage just waiting this out.” It was growing darker by the second, almost night black around them and the rain was so thick he couldn’t see anything beyond the ship, not even the water of the ocean.
“This isn’t right,” he heard Greta hiss and someone growled something Spencer didn’t understand. “Pete, I’m not…I can’t, this is just…”
Pete’s voice cut through the static-y call, voice as cheerful as ever. “It’s fine, Spence,” Pete said. “I wouldn’t steer you boys wrong.”
The transmission cut out before Spencer could argue, but it didn’t matter. He liked Pete, and all, but that didn’t mean he was just going to sit still in the middle of a fucking hurricane or something.
The ship lurched hard to bow, knocking Spencer against the control panel. Ryan gave a cry of distress and Spencer paused in his preparations to return to the dock. He hurried up the steps to the deck, but Ryan wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“Ryan?” he called, and there was no answer. Ryan was an okay swimmer at best, but in a storm like this, he’d be dead. Spencer held fast to the railing and looked over into the turbulent water, but there was no sign.
Another wave sank over the edge of the boat, sending Spencer back down the stairs. He didn’t even have a chance to struggle to his feet before yet another wave crashed over him. His head didn’t break the surface at once, and when it did, he barely got a lungful of air before he was submerged again.
Spencer got to his knees and managed to drag himself back to the deck, fingers scrambling for any handhold on the wall and floor. The sky had gone almost completely dark and Spencer couldn’t see very well, but he thought he may have heard Ryan say his name. Then the boat tilted sharply and Spencer’s head hit the deck, hard, and everything went black.
Ryan had opened the fucking blinds again. It wasn’t that Spencer minded when Ryan snuck into Spencer’s bed, but it was really annoying when Spencer finally had a chance to sleep in and he was woken at sunrise by the glare of light on his face.
Spencer rolled to his right and the light got brighter. Spencer frowned and noticed several things at once: he was lying on a hard wooden surface, he was uncomfortably hot, and the ground was moving.
Ryan groaned in pain and Spencer’s eyes snapped open. The ship was mostly in one piece, but there were cracks and parts where the paint was gone, exposing wood. Ryan was buried under one of the sails, shredded and piled on the deck.
Spencer scrambled to his feet and staggered to Ryan’s side. The bench wasn’t very heavy, but it had Ryan at a weird angle. Spencer lifted it off, his back screaming in protest when he bent over.
“Next time you try something like this, I’m going to punch you,” Spencer warned him.
Ryan put a hand to his head and pouted at Spencer. “It isn’t my fault. That storm came out of nowhere. Pete and that Bill guy at the rental place both said it was supposed to be clear out today.”
Spencer still felt a little dizzy as he made his way to the control board. He kept his hand on the wall to stay steady. “Yeah, well, that guy at the rental place was fucking high. And Pete’s a spaz.”
Spencer tried the radio first, announcing their call and location. The only response was silence. Not even a crackle of static. He tried again and a third time with the same result.
“Let me see that!” Ryan jerked on the mic and Spencer let him have it. He focussed his attention on the array of buttons on the board. None of them were lit, which gave Spencer a sinking feeling in his stomach. He pushed a few anyway, but nothing happened.
“Shit,” Ryan said. He threw the mic aside. “Fuck.” He stormed up the steps, Spencer on his heels.
“Don’t freak,” Spencer said. He put a hand on Ryan’s back. “We’re pretty much in the same place we were before. They got our last distress call before the storm. They’ll find us.” Ryan must have heard Spencer’s sincerity, because he relaxed a little.
Then, as if conjured by Spencer’s word a ship appeared on the horizon. For a moment it was but a speck in the distance, but when he could make out the details, it looked like something straight out of Pirates of the Caribbean—mermaid over the bow, unfamiliar colours flapping in the wind. The sails were caught on a strong breeze, drawing them close, fast.
“It must be one of those tours Greta was talking about,” Ryan said. “Maybe they sent someone out after us.” They ran to stern, waving their hands frantically, as if that would somehow make them more noticeable than their huge boat.
The ship came up along portside, close enough that Spencer could make out the features on the faces of the crew hanging over the railing of the deck.
“Good thing you found us,” Spencer shouted. “I was worried we’d be waiting a while.” Ryan looked so completely done in by their costumes that Spencer half feared what new crazy fashion he’d adopt when they got home.
A grumble went through the crowd. Spencer didn’t catch all of it, but he heard the words British, weapons, and spies. No one sounded very happy about any of it.
“Could you give us a tow back to the docks?” Spencer asked.
One of the men held out a pistol, aimed at Spencer’s chest. “Get your hands up. Both ‘a you. I’ll shoot a woman just as soon as a man.”
Ryan let out a sharp burst of laughter. “He was talking about you,” Spencer hissed at him.
“Whatever,” Ryan drawled. “Look, guys, we appreciate the authenticity of your…re-enactment, but we’d really just like to get back to our hotel.”
The pistol went off with a deafening crack and the wood of the deck by Spencer’s foot splintered. “What the fuck?” Spencer shouted.
“Next one goes through your knee. After that, I stop being nice. Hands in the air.”
“Frank. What have we said about you maiming people while you’re on our ship?” The man who spoke had an easy, lazy look about him. He was wearing, Spencer was convinced, Jack Sparrow’s costume. Right down to the hat. Thankfully, his facial hair lacked the full beard and beaded accents. He looked, Spencer thought distantly, like a man off a cover of one of his mother’s romance novels.
‘Frank’ looked crushed at the prohibition on violence and trounced off.
“Forgive our rudeness,” the newcomer said, smiling warmly at them. “But we’re going to have to board your vessel.”
Ryan, even with his hands in the air, managed to look singularly unimpressed. “What. The fuck. Is going on?” Ryan demanded, from the corner of his mouth.
A board was extended between their ships and the man strolled down it. “Where is the rest of your crew?” he asked.
Spencer looked at Ryan and saw in his eyes what Spencer was already thinking. They both shut their mouths tight.
“Look,” the guy said easily, “no one’s going to hurt you. Frank’s just a little antsy. But you have to understand with things being the way they are, we can’t just leave you here.”
Spencer kept his lips sealed, even though there were a few questions he really wanted to ask.
“Okay. Well, let’s start this way. I’m Jonathan, but seeing as how you’re our captives, you can call me Jon. I’d really like it if we could be civil about this, if that’s possible.”
Ryan rolled his eyes so hard it looked like it hurt. Spencer sighed. “Look, we’ll go along without your stupid re-enactment, but when we get back to dock, I’m filing a complaint.”
Jon gave a sweeping bow. “As it pleases you, sir. Now, the rest of your crew?”
“We’re it,” Spencer said.
Jon gave him a sly smile that, inexplicably, made Spencer’s stomach flip. He was cute, sure, but he was also a crazy asshole. “The two of you pilot this ship yourselves?”
“Not so much pilot,” Spencer muttered at Ryan, who not so subtly flipped him off.
“Blow me,” Ryan said.
Jon gave them an amused look. “Adam, Butcher, search their ship,” he called, without taking his eyes off Spencer. “I’ll show our guests to the Captain.” He gestured to the plank between the ships.
Spencer looked at Ryan again, who looked almost angry enough to kill with his glare. When we get back, Spencer urged with his eyes, and Ryan conceded, shoulders slumping.
“Alright,” Spencer said. He helped Ryan climb up the side of the ship and followed, arms out for balance. A big, warm hand steadied Spencer’s hip when he wobbled and it made him jump and almost topple off the side. Jon’s arms went all the way around Spencer’s waist. For a second, Spencer was held steady against a solid body.
“Careful,” Jon whispered in Spencer’s ear. He was so close his beard scraped Spence’s throat as he spoke. “If you fall in and drown, who’s going to report us?”
Spencer pushed away as soon as they were on board. Jon looked amused. Spencer sort of wished he wasn’t so charming or good-looking. It made Spencer want to punch Jon in his ridiculously docile face.
Jon led them across the deck, passing as they went almost a dozen men similarly dressed. They were engaged in various activities, some cleaning, some making repairs, a few sitting on the upper deck cleaning sword and guns.
The doors of the captain’s cabin were open, and Jon went through them and pushed open the inner doors without knocking.
“Jonny!” a cheerful, bright voice called.
“Captain,” Jon said. His tone was indulgent. “I’ve brought you the crew of the enemy ship.”
The captain came into view from behind a large chest. He looked young to be a captain, maybe twenty, with large eyes and an unguarded smile. He was dressed in a ruffled shirt and plain coat, left open over tight fitted breeches and leather boots that came just below his knees. It was a good look on him, and an odd contrast to Jon’s dress.
“You always bring me the best presents,” the captain said, and gave Ryan a sly look.
“I count on my captain’s generosity,” Jon said. “And his willingness to share.”
The captain gave a knowing wink to Jon. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I apologise for our imposition. I am Captain Uriel, but you may call me Brendon.” Polite, these weirdos. Except for the Frank guy with the firing of the gun and all.
“Yeah, and you can suck my cock,” Ryan said dully.
Brendon either didn’t hear or chose to ignore that comment. “I promise that we shall endeavour to do all that is within our power to make your stay behind the sea is as pleasant as possible.”
“Our stay behind the sea?” Spencer repeated dully. Ryan made a strange sucking, choking noise beside him.
“Yes,” Brendon said, and smiled brilliantly. He looked even younger when he smiled like that. “It’s the name of our ship. Behind the Sea.”
Spencer crossed his arms. “That’s just stupid,” he said. “Your ship is on the sea, not behind it. God. Learn your prepositions.” It occurred to Spencer, after the words left his mouth, that he’d been spending too much time listening to Ryan bitch about his students.
“But...but!” Ryan sputtered ineffectually for a minute and finally spat out, “but that’s my phrase. I used that. In my poetry!”
“Yeah,” Spencer said quickly, going into damage control mode, “but it makes sense in your poetry. As like…a literary device, or something. But not so much on a seafaring vessel.”
Ryan gave Spencer an I’ll deal with you later glare and then turned back to Brendon. “This is plagiarism.”
Spencer felt they were getting off track, which tended to happen when someone got Ryan started on plagiarism. “You never even published that poem, Ryan,” Spencer muttered, and Ryan gave him a wounded, betrayed look.
Brendon cleared his throat and Spencer caught the tail end of a look of shared confusion between Brendon and Jon. “I am sorry to have to detain you, but I’m afraid we are unfamiliar with this make of ship you sail.”
Spencer snorted. “Let me guess,” he drawled, “it’s way more advanced than anything else on the sea, blah, blah, blah. Can we cut the bullshit? We’re not going to play your game. You’re wasting your time.”
Jon and Brendon shared another look, this time devoid of amusement. Spencer wondered, vaguely, if they’d been friends as long as he and Ryan had been; if they could read each other’s expressions as easily.
“Is that so?” Brendon asked. He sounded too casual. There was something calculating about it. He moved to his desk, gesturing that they be seated before it. “And what, might I ask, were you doing here in your most advanced ship?”
Ryan set his jaw again and glared pointedly at Spencer, a clear sign of his unwillingness to share any further. Spencer bit his tongue and crossed his arms over his chest. He gave Brendon his fiercest glare, which had sent weaker men scampering. Brendon blinked as if startled by it.
“We would prefer to think you harmless,” Brendon said slowly, almost cautiously. “But you really should cooperate.”
“Yes, yes, you’re friendly pirates who shoot holes in people’s ships and drag them off at gunpoint,” Ryan muttered.
Jon cringed and Brendon began rummaging through the top drawer of his desk. “Really, Frank wouldn’t shoot you,” Jon said. “He’s just a little cranky right now.”
Brendon nodded sagely. “He gets that way sometimes when he’s away from…” he paused, brows drawn together and shook his head. “At any rate, we aren’t pirates,” he said. He presented a roll of papers with a flourish.
Spencer wrapped his fingers around his biceps, but Ryan leaned closer to read. A knock came on the door and Frank entered without waiting for a response.
“There’s no one else on the ship,” Frank said. “The Butcher and Adam are bringing aboard some of the foreign objects we found.” He dumped Spencer’s bag and Ryan’s backpack on Brendon’s desk.
“There were no rifles or cannons,” Frank continued, “but they have some suspicious items that were too big to be moved. You should come see for yourself.”
“Look, you can’t do this,” Spencer blurted. He grabbed the strap of his bag and jerked it close. Frank’s fingers twitched near his gun. “You can’t just go through our things.”
Frank didn’t look impressed, but Spencer refused to be intimidated. The guy was like, half Spencer’s size and despite his numerous tattoos and dark glower, he looked about as dangerous as a puppy. Except for the gun thing.
Ryan looked up from the papers. “Is this…Spencer…” he paused and held the paper out for Spencer to read. It looked like something in a museum, crinkly, yellowing paper written on by quill. It proclaimed itself to be a Letter of Marque issued by the State of Connecticut, granting the Behind the Sea permission to search, seize and destroy any enemy vessels.
“You’ll have to forgive the doodles,” Brendon said, in a hassled, amused way.
Spencer hadn’t noticed them until Brendon said anything, but now he saw the sprawling, scrolling vines and delicate flowers woven around the margins of the paper. They resembled a lot the ones they’d seen…
“Those are Gerard’s,” Ryan said. “Look, we know Gerard, okay, so can you just give the game a rest and take us back to dock?”
Frank made a strange noise and squeezed his fist hard near his gun. Brendon’s eyes went wide, and Jon laid a restraining hand on Frank’s shoulder. “You know Gerard?” Brendon asked.
“Well, not know him,” Ryan hedged. “We met him this morning, at Greta’s shop.”
“You met him this morning?” Jon said calmly. “With Greta?”
“Yes,” Ryan said, exasperated.
All three of their captors were exchanging looks now. Frank let out a growl and produced a knife from nowhere. He was across the room in three steps and had the tip pressed against Ryan’s throat. Spencer jumped, but Jon calmly drew a gun and pointed it at him.
Frank said, “Where do you have them, then?”
“What are you talking about you freaks?” Ryan hissed. “I don’t have them anywhere! Gerard said he was going to have drinks at the Mermaid with someone.”
“You aren’t very amusing,” Frank said, and pushed hard enough that Ryan made a high-pitched sound of pain and blood began to trickle down his neck.
“Frank!” Brendon said sharply, and stood. Frank gave up on the pressure and Ryan clapped a hand over the spot. “Please,” Brendon said, pinning Spencer with a look. “If you know where Gerard is—”
Spencer interrupted. “We told you,” he said. “He’s at a bar called The Littlest Mermaid, in Nassau.” He began fumbling through his bag and Jon cocked his gun. “I’m just getting my phone,” Spencer said, and pulled it out. “I’ve got Pete’s number in here. He was at the rental place. He could tell you himself.”
“What is that?” Brendon asked, eyes lighting on the phone.
Spencer didn’t even dignify that with a response. They could do their play-acting, and he would use it all to get them arrested as soon as they got off the damn ship. He flipped the phone open, but the display showed no bars.
“Jon,” Brendon said, and tipped his head toward Spencer. He made grabby fingers and Jon crossed to Spencer, snapping the phone out of his hand. He passed it to Brendon and Spencer watched with pursed lips. Brendon’s frown grew more pronounced as he pressed buttons.
“Please see our guests to the brig, Frank,” Brendon said slowly. “And Jon, have our course altered to take us to Nassau.” He lifted his head long enough to look at Ryan and Spencer. “Of course, as soon as we have spoken to Gerard and confirmed your story, we’ll be happy to release you.”
“You have got to be fucking me,” Ryan squealed. His throat was red and sticky with blood, and this had officially stopped being funny ten minutes ago.
Frank led them below deck, followed by curious stares all the way. He shoved them roughly into the barred off section at the back of the cargo hold and locked them in. “If you’ve done anything with Gerard, if you’ve hurt a single hair on his head, I’ll murder you,” Frank said. “And I’ll do it slowly. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Fuck you,” Spencer said sharply, and waited until Frank had gone to turn his attention to Ryan. “Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” He pried Ryan’s hand from his neck to get a look. The cut wasn’t long, or very deep, but it was still seeping blood.
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Ryan said weakly, and his knees buckled. Spencer caught him around the waist, helped him stay on his feet. Spencer helped him sit in the corner, propped against the hull. He unwound one of Ryan’s dozens of scarves and tied it around Ryan’s throat.
“It’s okay,” Spencer said. As soon as they got to Nassau it would be, anyway.
The journey didn’t take very long. Spencer and Ryan had only gone a few miles off the coast and the storm hadn’t taken them very much further. Without an engine, it was longer, but the Behind the Sea made good time. Spencer could tell when they got near, heard the crew shouting orders back and forth, readying the ship to dock.
They were brought up to the main deck by the man called the Butcher. He had a pleasant enough disposition and told them cheerfully, “I had to get you ‘cause the Captain was worried Frank might accidently stab you to death or something if he sent him after you.”
“Gentlemen,” Jon greeted them. “We’ll be making land shortly.”
“We are unfamiliar with this bar you named,” Brendon said. “If you will show us, I am certain we can have this whole misunderstanding cleared up quickly.”
“Yeah,” Ryan agreed. “And you can explain to Greta why her ship is just hanging out in the middle of the ocean where anyone could take it.”
Brendon and Jon shared another look. Spencer was starting to get a bit annoyed by it, really. “Greta will understand, I am sure,” Brendon said at length. “But even if she does not, to see her, and Pete, and Gerard safe, I am willing to risk her wrath.”
Ryan huffed, but didn’t say anything else, turning to stare at the approaching harbour. “Spence,” he said. There was something funny in his voice. Spencer turned and saw Ryan’s gazed fixed straight ahead, expression fascinated. Spencer looked out.
It took Spencer several moments to realise what he was seeing. The shallow waters around them were filled not with swimmers and surfers, but with other ships—lots of other ships, all similar in make to the one on which they sailed. The colours were mostly French, though several bore the American colonial flag.
The shore was bustling with activity, low slung shops and businesses dotting the near distance, and where there should have been skyscrapers and bright lights in the far distance, there were only trees. “What is this?” Spencer asked.
Brendon raised a brow. “This is Nassau,” he said.
“Where’s the city?” Spencer said.
“Spencer,” Ryan whispered. “Spencer, that is the city.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Spencer said, but his voice felt shaky. His whole chest felt shaky and empty and loose. “This is just some weird…Greta said there were other ships. This is just where they make berth.”
“Spencer,” Ryan said. He suddenly broke away from the railing of the ship, running toward the Captain’s cabin. Jon made to drawn his gun but Brendon waved a dismissive hand and followed. Jon and Spencer were fast on their heels.
Ryan was tearing through his book bag when they found him. He had his cell out and held it up. “There’s no fucking service, Spencer,” he said.
Jon shifted uneasily, but Brendon shook his head. Spencer went to Ryan’s side. “Yeah, but we’ve been getting shitty reception since we got here,” Spencer reasoned.
“You know all those philosophical talks we used to have?” Ryan asked. “All those hypothetical scenarios we came up with when we couldn’t sleep, and we said what the point would be. If something like this ever happened to us, what the point would be when we finally understood it? When we finally accepted what exactly had happened to us. I think this is the point, Spencer.”
Ryan pointed towards the doors. “That’s Nassau. And if we’re here, and they don’t know where their Gerard and Pete and Greta are, maybe we switched, somehow.”
“I think you hit your head harder than I originally thought,” Spencer said.
“Spencer,” Ryan said, and lowered his voice. He angled their bodies away from Jon and Brendon. “You saw that paper. It had Gerard’s drawings on it, and Gerard isn’t here. That Frank guy is really worried about him.”
“Or they’re all freaks who take role-playing a little too far,” Spencer said.
Ryan sighed and gave Spencer a look like Spencer was being the unreasonable one. “They’re going to look for Gerard in town, and they’re not going to find him there, and then they’re going to think we lied to them, and they’re going to think we’ve done something with him.”
“No,” Spencer said. He didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to say no, you’re wrong, this is insane, but he couldn’t make his throat work.
Frank stuck his head in the cabin and said, “We’re ready to go ashore, Captain.”
Ryan gave Spencer a wild-eyed look. Spencer was the one who planned things, who kept Ryan out of trouble, whether it was keeping him from sleeping on the streets or keeping him from getting his throat slit by fucking pirates.
“I’ll figure it out,” Spencer said, “but we have to get off this ship first.”
Part 2
