musicalluna

The storm Gus had spotted brewing on the horizon had graduated past brewing and was now creeping toward them over the waves like a predator toying with its doomed quarry.

“Who are you?” Shawn demanded when he voiced this opinion. “Chicken Little?”

“Chicken Little was right in the end, Shawn!”

“That's not how I remember it,” Shawn said.

“Yeah, and you also remember Mufasa coming back to life at the end of The Lion King to tell Simba he faked his death in order to teach him the skills he needed to become king.”

Shawn had started to argue the validity of that memory when the boat rocked side to side suddenly, a gust of wind sweeping over the deck. Shawn's mouth clamped shut, his fingers gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white. Gus barely got a hand around one of the handrails on the helm in time to keep himself upright.

After a moment or two, the rocking faded and Gus relaxed his hold on the bar. Shawn, however, remained as he was, clinging to the steering wheel and looking distinctly pale.

“Shawn?” Gus prompted.

The boat rolled over the crest of another, higher wave and Shawn paled even further.

Dragging out the first word into a near moan, he said, “I don't feel so good, Gus.”

Gus stared at him incredulously. “You get seasick?”

The hard swallow that followed had Shawn's Adam's apple bobbing. “Only in small boats,” he said defensively. “And only on rough seas.”

“And you didn't think maybe you should take a Dramamine or something before we went out?”

“Usually it's not a problem!”

“Because you spend so much time at sea,” Gus shot back.

Shawn aimed a dirty look at him over his shoulder. “Don't make me puke on your shoes.”

Gus immediately jumped away from him, putting space between them as quickly as possible. “Don't even think about it, Shawn!”

Shawn tipped his chin up. “Oh, I'm thinking about it.”

“These are new Pumas, Shawn!”

“Nothing like a little vomit to wear them in.”

Gus pointed a finger at him. “I will kill you.”

“Bring it,” Shawn said. Then they dipped down the side of a wave and he went pale again, his hands clenching around the steering wheel. He groaned.

“Maybe I should drive,” Gus suggested, watching him warily.

“No, no,” Shawn croaked. “I'm fine.” He let out another low breathy moan as they bobbed through a few more times. “I'm good.”

Gus rolled his eyes, but decided to let him carry on acting like an idiot if that was what he wanted. He could take over when he finally started puking. And based on the way he looked, it wouldn't be long.

~ * ~

“Gus,” Shawn said twenty minutes later, voice raised to be heard over the wind, “I think we might be in for a storm!”

Gus glowered. “You think?”

As it turned out, “far away” didn't mean “not fast-moving”. Over the last twenty minutes, the wind had picked up an almost alarming degree and the ominous clouds Gus had seen slinking toward them were now very nearly overhead, the entire sky moving like a living thing. The docile pale grays that had originally been a part of the composition had been eaten away and replaced by vicious-looking black.

Fortunately, there wasn't any lightning or thunder.

Or rain. Yet.

Unfortunately, the encroaching storm was spurring the waves around them to ever-greater peaks. Occasionally one rolled out from beneath them, leaving them to slide down into a valley and Gus' stomach slingshotted up into his throat. He didn't normally get seasick, but it was starting to look like today might be a first. His only comfort was the green tinge that had been growing steadily worse on Shawn's face. If Shawn was the first one to puke, then it wouldn't be so bad.

“Dude,” Shawn called (and he sounded distinctly croaky now), “Do you think we should keep going?”

Gus had been asking himself the same thing for the last five minutes. They obviously needed to go somewhere, but where?

He hunched his shoulders against the wind bearing down on them and stared at the GPS. It was too hard to tell which location they were closer to. He grimaced and then, because Shawn was practically begging him for an answer with his eyes, he raised his voice and said, “We should go forward—to the island!”

“Okay, whatever you say, Navman!”

Gus hoped very sincerely that he had made the right choice.

Then they dipped bow-first down into the trough of a wave and Shawn made a choking sound. As they bobbed back up to a relatively level position, Shawn lurched for the railing of the boat, leaving Gus to grab wildly for the wheel. He grimaced at the sound of Shawn puking his guts out and felt his own stomach give an unpleasant little wriggle. Think level thoughts, he told himself. Flood plains. Nebraska. Table tops.

Shawn joined him at the controls again with a thud, breathing heavily through his mouth. “Gus,” he whined, “I don't think this was my best idea ever.”

And because he was feeling a little queasy himself, Gus replied, with a little more disdain than was strictly necessary, “Really, Shawn? You're not enjoying our day out at sea?”

Instead of responding, Shawn merely moaned and slid away from the console again. A second later he was retching over the side of the boat. Gus hummed in an effort to ignore him. The sound of Shawn throwing up was doing worse things for his stomach than the rough waters were.

“Gus, are we there yet?” Shawn asked pathetically and when Gus turned to look at him over his shoulder, he was crumpled up next to the railing, his face almost ghostly in the low light.

Gus sighed. “No, we're not there yet, Shawn.”

“Why am I the only one regurgitating the last five meals I had?” he asked, still whiny.

“I don't get seasick,” Gus told him and then after a slight pause, added, “Plus I took a Dramamine when we had lunch, just in case.”

“And you didn't bring me one?”

Defensive, Gus said, “I always take one after eating at sea, Shawn. It's not my fault you didn't come prepared.”

The look of betrayal on Shawn's pale, green-tinted face was sufficiently miserable enough to inspire a twinge of guilt. It didn't help that Shawn turned and retched over the side of the boat again a second later.

“I'm sorry, Shawn. I only had the one for use as a precaution.”

The noise Shawn made then reminded Gus of the cries from the baby T-Rex in The Lost World. He started to turn around again and the boat dipped. Shawn responded to the movement with an unpleasant-sounding huurrk.

Gus' stomach turned, hard, and he had to swallow several times, teeth bared in a grin to suppress his gag reflex.

Shawn joined him at the helm again, groaning resentfully. “What are you grinning about?”

When he was sure the urge to vomit had been sufficiently quelled, Gus let the muscles in his face relax. “Haven't you ever watched CSI? Smiling suppresses the gag reflex.”

Shawn contorted his face into a sad imitation of a grin. “Awesome,” he croaked. “Now how long—”

“I can't say for sure,” Gus said, looking at the GPS. “We're not moving nearly as fast as we were before. The waves murder our efficiency.”

“Hazard a guess!” Shawn said. His disturbing smile grew broader, more forced.

“I don't know—forty-five minutes, minimum!”

Shawn groaned and finally lost control of his stomach again. He doubled over next to Gus, horrible gagging noises pushing their way out of his throat.

“Shawn!” Gus cried. Sure, he felt bad that his best friend was suffering, but gross!

When he finally stopped, Shawn shook his head and panted, “Calm—down. I've got—nothing—left.”

This time Gus' grimace was out of pity. Shawn was dry heaving.

“Forty-five minutes,” he mumbled weakly. “I don't think I can take forty-five minutes of this, dude.”

Gus tried to offer him a kernel of hope. “It should be a little better now that your stomach is empty.”

“Kinda,” Shawn agreed. “But I feel like a giant Shawn Jell-O mold.”

“We're going as fast as we can,” Gus promised him. I don't want to be stuck out here any longer than necessary. It may not be storming now, but it's definitely going to happen.” He glanced up at the dark puffs rolling overhead and pled with them to hold out just awhile longer.

“Whoopee,” Shawn said. They slid down the side of another wave and he moaned, buckling forward a little. Gus grimaced. Now he was feeling very clear pangs of guilt. Stupid Shawn and his stupid ideas. There was no way the two of them should be out here by themselves. They had no idea what they were doing. Shawn moaned pathetically again and Gus glanced sideways at his hunched over form.

“You should really lie down, Shawn. It'll help with the seasickness.”

“Right,” he muttered, hands still wrapped around the handrails for all he was worth. “Lie down. Okay. I can do that.” He inched his way around the helm to the back and eased onto his knees, breathing very carefully.

“Think flat thoughts,” Gus suggested, peeking over his shoulder at him.

Shawn lifted his head far enough up off of the deck to pin him with a glare.

“What?” Gus said and then shrugged, turning back to the controls. “It helps.”

Muttering loud enough to make sure Gus could hear him, Shawn said, “My body is trying to evict all of my internal organs and Doctor McCoy over here says to think flat thoughts. That's amazing! Heal the body with just the power of the mind. I'm only seasick because I wanted to be that way.” There was a light smacking sound and Gus guessed that Shawn had just clapped a hand to his forehead.

He rolled his eyes. “Don't get pissy with me just because you get seasick. I'm not the one who decided he wanted to take this trip without bothering to bring Dramamine.”

“That's right, Gus. Just cut a liiittle deeper. Would you like to season your fillet of 'I Told You So' with salt or lemon first?”

Gus huffed. God, Shawn could be so melodramatic when he really felt like it. “Will you stop being ridiculous? Is the nausea any better or what?”

Shawn was quiet for a second and then admitted, with a great deal of reluctance, “A little.”

Which meant he had been so busy whining about how awful he felt he hadn't even noticed it fading away. Typical. Instead of voicing this thought, he said, “Good. Maybe you should just stay down there until we get to the island.”

“We're getting close?” Shawn asked hopefully.

Gus considered the shape of the island ahead of them for a moment and then said, “Closer.”

“Seriously,” Shawn groaned, sounding disgusted. “And my dad does this for fun.”

“I'm pretty sure your dad doesn't go boating to try and pick up cases in national parks. I'm also pretty sure he wouldn't have gone the wrong way, or gone out when a storm was on the approach. There are warning systems for this kind of thing, Shawn.”

“Still, I—”

Shawn stopped talking and Gus looked back over his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of him so he could try and interpret the silence. Before he managed to find a good angle, Shawn said, “Gus, why did you turn off the engine?”

Gus frowned. “What are you talking about? I didn't turn it off.”

When Shawn spoke again, Gus could tell just by the sound of his voice that Shawn's eyebrows were raised. “Well, Gus,” he said, “it's stopped making noise and the boat isn't vibrating anymore, so even if you didn't turn it off, it's no longer operating.”

The frown on Gus' face furrowed deeper. He took a second to listen and realized that Shawn was right—the quiet rumble of the motor had disappeared, leaving behind just the waves and the low moan of the wind. “What the...”

He looked down at the instrument panel, discovering in a hurry that the engine wasn't the only thing they'd lost. All of the little dials that required power, their radio, the lights—all of them were off or dark. Behind him, he heard Shawn getting to his feet.

“This just figures,” Shawn was saying. “My dad's boat, which he keeps in perfect condition, would break down just because I'm using it. He probably has the thing booby-trapped.”

“Why would your dad want to trap us at sea?” Gus asked absently, frowning at the key, which was still very clearly in the 'On' position.

“I dunno. Why does he do anything he does? This is probably some kind of attempt to teach me a lesson about survival at sea. God knows he never got to teach me that one when I was a kid.”

“That or he's just sick of you taking his stuff without asking.” Gus shot him a pointed look.

Shawn made a face back at him. “I'm his son. Isn't that like, in the job description, right between 'make fun of his ugly shirts' and 'eat at least two cookies before dinner even though he told you not to'?”

And then Gus finally realized why they were stopped. “Oh my god!”

“What?” Shawn said, grimacing at the deck as the boat started an undulating up-down pattern. “Did you figure out what you did?”

“Shawn!” Gus barked. “We have no gas!”

“What?” Shawn said, brow furrowing, his seasickness momentarily forgotten as his brain tried to process this information. “I'm sure we had...” The frown grew deeper.

“You weren't paying attention to the gas gauge?!” Gus demanded.

“Of course I was!” Shawn said defensively. “I'm sure it said it was full.” His fingers drifted to his temple and he closed his eyes, thinking back. The frown altered into a raised-eyebrow, rounded-mouth expression that Gus knew meant Shawn was a liar. It had been close to empty. Then the frown returned. “It was completely empty when we left,” Shawn said.

Gus had already opened his mouth to berate his best friend for being an idiot when he processed what he had just said. “What?”

“It was empty when we left. Exact same spot on the dial.” Shawn groaned and ran a hand down his face. “It must be broken. Dad probably just calculates how much fuel he has left by hand. You have got to be kidding me.”

“I can't believe you didn't notice it was empty!” Gus exclaimed.

“You didn't notice it was almost empty either!” Shawn shot back.

“I was trying to make sure we didn't wind up lost at sea! If I had known you were going to ignore it in favor of being STRANDED at sea, I would have!”

“Oh, like it's my fault my dad uses a broken gauge!” Shawn said, gesturing sharply at the offending instrument.

Gus' spine straightened. “If you had looked at it when we were leaving we could have put more gas in and we would have known it was broken!”

“Well, it's not like you couldn't have looked at it either, Mr. Responsible-Pants!”

The boat rocked hard to one side, sending Shawn staggering and barely catching himself on one of the hand rails; they then proceeded to swoop right down into the trough between two waves, water rising in a spray around the bow and jerking them back slightly. Shawn blanched, dropped to his knees and immediately doubled up, strangled choking sounds crowding their way out of his throat.

Overhead, Gus heard the first rumble of distant thunder.