speakscanadian | Hangover Plot (for Fraser)

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Hangover Plot (for Fraser)

The gentle sway was almost enough to tempt Ray into a deeper sleep but the incessant sting against his face put the kibosh on that. The salty spray from the water forced him onto his side, where his cheek met with prickly fluff. It wasn't his first time experiencing such a thing, so he did what he usually did and shoved at the source of the irritation, grumbling about a stupid dog.

When no bark of retaliation was forthcoming, he creaked open an eye and wondered where they had gotten a multicolored hound from. Memory the wrong side of hazy, Ray hoisted himself up onto an elbow and shaded his eyes with a hand, cogs in his brain slow to start grinding. The sun was low in the sky, so it must have been morning. Congratulating himself on solving that puzzle, his gaze travelled the short distance to the horizon and then lower. To the ocean. And then lower. To the shawn off ends of logs. And then lower. To red knee high boots and yellow spandex currently adorning his bottom half.

Ray's reaction was so violent that it got stuck in his throat as he shot up, coming out as little more than a strangled shout. The raft rocked dangerously with such sudden movement and he clung tightly to whatever he could find.

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"Well," Fraser, began, lifting his head just enough to peer down the length of his body where, just between his boots, the Island most definitely could still be seen, even from out at that distance. "-we're not completely lost. We can still see land from here."

It wasn't much, but it was something.

Edited 2012-02-13 01:24 (UTC)

"How can you be optimistic?" Ray asked, flabbergasted, lifting his hand that was attached to a saw and shaking it in the direction of the Island. "Why am I dressed like this?! Why aren't you moving?! Oh my God."

This was the worst deja vu ever. At least Fraser could see, unless he was hearing how far away the Island was, which Ray wouldn't put past him.

"Please tell me you can feel your legs." Ray could feel his and they were blushing with embarrassment. Spandex.

Spandex!

"I can feel my legs," Fraser assured him, giving them both a little shake as proof.

What he couldn't do was recall anything that had happened the night before. Nothing that would have given him a clue as to why the two of them were currently on a raft, out in the middle of the ocean - Ray looking like a strange and colorful amalgamation of several superheroes, and him with a rainbow colored wig, his Stetson floating alongside them on the back of a sea turtle.

It was all very odd. Even for him.

"Ray? Do you... remember last night? Any part of last night?"

Ray was busy trying to paddle back to the Island with just a finger in the ocean, not daring to use a whole hand in case a shark was nearby and hungry.

"Huh? 'Course I can. We uh...ah..." Upon a ripple that was a little too violent for his liking, he whipped his hand back and widened his eyes, not quite the brave hero look that his costume suggested.

When nothing came to mind and the finger-paddle hadn't worked, he started jerking his body forward in an attempt to make the raft follow. "We did stuff. Like...making a raft." Detective skills a go-go.

"Are you saying that simply because we're currently on a raft, or because you actually recall building it?" Fraser asked, both unsatisfied and completely unconvinced by Ray's response.

"The reason I ask is because I don't remember building this. I don't remember borrowing it, either, for that matter." On the Island it wouldn't be considered that strange of an occurrence if it just popped into existence, but while that may have explained how they'd gotten it, it did nothing to explain anything else whatsoever.

Ray looked between the Island and Fraser, the Island and Fraser, unsure whether this was a trap or not. But it was Fraser, so he dropped the act there and then, pausing in his efforts to rock the raft back to shore.

"You don't remember anything either?" Ray asked, his voice filled with relief more than anything. It didn't matter how hard he tried to think, there was a blank haze over almost the entire previous day. The last thing he remembered was waking up and getting friendly with Asher but then there was nothing, zilch, nada. It was entirely unlike him to forget any kind of bedroom experience, which made the situation feel all the more hinky.

"There's not even a blur." He admitted, flopping down onto the raft so that he was horizontal as well. "I can't remember a thing, Fraser. Maybe we drank?"

"I don't drink," he answered, though it had a tinge of uncertainty to it. The lack of memory, the splitting headache and overall lousy feeling... He didn't drink, usually, but he'd be lying if he'd said he wasn't thinking the same thing before Ray had said it out loud.

"That last thing I can remember clearly is walking to the compound yesterday morning for breakfast. After that... nothing."

"Oh yeah? Then why d'you look hungover?" Ray asked with a pointed look, letting his head loll to the side so he could see his friend without much effort. The beginnings of stubble scratched against chopped wood.

"So we're on a raft, floating in the ocean, in ridiculous clothes and we have no memory," Ray summarised, his brain starting to hurt from all the thinking. "Is one of us getting married today?" Because this was sounding like the aftermath of one helluva stag night.

"Are you?" Fraser asked. Of the two of them, Ray was the one actually in a relationship. And if they'd woken up to this, with no memory of the day before, then who knew where Asher was or what he had woken up to. Or what he may have agreed to.

"Please. Asher would rather choke to death on an engagement ring than get married to me," Ray brushed off, reluctantly accepting the fact they hadn't discovered the reason behind the weirdness this morning. To be fair, Ray thought Asher would rather choke than marry anyone, but it didn't make him feel that much better.

"Asher," he remembered, lifting his hands to cover his face, grasping onto the last remnants of memory before they completely disappeared. "He was...waking me up," he continued, mindful of who he was talking to, "and I was...waking up and then..." No matter how hard he strained, there was still nothing there. "We're still asleep. It's fine. It's all fine, Benny."

The strange but not unusual shrill in Ray's voice suggested otherwise.

"No, we're not, but, yes, it will be," Fraser assure him, realizing by the sound of Ray's voice that he didn't seem too convinced by his own statements. But how bad could it really have been? True, they couldn't remember a thing and they were dressed strangely, but other than a bit of potential embarrassment, it was nothing they couldn't handle.

"But not if we're just going to lie here and wait for what we've forgotten to come looking of us," he said, sitting up, pulling his hat from off the turtle's shell. "We have to go in search of it. First things first: we need to get back to the island."

Sucking in a deep breath of fresh sea air as Fraser spoke, Ray released it in a long drawn out sigh, settling his hands loosely on his chest.

Fraser was right. They'd faced worse than this. They weren't strapped to a bomb and he was fairly certain there wasn't a waterfall nearby, so this? This they could handle.

With a noisy yawn, he stared up at the sky. "Good plan, Benny." Ray remained quite visibily horizontal though.

Fraser watched him for a quiet moment, glaze shifting from Ray, to the Island and then finally back to Ray again. "Lying down isn't going to help us get there."

And unless the turtle had a couple dozen or so friends they could rein to the front of their raft, then he was of very little use to them beyond a hat rack.

Having mistaken Fraser's plan as a kind offer to implement said plan for him, it took Ray a moment to accept the reality.

"Right. Sorry." He sat up, his body less than enthused. "I was going to uh, navigate." With his eyes closed, maybe. "...You don't happen to have an oar on you, do you?"

"I don't." He had a rainbow wig, which couldn't have been more useless in their situation. Or most situations, actually.

"You could try using your saw... Barring that, we're going to have to swim back."

"My saw..." Ray echoed, looking dumbly down at the tool by his feet.

That was the difference between him and Fraser. When Ray looked at a saw, he saw a saw. But when Fraser looked at it, apparently he saw an oar as well as a saw.

Picking it up, he threw questioning eyes at his partner. "This is a saw." Just in case Fraser had missed a vital sign there. "Not a paddle. If I try to paddle with it," he continued, dropping most of it into the ocean and heaving it through the water, "it's just gonna-- hey, it works!"

Too bad it was paddling them around in a slow circle.

"Swimming it is," Fraser said as the raft was coming full circle on the Island again. "We can push the raft along, just in ca--" Stopping mid-sentence, Fraser reconsidered finishing the thought as it currently existed in his mind. If he mentioned sharks or the like, he wasn't sure what the odds of getting Ray into the water at all at that point would be.

"In case we get tired and need a rest."

Ray was tired and needed a rest already.

"I know I'm dressed like a superhero, Fraser, but I seriously doubt I can swim the tens of miles it's gonna take to get me back on dry land," he insisted. He might not have been strapped to a bomb but the last time he remembered using such a tone with Fraser, he had been. Swinging between panic, confusion and short bursts of optimism was exhausting. It was much easier just to stick to the panic.

"It might not look far but it's a trick of the eye, Fraser. My limbs weren't made to be shark appetisers."

"We are not tens of miles from the Island, Ray." And the exaggeration was nothing if not completely expected. "Three, four at the absolute most. And when's the last you've heard of a shark attack here? You'll be fine, I promise. One sign of a dorsal fin and it's back on the raft we go."

"Nobody hears about shark attacks because the only witnesses are those being eaten, that's how everybody disappears," Ray ranted with increasing momentum, stabbing an accusatory finger down at the ocean. "Now I am not getting in the water without at least a life-jacket, a whistle and a nose clip. You want me in there any sooner, you're gonna have to push me in."

Which Fraser the polite Mountie would never, ever do, of course.

"How 'bout you push this bozo in first and keep the raft for yourself," Ray's Pop suggested, giving Fraser beside him a disapproving look. "Out here it's every man for himself. You take the raft, he's shark bait and I can get some peace and quiet. Badda bing. Everybody's a winner."

"You can go drown yourself is what you can do," Ray sniped back.

"If you have a better idea, I'm all ears, but there's no need to get snippy." That wasn't going to get them back to the island any faster. And at this point, with no idea how or why they were even out there, Ray had no grounds to assume it was Fraser's fault and to be angry at him for it. It very well could have been, but neither of them knew that for certain. He was innocent until proven otherwise.

"I'm not getting snippy!" Ray replied, frustration growing. If his Pop wanted him to stay on the raft, then Ray knew what he had to do. He dropped his legs over the side and into the water. "Let's go. I need to pee anyway."

Since Ray seemed to have found his nerve, Fraser decided not to press the matter, and instead took Ray's lead and mirrored him on the opposite side of the raft.

He paused before actually heading in. "Do you think we've eaten within the hour?"

With half a groan, Ray rolled his eyes and dropped into the water without replying. They widened at the temperature, having imagined sinking into a warm bath. It was a freaking desert island, for God's sake!

"Fraser, I'm tired already," he told him after dipping his head to get it over with. It didn't do much for his headache.

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Hangover Plot (for Fraser)

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