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chaoticgeminate · 1 year

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The Saltwater Room (iv)

Summary: You’ve been a drifter across the sea for as long as you can remember, unwilling to stop and unwilling to settle, nervous to put down roots and trust others like you’d been taught growing up. Marcus grew up settled and happy, heartbreak led him to the sea and fate put him in your path.

Pairing: Marcus Pike x f!Reader

Rating: Explicit (Implied smut but not detailed, mentions of experimentation, mentions of pirates, general survival violence like fighting off animals)

Notes and Warnings: AU based on the video game Raft, will feature some locations and themes of the game. This is NOT how you survive if you’re stranded at sea, please don’t use this as practical.

Series Masterlist | Year of Video Game AUs Masterlist

i've never felt so at home (5.2k)

Vasagatan wasn’t a town, it was a ship, and you scanned the massive structure in awe. It wasn’t so large like the old cruise ships that it could take weeks to investigate but it was definitely some sort of luxury craft. Marcus dropped the anchor of the raft as you rolled the sail up and the two of you both looked at the large ship. In the week of sailing it had taken to reach the vessel you’d been meticulous about tending to Marcus’ injury, it was doing a lot better but you were still insistent on limiting his range of motion to prevent the almost healed area from getting worse.

Thankfully the salt water and herbal pastes were helping to keep infection away, big blessings seeing as you both had yet to run into an island with any communities of people, and Marcus looked over at you as he watched you get ready to head onto the ship. He was nervous to agree to it, especially after the radio tower, but you’d convinced him to stay primarily with the raft this time around; not only was he recovering from his injury still but if there were people here like at the tower then neither of you wanted to risk your only means of transport being stolen or for him to become a liability in a fight.

Not even counting the swim over, the ship had gotten wedged into rocks and pushed somewhat on shore of what might’ve been a moderately sized island, you had taken one look and knew that there was no way that Marcus would be able to make the swim without compounding his injury. He hadn’t wanted to agree with you but he knew you were right, which was why his arguing had been minimal.

“I’m going right for the navigation room, promise, the goal of this is coordinates or communication logs with Cadran.” Marcus nodded and the gentle kiss on your nose made you giggle, his own smile making you reach up to play with his scruffy beard, and you made a note to look for a good razor for him since he preferred to have a clean shave. Armed with a machete, your knife, and a headlamp that you’d pieced together with Marcus’ help you slipped into the water and began to make the swim through the gap in the rocks.

The vast difference in depth became apparent when you went from open ocean to kicking coral as you swam to the lowered back end of the boat; it looked like a ramp that had gotten stuck in the open position after the ship beached itself, with the disturbed sand and broken rock falling onto it and half submerging it. As you looked at the high wall and single door your nerves spiked, the headlamp sliding into place on your head, and you pulled the door open to see what you were working with. You had to immediately look right, the door opened to a narrow hallway in that direction, and it was dark.

The headlamp wasn’t super bright but it was better than nothing, the metal floors coated in a thin layer of algae in some places, and you thanked Marcus’ foresight of taking the shoes off the feet of the two from the tower. His pilfered pair were a little big, just like yours, so you ended up sewing together thick socks made of layers of fabric; they weren’t that comfortable but it was better than going around barefoot or in wood sandals. Every step made the sole of the boots squeak on the ground, or make a wet squishing sound, and your grip on the machete tightened when you heard rapid footfalls above you.

Not heavy enough to be a person, not heading in your direction, but the size didn’t track with anything you thought would live on an abandoned ship. The engine room was empty and you hummed after finding several notes from a mechanic, mentioning a rat infestation, but the noises you were hearing weren’t exactly small. Navigating the bottom floor was done slowly so that you could be quiet, one of the doors was locked and you backtracked to a room that had been open but you’d ignored when you heard something inside.

Your answer to what the hell was here came in the form of a giant rat…thing. The tail was curled up and it was easily the size of a small to medium dog, the screech as it pounced was a high enough pitch to echo on the metal around you but you hadn’t clammed up and instead the machete hacked right into the thing when you side stepped and put a horizontal swing into your arm. Dark blood sprayed on the walls as you stabbed it through the head to be sure it was not getting back up and you had to use your other hand to cover your mouth, gagging at the gore now on the wall and your blade.

You stepped gingerly over the body, rapidly looking around the room until you managed to find a key with the stairwell picture on the tag, and you took stock of what was in the boat and what wasn’t. Depending on how many of those rats were hanging around would determine if you came back to pilfer what you could, if there were too many then it wasn’t at all worth the risk.

Upstairs there were rooms, with plush beds, and to your immense surprise there wasn’t any water damage to any of the spaces. More notes were slipped into your journal, records of someone named General Olaf performing experiments on the rats, the lurkers, and each new thing you learned about him made your stomach crawl with disgust. He had planned to use them like soldiers, he had turned them loose on the crew when he’d abandoned the yacht after they realized it was going to get beached, and there was a chance he was still alive since the notes themselves were only dated a handful of years back.

You had to make a jack to move one of the heaviest cabinets away from the only room that had the chance of having a key for the bridge, finding a lighter instead, and with a soft grunt you began combing the ship again for supplies. If you couldn’t find the key to break the door down -since it was metal there was no way your machete was going to break through it- you had seen a gas tank that was somehow still sealed. A small part of you thought about swimming back to warn Marcus that you were going to construct a small scale bomb but it would only take longer and give more of the lurkers a chance to slip out of their hidey holes.

You’d already killed eight of the damn things and still had no idea where they were coming from, and you weren’t too keen on finding out the hard way.

One gas tank, a few electrical wires, one stray bullet, and with a lighter in hand you exhaled lightly before setting it down in front of the cabin door; the fuse was lit and you hauled ass down the stairs; there was just enough propane in that tank to work and the explosion was loud, your eyes clenched shut as you huddled down under the bottom floor staircase. There was a ringing in your ears but you saw the movement in the empty dance floor in front of you and didn’t wait, scampering up the stairs to see if you’d done it.

The door was half hanging off the hinges and you looked around the navigation room, finding blue prints with a note attached to them that had coordinates. The word Balboa was written with a question mark, the name familiar from the radio tower logs, and you couldn’t find anything else to give you direction. Your head was aching from the explosion rattling your brain but you would rest on the raft, shaking off the mild dizziness as you hurried down the stairs, avoiding the dance floor entirely to go down into the engine room and exit through the bottom most floor.

Two lurkers tried to attack you but you managed to kill one and use the door of the downstairs bathroom to stun the other one long enough to get out, making the swim for the raft after you made sure the papers would stay dry by slipping them into your bag. The woven leaves were lined with an inner plastic layer that enabled it to float, allowing you to swim without worries that the blueprints and the coordinates would be okay. As you expected Marcus was pacing, reaching out to haul you up out of the water the second you were within reach, and he began frantically checking you for injuries.

“You’re okay, thank fuck you’re okay.” He pressed his forehead to yours, gently, as he shuddered slightly with relief.

“I didn’t want to waste time to swim back and warn you I was making a bomb-“

“Why did you need to make a bomb? Wait how close were you to the explosion? Does your head hurt? How are your ears?”

“Locked metal door, went three levels down and ducked under a staircase with my hands on my ears, yes, and they still feel funny.” Marcus tugged you into the cabin, setting your bag down, and he began a cursory inspection of your ears and made you lay down.

“Don’t go to sleep, can’t do that after any kind of head injury, but I’m going to get a cold damp cloth to cover your eyes and ears. Walk me through what you found so that I know you’re awake.” He waited until he was settled in, you had the cloth on your eyes and ears, before taking your hand and letting you tell him about the ship and the lurkers and all the journal entries from Hanne and Olaf. Marcus was silent, or if he was speaking it was low enough that you didn’t hear it over the buzz of your own voice and the muffling from the wet rag, and he promised to get a course for Balboa done up.

You were good at figuring out what direction you were headed, you could get yourself pointed North with no issues, but using the navigation tech that you two had pieced together came more naturally to Marcus. He made you stay awake for a few more hours before he let you sleep, you woke up some time after noon the next day to see that he’d gone onto the yacht. The sight of a narrow, smaller, boat with a double sided paddle made you realize he’d put together what was basically a kayak but with sharper angles.

Marcus was pouring over the blueprints and offered a sheepish grin when he saw your expression, but you simply kissed him and ignored the blood stains you knew weren’t his on the bottom of his white linen shirt.

“Blueprint is for an engine.” That explanation was all the two of you really needed to justify staying long enough to piece together an actual engine, it could run on fuel or wood according to the notes. It was hard work, sure, but it also meant that Marcus had more time to heal before you went running into any other potential problems given that the radio tower notes involved distress calls there.

When the engine was finally assembled and installed, after days of non-stop work until you two absolutely had to sleep or eat, you laid in bed with Marcus and just slept as he cradled you close and praised you for how everything had come together. Downplaying his own involvement, even though he’d done most of the actual work since you’d argued against him going over to the yacht to gather and recycle what you could from the engines there. It hurt you to see him minimize his own abilities the way he was, honestly, since he was just as capable as you were even though he didn’t seem to see it.

Hanne had left notes about learning how to make a slapdash biofuel and biofuel refiner from the rangers on Balboa Island, though she hadn’t left that information -or she had and Olaf had taken it with him- but since that was your next destination you and Marcus worked on getting as much wood dried out as possible while agreeing to only use the engine in short intervals until you had a better fuel source. Leaving the Vasagaten behind was a relief, you didn’t know if the lurkers could swim but you didn’t want to chance it, and Marcus sat beside you that night as the sail and wind guided your way through the water.

“I’m glad you’re okay, I was worried that self-made bomb would have left more lasting damage.” He’d skewered two fish that were currently cooking over your little grill while the two of you ate potatoes from your planter boxes that had been cleaned and cooked up first. The clay cooking vessels that Marcus had managed to make, along with your metal cooking pot, had been a blessing in disguise now that you could actually make stews and soups. Meals like this, just sitting and relaxing as the fire crackled, were not only common but relaxing too.

“I’ll be entirely honest when I say that I tend to overestimate my abilities and my general health far more than I should.”

“You’re used to surviving on your own without someone else worrying about you, I’m not upset that you did what you had to. Like I keep having to remind you, Angel, you’re so impressive. You’ve taught me a lot.” Marcus’ free hand was holding yours, his thumb brushing along the back of your hand, and you leaned your head against his shoulder.

“You’re impressive too, you know, our skill sets compliment each other. Usually where I’m unsure you’re able and vice versa, Marcus, so please stop selling yourself short.” He hummed and pressed a kiss to your temple, the scruff of his beard and mustache tickling you a little, and the two of you spent the night after eating just laying together talking about what kind of a life you had imagined for yourselves.

“I never thought I’d really find someone in a romantic sense, actually, because of how things seemed to just fall apart for me. I’m happy that I have you, of course, I just never thought I’d have this.”

“I pictured sailing around for a bit until I felt less heartbroken, a year or two tops, then I’d go to either Tangaroa or Cadran or whatever city I could and just settle down. Ideally around my family, my parents and my sister weren’t exactly keen of me venturing out on my own, but I knew that I couldn’t really count on always being able to find them and I needed the space to be alone for a while.”

“Which you never would have gotten in any of the cities, I remember hearing from people who left Tangaroa about how strict the local government actually was with everyone working. Apparently most of the people were crammed into small apartments there and the only places with real space were for city founders and company big wigs.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised, I was worried when my family said they wanted to sail for Cadran but I can’t blame them for wanting something better than living on the ocean.”

“It’s definitely not the life for everyone.”

“Would you… if I wanted to settle somewhere would you settle with me?”

He sounded scared to ask and you knew why, logically, he was worried about you rejecting it; that you’d retreat into what you knew best, life on the sea, and leave him behind somewhere. But you weren’t afraid to try something new, you hadn’t been afraid when you decided to trust him or afraid to give him your heart, so it would be hard but you weren’t afraid to settle down if it meant keeping him in your life. You told him that, plainly and clearly, and Marcus’s eyes spilled over with tears that you kissed away before he had you on your back and crying his name into the night sky with heaving breaths against the onslaught of his mouth and a most intimate kiss.

Balboa Island was large, easily the largest island you’d ever seen, and you felt Marcus’ body stiffen when you pointed out the sign innocently sitting in the sand on the beach.

Beware of Bears

“Well…. Fuck.”

“Talk about a deterrent.”

You dropped anchor well off shore, over the week of travel time here Marcus was finally in a much better place physically, you’d fashioned a second kayak and paddle since it was convenient but the idea of facing bears was enough to seriously make you question going onto the island.

“Even if there’s two of us… the odds against a bear are bad.”

“I see the satellite receiver station there.” Marcus pointed up and you followed the line of his arm, spotting the satellite tower, and logically that meant the ranger station had to be close to it. There was a distinct lack of boats anywhere, making you wonder if the distress call from Balboa was because of the Vasagaten like you’d suspected, and you knew that Marcus wouldn’t risk it if you didn’t want to. But you didn’t want to risk the chance that Cadran’s location was actually here, seeing as it could take you and Marcus months to get close enough to pick up a radio signal until you came up with a better way of tracking where you’d already been.

“Since they aren’t actively broadcasting I don’t know what we’re going to find here but if you’re willing to try than I am too, the state of the Vasagaten and the Radio Tower along with the other notes from the tower have me worried about your family needing you.” Marcus’ jaw tightened a little at your words but you knew he appreciated that you weren’t trying to sugar-coat the potential truth, you watched his face carefully and when he nodded once and made for his kayak it was clear what he’d chosen.

Arming yourself with the hunting knife, so that Marcus had the machete, you also grabbed one of the spears so that he could take the other. It was a slow paddle to shore but as you dragged the two small vessels up out of the waves it almost felt like there was a timer, the faster you got to the tower and got answers meant the faster you could leave. Storms, sharks, and thirst were the threats you could handle without batting an eye; facing down bears though?

Marcus captured your free hand in his and pressed a kiss to your palm, the gratitude in his eyes clear even as he turned his attention to the steep pathway up off the shore, and you used the butt of your spear like a walking stick to make the upward walk a little easier. The two of you opted to move slower, the further you were from shore, to preserve as much sprinting power as you could in case you needed a quick getaway; what neither of you counted on what the sight of a man in a dark green uniform sitting in some sort of a stand, smiling at you both at the very top of the path.

“Howdy folks, welcome to Balboa Island, I’m Jack. You ain’t gotta worry ‘bout the bears on this side of things, we finally managed to set up a solid perimeter to keep ‘em on the East.” Marcus made no move of relaxing his tense posture, and neither did you, but the man didn’t seem bothered by it at all. He kept his hands off his weapon as he approached, he was actually calm with the two of you facing him down.

“Do you know the coordinates for Cadran? My family was headed there and we’re trying to find them, we’ve been through a lot to get here.”

“Coordinates? You got a workin’ navigation system?”

“We managed to piece one together.”

When Jack smiled it was joyful, even with the slight uptick of his mustache that made it seem more like a smirk, and you couldn’t help but relax just a little bit.

“Then hows about we trade? Coordinates are free but we got some extra supplies, if you could just look at our tower? Some crazy military man on a yacht showed up and had his crew ransack the tower while my team and I were fixing the relay stations, but the main Radio Tower connecting us to Tangaroa never sent anyone to fix it. when we sent a distress signal.”

“The two people there were abandoned by someone else, they attacked us when we showed up so-“

“Right, if you got the coordinates to it I can send Tequila and Ginger to inspect it. If our radio goes up we can reach out to the Caravan Island, they got lots of engineers there and can go fix up the Tower. It’d reconnect us to Tangaroa, if we get word out to them that the pirates are goin’ after towers then maybe we can get some more defenses goin’ up.”

Jack was leading you and Marcus toward the ranger station, you could see that it was actually a little community since there were a few tents and small cabins scattered around the clearing, and the people there all waved warmly at you.

“Howdy folks, come have a sit and some food.” Champ, as he introduced himself, didn’t take no for an answer and was an avid listener to you and Marcus as you recounted your meeting and adventure on the sea so far. He looked equally disturbed when you read off General Olaf’s journal entries, about experimenting on the lurkers that had infested the Vasagaten, and Jack handed Marcus a razor and a towel with a smile before Ginger led you both to the bathhouse now that you’d been fed.

None of them seemed at all surprised you wanted to keep your weapons close at hand, in fact they seemed to expect it, and while you certainly wanted to indulge in a little touching now that Marcus was freshly cleaned and shaved you both knew better than to get distracted.

The new, fresh, clothes they’d provided felt amazing compared to your salt crusted linens and as you joined them again you looked up at the tower looming over you. It was high up, the kind of height that you worried you’d get sick from, but the ladder wasn’t broken or in bad shape at least.

“I should get looking at it now, while I have sunlight.” Marcus nodded once and you began ascending the ladder, keeping your gaze up instead of out or down, and when you reached the platform you could have kissed the metal if you weren’t determined to just hurry up and get back down. The system wasn’t nearly as bad off as the Radio Tower, the worst of it all was frayed wires, and the boxes of supplies up here included a good bit of electrical tape. You did have to salvage a few new sets of wires from the old parts already up here, peeling back covers to make sure they could be easily spliced into the system, but it wasn’t anything you hadn’t already known how to do.

After patching up what you could, making notes for Jack and the others so that a proper engineer could get everything fixed up later, all that was left was to flip on the device. The solar powered unit buzzed and squealed for only a moment before the sound of crackling static filled the air.

“Base to tower, you copy?” “Tower to base, I hear you loud and clear.” “Hot dang, you are a miracle worker!”

Jack’s praise made your face warm a little, you couldn’t help it, but what you hadn’t counted on was a rapid beeping as another incoming signal was picked up.

“Balboa Ranger Station, do you copy?” “Ranger Station copy, this Caravan Island?” “Sure is, good to hear from ya’ again.”

Knowing that they had their re-established contact, and that it was going to start getting dark, you began descending the ladder carefully; Marcus greeted you at the base and hugged you, no doubt terrified that you might’ve fallen, but just being back on solid ground settled your nerves.

“We got the coordinates and an offer to stay the night, but they did load us up with supplies if we want to get moving.”

“We know its hard to trust, seein’ the state of things, but you’re welcome here; Ezra, over at Caravan Island, passed a message along to Cadran to see if your folks made it. So if you want to wait it out you’re welcome to stay until we know.”

“Sounds like a good enough reason to stay, right Marcus?” He nodded and you realized that he’d let Ginger pen copies of the notes you’d found from the Tower and Vasagaten, you were honestly glad to see that some people actually wanted to try and end the piracy and attacks. To reconnect people so that everyone could be safer and happier.

“Nervous?”

“Not really.”

Marcus was watching you but you really weren’t all that bothered, his family had not reached Cadran but instead joined a small community near Caravan Island, now that you’d finally tracked them down and knew they were okay it only made sense for him to see it for himself. He’d been away from them for three years, the longest in his life, after all.

“If I- if I wanted to stay… would you?” He sounded scared to ask and you knew why, the countless conversations you had about feeling trapped and paranoid around people after everything you had been through were good enough reasons that he’d worry, and instead of being upset by his questioning you appreciated it. Far more than he’d ever know, really, the fact that he understood your past but didn’t treat you with kid-gloves because of it.

“I can try, you just would just have to be patient with me-“ He kissed you before you could even finish, you knew he wouldn’t have asked if he wasn’t seriously considering it and you understood it since he’d grown up only traveling on the ocean when he had to. Being on land, being around his family, was the most comfortable for him and he wanted to include you as a part of that.

Marcus sat down with you between his legs, arms wrapped around your middle as the engines rumbled along toward the island. Jack and the others had given you more than enough wood for engine fuel to speed up your trip, after you helped them construct a small raft with an engine that they could use to patrol around Balboa, and evidently the gunshots in Tangaroa had been because of General Olaf attempting to take over there and failing against the city’s military.

You both must have drifted off to sleep because when your eyes opened the sun was high and you shook Marcus gently, it would be safer to head into the cabin than stay out here and risk sunburn, but he pointed at the sight of a flag and high rocks. A small raft came out to meet you and Constable Raymond seemed delighted to learn that Marcus was one of Geoff and Marissa’s kids, the two elder Pike had evidently become a backbone of the little community.

Being led ashore, raft anchored alongside some of the others, you watched Marcus practically sprint the distance to engulf his mother in a hug. His sister Laura and her wife Sue greeted you warmly, the former very welcoming and the latter was already recounting her own tales of traveling and rescuing a Pike that she ended up falling in love with.

“They’re like sirens.” Your joke made Sue burst out into laughter and hug you, while Laura rolled her eyes good naturedly, and you followed the family to the community cabin building where the other residents had been waiting for you both since learning that you were going to be visiting. It was overwhelming, everyone was curious about you specifically, and Marcus held your hand while helping you tell a very watered down version of your early life and then happily telling them the very in depth details of how you saved him and how impressive you were.

It was too much, after hours of being surrounded by people, and you escaped to the shore to just sit and listen to the waves. Marcus joined you a little bit later, just sitting beside you, and you took his hand gently in your own.

One week turned into two, with each passing day you began to grow more comfortable around the others here, the island was definitely large enough to not only house everyone but offer places to run away and hide when you felt overwhelmed. So when Rouhi approached you about buying your raft from you, in order to take up traveling, you were faced with a decision.

It wasn’t like you couldn’t build another raft, the island had plenty of resources, but there was a part of you that knew the truth; as long as you had a way of running away… you probably would. Marcus was an amazing man and you loved him, truly loved him, but even he had guilt in his eyes on nights you would wake up fighting the monsters of your memories that plagued your nightmares. When you would need to be sitting by the shore to remind yourself that even though you weren’t moving now that you could.

He wanted to stay, to settle and not have to fear starving or dying of thirst on the open ocean, and you completely understood why. You had a choice to make and Marcus gave you the space you needed to do so, watching you finish whatever task you were assigned for the day and disappear until nightfall. It was a hard choice to make and in the times of walking away and just thinking you found a friend, someone else who felt trapped and needing to run away,

Someone like you, except his drive was strictly to go to Tangaroa to join their academy to become an engineer.

The raft drifted along the waves, the gulls cry louder than ever, and Marcus stood watching from the shoreline. He looked torn, eyes shiny, and then turned to you with a smile on his face as you watched Rouhi leave with the last remnant of your life before Marcus.

“Come on, Marcus, let’s go home.” He took your hand in his and walked beside you up the worn path toward your cabin, it was early afternoon and the two of you had a few more things you wanted to get done today, seeing Rouhi off had been hard but you’d wanted to say goodbye to the raft that had served you well for the decades it had and give the young man your blessing.

The seashell pendant on your neck was new, a gift to celebrate your marriage, and you wanted to make sure all your work was done so you could spend the next few days with your husband celebrating the start of this new life.

#year of video game aus #mentalist fanfic #marcus pike x f!reader #raft fanfic #cw implied smut #cw survival violence #chaoticwrites #year of themed creation

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