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His cell lies at the end of a long hall, the way snaking through the Gigant Horse like a worm's long-abandoned path. The sentiment may even have worked, if he were anyone else, unused to the tactic from his time in their army, and long able to navigate such mazes without a thought. As it was, it just served as an irritant.
And having himself, wrapped in the colors of the Zangyack like an ugly second skin, as his own captor was irritant enough.
The hand on his elbow is cold, the shifting cords of his muscles wrapped tight around the chilling anger flowing just beneath the thin layer of skin. No one else would know the difference, but Joe is long familiar with the face of his own rage and the sharp ice it forms in his blood, the determined focus his decisions take. His expression is a study in indifference, a full half covered in a twisting scrap of metal that stretches its claws over the pale skin of his cheeks and jaw, the vulnerable hollows beneath his lids, and a shining and impersonal wall of red glass just above. The smell of metal wafts from him in half-scented waves, and his one free eye is left to glare like a hot coal at nothing in particular. The starched wave of his cape snaps sharply behind him with every clicking step of his fine, booted heels.
He was captured somewhere around two hours ago, under circumstances he still doesn't quite understand.
There are a lot of strange, uncharted territories out among the stars, plenty of places to keep a pirate busy. Novas and planets, bits of rock and ice, great swirling clouds of stardust, treasure, so much else uncategorized and tucked into hidden places scattered through the black.
The one they found should have been obvious, its great twisting, crackling form rising up in the Galleon’s sights like a mountain drifting in impossible freedom, grand through the vacuum. Somehow they managed to completely miss it until it was right on top of them.
“What the hell is that,” Luka had said, fork hovering, paused in its ascension to her mouth, interrupted by the sudden presence looming from the gloom. A mass of churned, gravy-covered potato fell unnoticed onto the ground between her legs.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Gai stood up, nearly flinging the table onto its side in the flash of his enthusiasm. “Oh my god.”
“Uhm, we should probably hold on,” said Hakase, chewing on his lips as his fingers curled in an ineffectual grip around the worn wood of the table. Marvelous, the smug creature, just leaned back and sighed, more upset with the interruption of their meal than the threat of impending doom. He picked a string of meat from the chicken thigh, inspecting it, just as the Galleon hit, sending a wave through the ship, her bones shrieking, but holding firm.
“Right,” he said, standing, swaying only a little as she got her legs back under her. “Let’s see what this is all about, then.”
He made it sound so simple.
“We’re back on Earth,” Gai said, face crumpled in confusion, hand sprawled and leaving greasy prints on the porthole, fingers still soiled from dinner, as he stares through the clear glass.
“Maybe it’s some kind of interstellar travel technology,” Hakase snuck up behind him, tilting on the balls of his feet as he strained to see over the bulk of Gai’s jacket.
“You mean like in a Sci-fi novel?”
Joe frowned, staring out the porthole, because sure enough there was Earth, hanging in the black, spinning slowly in all her marbled glory.
“How far from Earth were we exactly,” he asked, ignoring Gai’s sudden frantic flailing as he rambled on about wormholes and dark matter, and something about a war, though Joe had been fairly certain that humans didn’t have the technology to fight among the stars, as he seemed to be implying.
Marvelous came up behind him, slinging an arm over his shoulder, and a grin across his face.
“Not a clue, but we certainly weren’t this close a minute ago.” He patted him once. “Well, whatever, I was in the mood for curry anyways. You coming?”
Joe grunted in acquiescence, keeping his reservations to himself, instead grabbing Gai in mid-flail and dragging him, with perhaps a tad amount of unnecessary force, by the back of his jacket and out the door as they left.
“Something’s wrong,” Gai said, brows furrowed, once they’d reached the ground. He pointed, with great emphasis at a building, one without any particular interest that Joe could see. "There. Right there. I remember that building, it was some bank’s headquarters or something. We totally flattened it that one time when Insaan threw us into it."
"Maybe they just rebuilt it," Hakase said, pushing past where Gai'd made an abrupt halt.
"Mm~," Ahim replied, drawing the sound out in a musical wave. "I think, given the circumstances, that would be the safest assumption to make."
"We do destroy an awful lot of buildings," Luka agreed, hand on her hip.
Gai made a frustrated noise and ruffled his hair vigorously with both hands, until the entirety of it stuck up in a frayed and tangled wave.
"I'm going to take look around," Joe said, because while he'd never say it out loud, privately he agreed with the boy. Perhaps not about that exact building, but something was suspicious and he wasn't about to make a habit of ignoring his intuition.
"I'm not saving you anything," Marvelous said, as a farewell and Joe rolled his eyes, peeling away from the rest, toward a roundabout route leading in the general direction of the suspicious building.
"Whoa, hey wait a minute," Gai howled, behind him, catching on that the others were leaving him behind and chasing after them like his life depended on it.
He met the Zangyack not long after they separated, nearly running into him on the winding road and that was when everything went to shit. The Zangyack, an Action Commander Joe had never met before, seemed confused, hesitating as he leaned close, staring at Joe like he was the most riveting sight in the universe and Joe tensed, hand going to his belt.
“Ah, General!” The Zangyack shouted, body relaxing as he stumbled back a few steps, hand going to his chest, where some form of heart presumably lay. “You scared me. I thought you were one of those horrible pirates.”
Joe's eyes narrowed.
“I am,” he growled, grabbing his key as rushed the Zangyack with a roar. The Zangyack stepped back in apparent confusion.
“General!?” And Joe's sword impacted with his shoulder, sparks flying from his hardened skin. He swung again, a low slash that sent him stumbling back with a howl of pain. One sharp thrust and he fell, body igniting into fire and smoke.
“Not bad.” Marvelous' voice. He and the others had come up behind him during the brief skirmish; Marvelous' footsteps brash, uncaring who heard him coming, familiar to Joe from a thousand other instances, and the others followed suit, trailing behind him. Not long enough to finish his curry, and Joe felt a little bad for it. A little. He turned, letting his sword rest on his shoulder.
Sid is standing next to them, flanked by Marvelous and Ahim. His arms are crossed over his chest, his expression as severe as Joe had ever known it, familiar for all Joe had missed seeing it on a face unadorned with metal and horror.
“Sempai,” He muttered, higher facilities grinding to a shocked stop. His mouth fished, searching for something to say.
“Well?” Marvelous said. “Are you going to show us what's under the suit, or are you more the mysterious type? I've got to warn you, I'm more patient than I look.”
Bullshit. Utter puffed-up bullshit he used on strangers and enemies. Joe dropped his suit, taking a step forward.
The entire group tensed, and a look of anguish crossed Sid's face.
“Joe,” he said and Gai pointed, eyes wide, barreling over whatever else he might have said.
“Hey, hey, where did he get that?!”
Marvelous' eyes narrowed.
“That's a good question. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you won't answer it the easy way, no?”
What the hell did that mean? The entire group seemed hostile. Even Ahim's expression was uncharacteristically grim. “What are you talking about?”
“That's what I thought. Sid, is it alright?”
Sid's mouth was twisted, teeth clenched. A pause, and he nodded once, like it was dragged out of him. He muttered something too quiet for Joe to hear in an aside and Marvelous grinned, key snapping up like a beacon in his hand.
“Don't worry. We won't. Alright then. Let's make this showy!”
And then they were coming after him, suits forming around them as they broke into a run and Joe had barely enough time to slap in his key and meet their swords with his own. His arm rang with the force of the blow Sid landed on his parry, the suit wrapped around him black, the crossed swords a shining silver light winking at him in a mocking display of his ignorance.
Joe grit his teeth and shoved hard against his weight, sending him stumbling back a few steps.
“Why--” he started, cut off when Ahim landed a shot point blank on his shoulder. He stumbled back, rolling it out before trying again. “Why are you attacking me?”
“Oh, come on,” Luka said, swords spinning in her grip. “Really? Is that even a question? Why the hell wouldn't we?” And Joe ducked to avoid the deadly swipe she made for his head.
"Was there a reason you killed your friend?" Ahim's sword cut the air with graceful precision, but Joe taught her everything she knew of the sword and he twisted away at just the right moment.
"He's not--" a grunt as he shrugged off the ungraceful kick Hakase aimed at his head. "My--"
Two hands landed on his shoulders, one after the other. The claws on both were inhuman, belonging to a Zangyack; the Imperial Bodyguards. A good twenty Zugormin accompanied them on either side.
"We'll let them handle this, Boss," one of them said, something smarmy leaking beneath his words, an audible smirk in his tone. "Why don't you go have a rest?"
Maybe, if he hadn't been so distracted, they wouldn't have snuck up on him, but as it was the Gokaigers were engulfed by a wave of soldiers, the Dogormin firing into their loose formation as they retreat, Joe clenched between them, arms pinned. Joe snarled, struggling in their grip, but already there was a beam of light surrounding them, the Gigant Horse hovering like a dark cloud overhead.
The last thing he could make out of the dots on the ground was Sid, black helmet facing upwards, watching him in between rolling dodges and precise slashes.
And really, it wasn't like he wanted to hurt him again. Killing him was more than enough.
Joe keeps his silence as they make their way deeper into the belly of the ship. There's not much to do right now but to watch, and to think. He's living in another world, playing by their rules now, and maybe it's not so different, maybe only one thing has changed, but he'll be damned if he's going to die here at his own hands for ignorance alone.
His guards are chattering creatures, Dogormin of high enough rank that their words are more than grunts and phrases. And really, their worlds, but for one glaring distinction, aren't that different. He can't quite tell where on the time-line this falls, beyond that it's before he and the others put an end to Earth's occupation, but it's enough to know that in this world, the Gokaigers are just as much an infectious thorn in the side of the Zangyack as in his own.
"Sir, what will you do with him?
"What is he?"
"Did those Gokaigers make him?"
"Enough," The General wearing his skin barks. The Guromin fall silent and the General turns, and leans in close, one visible eye narrowed as his hand comes up, almost thoughtfully, to wrap around Joe's neck, closing in a slow noose, finger by finger. There's just enough pressure for someone astute to feel the threat beneath the deceptively casual gesture, the very real possibility that there is strength enough in it alone to choke a man to his death. His breath is a shifting breeze against Joe's cheek.
"The only thing I want to know is why there's someone else wearing my face."
When Joe swallows his Adam's apple rubs against the sword-calloused weight of his palm.
Between them, the silence waits and the smirk that twists itself into Joe's expression fights against the gravity rising in the air. Finally, the General sighs, and his hand drops away.
"Other than that, this issue isn't the highest on my priority list. If we don't find our answers soon, I'll deal with it in a. . . simpler manner. And that is the end of that."
Joe's nostrils flair and his teeth grit; the threat implied without obvious malice nevertheless clear.
Marvelous, his Marvelous, better get here soon, because he's not going to last out his own impatience.
"Why," he asks, after they've reached their destination, his doppelganger tucking him into his cell, closing the chains tight about his wrists and ankles. One secures him to a metal loop jutting from the heavy concrete floor. Moving is difficult, standing, impossible.
A sigh, like speaking to his prisoner is a wearying hardship.
"Excuse me?" No inflection, and certainly nothing like interest.
"I want to know why," he says, tone as neutral as he can make it, like the answer doesn't matter to him at all. "Why do you follow the Zangyack?" What would make him follow the Zangyack, is the real question. Anything that he lets slide through the elegant silk adorning his hands is worth its weight in gold if it means Joe will never become this man, this creature of the Zangyack, the light in his eyes nothing but shades of murky gray and cold, shining metal.
"You'll find out," is all he says, as he stands, certain of his prisoner's security. He leans against the bars of the cell, like he's relaxed, like the hum of a good fight isn't running under his skin, waiting for Joe to say or do the right thing to unlock it into reality. He doesn't say a damned word after that, just watches him, patient as a clam with a stone.
It's really kind of dull being interrogated by himself.
Eventually, someone else enters the room. He misses the cue, whatever twitch that the General makes, calling into their shared space a tall creature with shifting plates for skin and jutting knobs of grizzled keratin rising from each, the better to bash his face in with. Which he does. At great length and with great relish for quite a long time. Throughout all of this, his Zangyack doppelganger doesn't twitch, doesn't flinch at the sound of hard bone meeting soft tissue, as Joe's flesh cracks and splits beneath the abuse, spilling out red to stain the ground around them in rust and eventual vomit. It makes him scowl, because wasting Hakase's food is like kicking a small animal with its tail between its legs.
The blows come to a stop and Joe’s body reels unsteadily in their absence, as his silent counterpart kneels beside him, long fingers twisting in his hair and tilting his head back until he's blinking to resolve the blurry form into his own face. Joe's bloody nose drips down the back of his throat and he coughs, once. The man wearing Joe's form considers him, reading him for what he's looking for and not finding it.
Joe might even have told him, if he thought it mattered.
The other him lets him go with a thrust, rising to his feet again and nodding once more at the thug hovering in the corner with the malicious glee running through his veins.
He cracks his knuckles and Joe sighs and closes his eyes.
By the time it's over, he has three broken ribs, four others cracked in various places and his body is a mass of bruises and split skin. His guts hurt with something that threatens worse than mere pain and he's missing half a tooth that he lost when his abuser's hand got a little too close and he'd bit clean through to the bone. No favors earned there, but he'd drawn back screaming, and it was almost worth the broken collar bone.
Almost.
"Enough," the other him says, calling off his lackey. He squats before Joe again, but this time it isn't for a cruel touch. He offers him a glass of water, clear and cold. Joe sets his lips around it, pragmatic enough not to refuse when refusal isn't really an option. He'd have no issues asking his grunt to force it down his gullet, Joe is sure. If he wants to waste his time trying to lure him with false gestures of kindness, well, at least Joe's throat won't be so dry.
When he's finished half of it, the sweet taste of it tainted by the copper of his blood, the General sets it down on the floor beside him, balanced effortlessly on the balls of his toes and one hand draped casually across his knees.
"So," he says. "Let's start with the basics. What is your name?"
"Joe Gibkin," he replies, around the nasal whistle of his broken nose. The General narrows his visible eye.
"Is that so," he says. Joe shrugs, a motion he regrets when it sets off his broken collarbone, sending red streaks through his vision, and his body to swaying in its wake. "Hm. And your reasons for being here?"
"Are you glad that he's alive?" Joe asks, instead of answering, surprising himself as much he surprises the General. He hadn't meant to ask the question, but there it is.
The Generals lips twitch in disapproval. "Excuse me?"
"In my universe," he hesitates only a short moment over the word. "Sid, I killed him, because when they caught him instead of me, the Zangyack ripped out his soul and forced his memories to keep fighting, killing for them. A loyal dog to the Empire."
His lips twist and he spits on the ground on the last word, a splatter of washed out red. It still hurts to say it, even if it was the right thing to do, the only thing to do. He'd been gone so long by the time that Balizorg went up into into flames and dust and mechanical, explosive heat at the end of his sword that he'd nearly forgotten him; the precise textures of calluses on his palms, the wiry strength in his body, wrapped around his own and the quiet whisper of sweet-nothings said to the shell of his ear as they rocked together in darkness. It didn't make much of a difference to the dreams he woke up from in the night, panting and sweating, except for how now they ended with Sid screaming, melting flesh from bone as the Zangyack overtook him, the scent of scorched metal hanging in the air.
His doppelganger twitches. His hand shoots out, stretching fingers around his neck once more. He squeezes this time, more than hard enough to bruise, not hiding any longer.
"Glad?” He grinds out. “He's a pirate, one who's very much in the way. Why would I be glad, when he should have died like the back stabbing traitor he is years ago," he says, and there's something manic in his eye, swirling and Joe chokes. His doppelganger takes a deep breath and drops him, abruptly. Joe coughs, an ugly rasping thing, palms flat on the ground as he struggles to his get his breath back, but he doesn't once drop his gaze.
"Am I supposed to believe that," he rasps and the General shows his teeth in a parody of a smile as he stands, all coolness once more, though he can't quite disguise the fine tremor in his limbs.
Joe wonders anew what the hell happened to turn him into this.
"We'll see," he says and his grunt steps forward, beating on him for another long, timeless stretch, and this time there's something in his doppelganger's stance, in the cant of his hip and cross of his arms, that speaks of a new interest, a relish of the proceedings. Joe watches him, holds on to that look in his eyes, that bastion of humanity, all twisted and kinked by unending lies, the fervered horror and the parade of death and destruction that the Empire holds so dear. It's the last thing he sees before his body is dragged down under the weight of pain and loss of blood.
He wakes to darkness, alone. The chains have been removed; apparently it's perfectly fine if he's loose when no one's taking advantage of his helpless state.
It takes him a few tries to stand, but eventually he manages it. Once he's on his feet it's not so bad; the dizziness fades into the background as he concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. No one comes shrieking into the room, so for now, he figures he's as alone as he's liable to get.
Whatever else is true, it turns out that physically, he and the General are exactly the same and Joe has never been so glad for Zangyack BioTech in all his life when the door swishes open at his prompting with a shallow chime.
He makes it out without running into any real trouble. The Zangyack in this universe are as oblivious as they are his in own, with one notable exception, and it takes him only a half an hour of skulking in the shadows before he comes to a stop in front of a rec room, somewhere around half-way back from the transport room. Noise and raucous laughter blast from its depths. He flattens himself against a wall, ignoring the jolt it sends through his battered bones. The world is starting to sway alarmingly, but he can't pass out again, not yet, not until he's out of the noose.
The General comes sweeping out of the room, not a moment after his back's hit the wall. Joe waits a long while, but no one follows him out. Once he rounds a corner, Joe pushes away from the wall and follows behind him, one arm wrapped around his aching gut. The hard, tender heat of it under his palm is getting alarming.
They come up on a door, a great arching thing; a bright flag that whoever resides here is important to the Empire. It's just as his counterpart is paused in front of it, one hand poised to turn the knob that the alarm blares, signaling Joe's escape. The General turns away and Joe ducks into the shadows made in a tight alley, stilling his raspy breath as he passes.
Joe slips in, just as he turns the corner, and the knobs creaks under his hand, recognizing him the same as the door to the cell had.
The room inside is spartan; unsurprising as it was the military itself that instilled the lack of clutter in him. He makes his way around the bed, the corners tucked neat beneath the mattress, and levers open the closet, hissing in pain as he has to catch himself on the edge, rocked by a fit of dizziness.
He dresses as fast as he can. He doesn't have much more time; the alarm continues to blare in the background, and outside in the hall the heavy weight created by the flashing red lights seeps in, giving the room a grisly look that the sight of his battered flesh was managing just fine with all on its own. Every so often the pounding of feet makes him tense up, holding his breath and freezing as scores of Guromin race past.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and has to reign back tight on a shudder, running low in his veins and squeezing his ribs tight.
He looks far smaller, and paler under the heavy wool jacket, and the plated armor fits ill on him, forcing him to stand straight-back, unnaturally rigid and cold under its heavy burden.
He never became this man. Maybe it was within him to become it-- no, it was within him to become it, otherwise how else would this place exist? But he didn’t. Sid didn’t let him, and he didn’t let himself.
He pulls the helmet on over his face with a determined air, cutting off his reflection in a wash of murky vision. It feeds him something, some kind of information flashing across the device far faster than he can interpret and he has no concept of how to read it in the first place.
It serves to cover up the bruises and blood he hasn't managed to wipe clean from his skin well enough.
After that, he makes it out without a great deal of difficulty. He runs into a hiccup when he's stopped by the set of Guromin standing outside the transporter room. They gape at him, until he clears his throat and they trip over themselves in their haste to salute him. Joe grits his teeth and pushes past them, jarring his throbbing rips on a ridged arm.
Someone shouts behind him and he slams the door shut, jamming the controls. It will only hold until the General or someone higher comes through, but it will buy him time. He sets the transport point from the hulking control panel curled around the platform, setting it to automatic and wasting a few seconds scrambling the coordinates of his destination.
He hits the ground below with a stumble, breaking into a staggering jog far slower than he'd wish. No one follows him immediately and eventually he can go no further. He lets himself rest against the thick trunk of a tree, head tilting back against the bark. The world sways around him, the sky a beautiful, luminescent blue.
"Joe?!" Joe tries to snap to attention, hand going automatically to his hip, but its Sid who resolves himself in his wobbly vision. His eyes are wide as he wraps a warm hand around his arm as Joe relaxes with a soul-deep relief, because if Sid’s here then everything’s alright. "Joe, Joe!"
"Sempai," he slurs, numb from his lips as his world tumbles and his knees give out from under him.
The next thing he’s aware of is the red-streaked darkness that means his eyes are closed on a sunny day. He’s warm, and everything, especially the buzzing in his head, feels fuzzy and strange, like someone filed away all the sharp corners of the world, leaving him wrapped in layers of cotton.
The clink of glass on polished wood greets him. His eyes twitch beneath his lids and he grunts, a rusty half-formed sound crawling from his throat. He slits one eye open, watering against the light streaming in through the window. There's a presence by his bed, sensed through the fog in his head, eyes watching him.
He turns his head and everything in him stumbles to a clumsy halt.
"Sid--" he manages to force out around the impossible dryness in his throat. Sid reaches next to himself, two glasses on the bed-side table, one half-empty and the other full. He leans over, setting the full cup into his hands.
"You've been asleep for seven days," he says when it's clear Joe isn't going to make a move to quench his considerable thirst. "You were bleeding on the inside." Something especially pointed in that. "You nearly died. In fact, if it weren't for Hakase's excellent skills, you would have." Joe stares at him, eyes roving with feverish intensity over the rigid plains of his profile, so familiar for all that he's forgotten so much, replaced by blank gears.
Sid's mouth moves again, and he sighs. "I imagine the state you were in explains why I found you out there, alone. Did they tire of you? Decided your skills are no longer enough to over look the failures you've exhibited on this rock?" He won't look at him, and there's a tightness beneath his words that belies his anger, words coming sharper with every sentence. "Are you surprised? That they place so little value on your life? After what they did to- after what they've done, did you honestly think it was beyond them?"
Joe closes his eyes against the tide of grief dancing beneath the timbre of his voice. His hands burn to to reach out and touch, all he'd wanted in that dark time after Sid's supposed death and his loathsome resurrection, to reassure him that no matter what else has happened, that Joe is still here, he's still here, but he isn't- no matter how close he might be, this isn't his Sid and he can't--
"You're going to shatter that glass if you keep clutching it like that." Firm hands wrap around the rim, skin just brushing against skin, and he lifts it away. The composure is back in his voice, in the line of his body, that little shake of desperation gone somewhere deep to hide.
Joe takes a deep breath and the room settles somewhere closer to still. He hadn't realized how dizzy he'd gotten until his mind calms enough for him to notice. Sid cringes, the skin wrinkling up around his patched eye.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm taxing you."
"It's alright," Joe grunts, letting his head tilt back against the pillow. "I just need a moment." Just a moment. Sid presses the lip of the cup against his mouth and Joe swallows, the water clean and cold on his parched throat. He closes his eyes.
When next he wakes, it's night. It becomes a pattern to his next few days of recovery, as he drifts in and out of consciousness. He remembers the time in snatches, little pictures wrapped in warm voices and heat. Once, there are tears, streaking down Sid's face, with a sneaking, blurry quality that may only have been a dream.
He wakes another time with something heavy warm against his thigh; Sid, fallen asleep in his chair, bent over double, bowed over his bed and his head tilted away, laying atop his leg.
Half-asleep, with something warm squeezing his chest, Joe lets his fingers tangle in his hair, creeping slow like the shush of skin against skin might wake him.
His eyes slide shut again and the texture beneath his palm changes, shifting into something sleeker, shaggier and overlayed in red. That night he dreams of them both, sweet things aching with nostalgia and release.
The first time he wakes and really feels awake is on the forth day, when he comes to all at once, the way he usually does, woken by a beam of sunlight lasering into his eyes.
His arms stretch to discomfort above his head. He looks up, and sure enough there are heavy cuffs wrapped around his wrists. He tugs on the chains, once, frowning.
"I see you've found them," says Sid's dry voice. "My companions have been getting a little itchy having you in here unsecured. Since you're feeling better, they've decided on this as a compromise. I hope you'll forgive the precaution; they're convinced this is a trap, as we haven't recently beaten any of your troops into the ground. I, however, feel that this," he tilts his head at Joe, indicating the bandages still swathed about his healing body. "Would be a little far to go for a trap."
Joe snorts. They're not Basco, after all. His lips twist into a small, wry smirk.
Suddenly, there's a warm hand wrapped around his jaw, leaching heat into his face. Sid twists his head to meet him, staring with eyes dark and intent. He's half out of his seat, the scrape of the vacated chair echoing around the small bunk. The air between them crackles with electricity and long dead history.
"How can you have changed so much, but so little," he hisses. His lips twist into an unhappy expression, and the fingers digging into his cheek twitch.
Abruptly as he came, Sid sits back, letting his hand drop and leaving a cold rush of wind in his wake.
"I'm sorry. I-I had no right." He bows his head, holds it for a beat. "Forgive me."
"It's nothing," Joe says in a rusty voice as needles squeeze his chest.
The door knob twists in its setting, interrupting the moment and startling him. Sid looks up with a frown.
"Ahim," he says, a little surprised when she steps into the room, carrying, cradled carefully between her palms, a bowl of something fragrant and steaming and a smile on her lips. It's the first time Joe has seen anyone else in the room, and he's struck by that fact; whether by Sid's request or their own suspicions they've kept away. If they're anything like his own, they will come around, eventually. Marvelous wouldn't have anyone on his crew whose judgement he didn't trust implicitly.
"Sid-san," Ahim says, to Sid's greeting and sets the bowl on the table, busying herself with laying it out. "I think, perhaps, that you've done enough for this past week. Our captive isn't going to stay put if you collapse on him in exhaustion during your guard duty."
Sid looks away, that something sharp and unhappy twisting his lips again. He takes a breath, opens his mouth to speak.
And finds Ahim's gun held with deliberate precision against the gentle slope of his forehead.
"I really am sorry," she says, still smiling that same, unassuming smile, and reaches behind herself, not taking her eyes off Sid as she slots the key blind into the lock binding his wrists to the headboard. Joe is hit with a swell of pride. "Joe-san has always spoken quite highly of you, and I do relish this chance to meet you in person, but I really must be taking him from you. Though he seems not to have suffered unduly at your hands, I loathe to keep so valuable a comrade in the care of those so poorly disposed towards him. Joe-san, shall we?"
Sid sighs.
"Of course, it has to be the first time we try to actually secure you," he mutters. "It was asking for it, in a way. Who are you? A construction, or. . . ?" His eyes narrow, and he shoots Joe an unreadable look.
"You're late," Joe grunts, neither of them replying to Sid’s accusations, as he levers himself, with great care, to his feet. He frowns as he works blood back into his hands, tingling from their time in the cuffs. There's no permanent damage, but then, he wouldn't have expected such heavy-handed treatment from his Sempai in the first place. He glances at the man in question, paused between making his escape and having one last, final moment with him, even if he isn’t his own.
"We ran into a few issues," Ahim replies, as she takes Joe's arm, leading him away and steadying him with a hand to the elbow when he puts too much weight on a damaged ankle. "I'll tell you all about them back on our ship."
"He's a murderer, you know," Sid says, to Ahim, calm, but some kind of suspicion spreading under the words. "Thousands upon thousands have died as his hands."
"I will take your words under advisement," Ahim replies in a sweet tone that says she will do no such thing and Joe snorts.
They make their way to the exit, Ahim backing out the door one step at a time with the pistol held unwavering in her grip, and Sid's eyes hot on his back as he tracks their progress.
"Hold on," Joe says, pausing, laying a hand against the frills of her sleeve. "I have one last thing I'd like to say to him." Ahim's smile shifts to something softer.
"Would you like me to--?"
"No, that's alright," he turns his head, just enough to show a sliver of his profile. "I'd like to give you some advice." Behind him, Sid makes some sound, maybe a scoff. Joe ignores it.
"Don't give up," he says. "Don't. Not ever, not even when the end is staring you in the face, and when it does you fight it with everything you have. You taught me that. You taught me not to give in. Whatever else has happened, I'm in there, somewhere. I saw it. I know myself well enough to know I did. I just-- I wasn't as strong as you, and I can't tell you if that's better or worse." He stops, abruptly run out of words, the longest thing he's said to him in his stay here. When he leaves, tearing himself from the spot, Sid doesn't say a word, and his eyes are rimmed in the red of his lack of sleep.
Ahim's hand under his arm is dry and cool, soothing and Joe doesn't look back again.