Onboard the Free Joker... [For Joe]

[curryjolokia]

For one and a half Galactic Standard months following Basco's visit to his bedroom, Joe was confined exclusively to his quarters.  Food was provided him once daily, though occasionally the meal would arrive late or not at all.  Sometimes the following day would bring two meals, or one extra-large one; sometimes, not.  He was not allowed even into the hallway to reach the lavatory; Sally had simply tossed a bucket at his head after bandaging him up from Basco's abuse, and the rest had been left to him to figure out for himself.

Sally was his jailer and only contact; for six weeks, Joe was kept in complete isolation, save for the interludes, every few days, in which Sally ventured into his room to remove the chamberpot-bucket and place a new one in.  Leaving the room for exercise was out of the question, and any attempt to communicate with Sally went exactly nowhere, slowly, accompanied by banana peels.

Six weeks after Basco nearly killed him on his bed, on an otherwise unexemplary day, things changed.  Joe woke to the sound of his door's deadbolt sliding back.  But the door didn't swing open, and after a few moments of silence, a sour smell began to emanate from the hallway outside.  A slight shift in the light under the door, around the edges of the locking flap through which his meals had been provided, drew Joe's attention.  The light was obstructed somewhat; something lay on the floor outside the room.  And the something was bleeding - a dark puddle was slowly increasing in dimension, creeping into the room through the scant space under its door.

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[curryjolokia]

Basco's expression is warm, cheerfully patient while Joe embraces Marvelous, as though he's watching an interaction between pets of whom he's especially fond. His expression warms further when Joe turns the same reassuring look on him, but it freezes and falls when Joe shifts the topic onto his recently-deceased minion.

"She died." Head tipped to the side, Basco quirked one eyebrow and put on a mirthless smile, just for Joe. "Is that a problem?"

[gibken]

"She didn't just die, Basco." The privateer's madness is stifling in the small cell, Joe shifted to lean back against the wall beside Marvelous, to rest his bad leg, putting out one hand to rest on the Captain's calf. He's not sure who he's reassuring anymore, but he finds himself reaching for Basco with his free hand and a modicum of sincere concern. "Don't think me such a fool. She was killed. Who did it?"

[curryjolokia]

Marvelous is straining against his bonds, reacting to the conversation, or maybe to the scent of Sally's death on Basco, now that he knows enough to identify the smell. Basco smiles, approaching both his pets, and reaches up to caress Marvelous's jaw with one hand. Marvelous pulls his head as far away as he can manage from the touch, but the chains bind him, and at the end of his reach, Basco's hand catches up with him.

Holding Marvelous in place with the strong grip of his thumb and forefinger, Basco looks down to meet Joe's eye, taking in the extended hand with no small amount of befuddlement. His expression is a humorous one, if you ignore the dead coldness of his gaze.

"You're not a fool, Joe-chan," Basco says coolly. "Don't be so obvious." He turns his attention back to Marvelous, leaning in close to nibble at the once-captain's neck, with the delicacy of a lover's kiss. "She didn't serve a purpose any longer."

[gibken]

Joe's hand tightens on Marvelous' leg as Basco moves closer. He's tempted to stand up, to defend his Captain from Basco's greedy grasp, but he's not sure he has the strength to defy the privateer just yet. And he still needs to know more.

Until he starts to nip at Marvelous' neck, much to the Captains distress. Joe stands as quickly as he can, inserting himself between Basco and Marvelous. He's carrying all of his weight on his good leg, and if push comes to shove he'll surely be toppling over. But for now, he has to try and keep them both at arm's length and try to sort this. With the other cells closed off, or maybe even empty (Joe's stomach twists at the thought), Sally dead, Marvelous emaciated and Basco clearly insane, Joe has to try to fix this himself.

He takes a deep breath and puts both hands on Basco's chest to draw his attention away from Marvelous. "She let me out of my room. Must have been the last thing she did. Why?"

[curryjolokia]

"I told her to," Basco says, obviously bored with the discussion. He tips against Joe, pressing his balance, and as Joe's palms on his chest press back against Joe's own chest, Basco presses his mouth to Joe's, tongue thrusting deep. Joe's bad leg gives a bit, enough to tip Joe backward until he runs up against Marvelous, and gains support from that.

Basco, intending that to start with, growls into his pet's mouth, his glamour flickering somewhat as he enjoys the way he's trapped his prey so efficiently. He speaks against Joe's mouth, teeth scraping his lips; his gaze holds a pleasant grin as he looks past Joe's ear to smile for Marvelous.

"She was obedient, I'll give her that."

[gibken]

This is not going at all the way Joe was hoping. Admittedly, he hasn't a clue exactly what he was hoping for, but this is definitely not it. He doesn't have the strength, for as long as he was locked away he had no real room to exercise, to keep his strength up, to care for himself at all.

He struggles as best he can at first, but then Basco pulls back, just a bit, speaking against his mouth, and Joe relaxes against the familiar shape of his Captain, hating Marvelous' captivity more with every passing second, but glad at least that Basco's attentions have mostly turned away from Marvelous and onto him. It's the best he can do for now.

"Talk to me, Basco. Please."

[curryjolokia]

"I did tell you I needed advice, didn't I?" Basco nuzzles against Joe, then reaches past Joe's shoulder with one hand, claws extending from his humanlike fingers, to grip a fistful of Marvelous's hair, yanking hard enough to rip.

"I think I messed up, Joe-chan. I caught Marvey-chan, but it didn't turn out how I wanted. He's not Marvey-chan anymore. I broke his wings.

"Now I don't know what to do with him anymore. He's not my Marvey anymore...he's just a shell." Basco nips at Joe's ear, fierce at first. Then something falls out of him, some measure of tension, and Basco lays his head on Joe's shoulder, draping his full body's weight against his wobbling pet.

"Like Sally. Like you. Like me."

[gibken]

Mostly Joe's surprised his guesswork was so spot on. Basco had accomplished what he thought he meant to do. He'd caught them, he'd claimed the Galleon and all that went with it as his own, and then he was left with no goal, no drive. He spent time, Joe can see now, trying to coax some manner of fight out of Marvelous, but he'd made another fatal mistake in using Joe to do it.

Marvelous' wings weren't broken at all, merely clipped. And what held him in place was sincere belief that Joe, his best friend, beloved first mate, would get them out of this, no more than another tight spot and impending execution.

Joe. He'd picked Joe to try and spark another chase, but Joe had found, as time stretched on, that he couldn't bring himself to hate Basco in this setting, in this situation.

Basco had driven himself slowly insane, with no prey to hunt, no outlet for the base instincts of the monster inside of him.

"You stupid bastard." Joe laughs weakly, his leg buckles when Basco goes limp against him. He can't hold up forever, and his primary loyalty is still to his Captain, regardless of what kind of strange duty he's beginning to feel towards his captor. He thrusts forward with all of his weight, catching Basco around the waist and dragging him down. He lands on his back on the floor of the cell with a slight gasp at the shock, with Basco on top of him.

"Would you really underestimate us till the very end? Shells, you say, all of us? You believe that?"

[curryjolokia]

Slowly, Basco pushes himself to hands and knees, then rocks back to sit on his heels, drawing careful breath, looking down at Joe with a nakedly baffled expression. Joe has finally completely confused him, and Basco blinks heavily, obviously needing a few moments to catch up with either their position, Joe's logic, or both.

He looks up and over his shoulder, up to Marvelous's face, thinking to ask his opinion on the whole thing. And even though Joe's beneath him, Basco is still suddenly struck dumb, paralyzed, by the realization that he's kneeling in front of Marvelous. Marvelous regards him with furious anger; Basco can see disgust, dismissal, and even amusement in his former friend's gaze.

Marvelous doesn't need words to tell Basco how disgusted he is with him, how small he looks in Marvelous's eyes. And Basco suddenly realizes Marvelous has just been lying to him this whole time, patiently playing the broken bird, coiled in readiness and waiting unwaveringly for his First Mate to come for him.

Never once doubting him.

Basco rolls off Joe as fast as he can, staggering up and toward the door of Marvelous's cell. The once-captain's gaze follows him, unrelenting, as Basco sags against the doorway and tries to gather himself.

"No," he answers Joe finally, holding Marvelous's gaze. "Yes." His pistol's in his hand, and he looks down at it blankly, visibly struggling to assess how it might have gotten there. That's the problem with summonable weapons...sometimes they respond to your heart, not your head.

Shaking his head, palm pressed to his temples, Basco stumbles back from the doorway into the hall, then away, out of sight of the two left in the cell, away from the hateful, crushing expression on Marvelous's face.

A gunshot booms out, echoing through the narrow space. Muffled screams of confusion and the rattle of the other prisoners' chains being yanked to their full extents can be heard from the cells down the line, accompanied by the single, heavy thud of one body hitting the floor.

Marvelous and Joe are left in near-silence.

Epilogue

[curryjolokia]

Joe only manages command of his body because of the way Marvelous is looking at him. He's sure on his own he'd be frozen in place, wondering what specific thing he'd said wrong, what he could have said to have a better effect than this. But Marvelous's expression is insistent, and Joe drags himself upright by force of will. He's tired, and leans on Marvelous while he figures out the latches on his muzzle; as he slowly lifts it free, the spikes on its inside surface reluctantly detatching from the wounds and dried blood that covers the lower half of Marvelous's face, his captain is already speaking, unconcerned with the way his lips crack and bleed as he shapes the words.

"The crew," Marvelous rasps. "My crew."

"I'll find out," Joe says, hating that he can't make any stronger promise than that. He limps to the cell door, steels himself, and steps into the hall.

Thankfully, he supposes, he was right about the gunshot. The screams from inside the blindered cells would be the crew, fearing one of their own had just perished; but Joe had come to know Basco better than that by now.

It wasn't going to be easy for Marvelous, Joe knew, but even harder for Doc and Gai, both of whom still believed, on some level, in the possibility of marginally happy endings. By the same token, Joe doubted Ahim or Luka would have as much of a problem stomaching the sight of Basco's corpse, his skull...opened, and spilled. Joe tugged the feathery boa Basco always wore free of the crook of his elbow, laying two loops of it across the dead privateer's face. The feathers quickly soaked in the liquids surrounding Basco's head, drooping as they grew heavy with blood and other things. At the very least, the feathers covered his face, and the ruin that was the back of his head, a makeshift shroud. Marvelous would appreciate that much respect paid to him, once he could see what had occurred.

Joe called down the line to his captain. "Marvelous, it's Basco. He--"

"The crew," Marvelous rasped, his voice hoarse and raw from disuse. Joe understood: focus on the living, not the too-late.

Joe summoned the best volume he could manage, hoping his voice wouldn't crack. "Crew, sound off!" For a single terrifying second, a moment that lasted for hours, the silence that sounded after his words sank in Joe's paranoid heart like a stone. Then...

"Gokai Yellow."
"Gokai Green."
"Gokai Pink."
"MARVELOUS-SANNNN!"

Joe breathed. The muffled, painful groans from each of the four blinkered cells were the best that the crew could manage, as they were all certainly still gagged and bound as Basco had left them. The roll call had sounded less like distinct words and more like a conversation during dinner with full mouths. But Joe knew by heart the callsigns the crew were trying to say around the metal gags. One for each familiar voice.

They were all alive.

Joe found the wall switches for the cell grates, raising the blind and pulling back the bars for each of their four teammates. Feeling stronger and more whole than he had since their ordeal began, Joe gently removed each crew member's gag, doing what he could to soothe the wounds and abrasions on their faces. None of them had been so warmly treated as Marvelous. Doc, whom Joe suspected had attempted an ill-advised but nobly intended hunger strike, was even worse off than the other three, all emaciated and weak.

Joe knew it was only adrenaline driving him by this point, as he reassured each member of their crew, then returned to Marvelous's cell to begin working on the locks that bound him. Gai said he'd seen where Basco replaced the keys each time after locking them up. Luka said she'd seen them stashed in a different place. Joe checked both, trying to walk faster than his bad leg wanted him to, and found a fat keyring in each location. From there it was a slow, tedious process of trial and error to find the right key for each of the locks binding his crewmates' hands, legs, and bodies. As each was released, Joe gently lowered them to the floor, propping them up in the corner of their cells because they were all very nearly too weak to move.

Joe took his time. There was a lot to report to Marvelous, and a lot of care that would be needed on all their parts before any of them were seaworthy again.