for Joe

[yellowlion]

I yawn, and turn the page. It's not that late, really. I shouldn't be tired. But the house is unusually quiet and I'm finding it incredibly hard to focus on these reports.

Oh, well. I sip my coffee, then pick up my red pen again and make myself concentrate.

Comments

[yellowlion]

He knocks my hand away. I stare at him stupidly, shocked.

"Hell if I know!" I shout back at him. "But pushing people away and making accusations won't HELP!"

[gibken]

"Then you tell me what will help! You're supposed to be my father, aren't you? You're supposed to know what to do! You can help Katsumi! You can help Kazari! And Gai, too, but I'm supposed to... Supposed to just, what, go back to being a god damned space pirate? Is that what you want?"

It probably is, with my luck. They probably want me gone, knowing that I'm supposed to be an adult. I'm supposed to be self sufficient.

[yellowlion]

...and that hits me right in the feelings I normally manage to control. Normally manage to suppress. Because no parent's perfect, no one can do anything.

But that doesn't excuse failure.

"If you think I've helped them perfectly, you're a damn sight stupider than I thought you were," I say flatly. "I've failed all three of them in many, many ways. Doesn't mean I don't love them or that I'll stop trying."

I love you, too, damn you.

"And no, of course it's not." My voice cracks on the last word. "Don't go."

[gibken]

I don't believe him.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I don't believe him.

And somewhere in my heart I know it's wrong. I know I can trust him. But my head is lying, my head is telling me I can't trust anyone.

No, I shouldn't trust anyone.

I'm dangerous.

I'll get them hurt.

"I don't belong here, do I, Jou?" I say softly, my voice cracking every bit as much as his is. And I back away from him, setting the stupid Key down on the table. I'm heading for the door and I don't even realize it.

"I don't belong here, I never did."

[yellowlion]

...I've lost him.

The look on his face. He's not seeing what he used to see when he looked at me. He's never thought me perfect, and I never wanted him to. We've had little disagreements, little conflicts. But he's always trusted that I care about him, that I have his interests at heart, that I'm trying.

Not now.

It stops me in my tracks for a moment, and maybe it would've made a difference if I broke out of it faster. Maybe not. After a stunned silence I take a step towards him, hand outstretched, wanting very badly to pull the idiot into a hug. "You do belong here. You've always belonged here!" I say fiercely. "This is stupid, Joe, we can talk about this! If it's about Barizorg, or Gou, we can talk, we can work it out, we can work anything out!"

[gibken]

He's trying to stop me, but I know for sure now that his obligation is misplaced at best. At worst, well, it's probably a death sentence.

I shake my head and watch his hand reaching for me, and I back away faster, until my back finds the front door.

Am I going to leave?

"I've never belonged here." I'm not yelling, though I'd like to be. It's like I've forgotten how to raise my voice. I'm not angry. I'm just so lost. "I don't even know who I am. I never have. It's all been a lie, all of it. It's all fake." My hand fumbles weakly for the door knob and grips hard when I finally find it.

"Everything's my fault, isn't it? Sid-sempai, and what happened to Gai, and... All of it, all of it's my fault. It could be you next, you know that?"

[yellowlion]

"Don't go!" I shout. I don't know if I'm telling him not to go back to the Gokaigers, if I'm telling him not to walk out of the house just to cool off, if I'm telling him not to walk out of the house and never come back.

Okay, fine. All of them.

"It's not a goddamn lie. The circumstances, sure, but not the feelings, Joe." I should be speaking more reasonably. I should be using my words persuasively, building a case with logic and emotion to demonstrate in both ways that I really do mean this and he's being an idiot.

But instead I'm near shouting, frantic and desperate that this is happening. "You may not be a foster kid who's been in a few homes and in some trouble. But you're still part of this family, and you always will be even if you walk out that door right now, though I wish to hell you wouldn't."

I shake my head vehemently. "Joe, Joe, Joe. That wasn't your fault, and other things have gone wrong in our lives both before and after meeting you. Don't be ridiculous."

[gibken]

He's shouting, at least. And part of me wants to stop, wants to fall down, wants to let the tears loose and dissolve into pathetic sobs that no one should ever have to witness.

That wouldn't be becoming of a pirate, of the first mate.

Is that who I was?

I feel sick, scared, angry and disgusted with myself. Something's wrong, and I should just tell Jou that something's wrong, something's making me feel this way and it's not natural, but I can't.

I can't bring myself to trust him anymore. And I'm not sure why.

"You're in enough danger." I grit out, turning the door knob. "You're in enough danger as it is, without me here. You think, you think Basco's body would have ended up here if it weren't for me?" The door opens behind me, and I do possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life, never mind just tonight, when I take my cell phone, and the stupid pirate phone thing as well, out of my pocket, dropping them together onto the welcome mat before I turn and start to run.

I want to hide. From all of them.

From myself.

[yellowlion]

He's a thousand miles away.

"You think people around me don't get hurt anyway?" I shout. "The only way to get through all this is to stick together!"

What's he doing-

No. No.

"Joe, don't. We can work with the Gokaigers to protect all of us. You don't have to go anywhere-"

He's gone, and he's left both ways to contact him. I stare stupidly at the mat for a moment, at the place where we never quite managed to remove the last tiny speck of Basco's blood, before I jolt into action and run after him, taking three fast steps out the front door.

Except he's gone. He moved too fast, and I moved too slow. I can't see him.

I slam a fist into the bricks next to the door.

[gibken]

I run until my body literally can't keep it going. No particular direction, no particular destination, just running, trying to outrun my own thoughts, the frightening feelings that have plagued me since Basco showed up dead on our doorstep. No, before that. It's been longer than that.

I collapse to hands and knees in the street, my stomach's roiling but nothing's happening. I didn't have dinner, after all. My head is pounding, and my throat hurts, and I'm sobbing brokenly. I need to get up, I need to go home and try to explain to Jou how there's something wrong with me. Out here in the middle of nowhere I recognize that I need help.

"Ohh la la," An unfamiliar voice purrs in front of me. "What have we here?"

I lift my head, but my eyes are still hazed with tears and it's dark enough that I can't see properly. "What-"

Something presses down over my lips. It's too thin to be a finger, never mind cold and slick. Like some kind of wire or electric cable. A weapon? "I think I could make some good use of you."

Whatever weapon he's using is longer than I thought, and he's good with it. It slips around my neck and tightens across my throat, and then-

[yellowlion]

I calm down gradually, a little. He left his phone and his henshin device thing. Mobirates, I think. He'll be back for both of them. He wouldn't go join the Gokaigers without his Mobirates, after all.

I pace. Twitch. Pace some more. I don't touch the blood on my knuckles. I head down to the little bench used mostly by Joe, and I do sit-ups until my muscles rebel, then I look at the clock.

Nearly half an hour.

I stand up.

He's -- he's not coming back.

I jerk into action. Car keys, phone so I can call people when I'm running around the school, the park, anywhere else I can think of that he might go.

[captainmarvelous]

Don brings me the phone, letting me know it's Jou, Joe's 'foster' father. I grumble at him only a little as I grab the phone from him.

I was in the middle of eating, damn it.

"What!?" I growl into the phone.

This had better be important.

[yellowlion]

"Joe's gone," I say far too quickly into the phone, with no preamble. Marvelous didn't use one either. I dodge down another corridor, towards the music classrooms. "He's not with you, is he?"

[captainmarvelous]

My hand tightens around the phone, my knuckles going white. "What do you mean he's gone?"

I'm already reaching for my Mobirates with my free hand so I can try and reach my wayward first mate that way.

[yellowlion]

"We had a fight and he bolted," I say tersely. Dammit. He's not there. I didn't think so, but hope's always plagued me.

[captainmarvelous]

"Did he take his Mobirates? His Ranger Key?"

Do you know anything you stupid fuck?

[yellowlion]

"Not a goddamn thing. He just ran."

I ball a fist and drive it into the wall next to me. Doesn't help.

[captainmarvelous]

"Fuck." I put my Mobirates away.

"He's not here." I finally supply, just in case that wasn't obvious. "Do you know where else he would have gone?"

[hotshotlightning]

It's been a busy day. After dragging Gamu back to his room and tipping him into bed to sleep it off, I'm glad to be back.

Not for the first time, Kazari's flap turns out to be the more convenient way in and I walk in that way. It takes a moment to register but then I recognise Joe's phone and henshin thing on the kitchen table and an uneasy chill runs down my spine.

"Joe? You around?" He has to be, he wouldn't just leave these lying around. "Joe?"

[yellowlion]

[ooc .....okay now you have to tell me what happened!]

I'm just back from my latest scout around. I've left a note in Joe's room to tell him to contact me, dammit, but nothing downstairs -- which was obviously stupid.

"He's not here," I say as I clatter down the stairs. "Tried to contact you, sorry."

[hotshotlightning]

[ooc, no clue. just a busy day, I guess]

I check my phone hurriedly and wince as I see the number of missed calls. Oops. "I was kinda busy," I say with a sigh. "Sorry. But where is he then? Why doesn't he have his phone or Mobirates?"

What if he needs them and doesn't have them?

[yellowlion]

[ooc: XD oh fine, we should play out more of that stuff]

I shake my head, walking swiftly to him to squeeze his shoulder lightly. "Not your fault. Didn't mean to sound accusatory, sorry." There's been more than enough of that in this house today already. "He... ah, hell, Katsumi. We had a fight. He walked out."

[hotshotlightning]

[Indeed. XD]

"It's fine." He looks worried, this can't be good.

...Oh. Oh, that's great. "What kind of fight?"

I can't believe he'd just walk out, though. It's so out of character.

[yellowlion]

I'm not going to get too far into the details. I don't want to make Katsumi take sides, or even make it sound like I want him to. "He asked me about some things from his past, and he didn't like my answers."

I rub my forehead. "I messed up, and now he's gone, but we'll get him back."

[hotshotlightning]

"He'll come back though, right?" Unless he went right back to the pirates... No, not with his Mobirates still here he didn't. Why would he leave without them, though, it's not a good time to be walking around defenceless out there, he knows that. What's going on with him?