Tokusatsu musebox

It's been about a week, as far as Joe can tell. He makes a mark on the wall of the quarters he's kept in (he does his best not to even think of the room as 'his') every night, when Basco inevitably retrieves him from wherever he's been and locks him into the room. He's not sure why, as he feels much less like a prisoner than he has any right to. He supposes maybe he's trying to find some kind of pattern.

Being given nearly free reign of the ship comes as a surprise, honestly. Not that Basco trusts him, that much is obvious. The first day he was allowed to wander around, Joe did probably exactly what Basco expected him to do, and tried to go to all of the handful of places he quickly learned he wasn't allowed to go. The brig first, but of course Sally was there to block his way and herd him back up into the main area of the ship. Next he tries where he thinks he might remember the infirmary being, to see Gai, but Sally thwarts him there, too. Which at least lets him know he was right about his concept of the layout of the ship.

Other areas consistently blocked by the monkey include the engine room and the main bridge. That makes sense, and Joe takes heart in the fact that Basco still doesn't trust him enough to let him near anything that might be potentially sabotaged.

He's still waiting for the next of Basco's little tests. He needs to fix things, he has to get the others free. That's all that matters. That's his driving focus.

He finds himself spending a lot of time in the galley. He doesn't really know how to cook, but he's trying. It's a decent distraction, plus he likes making himself think about what Don would prepare for him, what Don would want for him to eat. He needs to get stronger.

He also spends an inordinate amount of time in the room he figures is Basco's personal quarters, considering how opulently appointed the room is. Not when Basco is there, and he doesn't poke around too much, just in case. Mostly he just sits on the large bed that reminds him too much of Marvelous, and he tries to figure out what Basco wants from him, what the tests might be, how he'll win, what will happen once he finally earns Marvelous' freedom (he tells himself he will, he has to).

And at night, when Basco locks him in, he sleeps. On the Galleon, he'd rarely slept more than a few hours in a night. He didn't need an excess of sleep the way Marvelous did. He'd liked to get the bulk of his exercise regimen out of the way in the wee hours of the morning, without the distractions of the crew. But now he has the daytime to exercise, when he's not cooking, eating or thinking. And at night, the long hours Basco obviously sleeps, he has nothing better to do inside his supposed quarters, and so he sleeps too. He needs to get stronger.

He usually wakes up when Basco unlocks the door, but this day, after a week or so has passed, he wakes up in an entirely different way.

With a cord around his throat.