Chapter Text
Joe has known this man for only several hours, and already he’s let Joe into his tenement, saying some ridiculous shit.
“We need to fully kill The Man in The Tower.” Doc says, sitting down at his workbench, opening drawers and grabbing tools.
“Opposed to half-kill?” Joe scoffs.
“Yes,” he answers with certainty, as though Joe had asked if the sky was smoggy today. “Life and death are real. But the boundary between them; it’s more of a doorway than a line in the sand,” Doc says, not looking up from fiddling with some electronics on the bench. “You can get caught in-between.”
It sounds ridiculous. It’s probably bullshit. Yet.
And yet.
That bullshit might be able to explain the pervasive unease that has followed Joe for as long as he can remember. The unease that has only spiked in intensity since both of his parents Disappeared.
“And you know that he’s caught in that doorway because…?” There’s a hint of genuine curiosity in Joe’s voice this time.
“It’s my fault,” Doc responds, bluntly, still not looking at Joe as he places a tracker on the bundle of electronics in his hands. It’s a telling statement. You can ask whatever questions you like, but you might not like the answer.
Joe chooses no answer. It’s simpler that way.
Eventually, Light finishes what he’s doing and explains the plan: Joe is going to take explosives to the roof of The Tower - it’s less guarded than the penthouse, and the explosion and collapse will take him down. The small wooden music box that’s been sitting off to the side needs to be there; it’s emotionally charged to The Man in The Tower, which should ‘ground’ him enough to completely kill him. Joe will use the Sniper helmet to get in, get to the roof, and get out before Light sets the remote charge.
That also sounds like bullshit, but Joe’s…not going to concern himself with the specifics. Of how they’re trying to kill someone who’s half-dead. Of ghosts and emotionally charged objects. Of how Doc knew The Man in The Tower before. He still chooses no answer.
He wants to free The City. They’re going to free The City. That’s all that matters. Joe looks down at the explosives on the workbench. He looks at the green helmet in his hands, his own reflection visible in the visor.
---
Joe pushes the door to the roof open with the very last of his strength, the music box held tight to his chest, explosives on his back. Everything hurts, from the crash, from the climb, but he’s almost there. He’s almost free, The City is almost free. Joe opens the door and-
And-
And suddenly there’s an overwhelming sense of everything. He’s just a small rock in an unfathomable ocean, drowning in the waves. His body doesn’t feel real. He doesn’t feel real. His senses all whirl together. It feels like he’s drifting through water, or moving through smoke. Something’s happened. Something- something’s gone wrong.
Joe pulls himself together enough to notice that there’s another presence here, in this place-that-is-not-a-place. It’s holding on to him? his shoulders? his very being? moving and guiding him, at least from what he can tell, existence swimming and swirling around him.
Her - he knows she’s a woman, somehow - hands are gentle, voice kind as she speaks to him. “Not now,” she whispers softly, “not this time.” He doesn’t understand what she means. This time? There’s more than one? More than one of what? Feeling starts coming back to him as they move-drift-flow through this space; things start to feel tangible again, but still overwhelming, too overwhelming to ask.
The woman moves her hands down his shoulders, and it almost feels real, like it’s supposed to. She says something he can’t make out, though it feels important, as there’s blood again, rushing in his ears. Joe tries to turn around, to look at who he’s with, who guided him, but he only catches a glimpse of long red hair before he’s pushed, the ground solidifying just enough for him to fall off of it, falling both into and over a boundary. Pushed down a well, pushed out into the open air he’s only ever heard of.
Joe wakes after what feels like both seconds and years, in a bed he hasn’t slept on in a long time. Everything looks just as he left it, but with an additional coating of dust and cobwebs. Slightly untidy, with a few things strewn about and clothes on the floor. Bare walls - he took the hand-drawn movie posters down years ago, so he didn’t think about Pops.
Somehow, he’s back in his old room, in his family’s old house.