Breaking Bad Fic: Killing Time (Just Don't Leave), Parts 1-2

by readishmael

Breaking Bad Fic: Killing Time (Just Don't Leave), Parts 1-2

Fandom: Breaking Bad
Title: Killing Time (Just Don't Leave)
Author: readishmael 
Pairing: Walt/Jesse
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~20,750
Spoilers: Through 3x13, “Full Measure”
Disclaimer: This is for fun, not for profit. No copyright infringement is intended. Breaking Bad belongs to Vince Gilligan, AMC, and Sony Television.
Warnings: Angst; emotional abuse; serious dubcon; implied drug use; implied self-harm; some rough/unpleasant/icky sex; non-roleplayed domination/submission.
A/N: A draft of this fic has been done for over 7 months now, but I only recently got around to getting it beta'd and revised. And, uh, I honestly don't think it's as unrelentingly bleak as the warnings make it sound. Title and cut-text on the first part come from “True Love Waits,” by Radiohead, which is otherwise not intended to have any relevance to this story. Cut-text on the next two entries is from House of Leaves. Thanks to vegarin  and fakepoptart  for early feedback, and squonkfan  for her ever-cherished beta services.
Summary: After 3x13, Walt and Jesse find themselves in limbo, and Jesse's emotional instability and neediness combine with Walt's competing desires to protect and exploit him to spark a change in their relationship. 

For the week that it took Walt and Gus to work out the conditions of their détente, Jesse was a wreck.

He suddenly became reluctant to leave Walt alone, as if he feared that each time they saw each other might well be the last. Walt indulged him, mindful of Jesse's fragility—only partially diminished since the immediate aftermath—and affected more than he would have liked to admit by both Jesse’s barely concealed anguish and his devotion. He comforted the kid as best he could, trying to ease his fears and his conscience without being dismissive, and without giving in to the increasingly frequent urge to just snap at him to man the fuck up and get over it, already.

Then Walt and Gus reached an agreement: Walt would go back to work, and Jesse would not be harmed...but neither would he be allowed back in the lab. He would no longer be a part of Gus’s operation in any way, and Walt was to take full responsibility for keeping Jesse in line, which meant keeping him out of trouble and preventing him from having any opportunity to cause problems for Gus either directly or through the police or DEA.

And as soon as that question was finally answered and Walt started cooking again, Jesse changed.

Once Walt’s attention was turned elsewhere, and, more importantly, once his relationship with Jesse returned to something more pragmatic than sentimental, Jesse’s behavior became unpredictable, self-destructive, antagonistic. He would be unreachable for days at a time, and then he’d show up at Walt’s apartment late at night, wanting...something.

Someone to talk to? Someone to yell at him? Someone to notice that he’d been losing weight, that he hadn’t been sleeping, that he had clearly begun using again?

Walt still didn’t know, doubted Jesse knew himself, and it didn’t take more than a few visits before he got fed up and sent Jesse away, telling him that he could self-destruct if he wanted, Walt didn’t really give a shit, but he wasn’t going to allow it to interrupt his sleep anymore.

Jesse disappeared for over a week after that.

After the first couple days of Jesse refusing to answer his phone while his house stood dark and empty, Walt grew edgy and restless.

He wished he was in a position to simply call Mike and have him track Jesse down like he’d done before, but in their current circumstances he couldn’t exactly afford to raise that red flag, and so he had nothing to do but wait.

Even without that new preoccupation, things were strange at the lab without Jesse there. Gus had him trying out new assistants, looking for another potential Gale, someone who could learn to cook without Walt. So far, every one of them had failed. Walt had made sure of it, of course, not willing to expedite his own obsolescence, and he had taken advantage of Gus’s ignorance about the cook process to get away with finding fault with every potential replacement, criticizing and berating them for every mistake, no matter how minor. Discouraging them; shaming them; making them want to quit. None had lasted more than two cooks.

That week was hard on Walt. It didn’t matter if he was working, alone in his apartment, or visiting with Skyler and the kids: Jesse was always on his mind. When he wasn’t worrying about Jesse for Jesse’s sake – what kind of trouble he may have been getting himself into, and how badly he might be hurting himself, and to just what depths of stupidity he might be capable of sinking – he was also worried about himself. It wasn’t hard to imagine Jesse ending up in police custody and revealing something he shouldn’t, something that could implicate Walt directly or at least threaten Gus’s operation, which would put them both in danger again sooner than Walt would be prepared for it.

More to the point, and to his surprise, he found himself anxious over his lack of an ally. He realized that he very badly wanted someone watching his back, and Jesse had, after all, proven his loyalty and his usefulness, in spite of everything.

And then, out of the blue, after eight days of nothing, Jesse showed up at Walt’s apartment at two in the morning.

He was high (of course), and he was bleeding steadily from a long, oddly precise gash running horizontally across his right thigh, just above the knee. And he was grinning. He greeted Walt in a loud, cheery voice and pushed into the apartment without waiting for an invitation or even for Walt to step out of his way. Walt was too stunned to be affronted.

“What happened?” he asked, and Jesse just frowned and looked almost unbearably dopey until Walt pointed at the cut on his leg.

“Oh, uh...I don’t remember,” he answered, and it was impossible to tell if the way he shifted his eyes away from Walt’s face was because he was ashamed at having forgotten or if it was because he was lying.

Walt looked down at the cut again, at the strange neatness of it, and frowned. Then he saw Jesse move to sit himself down on the couch, and the thought was lost in exasperation. He seized Jesse's arm and kept him standing.

“I’m not going to let you sit there and bleed all over my furniture. We have to deal with that first. Take your pants off.”

Jesse actually giggled. “Oh, my God.”

“What?”

“I knew it! You are such a homo.”

“Oh, yeah, Jesse, you’re absolutely right. This is a dream come true for me. Malnourished, drug-addicted idiots are exactly my type.” But, without realizing it, he let go of Jesse’s arm and took a step back, anyway.

Jesse scoffed at Walt’s disavowal, and then they stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, until Walt reminded Jesse again that he was bleeding, and if he was going to be a moron and refuse to let Walt deal with it, there was really no reason for him to be there at all.

“Why do you gotta be such an asshole?” Jesse complained, but he finally tried to comply. Only he fumbled with his belt, and didn’t seem to be able to make his hands work properly.

“Come here,” Walt ordered, and Jesse stepped into Walt’s space without hesitation, swayed, and put his hands on Walt’s shoulders to steady himself. He stayed like that as Walt reached down to unbuckle his belt, unbutton and unzip his pants, and ease them down until gravity took over and they fell softly to the floor.

During that process, Walt was struck by the most powerful case of deja vu he’d ever experienced. It didn’t take long to sort out that he was making a connection between Jesse and Walter, Jr. – an association with helping Junior into and out of his pants whenever he hadn't been able to do it himself.

This association carried with it a confused, cloudy sense of guilt. And his confusion had only been compounded when in the middle of it all Jesse had met his eyes briefly, the hazy distance in them almost completely gone, and then hurriedly glanced away. Only in that moment’s wake, in spite of Jesse’s earlier bullshit, did Walt become fully aware of the implications of what he was doing.

Because Jesse had been aware all along, and he’d let Walt do it, anyway.

Walt was struck by that feeling of uncanniness again as Jesse leaned into him, using him to keep his balance as he stepped out of his jeans, and immediately after he was done, Walt backed away. He left Jesse standing there uselessly by himself, still not allowed on the couch, until he returned from the bathroom with first aid supplies and a towel for Jesse to sit on.

It was the work of mere moments to clean and dress the wound, and then Walt settled himself down on the couch next to Jesse, trying to think of a way to say This has to stop, you’re becoming a liability to which Jesse might respond with anything but pointless hurt and defensiveness and anger.

Jesse spoke up before he could find it.

“I was thinking...I mean, maybe the best thing for both of us would be for me to just leave town, yo. Then I’ll be out of your hair, right, and maybe I could, you know...make a fresh start somewhere.”

The suggestion filled Walt with an instant, sickly dread.

“No, no, no. What are you even talking about? I need you. Alright? I need you here, Jesse. And I need you clean and on your guard. In fact, I’m putting you on call until further notice. Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“You know what.” He watched Jesse rub his eye and drag his hand down the side of his face, and he spoke up again before Jesse had a chance to try and argue. “Look, Jesse, I didn’t save your life so you could just disappear, leave your whole life behind and end up getting yourself into even worse trouble. And once we’re separated they’d come after you. You know that. You wouldn’t last a month. You have to stay here.”

There was a long pause while Jesse considered his words, and Walt tried to prepare himself for whatever poorly thought-out objections Jesse might voice. But Jesse was as unpredictable as ever.

“Why did you save me?”

The question was so completely unexpected that Walt actually sputtered, first stunned and then simply at a loss. Jesse was fishing for something, that much was obvious, but Walt didn’t know what it was. He let the question hang in the air, answered only by an awkward pat on the back, until finally Jesse just let it drop.

“Okay, so...like, stay here and do what, exactly?”

“Wait. Okay? Things are going to have to change, maybe soon, and I’m going to need you when they do. We’re still partners, right?”

“Just stay and wait?”

“Stay and wait. Get yourself clean. And I’ll be here, alright? As much as I can.”

Jesse sighed. Then: “Okay. Alright, fine, whatever you say.”

Walt, relieved, reached out to rub his back, less tentatively this time. “Good, son. That’s good.”

Jesse crashed on Walt’s couch that night because Walt didn’t trust him to make it home safely on his own and didn’t feel like driving him.

And after that, Jesse changed again.

He suddenly became quiet, agreeable, even polite. What’s more, just as during that first week, he seemed to want to be with Walt as often as Walt would allow it.

Walt was amenable to that change, at least; it allowed him to monitor Jesse’s sobriety without having to take his word for it – although he did ask, every time, just to make it clear to Jesse how important the answer was, and he took advantage of the time they spent together to ensure that Jesse never had a chance to lie about it. Jesse seemed to prefer Walt’s company to going back to his NA meetings, and Walt didn’t mind. He thought maybe Jesse didn’t want to have to admit to his counselor that he’d backslid.

Getting clean and taking unusual pains not to annoy Walt when they were together weren’t the only changes that had come over Jesse, though. The other, and the only one that Walt was beginning to find problematic, was a newborn eagerness for physical closeness and contact.

In and of itself, Walt didn’t have a problem with it. If Jesse had come to treat him as his security blanket, it was at least better than being his safety net, expected to swoop in and save the day when Jesse got stupid and reckless. It was still kind of invasive, still rooted, as far as Walt was concerned, in a sense of childish entitlement that he found rather contemptible, but he resented it much less.

In all honesty, he actually kind of enjoyed it.

But this was more than what Walt had seen from Jesse before, more than reaching out to Walt for comfort because he was the only one there to give it. This was constant and irrespective of his mood and smaller in scale – little, casual touches on the back or the arm while they were talking, mostly, especially when they first came together or right before they separated again. And that wasn’t all.

More noticeably, Jesse had taken to sitting close to Walt whenever they were on Walt’s couch or Jesse’s futon together, their shoulders and thighs touching—and sometimes as the evening went on he’d actually lean into Walt’s side. Walt had struggled over the resulting impulse to put his arm around Jesse’s shoulders, but he’d given in, and Jesse had favored him with a shy, sincere smile that had made Walt’s chest clench.

The tremendous ease of it all made him increasingly uncomfortable.

And what was worse was how Jesse reacted whenever Walt touched him, the way he lit up like the sun coming out from behind a cloud—something about the consistent intensity of that response ate at him.

Where had it come from? From the beginning, Jesse had held onto the student’s conditioned suspicion of every touch, on guard for any sign of lascivious intent or impropriety, and not at all concerned about embarrassing Walt in the process. For the whole length of their partnership, almost any contact that Jesse hadn’t initiated, he’d questioned or outright backed away from. And now this.

He thought about the cut on Jesse’s leg again, the odd neatness of it, the convenience of it, and he began to consciously wonder if maybe he'd glimpsed the true scope of Jesse's neediness.

The idea had been scratching at his brain for days now, and with it had already arisen certain other thoughts – thoughts he very much wanted not to be having, about how easy it would be and what he could do and how much Jesse would allow if he pushed just right.

There were no specifics. He'd tried to force them, once, just to see – to actively construct some fantasy of what, exactly, it was that he could do – but his mind’s attempt to picture he and Jesse in some kind of sexual situation had only made him feel disgusting and creepy and kind of pathetic. And old. Beyond certain expressions he sometimes imagined seeing in those remarkable blue eyes—expressions he largely felt disturbed about wanting to inspire—the specifics did nothing for him.

In the abstract, though, the idea was driving him insane. He was tense whenever Jesse touched him, and overly deliberate in every bit of contact he returned or initiated himself.

He’d realized he was waiting for something, and he didn’t want to think about what it might be.

And then it happened.

Jesse was over at Walt’s apartment again. For a while they had kept up the pretense that there was actually a practical reason for these visits, something that had nothing to do with Walt’s supervision or Jesse’s strange clinginess, but when they’d run out of half-assed what-if scenarios to plan for, it had turned into this, sitting uncomfortably close and watching TV.

Jesse had dozed off a few minutes earlier, and now he turned and rolled into Walt, lying on one hip and, in the process, pressing his groin against Walt’s leg.

He was hard.

It took Walt a couple of seconds to be sure of what he’d felt, and then Jesse rocked into his thigh, unconsciously rutted against him and let slip a barely audible moan, and even as Walt froze and tried to prepare himself to handle whatever was about to happen, he was flooded with almost delirious relief.

Finally.

He slid his hand down from Jesse’s shoulder to his waist, and then said his name. Jesse woke up with a blink, and after a second his eyes went wide and he tried to pull away. Walt held him in place.

“Wait, wait, calm down, it’s okay, don’t worry about it,” Walt soothed, and Jesse instantly went still against him.

“Fine, I’m calm—now let me go.”

Walt took a few seconds to weigh the risk of refusing. He had a question he needed answered, and Jesse’s attempt to pull away wasn’t conclusive enough to silence that stupid, yammering voice that told him he could do something with this if he wanted, without saying what, or why he might want it, or even if he actually did.

Jesse squirmed uncomfortably and tried to put some distance between them, and Walt let him. After a moment, Walt decided that maybe it wasn’t worth it, that maybe it would be better after all if he just let Jesse go, and maybe once Jesse wasn’t so embarrassed they could just talk about it – all of it.

Thinking these thoughts, he shifted in his seat, and accidentally pressed his thigh more firmly against Jesse’s erection. Jesse groaned, and Walt strengthened his resolve.

He wrapped his arm more securely around Jesse’s waist again and pushed his leg harder into Jesse’s crotch for a few seconds, then pulled back. Jesse’s eyes closed and his breath caught in his throat.

“What are you doing?” His voice was shaky.

“I don’t know,” Walt admitted at once, surprising himself. With effort, he held himself back from making contact again, ready to put a stop to whatever the hell this was just as soon as Jesse insisted. But then Jesse pressed against him instead, and inhaled audibly.

“Fuck...I need...Can you...?”

Walt knew that he could let Jesse go, and Jesse would bolt up and leave, and then they’d never talk about it again. And that would be for the best.

But there was still the barest possibility that Jesse was asking something else.

As Walt opened his mouth to voice the question, he found himself having to resist the impulse to spread his knees apart and push his leg more firmly into Jesse’s groin once again.

“Can I what, Jesse?”

Jesse exhaled heavily but didn’t answer right away, and still Walt found himself fighting that impulse that he didn’t understand to push, to guide Jesse into a response that he had no idea why he would even want to hear.

But he did want to hear Jesse say it if he would – needed to, even. And when Jesse actually asked, cleared his throat and forced the words out, touch me, please, I need it, Walt had to close his eyes and take a deep, steadying breath.

“Are you sure?”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes. Christ, yes, please.”

Walt pulled his arm back from around Jesse, and directed him to sit back. Jesse slouched down, threw his head back and closed his eyes. When Walt pulled at his knee, he spread his legs further, giving Walt the access he wanted.

He cupped Jesse’s cock through his pants, then flattened his hand and dug in with the heel, and Jesse gasped. Walt moved his hand in small slow circles, watching Jesse’s throat work with something close to fascination.

Jesse quickly got impatient and bucked up against Walt’s hand, and Walt pulled back and admonished him to stay still. Jesse made a guttural noise of frustration, then nodded his assent, and Walt went back to work, rubbing up and down now instead of in a circle, curling his fingers into Jesse’s scrotum at the bottom of every stroke.

Jesse’s breathing grew loud and quick. He started to moan. Then he started to whimper.

Then, to Walt’s complete amazement, he started to beg.

“Please,” he croaked. “Please, Mr. White. More.”

Walt closed his eyes and exhaled sharply through his nose. His head was buzzing and his chest was tight, but there was no evidence of his excitement below his waist. He didn’t know if that surprised him or not, but even without any sexual arousal, there was still something thrilling in this—something that more than lived up to his strange, abstract fantasies.

He dug the heel of his hand harder into Jesse’s erection, grinding more than rubbing, hard enough that he was surprised not to hear any sound of complaint.

After less than a minute of this increased friction, Jesse choked out a quiet fuck, bucked his hips up once, and came hard, collapsing back into the couch.

Walt pulled his hand back right away, and watched Jesse’s face carefully as he shivered and tried to catch his breath.

As soon as Jesse opened his eyes, he put his hand over one side of his face and laughed softly. When Walt gave him a questioning look, he said, “I cannot believe you actually just did that, yo.”

“Hey, you started it.”

Jesse didn’t reply. The amusement drained out of his face and he dropped his eyes. Then, abruptly, he shot to his feet and walked into the bathroom.

When he came back out, he gave Walt a wary look and said, quietly, “I hafta go.”

“What? You can’t just leave. We need to talk about this.”

“Now?” The look on his face was one of pure terror, and Walt relented.

“Well, I thought we should wait until morning. I'm sure we could both use some time to think.”

“Fine. Great. I’ll come back.”

Walt scoffed.

“What?”

“You’ll sleep until noon. I have a schedule to keep at the lab, remember? I can’t wait around all day.”

“So what? I’ll come over when you’re done.”

“No. You’re staying here.”

“Why?

“Because a minute ago you were trying to run away.”

“Screw you, man. And anyway, I ain’t sleeping in these clothes.”

Oh. Walt didn’t know why he’d thought Jesse would be able to clean himself up enough to be comfortable.

“I can give you some pajamas to wear. They’ll be a little big for you, but given your usual wardrobe, I don’t imagine that’s going to be a problem.

“Jesus, fine.”

“Good.”

“Whatever. Asshole.”

Jesse refused to talk to Walt while he got the couch ready for him to sleep on, but Walt took the petulance as a sign that he’d won and he didn’t have to worry about Jesse disappearing before morning.

After taking a second to remind Jesse that he wasn’t allowed to smoke in the apartment, Walt went to bed. His mind was racing, and it was a long time before he was able to sleep.
 

*********************************************************************
 

Walt woke to the sounds of Jesse milling around the apartment. His immediate response was annoyance; he was pretty sure he’d told him more than once not to touch anything.

Then it occurred to him that Jesse might be trying to sneak out before Walt woke up – why else would he be up so early? – and his irritation inflated into genuine anger.

He bolted out of his room with the intention of catching Jesse in the act, but to his chagrin he wasn’t met with the startled guilt he’d been expecting. Instead, Jesse tossed a casual Mornin’ over his shoulder from where he stood at the kitchen counter, fiddling with the coffee maker. Seeing him struggle with it, Walt was exasperated anew...and kind of amused.

The kid could never do anything right.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

“Uh...I think so.”

“Get away from it before you break something.” He shooed Jesse away. “Why the hell were you even messing with it in the first place?”

Jesse leaned back against the counter and shrugged. He was looking fixedly at his nails when he finally replied. “I just thought it would be nice. If the coffee was ready when you got up, I mean.”

“Oh. Well, thanks, anyway.”

Jesse looked up at him, surprised and clearly pleased. His whole countenance brightened considerably. “Yeah, no problem, yo. I, uh...” He laughed a little. “Sorry I screwed it up.”

“Well, at least you’re consistent.” He glanced at Jesse and gave him a quick smile. Jesse smiled back, but the light was fading out of him again already, and his eyes were grave and wary.

“Yeah,” he said, almost to himself, and then fell silent.

Walt stayed quiet himself until he got the machine running, and then he turned to Jesse again. “I thought you were trying to leave,” he admitted, watching carefully for a flash of guilt or some other indication from Jesse that he'd considered it.

“If I was going to, I would of done it last night.” When Walt didn’t reply, he went on. “I didn’t hafta stay. Just ’cuz you told me to doesn’t mean I had to.”

“You've proven that many times, believe me.”

Jesse gave him a sharp look. Walt kept his own gaze mild, and after a moment Jesse settled back against the counter and didn’t say anything more.

Bemused by the silence, Walt shifted from foot to foot, and finally stepped away.

“I’m going to get dressed. You...” He stopped himself before he could tell Jesse to stay put or be good or whatever absurd thing he’d been planning to say.

Jesse waved his hand at him dismissively, and Walt turned away and walked into the bedroom.

When he came back out, the coffee was done. Neither of them said anything until they’d both poured themselves a cup. Then Walt decided that they’d put it off as long they could afford to do, and he opened his mouth to get the conversation started without knowing exactly what he was going to say.

“So...” he started, and Jesse put up his hand to stop him.

“Wait, wait. Before we do this, I wanted...Yo, whatever we end up saying or doing, I wanted to make sure...” He took a deep breath. “I wanted to make sure I said thanks.”

“Thanks?”

“Yeah. For not, like, freaking out on me.” Blushing, he added in a hurried mumble, “And, you know, for...well, you know.”

“So you don’t regret it?”

“No. Um, do you?”

“I have no reason to, no.”

“Okay. So...now what?”

“Now, you tell me why it happened.”

Jesse dragged his hand down the side of his face. “Shit, man, I don’t know. It’s not like I planned it.”

“So, what happened?”

Jesse looked down at his feet and shrugged. “I guess I just got confused, yo.”

“You got confused.”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t...we were getting close and all, and...and touching a lot, and I guess I’m not used to doing that without...you know.”

“But you’re the one who made it that way.”

“I know,” he said, and something about his tone struck Walt as odd. He quickly let it go, though, when Jesse added, “It wasn't because...It made me feel better, is all. I didn’t mean...”

“That makes sense.”

Jesse looked up at him, relieved and grateful. “So, why did you actually...do it?”

Walt thought about it for a while, trying to boil everything down to the simplest answer. Finally he seized on one that felt more or less like the truth: “You asked me to.”

Jesse frowned and gave Walt a strange, speculative, almost suspicious look.

“What?” Walt asked, more sharply than he’d intended. Jesse just shook his head. Walt kept his eyes on him a moment longer, then moved on. “Are you still confused?”

“You mean...what do you mean?”

“I mean, what do you want to do?”

Jesse gave him that weird look again, and Walt stirred uncomfortably under his gaze. He held his tongue, but with considerable effort.

“You wanna know what I wanna do? You’re just gonna put the whole thing on me now?”

“What, you're complaining? It’s not a hard question, Jesse.”

Jesse barked a short, bitter laugh, and Walt found himself riled beyond his boiling point.

He set his coffee down, and took Jesse’s out of his hands to do the same with it. Jesse started to voice an objection, but Walt stepped firmly into his space, laid his hands on the counter on either side of Jesse's hips, and then leaned in and kissed him.

Jesse made a funny, surprised little mmph noise that almost made Walt smile, and right away he revised his objective. He became gentler immediately, and then eased back, put a little space between them.

“Let’s give it a try, okay?” he coaxed softly, and Jesse nodded. Walt closed the distance and met his lips again.

He took it slow, nothing but their mouths touching. Jesse was passive but not resistant as Walt nipped at his lower lip, and used his tongue and some soft, encouraging noises to convince him to open up to him. When Walt licked lazily along the roof of Jesse’s mouth, he felt Jesse reach out tentatively to just barely touch Walt’s sides with the tips of his fingers, and he experienced a moment of satisfaction so intense it edged into triumph. He stepped in closer to Jesse, pressed their chests together, and deepened the kiss.

He felt it the second Jesse started to shut down, but he kept going anyway, hoping that it was temporary or at least that Jesse would stick it out until Walt found his own excuse to back off, something that would allow both of them to save face. Those hopes dissolved when Jesse put his hands against Walt’s chest and pushed, just a little.

“Wait,” he managed before Walt went in for another kiss, still hoping to head this off. Jesse made a small noise of protest against his mouth and pushed harder. “Stop, wouldja? Jesus.”

“What? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Just...”

“Just what?”

Jesse narrowed his eyes, and Walt pulled his hands back from where they rested on the counter and stepped away.

“Just nothing. Aren’t you gonna be late?

“Don’t change the subject.”

Jesse elaborately sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Don’t. Everything was perfectly fine until thirty seconds ago, Jesse. What happened? Did you change your mind?”

“No!...Well...maybe.”

“Maybe? You mean you don’t know?”

“Yeah...no...God, I mean, isn’t this, like, weird for you at all?”

“Is it weird for you?”

“Uh, yeah. Clearly.”

“So...does that mean you don’t want to do this?”

Jesse paused, long enough for Walt to get annoyed. He was about to repeat the question when Jesse gave him an apprehensive, apologetic look.

“I don’t know.”

Walt thought for a second. Then he quickly crowded back into Jesse’s space and tried to kiss him again. Jesse flinched back, pushed him away hard. His eyes were wide and, Walt thought, genuinely scared.

The expression resonated with Walt a little too acutely, and he stepped back again. Jesse shifted his eyes somewhere downward and to the left.

“Well, I guess you know now,” Walt said, and it sounded more bitter than he actually felt. Really, he just felt tired. Tired and confused and kind of cheated, but not by Jesse, exactly.

All that tension and worry and waiting, all for nothing to change. He didn’t need this, specifically – didn’t actually know if he even vaguely wanted it or if it was just something he’d talked himself into – but after weeks of building to this strange, ambivalent climax, it hardly seemed fair to have to just let it go.

What were they supposed to do now?

He crossed his arms and stared at the floor, and it only took a handful of seconds before his silence made Jesse nervous.

“Mr. White? Are you...look, I’m sorry, okay, and I know I owe you for last night, yo, I mean, I really...I really did appreciate it. I could...I mean, if you wanted, I could...”

Walt took a second to catch on to what exactly Jesse was offering, and when he did he felt a quiet species of horror. He shook his head and made a violent, vague gesture of negation and dismissal. “No. Jesus, what are you thinking? Why would I?”

“But...”

“No. It’s fine.” He paused, and shook his head again before adding, “What’s the point?”

Jesse looked stricken, hurt in some way Walt didn’t understand at all, and he found that his patience was worn too thin to deal with any of this anymore. “You should go. I have to get to the lab.”

“Wait...look, I’m not...I’m not saying never, alright? I mean...Yo, I mean, maybe I just need a little time, here.”

“What does that mean? You think I want to wait for you to change your mind again?”

“No, but...”

“But what, Jesse?”

Jesse sighed. He paused to think, biting his nails, and Walt resisted the urge to snap at him until Jesse just shook his head, confused.

Walt sighed. “I have to go,” he said with finality, trying to mask his irritation.

Jesse stepped away from the counter. “Are we...cool?” he asked, and the note of desperation in his voice made Walt want to shake him. Instead he closed his eyes and took a calming breath.

“We’re fine, Jesse. Everything’ll just go back to normal.”

“Normal,” Jesse repeated skeptically, and Walt knew exactly how he felt.

“Yeah, normal. I’ll talk to you later.” He shepherded Jesse to the door. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Jesse issued a derisive snort and left.

Once he was gone, Walt finished getting ready, and by the time he started for the lab, he’d actually managed to put Jesse completely out of his mind.

 

Parts 3-4