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“You’re usin’ again.”
Jesse turns his head towards Mike, shifting the entirety of his body with him. He licks his lips, rubbing at the back of his neck with a clammy hand.
Deny or deny?
“Nuh uh.”
It’s hardly an attempt, and Jesse’s a piss-poor liar.
He’s only ever been good at lying to girls, and Mike isn’t a girl.
He wouldn’t even make a good one if he tried, Jesse thinks.
“Nuh uh? Kid, you’re full of shit.”
He grins at that. It’s a rotten little-boy smile, crooked and restless, fingers playing with the fabric of Mike’s slacks. Antsy.
He’s between Mike’s legs again. They’re split open wide and warm for him, ottoman kicked to the side to make space for it. For this.
It’s the closest thing to a routine that Jesse’s had in a while.
“You’ve got me all figured out, huh?”
Mike shoots him a look that makes Jesse grateful he doesn’t have any hair left to pull.
Brat.
“I do. You’re using again–and our product, nonetheless.”
Mike knows his way around meth-heads like Jesse knows his way around a pipe.
Jesse turns away from him again, shoulders slumped. He’s a little deflated, a finger sunk into his mouth, tongue swirling around his nail.
“What gave me away?”
“Besides you drinkin’ half your water weight and pissin’ every five minutes?”
His ears flush red at that. Guilty vermillion. Drew Sharp’s blood against hot-boonie sand.
Jesse fell off his bike when he was fourteen years old, but he didn’t turn into kid-soup. Funny how that works.
“You’re keeping track? What–you wanna have like…a pissing contest, or something?” Jesse murmurs instead, avoidant. Voice a little thick. Dazed. It’s been hard to swallow for days now, but he tries anyway.
The crank doesn’t treat him right anymore. Withdrawal’s outbitched him.
Jesse’s cotton-mouthed and drier than a desert.
Mike scoffs. “You ain’t been brushing either. What happened to common courtesy, huh? Bein’ stuck in a car with you…”
There’s a pair of heavy hands on Jesse’s shoulders, two solid fingers against his jaw forcing his neck back. Jesse grits his teeth, breathes out a ragged little ‘hah’ sound, his body lifting itself up and off the ground, going wherever Mike takes him.
It’s a tattered giggle that rips out of him then, the noise bordering mania. He feels a little crazy. Doesn’t know whether to blame it on the lack of crystal in his system or the throbbing of his yellowed teeth, but it rings through him in spite of it. Sinks into that nasty little pit in his belly like cancer. Pan-cree-ah-tic. He tongues the word against the roof of his mouth, wills it wet.
Mike pats his jaw open; a gentle, two-thud smack, his pointer finger on Jesse’s top lip and thumb against the bottom, hoisting them open.
Jesse isn’t a girl either, but sometimes he feels like one.
He drools all over the palm of Mike’s hand like some foam-at-the-mouth coyote.
“Jesus…” Mike rasps, thumb swiping over his angry gums. They probably look as fucked-raw as he feels, tender and swollen in all the wrong places.
God, it feels good—the pressure. Jesse groans, squirming in Mike’s life-or-death grasp, an ache in his back with how he’s all twisted up against his leg like a dog in rut.
His teeth are pepper-specked, that much he knows. It isn’t pretty. He can’t remember the last time he got his cavities filled in—maybe when his teeth were still baby-milked and falling out faster than he could keep track of—faster than he could plug in the holes with his prodding, little-kid fingers.
It felt good. It always felt good, touching himself.
“You got a dentist on speed dial?”
Jesse giggles, almost all breath. His eyes are wide, pupils blown out. A string of slobber drips off his face and onto Mike’s carpet. “N-No.”
“No?”
“Naah–” He huffs, lunging forward just a bit. It’s a half-assed attempt to snap his jaw shut; plunge those sore teeth into Mike’s age-sagged fingers. “Just you.”
Mike shoves Jesse’s head back, four fingers and thumb locking tightly against both sides of his jaw, holding him upright. His legs give out from under him, knees wobbly and burnt, the friction getting to him even through his baggy jeans.
“Really?” Mike muses, voice low and on the verge of a scold. He always sounds mildly disinterested, even when he isn’t. It’s stabilizing, the gut-churning neutrality of it. Comforting in a way that makes Jesse’s stomach flip something awful.
Jesse never knows where he stands with him, but he always somehow does.
“It’s always something new with you, ain’t it, kid? Christ.”
You think yourself an animal, or what?
Jesse shakes his head, cock twitching in his pants, half-limp. The vein on his forehead throbs, chin slick with saliva.
“No…I’m just…” He tries, breaths coming out in stuttered little bursts. “F-Fuck.”
Tears burn in his eyes then, baby blues gone black and red-rimmed. Panic washes over him, then a prick of distress, and then he’s wiping at the snot leaking out of his nose, sopping wet like some virgin-whore. It’s fucking gross, he thinks, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He’s fucking gross.
Todd Alquist killed Drew Sharp and Jesse’s a good for nothing junkie. It’s the all-singing, all-dancing shit of the world, and Jesse feels like a shabby puppet—God’s hand stuck far so up his ass it’s coming out of his mouth.
He doesn’t think fourteen year old boys are meant to take bullets, much less dissolve in a barrel of chemicals, but there he was and here they are.
His bones feel soft, almost, when they’re like this. Gooey like decomp, and a part of him wishes he was a barrel-boy too.
Jesse’s cock hurts more than his dog-decayed insides.
“Hey…”
Mike’s crooning, cupping his cheeks and hauling Jesse towards him until the boy can get his arms around his waist, head flush against his stomach. Jesse buries himself there, thinks himself a maggot of sorts.
It’s awful. Everything is awful.
“I can’t stop thinking about it.” He sobs, hiccuping into Mike’s raggedy white shirt.
He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Reassurance, maybe. More insistence upon the fact that what happened and what they had to do about it after had to be done, because none of it can be taken back. No amount of tears or filthy-knuckled punches can undead him; unruin their almost-win, and Jesse’s both mournfully and utterly fucked up about it.
Fuck. Fuck.
“I know.” Mike murmurs instead, a hand over Jesse’s head. “Ain’t right, huh? I didn’t like it either, kid. You know that.”
“No.” Jesse whispers, sucking in a deep, long breath. “It isn’t right.”
Mike lets them both loiter in silence. It’s oddly pacifying—the lack, whatever Jesse felt was missing. Perhaps an emotional contract of sorts, or the to-be-expected yet keenly disguised manipulation; but Jesse’s a teary eyed, snot-faced mess, and Mike lets him be, idle fingers rubbing at his scalp. Easy.
That’s it.
“Ricky Hitler was good.” Mike says after a few minutes. Jesse isn’t crying anymore, but he’s only been a push away from it at any given minute for the past couple of weeks, so he can’t make any promises. He sniffles, eyebrows furrowing as he processes the words, and then he’s laughing again. Wheezy and unsteady. Little half-barks of laughter.
“Shut up.” He rasps. “I punched the shit out of him.”
The thought of it makes his hand ache all over again, but he’d done well. Kept his thumb outside of his fist and everything. Nothing broke, twisted or bruised. Mike should be proud.
“Yeah?” Mike hums.
“Yeah.”
“I may or may not have threatened to stick a gun up his ass.”
Jesse giggles weakly, the sound followed up by a groan.
God, his head was fucking throbbing.
“I should’ve done worse.” He murmurs, pulling away to run a hand through his face. “The guy’s a fucking freak.”
“Mm.”
Jesse blinks up at him. There’s a dull sting to his knees and some fuzziness to the rest of his legs.
“I don’t wanna…do this anymore.” He whispers earnestly, voice throaty. “Seriously, I—I can’t put up with it anymore.”
Mike makes a little noise that Jesse doesn’t really understand. He peers back down at him, droopy-eyed and affectionate in a way Jesse wouldn't have been able to recognize a few months back, although it’s clear as day to him now.
“Then don't.” Mike says. “I’m out, too.”
“What?”
He sits up at that, wiping at his tears with the back of his hand.
“I’m out.” Mike repeats, voice steady like God’s would be. “I’m gonna take my share of the methylamine and buyout. You should too.”
Oh.
“Y-You…you’re serious?”
“Mm.”
It sounds too easy, Jesse thinks. Simple—and he’s staring at Mike’s face so hard his vision begins to blur, mulling over it. Coming to terms. He counts the wrinkles on Mike's skin, rubbing his tongue over his own gums, lips pressed together in a tight line.
“And… Mr. White?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what Walter thinks.” Mike says. “I’m done.”
Mike’s reclining forward, readjusting himself on the chair. His shirt is damp with Jesse’s tears when he reaches out again, a couple of fingers under Jesse’s chin, tilting his head upwards.
“Listen to me, kid. If he cares about you—and I mean seriously cares about you, in any sense of the damn word, he’ll let you go. Do you understand?”
Sure.
Jesse would puke if he had anything in his stomach to throw up. He shakes his head. Whatever he wants to say doesn’t come out. Couldn’t possibly.
“He won’t—it’s not….it’s not that simple.” He rasps. Nothing is. Things surrounding Mr. White stopped being simple after highschool, and even then he still troubled Jesse.
Chemistry. He should’ve never taken chemistry. Should’ve dropped out the second he started raking in any kind of cash, safety school turned pizza delivery job. Could’ve gotten his GED halfway down the road, left Albuquerque, smoking a pack of Wilmington's across the state line. Anything would’ve been better than this.
Mediocracy was the least of his concerns—so incredibly far away from what was important.
He was too naive, Jesse thinks. Too fucked-open. He should’ve kept both his legs and his mouth shut if he’d known what was good for him, but Jesse’s never been the brightest.
Anything else wouldn’t have ended in a dead girlfriend and a dead kid.
Money was everything, but it isn't anymore. Hasn’t been like that for a long, long time.
Jesse wants out.
He doesn’t realize his gums are bleeding until Mike’s fingers are back in his mouth, pressing and pressing and pressing.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Mike grumbles, thumb heavy against Jesse’s tongue. “Gum disease ain’t a joke, by the way.”
Like what?
He ignores the rest. Jesse’s been rotting for as long as he can remember.
He doesn’t bother slurring his syllables. Mike can read him like a fucking book, pointer-and-middle rubbing against his upper gums in tight little circles. It reminds him of prom night rubs. Motel fuck rubs. The kind of rubbing Jesse was never really any good at.
He’s always been cunt-shy.
“I’m not your father. You don’t gotta do shit I tell you, kid. Just a piece of advice I hope you take.”
You don’t owe me anything.
It’s a hot lie. Mike’s always putting Jesse in his place, bugging him about listening. Slapping him on the wrist and telling him to be good, on the job and off.
His voice doesn’t waver like Jesse’s does when he’s caught in one, though. He’s better than that. Always has been.
Mike’s finally wrong for once, and Jesse’s thirsty. He sucks the spit back into his mouth, grinning a little-girl grin.
He owes him everything. Wouldn’t be enough even if Jesse were to pluck off an arm and a leg and leave it at his front door, tied up all pretty in a basket. Boy-bouquet.
He could be a girl if Mike wanted him to be.
There’s blood under Mike’s nails when he pulls his fingers out again, and Jesse’s barely caught his breath before he’s biting back, the slits between his teeth as red as the tips of his ears.
“You’d be my—ah, grandpappy, maybe.”
Mike doesn’t flinch, but his lips curl up ever so slightly. He’s all stone. Soft everywhere and hard all at once.
Jesse’s perverse enough for the both of them.
“Sorry, kid.” He murmurs. “Spot’s already taken. Don’t got no room for another brat.”
Hahh. Hah–
“No?”
“No. ‘Least my girl brushes without a fuss,” Mike says. “Ain’t gonna have no teeth by the time you’re thirty.”
Foul-mouth, Jesse thinks. It doesn’t stop him from smiling, though. Pink in the mouth like he should be between the legs. That’d be the day.
Jesse doesn’t think of seeing thirty. Not really. Not anymore.
My girl.
He could play damsel too, if Mike would let him.
He leans his head against the flat of Mike’s palm, pushing inwards, curling himself sideways around his leg. Dog-boy, dog-heart.
“Go on.” Mike murmurs, mostly indifferent. “Take care of your business.”
Mike doesn’t like to look, so he doesn’t.
Jesse’s soft-cocked, but wet where it counts. He can take care of himself. Has to.
They’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.