Spam (mainly for Jesse)

[fire_punk]

[Kevin makes his way down to the infirmary. This isn't going to be fun at all. Hopefully, Jesse won't kill him for it. He doesn't think he will. But he won't be surprised if his warden decides to beat the crap out of him when he can.]

Jesse?

Comments

[yeahscience]

[He doesn't want to see Kevin. It's not entirely personal: he doesn't want to see anyone... just especially not Kevin. Not the kid who'd had to see the most of him in that port. Not the kid who'd gotten the brunt of him like...

Like...

He knows what he was like. Or, really, who he was like. And he's death tolled before a handful of times, but the memory of being like that, thinking like that, makes this one worse than any of the ones that have come before it.

He's been lying there for ages, silent and still, close to catatonic when Kevin comes in. He's tempted to pretend he's asleep or maybe just checked out when he hears his name called. Sometimes, he's found out long since, people just stop trying if you play dead long enough.

Instead, he finds it in him to roll over and talk to his inmate, his eyes dull and glassy, voice drawn.]

That wasn't...

[You. Me. Us. Real. Okay. There are a lot of words he can put there, and he's not sure which one he wants. He trails off, eyes cutting away.]

[fire_punk]

[Kevin shuffles his feet. He can't meet Jesse's eyes.]

I... Are you mad at me?

[yeahscience]

[It shouldn't be a surprise, given that Kevin, you know, killed him, and is now the reason for the intense pain in his chest and skull... but that's so little of the reason he feels this way right now that it actually does catch him off guard. If he were in a better mood, he'd laugh. Instead, he just shakes his head slightly.]

You?

[fire_punk]

[He shakes his head. Why would he be angry?

He continues in a small voice.] I'm sorry, Jesse.

[yeahscience]

[He takes a deep breath at that, tries not to wince as the movement lances through his ribcage. He knits his fist in the sheets and lets it out again slowly.]

Why'd you do it? I mean... I'm not... [The truth is, he is angry; he's very, very angry. Just not at Kevin. He shakes his head again.] I just wanna know what was the... trigger, or whatever.

[fire_punk]

[Damn it. He doesn't want to talk about this, Jesse! He hunches in on himself.]

You remember how bad the food was? Well, Riddick said he'd trade fruit for our wardens' bodies. It seemed like a good idea.

[yeahscience]

You--

[Okay, he wasn't mad at Kevin before, and... he's still not exactly mad, but the dawning horror is clear on his face.] What'd he do with them?

[fire_punk]

I didn't ask. [He can't meet Jesse's eyes. He honestly doesn't want to know, either.]

[yeahscience]

[He looks from Kevin to himself, stretches out his arms, eyes wide. What the hell had Riddick done with his corpse? He's still all there, he can see now, from the tattoo on his wrist to the long-healed track marks, but there's an unsettling creeping feeling over his skin. He swallows, nauseated.]

You... traded me for fruit.

[fire_punk]

Not you. [He's pretty sure even the other version of him wouldn't trade this Jesse like that. Still, he can't help the shame that rises at Jesse's words.] I didn't trust him. Not if it was just him and me.

[yeahscience]

[Not you. Jesse looks up at that, and though he's still a little pale, his eyes soften gratefully at that. If nothing else, Kevin has to know, he desperately needs Kevin to know how different that man and the one sitting in this bed are. He nods slowly and pinches the bridge of his nose, stifling a shiver as he remembers what he'd said to Kevin -- if it's you and me versus the rest of this place -- and how terrifyingly it echoes the real Heisenberg. If it's you and me versus...]

You're-- you're right, though. That wasn't you, either. That wasn't either of us.

[fire_punk]

[Kevin shrugs.]

It kind of was. Me, I mean. Just I went to that Barge not this one. [He still blames himself. He wouldn't have had to do it, not yet, anyway. Not unless it was that or die.] I... I graduated after. There, not here.

[yeahscience]

[It figures, he thinks grimly; the other him would have been pleased to hear it. He shakes his head.]

I know you better than that. You might not, but I do, yo. Things over there were... [He shakes his head again, swallowing.] But here, the real you, I know you wouldn't do that.

[fire_punk]

[He flushes slightly. Jesse's right, though. And he's not sure what to think of Jesse being so sure of him. Joanne would have expected him to do something like that long ago if she were here.]

Yeah, well... I'm not high all the time.

[yeahscience]

[He doesn't feel at all like smiling, but he musters one up anyway.] Uh, yeah. Your ass better not be.

[fire_punk]

It wasn't all bad. It was like Yvette didn't matter for a few more hours. [That's the part he misses.]

[yeahscience]

[His eyes narrow quizzically at that.]

Does she matter now?

[Which is leading more than an actual question; he knows the real answer. Yvette still matters like Mr. White still matters. But he knows they shouldn't.]

[fire_punk]

She doesn't. [It's an admission. A hard one. One Kevin's noticeably reluctant to give.] But what she made me do... I can't bring anyone back. And I still can't forget the rest.

[yeahscience]

[That's honestly a lot better than he expected, and again, there's that flash of something that's almost like wonder and certainly a lot like affection in his eyes. It'll be pride when he's feeling better.]

No... you can't forget. You shouldn't forget. I still-- [He cuts off and presses his lips together, swallowing back that thought.] You're... right. You can't change the past, the fact that it happened.

[He can't change that he was that person, he thinks, that he did what he did to Kevin, to anyone, not even if it wasn't his fault. Frustration rises up in him for one difficult moment, makes it hard to speak. He sounds a little hoarse when he continues.]

Like I said, though, the good thing about this place is you can take some of it back. Or just... make it better. Make something better.

CW: implied abuse

[fire_punk]

It still hurts, Jesse. What she did. [He has nightmares about it sometimes.]

You mean, with your deals? Can you make a deal to change the past?

CW: implied abuse

[yeahscience]

I know. I know it does, and I wish I could say that'd change, but it doesn't. [Does it hurt when he thinks of home? Every time.] The... difference is, you've got time passing here, you've got new people. New stuff to fill things up with.

And yeah, if you can get a deal... I don't know if you can change, like, your own history, I don't know if it works like that. You could try it. But I... Lua and me are trying to take some things back. I still remember them, but maybe there's a version of the universe where they never happened.

CW: implied abuse

[fire_punk]

Does it ever get better? [Will the nightmares ever go away? Will he ever be able to stop feeling like he betrayed his dad even before the fire?]

[He nods. Even another version of his world where Yvette and his dad never met would be good. Unless it'd just mean that he doesn't belong in his world. As if he cares about that.] It's worth a try, right?

[yeahscience]

Yeah. It gets better. [Does it? Right now, in the depths of the death toll and feeling like shit, he's inclined to feel like he's lying to the kid, but... no, he knows he isn't, in his brain if not his heart right now. He's been back home. He's seen what not-better looks like, and there's no comparison between him now and the lonely, miserable, paranoid junkie he'd been turning back into when he left.]

I'm... not gonna say as it ever goes away, but it gets better. Time, you know... happens. You get people. Like a better kind of people, I mean. And... if you're lucky, they're people that really think you can do better, too. And if you're like, way mad lucky, they'll stick around even when you can't.

[He's describing himself and Kevin, but he doesn't know it; he doesn't know, either, that Lua will soon prove this to be true for him when she comes to take care of him and doesn't even make a fuss when he spends half the afternoon not talking to her in return.]

[fire_punk]

Do you think Dad would be mad at me? Like if he knew about me and Yvette? [It's been something he's needed to know ever since the first time.]

[yeahscience]

I dunno, dude. I didn't know your dad. My folks, I mean, they were total douchebags. [He reconsiders, in light of... Yvette.] Not like your kind of douchebag, but still. They'd get pissed if I like so much as talked to my little bro, like, ever. So I don't have a great, uh, point of comparison.

[He thinks of the other fathers and mothers in his life. It's not a new question for him -- he wonders often if Ginny would forgive him for what he'd turned into.]

I dunno. I'm mad at her, for what like ever that's worth.

[fire_punk]

Why? [He never got to have a brother but...] You're family.

You are? [He hadn't expected Jesse to say that.]

[yeahscience]

[He snorts, just shakes his head at the first question, lips thinning at the corners. He's calm enough to talk now, but his anger from the flood is barring him from wanting to think too hard on other topics that piss him off, and the Pinkman family is one of them. He rubs at his eyes, chafes his wrists, and focuses on the second question instead.]

Why wouldn't I be?

[fire_punk]

No one else was... is.

[yeahscience]

[He's a little skeptical of that one.] What about Joanne?

[fire_punk]

Maybe? She did take me away. But then Mom found me and she didn't come when I called her. [He knew she hadn't liked it. And she'd been kind to him. Well, when she hadn't been scaring him. And she'd given him his first kiss.]