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Jesse leaned his head back against the couch, taking a long drag from his cigarette. Nicotine was the easy choice, at least in the moment. He couldn't make up his damn mind. Make sensation sharper with coke or meth, or dull it with weed or heroin. The tweakers partying in his house were here for the meth, no duh, but that didn't mean that Jesse necessarily had to do it too. He made the choice to continue the party long after Badger and Skinny Pete left. He could make a choice to snort coke or meth or smoke a spliff or tie a tourniquet around his arm, staring at the way his veins bulged -
Flashes before his eyes. Her smile, curled upwards to the side. The fear in his large, brown eyes when he realized there was no way he could get out of it. Goddamn look on his face that Jesse couldn't get out of his brain no matter how hard he tried.
Jesse exhaled smoke through his nose, tapping his fingers against his jeans. The smoke hurt, a little. Made him feel real. Realer than real. On a different plane than he'd been all week, or something. Skinny would probably have a field day with this if he had the chance to peek inside Jesse's head, rambling on about multiverses or whatever. Even though Jesse could hear his friend's voice in the back of his head, going on about the sci-fi shows that they all used to watch together, it didn't matter much to him in that moment. Since that shit wasn't real. Not anymore. Not for him.
The couple on the floor wouldn't stop going at it, not caring that a dozen or so other people were in the same room as them. Much less that five or so of them were fist fighting each other. Jesse watched, slightly curious as opposed to titillated. Was that what Mr. White thought he and Jane were like? Just fucking for the sake of it, not caring what anybody else thought about what they did? His blood under her fingernails as she tore at his back? That's not how it was at all. That's pretty much the opposite... of...
He exhaled, long and slow, stubbing out his cigarette against the glass table. Here. Need to be here. Need to make this sharper. It's not like he was able to get rid of all the blue stuff that he took from the lab. Yeah. That was the path he'd take tonight. His room, get acclimated into his own body again, then time to party. Dance and jump so hard that he couldn't feel the weight of everything he'd done. Jesse narrowly avoided getting socked in the face as he ducked past the fight just a few feet in front of the couch, slinking up the stairs, ignoring the person spray-painting graffiti on the walls. He was invisible to everyone in his own house.
Jesse sighed in relief as he opened his bedroom door. The room that Aunt Ginny used to sleep in. The Xbox was still there. Not like he couldn't buy another one, but definitely convenient. Setting up all his games and getting all the settings just right was kind of a pain. One of the main things that kind of stung when he left behind his original Xbox for Jake. Not that his parents were probably letting the kid play with it much, what with his clarinet or piccolo or whatever. Too busy being the golden boy, but Jesse could never hate Jake for that. Not really.
Jesse was the one that was a fuck up, after all. He was the bad guy. He'd accepted this about himself a long time ago. There was nothing else for him to feel bad about. Feeling any other way, or anything at all, would be really stupid.
Putting the crystal behind the Xbox was not really the best place for it, but he figured if someone was going to steal it, they might as well get everything. Not that he really cared all that much. He just saw someone walk out with his microwave. Hell, they could steal all his drug money and he wouldn't even blink. It's not like he wouldn't be getting more. Or, no... that wasn't quite right...
He needed to focus -
Crush the crystal. Draw some lines on a used copy of Left 4 Dead that Badger picked up at GameStop with a credit card Jesse really needed to remember to pay off, since it wasn't like he couldn't. And snort.
Jesse threw his head back and took a deep breath in. Held it. Wiped his nose. Finally, he felt more like himself. Like he could relax, and concentrate. Jesse was nothing without meth. No rehab or support group could really pull him away from it. Nor the events leading up to said rehab or support group. Mr. White had to know this about him. That's why he could never leave. It's why he kept crawling back to Mr. White, no matter how fucked up the asshole was, no matter what Jesse saw or heard of him doing. No matter how close he was with his dickwad DEA brother-in-law, or no matter how far Mr. White would sink to keep cooking, for whatever reason. They needed this.
... Playing games might be nice. He turned on his TV and the console, sitting on the edge of his bed. The distinctive chiming whoosh of the Xbox logo filled the room, and Jesse was so focused that it almost blocked out the cacophony downstairs.
Badger and Skinny weren't online. Probably too busy smoking weed and watching old episodes of Star Trek. Obviously, Combo wasn't online either. He hadn't seen Paul online since he got Sara pregnant, and he'd lost contact with Anthony and Cheevo ages ago. Jesse rested the controller against his cheek and jiggled his leg anxiously, thinking. There were always random matches. Or he could pull someone from downstairs to play Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing with. Seemed kind of unappealing, though. He'd rather play with someone he knew.
And he was kind of burned out on racing from screaming his head off at go-karts, earlier.
Jesse exhaled, frustrated, and tossed the controller on the bed behind him. He kept being there for Mr. White whenever he needed him. Why couldn't Mr. White just, screw the meeting and go and hang with him earlier? It wasn't like Jesse hadn't put his ass on the line for Mr. White dozens of times himself. It sucked that he didn't have the attention of anyone he really wanted to spend time with.
... There was another option, Jesse guessed. But he couldn't go there. Not in a million years. Not after everything that had happened. It was for everyone's own good that he stayed the fuck away from Andrea, let her get sober and stay with Brock and have a great, happy life far away from him, because all he could ever do was cause people misery and suffering. All Jesse was good at was dragging people down. And cooking meth.
He croaked out a laugh, standing up. He turned off the Xbox manually, pressing down on the glowing green ring, and sauntered back downstairs. No time for games.
The fistfight was still going strong, but the couple that had been fucking was finished. The guy leaned against the wall, staring at nothing, and the girl was passed out on her back, covered haphazardly with an oversized t-shirt. Jesse frowned. He needed what he wanted, but he couldn't leave her like that. He dropped to his knees and crawled across the filthy floor to her, trying his best to avoid the other people curled up, either high or asleep. Jesse leaned over the girl. She had passed out, but was still alive. Because - of course she was? This was a party. He was supposed to be having fun. Everyone here was having fun in their own way. His house and his money were conduits to that end. Jesse's head swam, and he grit his teeth. There was no reason to be crying, so he wouldn't. No fucking need. He pulled off his jacket and carefully lifted up her body, looking away to preserve her modesty as much as he could. He slid the jacket underneath her and dressed her as best he could, pulling the t-shirt down to better cover her lower half before zipping the jacket up. It would be better if she wasn't there, but she had made her own choices. All Jesse could do was make things a little less bad for her when she woke up. He pulled her to rest against the wall, to at least make it harder for anyone to trample her.
Deep down, Jesse was unconvinced that this would change anything. His fate, or hers. It didn't make him feel significantly better. But he knew he'd feel worse if someone died in this house again. Harm reduction, he thought darkly. He brushed the hair out of her face, sighing through his nose, and stood up, taking a few steps towards the middle of the room.
"Hey." One of the wiry guys on the periphery of the fistfight turned to Jesse, eyes wild and bright. God, how Jesse wished that he was high enough to feel what that guy was feeling. Jesse spread his arms and gave him a cocky smile. "Come - "
He didn't need to say more. Within seconds, Jesse got socked in the gut.
Jesse made a vocalization halfway between a grunt and a gasp, but he was unable to recover before he felt himself at the center of it. Someone grasped his hair and slapped his face. "Little bitch! The fuck you looking at!" someone yelled at him.
In the moment, it was almost too much to comprehend at once. At least four feet stomping on him. A hand in his hair. The sting from the slap still fresh on his face, a mark that would fade in a day or two but it still felt sharp. Jesse's arms flew up to protect his gut and face instinctively, but he would have happily let them fall to his sides if he had full control of his faculties. This was what he deserved, after all.
These were lives that he had helped destroy. They should destroy his, too. Tear him up. Rip him to pieces. Burn this house to the ground, with all the good and the bad memories associated with it. He'll never be able to sleep well here again. Not after Emilio and Krazy-8, not after Jane, not after Tomas, not after Gale.
Someone hit him so hard his ears rung. He groaned involuntarily, tasting blood on his tongue. Dopamine and adrenaline surged through his veins, feeling vivid and cold. Fuck, it felt good to feel bad. "More," he moaned.
A roar. The yank on his head grew stronger, and Jesse trembled in anticipation. One man knelt behind him and Jesse panted, eager, as he bit Jesse's neck. He clenched his fists and grunted, arching his back into it, as another man straddled his hips and started going to town on Jesse's gut. He gasped and coughed, reeling. God. This was so much. This was everything that Jesse needed.
- He faded away, for a minute. He thought about driving go-karts earlier. Fantasized about something. Mr. White with him, just like he had wanted to desperately. Would Mr. White have been as ruthless on the track as he was in the lab and his personal life? Jesse never would have expected someone so uptight in school to be so crazy outside of it. Maybe Mr. White would need to be reminded that this wasn't fucking bumper cars. Seemed like he was reckless enough with his own real cars. Jesse felt the corners of his lips turn up.
Reality surged back in an instant as he felt something hot on his left arm. He screamed before he truly understood what was happening. "Stop, stop, stop!" he yelled, his hand hitting someone else's. Someone had put out a cigarette on his skin. The sting remained, and Jesse had a feeling that it would linger for a long time. He'd gotten ash on himself before, and it hurt like a motherfucker. This was on purpose. This was malicious.
... Could it be malicious if Jesse asked for it?
"Fuck, stop," Jesse moaned. His head hit the floor and he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes a few seconds later, the crowd had parted, staring at him with hungry eyes. The smell of blood and sweat was heavy in the humid air, as heavy as the absence of human vocalization afterwards. There was only the sound of crunchy bass playing through Jesse's worn speakers, not even a month old but already used to their limits.
Jesse blinked a few times, trying to gain control of himself, and got up on his elbows. "Shit." He fumbled to his knees, struggling to push himself up, and hobbled back to the stairs. The graffiti artist stared at him as he walked up the stairs. Blood trickled down his neck and shoulder. Good thing the shirt he was wearing was red, he guessed.
He took a quick glance into his bedroom, and thought better of it. Instead, he went into the bathroom, avoiding his own face in the mirror. He couldn't look at himself in the eye. Not now. Maybe never again.
He laid down in the tub. The scent of his own blood filled his nose. Felt like home, here. He curled up on his side. He was still alive. He wasn't dead, like Emilio. He wasn't dead like Gale.
Toaster. Razor blades. There were ways to fix that.
- No. He needed to suffer more first.
Jesse hugged himself, feeling every bruise that would bloom underneath his shirt, and rocked back and forth until the sun rose.