fic: that long forgotten feeling of her... (Jesse and Mr. White)
Title: That long forgotten feeling of her...
Fandom: Breaking Bad (aka, my current meth crack...)
Characters: Jesse and Mr. White... (because it's Jesse's pov)
Word Count: 1300
Rating: R for language.
Summary: An attempt to recreate in prose the dream-like feel of the desert that is so eloquently portrayed on the screen... Just Jesse and Walt and a little crystal meth. production.
Disclaimer: At my user info. page.
Author's Note: This is my very first foray into the Breaking Bad fandom. I absolutely adore the quality of the camerawork in this show and I really wanted to have a go at doing the same kind of thing with words. The title is from 'Flame Trees', Cold Chisel.
Hot sun shifts by degrees towards the distant horizon. Blackened shadows elongate over wind rippled dunes, melt and morph like dripping ice. Ink backed bugs scuttle, footsteps echoing thunderously as storm clouds gather somewhere in the cavernous space where his insides used to live.
He thinks he hears his name called. Vague and tentatitve.
A sigh, a vortex of vowels and consonants and syllables that combine to define him as someone he doesn't think he's ever been.
Is ever likely to be.
There is no escaping this.
There is no escaping any of it.
He imagines cigarettes. Poised, ashy, between nicotine stained fingertips. Imagines a joint. Pipes, bongs... whatever.
Imagines having enough air in his lungs to drag any of it in deep enough that it blanks out all the rest. Everything he can't quite remember to forget.
Tries. Fails.
Fails again.
A familiar ending to a completely alien existence.
Snakes rattle in his shoes. Sand coats his tongue like a dream. Gritty and sharp in all the wrong places.
The colour red sounds like music. The words, an unfamiliar lullaby that leak from his ears. Settles somewhere in the dip of his collarbone as he sinks so far beneath himself he's not sure he'll ever make it back.
Not sure he'll ever want to.
She doesn't come. He doesn't think he really thought that she would. His head is too heavy to hold up, the muscles in his neck turned to peanut butter and jelly and mud.
Bobs like an apple. Disjointed and dim.
Drowning.
- - -
He blinks. Sweat slips and stings and curls his lips into a snarl.
There are fingers around his upper arm. Iridescent blue latex stretched taut.
“Jesus, are you sleeping?”
He'd laugh if he had enough air inside him.
Because the last time he slept was the last time anything made sense and it's been so fucking long since anything made sense.
He waits for a barrage of words and accusations and recriminations that doesn't come. The silence is equilibrium shifting because this is not the way the world works. Silent stony slivers of pity served cold on a platter.
It tastes like acid rain on his tongue. And he would know.
He'd fall to his knees if he wasn't already flat on his back.
The bottom half of his face contorts into something that might be a smirk and it might be a grimace and it might even be an actual smile. Feels the muscles shift and creak into position. Mr. White's brows furrow, frown-like in response. Lines appearing above the wire rim of his glasses, wide irises magnified behind the fingerprint smudged convex glass.
A fly walks the metal tightrope of one gnarled arm.
”Jesus fucking Christ, are you high?”
He's not. He doesn't think.
It's been a while. He'd say he's forgotten what it feels like but that would be far from the truth.
When it's your default setting for the majority of your days you never forget.
- - -
“High on life, Mr. White,” he slurs. The words bouncing against bone and grey matter inside his skull.
Popping corn and jumping jacks and pogo sticks.
It's a lie on top of a lie but his guilt cup is full and his conscience quit in defeat months ago so none of it really matters anymore.
It's surprisingly liberating.
- - -
Lids separate, roller doors going up. He cops an eyeful of the old dude's package. Like those fugly briefs leave anything to the imagination anyway.
Jesus.
He's hauled to his feet, no time to prepare himself for the abrupt change in altitude. The world does a slow spin and languid blood thumps to the beat of a thousand drummers in his ears.
Clouds have whitewashed the sky, an imperfect pattern to hide the searing, endless blue.
Words from a familiar voice surround him, bounce off his teeth and the tips of his fingers, and blocking them out is getting so much easier than it ever used to be.
The baked metal sides of the RV creak and groan, a magnifying glass takes up its position in front of the sun. Purple smoke billows from the vents, thick plumes reaching to the heavens, giving rise to thoughts of steam trains and jet engines and cold, winter mornings.
Mr. White's uniform staple, pants and a button down irrespective of the temperature, flap flag-like in the blustery afternoon breeze. Mocking reminders of where they've both come from and why they can never, ever go back.
He figures it's a moot point these days because he's got jack shit to go back to anyway. Split lips and sex that he can't even remember and jet black hair wrapped through trembling fingers.
Cherry gloss and flip flops.
- - -
He makes his way across the shifting, shifting, shifting sand. Progress is slow but only because he wants it to be. Heat penetrates the sweat slick shirt on his back, sears twin tattoos between his shoulder blades and he thinks he can almost hear the inner workings of Mr. White's thought processes. The dude is entirely too predictable.
In an insanely unpredictable kind of way.
He stumbles, trips over shoelaces that have worked their way to undone. Unravelled and unravelling.
The parallels are blinding.
He straightens up without comment, raises a hand casually over his shoulder in a dismissive wave that could mean “I'm fine...”, could mean “Nothing to see here...”, could mean “Fuck you.”
Probably means all of the above.
- - -
He takes pleasure in the stubborn sound of the door slamming behind him. Metal on rusted metal that shakes the rickety walls and shudders the crates of glass and tin. Imagines the sound spreading outwards across the endless nothing that surrounds them.
The stagnant air inside the RV is thick with the chemical stench of fumes and stale sweat and the promise of dollar bills.
Fuck loads of dollar bills.
And it's the only thing stopping him from putting the barrel of a goddamn gun between his teeth and blowing the back of his skull to Mexico.
Or Texas.
Or maybe even Oklahoma if the wind is just right.
One more name to a body count that has steadily climbed. Ghosts and zombies and shape-shifters that filter in and out of his dreams.
- - -
He taps a nail against the centre of his forehead. Forces a modicum of concentration as a shard of sunlight pierces his reverie. A stiff, apron shaped silhouette in the doorway.
“In your own time there, Mr. White...” he condescends with a slow nod, smart ass sharp until the very end. “In your own time...”
Snapping on an identical pair of latex gloves, he offers the air in front of himself an imaginary rectal exam, lube application and all.
“Just once more?” He slides his gaze upwards and to the left, peers at Mr. White through a veil of clumped lashes and smoke screens, waits for the confirmatory nod.
“Yeah, Pinkman, just once more...”
He snorts harshly, somewhere low and slow in his gut. Knows without needing to think about it that just once more will inevitably become just once more...
Just once more...
Just once more...
- - -
Daylight turns to moonlight turns to midnight.
Not enough fingers to tick off the passing minutes as everything moves on and around and above and through, turns like tides that will never reach the New Mexico sands that conceal them.
For now.
Two steps ahead but losing ground fast.
Fandom: Breaking Bad (aka, my current meth crack...)
Characters: Jesse and Mr. White... (because it's Jesse's pov)
Word Count: 1300
Rating: R for language.
Summary: An attempt to recreate in prose the dream-like feel of the desert that is so eloquently portrayed on the screen... Just Jesse and Walt and a little crystal meth. production.
Disclaimer: At my user info. page.
Author's Note: This is my very first foray into the Breaking Bad fandom. I absolutely adore the quality of the camerawork in this show and I really wanted to have a go at doing the same kind of thing with words. The title is from 'Flame Trees', Cold Chisel.
Hot sun shifts by degrees towards the distant horizon. Blackened shadows elongate over wind rippled dunes, melt and morph like dripping ice. Ink backed bugs scuttle, footsteps echoing thunderously as storm clouds gather somewhere in the cavernous space where his insides used to live.
He thinks he hears his name called. Vague and tentatitve.
A sigh, a vortex of vowels and consonants and syllables that combine to define him as someone he doesn't think he's ever been.
Is ever likely to be.
There is no escaping this.
There is no escaping any of it.
He imagines cigarettes. Poised, ashy, between nicotine stained fingertips. Imagines a joint. Pipes, bongs... whatever.
Imagines having enough air in his lungs to drag any of it in deep enough that it blanks out all the rest. Everything he can't quite remember to forget.
Tries. Fails.
Fails again.
A familiar ending to a completely alien existence.
Snakes rattle in his shoes. Sand coats his tongue like a dream. Gritty and sharp in all the wrong places.
The colour red sounds like music. The words, an unfamiliar lullaby that leak from his ears. Settles somewhere in the dip of his collarbone as he sinks so far beneath himself he's not sure he'll ever make it back.
Not sure he'll ever want to.
She doesn't come. He doesn't think he really thought that she would. His head is too heavy to hold up, the muscles in his neck turned to peanut butter and jelly and mud.
Bobs like an apple. Disjointed and dim.
Drowning.
- - -
He blinks. Sweat slips and stings and curls his lips into a snarl.
There are fingers around his upper arm. Iridescent blue latex stretched taut.
“Jesus, are you sleeping?”
He'd laugh if he had enough air inside him.
Because the last time he slept was the last time anything made sense and it's been so fucking long since anything made sense.
He waits for a barrage of words and accusations and recriminations that doesn't come. The silence is equilibrium shifting because this is not the way the world works. Silent stony slivers of pity served cold on a platter.
It tastes like acid rain on his tongue. And he would know.
He'd fall to his knees if he wasn't already flat on his back.
The bottom half of his face contorts into something that might be a smirk and it might be a grimace and it might even be an actual smile. Feels the muscles shift and creak into position. Mr. White's brows furrow, frown-like in response. Lines appearing above the wire rim of his glasses, wide irises magnified behind the fingerprint smudged convex glass.
A fly walks the metal tightrope of one gnarled arm.
”Jesus fucking Christ, are you high?”
He's not. He doesn't think.
It's been a while. He'd say he's forgotten what it feels like but that would be far from the truth.
When it's your default setting for the majority of your days you never forget.
- - -
“High on life, Mr. White,” he slurs. The words bouncing against bone and grey matter inside his skull.
Popping corn and jumping jacks and pogo sticks.
It's a lie on top of a lie but his guilt cup is full and his conscience quit in defeat months ago so none of it really matters anymore.
It's surprisingly liberating.
- - -
Lids separate, roller doors going up. He cops an eyeful of the old dude's package. Like those fugly briefs leave anything to the imagination anyway.
Jesus.
He's hauled to his feet, no time to prepare himself for the abrupt change in altitude. The world does a slow spin and languid blood thumps to the beat of a thousand drummers in his ears.
Clouds have whitewashed the sky, an imperfect pattern to hide the searing, endless blue.
Words from a familiar voice surround him, bounce off his teeth and the tips of his fingers, and blocking them out is getting so much easier than it ever used to be.
The baked metal sides of the RV creak and groan, a magnifying glass takes up its position in front of the sun. Purple smoke billows from the vents, thick plumes reaching to the heavens, giving rise to thoughts of steam trains and jet engines and cold, winter mornings.
Mr. White's uniform staple, pants and a button down irrespective of the temperature, flap flag-like in the blustery afternoon breeze. Mocking reminders of where they've both come from and why they can never, ever go back.
He figures it's a moot point these days because he's got jack shit to go back to anyway. Split lips and sex that he can't even remember and jet black hair wrapped through trembling fingers.
Cherry gloss and flip flops.
- - -
He makes his way across the shifting, shifting, shifting sand. Progress is slow but only because he wants it to be. Heat penetrates the sweat slick shirt on his back, sears twin tattoos between his shoulder blades and he thinks he can almost hear the inner workings of Mr. White's thought processes. The dude is entirely too predictable.
In an insanely unpredictable kind of way.
He stumbles, trips over shoelaces that have worked their way to undone. Unravelled and unravelling.
The parallels are blinding.
He straightens up without comment, raises a hand casually over his shoulder in a dismissive wave that could mean “I'm fine...”, could mean “Nothing to see here...”, could mean “Fuck you.”
Probably means all of the above.
- - -
He takes pleasure in the stubborn sound of the door slamming behind him. Metal on rusted metal that shakes the rickety walls and shudders the crates of glass and tin. Imagines the sound spreading outwards across the endless nothing that surrounds them.
The stagnant air inside the RV is thick with the chemical stench of fumes and stale sweat and the promise of dollar bills.
Fuck loads of dollar bills.
And it's the only thing stopping him from putting the barrel of a goddamn gun between his teeth and blowing the back of his skull to Mexico.
Or Texas.
Or maybe even Oklahoma if the wind is just right.
One more name to a body count that has steadily climbed. Ghosts and zombies and shape-shifters that filter in and out of his dreams.
- - -
He taps a nail against the centre of his forehead. Forces a modicum of concentration as a shard of sunlight pierces his reverie. A stiff, apron shaped silhouette in the doorway.
“In your own time there, Mr. White...” he condescends with a slow nod, smart ass sharp until the very end. “In your own time...”
Snapping on an identical pair of latex gloves, he offers the air in front of himself an imaginary rectal exam, lube application and all.
“Just once more?” He slides his gaze upwards and to the left, peers at Mr. White through a veil of clumped lashes and smoke screens, waits for the confirmatory nod.
“Yeah, Pinkman, just once more...”
He snorts harshly, somewhere low and slow in his gut. Knows without needing to think about it that just once more will inevitably become just once more...
Just once more...
Just once more...
- - -
Daylight turns to moonlight turns to midnight.
Not enough fingers to tick off the passing minutes as everything moves on and around and above and through, turns like tides that will never reach the New Mexico sands that conceal them.
For now.
Two steps ahead but losing ground fast.