A/N: Fill for the Breaking Bad kinkmeme. I know nothing about drugs. And I obviously do not own any of these characters, etc.
"Jesse, this is the third time I've tried calling you. Pick up." Walt was practically grinding his teeth out of sheer frustration as he walked up the sidewalk to Jesse's house. He snapped his cell phone shut and gave the front door a try with a few hard knocks.
Silence.
"Pick up your phone, dammit! Your car is here. I know you're here." Walt tried calling again as he pushed his way toward the back of the house, unlatching the black iron gate. He pounded his fist on the back door only to receive the same response: silence. "Jesse!"
Walt pocketed his cell at that point knowing it was a lost cause trying to contact his partner via phone. Upon seeing all of the litter still strewn about in his yard—his backyard especially—only meant that the inside most likely still looked the same the last Walt had seen it. When he had asked Jesse about Gale. The specifics of what happened. And he had been escorted out.
Walt hadn't tried to contact Jesse at home ever since. But now it had been a few days since he had even seen the kid and he didn't show up at the lab earlier, leading Walt to investigate the problem.
Stupid, ignorant junkie.
Having checked all of the windows along the way, Walt finally spotted one that had been left open a crack. He pried it the rest of the way open and managed to heave himself up and through it, allowing himself entry into the locked and seemingly abandoned home. It was exactly as Walt had seen it last. Perhaps worse.
There was broken glass and garbage littering the floor throughout: discarded beer bottles, pizza boxes, soda cans, and even spray painted walls. The only thing that was missing was the slew of people strung out on drugs and loud, obnoxious music.
And Jesse.
Walt called out to him a few more times as he searched the main floor, almost expecting him to somehow be buried under all of the trash, hidden away from the world. But he came up empty and headed upstairs for the bedrooms. The first bedroom on the left.
Walt gave Jesse's cell phone one last try and when he could hear a faint buzzing noise coming from within the room, he knew he had pinpointed him. Finally.
"Jesse," Still agitated, Walt gripped the door handle and gave it a firm twist before throwing the door open. He let out an exasperated sigh once he spotted him in bed, half under the covers.
"Did you not hear your phone all the times I've tried calling or did you just decide it best to ignore—" Walt stopped as he neared the younger man, froze in place. It took him a couple minutes to truly register everything with the blinds pulled shut, shunning any immediate source of light from the room.
But with what sunlight was filtering through, he first noticed the used needle still propped in Jesse's right hand. Then the belt wrapped around his left bicep. The discoloration of his left arm from lack of blood flow. His face was flushed, his cheeks a burning red.
No. No, no, no…
"Jesse?" Walt snapped out of it once he heard a strangled choking sound escape the other man's throat. He rushed to his side, having realized Jesse was on his back, and gripped him by his shoulders.
Jane. He had watched the same thing happen to Jane. Stood by and let it happen.
He wouldn't let that happen to Jesse, too.
"Jesse—Jesse!" Walt just barely caught himself before he could start to shake the man. Instead, he focused on grabbing the belt trapping Jesse's arm and wrenched it off to return blood flow to the limb. He caught a glimpse of track marks on his arm, a sudden wave of guilt washing over him.
Jesse was completely unconscious and burning up, his skin radiating with heat as though his body were trying to rid itself of the toxins he had put in it. He wasn't fully breathing. He was choking. But it wasn't exactly… vomit. It looked more like saliva. Saliva mixed with stomach acid.
He hadn't been eating. That had become the conclusion as Walt did his best to pull Jesse forward even further and support his weight. He felt like he hardly weighed anything, his loose fitting clothes having hid his malnourished frame.
Walt pulled Jesse into his chest and beat on his back as if burping him like he was Holly. He never would have pictured something like this happening—Jesse OD'ing. His brain was almost in a state of shock. He didn't know what to do.
He had to get Jesse cooled down and he had to get his breathing back to normal.
Walt kept an arm half wrapped around Jesse as he used his free hand to toss the comforter off of him. He was dressed in another oversized shirt and a pair of boxers. Jesse's head lolled backward with the movement and Walt quickly moved his hand behind his neck to support him, to keep him forward so that he wasn't necessarily choking. He could feel Jesse's pulse under his palm, his heart beat just as arrhythmic as his breathing.
A fleeting thought crossed his mind, that if Jesse died right then and there in his arms, how would that look? His prints were surely everywhere now. Had he touched the needle? Would it look like he tried to kill him?
Walt shook his head clear of the thought and pulled Jesse back to his chest. He couldn't bring Jesse out of it. Not on his own.
He positioned one arm behind his back and looped the other under his knees before standing back up straight. Walt managed to balance Jesse's weight in his arms all while making sure he kept his head up high enough.
Stupid, ignorant junkie.
The hospital was approximately a thirty minute drive. Walt made it in ten. Luckily enough, he was able to safely run every red light he had come to and blew through every stop sign without any trace of the cops. The trip proved to be fairly easy after getting Jesse positioned in the passenger seat and buckled in.
Walt had been sitting in the waiting room for almost an hour before he had been led back to the room Jesse had been admitted to. He had fed the hospital some bullshit story about how he was Jesse's father, how Jesse wasn't returning any of his phone calls and that he had become concerned, which led him to check up on him at his house. There was at least enough prove on his and Jesse's cell phones that the calls he had made were true.
Now Walt was sitting by the window in some uncomfortable chair in the dull, empty room fitted with some small side table and bed occupied by a still unconscious Jesse. There was a faint chatter amongst hospital personnel that carried from outside of the room and a steady beeping coming from the heart monitor, but those were the only sounds that filled Walt's ears.
Jesse had practically returned to his old self. His heart rate remained a little high but it was slowly declining to what would be considered a resting heart rate. His flushed skin had returned to its normal, almost pale in comparison, tone. He wore an oxygen tube but he was breathing on his own. And he had a needle in the backside of his right hand providing him with much needed fluids.
Walt had trained his stare on the monitor, his mind feeling as though it was in another dimension. A slight groan from Jesse had brought him out of it though, his eyes landing on the younger man.
"Mr… Mr. White?" Jesse's voice cracked as he spoke. His eyes were just barely open and Walt found himself trying to mask his frown upon noticing the black circles under them, the fluorescent lighting only making him appear even worse.
Walt cleared his throat and got to his feet. "I'm here."
"What happened?" Jesse's voice was just as weak as he looked. And before Walt could lash out, he felt the guilt and regret wash over him again. Jesse hadn't been coping too well since killing Gale. He needed company. That's why he asked him to hang out the last time he had seen him. He was trying to keep his mind busy. Walt should have reached out to him more, should have seen the signs.
"Don't worry about it. Just… just get some rest." Walt approached the bedside and forced a weak smile. He placed a hand on Jesse's shoulder and gave a firm squeeze. "We'll talk when you get to feeling better."
