Walt looked around before approaching the house. What he was looking for he couldn't say. He just had a sketchy feeling about the place. Jesse had gone over there the previous evening to get the money for a big deal he had executed with the help of Badger and Skinny Pete. The owner of the house was a known dealer and bought from them in large quantities, so Jesse had been sent over to settle up after they'd ripped of Skinny Pete. He had said he could handle it himself rather than get Walt involved but the guy was big time and Walt had been uneasy.
He had warned Jesse to just be and in out but he hadn't called him back since he'd left. At first Walt wasn't concerned but he drove by Jesse's house and didn't see his car in the driveway, he was getting worried. He had called and Jesse hadn't answered his phone, although he usually didn't this early in the morning.
Still, Walt just had a feeling. There was no one on the street in this neighborhood this early and Walt approached the house and attempted to peer through a window before knocking. No answer. Walt tried the door and much to his surprise it was unlocked. He entered slowly, half expecting to have a gun drawn on him. There was a girl wearing almost nothing passed out on an air mattress, while a gangster looking guy laid next to her on the floor, hugging a pillow. A gun lay on the floor next to him. Walt picked it up quietly and took it with him.
He moved on into the living room where ashtrays, crack pipes, broken bottles and needles littered the floor. He was debating whether to go upstairs when he heard a moan from inside the kitchen. The kitchen was worse than the living room and Walt noted what he thought was blood on the floor. He gasped when he saw a man lying face down on the floor, lying in the doorway to some kind of three season porch. He could only see his legs, but recognized the shoes. Jesse.
Walt's heart sped up. This was no natural way or place to lay down, Jesse was unconscious, either from drugs or violence. Since he doubted Jesse would hang around to party with his enemies, he feared the worst. He set the gun down on the counter and hurried to his friend,
"Jesse," He whispered, not wanting to wake anyone else. As he bent over him he noticed blood on his pants. He crawled through the doorway, leaned over Jesse and realized he was positioned as though he had been trying to crawl out of the house when he'd lost consciousness. Walt grabbed the back of his shirt and attempted to turn him over.
He moaned. Thank God he was alive.
"Jess…Jesse, wake up, it's me."
"Huh?" Walt pulled Jesse somewhat upright and looked at him. He had a black eye, several cuts and bruises on his face and blood dripping out of his mouth. This didn't look good. Walt crawled the rest of the way over Jesse so he was completely on the porch and dragged Jesse out by his shoulders. He yelped loudly when his bottom scraped the floor and Walt froze. Whatever had happened here the night before was not good and he didn't want to have to defend himself and Jesse against who knows what.
"Jesse, can you hear me?" He whispered.
"Mr. White?" Jesse croaked.
"Yeah, son, it's me," Walt whispered, "Come on, we've got to get you out of here, okay?"
"I…don't.." Jesse whispered, head rolling to the side.
Walt stood and yanked Jesse upward, trying to get him to stand on his own. No dice, he would have to carry him. He bent and threw Jesse over his shoulders and left through the back door to the porch. He carried him down the driveway, hoping no one in the house would see and wishing he had brought that gun. He had thought he was being smart to park down the street on the way in but now regretted it, as Jesse was heavy for a skinny guy.
When at last he reached his car, he struggled to put Jesse in the back seat. Trying not to exaggerate unknown injuries, he did his best to position him gently. He noticed a lot more blood on his clothes and skin, as his shirt was badly torn. There was also a pretty distinct boot print in Jesse's light colored shirt and Walt hoped he hadn't been kicked badly enough to fracture ribs. Walt felt his wrists and checked his breathing, trying to decide to take him to the hospital or back to his house. He didn't seem to be conscious at all now.
Walt gently rubbed his shoulder, trying to wake him up but couldn't get much. Deciding he didn't want to stand there in the street any longer, he got in the driver's seat and began driving. Halfway to Jesse's house, he heard a mumble from the backseat.
"Jesse, are you alright?"
"…why….where…"
Walk turned around but couldn't see Jesse's face as it was behind the driver's seat.
"It's okay, Jess, it's Walt. I'm taking you home."
"….sick…." was the only response he could get, followed by dry heaving.
He managed to pull over and open the door before Jesse started vomiting, thankfully on the street and not in the car. Since he was lying down, he slowly began sliding out of the car, face first as he continued to vomit. Just as he was about to fall into his own mess, Walt reached out and grabbed his shoulders, turning him so he would land on his bottom instead of his face.
"What do you want, why are you touching me?" Jesse screamed, the loudest and most coherent thing he had said yet.
Walt stepped back, surprised, questioning eyes focused on his young partner.
"Jesse…I just…."
"You just what?" Jesse scooted away, still on the ground, eyes filled with fear, "I don't….I…." He was breathing too hard to continue and still unable to get up.
"Jesse, what are you on?" Walt asked firmly.
"No, nothing," Jesse looked at his shaking hands, "I drank a beer, I think…I couldn't move after that…slipped something…I passed out."
Walt reached out to Jesse, hoping he would take his hand and let him help him up. Jesse paused for a few seconds, then seemed to look around for the first time and realize he was sitting in the street, between his friend and a puddle of his own vomit and take stock. He reached up and took Walt's hands, his own hands shaking, sweaty and clammy.
Walt pulled him up, realizing something terrible had happened, as he had never seen Jesse in this much of state, even when he was high. Jesse's legs were shaking and he was having trouble standing on his own, so Walt leaned him up against the car. It was then that he noticed the goosebumps on his arms and realized he was probably cold, as there was a chill in the air and Jesse had been basically outside in a T shirt all night. Walt took off his own jacket and draped it over his friend's shoulders.
"Thanks, Mr. White," Jesse said, calmer now, and gratefully pulled the front of the jacket around him.
"Do you want some water or something?" Walt asked, looking in the front seat, "Well, I've got some…kiwi fruit punch explosion…" He read the label, "One of Skylars vitamin drinks or something."
Jesse nodded and accepted the half drank bottle of mystery juice. Anything to get the taste of puke out of his mouth.
"It's…bad," He said, fighting the urge to spit it out.
"Come on," Walt said, motioning for him to get in the car, "I'll take you home."
He helped Jesse up into the seat, where he sat on his own this time and continued the drive. When he got to Jesse's house, Jesse was walking on his own but Walt followed him in and Jesse didn't tell him not to. When he got to his single front step, he bumped his foot on the step and nearly toppled over. Something was definitely wrong, Walt decided, and he wanted to know what had happened. Walk kept his hands on the young man's shoulders to steady him until they reached the kitchen.
"Jesse, what happened?" Walt handed him a glass of water as Jesse just sat at the kitchen table, staring at him blankly.
"I don't know, Mr. White," He said dully, "I just want to take a shower."
Walt frowned. He wasn't sure if his fried would be able to stand long enough to take a shower. Without a word, he wetted a rag from the kitchen and handed it to Jesse. He began wiping his face with it. Walt waited silently.
"I don't know," Jesse said loudly, answering his unspoken question, "I don't want to talk about it, okay?"
"You think they drugged you?"
"I said I don't know."
"Fair enough," Walt agreed, "You probably need some rest anyway. I'll help you get up the stairs."
Jesse looked reluctant, but doubting his own ability to get up the stairs, nodded. Walt stood behind him with a steadying hand on his back and let him take his time. Halfway up, he stopped,
"I'm sorry, I got to sit down for a second, my knees."
Walt had noticed his legs were shaky, but hadn't said anything. He could see that Jesse was in a bad way, but didn't know what to do or what Jesse would let him do. Honestly, he was surprised Jesse had let him come in the house at all. He let Jesse catch his breath and continued to help him up the stairs. He let Jesse sit on his bed, but when he began to lay down, Walt said,
"Don't lay down, Jess, hold on a second?"
"What?" Jesse managed, but Walt had disappeared into the bathroom.
He came out holding a wet towel and a bottle of peroxide.
"A couple of those look kind of deep," He said gently, motioning to the cuts on Jesse's face.
"Do we have to do this now?" Jesse moaned, "I'm tired."
"Yeah, I know," Walt said sympathetically, sitting down on the bed next to him, "But trust me you don't want an infection on top of all of this."
Jesse grunted in acquiescence as Walt began dabbing peroxide on the deepest of the cuts.
"Okay, this is gonna sting just a little," He warned, but Jesse was already biting his lower lip in pain, "Damn, you've got a pretty big one on the back of your head, here, look down."
Jesse buried his head in his hands, stooped so far forward he was almost touching his knees.
"Did the dealer attack you?" Walt asked.
Jesse nodded, "They all did. They were all casual at first, offered me a beer…I thought it was gonna go down fine. Then they all jumped me, there was like four of them and they were all kicking me and suddenly I couldn't move….it…uh…wasn't good."
"Holy, shit, Jess, I'm sorry, I should have gone over there with you."
"Then they would've just kicked your ass too…neither of us saw this coming."
"I know….I just…are you wounded under your shirt too?"
Jesse shrugged and pulled the T shirt over his head, discarding it on the floor. Both gasped. His chest and back were a war zone of cuts and boot shaped bruises. Walt immediately noticed that his lower back was covered in blood, leading down his pants. He sighed, as this confirmed what he had already suspected when he saw the blood on Jesse's pants earlier. He began applying alcohol to the cuts he could see, trying to decide how to approach this. When he got to Jesse's lower back, Jesse, who was already shaking and uncomfortable, stood up and said,
"Thanks, Mr. White, you can go now…I'm gonna get in the shower."
He walked into the bathroom and Walt could hear the shower running. He didn't even bother to close the bathroom door, so Walt waited a few minutes before standing in the doorway. He could hear Jesse muttering, perhaps fighting tears. His pants and underwear were discarded on the floor. Walt used his foot to overturn Jesse's pants and confirmed that both his pants and underwear were covered in blood. It was a lot too…Walt wasn't sure what to do, as it was very possible that Jesse needed medical attention and unlikely that he would seek it out. Especially not for something like this. Walt took a deep breath and retreated back to Jesse's bedroom.
Meanwhile, in the shower, Jesse was struggling to stay standing. Still, he had to get the stench of last night off of him. He just felt so disgusting. He just wanted it to be gone, to never have happened. He noticed the tremendous amount of blood staining the water that ran down the drain. He tried to look at his own back, but without much success. At first he figured it was just the dried blood washing off, but soon realized he was still bleeding from his ass. Great, he thought, What am I going to do about that?
He tried to figure out how much he was bleeding but because the shower water was diluting it so bad it was hard to tell. He also couldn't tell exactly where it was coming from, as he couldn't' see that part of himself. Maybe if he had a handheld mirror, which of course he didn't. Oh, he just wanted to go to sleep and forget about this. Wake up thinking it was a dream. But it had been a good four hours since anything had happened and he was still bleeding, that had to be a bad sign. He reasoned that if he were going to bleed out it would have happened already, but he didn't know that. He was debating what to do as he got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around himself and went back to his bedroom. He opened his drawer and fished out a baggy T shirt and pajama pants and struggled to them, pants first. He turned around as he was pulling the shirt over his head and nearly jumped out of his skin when he pulled the shirt down and saw Walt sitting in the chair in the corner. He must have been there the whole time but in his preoccupied state he hadn't noticed.
"I thought you left," He stammered, "What the hell are you still doing here, perving on me?"
"I was worried, Jesse," Walt said truthfully, "You could hardly get up the stairs, I didn't want to you fall or something."
"Well, I'm fine, you can go now."
Walt stood and walked halfway across the room to Jesse, biting his lip, knowing he had to say something.
"Jesse, how bad are you hurt?"
"It's fine, just some cuts and bruises. Nothing special." He looked at the ground
"Jesse, look at me." He briefly met Walt's gaze before turning to the ceiling, then the chair, he couldn't stand to look at Walt.
"Please, look at me," Walt said again.
Jesse took a breathe and met Walt's gaze. It was so uncomfortable he didn't know what to do. His heart was racing on top of already feeling sick. He didn't want to talk about what happened and he certainly didn't want to have this conversation now. He wanted to blow up at Walt but in the back of his head was scared to be left alone, as he didn't really know how bad he was hurt. His cheeks burned, he must be beet red, surely Walt had already figured out what had happened. His own memory of it was foggy but he remembered being kicked, being called a faggot and he remembered the unbelievably sharp pain in his ass and the weight of the gangsters on top of him. The sound of the others cheering and the scratchy feel of the porch's astroturf grinding against his face.
"Why don't you just go home?" he exploded.
"Jesse," Walt said, reaching out to touch his shoulder, not the least bit put off by his false bravado.
"Don't touch me man," Jesse slapped his hand away and pushed Walt as hard as he could. Unfortunately, he was still quite weak and only managed to knock himself over, Walt didn't budge. He sat on the floor, fighting back tears as he tried to turn away from Walt. Walt bent to sit on the floor next to him and moved the towel Jesse had discarded in order to sit. When he lifted the towel he noticed the blood stains and his worst fear was confirmed.
"Jesse," he said calmly, "Are you still bleeding?"
Jesse turned his head sharply to look at Walt. How did he know that? When he saw the towel he knew Walt had figured it out.
"A little," He croaked, fighting back tears, "I don't know, I can't tell."
Walt put his hand on Jesse's shoulder again and this time he leaned into it. He couldn't control the sobbing anymore and although he was embarrassed, he allowed Walt to hold him for a few minutes.
"Jesse, I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but I think you might need to go the hospital."
"No," Jesse replied immediately.
"I know," Walt squeezed his shoulder, "But you could be in real danger. The bleeding should have stopped by now…..look, if it helps, I could…..let you know how bad it is."
"You mean, you want to ….look at it?"
Walt nodded, frowning, "If you would rather do that…I could at least tell you what we're looking at here."
Jesse stared in disbelief. The last thing he wanted to do was to go the hospital. The second to last thing would be to let Walt examine his ass, but he was afraid it had to be him or strangers, and he certainly didn't feel like being touched by strangers. Not today.
"Okay," He gave in.
Walt nodded, "Why don't you just…take your pants off and lay face down."
Jesse took an extra minute to fumble with the drawstring on his PJ pants before dropping them. He hadn't bothered to put on any new underwear. As he laid down on the bed he had sudden flashbacks of the night before. The feeling of the gangsters hands on his back. And then…he didn't want to think about it. He bit his wrist to keep from screaming as Walt sat on the bed next to him.
"Okay, Jess, don't freak out, I need to touch you for just a second," Walt warned.
"Okay,"He said, his mouth full of his own wrist.
He cringed as he felt Walt's hands on his buttocks and heard him gasp, suddenly.
"What, what is it?" he asked, about to cry from the sheer awkwardness of it all. When Walt didn't respond he rolled over to see that his friends face was pale.
"What, yo, what is it?" He demanded.
"Okay, Jesse, the thing is….your perineum is torn a little."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It's the space between your…"
"My taint? Oh, man, you mean my taint is bleeding?"
"Yeah, and um…some of the insides are on the outside. You are going to need stitches, son, someone is going to have to repair this."
Jesse looked absolutely terrified. Walt's heart melted to see the fear on this kids face. And he certainly didn't blame him- not only what had happened but the sheer awkwardness he would have to face telling the hospital staff what had happened.
"I can't," Jesse seemed to read his mind, "I can't go to the hospital and tell them what happened. I ….can't…what would happen if I just let it go?"
"Well, it's possible that you would bleed out. More likely this will get infected. It wouldn't heal right, Jesse, you would have some damage forever. Then you'd always have to think about it."
A fair point, Jesse decided, he certainly didn't want to have a permanent reminder of what had happened last night.
"I can't tell anyone," Jesse whispered, "I just can't."
"Then I will," Walt said, soft eyes staring down at his young friend, "Okay? I will take you to the hospital and I'll do all the talking. You just have to let them help you."
Jesse considered this as he put his clothes back on. While he could think of nothing more unpleasant than a trip to the hospital, Walt had convinced him it was necessary to avoid permanent damage. Let Walt take him in and handle the awkward part or tell him to fuck off and save face? He bit his lip, contemplating.
"Jesse?"
He didn't answer. As much as he wanted Walt to respect him, he couldn't even imagine having to walk up to a stranger and say it, tell what happened. Walt was so much more composed…
"Jesse," Walt nudged him slightly.
When he didn't move, Walt backed off. Jesse often froze up and was unresponsive when he was upset, so Walt decided to just let him think.
"I'll be right back," He told the stoic young man and left the room.
He proceeded calmly downstairs and started a pot of coffee. When he returned to Jesse's room ten minutes later with two cups of coffee, Jesse hadn't moved. But Walt knew he had been thinking. He held out a cup of coffee to him but Jesse didn't respond. Setting his own cup down, Walt pressed Jesse's cup into his hand until he took it.
"Thanks," He nodded.
Walt didn't press, just waited. Jesse took a few sips of coffee and said, "Well, I guess we're going to the hospital."
