Wicked Game
Skyler White remembered trying to gain what information she could about Walt's job when he had started working at the high school. She remembered flipping through old yearbooks that Walt had received as half-hearted gifts from other teachers, looking to match names to faces and figure out exactly what Walt did all day. Was he liked? Did he fit in? Did his students like him?
She remembered driving by the car wash, gazing at Bogdan and bristling at the way he treated her husband. She had wanted to step in, to get even.
And now she was.
But this wasn't enough. Indirectly repaying past wrongs against Walt wasn't the same thing as actually being involved in his life. And his life was becoming a bigger and bigger mystery to her the more she learned about it.
A meth dealer – manufacturer.
A meth manufacturer with a business partner who she had only met once, but of whom she had walked away from with a very distasteful opinion. Then why was the man's name – man? More like a boy, he was twenty-five if that and acted like a rebellious child – still ringing in her ears?
Jesse Pinkman.
Skyler's fingers seemed to type of their own free will. She was somewhat surprised to find him in the phone book, but perhaps he was hiding in plain sight, just like Walt was.
She read the address, even said it aloud, even as she cursed herself for what must have been the stupidest flight of fancy she'd ever had. And Skyler had never been given to flights of fancy. That had always been Marie's job – growing up, she'd always been the lonely dreamer who spent so much time inside her own head and her own fantastic notions of life. It was ironic that she, the daydreamer, had gone into a practical field in radiology and Skyler, the practical cynic, had become the short story writer. How had that happened again?
The practical cynic who was now standing in front of Jesse Pinkman's address and wondering just what the hell was going on inside. As she stood on the lawn, she watched as men who were of an indiscernible age, torn up by years of living on the streets and off of lines of meth, walked out, carrying CDs, pieces of furniture, and even what looked like part of a speaker system.
"Hey!" Skyler barked at one of them. The man's hands shook and he dropped the speaker part – or whatever it was – on the lawn and stared at her with dead brown eyes. "Does that belong to you?" The man shook his head, still looking at Skyler as if he wasn't entirely sure what she was. "Then go." She moved her hand as if she was swatting a fly, and must have been more intimidating than she felt as the man bolted off to the left, running down the street. She heard several beeps of angry cars in the distance but paid them no mind; instead, she walked up to the door and knocked.
There was no answer. She knocked again.
Deciding that the people who had been walking off with Jesse's belongings probably hadn't bother to knock, Skyler tested the door and found it unlocked. She took a tentative step inside, wondering fantastically if perhaps it was booby-trapped; maybe this was going to be something like James Bond having to step foot in a dangerous enemy territory.
If it was, she really ought to have worn much more practical shoes.
Skyler couldn't contain a gasp as she caught sight of the inside of the house. There was graffiti on the walls, and people were sleeping in every inch of the living room – or what Skyler supposed had once been the living room – mostly looking as if they were passed out from some sort of drug use.
It was like stepping into a different dimension.
"Get out of here!" she barked at the squatters, grabbing at a few collars and sending the rest out with the fuss she was making. The only one who hadn't budged was the man she only vaguely recognized as Jesse himself, slumped in front of what remained of the speaker system. "Jesse Pinkman," she muttered at first, then spoke a little louder as she crouched down on her knees, reached over and shook him.
"Yo," he grunted as he fought weakly against the shake.
"Are you okay?" Skyler inquired. Jesse's eyes slowly focused on her as his brow furrowed in abject confusion.
"Yo," he said again, this time rather indignantly. "You're Mrs. White."
"Yes, I am," Skyler replied, leaning back and standing up. "What is going on in here, Mr. Pinkman?" He let out a literal hysterical laugh at being called "Mr." anything.
"I was partying," he replied finally. "Where'd everybody go?"
"They were stealing from you." Skyler said it firmly, without a hint of defensiveness. She'd made the right call.
"I don't care," Jesse responded, his eyes slipping shut again.
"You should."
"Go away."
Skyler's lips pursed and she took another step towards Jesse.
"What happened? Why don't you care?" she asked, her voice a little quieter and her tone just a hair softer. She wondered at how Jesse wasn't so much older than her own son, yet the two were so very different. There was a hardness in Jesse's eyes, when he kept them open, but it was easy to see behind it.
Behind it was pure hurt.
"Trust me, you don't wanna know."
"Okay." Skyler crouched again, sat as if she was about to have some kind of intervention, and maybe she was. She still didn't know what had brought her here, but maybe this was it. Maybe she was the one to save Jesse Pinkman.
She felt a stab of anger at Walt – how did he not realize that this kid was running on empty? And how long had he been doing so – maybe with Walt's help?
"Maybe we'll just sit here and talk," Skyler ventured, and Jesse opened his eyes again; they flushed with irritation.
"I won't be talking," Jesse retorted.
"Then we'll sit here in silence," Skyler replied easily. She curled one leg under the other and sat next to him, Indian-style, cursing her husband who had left this boy in his wake. She wondered for the first time whether Jesse's influence had made Walt what he is or the other way around – it had to be the other way around, as Jesse seemed incapable of influencing anyone to anything other than finishing the last bag of Cheetos.
"Fine." There was a pause.
"Mr. Pinkman," Skyler tried again.
"Thought we were sitting in silence," Jesse snarked.
"We were." Skyler sighed, raising her arms in defeat. He's so petulant, so rebellious, she thought to herself. A wall around him a mile wide. One that nothing can penetrate.
Suddenly she wanted to reach him, to succeed where her husband could not. But how? She did not speak the same language as the Jesse Pinkmans of the world. She knew nothing of his life and she knew he could imagine nothing of hers – nothing of a life of responsibility.
But also a life of rebelling in little, quiet ways – and then one huge way that had broken her husband down utterly and strengthened his resolve to get back, all at once.
Skyler knew how to break the rules as much as Jesse did, just in ways that were more socially acceptable and, perhaps, less dangerous.
Jesse's eyes were still open, and Skyler allowed her own gaze to settle upon his. His eyes were as blue as the New Mexico sky, such a contrast to the tumult that she knew must lay beyond those eyes. What had Walt made him do? Why was he curled up in this prison of poisonous people who stole from him in front of his eyes, to the point that he no longer cared as long as he was surrounded by people and not doomed to be left alone?
She wouldn't leave him alone.
It was such a strange thought – why was her loyalty flying to this lost boy? What reason did she have for that? She'd been callous enough to leave her husband, the one she was supposed to honor and obey for better or worse, after he'd had a surgery, when she'd suspected that sliver of who he really was.
Now she knew who he really was.
Maybe that was it – she knew nothing, really, of who Jesse Pinkman was. She had no expectations, there'd be no lingering stab of disappointment when he failed to live up to them.
Before she could justify herself and put meaning behind the thought behind the action, Skyler found her fingers buried deep in Jesse's hair, felt him jerk under her touch but eventually relax. This was different from Ted; this wasn't a way to hurt Walt but somehow, a way to connect with him, through a man who she knew nothing of but of whom Walt must know so much. His partner. His other half. Both of those things that she should be.
Before she could figure out a reason, Skyler was kissing Jesse… who wasn't kissing back, but wasn't fighting either. He'd gone passive, slack, and his eyes were wide. She broke away and looked at him.
"That was probably a mistake," she said after a moment.
"Definitely," Jesse echoed.
"We probably shouldn't do this," she added, but she wanted to.
"Mrs. White," Jesse said simply. Reminding her who she was. She was Walt's, and so was he.
A bond that was unable to be broken. While she and Walt hung so precariously together, ready to break apart at any moment.
Skyler stood and turned, then turned back. Her eyes met Jesse's.
"Clean up your walls and get yourself together. Or I'll tell Walt," she warned. She threw her blonde hair over her shoulder and resolved to never see Jesse Pinkman again.