"Okay, I'm sick of eatin' soup and canned junk," Jesse says on the third day, "and we're almost out of food, so we gotta go to the store."

Walt says nothing. His head is still buried in the pillow as it has been since this morning. He knows he should get up and do something, maybe make an effort to unpack his clothes, but he just can't. There's no urgency anymore, no real desire to do anything but lie here.

Walt feels the bounce when Jesse drops onto the mattress. "C'mon, Mr. White. It's been three days. Don't you wanna go see what's outside those gates?"

Walt closes his eyes. "You go, Jesse."

"Are you sick or somethin'? I can pick up some medicine if you want."

Walt wants his old life back: before the cancer, before everything went so absymally wrong. His life wasn't perfect—if it were he wouldn't be here now–but it was infinitely better than being sequestered in a snowed-in cabin with nothing but the beat of his own heart and Jesse's sleep-talking to keep him company.

Jesse waits for Walt to say something, but when he doesn't Jesse grumbles out, "Fine, be a dick about it," before grabbing the keys off of the counter and leaving Walt utterly alone.

#

The silence is what Walt hates the most, especially at night. Jesse doesn't stir often or snore, so Walt's left with the near-deafening sound of silence and the ricochet of his thoughts inside his head. He's beginning to understand why Jesse plunged head-first into the false comfort of drug abuse after Jane died. What Walt would give to forget...

Sometimes Walt lies awake and watches the rise and fall of Jesse's chest in his sleep or the way his fingers curl in Walt's shirt. Occasionally Jesse will mumble nonsense like "Don't wet the water" or "sea monkey has my money."

For these brief little moments Walt doesn't feel so alone.

#

"I saw a bookstore last time I was in town," Jesse says, sitting on the edge of the bed as he pulls boots over his socked feet. "Thought I'd check it out. You wanna come?"

Walt turns over on his side and manages to say, "No."

"You sure? There's a frozen yogurt place across the street."

"The temperature's practically in the negative numbers. Why would I want frozen yogurt?"

Jesse sighs like Walt's being difficult. "Okay, fine, get a coffee or a cheeseburger. Whatever. Just do somethin' besides lyin' around in bed all day." There's a hint of venom in his voice.

"I don't want to."

Jesse huffs out an angry breath and stands up. "Hey, I don't wanna do everything around here like your damn maid, but you don't see me complaining."

Walt makes an aggrieved sound.

"Jesus, quit bein' such a little bitch! No, no, you're like—you're like a combination of bitches to make the world's biggest bitch! Like a bitch Transformer: Optimus Bitch!"

"Are you done?" Walt asks after a moment.

Jesse chokes on an appalled noise in his throat. "Done? Am I—The only thing I'm done with is your bullshit! Just because you wanna make my life miserable doesn't mean—"

And that's the thread that unravels the rage Walt's bottled up since this all started. "Oh, I'm making your life miserable?" he bellows, sitting up to focus the full scope of his wrath onto Jesse. "Because you had so much going for you before I came along!"

Jesse bites back with equal force. "Well, guess what, Mr. White: I never wanted any of this! I never wanted to cook crystal with you, but your old ass never gave me a choice! 'Cook with me or I turn you in,' remember?"

Walt vaguely remembers saying something to that effect.

"So enlighten me: how am I making your life miserable?"

"You made this necessary, Jesse! You went after those gang-bangers! If I hadn't followed you—"

"I didn't ask you to do shit for me! If you had just let them kill me you'd still be cookin'!"

Walt feels that one like a whip-crack to his chest, and the anger drops out of him. "Jesse..."

Jesse just shakes his head, moving for the door. "Since you're up, why don't you do the dishes?"

Walt grumbles a bevy of curses under his breath and gets out of bed after Jesse's gone.

#

It's been a week since they moved in to the cabin. Jesse's sitting cross-legged on the bed, spreading out a handful of brochures and pamphlets in the space between him and Walt. A bowl of hash browns is precariously balanced on his knee. His pajama pants are black with skulls engulfed in neon green flames. "So the library has all these ads for cool shit to do in town. Pick one," he says around a mouthful of potatoes.

Walt eyes the brochures like they might come alive and do something terrible to him. "Why?"

"Because we're gonna get out and do something today." Jesse doesn't seem to be taking no for an answer. He scoops in another forkful of hash browns and says, "So pick out a place you don't think is totally lame."

"We don't have a car," Walt reminds him. "You expect us to walk to these places?"

"It's called public transportation, yo."

Walt sighs and picks up the nearest brochure. "'Santa's Village?' Jesse, it's April. It says 'open May through December.'"

Jesse frowns. "Okay, put a pin in that, I guess." He hands Walt another pamphlet. "Look at that shit; it's a castle! How awesome is that?"

"'Open weekends only beginning on Mother's Day Weekend.'"

"God damn it."

The next brochure he reads is for an amusement park called Story Land. Walt is immediately skeptical of the name, because clearly an uncreative child was in charge of the nomenclature. That can't be a sign of anything promising. "I think this is for children, Jesse," Walt says, lifting an eyebrow.

"Not exclusively! There's gotta be something there for the parents, right? They don't just drop the kids off and leave." Jesse points to the list of rides. "Are you saying you're too old for the Buccaneer Pirate Ship?"

Walt gives him flat eyes. "That is exactly what I'm saying."

"You just don't know how to like things," Jesse says with a tragic shake of his head.

Walt decides not to argue with him. He surveys the other brochures. There's one for a shopping mall, which Walt refuses on principle. Another pamphlet advertises Crotched Mountain Ski and Ride, which, no, God no. He's not setting foot anywhere near a place with a name that dangerously close to genitalia. Orchards, golf courses, ski resorts, water parks, an arcade... It's too cold for any of this shit.

But he doesn't want to disappoint Jesse or come off like he's refusing to make an effort. It was Walt's idea to live together, so it's his responsibility to make sure they don't snap and murder each other. And if that means enduring an outing at some ridiculous location, well, Walt set himself up for this one.

"Why don't you show me around town?" Walt suggests. Jesse freezes, fork halfway raised to his mouth. "You know your way around, right?"

Jesse smiles like he's pleased by Walt's attitude adjustment. "Yeah, sorta. I mean, I can get us there and back."

#

"So, hey, you know there's actually a town called Sandwich somewhere around here?" Jesse says while they're trudging down the dirt road into town. A mass of trees surrounds both sides of the pathway, clumps of snow frozen on their branches. It's all picturesque, but Walt can't stop flashing back to the time he and Jesse hiked through the desert following the Tuco debacle. Only now it's freezing instead of sweltering.

"That means there's cop cars driving around that say 'Sandwich Police!'" Jesse laughs an airy sound Walt hasn't heard from him in ages. "Like, 'yo, you're under arrest for using low-fat mayonnaise.'"

Walt smiles; Jesse seems to have some sort of superpower for cheering him up today. He's currently wrapped up tight in one of Jesse's coats, because Walt's an idiot who didn't pack an extensive repertoire of winter clothes. About ninety percent of Jesse's wardrobe has long sleeves or other warming properties, but Walt's about thirty years older than the target consumer for this kind of attire. He feels like a grade-A doofus—albeit a warm grade-A doofus.

At least he won't see anybody he knows.

"Then there's an off-shot of Sandwich called Center Sandwich," Jesse continues, "that sounds like some sort of evil sandwich-related lair."

"Why does the phrase 'evil sandwich-related lair' need to exist?" Walt wonders aloud.

"You think the sandwiches themselves are evil? Or is it just, like, conspiracies to put nasty shit in people's sandwiches?"

"I think we need to stop saying 'sandwich.'"

"It wouldn't kill you to have a little fun, Mr. White."

"Actually, it would. My doctor put me on a strict no-fun diet," Walt says with a half-smile.

Jesse turns around to see the smirk on Walt's mouth, as if he considered the possibility that wasn't a joke. He walks backwards in the snow while he says, "Oh, yeah, when was that, when you were born?"

Just for that, Walt lets Jesse smack right into a tree, and he doesn't feel bad for laughing when a blanket of snow drops onto Jesse's head.

"Damn it," Jesse grumbles. His face goes beet-red, and he shakes the ice out of his hair.

Walt can't help but chuckle quietly to himself once Jesse turns his back.

It takes them a while to get into town, mostly because their cabin is smack-dab in the middle of fucking nowhere. But eventually the trees thin out and civilization lies before them. "You see the struggle I go through?" Jesse laments as they're crossing the bridge over the river. "We seriously need a car."

"Nothing that bounces, please." Walt thinks Jesse can at least do that much for him and their collective dignity.

Jesse just sighs like Walt's asked him to amputate one of his own limbs.

There's a bit of culture shock when Walt gets into the town proper. He's lived his entire life on sprawling plains and sun-baked suburbs; this is a hell of a change. The cold has robbed most trees of their foilage, but it's not difficult to imagine how colorful they would be with their leaves. Sheets of fluffy snow top the elegant roofs of the buildings lining the streets. Older structures are cobbled from stone and sturdy brick, while the newer ones are the standard wood and stucco architecture. Glorious mountains encroach on all sides, their peaks majestic against the crisp, azure blue sky.

Despite the obvious urban advances, the town has an old-world, rustic Northeastern feel to it, like something out of a Revolutionary War period piece. Walt takes it all in, tries not to gawk like a tourist. Jesse leads the way. "So, what'd'ya think? Pretty dope, huh?"

"It's different," Walt says. Understatement of the century.

"Good different or bad different?"

"We'll see."

Jesse's like an energetic tour guide, pointing out the market, and the bookstore, and the frozen yogurt shop across the street. Walt's more interested in the atmosphere: the snow-frosted church steeple, the clear, calm river flow, mountain ranges in the distance, sparsely-populated streets...

"Jesse, just off-hand, how many people live here?"

"I saw the sign somewhere the other day. I think it was, like, ten thousand or somethin'."

That's a hell of a difference from Albuquerque, which boasts over five-hundred thousand inhabitants. Walt hopes he and Jesse don't become fodder for small-town gossip. The last thing they need is to draw attention to themselves.

Jesse takes in the sights the way a child does on his first trip to Disneyland, and, okay, Walt's not going to deny that it's completely adorable. He briefly entertains the thought of one day taking Jesse to one of those amusement parks, if only to see the sparkle in his eyes. Yeah, Walt's kind of a sap deep down.

They have lunch at a diner that looks like it belongs in the tourist district of Memphis. There's a counter with spin stools, shiny aluminum décor everywhere, seats with that mix of red vinyl and leather that makes a "grr" sound when you sit on it. It's all very strange and normal, in a way Walt and Jesse absolutely aren't.

But, technically, they aren't Walt and Jesse anymore, so maybe change is necessary.

"So Iron Man 2 is comin' out soon," Jesse says around a huge bite of his cheeseburger.

Walt thinks he's supposed to say something here. "Which one is he?"

Jesse stares at him like he's reconsidering their friendship. "How the fuck do you not know who Iron Man is?"

"Excuse me for not being an encyclopedia of knowledge on comic book characters."

"'Encyclopedia'? Dude, he's been around since, like, 1963. You should know this shit through cultural osmosis."

"Osmosis?" Walt had no idea Jesse even knew what that word means.

Jesse looks offended. "Yeah, I know stuff." He takes another bite. "So, yeah, we gotta see it when it comes out, 'cause Black Widow's gonna be in it"—he looks at Walt's face—"and clearly you have no idea how epic that is."

"We? Why am I involved in this?"

"Because I have to introduce you to some good movies." Jesse takes a sip of his orange soda. "It's a burden I've taken upon myself."

"'Good movies'?" Walt's judging him a little right now.

"What, like your taste is any better?"

"Yes, actually," Walt protests, because, yeah, that's where he's taking this conversation.

Jesse gives him a skeptical look. "Besides The Godfather and Star Wars?"

"Taxi Driver."

"Snore."

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly."

"Snore."

Walt frowns. "Casablanca."

"Double snore."

"North by Northwest."

Jesse actually makes a snoring sound this time.

"Citizen Kane."

"More like Citizen Lame."

Walt smirks. "Those were all before your time, weren't they?"

"Yeah, Grandpa. Did they have telephones back then or did you have to communicate through messenger pigeons?"

"Smart-ass."

Jesse gives Walt a patronizing smile and stabs some of his fries into the ketchup moat on his plate. "This is weird, yo. I feel like I've known you forever, but I don't actually know you."

Walt doesn't know Jesse either, aside from his own preconceived notions. For two people who've spent so much time together, they've rarely shared anything particularly revealing or meaningful.

"I don't really know you either. I suppose I should, if we're going to be living together."

Jesse's right arm rests on the table, and Walt traces a finger down the length of the tattoo there. To Walt's surprise, Jesse doesn't jerk away. "Why don't you start? You could tell me why you got this. Any special significance?"

Jesse chuckles, breathy and chagrined. He rubs his hand over his face before he says, "I was high, and I thought it was a scorpion."

Walt tries not to laugh at that. He really does. But he can't help it. "Wow." He turns his head and squints. "I can see how you'd make that mistake, though."

"I know, right?" The corner of his mouth pulls into a smile. "Alright, my turn. What did you mean when you were talkin' about how you got five thousand bucks out of a billion-dollar company? What happened?"

Walt breathes out a long sigh. This is what he wanted, an opportunity to offer something personal and earn from Jesse in return. It seems a little weird to segue from I got this tattoo because I thought it looked like a scorpion to I took a five thousand dollar buyout that haunts me every night because I could have done so much more with my life. But Jesse asked, so Walt leans in and says, "I won't go into too much detail, but, uh, have you ever heard of a company called Gray Matter?"

Jesse shakes his head, stuffs a couple fries into his mouth.

"Well, I co-founded it in grad school with a couple friends of mine. Actually, I was the one who named it. And back then it was just small time. We had a couple patents pending,but nothing earth-shattering. But we all knew the potential. We were gonna take the world by storm." He chuckles bitterly at the memory. "But then...well, something happened with the three of us, and for, uh, personal reasons I decided to leave the company, and I sold my share to my two partners. I took a buyout for five thousand dollars. Now, at the time, that was a lot of money. Care to guess what that company's worth now?"

Jesse just gives him a blank look, beckoning him to elaborate.

"2.16 billion as of last Friday. I look it up every week." Walt wishes he could unring that bell, because it feels like giving away too much. This is a wound that's never stopped bleeding. "And I sold my share, my potential, for five thousand dollars. I sold my kids' birthright for a few months' rent."

Jesse meets Walt's eyes for a brief moment before heat creeps across his cheeks and he glances away. "You didn't know."

Walt resists the instinct to scoff at that, because coming from Jesse it doesn't sound like a useless platitude. But his instincts exist for a reason. "I should have."

"Whatever, man," Jesse says, shaking his head. "Don't beat yourself up over it. It's done."

"That is surprisingly well-adjusted for you."

Jesse smiles at the compliment around a mouthful of food. "Yo, should we split one of those brownie things or would that be really gay?"

Walt just gives him a look at which Jesse rolls his eyes.

"Bitch."

During the trek home, Walt manages to find topics that Jesse can turn into entire passionate monologues, and he doesn't mind one bit letting Jesse ramble. He's had enough serious discussions for one day.