"I never should'a let my dojo membership run out," Saul grumbles. Jesse takes a styptic pencil to the split on Saul's lower lip. "Owowowowowow! Jesus, just shoot me; it'll hurt less."
"Pussy," Jesse says around a laugh. They're sitting on Jesse's bed while he tends to Saul's wounds with a bit more care than necessary. Saul's not going to complain about that because Jesse's bedside manner is pretty awesome. "You're lucky your nose stopped bleeding on the ride home."
"If you even think about sticking that thing up my nose, I will have to fight you," Saul warns.
Jesse smirks. "You saw what I did to Mr. White, right?"
"You mean first place in my gallery of awkward boners? Absolutely. Did I tell you you're really hot when you're angry? Because I feel it's worth repeating." Jesse crawls behind him, drags Saul's shirt up and off to examine his back for bruising. Some nasty discoloration's started to form between his shoulder blades, where he'd been shoved against the car. Jesse frowns and feathers his fingers over the bruise. It could have been so much worse...
"What're you doing?" Saul asks.
"Looking for bruises."
"And what's the verdict?"
"Your back's gonna look like you got hit by a car for a while."
"At least mine's hidden. Walt's gonna have a tough time hiding that shiner he'll be sporting for the next week or so."
Jesse scoots up close, presses himself along the line of Saul's back. He lays the heels of his hands over Saul's shoulders and rubs. Saul makes a noise of contentment in his throat as Jesse's hands work. "Why are you bein' so cool about this? Not even a threat to sue him?"
"Walt doesn't scare easy, but I think you put the fear in him. Christ, he was practically shaking in his boots." Saul chuckles, purrs when Jesse's palms press at the base of his neck. "Ooh, that's—yeah, right there."
"I don't think he actually expected me to hit him," Jesse says. "I got lucky."
"And Walt wishes he did."
Jesse presses particularly hard, but Saul just moans like he's enjoying it. "You really think that's why he's got so much sand in his vagina, 'cause he wants to fuck me?"
Saul throws his head back and laughs. "That was colorful."
Jesse smiles proudly.
"And, yeah, it's a theory. Speaking from personal experience, I can definitely see how he might go a little crazy over it—well, over you."
"You tryin' to seduce me, Mr. Goodman?"
Saul chuckles, leans into the way Jesse's rubbing the heel of his hand beneath Saul's shoulder blade.
"Nah, for real though, I joke about it, but I think if that's really what Mr. White wanted he would've taken it. He wouldn't try to figure out if it was something I wanted too, like you did."
"I'm nothing if not considerate," Saul says.
Jesse hooks his arms around Saul's waist, rests his chin on his shoulder. "Yeah, you're a real prince."
Saul lays his hands over Jesse's own. He strokes his thumbs across Jesse's battered, purple and red knuckles. "Looks like you went five rounds with a Transformer."
"He's got a hard head." Saul pokes at the discoloration. "Ow!" Jesse winces and jerks his hands away.
"C'mon, put some ice on that."
"I'm fine. It doesn't hurt unless some asshole pokes my fucking bruises." Jesse jabs a finger into Saul's back for emphasis.
"Ah! Why would you do that?"
"'Cause you poked me first. Don't be startin' what you can't finish, bitch." Jesse stabs Saul's bruise again.
Saul curves his back to escape Jesse's fingers. "Ow, ow, okay, I'm calling a moratorium on bruise-poking, alright? Truce?"
"Truce." Jesse crawls around Saul to give him a quick kiss. Saul winces at the pressure, and Jesse frowns. "Shit, I bet Mr. White hit you in the face on purpose to try to stop me from kissin' you."
"Shows what he knows," Saul says before Jesse claims his mouth, slow and careful this time. Saul falls back against the pillows and brings Jesse with him. If kissing hurts, Saul's doing a damn good job of hiding it, his lips moving eagerly against Jesse's own. He curls a hand in Jesse's hair, the other sliding over his spine. "Jesse," he murmurs, following the line of Jesse's jaw.
"'Sup?"
Saul frees his mouth momentarily, a hand lingering at Jesse's face. "What were you gonna ask me?"
Jesse quirks a brow.
"Before Walt showed up, you were about to ask me something."
Jesse feels a stab of pain in his chest that he tries valiantly to ignore. It's not worth bringing up the subject of having kids now, not after Walt's just shattered their calm. If Saul and Jesse aren't safe, a child wouldn't be either. Walt would absolutely use their children to his advantage, pawns to gain the upper hand in manipulating Jesse.
Jesse shakes his head and manages a chuckle that doesn't sound forced. "I don't remember. It was probably somethin' stupid. Don't worry about it."
Saul's fingertips caress Jesse's cheek, then he hesitates, like he senses Jesse's trying too hard to be blasé. But whatever emotions flit across Jesse's face must disappear, or aren't strong enough to make Saul challenge them, because he just says, "Well, if you do remember, run it by me, alright?"
"Sure." Fat fuckin' chance. Jesse knows a sign when he sees one.
#
Jesse wakes up the next morning with his face pressed into Saul's back. The bruises have deepened in an obvious and incriminating way, forming a design that looks like some sort of twisted, malevolent spider web from hell.
He stretches, careful not to disrupt the way one of his legs is nestled between Saul's own. His hips ache in a subtle reminder of what they did yesterday. Jesse squirms at the memory, gives his thigh a little nudge to wake up Saul.
To Jesse's surprise, Saul pushes his hips back to deepen the friction.
"Were you pretending to be asleep?" Jesse asks.
"I was trying to convince myself to get out of bed." Another push, and Saul bites down on a moan. "You're not doing a great job of convincing me."
Jesse smirks, slides a hand over the curve of Saul's hip and pushes at the edge of his boxers. "I'm great at other jobs."
"A gross understatement." Saul lays a hand over Jesse's to guide him where he needs his touch the most. Jesse stays pressed along Saul's back and jerks him off slow and easy, grinding his own hips into the base of Saul's spine until they're both spent.
"I'm still not convinced to get up," Saul breathes out. "I vote we stay here all day." He shifts, rolls over onto his back.
Jesse cannot help the startled yell that bubbles out of his throat when he gets a look at Saul's face. "Ah, oh, God!"
Saul frowns. "Okay, jeez, a simple 'no' would have sufficed."
The bruise over his nose has bloomed into something significantly more multi-colored, with a lot of reds and purples and deep blues. The circles under his eyes look like they're stained with purple-red ink. Not a good look for him. "Dude, your face is just...wow."
"My boyfriend, the wordsmith," Saul grumbles, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "You can't say something like that and expect me not to look."
Jesse follows him into the bathroom. "You should probably take a sedative first."
"It can't be that bad, I mean—Holy Christ!"
"I warned you." Jesse finds Saul looking in the mirror, prodding the discolored skin near the bridge of his nose and wincing every time he does it. Jesse lays his hands over Saul's back. He's not going to tell Saul about the other bruises, because no one will see them but Jesse. Unless Saul's in the habit of taking his shirt off around other people, in which case Jesse really needs to have a talk with him about that.
"I could probably dig out some Elton John-esque sunglasses to hide the whole raccoon eyes thing going on here—"
Jesse interrupts him with a snort of laughter. "You think you could pull that off?"
"Eh, pull this," Saul mutters.
Jesse kisses his cheek, tries not to wince at Saul's reflection, because it's really fucking awful to cringe away from the sight of your boyfriend's face. "Y'know, you kinda get used to gettin' the shit kicked outta you." He pulls open a drawer and plucks out a tube of concealer. "Which means you learn how to hide it."
#
Saul doesn't expect to see Walter White merely days after the whole punching incident. Sure, the bruises have muted into ugly, yellowy browns, but, still, Walt has no business strolling in here like Saul owes him shit.
But Saul knows the value of keeping things amicable, and Walt's a goddamn cash cow thanks to his meth empire, so Saul lets Francesca buzz Walt into his office.
"Saul," Walt starts, sitting in the chair across from Saul's desk. "I would like to apologize for my behavior the other night. It was—it was..." Walt throws up his hands. "I don't know what came over me. Maybe it's just stress. Gus took my lab partner away to Mexico for some cartel business. Hank says there was some sort of big incident there—lots of bodies—so I don't know if Gale will be back."
Saul takes a sip of coffee, glaring at Walt over the rim of the mug. Typical Walt; nothing is ever his fault. No, someone else is always to blame: Skyler, Jesse, hell, even Saul himself. He wishes Huell were here in case Walt gets violent again, but Saul's already dispatched Huell and Patrick to Ted Beneke's place to force him to pay the IRS. Saul wonders if Walt knows how deep in the proverbial shit pile Skyler's in right now.
If Saul wasn't afraid Walt would punch him again, he'd absolutely tell him Skyler gave over $622,000 of Walt's money to her lover.
Instead, he says, "Walt, you punched me in the face," because that's a pretty big issue. "I only get one line of an apology? Christ, I've gotten more genuine apologies out of servers when they get my order wrong."
Walt sighs, like Saul's being unreasonable. "What can I do, Saul? Talking about it won't change what happened."
"Well, it's a start! And, hey, I am seriously rethinking my hourly rate for you, because dodging punches should not be part of my job description!" Walt rolls his eyes. "This isn't just for my sake. Do you think your boss would put up with this if he knew you were out there playing Punch-Out to settle your disagreements?" A flicker of emotion crosses over Walt's face before Saul can place it. "You need to get your shit together before you blow the entire operation!"
"Gus isn't going to know about it," Walt says, and it sounds like a threat. "Is he, Saul?"
Oh, yeah, absolutely a threat.
"Look, Walt, you hit me, I'm gonna be forced to hit back," Saul says, nervous laughter bubbling out of his throat. "I mean, what if you hit the wrong guy someday and he turns out to be an undercover officer? Boom. You just bought yourself a Colombian necktie, because sure as shit Gus isn't going to risk you giving his name up to save your sorry ass."
Walt's about to say something when Saul's office door flies open. Huell and Patrick stand there in various states of panic and distress. "We've got a situation," Patrick says.
What the hell could have gone wrong on the Beneke job? "Oh, Jesus, what?"
Patrick sees that Walt's sitting there and clams up. "You—you might want to step out for a moment," he says to Saul.
Saul heaves a sigh and pushes away from his desk. "Don't touch anything," he warns Walt. Saul shuts the door behind him, and Huell and Patrick lead him outside where they can talk freely. "What happened?"
"It was an act of God!" Huell blurts out. Ol' Huell would not hold up under torture.
"There was an accident," Patrick corrects.
"These are all very nice euphemisms, guys, but you wanna be a little less vague about it?"
Patrick shuffles his feet on the concrete. "So the good news is the check's in the mail!" He forces up a smile.
"And the bad?"
"Well, he tried to run, but he, uh, he didn't make it."
"Meaning?"
"He's not dead," Patrick says, trying to soften the blow of the news, "but he's—he's in a coma."
Saul blinks. "What?"
"He tried to make a run for it," Huell says, "but he tripped."
Patrick punches his fist into his open palm. "Right into the wall."
"Act of God!" Huell insists. "I'm tellin' you!" And, yeah, that's a pretty accurate description.
Saul rubs a hand over his face and seriously considers an early retirement.
#
Saul cancels their date on Monday night, which Jesse totally understands. They usually crash at the other's house each evening or go out on Saul's off days, so Jesse gets why Saul might want some down time to himself. Especially after their last date earned Saul a bloody nose. Yeah, that's one for the photo album.
Then he cancels Tuesday night's date too, says he feels under the weather, and Jesse understands completely. All the stress in Saul's life has bottlenecked since he started dating Jesse; his immune system must be fucked to hell and back. Jesse doesn't know how the guy does it.
Then he cancels again on Wednesday, claiming he's still sick. Jesse worries at first, offers to come over anyway and play nurse. He knows about Saul's tendency to be a total pussy where injuries are concerned, so odds are Saul just has a cold and wants to be a baby about it. But Saul texts him back saying not to bother, that he'll be fine and doesn't want to risk Jesse catching whatever's got him down. Which, okay, Jesse can't argue with that.
But Jesse hasn't heard from Saul very much over the last few days. Usually Saul shoots him one to three unsolicited text messages over the course of a day. Now Jesse's lucky if he gets one in reply to his own.
Jesse's brain is kind of an asshole, so his first thought is that Saul's rethinking their whole relationship since the altercation with Walt, and faking sick is Saul's way of buying time to figure out how to tell him.
Because this is the kind of shit that happens to Jesse. Jane tried to be part of his world too, and look what happened to her. Jesse seems destined to have every nice thing in his life savagely ripped away. Fuck, it's so obvious. Of course Saul's avoiding him. Being involved with Jesse is a fast-track to danger. No wonder Saul wants out.
On Thursday, Jesse stops by Saul's office and finds it closed. The logical part of his brain kicks in and tells him Saul's not avoiding him, because why would he go through all the trouble of closing his office to maintain a dumb charade? Francesca wouldn't stand for it.
So maybe he really is sick, and there's a perfectly logical reason why Jesse hasn't seen his boyfriend in over forty-eight hours.
He drives to Saul's house and lets himself inside with the spare key. "Yo, it's me," he calls into the living room. The lights are off, shades shut to keep the light out. It doesn't look like Saul's been out here in a while; he's not messy, but there's nary a sign of activity.
Jesse tries his luck in the bedroom and hits pay dirt. Saul's curled up in the middle of the bed like a salad bar shrimp, buried underneath the blankets with a fan blowing cold air at him. His cell phone's lying in the empty space on the bed. Jesse knocks on the open door. "You alive?"
Saul stirs at the sound of his voice. "Jesse? I thought I told you not to worry." His throat sounds like it's been rubbed raw with sandpaper.
"I'd be a shitty boyfriend if I didn't at least check on you, right?" He makes his way inside the room and sits beside him on the bed. Saul winces when the mattress jiggles. Jesse lays a hand over Saul's forehead, pushes the sweat-damp strands of his hair back with his fingers. "Jeez, you're a mess."
Even the simple motion of glaring seems to take everything Saul has. "It's getting worse. Is it—is it supposed to get worse?"
"Do I look like a doctor?" His skin burns under Jesse's hand, and his forehead's covered in a sheen of sweat. "When was the last time you ate?"
"Yesterday," Saul says after a moment of thought.
"You want me to bring you something?"
"Don't bother. I can't keep anything down."
"Gross," Jesse says, but he doesn't mean it.
"I feel like I'm dying," Saul whines.
"It's probably just a stomach bug, you big baby." Jesse brings him a glass of water from the kitchen. "Here. Drink up and I'll let you put your head in my lap."
Saul gives him a hateful glower, but he gulps down half of the glass anyway before setting it on the table by his head.
"All of it, yo."
"Jeez, alright, Nurse Ratched," Saul mutters but does as he's told. Jesse gives him a sweet, almost patronizing smile.
"There. You earned your lap privileges. C'mon." Jesse pats his thigh, and Saul crawls closer to lie his head in Jesse's lap. "Aren't you glad I decided to show up?"
Saul makes a grumbly noise.
"You're not feeling good, so I'm going to ignore that." Jesse nestles a hand in Saul's hair. "Have you just been puking your guts up the last couple of days?"
"The puking didn't start 'til yesterday. That's why I stopped trying to eat."
Jesse feels panic ball up in his throat. "How long have you been sick? Since Monday?"
"It's probably just stress. Walt and his wife are gonna give me an ulcer," Saul says, sounding pitiful.
"What happened?"
Jesse swirls his other hand in circles over Saul's back as he explains: "While Walt was trying to make amends for punching me, my A-Team had a complication with his wife's little tax dilemma. So I spent all day pulling our nuts outta that fire, then by Tuesday night I felt kinda queasy, and—"
"Hold up, Mr. White was at your office?"
Saul nods. "He's got some cajones, I'll give 'im that."
"I thought we weren't supposed to talk about Mr. White's junk anymore."
"That only applies to you," Saul says with a frown.
Jesse's hand stops. "You're awful mouthy for a sick person."
"You'd be bitchy too if your insides wanted to be on the outside."
Jesse decides to be the bigger man and ignore that. He rubs Saul's back again. "Tell me about Mr. White's visit. He just showed up and tried to apologize for punching you?"
"'Tried' is the keyword. He was really bad at it. Sincerity sure isn't his forte."
"Did you tell him to go screw himself?"
"I didn't really get the opportunity. Once Huell and Patrick came by, I had bigger fish to fry than Walt wanting to kiss and make up."
"Does Mr. White know what's goin' on with his wife?"
"I don't think so." Saul chuckles, and it sounds like it hurts his throat. He wipes the sweat off his brow. "Could you move me over by the fan?"
Jesse scoots closer to the other side of the bed so Saul can get some air. "Why don't you try to sleep? I'll stay with you."
Saul makes a noise of agreement, which worries Jesse, because Saul's been bitchy and argumentative about everything today. Jesse settles back against the pillows and gets comfortable. His hand moves soft and slow in Saul's hair until his breathing evens out to unconsciousness. Jesse closes his eyes, listens to the din of the fan, but sleep does not come.
#
The next time Saul wakes up it's dark in his bedroom, and there's a solid heat on the back of his neck and under his face. A horrible, cramping pain works its way through his insides like they're being stepped on. Everything is hot, sweat and fire swirling in his brain. Nausea builds in his throat until he can barely breathe.
He pushes himself up, and the solid form beneath him gives way. "Yo, do not puke on me, dude," Jesse rasps, taking hold of Saul's shoulders and steering him away. Saul manages to stagger into the bathroom and hurl the contents of his entire body into the toilet bowl. He might be dying, which Saul finds consoling, because he's pretty sure being dead would feel better than this.
He's still dizzy with nausea, his body shaky and much too hot, when Jesse tucks him into bed and brings him more water. "I thought you didn't eat anything since yesterday," Jesse says, hovering at his side like a mother hen to make sure he stays hydrated.
Saul drinks the entire glass, though he thinks he'll just throw it all up again later. "I haven't."
Jesse bites his lips together like he's thinking particularly hard. "You felt fine on Monday, right? What'd you eat?"
Saul turns so the fan's blowing air on his face. "Nothing that should make me this sick. Jesus, the worst food poisoning I ever had was bad sushi. And that only lasted a whole day." Even that had been a more enjoyable experience than this. At least he could keep a glass of water down.
"Did you eat anything that could'a spoiled or gone bad? Milk, meat, salad?"
Saul shakes his head. "Just the coffee I had that morning, but it didn't taste off."
Jesse's eyes widen for a moment. "Wait, hold up. You're not even congested, are you?"
He sniffs. "I can breathe just fine when my lungs don't feel like they're on fire."
Jesse springs up from the bed and paces the floor. "Could you—could you maybe have touched something covered in, like, salmonella?"
"I work in an office, not a slaughterhouse," Saul mutters. His arm dangles off the side of the bed. He thinks about moving it but can't summon the energy.
"Walk me through it, then. What'd you do that day?"
Saul lets out a loud sigh. "I got up, went to work. Walt showed up, then Huell and Patrick told me about Ted. I told Walt to get lost, spent the rest of the day—"
Jesse freezes mid-step. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. Did you leave the room when Mr. White was there?"
"Yeah, I mean, he's not exactly privy to the whole clusterfuck his wife's got goin' on." The color drains from Jesse's face. "I suggested to her that we involve Walt but—"
"So you left Mr. White alone in your office?"
"Yes, for, like, two minutes! Why? What—" Saul stops talking, because Jesse's hands are clenched into fists, and he's actually fucking shaking. "Should I not have done that?"
Jesse rushes over to his side of the bed. He grabs his shoes and shoves his feet inside them. "Get your shit. I'm takin' you to the hospital," he growls, authoritative and angry, the way he'd sounded during the fight with Walt.
"Why? You know something?"
Jesse hurries to Saul and yanks him upright. "I know why you're sick. It's not a stomach bug. It's ricin."
