Walt calls into work the next morning, too groggy and hungover and miserable to do much of anything else but mope. Jesse's nowhere to be found, which concerns him, but he remembers they had an argument last night, and running out is pretty much how Jesse's been handling their fights lately. So he leaves an apologetic message on Jesse's voicemail and pours himself some Sprite to stave off the hangover.
Jesse comes storming through the front door around noon, the right side of his face swollen and bruised. Walt gasps in horror. He vaguely recalls laying his hands on Jesse last night, and, oh God, did he do that?
"Jesse? Are you alright?" Walt rushes to his side, but Jesse's having none of it.
"I guess you won after all, Mr. White," Jesse sneers, tears sheeting down his face, "'cause here I am, callin' off the divorce. 'Cause, y'know, you can't get a divorce if you aren't fucking married!"
Jesse's words hit Walt like a body blow. "What?"
"You knew," Jesse snarls, advancing on him, "you fucking knew this whole time that we weren't married! You lied to me for five years while you were still married to your wife! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He knows. Oh Christ. Walt stammers for an answer that doesn't sound trite or rehearsed, but, really, what can he say? He'd known this would happen, that Jesse would find out his dark secret. And he can't justify it, not by a long shot.
"Your whole 'stay with me 'til I die' act was bullshit too," Jesse continues, "'cause when you die your wife's gonna get everything. There was no way in hell I'd see a dime from your greedy ass. And you knew it!"
"Jesse..."
"Lemme guess, you 'didn't know how to tell me'?"
"You think, what, this somehow proves some flawed idea you've got in your head that I don't love you?" Walt argues.
"It totally does, because you couldn't even be straight with me from the start! What was it? Did you not trust me, or was this some bullshit attempt to keep me under your thumb without actually bein' married to me?" Jesse's eyes go wide, like he's suddenly realized something. "Does she know you two are still married? Have you been lyin' to her, too?"
"She knows, Jesse. We didn't want to go through a long, expensive divorce process, so we separated instead." Skyler assumed Walt's relationship with Jesse would fizzle out, that he'd eventually come crawling back to his family. She wasn't wrong.
"And you didn't think to, I dunno, tell me that shit before you married me?"
"Would you have gone through with it if I had?"
Jesse thinks it over, his furious tirade paused. "Yeah, I probably would've. I was an idiot..." He wipes his wet face with a hand. "I loved you, Mr. White, and you fucked me over. You never gave a shit about me."
"Jesse, that's not true," Walt says, reaching out to him, but Jesse slaps his hands away.
"Screw you," Jesse chokes out. "Just—just get out of my house. I don't want you here."
Walt's heart breaks anew in his chest. "Jesse, please, let me—"
"If you don't leave, I'll make you leave. You think I can't get a restraining order when my face looks like this?"
Walt doesn't doubt it. "Jesse, I'm so sorry I did that, I was drunk, I wasn't thinking—"
"Are you sorry for all the other shit too? And not just sorry 'cause you got busted?" Jesse shakes his head in disgust. "Whatever. Just go."
Walt moves for the door. "Despite how this looks, I do care about you, Jesse."
Jesse doesn't answer, doesn't turn to face him. He heads straight for the stairs. Walt shuts the door behind him, wishes he could be the one to offer Jesse comfort instead of cause his distress.
Jesse curls up in the bed and cries until his eyes have run dry and his chest no longer spurs out broken sobs. He falls into a dreamless sleep that's cut short by the trill of his cell phone.
Saul writes: You okay?
Jesse sniffles and types back: yeah
After a moment, Saul replies with: Are you alone?
Jesse tells him that he is, and that the front door's unlocked if he wants to come over. He drops his phone on the bed and buries the good side of his face into the tear-stained pillow. Jesse doesn't move, even when he hears Saul open the front door ten minutes later. Saul's footsteps sound on the staircase. He peeks inside the bedroom, his expression drooping with pain when he sees Jesse there on the bed. "Oh kid..." Saul moves to join him there, lays a hand on Jesse's shoulder. "I'm so sorry."
Jesse sinks deeper into the mattress. "You think he ever really loved me?"
"How could he not? You're fantastic."
Jesse manages a smile. It feels strange on his face after all this.
"What do you need from me?" Saul asks, his voice and touch tender as he curls a hand around Jesse's cheek. "You want me to stay? Or would you feel better by yourself?"
Jesse shakes his head and wraps his fingers around Saul's wrist. "You can stay. I don't wanna be alone."
Saul climbs onto the bed and lies alongside him. Jesse feels better already, and maybe he snuggles up to Saul a little bit, rests his head on his shoulder. Saul wraps an arm around him. After a moment, Jesse says, "Mike told me you don't have any family."
Saul's mouth does a weird, half-smile thing. "He would say that. Mr. Dramatic. I have family, they just... well, we haven't really talked in a while."
"How come?"
Saul shrugs. "Lots of reasons. Sometimes you just grow apart from people. Distance, time, differing opinions... My brother didn't exactly give my last wife a ringing endorsement. 'Course, he wasn't wrong, but I think too much time has passed to call him and say, 'hey, you were right.'"
"Maybe you should. It's good to have somebody on your side, y'know?"
Saul nods and holds Jesse a little tighter. He breathes out a deep sigh. "I'm sorry this happened to you. You didn't deserve any of what he put you through."
"I'm glad it's over," Jesse says.
Saul doesn't argue with that.
Three weeks later...
"Rise and shine, kiddo."
Jesse groans and cracks an eye open. The curtains are drawn, but there's barely any light seeping into the bedroom. Saul's got no business waking Jesse up this early. Something better be on fire.
"No," Jesse grumbles into the pillow, dragging out the word. Saul's standing at his bedside wearing the same Hot Dad t-shirt-and-pajama-bottoms combo he was wearing last night. Jesse distinctly remembers pulling those clothes off of Saul at some point—being naked himself bolsters that theory.
Saul ignores his protests, moving over to the window and pushing the curtains aside. It's still pretty dark out; Jesse assumed he'd be able to sleep until sunrise, so waking up to Saul's annoyingly-cheery demeanor understandably pisses him off.
"Where's your Christmas spirit?" Saul says.
Jesse blinks in realization. Holy shit, it's Christmas morning. Jesse's been so preoccupied with work, finishing up his last semester of school, and moving Walt out of the house that he's barely had time to himself, much less time to buy gifts.
He's the worst boyfriend ever.
"My Christmas spirit doesn't wake up 'til noon," Jesse says.
Saul drops onto the edge of the bed and jostles Jesse's comfortable sleeping position. "You're awfully grumpy in the morning."
"When you wake me up at the ass-crack of dawn, yeah." Jesse drags the pillow over his head. Maybe if he pretends Saul isn't there he'll disappear.
Nope. Saul pulls the pillow away, because he's kind of a dick. "I made breakfast, and dare I say I make damn good scrambled eggs."
This entire situation is kind of adorable, in a heartbreaking sort of way: Saul's so excited about Christmas that he woke up early just to make breakfast for the two of them, and Jesse's being a grumbly asshole about Saul's gesture of affection. Jesse is the Walter White of this relationship.
That realization sorts him out quickly. Jesse drags himself into a sitting position, scrubs a hand through his hair. "Alright, alright, you win."
He finds his clothes discarded on the floor and gets dressed, panicking internally. There's still time to bullshit his way through a gift, right? Saul's not very materialistic; Jesse could totally give him an amazing blowjob as a present. He doesn't think Saul would object to that. He'll just have to wait and see what Saul gives him.
He hopes it's nothing too expensive.
Jesse learns that Saul does indeed make pretty bitchin' scrambled eggs. Much better than Walt's, and maybe even a bit better than his own. Jesse needs to step his game up, for sure.
It's a weird feeling, sharing breakfast on Christmas morning with his new boyfriend. Not that it's uncomfortable or awkward, but there's a nagging voice in the back of Jesse's mind that tells him this is something he's not allowed to have. That he's not supposed to be happy so soon after his split with Walt. Which he thinks is bullshit, but that's not stopping him from feeling guilty over it.
"I hope you're not expecting too much, kid," Saul says as they sit by the Christmas tree near the living room window. "Keep your expectations low and you'll never be disappointed. That's my motto, anyway."
Jesse breathes an internal sigh of relief. Maybe he can get away with a half-assed, spur-of-the-moment gift after all. The single present sitting under the tree looks awfully lonely, though. Saul probably thinks Jesse's hidden his gift and will make him search for it, like a winter-y Easter egg hunt.
On the plus side, Saul won't be pissed at Jesse for the lack of a gift. He will, however, be incredibly disappointed, and Saul's disappointed face is like a knife to Jesse's gut. He really, really doesn't want to make Saul sad.
"Dude, I'm just glad you're here," Jesse admits, because he truly is.
Saul shrugs. "I still wish I could'a done more."
"I'm sure it's great, whatever it is."
Saul slides the elegantly-wrapped box from under the tree and into Jesse's waiting hands. It's heavier than he's expecting. Jesse examines the neat folds of the paper. "Did you wrap this yourself?" Jesse can't picture Saul wrapping a present; he just can't. It's too hilariously domestic.
"Maybe I did. Or maybe I paid to have it gift-wrapped. You'll never know."
Jesse snorts a laugh and slides a finger under the edge of the paper. "You're full of mystery, aren't you?"
"Absolutely."
Jesse rips open the wrapping paper, and staring back at him is a fire-engine red five-quart stand mixer. There's no way this came cheap. Jesse knows; he considered buying one before the price tag made him balk.
A blowjob is so not going to cover this.
"Wow," is all he can think to say.
"I thought you could use a proper mixer instead of that godawful handheld thing you've been using," Saul says. "Can't you see that it wants to die? Let it go."
"Yeah, it's probably not s'posed to smell like it's burning," Jesse says, still in awe over the gift.
"So, do you like it?" Saul asks with that adorable half-smile.
"Y—yeah, totally. It's awesome." Jesse can't bullshit his way through reciprocation here. Just tell him the truth. Rip it off in one quick jerk, like a band-aid. "I just—I hope you didn't get it on sale, 'cause... well, I don't actually have anything to give you." He's mumbling the last part through his hands, because he can't even look at Saul right now.
"You know I can't hear you when you do that."
Christ, Jesse could barely get the words out the first time. He raises his head, his face burning a hideous shade of red. "I've been so busy with shit I didn't have time to get you something really good, and even if I did I don't have a lot of money. I know it's shitty, I shouldn't even be making excuses—"
Saul stops Jesse's torrent of apologies by pressing his hand to his mouth. "Jess', it's okay. Really. You're not obligated to get me anything."
Jesse glances away from the unadulterated love and acceptance in Saul's eyes. "But it's Christmas... and you're my boyfriend."
"As much shit as you've gone through the last couple of months, I think you're entitled to skip a year."
Jesse gives that a nod of consideration. "You sure?" Walt would have raised hell if he bought Jesse something expensive and didn't receive a gift in return. This is brand new territory.
"Of course. You know how long it's been since I've been able to spoil someone with gifts? Before you came along, the most I could do was buy Kaylee expensive toys, and let me tell you, Mike does not like that."
This feels wrong somehow, but Saul doesn't look or sound like he's lying to spare Jesse's feelings. "You're totally, totally sure? You're not just sayin' this 'cause you don't want me to feel worse?"
"Maybe Walt would've read you the riot act for not getting him a gift, but he's not the type to realize you are a gift."
Jesse snorts an undignified sound. "That was cheesy as fuck, yo."
Saul spreads his hands. "My point still stands, cheese and all."
Could Jesse really have gotten lucky enough to find someone who's genuinely nice and loving and good for him? He chuckles to himself, drops his gaze to the floor. "Y'know, I actually thought I could get out of this with a blowjob."
"Hey, I'm not gonna turn that down," Saul says. Of course he won't. "If that's still on the table, of course."
"Blowjobs are always on the table."
Saul's face does this adorable thing where his nose crinkles when he laughs. "That would be an awful slogan for a restaurant."
Then Jesse's chuckling too, because when was the last time Walt made him laugh like this? "Yeah, Health Inspection would be all over that place."
Saul's smile grows soft, and he's watching Jesse with an open, honest look that Jesse doesn't think he'll ever get used to. It's like Saul sees every flaw and insecurity inside him yet still deems him acceptable.
Jesse doesn't have time for chagrin, because Saul's moving in and pressing their mouths together, soft and slow. Jesse's heart still soars and sings when Saul kisses him; it's different, he thinks, than it was with Walt—the flutter in his chest springs from something pure, delight in loving and being loved.
"I'm glad you're here," Saul murmurs around the kiss.
Jesse's mouth curls into a smile. "Yeah, me too."
No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.
George Chakiris