Alex takes another gulp from her massive water bottle. She'd woken up with cotton mouth so killer it would have probably been less terrible if she'd opened her eyes transformed into a full-blown legit snake. Animal spells were super easy to undo anyway.
She paces back and forth, draining the rest of the water, and takes in a breath of fresh air. She's usually not a sucker for nature, but the view of looming mountain ridges from the Great Wall of China is a luscious shade of green she'd like to wear as a pair of cool leggings. There are only a few other tourists milling around a couple of yards down the wall, taking pictures and talking.
Jesse is excitedly kicking and punching the air like a total whacko. Though in his defense, their late breakfast was entirely made up of chocolate covered pastries and weird European energy drinks that may have had like uppers or horse blood in them.
"What are you doing?" she says.
He's thrown in some "ay-yahs" and Mortal Kombat quotes like, "finish him" and the crowd is kind of starting to notice.
Jesse does a broad chop with his hand, grazes a brick pretty badly, and clutches his arm to his chest while he hisses. "Uh, trying to do Karate, obviously. If I'm gonna be in China, I got to pull out at least a few Tekken moves."
She playfully pushes his shoulder. "Yo, you do know that both Karate and Tekken are Japanese, right?"
"Like I care," he says, smiling. He shakes his wrist out and braces an elbow on the wall. "I'm kind of bored."
"Where do you wanna go?"
"I was thinking maybe the ABQ." He plays with the zipper on his hoodie. "You know if like I don't exist here or whatever, I was wondering what my house looks like or how the city's different and shit."
"Sounds cool to me," she says. She sees the tourists are walking in the opposite direction so it's okay to leave.
Before she can reach out to him, he wraps an arm around her waist, places his hand on her face, and gently kisses her. It's sweet even though both of their mouths taste like overly-caffeinated cherry-flavored horse blood. Pulling back a little, he sets his chin on her head as she says the now more than familiar spell, and they re-materialize in his front yard.
Something feels off. There's some sort of tick in the back of her head like she's doing something stupid or irresponsible or forgetting something. It's not one of her normal I-didn't-study-at-all-for-this-exam feelings or one of those I-may-have-started-a-massfire-in-a-village-of-trolls-while-trying-to-come-up-with-a-way-to-steal-their-magical-kettle-corn shrug-off mild panics. This is more like a hollowed-out, bitter kind of dread in her gut, like she needs to run immediately.
But, they're in a pretty ordinary-looking suburban neighborhood in New Mexico. Some kids are riding tricycles a few blocks over and a lady is hunched over some bushes or plants or whatever people garden. It's a sunny day, dryly hot in a way Alex isn't used to, but likes alright. Everything seems perfectly fine. The parts of her brain she usually listens to are telling her weirdo emotions to shut the hell up. Plus, Jesse's already wandered over to a window.
She follows after him. "Dude, there might be people in there."
He's peering into what looks like his living room in the show. No one's there.
"It's the exact same furniture and everything," he says. He taps the glass. "There's my couch, and my flat screen T.V., and my coffee table. Pretty fucking weird."
"Yeah." She rubs the corners of her eyes, because she's seriously missing something very obvious here. Last night had been more about marathon sex and cigarette breaks than sleep. And, she seriously still feels like she has Amsterdam super-weed floating around in her skull.
"Let's hit up some more places," he says.
So, they stop by J.P. Wynne High School, which is actually called Rio Rancho High School, and it's closed for the summer. He says only parts of the campus look familiar, and she thinks she remembers Justin saying something about them using different locations for different seasons. Saul's office is something ironically called Hooligans, and Los Pollos Hermanos is a real restaurant, but the sign says "Twisters."
Jesse's last request is to see the lab. It takes extra concentration on her part, because transporting to locations she doesn't consciously know where they are is always a little tricky. Regardless, she gets them there in a literal flash, off to a corner, behind one of the tanks.
Wait, tanks? Alex traces her finger over the cool metal surface of what looks like a meth cooking tank. Her head feels all kinds of spun out like she stood up too fast because whatever real place this is shouldn't have actual tanks for cooking crystal.
She hears voices in the room. Glancing around this large silver thing, she sees the back of a camera. It all clicks into place.
She just popped them right in the middle of filming.
"Shit," she says.
A million alarms are going off in her brain, Justin's voice lecturing her about the risks of using magic irresponsibly, and she's trying so hard to have a coherent thought that she's doesn't notice Jesse's moving until he's just a heel of a sneaker in sight.
Alex has to jog to catch up with him, and there are a lot of random people, fiddling with cameras and lights and boom mikes. It's weirdly reassuring not to see anyone familiar, like they can get out of here before anyone notices. She jerks at his sleeve when basically one of the worst possible scenarios starts to play out in front of her like someone's already yelled action to a very life-like nightmare.
Jesse looks about 5,000 different kinds of confused and startled. He lowers his voice. "Um, what the hell is Mr. White doing here? And why the hell is he smiling at me like that?"
"Call him Bryan," she says.
It's all she can get out before Bryan's standing in front of them, drinking from a cup of coffee. He's grinning, posture relaxed, looking so un-Walter White that even Alex is kind of taken aback. And she's the one who's watched every single episode of Malcolm in the Middle. She's also seen him in Little Miss Sunshine, and those episodes of King of Queens and Seinfeld, and even that time he was on Walker, Texas Ranger. Living with a Bryan Cranston-obsessed brother made it pretty impossible for her to not accidentally binge-watch most of the guy's backlog of work. Especially since she was nursing a Captain Morgan-infused hangover on the living room couch and successfully commandeered Justin's bag of Double Stuff Oreos.
"We're going to get this today," Bryan says. He grips Jesse's shoulder like he's pumping him up. "It's a hard scene. But, you were good yesterday, really good. I meant to say that before, but I don't think I did. You ready?"
Jesse lets his mouth hang open for a second. "Uh, yeah, I'm ready. I'm totally ready. I'm ready."
It takes every single piece of maturity Alex has not to exploit his nervousness to make another SpongeBob joke. Man, it's hard.
Bryan's forehead creases a little. "Are you cold? I don't remember you wearing that jacket for this scene yesterday?"
He nods dumbly. "I was just like chilly and shit, yeah, totally."
Bryan seems to notice her for the first time, shoots his hand out. "I don't think we've met before. I'm Bryan. You must be part of the new catering team."
Alex shakes his hand, idly imagining a tiny superimposed image of Justin perched on her shoulder, mid-conniption, shouting how jealous he is, and then telling her to leave like five minutes ago.
She smiles. "Yes, I am in the catering team. I'm Alex. It's nice to meet you. I think I need to do something like over there."
She practically scampers over to the snack table where a few people are talking amongst themselves, and she moves napkins around while scanning the place for an exit. It only takes her a minute or two to notice the break room section of the lab has a wall-thing that would make a great cover to disappear behind. Slightly more relaxed, she nibbles on some pretzel sticks.
Bryan's in the middle of an apparently animated story with lots of talking with his hands, every once and a while touching Jesse's arm or shoulder who seems to be attempting casual. He looks totally nauseous.
Bryan gestures to his cup, and they walk to the coffee machine together.
Alex discreetly steps closer to a platter of finger sandwiches.
"Nicolas is truly an excellent director. You have to work with him at some point."
Jesse grabs a bottle of water with a shaky hand, sets it back down, and slides his fist in his pocket. "Cool."
"Are you feeling alright?" Bryan rubs Jesse's arm, almost reading his face. "You seem kind of cagey."
He flinches, moves to scratch the back of his neck. "Yeah, man, I'm fine."
"If you say so." Bryan plucks a bag of prop meth from a large clear bowl, and pops it open to shake it into his hand.
"Yo, what the hell?" Jesse says.
Even if this is all her fault, and she's a terrible person, she really wants to laugh.
Bryan gives Jesse a sheepish look, chuckling. "I know, I know. I said I was cutting back on the sugar. It's just been one of those days."
He pops a cluster of what Alex knows is rock candy in his mouth. Jesse turns his face away, and Alex can see his eyes screwed shut like he's super disgusted. Yeah, crystal meth probably tastes pretty gross.
After another handful, Bryan extends the baggie to him. "Want the rest?"
Jesse looks tempted, but for the wrong reasons. His chest just slightly quivers. "Nah, I'm clean now. I mean, I'm like, you know, watching what I eat or whatever."
"He's really in here today, huh?" Bryan's touching Jesse again, this time his palm's lying flat on the top of his head. He teasingly musses Jesse's hair. "Save it for the scene. Don't let him get you too down. Jesse's subconscious, especially now, is a very dark place to be for too long. You got to shake it off."
"What do you mean, especially now?" Jesse tries for the water bottle again, but once it's in his grip, the liquid inside looks like a close-up of one of those puddles in Jurassic Park, quaking with dinosaur footsteps in the distance. It's like he can't stop shaking. He takes a sip anyway, drops his arm to keep it by his side.
Bryan cocks an eyebrow. "Well, I'm not trying to insult you by misunderstanding your question, and giving notes or stating the obvious too much. The script does a much better job than I could. And as you've read, Jesse's going through some serious shock after Walt ordered him to off Gale. Jesse's never killed anyone before, and this is unprovoked homicide, standing so close to Gale, Jesse gets blood on his face. It's truly tearing Jesse apart. Gus has no discernable reason to keep Walt and Jesse alive, and Jesse feels this. It's like your line in the Denny's scene we shot on Wednesday or Thursday or whenever it was. Jesse says that everyone is on the same page now, 'the one that says if I can't kill you, you'll sure as shit wish you were dead.'"
Bryan comically shivers, bringing his teeth together. "Really gives you the creeps, really powerful stuff. I started reading Thirty-Eight Snub, and it's only downhill from here. Jesse's on the verge of a complete mental breakdown."
Laughing, Bryan pats the table. "Look at me, talking your ear off again. You really need to tell me to shut up when I get like this."
Someone yells for Bryan, and he excuses himself to walk over to a guy with headphones around his neck.
Jesse glances in her direction, so pale it makes him look seasick. She grabs him by the elbow, and leads him back to the break room. The things she overheard are doing a queasy number to her insides too, but there's no time to think about it yet. Just as she starts the spell, he jerks his arm away.
"I want to stay," he says, swallowing. "Is there like a way we could watch, and not be seen? You know, just observe like Ebenezer Scrooge or some shit?"
Every instinct is telling her to split now, all those small, smart-ish voices she usually ignores have practically rallied with picket signs that all say "Get the hell out of there." But, she can't say no to this trembling, scared, defenseless side of Jesse. It's like it's got a hook in her chest, reeling her in, while at the same time casting a confused net of sympathy, protectiveness, and arousal all over her body. As if she wants to cradle him, tell him everything's going to be okay, and then screw him to sleep. Maybe they both need a shrink.
She mutters out an invisibility spell, and he turns bright green. Keeping her expression as neutral as possible, she tries again and it looks like someone sawed him in half, leaving a jagged line down the center of his body. Clenching her fists, she says it one more time. He vanishes.
"Alex?" He sounds terrified. "Fuck, did you leave me?"
She blindly swats the air, and hits the front of his jacket. "Jesse, I'm right here. We're invisible."
Alex can feel him hold her wrist, lead her to where they were standing before except there seem to more people around.
"That's Gus over there by Mr. White," she says.
She spots Bryan talking to the guy who plays Gus who's wearing a plastic orange jumpsuit for some reason. Vincent, she doesn't know his real name, and Johnathan Banks are discussing something by one of the tanks. Aaron is sitting in a swivel chair, reading over a thick stack of papers in his hands.
Jesse's voice is a wobbly whisper. "What's his name?"
"Aaron Paul," she says. "Well, his real last name starts with an S. I can't remember it, but he changed it because it was super hard to pronounce."
Aaron gives Bryan a friendly nod, stuffing the papers in a desk drawer behind him. Bryan looks sort of confused, but a guy in light washed jeans and a dark long sleeve shirt is making an announcement about something. He's not speaking very loudly.
They all seem to go to their positions, and they start filming. It goes on basically forever. Like everyone is in this scene, and some dude cuts in a couple of times to talk in Gus' ear. His character is even more strikingly intimidating in person. She feels kind of guilty for the thrill she gets watching him work. He hasn't said a word, and Walt's babbling excuses for getting rid of Gale. With sure, determined steps, he takes a bright green box cutter from the table. Once he's behind Vincent, Gus pretends to slice Vincent's throat open. She's guessing some CGI stuff will be added later, but there is a good amount of fake blood already, and Gus purposefully holds Vincent in a way that allows the stuff to messily splatter Walt and Jesse's clothes. Gus lets Vincent's body drop to the floor.
Vincent's blood spreads to Walt's feet as Gus methodically changes back into his clothes, walks up the stairs of the labs, and turns at the railing.
"Well?" Gus says, calm as ever. "Get back to work."
They cut for whatever, she has no idea really, and Bryan and Aaron kind of gravitate to one another. Bryan's saying something, seeming concerned, but Aaron laughs and kind of shoves him. Bryan laughs too, slaps him happily on the shoulder. It's like they're best friends.
Jesse's so quiet, she almost doesn't hear him. "Let's go."
Before they leave, she disgustingly realizes she finally got that sneak peek of fourth season she'd wanted from the very beginning before all of this. Now, with Jesse here, like this, she feels horrible.