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manicpixiedgoblin · 1 year

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Nervous Young Inhumans

Masterpost

Chapter Twenty-Four.

If the accident hadn’t happened she wouldn’t have slept with Jess again - actually, she’d have slept with Saul that night, and continued refusing to acknowledge that her alleged friendship with Jess was just a thinly veiled cover for the fact she couldn’t picture life without him.

Though, admittedly, she couldn’t picture it with him either now.

Ellie had fallen asleep without taking any more pills, naked and content in Jesse’s arms. She woke up with the feeling she always had after things like this - the word shit and some vague satisfaction which remained despite the knowledge it was a bad idea.

She walked downstairs after quietly disentangling herself from Jesse’s arms - looked around for a coffee maker, but found only beer and lukewarm water. She drank the latter, disappointed. So coffee maker should be number one on her shopping list for him.

Why had she come over? He’d picked her up, right. The thing about benzos is memory turns to shit and is recalled like a dream had a few nights ago, in very dim light. She leaned against the counter as she drank and tried to remember everything, still only in her underwear and tank top. What had happened after they drove here? Had they planned to sleep together?

No, no - Walter had been here, right?

She was piecing this new element in with everything else when Jesse appeared at the door, something like relief flooding his features when he saw she was there.

“I thought you’d left,” his lips curled slightly upwards.

“No,” she smiled, “I, uh, you don’t have coffee.”

“No,” he smiled, walking up to her in his grey sweatpants, shirtless. “We can go to the Dunkin Donuts drive through, if you want.”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Or we could go to Waffle House?”

“Yeah, breakfast,” she looked at the gash on his head, back down at his eyes. “Let’s do that.”

Maybe over pancakes she could actually figure out the full picture of what had happened last night.

“I’ll get the keys and your pants,” he smiled, leaning forward and planting a kiss on her cheek. He walked out of the kitchen, actually half ran, and she stared behind him, her face shared between a smile and a concerned furrowed brow.

***

Over breakfast they were oddly quiet. Ellie’s eyes looked more aware than they had in days.

“So, uh,” Jesse said, “does anything hurt? Was I, um. I don’t know, I forgot-”

“It’s fine,” Ellie smiled a little tightly.

“Yeah, yeah. Good.”

They ate for a few seconds in silence.

“So I’m going to Mexico tomorrow,” he said after a while.

She tilted her head. She vaguely remembered the word Mexico, but the context was gone.

“Why?”

“What do you remember from last night?”

“Does Walter want you to kill someone else?”

“Uhh,” he gave a breathy laugh, “uh. That’s not why I’m going, it’s just - I’m teaching the cartel how to cook Mr. White’s recipe. For Fring.”

“Right.”

“To stop them from starting a fucking war.”

“Yeah. But you’ll be fine?”

“Mike’s coming with us.”

“How’s that reassuring?”

“It just is,” he shook his head.

They pushed their food around, had another awkward silence.

“I really am doing better, y’know,” Jesse looked up at her.

She looked into his eyes. She nodded.

“I know.”

“I, uh.. I was worried about you.”

“I know. I’m fine.”

“None of this should be your problem-”

“It is. I got involved. Regardless of you.”

“Well, no, if it weren’t for me-”

“Maybe then. But not now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It just is my problem now.”

There was another silence, which Ellie broke this time.

“Do you remember when we went to the aquarium on acid? In Santa Fe?”

“Course,” he half smiled.

“I hadn’t been back since the funeral, and I didn’t even think about it. We sat on the floor in front of the tank with the jellyfish, and I forgot my body and my past, and I remember thinking we were both leaving our selves and joining those bodies without organs, feeling the soft underwater movements and - what I’m trying to say is, all the things we think are relevant now, and all these times we’ve hurt, we forget them. We think we won’t every time, and then we do. Maybe it would mean more if we couldn’t get over it, but we always can,” she put her fork down and sat back, full, “which is to say, you’ll go to Mexico, and I’ll go back to work, and things probably won’t be fine. But we will be. We’ll be fine.”

***

She didn’t go back to work that day, and Jesse left.

But she cleaned her apartment up, put all the pills in a wicker basket under her sink and showered for the first time in days. She put on actual clothes instead of sweatpants or staying in her underwear, swept and mopped and cleaned the windows and put the ashtray outside.

Her phone had stayed in her apartment, charging the whole time. She texted Marie, Diane, Skylar and the hospital staff people back. She let her boss know she was doing better, could probably come back in a few days now.

She saw the texts from Saul.

“Can I come over?”

“I want to see you.”

“Are you alright?”

Three missed calls around eight. A couple more around ten, and five at eleven thirty.

She called him but he didn’t pick up.

While she was cleaning the rest of the place, he called her back.

“I’m on my way, I was with a client,” he said as soon as she picked up.

“On your way where? What?”

“Your place. We need to talk.”

She was confused. And a little guilty, honestly.

“About what?”

“About you disappearing last night after a week of xanax-induced dissociation!”

“I was sleeping, Saul.”

On his side of the line, driving his car, his face fell slack. He could tell by now she was putting distance between them when she called him Saul. Either that, or she was acknowledging he’d done something morally ambiguous enough to call him that.

“Well, okay. I’ll be there in ten,” he hung up.

He rang in nine. He was wearing a beige suit, a bright pink shirt and purple tie. His hair looked nice.

“Hi,” she opened.

“Hi,” he tried to kiss her but she pulled back.

“I need to tell you something,” she instantly blurted out.

He leaned his body backwards. After a moment, he sighed and walked in, shutting the door behind him and standing there.

“Is this about Pinkman?”

She nodded, making him look at the ground with a sigh.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would you go back to that? Were-were you drunk? I dropped him off at his girlfriend’s house what, two days ago? And now he’s all-”

“I wasn’t sober, but that doesn’t matter. It happened.”

He stared at her.

“Is it going to happen again?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes it fucking matters,” he grabbed her arms, which were crossed beneath her chest. Her eyes watered a little but she didn’t know why.

“What difference does it make? I slept with him, if-if he found out about this after that-”

“So him finding out is the problem? Doesn’t that make you think? I’m the one you’re being honest with! Me! That says something!”

“It says you can fucking take it!”

“You not having to take care of me isn’t the only reason why!”

“You’re right, it’s not, but what can I do now?”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” he raised his hands and looked around, “what, you’re too guilty to stay away from him?”

“That’s not what happened, but-”

“I love you.”

She dropped her arms at her sides, her blood rushed to her face, she felt her stomach drop. She stared at him.

“I do,” he took a step towards her. “I love you, and it’s something I always say too late, but not this time. It’s not too late this time.”

She stared as he grabbed her arms.

“Maybe it is,” she whispered.

“I love you,” he repeated.

She swallowed. “I-“

“I love you.”

“Jimmy,” she shook her head.

“I love you, and I don’t want to give this up.”

“It won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Because I love him too.”

“So what?”

“So what. You love him, but you also love me, so what.”

She stayed quiet. She thought about him in Mexico now, about how he’d come back and nothing would change. They wouldn’t be together, not properly, while everything in their lives remained the way it was. But she couldn’t be with either of them and live with herself. She couldn’t be with either of them, in both cases, because of what would happen with Jesse.

“Ellie?” he stared at her.

“I can’t. Not now.”

He sighed.

“I’ll call you,” he turned around opening the door. He grabbed from the hallway a flower bouquet. “I, uh, I bought these.”

He put them inside and with a weak smile closed the door behind him, leaving her staring at the flowers with her arms crossed, alone.

***

It’s fucked up to think they’d have still been together if it wasn’t for Jesse in more ways than one. The accident had happened because of him, as Jimmy was driving to her house. Her sleeping with him was the last element, but things had always been contingent to whatever he needed.

They’d met because of him, right?

Jimmy was thinking of all of this as he drove back to his office that day.

While Ellie was putting her apartment together, thinking of whether she should go back to work the next day or if she should let herself wallow and make some art.

What would she even make now?

***

By the time Jesse got back, she was working again.

He stopped by the hospital in his grey shirt and beat up face, looking for her in the waiting room next to the ER.

She met him there after Hugh let her know.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi.”

“How’d your work trip go?”

“Uh, it went well, yeah,” he looked around. “Listen, I uh. I just wanted to let you know, y’know, I, uh. I’m seeing Andrea and Brock tonight.”

“Who?”

He didn’t answer but it only took her two seconds to recall who that was.

“Oh. Right.”

“I mean, she - you know the story, and her kid-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” her face became closed off, but she smiled, “anyways, is that why you came by? I’m not on break.”

“Ellie, I,” he broke himself off with a sigh.

“Totally fine, Jess. I get it.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah. We’re friends. We’re fine. It’s always how this goes, right?” she said the last part like a fuck you.

“El, no, that’s not-”

“Don’t fucking pull this shit again. Let’s just - we’re friends. It’s fine. It’s fucking fine.”

She turned around and walked away clenching her jaw. Fucking stupid asshole fucker. And here she was, putting him first every fucking time. While he pity fucked someone or got high with Jane and chose her only when there was no one else.

And she kept putting up not only with that, but with all he came with, all the shit they didn’t see, his fucking work, his fucking friends and - fuck no.

She knew Jimmy wouldn’t be any different - his job was just as messy, his life was just as chaotic. This wasn’t her realizing one of them was the healthy choice. This was her realizing she was apparently inherently attracted to men who were predetermined to make her life a mess.

Which was more about her than them she guessed.

***

The next day when Saul called her she replied with an “I’m taking a break from dating. I’m focusing on my work and also fuck the meth business,” to which he shushed and spoked over her so as not to compromise the line, “and fuck whatever you guys have going on. I need a normal life.”

It didn’t last. But for a few days, things were actually not an absolute mess in her life.

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