kore_logs | that hopeless feeling i get when you say you'll understand and I know you can't

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that hopeless feeling i get when you say you'll understand and I know you can't

Who: Laura Hawley and Jesse Pinkman (later featuring Jet Star)
What: Secret revelation!
When: Evening of day 44
Where: House 13!
Warnings: Definitely language, drug use. Maybe face punching, we'll see. Jesse being Jesse. Laura being...sob maybe slightly unreasonable.

In the wake of the day filled with boxes and bodies, to say Laura's been bad about leaving the house would be a gross under exaggeration. She's barely so much as stuck her head out of the room in two days, and it has been sending her a little stir crazy, which is why she'd bothered to force herself out on this particular day. Rugged up to the chin, Laura has wasted away hours of the day wandering around the town (and maybe pointedly avoiding the fountain, but hey, who's watching) and it's felt good.

So good that she's in a pleasant enough mood when she gets back to the house, the idea of just going to lurk around in her room again is obviously out of the question. No, she's in good spirits and that clearly means she needs to share it. Lucifer is....not the housemate she has in mind, as surprisingly mild as he's been with her she can't quite get the image of him standing stark naked in the kitchen out of her mind when she sees him. Best go with a safer, less nude bet.

If Jesse said anything about knocking before Laura clearly didn't take it in. The only effort coming close to warning is the quick rap of her knuckles against the door as she's already pushing it open, and from the word go it's all excited bubbly smiles. No more moping here, no way. She shuts the door behind her as she steps inside (because privacy is important you know, don't want to intrude on that or anything) and he's immediately got to deal with word vomit.

"So I don't know if you've ever looked out where that beach thing is but it is way trippy, like I know the sea goes forever when you see it normally but here it just feels like it stops way too soon. I don't know man, maybe my eyes are going or something but-"

Hopefully he's not too engrossed in the topic of conversation, because when Laura turns around and actually sees Jesse she immediately falls silent. That's definitely not what she was expecting to see.

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They couldn't drop temptation into his lap and just ruin it like that. Shit wasn't even fair.

So sue him. After a long week and he gets a bit of a break in the form of the rock, a good half ounce in his pocket, at least, and it ain't much but it's enough for him to get by for a little while, maybe before they drop him off a little more. Was that how they were gonna play it? Periodically throw some his way until he was without, then pick it all up again? Kinda playin' him. But, well, he was going for it. Couldn't really blame them.

And Laura had been out. They'd gone over the whole knocking thing, he didn't think it'd be an issue. Shit, he'd even thought of cracking a window before he started blazing one, but cold as it was- Whatever. It wasn't gonna stink up too much, right? He's halfway through a hit, pulling the sickly sweet smoke into his lungs and nearly coughs it out as soon as there's the door opening, Laura in his room. The pipe's in one hand, his lighter in the other, and he's a deer in the headlights when she turns to see him, a moment of pause.

He exhales a cloud of meth before he speaks a word, jaw hanging slightly ajar.

"The, uh. The sea. Never noticed. Guess I gotta- take another look."

The thing is, she's never seen it before. Sure she's attended the lectures at school, heard the horror stories people pull out when trying to scare teenagers out of doing dumb things, but drugs have never really been a part of her life. She knows what's going on, and everything kind of clicks as that final piece is revealed, but this is the first time it's ever been right in front I her like this. So Laura just stares for a moment, entirely unsure as to what she's supposed to say in this situation. It's not like they have "Help, My Fellow Kidnappee/Housemate Is Using Drugs" pamphlets in the library.

"What are you doing?" It's a dumb question, she can quite clearly see what he's doing, but she's trying to come up with a response that makes sense and...she's got nothing. Honestly. Safe to say she's learned the lesson about knocking now, shame it's come a little too late. "How did you even get that here?"

Maybe her tones a little judgemental, but she's too shocked to notice. The signs had been there, and Jet's warning about strange behaviour suddenly makes a whole lot more sense, but apparently it ha taken having it shoved right in her face for her to get what was going on with him. A small frown crosses her face, and she kind of waves at the cloud of smoke as she keeps on staring, approaching a couple of steps towards him. One more question for him, apparently.

"Why?"

It's good she recovers after that initial question, what are you doing, because, honestly, Jesse's eyes roll minutely, and he almost tells her off right then. He looks like a child again, being brandished with these questions, and he right out flinches inward at the 'why', it's so familiar.

The disadvantage that Laura has here is that it's not the first time Jesse's heard the lectures and the stories and the pamphlets and all that, because he's heard it before, several times. He's also ignored it before, several times, and that's his initial reaction to any problems regarding his terrible drug use. He's trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes it's in one ear and right out again.

"So what, they drop off some'a the blue over at that food pile thing and I can't do a little, like, partaking?" he replies defensively at first, and, no, that's not how he meant to do that. His hand mops over his face, and he sets the pipe and the lighter down, holds up his hands defensively. "Is it the smokin' in the house that's a problem? I ain't gotta smoke in the house if that's the problem."

No, Jesse, that's not the problem, that's pretty fucking far from the problem.

So it was the food drop then, that's what he found. Maybe the people who brought them here really are just screwing with them at this point, but that's hardly coming as a surprise at this point. Funny how she'd thought that this town was a more pleasant alternative than the place she'd left behind. That illusion is dropping faster and faster with each day. When the pipe goes down her eyes follow it for a moment, and she's still frowning when she looks back at Jesse.

"You can't seriously think that's the issue here." It comes out more irritated than she's intending to sound, because she's not really annoyed, just shocked still. It's not exactly every day you come across your newly appointed housemate smoking meth. In some ways Laura really is painfully naive still, and it doesn't show more than in her approach with this revelation. It doesn't occur to her once that Jesse's probably heard it all before.

"It's...it's not just this one time is it. Dude, you can't think this is a good idea, right?" She's just going to go ahead and open that window a crack now, because while she's not leaving until she's got this figured out standing in a hazy room isn't really high up on her list of priorities in any given day. When that's done though, she turns to Jesse and fixes him with that same, slightly confused look that she's been wearing since she walked in. "You've gotta know what that shit'll do to you, man, you're not stupid."

"Could it be?" he asks meekly, and then she moves to the window, but he's sticking by it for now; the concept of cracking a window once in a while is a whole lot better than the lecture he knows that he's about to get. It's old. It's tired. He's sick of people telling him what he should do and what he shouldn't.

Everything's coming out annoyed across the board here, Jesse and Laura both, Laura for reasons that Jesse's pretty sure he can pinpoint, and he actually snorts a laugh when she talks, something extremely not good given the situation but, hey, she's asking if he knows what goes into meth, how bad it is for him. Oh, does he ever know. "It's poison," he replies mildly, cracking a half a grin at her that's so very patronizing as he leans back on his bed and into the pillows.

"What am I s'posed to say here?" he asks after a beat, shrugging his shoulders and sitting up a little straighter again, leaning towards her. "Oh, shit, yeah, this stuff is terrible, whatever was I thinkin' when I picked up the pipe? That what you want? Should I cry? Huh?" His hands plant on his thighs where he's sitting up, eyebrows sketching upward in question. "Look, I'm sorry, man, but you sound like my mom. You wanna be my mom? Contrary to, uh, popular belief, but I kinda know what I'm doin'."

Laura's quiet. She's quiet when she watches him, hovering slightly next to the window, and she's just as quiet when she breaks the gaze to stare at the floor instead. The problem is she's really bad at this kind of stuff. She doesn't know how to talk people out of bad decisions and she certainly doesn't know where to begin when it comes to these kinds of bad decisions. She's completely out of her depth, so of course she's falling back on old cliches. As soon as she said it she knew it was dumb, but Laura doesn't know where else to go from. It's not like she's going to just give him a grin and a salute, wish him well and be on her way.

It doesn't help that he's being so damn flippant about it all. It's like it's just no big deal - and granted, to Jesse it probably isn't, but that's not making her any less frustrated by it all. She's annoyed at him for doing it, annoyed at the people who dropped those boxes for putting it in there, annoyed at herself for not knowing what to say to fix it. She walks over anyway though, drops down on the bed with a decent bit of space away from him. "Yeah, no shit it's poison."

She rakes her fingers through her hair, shoves it out of her eyes and gives a shrug. She drops her hands into her lap, and after all that's said and done she still hasn't come up with something better than the after school specials he's obviously tired of hearing. Whatever. "I'm not your mom, but I kinda thought for a second there that I might have been your friend, dude. I mean tell me if I'm wrong, feel free, but what do you want me to do? Cheer you on? Fucking join in with you, huh? What am I supposed to do when I find out one of the few people I actually give half a damn about in this messed up town is smokin' up in his spare time?"

There's a tendril of guilt worming its way into him like it does when he gets this kind of speech - it's the tone, it's the expressions, it's the way her hands fall into her lap like she doesn't know what to say. He thinks, he doesn't know. Maybe he's got her at a standstill, maybe she's just thinking a whole lot about it, or maybe she just doesn't quite care enough. No, that's not right. She called him a friend. Jesse's fingering the edge of one of his pillows, almost nervously before he pulls it into his lap. No shit, it's poison. Yeah, And he put that shit into his body and fuckin' loved it.

She sounds genuine. It always sucked more when it sounded genuine.

"Ya could just overlook it," he observes lightly, eyebrows raising as he furrows his expression down at the pillow, very much not looking at Laura for the time being. "Ya could throw a fuckin' party for all I care." Tell everyone, go ahead, I dare you. See if anyone gives a shit. He looks up at her steadily then, hands stilling from their nervous movements. "So Jesse smokes up once in a while, big fuckin' whoop. It ain't like I'm some tweaker, wastoid, outta my fuckin' mind in some backwards trap house somewhere." Not that he hadn't played that role, and the thought sends him nervously rubbing at the back of his neck, head tilting up at the ceiling instead.

Because Laura is kind of a friend. She's something else, she's something, and he doesn't quite know how to process the information that she does care, not anymore. Clean or not didn't seem to matter as much as long as he was doing his job, back home, and here and now it's not like he has any purpose going on here. Hell, nobody even gave a shit he'd been kidnapped. "The hell does it matter anyway?"

"Overlook it."

It comes out very simply, the two words, echoed calmly and quietly. She's anything but calm of course. The last few days have been hard, with bodies and mystery boxes and now this to top it all off. Laura can deal with a lot, she really can, but she's starting to reach her limit.

It ends up being the last comment that tips her over. She can handle blatant flippancy, snide remarks, but does he really not know why she cares about this? It's the last straw, just enough to push her past the point of caring and well and truly into all out frustration. "You've got to ask? You've seriously got to ask? You're an ass sometimes, you know that right?"

The snap is quick, irritable and it comes with a fierce glare as she takes the eye contact that finally comes and just scowls at him. Laura's not angry at him, not really. She's frustrated and tired and scared, worried and annoyed, but not angry. That's how it comes out though, with the harsh tone and slightly raised voice. "You're right man, who the hell am I to stop you? If you want to keep doing stupid things, why should I do a thing? It's not like I might actually maybe give a damn that the shit might kill you, or y'know, it wouldn't be that I kind of prefer you not tripping balls! Couldn't be any of that, could it?"

"Oh, please, I've been smokin' somethin' or another since, like, high school." Because that makes it better? He says it like it's a source of some kind of falsely heightened pride, sitting up and over the pillow to lean in closer to Laura again. "It ain't like I don't know how to handle my shit."

No, now he's pissed. He's pissed that she's so angry about this when she hasn't even heard his side of the story, he's pissed that she's making him sound like some strung-out addict, and he's really, really pissed that of all the shit he's done, on the entire mountain of assholeish - no, hell, evil - things that he's committed to in his lifetime - in the last few months - that smoking up a little rock is the worst of what he's getting shouted at for.

"How d'ya even know what I'm like when I ain't," and he breaks out the finger quotes, "'trippin' balls', huh? Practically been high the entire time since I've been here, it's the one thing I got to keep me goin', but you'd prefer I not be me, is that it? Do I be the good little boy rallyin' the troops to break outta the impenetrable fortress'a doom we got goin' on here? High fuckin' hopes for my future? Huh? There's literally robot bears in the woods and you're worried a little meth is gonna be what kills me."

And with that, he has the audacity to pick up his pipe again, to start to burn one right in front of her just to prove some kind of point. "Christ's sake."

"Oh well congratulations, you know how to handle your shit. I take it all back, you obviously know what you're doing. I'll leave you to it then, yeah?" It's not like it's particularly strange that she's quick to rise, she's got a temper at the best of times, but it's like he's deliberately trying to push her buttons. "Fuck that, that doesn't make it any less dumb just 'cause you've been doing it for ages. I can't do a friggen' thing about the robot bears but like hell am I just lying back and rolling over about this."

She probably would have cooled off though. Her anger isn't sustainable, it's got nowhere to go and she knows that they're just going to keep going around the same circles until one of them gets bored or leaves. She's about to say as much as well, honestly, but then he goes ahead and grabs that goddamn pipe and she just about sees red.

"Oh my god, you're kidding right? You are such a fucking ass." Laura has well and truly hit the ceiling. He's actually going to do that right now? Right in the middle of the argument revolving solely around the thing in his hand? Not a chance in hell. She's up in an instant and quickly reaches out to grab it out of his hand. Probably not her smartest decision, but it's hard to think logically when she's this pissed.

What was he supposed to do, lay back and take it? Just listen to whoever thinks they can tell him what's best for him and mold himself to that shape that they want? Fuck that. Everything was equating so sharply back to his parents, back to sports tryouts and first joints and a cacophony of things he wasn't supposed to do, a whole world of nots and whatnots that he put behind him and now Laura was dredging them up. Even back to Mr. White, and every time that cue ball son of a bitch had called him a junkie loser or some equivalent.

Here he thought lecture time was over. He already knew he was an asshole; he didn't need constant reminders. And he plants a deadened look right onto his face, staring her down with an almighty kind of sarcasm. "My. Fuckin'. Hero."

But then she's going for his shit. He's yanking his arm briskly away when she goes for the pipe, using his height to his advantage and holding it well out of her reach. Oh, he'll play this game if she wants to. He'd really rather not - it was almost funny in light of the situation, even, if he wasn't so pissed - but he'd still play that role if she really wanted to. "Stop it, would- Wouldja stop it? That's mine, yo! What're you, five?"

The holding above her head is so patronising that it doesn't do a thing to help her burning temper. There's no way she's going to try to go for it now, she's not exactly in the business of actively trying to embarrass herself, but she does glare even more as she steps in a little closer. Height different or not, she's advancing and she's just going to go ahead and ignore the eight odd inches he has on her in favour of a tense jaw and a tightly wound temper.

"You do what you want in your own time, fine. Whatever, you make your own decisions." She's angry, angry enough to all but spit the words out, and she glances up at the pipe before going right back to staring at him. "But I swear to god man, you fucking touch that shit when I am in the room and so help me I'll flush the whole lot. What possible reason would make you think that's okay, huh?"

She raises a hand to point at the pipe, shoves his chest lightly and then just holds her hands out. See exactly how done she is with this, Jesse, because while it might not be true she's doing a damn good job at acting like it. Just before she turns away - and she has to turn away, or she's going to keep on screaming at him - she quickly snaps at him, "you stay away from me when you're smoking that shit, or I'll wreck it all".

"All right already! Jesus." His words come out in practically a whine, as he keeps holding the pipe out of reach, swatting idly at Laura's hand when she shoves at him. It doesn't really connect, but it makes him feel better or something. He's tired of this conversation and he's really tired of the holier than thou attitude going on in this room. He doesn't need this shit, not here and not from her.

To his credit, he doesn't try to smoke up again, just like said. It's bad enough he's got a girl trying to push him around, tell him what to do when she barely even knows him or anything about him. It's not fair that he has to constrain to whatever rules when they both bunked down here evenly. "So much for sharin' the place, huh, you know? It's my joint too. Ya got the big room and I can't even live in the place all properly."

Whatever. He'll lower his arm, still tensed and at the ready in case she goes for it again. "I'd like to see you try anyway. This wouldn't even be a big deal if ya'd just stop being a total bitch about it."

Goddamnit Jesse, she was leaving. Laura was walking out, why the hell did he say anything at all? She can ignore it though, it's fine. She'll talk about it when she's less angry, yelling is tiring after all. She just wants to clear out and cool off before she ends up saying something that she's probably going to regret. Just, walk away Laura, before this ends up bigger than either of them can actually deal with. Then he calls her a bitch, and that's it.

The thing is, she's not even a violent person. She can shout and scream and curse and snark with the rest of them, but she really isn't violent. Laura knows how to hit though - with two older brothers it was kind of inevitable that one of them would have shown her how to defend herself. She's short, not that strong, and she doesn't do it very often, but she has surprise on her side. He calls her a bitch, she snaps and that's all it takes for Laura to turn and take a swing.

She's aiming for his jaw, as much as anyone can aim when they've snapped and made an impulse decision like this. She's going to regret it, but in that moment she's just tired, stretched too thin and as close to furious as she's felt in a long time.

And he doesn't see it coming, not until it's too late. It's a hell of a surprise more than anything.

She packs a wallop for someone her size, and the punch hits and Jesse's head jerks back belatedly, sends his jaw into a crick and his teeth biting down hard on his tongue, son of a bitch. They're both tired, heightened emotions up the wazoo, and he really should have seen that happening - then again, maybe he did. Then again, maybe he was asking for it.

Jesse doesn't say a word, just adjusts his jaw once until it clicks back properly, touches a finger to his lips before he spits blood on the floor. His eyes are targeted anywhere that's not Laura; the ground, his shoes, and finally his hand, which opens and closes as if he might reciprocate, but he already knows that he won't and refuses to. He ain't hitting a girl, doesn't matter how hard she hits him first.

"You done?"

The moment the punch connects she wants to take it back. She really isn't violent despite the evidence to the contrary, and for a moment she just stares at him. Her hands drop to her side - and why didn't anyone tell her that it hurt to hit someone, there's an ache in her wrist and her knuckles feel like they're throbbing - and it's not long before Laura takes a quick step backwards. She starts to speak, to apologise or maybe even yell some more, try to justify it. It's not like she can though, it was stupid and irrational and it's a little late to feel bad about it now.

"I've got to-" She glances back at the door, frowning and staring at the blood on the floor for a moment. When she actually manages to look at Jesse it's not for long, and then she's backing up towards the door all over again. She should say more than that, but the words won't come properly, and in the end she just blurted out a rushed 'gotta go' as she holds her hands up, then bails out of the room before he has the chance to say anything else.

That's as far as she gets though, slamming his door shut behind her. She stops outside in the hallway, takes a deep breath, and then the tries to get in contact with the only person who she thinks can actually sort out this mess of a situation. Poor Jet just has to first translate the garbled mess of a message that she's sending him, with the panic and the residual anger and general stress of the situation, it doesn't make much sense at first:

"Jet, Jet I need- you gotta come, okay look I didn't mean it I swear, he's got stuff and I didn't even know and he's smoking and I just I don't know! I lost it, I don't know why, and he- look I just, can you come? Please? I didn't mean to hit him."

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LATER

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