championoftime | (no subject)

(no subject)

[Public | Audio]

[He's trying to be as calm as possible. But what led to what went wrong was needless violence- and again, there's needless violence. The truth is, he doesn't want to admit the dreams came from him because he knows that it will make matters worse. He really wishes that he could write it off as a flood, but it went on entirely too long.] I apologize for the delay in addressing the matter. I was busy dealing with the object [object] responsible for the shared dreams, and then I was needed in the infirmary.

It was an accident, not a calculated strike. It's gone now. You can rest easier.

[He hopes.] That's all the information I'm at liberty to give. Dick passed on the necessary information pertaining to the other events that have transpired.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm still very tired.

[Private to Jesse | Audio]*

We need to have a discussion now that our minds have cleared.

*OOC: Triggers of drug use and sexual assault discussed in thread between Jesse and Doctor.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He doesn't say a word. He just goes into his kitchenette (not his TARDIS), opens a safe in one of the cabinets, and takes it over to Jesse. Many inmates have been given the chance to read their files. This was the only thing holding him back.]

[It's something that occurs to him, too, and a little snake of dread coils up his arm as he takes the file.]

John didn't want me to read this, either. [He says it tightly, jaw clenching; it's the first he's come to admitting it may not be only in the Doctor's mind.]

[He sits down on his couch to wait.] It's why I hadn't offered it. [He can confirm that.]

[For a half a second, he looks like he might just rip the thing up right there, unread. Maybe it would be better that way. If he could just forget, right now...

He sinks down onto the couch next to the Doctor and opens the file, reading it over. It'll be a while: one might expect him to jump right to the part about Jane, but he doesn't. He reads it all, intently, almost breathlessly, knee jiggling with anxiety as he takes it all in, the details of his life.

He's hoping for a mistake somewhere, something he can point to. Even just a date out of place, although his memory for dates is fuzzy as hell. Something, somewhere.

But it's all just... there. The first thirteen years are pretty uneventful, and then it starts to get good around paragraph two. He reads it all over with more attention than he's given anything since he was running the business, and he reads the first part again, just to be sure, before he moves into the gory stuff.

The Doctor can probably tell when he gets to her. The bouncing knee stops, but his breathing, heartrate, pick up sharply. He shifts the file to one hand and rubs the other over his face, covering his mouth, but when he reads that line, a small sound escapes anyway.

Walter White was present.

Walter White chose not to intervene.

Walter White watched her die.

It carries on after that, into the parts he remembers, the words Mike had him burn into his mind to give to the police -- "I woke up, I found her, that's all I know" -- but it all blurs, and then he's blinking quickly, blinking back tears, and struggling to breathe.]

Edited 2012-05-22 00:55 (UTC)

[He doesn't say anything. He can't say anything, because he knows what happened there. A replay of one of his biggest regrets, and watching a reaction wash over Jesse.

He leans forward and rubs his face, trying to work the strain that he knows is there out of his expression. There's nothing he can say, nothing he can do to make this better except for sit there. But Jesse needs to know. As unpleasant as it is, he can't blindly follow people or act on their behalf when some of them might do this.]

It's not-- it's not true, it...

[He's trying, but it sounds so weak now. His voice is barely a voice at all. But he has to keep believing it, he thinks, because how can he live with the twisted idea that the same man who found him in the middle of a meth den, who listened to him cry over her, held him, took him to rehab, killed people for him, who--

--who--

He looks up, shaking, eyes wide.]

He told me, once. He apologized. I didn't understand...

[It can't be true, but now he knows it is.]

I don't understand.

Edited 2012-05-22 01:55 (UTC)

He wanted you to himself. Nothing perverse or romantic about it. He just wanted you around and without the distraction of a relationship. A lonely, sick man who made a horrible decision.

[He didn't pity him. He did sound resigned.]

[He shakes his head rapidly, because there's more to it than that, there has to be. Things were always pretty crazy between them -- the money alone was insane. The money Jane had blackmailed Mr. White for...

This is the most plausible explanation he can think of, and every one after that is worse and worse and worse. And he can't stop thinking of the last three months of his life: of standing there next to him almost every day, getting brought into the lab with him, getting saved by him, killing for him, and him knowing that whole time. Him knowing exactly what he'd done.

It's too much. He practically leaps off the couch, pacing like a cornered animal trying to find a hiding place, hands clenching at his sides and moving up to his face and dropping again. He feels like he's never going to find stillness again. All the meth in the world wouldn't be enough for this.]

He knew. You knew!!

You're correct. I did. And I didn't want to have to tell you. I wanted him to wake up and get a warden that would make him take responsibility. [He frowns. Not at Jesse. Somewhere else.] Would you have believed me?

What's different about then and now? I-- You're trying to get me to believe you now, why not then?

Because I didn't know that you might have murdered again for someone else that you cared about. That you might have used chemicals that could have caused permanent damage- far more than the cigarettes, if you breathed them in. That it would lead to other people violating your privacy.

Would you have wanted me to tell you while you might have dreamed about it and others could see?

While he was here, I mean! While I could have done something!

[It comes out in a shout, and he realizes only half a second later that his timeline is all confused now, that the Doctor wasn't even his warden when Mr. White went into his coma. When Mr. White was still alive to answer for this. He shakes his head and turns away again, scrubbing at his face.

He's not even bothering to deny the rest of it anymore. He doesn't care. He can't think about Richie right now -- he can barely even think about Claire. If they threw him into Zero for a month, for a year, right now, he wouldn't care.

He might even welcome it, if he could make a deal to see Walter White at the end of it.

His hands twitch for a gun that isn't there.]

What good would doing something to him do? Bring her back? Make you feel better? There was nothing you could do even when you could do something. You've already done everything he said, everything he wanted. You made him happy at the expense of your family and those you cared for.

[He isn't going to tell him that Mr. White being in a coma mattered, or that him being here mattered. Because what if Mr. White comes back? There's a chance he may step right back onto the Barge.

Then what would Jesse do? Attack him? Murder him?]

[At this moment? Quite possibly. At this moment, he might very well attack the Doctor, too; he wheels back around, murder in his eyes.]

SHUT UP!

[The Doctor isn't wavering on this one. But he is getting ready to start dodging if he starts swinging.] The only thing you can do now is stop going after superficial satisfaction. [That's all revenge would be. That's all drugs would be.

But he's ready to call in help to escort Jesse to Zero if need be.]

SHUT! UP!

[It's all he has to say, but there's nothing else to say anymore. He doesn't want to hear this. He doesn't want to hear how it's his fault, how he did everything Jane's murderer wanted, how he's going to fuck this up too and it'll be his fault too.

For a horrible, horrible millisecond, he thinks he knows exactly how Mark Hoffman feels. How could he be crazy for wanting them all dead?

But then he just wants it all to be over. He charges forward, probably faster than the Doctor would expect him to be, and the murderous intent is gone from his eyes, but now it's all just desperation, wild, almost insane. He reaches out, trying to grab for the man's collar, somewhere between hitting and not.]

[He brushes a button on his journal but has to yank his hand out of his pocket to reach up and grab Jesse's arm.]

You have to stop this now. [He says bluntly. He's strong- Time Lords are, but he knows he's weak compared to his other selves and a good dose of adrenaline and poor, poor judgement and Jesse can manage to really hurt someone.]

[He's right about that: the adrenaline makes him strong, stronger than he's ever been before with the Doctor. On meth, he's even stronger -- it's what let him beat Richie half to death before he even noticed he was hurt just as bad -- but this is still enough chemistry going through his veins to make his grip like steel, his arm taut like a whipcord under the Doctor's hand.

He doesn't move, but he doesn't let go, either. He's breathing like it hurts to, sweat beading his forehead, feverish. His eyes search the Doctor's, infuriated and helpless at the same time. He's got a thousand more questions to scream into the guy's face, but they all start with why?]

[That's the problem with psychics. Throw an impression at them hard enough, they pick up on it. Even as jumbled and confused as it is. He doesn't let go of his arm though.]

I don't know.

[It's an honest answer. Anything else he did know, her already told him.]

[The line wavers: for that first second, he's absolutely going to hit him, and keep hitting until someone stops him or he can't hit any more. But then, just as quickly, the rage is gone, or at least turned elsewhere, and his arms are just skinny arms again, and he's just a guy standing on the ceiling who doesn't know how to take the view.

He cries more than most guys do, he knows, and it's something he's sometimes embarrassed about, but he can't even muster up the shame this time. He's not Hoffman: he's not going to kill anyone else. And he's not Jesse Pinkman anymore, not really; not the guy who would have bought every gram of crystal meth and heroin he could find and drugged himself to death -- who tried that a year ago. He's not crazy enough to laugh about it, so all he can do is cry, in huge, soul-wrenching sobs, his legs sagging under him.]

[He sees- feels the rage ebb out of him. He is touching him after all, and it's physical as much as psychic. But then he's crying, and the Doctor knows the whole world has crashed in on this young man. He just pulled out the supports.

He just hopes he can help him rebuild it properly.

He pulls Jesse close, giving him a tight hug because he can. If he shoves him off, he'll deal with it then.]

[Again, that shifting, like he's going to push, but doesn't. He needs it more than he could ever say, really, even if all it does is bring back the memory of the only time Mr. White ever hugged him: lost in that meth den, lost in grief and certain that Jane's death was his fault.

He could never remember, before, what he'd said to him then -- the memory is hazy at best, with everything that had been in his system at the time. But now he does remember, clear as day, Walter White's voice saying: "You didn't kill anyone, Jesse." Calm, like. Reassuring. Certain.

You didn't kill anyone.

He shudders, fingers closing tight again on the Doctor's shirt, but not to push him away. He's pretty much just bawling and he can't bring himself to care at all, sobbing beyond speech, and when the words come back all he can think to choke out is:]

I k--killed someone for him.

[He has to ask.] Before now, would you have again? [There's concern in his tone. He doesn't like what's happened to Jesse. He's never liked it, and it's always come through whenever Mr. White was mentioned.]

[It's not even a question he has to think about, and that disgusts him more than it makes him feel anything else right now. He nods, mute, hiding his face childishly against his warden's shoulder.

He wouldn't want to... He never wants to, not really, not even now. But he would have.]

He shouldn't have done any of it. He shouldn't have asked those things of you, and he shouldn't have been so greedy. [Because the blame isn't entirely Jesse's- he just chose to care about the wrong person in the wrong way. A way that cost him.

When he's done crying, he'll offer him something to drink (something non-alcoholic. Something to settle his breathing and calm him again.]

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