He had called sounding a bit desperate just after nightfall, asking for a ride. It’s been about three weeks since they’ve had any extra extra-curricular activities. Not that Walt is counting. For once he has no one expecting him for dinner. Still, he gives Jesse a bit of a hard time, mostly out of habit, then drives downtown to a dangerous neighborhood to pick him up as requested. The slouching scarecrow in too big clothing weaving in and out of the shadows is the only person on the street for miles in either direction. His face is grimy but there are clean tracks on his cheeks that could have been sweat or tears. His eyes are too wide and too bright. They glint like brittle diamonds above the hollow planes of his cheeks. He’s high, or maybe just scared of something. He looks awful. He looks beautiful.Walt opens the passenger window and pats the seat next to him. Jesse slouches in and slams the door, covering his face with his hands and pressing his fingers into his temples. “Ok?” Walt asks. “Yeah...fine." “You don’t look fine." “Its’ nothing." “It doesn’t look like nothing." “Its’ nothing I said. God!" “Ok then. your place?" “Yeah.” “Should I even ask what you were doing down here?" “Not if you don’t want to know about my end of the business." “Fine then.” Walt looks him over at the red light and when they start to move again, he snakes a hand onto Jesse’s thigh. Sometimes when words don‘t work this does. “Keep your eyes on the road man," his partner says, with a tone that could be annoyance or merely amusement. Walt leaves his hand where it is. “My eyes are on the road" he says mildly. “Well keep your mind out of my pants then." Definitely annoyance this time. Walt’s hand retreats, but not far, still lingering on the seat. “What’s the problem, son?" he asks again. “Nothing I said, I just....what you pick me up and suddenly I’m fair game or something? I’m not that -blam!-ing cheap.” Mr. White sighs, signals right and pulls over into the parking lane. He puts his hazards on, then turns to face his partner. “Jesse, listen to me. I picked you up because you needed me to. I touched you because I happen to find you attractive and its been awhile and there’s no one around. If you suddenly have a problem with that just tell me. Don’t make this into something its not. You don’t owe me anything. I am not asking for payment. End of story.” Mr. White turns up the radio. It’s classical, cellos deep and strident and melancholy. He signals left and pulls back into traffic. Jesse stares at his lap for a few seconds, than snakes out a cautious hand to snap the radio off again. “I’m sorry..." he says, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I didn’t mean to...do you...want to come in for awhile?" This time his tone is equal parts desperate and contrite. Mr White gives that slightly bitter smile, shakes his head. “I don’t need a pity -blam!-." “No that’s not what I .....I mean it would be nice after today. You’re right, it has been awhile.” He creeps his fingers into the hand that is no longer resting on his thigh but laying palm open on the flat part of the gear shift console. Mr. White’s fingers wrap around his own, then twine between them. His hands are rough and warm. Jesse worries the pad of his thumb over the knuckles, finds the slit of a healing papercut. “Your hands are dry,” he says, heart kicking hard in his chest, driving him to fill the silence. “You should take better care of them in the winter time. My aunt’s hands always got like that...I could lotion them if you wanted. I used to do it for her. ” “I’ve never had any complaints before." Mr. White says, thumbing Jesse‘s wrist, no doubt noting his elevated pulse. “Well if you’re going to go sticking them places....you might want to soften them up.” Jesse knows he is blushing and hopes Mr. White doesn’t notice.“I’ve got this super concentrated lotion that, like, fishermen use." Mr. White makes a neutral hum that Jesse takes for consent and gives his hand a little squeeze. Jesse squeezes back and they pass the rest of the car ride in comfortable silence. Jesse chastises himself for the thousandth time for jumping to conclusions and assuming the worst. They are connected again, and he wants to savor the moment for as long as it might last. At the medicine cabinet he stops, held in his tracks for a minute by his own reflection. How bloodshot his eyes are and the purple stains beneath them. He wants comfort from this, and release, and to banish the nearly crushing lonliness he’s been living with for the last three weeks. He wants all these things but wonders how long he will be able to keep them. Wonders if they are both poison and cure, creating more problems than they will solve...then hears the bed creak down the hall, Mr. White lying down and getting himself comfortable. Jesse feels a little flutter thrum all through his body starting in his chest and moving steady down. He quickly opens the door and snatches the tube of hand cream that has been here since Aunt Ginny’s death. Still here somehow, through acid corrosion and murder in the basement. Through rennovations and changes in ownership. Sometimes when words don’t work, this does. He walks in gingerly, heel toeing it like when he used to sneak in late at night, avoiding the floorboards he knows to be creaky. Mr. White is stretched out on his back with his arms behind his head, fully clothed except for his shoes, which he has placed neatly in the space between the bedside table and the bed. He smiles when he sees Jesse’s frame in the doorway and tentatively Jesse smiles back, sheepishly holding up the tube. Mr. White sits up with great ceremony, teasing Jesse with an exaggerated look of gravity as he stretches out his hands. Jesse moves on to the bed and sits cross legged, taking the first hand into both of his own. The right one. The one without the wedding ring. He doesn’t want to know yet if Mr.White will remove it, because he doesn‘t like how he knows it will make him feel if he does. Or doesn’t. He squirts a pearly gray blob of the lotion on to the back of the hand he is holding and begins to rub it in. Mr. White sighs with pleasure and closes his eyes for a moment. Jesse fights to make his own breaths even and slow. Because the house is eerily silent and every little noise seems magnified. He does not want to ruin the intimacy of this moment with the rasp of heavy breathing. He works the lotion into the back of the hand, then the palm, then along each individual digit, pulling gently to relax the joints, letting them crack and pop. He moves on to the second hand reluctantly, willing himself not to think about it. Mr. White makes no move to remove the jewelry. In fact he moves nothing at all, only keeps very still with his eyes closed and a small sweet smile on his face as Jesse repeats the motions again, avoiding the ring finger a bit, but thorough with the others. When he is through Mr. White reaches for him, softened hands against his neck, then his cheeks. The faint medicinal smell of the cream tendriling into Jesse’s nostrils crowds his emotions with nostalgia that does not belong in this scene. “Better?” Mr. White whispers and Jesse swallows hard. “Much,” he says. “How can you know for sure?” Walt asks, and the boy actually blushes, then takes one of the hands off his face and moves it to the v of his t shirt. Mr. White reaches into it and to the left, clasping the pectoral possessively, teasing the nipple between his fingers. Jesse’s breath hisses between his teeth and he leans in to the touch. Lying in bed after, smoke curling up towards the ceiling from a cigarette loosely clasped between relaxed fingers, which they have been passing back and forth though Jesse at first voiced his disapproval. (“Really yo, you have enough cancer.”) Head on Mr. White’s chest with one arm curled around his side and their feet entwined Jesse will feel rather than hear the rumble of his lover’s laugh. “Fishermen, huh? You and your History Channel.” He says it fondly and the boy nuzzles into him more, mumbling a halfhearted, “whatever man,” with no rancor or annoyance. Later, when Walt will know a real winter, he will think of this moment and his hatred will dissipate into regret. He will finger his watch and think again of removing it, and not do so. His fingers have grown so thin that the wedding ring slipped right off one day, but the watch remains adjustable, so it stays. “Better?” he had asked him sweetly after letting his boy grease his dry fingers, smoothing the pink skin on the knuckles out, making the very joints feel more pliable. Younger too. Jesse had always made him feel younger somehow, even when he was teasing him about being so old. He would tell himself he missed that feeling the most, but it wasn’t true. He missed all of it the most. He’d let him put those fingers inside him so deep and so hard that his muscles had crunched them together, leaving invisible bruises on his knuckles. The anticipation that was almost fear thrumming through him so his very skin seemed to vibrate, hot to the touch, delicate hands shaking as he removed his clothes, scooted back on the bed, lifted his hips for the pillow placed beneath them. Eyes too wide then squeezed tight shut the minute Walt tried to meet them. Lips parted, trembling too, breaths ragged and shaky. But when it began in earnest he went still. The skin at his forehead wrinkling and clenching then smoothing out as a sweet heavy calm descended on him. His breathing evening as Walt reached out to hold him, cradling the delicate fuzzy skull between his wide hands, kissing him softly, relishing the vibration of the boy’s moan against his mouth. Because in this place all could be said and forgiven. In this place even love was possible. And he had not been above saying it. Because Jesse said it first