un: sling shot | audio | after wedding no. 2 goes awry

[slippin]

Hey. [ The voice coming through your magical doohickey is low and maybe congested. Whatever this is doesn't sound like good news. Then the speaker clears his throat, continues in lighter tones, his cadence practiced: ] Are you somewhere private? Because that would be a good place to be right now.

[ There's a good twenty-second pause filled with ambient train noise. Time enough to close your communicator, make your excuses. ] Great. [ Again: it doesn't sound great! ] Um. So, uh, earlier this afternoon as I was leaving the movie theater, I bumped into the bride-to-be...or not-to-be...Like. [ A single solid clap. ] Bam. Well, her little attache case went flying and in the course of helping her, you know, recombobulate herself I may have glimpsed a thing or two relevant to our present circumstances.

[ A beat. Hastily: ] Not weapons. Nothing like that. [ Please don't commit unilateral or joint murder based on his intel! ] But, okay, before we go any further, I've got a few questions for you:

Do we know anyone onboard whose name starts with C? As in crazy, or camembert.

Have any of you talked to Prassenze? [ Rest assured: he mangles the pronunciation. Maybe he'll figure it out by the third wedding. ] Had a little heart-to-heart?

Uh, and last but definitely not least, what the hell?

Great. [ Great! ] Thanks. Over and out.



[ ooc: threadjack away! mod-provided deets on the suitcase's contents are here, since jimmy will share all that info but it'll be run through a jimmy-filter and he's allergic to being direct.

(also if your char would want to talk to him in person, lmk and I can do a starter for that!) ]

Comments

[slippin]

[ Jimmy's face twitches at the year—like he's trying to fend off a wince—and for a long moment he goes quiet. ] That's... [ Impossible, he would really really really like to say, but the train they're on is powered by like ten impossible things. And coal, apparently. ]

Five years.

[ Suddenly the cabin—their cabin, his and Kim's—feels small. The train feels small. There are a few logical inferences he can make, just extrapolating on known character flaws, and... ] You better not be bullshitting me. [ He says, but it's all bark. ]

we can probably merge them if you're feeling like writing a meet up

[yeahmagnets]

[ Jesse nods, taking in Saul's expression. He knows before he says anything that the look on his face means they're definitely from different times, but he doesn't expect the gap to be quite so...glaring. He lets out a sigh and scrubs a hand over his face. ]

Damn, yo. Five years is, like, a long ass time.

[ Thank you, Captain Obvious. Jesse takes a moment to let that sink in. If everything he's been through with Mr. White so far has happened within a year? Well, five years sounds like an eternity. But then Saul? Jimmy? Whatever. The guy who looks like Saul tries to call him out and Jesse bristles defensively. He might be a lot of things, but a liar isn't one of them. At least not to people other than, like, the cops or his parents or whatever. ]

Why would I lie about somethin' like that? I mean, what's in it for me? Think about it.

[ Jesse scoffs, but relaxes as he lets out a slow breath afterwards. ]

I'm telling the truth. I know there's no real way to prove it. Not that I can think of, but like, how else would I know about you--about how you run things. Details, I mean. How would I know, like, specifics when you don't even recognize me? Unless I come from some time in your future. Believe me, it's tripping me out too, but like. For what it's worth? I wouldn't lie just to mindfuck you.

o7 MERGING UNDERWAY

[slippin]

[ Okay, that reaction makes the number—the year, whatever—seem even less manageable. Jimmy rubs a hand over his face, feeling a surge of relief when the conversation turns away from the enormous five-year gulf between him and the kid. ]

What's in it for you? Seriously? A piece of the action. [ Nevermind that "the action" thus far has been: selling grease (more lucrative than it sounds!) and bartering for the dregs of the grain supply during the miserable siege of a hellish pit (worse than it sounds!). Nevermind that deciding to con the only person you recognize five days post-abduction into a magical universe crawling with ghosts and demons would take massive balls. Nevermind the weird disappointment in the kid's voice at Jimmy not knowing him.

The point is he would love for this not to be true, and barring that would love five minutes of the remote possibility of it not being true. ] Where are you?

[yeahmagnets]

A piece of what action? I'm a little out of the loop when it comes to whatever's going on here, man. All's I know is I barely clung onto some Nightmare Horse, barely made it onto this train, some weird, creepy ass lady tried to tell me what this was all about and where I was at all while shoving these--boxes?--into my hands. Come to find out they're dreamboxes, like I was supposed to know! And even more awesome?

[ Can you taste the sarcasm yet, Saul? ]

Get this--there's like fuckin' drug dogs all around the train. But not like the ones we're used to--no--these fuckers sniff out dream contraband.

[ Now that he's gotten all of that out of his system: ]

I'm in this second-class cabin uh...hang on...

[ Jesse cautiously pulls the door open so he can peer up and down the corridor. Once he's satisfied nobody's around, he checks the back of the door for a cabin number.]

Two-oh-eight.

[slippin]

Okay, okay. [ He sounds more exhausted than sympathetic, but hey. It's not dismissive. Holding up a hand: ] I get the picture. [ For a second or two it looks like that'll be the end of it, this semi-graceful capitulation. Jimmy even reaches for the door. But no. ]

Know what happened to me when I showed up? A pack of tea-sipping homicidal maniacs chased me around a ghost mansion trying to slice me up like a stick of butter. [ Which is to say: with butter knives. ] And they didn't even have faces, so.

[ So!

Once this mini-rant's run its course, he stares at the watch a moment before snapping it shut. ] Okay. Coming over. [ And in the next five minutes or so—Jimmy drags his feet a little, maybe presses his ear to the door first—there's a knock. ]

[yeahmagnets]

[ Jesse doesn't need sympathy, but someone dismissing him may have wounded him, so at least it's not that. Besides, he's pretty aware at this point that he tends to ramble (as does Saul, so). ]

Ghost mansion?

[ Jesse makes a face. It's not beyond Saul to exaggerate a little. Or a lot. So he's taking what the guy says with a grain of salt, but that isn't to say that he doesn't feel that twist of nervousness beginning to ache low in his belly. Ia this the kind of future he has to look forward to? Wondering what horror lies around the next corner? Jesse's not trying to get ahead of himself, yet, though, and so he rubs the backof his neck, telling Saul (or Jimmy or whatever) his cabin number.

It's not long before he hears some shuffling outside of his door and maybe he, too, presses an ear up against it first. Of course, this means the subsequent knock is far louder than he anticipates, causing him to jerk backward, tripping over whatever's on the floor and sending him careening backward into the shoddy dresser that separates the two single beds in his cabin. There's some cursing and the sound of things moving about before Jesse finally makes his way back to the door, tugging it open. ]

Come in.

[ He says, holding the door open but not before peering out into the hallway and looking up and down the corridor to see who might be taking note of his visitor. Once they're finally alone in the confines of the small room, Jesse sits on the edge of one bed gesturing for Saul to sit on the opposite one (it doesn't belong to anyone yet, as far as he knows). ]

This shit is insane. I mean. It's definitely you, man. You sure you don't remember me? Like, not at all?

[slippin]

[ What the hell's going on in there? Is he building a barricade? Is he hiding something? Is he hiding something really, exceptionally badly? Thanks to this line of thinking, Jimmy peers around the room—somewhere between suspicious and confused, checking the corners, high and low—before his gaze really settles on Jesse.

...who is offering him a seat. Jimmy sits, grateful for the extra leg-room. He shakes his head at the question, then feels obligated to put more into it, fingers knitting together as he frowns and studies Jesse's face, doing his best to look pensive.

After a pause: ] I mean...wouldn't it be weirder if I sorta remembered? [ And now he actually turns thoughtful—but it's closer to nervousness, his eyes dodging Jesse's when they lock for too long. Should he ask how they met? One thing's for sure: he absolutely does not want to know what he was up to in 2009 right before Jesse Pinkman was abducted across time and space and...something about a horse. ]

I guess tell me, you know, the thing [ —a throwaway gesture— ] only you would know about me. [ It winds up sounding like a question. ]

[yeahmagnets]

[ Jesse very much picks up on Jimmy's wandering eyes, giving him a look that can only be summed up in this meme. When Jimmy finally looks at Jesse, he just lets out a scoff and watches as the guy takes a seat. (It's about damn time). ]

I dunno. I think it's pretty fuckin' weird that you don't.

[ Jesse offers, little sympathy in the way he spits out the words like he's the injured party here. Which, in his mind, yeah. He's the one dealing with all this fucked up timeline bullshit. ]

The thing only I'd know about you? Like there's just one, yo? How's about your Vietnamese masseuse you tried to push onto me. Like, the Happy Ending type you thought would just--

[ He makes a swooping gesture with his hand. ]

--just make everything disappear for me? Um. You represented my boy Badger on an--um---a charge that you used Jimmy in-an-out to take the fall for. That same guy you've known for years or whatever? Used to the inside. Willing to take the fall 'cause the outside don't know how to treat him, or maybe the other way around? Um...okay; hold up.

[ Jesse presses his hands to the side of his head, standing up and starting to pace before he falls back down onto his cot, slapping his hands onto his thighs. ]

That's it. You said you, uh, convinced some chick you were Kevin Costner once? My partner told me that one. That enough, like, info for you?

[slippin]

[ Listen, Jesse's not the one in the middle of performing some kind of mental uneven bars routine to avoid frenzied speculation about everything that could—did?—go wrong with his life. He's not the one literally staring down the future. Or, well, literally avoiding its eyes.

Fortunately this means the biting sarcasm slides on by, as Jimmy pulls a face at the Vietnamese masseuse...anecdote, something plummeting in the pit of his stomach. ] Hey. Come on— [ He says to the hand gesture, but his objections slowly melt away. For a short, heady handful of seconds he's relieved: not him. Open and shut.

...but the hits keep on coming. ] Yeah, that's...huh. One for three. [ He sighs, looking deflated by the end of it. Defeated, even. One hand idly punches the mattress. ] The Costner thing, not... [ He grimaces to himself, and with a belated surge of indignation: ] That's like the worst thing you could say. And you did it off the top of your head! What, are you pissed at me?