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

[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?