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'Tis better to have loved

Summary:

Jesse's loves and losses.

Notes:

This is angsty and sad. Spoilers aplenty. Title taken from the Tennyson poem “In Memoriam A.H.H."

A companion piece here: What we Have

Work Text:

The first time Jesse fell in love he was eight years old. It was with a girl in his class called Emily. She had pigtails the colour of honey tied with bright red ribbons and she smelled like crayola crayons. It didn't last; Jesse had his heart broken when she decided she preferred his best friend. It ended in a fight; Jesse came off worse. As he fell to the floor, losing hold of his dignity as he went, he felt like he wanted to die.

The second time, it was a boy he loved. Jesse was seventeen and obsessed. It felt like everything and nothing all at once, because Luke meant everything to Jesse and Jesse couldn't have him. The pain and the anguish were overwhelming, but Jesse pushed it all down with dope and bravado. Luke moved away with his family in the end and this time Jesse felt like he really had died a little.

His heart mended somewhat when he met Jane. She was the real deal: made his heart leap into his throat every time he saw her. The bond they shared was special: warm and cool, soft and edgy. Sex was like a new adventure every time and Jesse loved her from the inside out. When she died, a little bit more of Jesse died with her.

He loved Andrea and Brock because they represented the family he needed. Andrea was kind and pretty and Brock was adorable. Jesse made three and it never felt like too many. When he saw Andrea killed in front of him, Jesse died some more, his heart now broken into tiny pieces.

And through it all, like a fine line of intricate thread, stitched through the fabric of his existence, was Mr White. Jesse could never make up his mind if he loved him or hated him. He was always caught up somewhere in the middle. Sometimes he wanted to stay close to him forever, sometimes he wanted to run away and never stop running. It was as though the man surrounded him, enveloping him with his presence, invading both his fantasies and his nightmares.

And now Mr White has saved Jesse's life. After killing him and saving him over and over again, after they've shared so much and lost so much, he is sending Jesse away to gather together the lingering remnants of his life, to make them into some kind of new one. And Jesse will go quietly; he will grant Mr White his silently conveyed wish, to die alone and on his own terms.

But, as he drives away, Jesse can't quite shake the feeling that he is once more losing more than he can bear, and it is all he can do to stop himself from turning back, curling up beside Mr White and waiting for the last, remaining part of himself to just slip away on the breeze.