paradisalogs | All the things I have done;

Entry tags:

jesse pinkman,
joel

All the things I have done;

Who: Joel and Jesse Pinkman
What: Jesse's had a loss — he can't get high. Unfortunately, there were some consequences.
When: Wednesday night
Where: Jesse's room — 217
Rating: R, for Jesse's mouth, for drug use, for some pretty disturbing happenings within.

He knew how many were his usual hits; some days were more and some days were less, one or two, sure. Today he was psyching himself out a bit with it, when he didn't feel the usual kick he got. His nose burned with the crystal and after a while, he was getting light-headed. But he wasn't as sharp as he could be, he wasn't sharpening enough. That was the problem. He started off confused, he shifted into panic, and by the time he could even take a stab at what was going on — bad batch? Something gone awry — he was started to feel something else hit.

A flutter in his chest, some cold sweat beading at his forehead. Normally he could trust his product. No, something was really not right here.

Pacing his room, rubbing at his chest, it doesn't help anything, and neither does stripping off his hoodie. By the time he's rid of his socks and shoes too, he finally grabs out his book and in a spur of the moment, scribbles out a quick message to someone — who? — Joel —

u wanna come over?

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It's late. Joel is lounging on the couch with Tess at this hour when the message arrives. His first thought is that Jesse must be bored or lonely, or both, but the longer he stares at it while trying to decide how to respond, the more the tone and the timing nags at him. Some instinct, some protective instinct and compulsive obsession with the chance of danger, tells him to move.

Whenever that voice speaks to him, he listens without thinking twice.

He tells Tess he'll be back later and she waves him off with little more than a quip about how pot is a gateway drug, which only serves to remind Joel that Jesse is addicted to much stronger stuff. Another nagging thought. Shoes, jacket, and he's out the door, writing back while he strides towards Jesse's floor.

Sure
You alright?

It seems like ages before Joel gets back to him, Jesse pacing the floor of his expanded room, feet scuffing against hardwood. It was looking more and more like his house back home the longer he stayed here, the same bed, the same game system, the same tidy mess scattered throughout. "Finally," he breathes when the answer pops itself up.

His hand's still rubbing, his chest tight against his ribcage.

But with his free one he hesitates; the book's on his bed and Jesse's on his knees in front of it, teeth gritted.

not really

With a slow slide to the floor, doubled over himself and face mashed into his knees, he won't reply again if Joel asks any other questions. He knows the floor, he knows the room.

"Shit," Joel grouses to himself when he receives a reply. His mind is always on auto-pilot going to the worst places and possibilities, so he doesn't bother to entertain notions that it might not be an emergency or ask more questions. He just picks up the pace, double-time.

And for an older guy, he knows how to move fast. That bad feeling gets worse with every step (and he's not sure if it's the environment he's used to or something else driving him, but there's no time to ponder) and he swings Jesse's door open with a sense of urgency that -- turns out to be completely justified.

"Jesse," he mutters, voice seizing up with worry as he stalks his way over to where the kid's in a heap on the ground. He crouches low and grips his shoulder, a slight waver creeping into his tone. "Hey, kid, you still here? Can you move?"

Can he talk? Is he breathing? He needs to get to the clinic they've got around here, now. That's their best and only option. Joel shifts into gear, moving to sling Jesse's arm around his shoulder and guiding him into getting up, carefully. "C'mon, we gotta go."

The door slamming open could nearly give him a heart attack if he hasn't had one already. He looks up immediately at the sound of it, his head swimming and his hand thrown back against the bed to brace himself from passing out.

He's never actually overdosed before. Taken a little too much, gotten himself into that uncomfortable kind of high that has him flinching at small noises, thinking the bird and his friends and the rest of the world are out to get him, those aren't fun, but this is different. This is sweat drenching the front of his shirt, his heart beating a quick, staccato rhythm against his ribcage. This scares the shit out of him.

"Don't, don't, don't — " Jesse fights it at first, Joel's arm around his shoulder, and one of his hands fists into Joel's shirt for support, his breath coming out quick and panicked; half because of the drug, half because of his own hysteria starting to settle itself in. "Ride it out, I just gotta — Just gotta ride it out."

His voice is almost a whine, pained like an animal, but mostly he just doesn't want to get up from his spot. He feels like he's going to throw up the moment he does.

"No," Joel growls in a tone that sounds like he could bury the kid if he wasn't already burying himself. Overdoses used to happen a lot before drugs dried out, but he's seen people die more times than he can count in more ways than he can count and he's not taking any goddamn chances here. "We're takin' you right to the clinic. Now."

The whine in Jesse's voice drives that decision home. He's hurting, it's obvious and it's frightening, but Joel grabs hold of him tight and forces him to his feet despite any resistance. "C'mon, Jesse. You gotta move. I know-"

I know it hurts, something in his voice falters and falls. His face falls with it, briefly, and instead of finishing his sentence he just steels his decision to try and pull the kid into leaning on him as he attempts to drag him towards the door.

He feels feverish, an all over kind of warm the moment he's slumped against Joel — he hisses between his teeth when he's dragged to his feet, and his hands clutch spontaneously at Joel's shoulder as he doubles over and makes as though he's going to be sick. He retches, his stomach rolls, but nothing happens; it's just him slumped and hanging onto Joel for dear life, he realizes. How fucking embarrassing.

He's concentrate on it if he wasn't so rabbit-scared right now, and he swipes at his forehead with the back of a hand. He's not quite to delirious, all of his senses too blade sharp for him to fall into that trap. That's the problem with overdosing and not getting the benefit of the high. He's sharply, cognitively aware of everything that's happening. It's like a bad trip without the high part.

"'M gonna," he starts to insist, and his hands are shaking where he's clutching onto Joel for support. Two steps in and his knees are already starting to buckle, but he's determined to keep on his own two feet. "H-hurl all over your shoes, man."

"I'll get new ones," Joel mumbles back, clutching him close while he hangs on for support. All that matters is that he's cooperating, but he's in bad shape and they're moving at a snail's pace as far as Joel is concerned. They make it to the exit mostly because he's stubborn as hell about dragging Jesse there, keeps pushing him forward step by step.

It's not enough.

"Listen, son, if you think you can't make it all the way there like this, you tell me now."

He can feel the shaking, the fever and the sense that Jesse might pass out on him with too much visceral clarity. And what if he doesn't wake up? He's worried about how much time they have left, about how poorly just one wrong move could go. Panic is hidden somewhere underneath the serious composure of that demand, Joel's eyes flitting down to try and catch a glimpse of his expression. No more bullshit about riding it out and absolutely no bullshit pride. His stance on that is plain as day.

"I'm f — "

Jesse starts the protest but the moment he shakes his head his legs suddenly buckle underneath him and he falls free of Joel's grasp for a moment, down onto all fours on the hallway floor. He's panting profusely, clutching at the front of his chest and taking in a shuddering breath. "Can't, man, I can't, my h-heart — "

The problem is, now he's starting to sidle sideways onto the floor, to lay down right there and wring his fists into the fabric of his shirt to try to alleviate the feeling in his chest, the pressure, like his blood was pumping too quickly, making him panic. "No, I can't do it!"

Fuck.

Joel follows him down to the ground and hesitates for a second, just a second, Jesse's panicked voice ringing in his ears. Kid's still conscious. The noises he's making are horrible and he suspects they're running out of time. "Christ."

"Just hang on," and he grabs him up, gingerly. Keep him in a position where his airways are clear, keep checking up on him. Keep him talking, awake if possible. Joel runs through the standard checklist he's got stowed away in the back of his mind for times like these. It'd be great if they could bring the clinic to him instead of the other way around, but the Castle would probably kill Jesse on the spot for a wish like that. "Don't drop out on me. Don't--"

And Jesse's still fighting him, body and mind, which makes an annoying sort of sense. It's been about two months since he met the kid. He can't help but think that this was coming, sooner or later, and a guilty thought bites at him; you ignored it. Not his responsibility, never get too involved, right? That's always the way it plays out until he's got a life that matters in his hands.

The awake is the big part, the frightening part, so much so that Jesse isn't even called anything out on what it is right now; he's just malleable to whatever idea Joel's got, his breath coming in quick bursts as he clutches spasmodically at Joel's shirt. His eyes feel like they're lolling, and maybe that's the ache, maybe that's the slam of his heart against his chest, probably palpable to Joel, it's pounding so hard. He feels like it's all he can hear in his ears.

"Don't drop — " he manages to get out, doubling over and pushing at Joel as his stomach lurches and he's very nearly sick all over the hallway floor again. He shivers against his will despite the way his skin's burning up, don't drop out, don't drop out. Don't drop me, he thinks, because he's so rarely relied on someone so heavily in his life; Joel's the only thing keeping him from being upright and being a pile on the floor right now.

"Didn't mean — " He's trying to fit in words, but his breath's too panicked, coming up in quick gulps. "Didn't mean to, never go — " The head to mouth filter thing is getting increasingly worrying, and he does drop off a moment while Joel's carrying him, dead weight in his arms.

During that short stint while Jesse is still talking and struggling, Joel manages to get them down the stairwell. Sprinting with a body in his arms is a ridiculously familiar scenario (this one's fully grown but somewhere on the small side), his focus sharp and his movements swift. And he doesn't mean to do this, but he doesn't add anything to the noise; he knows how to move quickly and quietly. This is unsafe and there shouldn't be too much noise, that's all he knows. The only way he knows.

"It's alright," he tells him for the words he tries to get out. Joel doesn't bother to try and make sense of them, just delivers the same response he always does. Hushed and certain despite uncertainty. "You're gonna be alright."

Just a few more minutes. Once they get outside, it's not far. He rounds a corner just to slow to a stop when he hears Jesse go completely quiet and senses the body go slack. He curses and checks for breathing. Nothing. He curses again and sets him down, hands fitting over and depressing against the sternum, quick and efficient. Jesse doesn't need to be fully conscious as long as he keeps breathing. He pumps, checks, pumps, checks. Gonna die on me, Joel thinks even while he does everything he knows to prevent it. Gonna die right here.

"C'mon, kid, breathe."

He's out for a while, seemingly for the count.

His body lolls like a ragdoll's under Joel's hands, he's sprawled on the ground and it's a three, long, agonizing minutes before he finally comes to with a splutter of breath, inhales deep and ragged once before he's slapping his hands at the ground, at his chest. Surprise and horror sink their way into his expression, sifting in between each other before one of his claps lands on Joel's shirt shoulder and he holds on tight again.

Did he almost die? He just almost died.

The next breath he takes in comes with a shudder, a pained sound that's almost like a sob, and his other hand comes clapping up too, like he's trying to get him to pull him back up. Already his heart's fluttering in his chest, quickening — it's sore already from the compressions — and it's making a panicked heat rise in his throat, tears welling at his eyes.

"I don't wanna die, Joel; I don't wanna die — Get me — Get me up, get me up — "

Three minutes is a long fucking time. It's a long fucking time for Joel even as he keeps as it, checking with his ear lingering close to Jesse's mouth before he goes back to keeping at it. He's careful with the amount of pressure he administers, ribs shifting underneath the weight of his arms pressing down, but he's not going to skimp on doing what needs to be done. If it means a cracked rib for Jesse and his heart pumping again, so be it.

Relief floods in when Jesse gasps, revived, fingers fisting into Joel's shirt and all the terror of his predicament rising straight to the surface. Relief despite the aching feeling seizing up at his chest from the expression that greets him. The expression and words clatter straight to the bottom of his heart, scattering down into some pit like emotional litter leftover from pasts long gone where people were already long dead. He shakes his head to keep the ghosts out.

"You ain't gonna," he shoots back automatically and shifts back into picking Jesse up. "I got you."

"Just stay with me," he instructs, voice a little shaky, and stands back up, quicker than before. "We're almost there."

Almost there turns into being there when Joel shoulders through the clinic's entrance, expecting someone to be waiting and ready for them. He'd managed to alert Tess and she works more efficiently than anyone he's ever known -- and they don't have a great record with Paradisa's medical staff, but he's confident enough that they'll be reliable despite that.

Edited (sorry just fiddlin) 2013-12-10 18:21 (UTC)

Tess is always ready when she needs to be.

Not that she looks it, mind –– she's in pajama pants and a tank-top, the legs of her pants tucked into the tops of her boots, and her hair is pulled up into a messy ponytail. But if her disheveled state can attest to anything, it's that the clinic is prepared, a gurney is near the door for when Jesse gets in, and there's Dr. Jennifer Keller standing ready with a rolling lab tray full of things Tess can't identify. There's oxygen and a defibrillator and the right kind of drugs.

Everything they need to get one stupid, ignorant, arrogant, inconsiderate junkie back in working order. God damn it, Jesse Pinkman.

Tess tries to tell herself she'll be kind and won't hold his addiction against him, but truth be told, she wishes she'd just talked Joel into letting her chain Jesse to a tree out in the boonies so he could dry out the old-fashioned way. Better that than an overdose, she'd insisted, but hey, as long as he could cook, what did she care?

When Joel shoulders through the door with Jesse in tow, Tess is already wheeling the gurney towards him to meet him half-way.

"Details, everything you've got," she says to Joel as they get Jesse in, and Tess puts one of the kid's wrists into the cuff of a restraint and she buckles it tight. "Get the other one." She's already looking to Jennifer for direction.

Show's on, doctor.

Not for the first time and definitely not the last, Jennifer found herself looking back over her life and wondering about her choices as she waited for the meth overdose patient to be brought in. Of course, she hadn't come to Paradisa of her own free will- but if she hadn't become a doctor, or joined the Stargate program, or hadn't been so smart, maybe the castle wouldn't have found her interesting enough to bring here, and it would be someone else's problem.

Stop it. You're being stupid, she chided herself. You may be the only chance this guy has. She hadn't treated many overdoses before, but had learned about them, even meth- drug overdoses were a fact of life, and likely to crop up no matter where she ended up, especially as a general practitioner. She mentally ran herself through the checklist of things she would need to do and the drugs she might need, feeling confident about that much, at least.

Tess was already on top of things as much as she could be when they arrived. That was good. If either she or Joel was in an uncooperative mood, it would have made it that much harder. The moment the patient was restrained, Jennifer was there putting on a heart monitor and setting up an IV drip.

"I'm going to start him on fluids first thing- the last thing we need is dehydration. Do you know if he injected himself with it or took it by mouth or nose?"

"Hey, hey, no," it's the first words Jesse speaks since Joel picks him up again, the rest of it spent digging his nails in and taking huge, gulped, panicked breaths. They don't change as soon as he's on the gurney, when he can feel his hand being strapped down and he helplessly tugs at it, frantic, a whine in his throat as his other hand goes wild. It's not difficult to subdue for Tess, he's not exactly peak physical prowess here.

His feet twist up underneath himself on the gurney, almost threateningly, more so out of pain than anything. His stomach.

The new face, the whole situation, now being strapped to this thing, Jesse's heart is rabbiting out of control again, dangerously. He doesn't protest the IV or anything, even if his hands aren't cooperative, keep twisting in the restraints. There's old track marks there up on his elbow but he shakes his head against the gurney beneath him; hard to get in air. "Snorted, just did a — just did a few lines, I'm — "

His body lurches, and much as he can reach in his new bonds, he barely makes it even onto the floor when he's suddenly and violently ill, retching over the edge of the gurney.

"He-"

Joel does as he's told and gets the other cuff, easily outmatching Jesse for strength and wits right now, but his heart sinks a little for how terrified he is. It takes serious effort to rip his gaze away from the scene unfolding in front of him and address their questions with the kind of precise concentration he needs. He never does manage to look away, not exactly, deep worry-lines etched into his brow. It's not as bad as Jesse is feeling right now, obviously. When he vomits, Joel thinks that must be a good sign -- the shit he took is leaving his system.

"He was out, for a while. On the way here. Minutes."

And it's good that he's back, for now, because Joel wouldn't know how to answer Jennifer's question otherwise or give as many details as Tess usually prefers. How Jesse gets high beyond pot is a mystery to him. He never wanted to know. The trackmarks on his skin are obvious like this, but it's not like it wasn't obvious without any physical evidence. He exhales, the sound frustrated and nervous because all he can do at this point is watch.

"Don't know how long it's been since he took the stuff."

When Jesse retches and pukes, Tess steps aside to be out of the splash zone. She's not adding "junkie vomit" to her wardrobe today, no thank you, but she does at least put a hand behind Jesse's head to make sure it's forward enough that he won't end up choking on it. It's a rough sort of kindness, and then she's looking to Joel again.

"Out, what does out mean? Stopped breathing, unconscious?"

And then back to Jennifer: "He cooks it himself. Is it worth going to see if there's any left so you know what you're working with?"

Jennifer took notice of the track marks on the man's arms. An addict. It both saddened and angered her, but then, she had never been in a situation where addiction might be seen as an option, and passing judgment on her patients was something she was never going to do while treating them.

She nimbly dodged out of the way when the patient began vomiting, being all too used to the sight (and of patients puking on her, she thought), then went back to work, taking the man's temperature.

"Well, all of that's a start," she said grimly, then said to Tess, "As long as I know how he took it, I should be fine. It needs to come out of his system, but I also need to keep his heart regulated, make sure he can breathe, and cool his body temperature. I may have to intubate- put a breathing tube down his throat." She paused in her work, then added, "He may start having seizures. In that case, I have more drugs I can give him."

There's too much going on around him and he doesn't know what to focus on first, Joel or Tess or, or, he didn't catch her name, but she's there and she seems to know what he's doing, every third word or so he catches. Things like 'heart' and 'temperature' and 'breathing tube'. Most of them are firsts, and when his heart's already beating out of his chest and she says something like 'seizure' —

He's seen meth overdoses before, he's seen mild ones, he's seen cases, he knows, vaguely, which is a miracle he hasn't been witness to more of it considering how much of the stuff he shells out. His house alone, well.

"H-heart," he manages to grate out, his voice nearly a groan — his limbs ache and he's shaking because of the adrenaline, probably, but he really doesn't want to have a seizure. Most of him really wants to grab for some kind of comfort right now — he's scared, he's being analyzed, he can't help it — but he has to satisfy himself with twisting in the restraints as thought he might get free. Tess strapped him in well.

"Goin' — " Fast, painfully fast, and the sweat drenching his shirt isn't any better indication of what's going on here either. Neither's the sharp, quick, panicked breaths. Frankly, he's not sure he cares what's being done so long as he makes it out of here alive and breathing. He's scared out of his mind and his symptoms aren't helping.

The lucidity shouldn't be coming with this. It's sharpening all his senses a new way than the meth, got him scared out of his mind.

"Stopped breathin'", he mutters to Tess and loud enough for Jennifer to catch. She knows just what to do and he knows better than to interfere, but he's also watching Jesse with a hyper-nervous frown, like he wishes they could knock him out right now so he doesn't have to deal with all this hurting and fear. It's making him tense as hell just to watch, and he's not the one going through it.

"You'll keep him with us."

It's more like he's asking Jennifer, over the sound of Jesse's panicked gasps about his heart, rather than telling her, the statement coming out with a tinge of desperation. And layered into that is determination, for the kid's sake and the terror of his situation. Unconsciously he leans towards Tess, lingers in her space because it's a place he knows well and it keeps him grounded.

And he's not leaving the room just yet. As long as they're not getting in the way, he kinda wants to stay in Jesse's line of sight somewhere so he can know someone who's at least sorta familiar is keeping close. That shit helps, sometimes. Maybe.

Tess lets Joel stick close to her, and while she isn't much of a show of support in the public eye, the little cues for Joel are there –– a glance in his direction, a bracing hand placed on his upper arm for a few seconds, a nod. I know, I know. Just give it time.

Tess almost wants to remark that Jennifer wouldn't dare try to eject them, but this room doesn't need anymore emotion or tension.

"Why don't you put him out so that he's not freaking out?" Tess asks, perhaps unhelpfully. Truth be told, she knows little about this stuff.

Jennifer looks at the way Tess and Joel move toward each other, feeling a slight pang of sympathy. This man was clearly someone they both felt some attachment to, and their worry was getting pretty evident.

Who would have thought I'd be feeling sorry for both of you? she thought, then brushed it out of her mind. More thoughts for a less important time.

"You can stay," she told them quietly. "I'm going to do everything I can..." And then her attention was sharply back on her patient; his remark about his heart beating too fast alarmed her, and so she reached for her stock of drugs, quickly choosing and injecting one to slow her patient's heartbeat. That was the first concern out of the way, but as she did so, she noticed how his breathing was slowing...

Without pausing to explain what she was doing to her audience, she was soon putting a breathing tube down the man's throat, wincing inwardly, as she knew how uncomfortable it was.

"I know it's not pleasant," she murmured to him, knowing he likely couldn't actually hear her. "This is to help you breathe. It'll come out as soon as you're more stable."

She then racked her brain, trying to figure out what to do next. Breathing tube, fluids, heartbeat regulated... Body temperature was the next concern, as his skin was flushed, and his temperature reading had been high. This would be so much easier if I had a whole medical team, she thought bitterly- but her only real "team" here was Marie, and she was afraid to release her nurse, thinking she might be frightened by everything going on around her.

Suck it up, girlfriend. Now's really not the time to be thinking about what you can't fix.

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All the things I have done;

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