Cold Jesse

Jesse Looks For A Book

I DO NOT OWN BREAKING BAD. THIS CHAPTER IS DEDICATED TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS: MIMIMARGOT.

Eli Driscoll's apartment. Haines, Alaska. 1 week later:

Jesse had the day off work, so he decided to catch up on some Z's. With a job and a home now secured, Jesse finally felt like his life in Haines was set to begin. He turned out to be good at his job. There was something strangely therapeutic about working with wood, cutting it, giving it finish, turning the pieces of lumber into actual furniture. Big Eugene had noticed his skill and forsake great things for Eli if he kept up the good work.

Jesse hadn't really bonded with any of his co workers since he had started his job at Big Eugene's. He was cordial and polite to them and everything, but it wasn't like Jesse was going out of his way to become their best fucking buddy or whatever. Some of the guys had invited him out to one of the local bars for drinks, but Jesse usually turned them down; citing that he didn't drink. Eventually, they just stopped asking and left Jesse to his work.
Jesse had mixed emotions arms he kept everyone that was now in his life at arms length. Part of him wanted to bond with his co workers, to be close to people. Right now, the only person he was close with was Mitch Noesner, who took him out to lunch every few days. The only reason that Jesse didn't turn him down was because he wasn't stupid enough to insult his landlord by refusing his invitations.

There were 2 reasons that Jesse kept to himself: first, he still didn't trust people; which was only natural considering what he had endured. He had spent over a year in captivity in the compound that was owned by Jack Welker and his neo Nazi psycho fucks. Whenever he had trusted someone there, mainly Todd Alquist, that opie dead eyed piece of shit, it had never ended good. Jesse had been starved, beaten, tortured, forced to watch a woman that he loved be shot in the back or the head like an animal. Naturally, now that he knew what human beings were truly capable of, it made trusting people extremely difficult; if not straight up impossible.

Besides, even if Jesse could get to the point where he could trust other people again with little reservation, did they really deserve to be tainted by what he had experience? More often than not, Jesse couldn't help but feel like some sort of disease. As if all of the trauma that he had endured during his time with Mr. White had morphed into some kind of deadly bacteria so that Jesse felt the need to social distance himself from the entire world; lest anyone else be infected.

Sky's The Limit Bookstore. Haines, Alaska. Later that evening.

When Jesse finally woke up from his nap, he saw that the sun was starting to dip low in the Alaskan sky. He let out a groan as he got his ass up off the bed and went to the kitchen. He hadn't gone shopping in a few days and was low on supplies.

"Guess I'm going to the store then." He said to himself as he headed outside to the station wagon. He drove in the direction of the supermarket when it occurred to him that he hadn't really thought of what he actually wanted for dinner that night. He hit the steering wheel in frustration as he pulled into a parking lot to think. As Jesse looked up, he saw that it was a bookstore.

"I guess a cookbook wouldn't be the worst thing to have on hand." Jesse shrugged as he got out of the car and headed on in. He couldn't help but smile as he took it all in. The bookstore was very relaxing place. It felt like home, he honestly couldn't explain it.

"Yo...anyone here?" Jesse called out, not having seen anyone else in the bookstore.

"Just a minute!" A pleasant voice called out from the other side of the store. Jesse went up to what looked like the front desk when a rather pretty woman came over, carrying a load of books in her arms. The first thing that Jesse noticed was her fiery head of long red hair and her deep eyes that seemed to shine.

"Your book store is the bomb." Jesse remarked with a smirk as the lady blushed.

"I'm just going to take that as a compliment." She replied as she got behind the desk. "Name's Margot, how can I help you?"

"Eli, I was hoping you sold cookbooks." Jesse said as the owner motioned for him to follow her.

"Nice name, Eli. I got a whole section of cookbooks. Are you looking for any culinary ethnicity in particular?" Margot asked as she led Jesse to the cookbook section.

"I'm open to suggestions, if you got some." He said with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, I'm quite a fan of Italian food myself." She admitted as she let her fingers roam over the line of books until she found what she was looking for.

"Here you are: Ravioli, Risotto, and Other Recipes." Margot said with a grin as she presented the book to her potential customer.

"Looks dope, I'll take it." Jesse said as Margot walked him back to the desk to ring him up.

"So Eli, you into books?" She asked as he payed for the cookbook.

"Not as much as I should be." He admitted sheepishly as the book was put in a bag.

"There's no time like the present to start reading. Give this a try." Margot said as she handed him a book he hadn't seen before: A Court of Thorns and Roses.

"Is it some fantasy thing?" Jesse asked as he decided to buy it as well.

"Trust me, if you like Lord Of The Rings, you'll enjoy this." Margot answered, earning a smile.

"Dope." Jesse said as he was an LOTR fan through and through.

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