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Although he had spent most of his adult life involved in the selling and manufacturing of drugs, Gus Fring never used them himself. He was the type of man who would rarely even take ibuprofen for a headache, but for the injuries he’d recently sustained, he knew he would only be causing himself unnecessary suffering if he wasn’t taking the strong painkillers he’d been given. So he spent his days in a haze, taking painkillers on a regular schedule and peppering in weaker things like his formerly occasional ibuprofen when he felt like he needed a little something extra. He wasn’t fond of it. He knew opioid addiction was a rampant problem in the United States, but he simply couldn’t see the appeal. Aside from the daze where time could pass too quickly or too slowly or seemingly not at all, the medicine also bothered his stomach and made him sleep too much.
Not that there was much to do other than sleep. He’d lost track of the days since Mike had left him here in this farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, protected by men Gus never saw but who he knew were there. Mike had said he’d come back as soon as he took care of some business. The business with Walt. The business with Jesse.
In moments when he was feeling more aware, Gus found himself thinking about Jesse and hoping he made it out of everything alive. He really was a good kid. His youthful enthusiasm reminded Gus of Max. But there was nothing Gus could do about Jesse right now. In his state, really, there was nothing to do but wait for Mike to come back so he could hear what happened.
The house where Mike had deposited Gus after Gus had gotten medical care sufficient enough that he probably wouldn’t die on his own didn’t have cable, Internet, or phone service. It didn’t have anything that would make Gus trackable, and it probably wouldn’t until things died down. If things died down, that was. But it did have shelves worth of children’s novels, an old TV, and a full DVD collection of an American program called Degrassi Junior High, as well as the subsequent series Degrassi High and a movie of the same franchise. So this was how Gus spent his days when he wasn’t sleeping.
It was on one of these days, a warm and drizzly afternoon in the countryside, when Gus heard a sound at his front door. His first thought was of Mike, and his second thought was that perhaps he wasn’t as safe here as Mike had told him, that somebody was indeed here to kill him. But no, the sound wasn’t that loud or that human. It was more like a soft scratching. Then it was followed by a soft mew.
Gus sighed, got up from the bed that, for his comfort, Mike had set up in the living room close to the TV rather than in the bedroom, and headed toward the door. His walk was more of a hobble right now, assisted by a thick wooden cane he wondered if he’d be relying on for the rest of his life, but he made it.
On the other side of the door was a little calico cat, young-looking with light green eyes and mud all over its paws. It mewed again as it stared at Gus’s legs. Because it was so skinny and so dirty, Gus figured nobody must be looking for it. He bent down, careful not to lose his balance, and extended his hand. When the cat didn’t hiss, only regarding him with a little bit of suspicion, he scooped it up and brought it inside.
With some coaxing, Gus managed to give the cat a bath in the kitchen sink. It scratched the hell out of his arms in the process, but it was barely noticeable against the rest of Gus’s appearance at the moment. He would just disinfect the scratches when he cleaned and rebandaged the rest of his wounds later that day.
After the sink bath, the cat avoided him for about ten minutes. What broke the sopping wet thing’s short-lived grudge was Gus giving it dinner. The unseen forces who were guarding the house also regularly left groceries for Gus on the porch. He would leave a note for them, when he had a moment, to bring cat food next time. Until then, torn-up pieces of raw steak would have to do.
Taking in, bathing, and feeding the cat was more action than Gus had had in awhile, and it all but wiped him out. He got himself some food from the fridge, a prepackaged sub, and ate as much of it as he could as he turned the TV back on. Onscreen, Melanie had gotten too high and was hurting Kathleen’s feelings at a sleepover, when Gus felt a little nudge on his arm. He hadn’t even noticed the cat jump onto the bed, since she had come up on the side he couldn’t hear from anymore. And the cat was a she, Gus could see that now.
“Have you forgiven me for nearly drowning you?” Gus asked.
Of course, he already knew the answer to that after the steak. He was only making conversation.
The cat nestled down next to him and started to purr. Gus reached over and tentatively rubbed his index finger under her chin, which made her purr even louder. Gus smiled as he reached for the bottle of painkillers he was overdue to take. It was nice to have someone to talk to other than himself again.
In the days, weeks, or however long it was that passed next, Gus and the cat continued to grow closer. He started calling her Spike, after his favorite character on Degrassi, and when the cat food was delivered to the door he weaned her off raw steak. (Of course, he still gave her meat that was meant for him as an occasional treat sometimes.) She slept with him every night and when he napped during the days too. When he got up to get food from the kitchen, use the bathroom, or simply walk around enough that he could avoid getting blood clots in his legs, Spike would follow behind him, close but never close enough to trip him. She was practical, caring, and maternal, like her namesake.
One day, when Gus had started taking the strong painkillers infrequently enough that he could somewhat focus again, he was reading an Anne of Green Gables novel when he heard Spike make an alarmed mrrp noise next to him.
“Shh,” he whispered to her, rubbing her head, but she did it again and patted her paw on his leg, as if to communicate something to him.
He looked down and saw that she was staring, wide-eyed, at the side of his head like she was seeing it for the first time. Perhaps she was seeing it for the first time. After all, it was only recently that Gus had been able to stop wearing bandages over that half of his face. He wasn’t bleeding anymore, at least not constantly, but there were mirrors in the house. He knew he didn’t look good. He wasn’t sure if he would ever look good again.
Spike had known he was hurt, hence her not letting him out of her sight, but she’d had no way of guessing how bad it really was when Gus still had those bandages on.
“It’s alright,” he reassured her. “It’ll get better.”
Spike stood, stretched, lay back down and went to sleep.
Gus sighed. She seemed more confident than he was about getting better.
Although his painkiller use subsided like he thought it would, Gus’s routine was repetitive enough that he still couldn’t keep track of his days. So, when he awakened in the middle of the night to a key turning in the deadbolt, then the main lock, of the front door, he wasn’t sure how long it had been since he last saw Mike.
He did know when Mike lumbered in, turning on the nearest lamp after he shut and locked the door behind him, that something about him was different. He looked gaunt, like he’d been sick recently and hadn’t quite recovered yet. But there was a hint of a smile on his face as he took off his shoes and walked to Gus’s bedside.
“You got someone to replace me on my side of the bed, beautiful?” he asked.
From anyone else, Gus would have taken the “beautiful” comment as an insult, but from Mike it just made him smile, easier on one side of his face than the other.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Gus said.
“Not at all.” Mike sat down. “As long as you’ve still got room in the bed for me.”
The cat climbed onto Mike’s lap and started rubbing herself affectionately against his stomach.
“She’s already a fan of you,” Gus said.
Mike ran his fingers down the cat’s spine, making her arch her back in pleasure. “Likewise, little lady.”
Soon after Gus had been injured, he was warned that he shouldn’t do anything strenuous while he was healing. Strenuous activity included any exercise more active than walking, it included lifting heavy things, and it also included sexual activity, whether that was with another person or in the form of self-gratification. But Gus had spent so many of his days alone and bored, missing Mike and Jesse, that when he began masturbating a few days after Mike left him in this house alone, he’d just made sure to do so gently and slowly.
With Mike sitting next to Gus and their bodies pressed against each other, Gus felt like he was ready for something not gentle or slow. His skin felt like it was electrified.
“You still on those painkillers?” Mike asked. “You’re looking a little spacey over there.”
“No, I don’t take them anymore. I’m sorry, I—” It was so rare for Gus to be flustered like this that he found it embarrassing. “Where have you been? What happened?”
“Well, I’m happy to go over it with you in more detail in the morning, but I’m beat,” Mike said. “The important thing is the kid’s safe.”
“You mean Pinkman?”
“Yeah, he’s up in Alaska. Tucked away like you are here. He—well, like I said, I’ll tell you the rest in the morning. You should really get back to sleep. You look like you could still use plenty of it.”
“I think I’ve had enough sleep while you’ve been gone and that I could do something else,” Gus said, but when he looked at Mike and saw again how exhausted Mike was from whatever had happened while he was gone, he ran his hand along Mike’s denim-clad thigh and added, “but I suppose that can wait until the morning as well. Get ready for bed. Spike can sleep between us.”
“The cat?” Mike asked, one of those barely visible Mike smiles growing on his face.
Gus nodded.
“Good name. You can tell me how you thought of it in the morning too.” Mike headed off to the bathroom down the hall. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Gus said, but he was only teasing and didn’t really mean it.
He was happy Mike was back at all, however long he’d been gone be damned, especially if it meant Jesse Pinkman was safe somewhere.
Gus listened to Mike as Mike brushed his teeth and as the toilet flushed, and when Mike came out, stripped down to his boxers, Gus could see in the light of the lamp that was still on that one of the scars on Mike’s stomach was fresh. So fresh it could barely even be called a scar yet. Gus wanted to ask about it, but that was another matter for the morning. Instead, he let himself drift off to sleep as Mike settled in next to him, Spike tucked between their warm bodies in a house that was safe. Things felt almost complete.