Chapter Text
Nacho sighed through his bared teeth as Jimmy's honey brown head rolled against his chest as they carried him to his car.
“In the front.” he huffed at the others.
Nacho pushed his body deep into the leather seat fall out as they lifted his legs in. Pink dirt was dusted over a third of his once immaculate car interior.
Remy and Tyrus started to sulk off.
“Where are you two going?”
“To get in the van.” Tyrus looked just about ready to vanish. He could tell just by the look of them they weren't going to be very helpful but he didn't trust them enough to let them go just yet plus he could need them to move Jimmy.
“Na. You two are going to stick with me."
Both of them looked like they were being put in a holding cell as they crawled into the backseat. He slid behind the wheel, starting the engine stealing a glance at the man slumped in the passenger seat, his hand hovering on the ignition. Jimmy's face looked like it hurt.
He's fine. You know he's fine.
Something automatic and alien moved within him as he drew the seatbelt across his unconscious passenger.
Once they were off everyone was quiet for some time. They had a short ways to go before they made it off the dirt road. He needed time to process but his skin was ahum like his body was moving faster than his mind.
“Hey,” Nacho nearly startled in his seat. He'd blocked out the two guys in the back seat. “Where are we taking this guy?”
“The hospital.” he replied curtly. Attempting to sound as unfazed as possible.
There was a pause. He kept his eyes on the grass covered road tearing under them. Then Remy's voice came close again to his ear, presumably so he could hear over the clatter of reeds beating against the bottom of the car. “Cause we were thinking it might be good if we drop him off somewhere.” Remy paused like he was still picking his words. “Like maybe a gas station or a rest stop.” He paused again. “He seems alright now. Someone, some good-doer, will take him there I'm sure. Going to a hospital, well it’s a risk. Even if we throw him out as we drive. You know the cops will be close by.”
In what world is unconscious alright? “A gas station?”
“Yeah, that's what we were thinking. This guy... he is a definite sleazebag. Anyone would tell you that. I don't doubt you know it either but this guy, he's never going to do anyone any favors that don't benefit him, least of all someone like yourself. My opinion, but you're better off finding a different lawyer. Just saying.”
Nacho just managed to wrangle his face into a smile and turn back to them. They were gripping the back of the seats, leaning forward to hear his responses.
“Hey, Thanks. The thing is I don't remember asking for your advice. Until then-” he turned back to the road and pulled the gun free from his waist. Ignoring how jittery his hand felt around his piece as he rested it over the back of the seat. “-you two shitfucks can sit the fuck back and keep quiet.”
Nacho returned the gun safely to his waistband. There was a crook in his neck that he couldn't twist out his mussels were knotting up. He squeezed the wheel, registering the sweat slicking the leather in his grip. Windows. his mind chimed. Some air would probably be good.
And it was. It was cool and filled his ears and head and helped the tightness in his mussels.
It was darker now. An azure twilight caught over an inscrutably black land. He had to focus more on keeping the car straight but he didn't slow down.
His mind was finally easing. Formless panic was given shape with the return of coherent thought.
One thing seemed very clear. He was not in as much control as he had previously assumed. And it was showing.
Threatening the lawyer had always been a weak move on his part. But this went beyond the typical desperate animal in a dark jungle kind of decision making that he was so accustomed to. He didn't need to be the one to drive Jimmy to the hospital. Anyone could do that, and nearly anyone would. Most people were not heartless. His shitfucks in the back seat were right. They weren't smart but their idea was worlds better than his and didn’t end with him in jail. And yet it had changed nothing least of all his mind.
As he drove, his eyes wandered to the seat next to him. A dark shape, not too different than a sack of potatoes. Jimmy sat slightly crumpled. His hands resting under the seat belt, slumped, head bobbing as the car rode every lump of the dirt road. His hair floated like the stands of an ostrich feather in the wind.
God, what was wrong with you?
He could feel things shifting. Had felt them for a while now. Jimmy's pigeon blue eyes. The lost mole at the back of his neck. Nothing was new he was just seeing it differently. Every time the lawyer was around colors got richer.
He hadn't thought about it because he didn't want to think about it. Didn't want to understand his little infatuation out of fear there might not be anything to understand.
For all his acidic manner, Nacho wasn't actually a very critical person. At least he tried not to be, and for the most part, he found it pretty easy to let people be and do whatever the hell they want. He was easy going and flexible in his romantic life. But Jimmy Mcgill fell far, far outside of that established range. He tended to gravitate toward confident people, with delicate physiques and cool tempers and the only thing Jimmy had was delicate wrists.
But it wasn't just that Jimmy was frump incarnate, or that he was a knobby kneed forty-something with a slightly pouty expression. It was that they seemed so different from one another. So ill fit. Jimmy was a coward through and through. He put on shows for people. He spoke in metaphor and folksy turn of phrase. Sure, he was desperate to survive but he was almost equally desperate to be liked, and that needed extended even to the people who hurt him.
Nacho hadn't been deceived; he'd seen right through Jimmy's act from the jump. What did it say about him that he liked someone he could so easily hurt, putting aside the ugly dynamics of their work relationship. It unsettled him.
Now things had gone to hell. He’d fucked up and he was still fucking up.
He couldn't go back from this, couldn't ice out his feelings again. They were free like swarming birds and filling his skull with the fresh type of fear that comes along with the agony of newfound self-awareness.
He knew why Jimmy had warned the Kettleman's. Known it the entire time. But he had wanted to believe that Jimmy was like him, self-serving, careless. Darwinian and cruel. He believed he was better than the dorky of a lawyer because he had less fear. He takes what he wants. He's okay with who he is. Beating Jimmy was never going to change him or make Nacho less of a coward.
He might have just murdered his crush for nothing. For fucking worthless gangster shit. For his ego.
And all he could do was drive faster.