Chapter Text
Daylight was washing from the sky. The sun, a molten yoke, broke over a far reaching backland. The temperature was doping. Nacho rolled his ankles standing in the grass, trying to shake the stiffness out of his joints. It was silent only in the sense that no one was speaking.
He pulled air into his lungs like it was going to be his only chance to breathe for the rest of the night and took a moment to tuck in the bristling edges of his stress. It was like applying a moist towel to a burning tree. A temporary fix, a mental jury-rig, just to get him through the next couple of hours, but for him, it would be enough.
The van doors cranked and the sound of Jimmy McGill’s prattling broke over the plane. Tyrus and Remy, Nachos hired mussel, were hours past eye-rolling, donning dead expressions as they hoisted the small squawking lawyer out of the vehicle. Jimmy's hands and arms never stopped gesticulating under their tight grasp. They set him down.
“We are all going to laugh about this.”
The hem of Jimmy's dress shirt flipped in the wind and his frump of hair frizzed golden in the dying sun. He wore a smug smile that would have been more convincing if not for the pained creasing of his eyes. He continued.
“Well, maybe not you, or you guys either. Not a very happy crowd here. Not the laughing types I'm guessing. But trust me, this will.. this will all blow over. The cops, they’ve got diddly-squat and you- you've got an attorney highly motivated-” he swallowed, shaking a ridged finger at the sky “-to keep his number one client free as a bird, come hell or high waters.”
It was not one of Jimmy's better speeches but, he hadn't shut up the entire car ride, and he showed zero sign of running out of things to say.
Despite the magic Jimmy had pulled out his ass in the police department, things had not, in fact, worked out in Nacho's favor. The cops were, if anything, more eager to get him back in that interrogation room. Without going into too much detail, the added scrutiny wasn’t really what the gangbanger needed right now.
Nacho was, if nothing else, intimidating. Atleast to the people who didn't know him. But he still couldn't figure out why a simple verbal warning hadn't done the trick with Jimmy.
It was difficult to understand where he had failed to make himself perfectly clear in his dealings with the lawyer. It wasn’t like the man wasn’t already scared shitless of him. Jimmy was practically crumbling in front of him now.
Nothing like what happened with the Kettlemans could ever happen again. He had to make sure of that. His lawyer needed to be his lawyer. Not the Kettlemans. Nothing personal but if his head rolled, Jimmy’s would roll first. All he needed to do was make that clear, again.
“Tie him up.”
“Wow. That seems- that seems rash don’t you think?” Jimmy tilted his head to the side, still grasping at his composuer. Nacho ignored him, not wanting to think about it too much.
This was an inconvenience. A waste of his time and energy. A puff show to scare the loyalty back into his attorney, who by law should already have his best interests in mind. This seemed beneath him. Or rather he wished it was beneath him. Scrounging and scheming in the fringes of the Salamanca empire. He didn’t even know Tyrus and Remy. He’d met them two hours prior, found them on craigslist. They were just there to make it look like he had more control than he did. It would be better if Jimmy didn’t know just how lonely a rough he really was. It all made him feel pathetic. Like a rat under a boot. Like he had no more integrity than the man currently bargaining for his life.
Still, pride was something he could live without. And in looking at it that way, it didn't seem to matter that much. It was nothing. There were some days where he felt he would give up a lot more just to take care of the people he loved. Right? So what? What was another bite out of his moral compass? It's chow time honey! Come on and get it!
“Well?” He eyed his so-called men impatiently.
Jimmy’s weaseling capitulations were ignored and they taped his hands behind his back.
“Nacho, You don't want to do this. We are all adults here. I'm sure-“ Jimmy landed chest first with a guttural “Oof!” in the dirt. Twisting in on himself, he turned to Nacho, his face powdered with iron-rich dust. “You can't kill me.” Still bargaining.
Nacho smiled, tilting his head in cruel mimicry. “But I can hurt you.”
Tyrus throws his boot into Jimmy's gut. Nacho bites his tongue lightly as Jimmy hurls on the dirt. The dry earth instantly soaking up the vomit.
Then Remy, the larger of the two, turned him over, sat on his chest, and swung his fist down hard. Once, then twice.
Varga wasn’t watching very carefully, Remy's back obscured his view. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t already seen or done himself and he didn’t have the same fondness for violence as his more notorious college. But violence had its uses.
“Stop! Get him off. Nacho please tell him-” Jimmy squeaked like a chew toy under the proceeding blow and the men couldent help but snicker at the absurdity of the sound. Jimmy's feet started to kick and sprawl wildly in the dust. There was no chance he was getting free. It was silly. “I can't breathe! Nacho please.” which earned him a hard knock to the ribs. He was a bit impressed Jimmy was still bothering to talk. Most people quit after the first blow.
Nacho kicking a rock, his voice flat and flippant. “Had enough already, McGill?”
Jimmy didn’t answer.
He saw the snide amusement drop from Tyrus’s face.
“What? Why's he quiet?”
No one answered. He stepped forward telling himself everything was fine.
It wasn't.
Jimmy lay gasping for air. Between the squeeze of Remy's legs, his rib cage leapt, rapidly deflating and expanding at an uncanny speed, immobilized as he lay on top of his bound hands. His entire body vibrated.
“Get up.”
“I didn’t hit him hard! I swear!”
“Just get off him.” Impatient, he pulled the Remy up by the back of his jacket but Jimmy's breathing didn't slow like he had expected it to. Part of his face was already swelling. Nacho knelt down and gave Jimmy a light slap to the cheek. “Jimmy? If this is some kind of..” but he stops, taking in round orbs of Jimmy's eyes, screaming wide with the whites turned pearlescent in the cold shadow of their looming forms. Sweat was dripping into the dirt. Under a coating of red dust the color seemed to be blotched out of his skin. He wasn't acting.
Tyrus was already panicking somewhere behind him. “Fuck! Is he dying? You said ruff him up. I-“
“Shut up. Shut up!” Nacho could feel his body temperature rise a degree as he stood. Looking down at the shaking man. He was trying to think. “We need to untie him.”
Together, they gathered around the stricken body of the lawyer. “Turn him over. Easy!” Jimmy crumpling awkwardly into the dirt.
Nacho slipped his thin butterfly out his back pocket and carefully cut through the wadded duct tape. “Keep his face out of the dirt, dammit!” He could feel Jimmy shake as he held his arms steady. His balled hands were pink and blotchy from poor circulation. They turned him back over on his back and watched as the man gripped his chest with his free arms, his whale-like eyes still held wide.
“Jimmy?”