Chapter Text
Howard doesn’t have to look at Jimmy to know the man’s hands are waving around, clasping together, gesturing, his body flitting around the office like a hummingbird, never at rest. His distinctive voice carries across rows of cubicles, and whatever joke he makes elicits laughter from a few associates, with his own chuckle following shortly after. The musicality of good-natured conversation in an environment primarily characterized by the clacking of keyboards and dry legalese mumbled into telephones has Howard so entranced that he doesn’t even notice Jimmy’s brother rushing towards him until—
“Come with me, hurry,” Chuck murmurs as he grabs him by the upper arm and sweeps him along like an undertow.
“What is it?” Howard asks with concern.
Still gripping his arm in one hand, Chuck holds up a finger with the other to shush him, and anger flares hotly in him for a split second. You’re not my father, he thinks, and then the thought is gone.
They crash-land in a tiny empty office and Chuck closes the door behind him, looking for a moment like he’s considering barricading it.
“What happened?” Is it George? he thinks instinctively, and then the thought is gone, because it can’t be George.
“I apologize for startling you. I just needed to make sure I got to you before Jimmy did.”
“Well, you’re too late. He always delivers my mail first,” Howard says, trying to remember if anything in the stack had raised alarms. “Why? What are we expecting?” He thinks of all their major cases and clients and imagines the worst possible outcomes for all of them, all at once.
Chuck shakes his head. “No, no, nothing like that. No.”
Howard's jaw tightens a bit in irritation as he waits for him to come out with it already.
“Jimmy passed the bar exam. He took classes in secret, from a correspondence school. He wants to become a lawyer. He thinks he’s going to join the firm.” Chuck pauses, takes a deep breath, takes another, doesn’t continue. Howard waits again.
“So what happened?” he finally prompts.
Chuck breaks into a smile. “Howard,” he finally exhales with a laugh, “my brother cannot be allowed to join this firm.”
Understanding begins to trickle in as Howard recalls some of the things Chuck told him about Jimmy when he first brought him to Albuquerque: the cons, the arrests. That ridiculous nickname: Slippin’ Jimmy. He had often found it difficult to hold those things in his mind when he looked at or spoke to Jimmy McGill, but he supposed that, with a true con man, one would.
“I see,” Howard replies. “Have you told him?”
The smile fades from his partner’s face.
“What an asshole,” Cheryl offers as a summary.
Howard shrugs, his arms splayed comfortably over the back of a couch that needs replacing. “It’s his little brother. They’ve always had a difficult relationship. Chuck just doesn’t want to ruin all the progress they’ve made.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes.”
She nods silently and turns her attention back to her vegetable lo mein, picking at it inexpertly with disposable chopsticks.
Every time he tries to complain about Chuck to Cheryl, he somehow winds up defending him.
“You remember Jimmy. You met him at the Christmas party,” Howard offers, at the wrong point in the conversation, just grasping for any name to say other than Chuck.
“I remember,” Cheryl confirms. “I thought he was an asshole, too.”
A surprised, genuine laugh bubbles out of him; and although he’s certain she wasn’t joking, she smiles back at him and shoves lightly at his thigh with her foot.