Work Text:
His fingers don’t fit right on this steering wheel. As they cruise down the dirt road, carving through the dust-choked evening, Nacho tries to stop his thoughts from drifting back to the musty warehouse in the middle of nowhere, with suspiciously bloodstained floors and where they had abandoned his Javelin.
He just knows that somehow, in some way, Fring had been tracking his Javelin because why wouldn’t he be? He had been stressed to his temples lately trying to sneak behind Lalo’s back for his briefings with Fring, hoping that Lalo wouldn’t ask any questions about his absences. Nacho hadn’t protested when Lalo gave him the directions to drive to this place where they could switch cars, but he hoped the man didn’t do that as a result of any suspicions over Nacho’s allegiance with his sworn enemy.
Next to him, Lalo has his feet kicked up on the dashboard, gazing contemplatively out the window towards the dark desert landscape. He hasn’t spoken much since they left the lawyer’s apartment, aside from giving him instructions to the warehouse and then asking which replacement car Nacho would like to take from there (“Honestly, Ignacio, once we’re done, you can just keep it. I have cars to spare.” Flustered, Nacho had picked the first car his eyes landed upon, a black SUV that might have belonged to a family at one point. He tried not to dwell on its possible history.) It’s at least an 8 hour drive from Albuquerque to Chihuahua, which is where they’re headed, and Nacho has absolutely no problem keeping the silence for that long. But silence and Lalo Salamanca are as immiscible as water and oil, and Nacho suspects that sooner or later, he will have to conjure up all the small talk skills he has just to match up with the man next to him.
He hears Lalo take a deep breath, and mentally prepares himself.
“So Ignacio, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing, bringing you back to Mexico with me.”
Lalo is immensely difficult to read. Usually when Nacho speaks with him, Lalo’s tone is light and jovial, with just the barest hint of a threat that Nacho has to strain to pick out. He is still getting used to determining the truthfulness of Lalo’s persona, and how heavily he should weigh the cheer against the veiled threat. But now, Lalo’s tone is carefully blank. As if Nacho is being tested. And the last time he had been tested like this, Nacho had risked his life to rescue a stash of drugs under Lalo’s discerning eye to prove himself to the man. He hoped that Lalo had at least enjoyed the show because it had sure taken several years off his life.
Nacho thinks it is best to be truthful. “Yeah, kinda.”
He is rewarded with a quick pivot to something completely unrelated. “You’ll find out soon! First I was thinking we could get to know each other better, you know, since we always talk about business. Business gets boring, man. I want to hear about your life.”
Shit, Nacho does not expect this. “Uh…what – I mean, what do you want to know?” He turns his head and catches Lalo’s gaze for a brief moment. Lalo’s eyes are dark and Nacho can’t tell if the threat is there or not.
“I just want to know you a bit better,” Lalo shrugs mischievously. “I mean, you would call us friends, right?”
Nacho thinks it is best to embellish the truth in this scenario, as he frankly doesn’t know what to make of their relationship. “Sure.”
They pass by the odd streetlight, and Lalo’s eyes glow in the darkness of the car. Nacho has the uncomfortable feeling of being scanned. This is some kind of test for sure. “Great! Go on then! Why don’t you start off by telling me about how you became involved with Tuco.”
That was easy enough. “I met Tuco back when I was in high school. I was probably about fifteen or sixteen, and back then Tuco was dealing on the streets. I guess he saw some potential in me.”
“You were buying?” Lalo’s eyebrows were raised to almost comical heights. “You don’t strike me as someone who was ever a user.”
“For a friend.” I guess I’ve always been associating with the wrong people, even before.
“Of course, of course. Well, Tuco was right, you do have potential, I’ll give him that. What about your family? You never talk about them much.”
He doesn’t want to, but there’s no getting out of something once Lalo has set his mind to it. Nacho steels himself to visit the memories that he has locked in the back of his mind – memories of his mother, sweet and caring; memories of struggling to stay out of fights in school; memories of his father’s grief at Mama’s death; memories of entering the game and being unable to leave. He wonders how much is safe to reveal. He isn’t sure why Lalo is suddenly interested in making friends; he had never really shown an interest in Nacho’s life before. Vaguely, Nacho wonders if it had to do with Lalo’s earlier visit to James McGill, since his demeanor had changed noticeably upon returning to the parking lot and asking Nacho to drive away.
“So your father does not approve of your involvement with the cartel,” Lalo’s voice materializes from the hazy darkness of his own thoughts. “What makes you continue in the business then?” Nacho blinks and realizes he must have said everything he had been trying to keep close to himself. His memories are linked chains that he can’t separate without bringing forth the entire messy cluster, and somehow Lalo has managed to unlock the deepest, most personal stories that Nacho owns. Fucking Salamanca.
It is easier to rationalize telling Lalo about his father, than telling Don Hector. He just hopes that telling the truth won’t come back to hurt him later. “I don’t know, I guess I thought that I could provide for my father much easier this way. But it’s difficult sometimes, I don’t usually tell him about that part of my life. Plus, he would rather I just take over the family business. It’s…almost what my mother would have wanted.”
“Hmm,” Lalo muses. “Well, as they say. Once you’re in, you’re in.” (And boy doesn’t Nacho know that so well.) Then, his tone softens. “It helps to get it out, doesn’t it? To talk about your family and stuff.”
Nacho feels an awkward silence coming up, and he suddenly feels bold enough to throw out, “What about you, Lalo? This doesn’t work unless we both participate.”
He can almost feel the grin sweeping across the other man’s face. “Por supuesto, Nachito. Where are my manners? I actually totally get your family drama. I had some of that myself.” Lalo proceeds to spin a tale so grand and befitting of himself that Nacho finds it hard not to listen. The man sure knows how to tell a story.
“Honestly, I just wish that Tio Hector was still up and about running things. He was truly something back then. He raised me and my cousins, introduced us to the business.” Nacho’s heart begins to pound as Lalo brings up his uncle. He forces himself to calm down, to remember that the Salamancas still know nothing about his involvement in Hector’s health issues. He reminds himself that Hector Salamanca is a terrible bastard who murdered innocents without a second thought, who threatened his father and deserved this punishment. But there’s the faintest twinge of sadness in Lalo’s tone when he continues, “He was always tough but fair to us” that almost makes Nacho second-guess his own choices.
“You still think about your mom, huh?” Lalo asks, and gets a terse nod from Nacho in reply.
They continue chatting intermittently for a while, and by the time Nacho glances over at the dashboard again, it’s 3 am. They have a longer distance to travel than Nacho had first expected, Lalo having pointed out a couple of detours every so often that would take them away from the main roads in case the police are sniffing around. Ordinarily Nacho would feel bone-tired, having taken to sleeping whenever he can now just so that he can escape his daytime stressors, but his body has trained itself to be on edge around any Salamanca within shooting distance. He wonders if there is any cartel-approved rest stop nearby where he could get himself a coffee.
They drive a couple more minutes before, to his surprise, Lalo orders him to pull over by the side of the road. Nacho does so, and glances over at his companion, unsure of what to expect.
“Come over here and switch seats with me, Ignacio.”
Nacho doesn’t think his system can physically handle any more surprises. “Switch seats? You wanna drive?”
“Yeah man, come on. You’ve been driving all night, you should take a break.” Lalo’s smile teeters on the edge of kindness, and Nacho must really be tired if he thinks that Lalo actually sounds concerned.
This might be another test of loyalty, Nacho’s mind convinces him. He tightens his grip on the foreign steering wheel. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
Lalo’s face crinkles in amusement, like it always does, and out of the blue Nacho is hit by a wave of relief at this return to familiarity. “You look like you could use a break. I want you to be well-rested when we arrive, Nachito.” Then he laughs. “Don’t you trust me to get us there safely?”
He doesn’t doubt Lalo’s driving skills, but Nacho suspects there’s something deeper at play – and he can’t see it. He has always known how to respond to situations that arise from his involvement in the drug trade. He knows how to anticipate and deal with Tuco flying into his customary fits of rage, he knows how to plead with his father to yield to the unforgiving Don Hector. But Lalo Salamanca is a complete enigma, and to be honest, he both unsettles and fascinates Nacho.
Nacho doesn’t think he will ever fully let his guard down around Lalo, but it feels nice to think that someone might give a shit about his well-being, someone who isn’t his father – and let’s face it, Nacho reminded himself darkly, the clock has been ticking on his relationship with his father ever since he had befriended Tuco and gotten into the wrong crowd. He was getting run into the ground at both ends, doing all this work for Fring in addition to his regular duties for the Salamancas, and he’ll take this break – even if it comes from a man who pours forth such eerily positive emotions that Nacho knows he has to be hiding something sinister underneath. Anyways, he’ll be damned if Fring will ever consider him worthy of the slightest respite from his job as a double agent.
He’ll worry about things later. For now, the two of them are suspended in time, driving towards an unclear destination with an even more unclear future looming ahead. With a quick nod, Nacho ducks out of the car and shuffles around to switch seats with Lalo. He is met with a slow smile from the other man, and when Lalo turns away to fiddle with the dashboard, Nacho finds himself releasing the breath he didn’t know he had been holding. As he settles down into the comfortable silence that befalls the car, with only the sound of Lalo softly humming some Spanish folk song weaving in and out of his perception, Nacho finds himself not wanting this verisimilitude of kindness to shatter just yet.
Less than 24 hours later, Nacho, while sprinting away from Lalo’s estate in full defiance of the gunfire echoing dimly in the distance, would recall their conversation with a sober emptiness and, strangely, tears that he resolutely willed away. He would try to forget about Lalo’s uncharacteristically gentle smile as he offered to take over driving. He would try to forget the warmth of Lalo’s hand on his knee that he had put there when he thought Nacho was asleep. He would try to forget the fond way in which Lalo described his family, his cousins and uncle. He would tell himself that his main priority right now was to make it home to his father, his own family, and any lingering emotions about Lalo he would just have to sort through and put to rest for another time.