Work Text:
2004
To say that lunch with Howard after everything that has happened was awkward was being generous. A better description for the feeling would be being caught by your half estranged extended family, naked, in the backyard, with your dick stuffed into a garden gnome on Easter and then sitting down with them all for dinner by a crucified Jesus on the wall— still naked.
Saul didn’t let it affect his appetite, he hadn’t had anything this nice, that he didn’t scam his way into, for a long time. Last time it happened was in a dark house, the meal lit up only by candlelight. Though hopefully, with his steady income of clients, dinners like this wouldn’t be far away in his future. Not that he cared much for the fancy stuff, like throwing pearls to pigs, Saul derived equal satisfaction from a fourty dollar steak as he did a quarter pounder with extra cheese from McDonalds, or the cheap and few scraps of beef on the top of a lo mein.
Howard’s appetite did not mirror his own, he ate slowly, his hands were stiff and despite his shirt being so nicely ironed and tie pinned in place, he seemed worse for wear, as though he was slowly coming apart at the seams. Saul quickly took an entire roasted potato in his mouth, chased by red wine. He didn’t want to think about it because despite his hardest attempts not to, he couldn’t help but feel guilty about the entire thing— even though Howard deserved this.
He didn’t really.
But he did.
Saul took some more wine.
“I take it you like it,” Howard said and Saul looked down to find his plate already half empty.
“No, hate it, can’t you tell?” He said sarcastically. He just wanted this lunch to be over.
Howard gave a small laugh, only an exhale and then they fell into silence again.
“I can still remember the last time we went out,” Howard tried again.
Saul could too, still remembered what Howard had ordered, but it felt so far away now. He was an entirely different person now, viewed his past like a voyeur looking on from the outside, looked at all the things that happened to him the way one looks at wares when passing through a store’s window. It was harder and harder to recognise Jimmy as himself in his memories.
“When was that?” He asked and against his will something old and sentimental reared its ugly head in his chest.
“A week before you passed the bar, I believe,” Howard said and there was genuine fondness in his voice. “I seem to remember you had just finished an all nighter of studying because you came in with an unironed shirt and your hair unbrushed.”
Saul remembered that too. He also remembered that Howard had been pristine as always, tanner, a bit bulkier, not as tired. Saul had felt so out of place when he came in, in his cheap, untailored shirt and pants and pair of brown Oxford shoes he’d scrambled some honest money together to buy. He also remembered his burning frustration, convinced that Howard had chosen that restaurant specifically to humiliate him, trying to show off things that Howard believed he could never amount to. It turned out he never did. Despite his best efforts he never settled in as an honest lawyer with a corner office on the fiftieth floor, looking down on the rest of them from his coco-bell desk.
Saul finished his plate.
He put his utensils down with enough force to signal the end of their conversation, “I have to get going, Howard. Lots of things to do today.”
“I’m glad to hear business is going good for you,” Howard said and the gentleness of his tone irked Saul.
“Likewise,” Saul said without feeling.
“Jimmy, before you go,” Howard began, “I’m sorry. I know I said we would enjoy this dinner, but I really am sorry. For everything.”
Don’t pity me, Saul wanted to say.
“Good for you. Thanks for the lunch.”
“I liked you,” Howard began and Saul nearly jumped out of his chair, fingers pointing and ready to point out the past tense of the word, declare that he had known the entire time that Howard was doing this entirely out of pity when Howard went on, quieter. “a lot. I liked you a lot” —he twisted the wedding band on his finger, watched its dull shine in the mellow light—”I still like you, not like then, but I still care for you, Jimmy, I don’t ever want you to think that I don't.”
Saul made a sound of disbelief. He leaned back in his chair and raised his hands to his face, he wanted to laugh at this pathetic attempt at corresponding. It was like every lunch that they’d shared back in the HHM days.
“I don’t want your pity, Howard.”
Howard actually seemed hurt at the statement. He took a shaky breath and looked at Saul, light reflecting in the intricate net of blue in his irises and Saul felt the noise in the restaurant fade.
“I don’t pity you. I never have.”
Saul didn’t know what to say, the statement carried such weight, he found that he almost believed it for a second. What if Howard wasn’t lying, what if he never had looked down on Saul, on Jimmy? The rushing realisation was quickly quelled, it felt too heavy in his chest to process, it was to be internalised and locked away somewhere deep within him so that he’d never may accidentally ruminate on the thought, it’d bring him to ruin. Years and years of his life he’d spent believing— No, locked away, not another thought on the matter.
Howard was still looking at him, but Saul for the first time didn’t know what to say. The conversation was a dead end.
The moment broke when Howard averted his eyes. He leaned back and pulled out his wallet to put it on the table. He spared Jimmy a final glance. “I have obligations to see to and I believe you do too. I’m glad you took yourself the time to meet me.”
Saul bit the inside of his bottom lip, averted his eyes. There was something on his tongue, heavy like an apology. For such a nice restaurant he saw a trace of dust on one of the floorboards. He felt Howard’s eyes on the side of his face, waiting. Nothing mattered, least of all the past, the past was a contaminated body of water with the name McGill that he would never step into again.
He didn’t feel like himself.
Saul wiped the sides of his mouth with the napkin and threw it at the empty plate before rising.
More than awkward, it felt sad— almost.
—
199x
Howard smiled. Jimmy averted his eyes.
Howard and Jimmy didn’t have much in common, had more points in unfriendly territories than anything so these lunches tended to be painful. Jimmy suffered through them with gritted teeth, although Howard always seemed content, a bit fidgety almost. Jimmy knew the sort of man Howard was, looking down on others. Sure, he would desperately try to indulge Jimmy in conversation when Jimmy passed by his office with his little cart of letters, feigning interest in Jimmy’s life only to draw cruel comparisons to his own privileged position. Occasionally Jimmy would look up from his desk, the printer or whatever he was doing to find Howard looking at him. It was unnerving to an extent, it always felt as though he had stood there for minutes just watching Jimmy work, like a sadistic dungeon master or something.
The tip of Howard’s shoe brushed against the inside of Jimmy’s and Jimmy instinctively moved his feet further back.
“Sorry,” Howard said.
Jimmy shook his head, mouth too full to answer.
“Thanks for coming out,” Howard continued awkwardly, “I enjoy these lunches with you.”
“Sure,” Jimmy replied, growing suspicion and forced himself to add: “likewise.”
Howard’s eyes shone at that and gave Jimmy that smile that showed off his teeth, two neat rows in contrast to the uneven mess that was Jimmy’s bottom row.
“If you’re free some evening, I’d love to do dinner instead,” Howard suggested and at Jimmy’s unenthusiastic slouch, too tired and too full to disguise it, he adjusted himself in his seat and tried again. “Or drinks.”
Jimmy didn’t return Howard’s gaze, his own eyes were fixed on a tall cloud rising far away on the vast blue horizon, white as the collar on Howard’s shirt, the silhouettes of heavy telephone wires breaking it apart. He couldn’t wait to get home and call Kim, ask her out tonight, maybe get invited to her place if he played his cards right.
“I’ll look in my calendar,” Jimmy lied absent-mindedly. He didn’t own a calendar and even if he did, there was no chance in hell he’d look through it and book an appointment with snotty goody two shoes nepotism baby.
“Do so, I’ll see you at work Monday,” Howard went on, obliviously smiling through it all. He looked down for a moment, back up at Jimmy who reluctantly met his eyes. “Charlie Hustle.”
Jimmy gave him his best forced smile, “Can’t wait.”