Misc.

better call saul 10

lalo woke up after the dirt and sand choked him awake.

he was surprised to find himself not the only presence there.

he was even more surprised when he realized it wasn't the lawyer.

.

lalo gasped and climbed out of the dirt, coughing and sputtering. 

he looked up at the other figure, trying to make out his shape in the dark.

it was small and soft. rather fragile. a man who had lived his life with a forgiveness in his heart  like the fluttering of a butterfly wing, or a mouse small and little enough to climb up a daisy pointed lazily up to the summer sun. 

and yet there was something off about him. discolored. 

bruised.

lalo pulled himself up, leaning on the wheel of an excavator and sitting down while he caught his breath. 

"who are you?" lalo rasped, his voice scratching itself along the rock walls. the figure simply stared at lalo, a frown etched into his brow.

"fascinating. he took your voice too," the man said, and lalo's curiosity piqued when he recognized the man's accent. it crackled like a faint radio wave in the recesses of his memory. unintelligible, but unmistakably distinct. "i shall get you a pint, you look like you need it."

"do i know you?" lalo asked. werner just shrugged.

"what does it matter?" he replied. nothing seemed to matter anymore. he wondered if it ever had. lalo laughed, and werner couldn't understand why.

"i guess you're right. still, you seem familiar." he questioned. the german man was too pre-occupied to engage in conversation. lalo's resurrection was more of an inconvenience than anything. 

werner thought for a moment while staring at the bare rock. it was the skeleton of a monument to one man's greed, or, depending on how you looked at it, mourning. 

 "i never liked how it was going to come together. always a couple of degrees off. everything else would have been perfect but not that one. it would have been askew- the south wall."

"what?" lalo asked, his head snapping back to look at werner once more. 

"hmm? oh. nothing." werner shook his head.

"the south wall. ziegler." lalo said, almost suddenly. his features were hard and a cold look flashed across his eyes. remnants of who he once was danced across his face.

"can i help you?" werner inquired, looking at lalo like he was the strangest person on earth. lalo looked back at him and the irked expression vanished, curling into a grin once more.

"we spoke on the phone once. i- i suppose it's complicated." lalo told werner. 

"you'll have to be specific. i've spoken to a lot of people on the phone." 

"we both know michael."

werner glanced down and away, shaking his head no. 

"no. no. no michael, i do not want to hear that name." 

"yeah, you do know him. the gringo, the bald guy."

"no. i do not."

"you're their captain. their builder. whatever you wanna call it." 

"you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." werner protested, angry. he began to walk away, into the shadows. he hid, scared of what he didn't understand.