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Nacho, baby, my poor boy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, I love you so much you deserve the world and everything good in it and so does your Pappi ily king :(
I mean, Nacho (king) is under constant surveillance at all times, 24/7, so getting even within a breath of you without either Fring or one of the Salamancas catching wind of it is pretty much near impossible. Bless his heart, is he going to try though.
He’s tried to leave little notes to you, although its a dangerous game to play and even more perilous line to balance upon: throwing them around the trashcans in the hopes that you’ll see them after picking up your morning coffee at ‘Los Pollos Hermanos’, and before Gus has left his office for the first round inspection of the day. He hands out extra wads of frumpled, obviously well pored over and assiduously crumpled envelopes for Mike to deliver at your doorstep, or leave crammed through your letter box, hidden in plain sight among the rest of the bills and mailers. He leaves notes on the back of Saul’s folded and fray-edged business cards when he slides over to his back office at the nail salon, roping the ‘lawyer’ into playing ‘piggy in the middle’ for your flirtatious little secret back and forth. It earns him a few disgruntled murmurs and the pointed finger wagging in his face telling him off for playing the ‘pathetic school crush card’ when he’s already been roped into the dangerous chess game of cartel business, but Saul does it anyway because ‘he’s a romantic at heart’. Plus, deep down inside (even if his sad doe side eye at a very despondent looking Nacho gives it away), he does want to see the kid happy.
But none of this is enough; Nacho can’t play this game of whispers in the dark anymore. Keeping all this love locked up within him is poisoning his soul. He can’t linger at home anymore, pacing around the shadowed outskirts of his house and wringing his hands with grief, a pale comparison of himself: a ghost haunting himself with his own failures. He feels like his head is about to shatter into a million pieces if he hears the women in the next room over change the television channel one more time. He’s one step away from ruination, as he slides his back down the wall and crumples onto the floor overlooking the thick tangles of brambles past the casement windows of his dining room. Because as much as their company keeps the void from swallowing him whole, they’re not you. They’re not you. They’re not his heart. He feels like he’s bleeding out from every pore, feels it choking out from his eyes as he wipes the wetness away from the edges of his devastated eyes and clasps his hands behind his head. He takes a deep sniffle, and looks up to the heavens, racking his head to find any conceivable way to get through this alive.
He has to take the chance, he finally decides after months and months of restless nights spent lying bright eyed and awake in bed, just staring up and burning holes through the ceiling. He wants his chance to live, he wants to live, not just to survive anymore. The next morning, he takes one last look at his fake ID as he tucks it back into his safe for later, before walking out the door. His hands shake with every step; he checks behind his back every five steps or so in a final scan to make sure he’s not being followed, before he swallows his fear and gets ready to take a step towards the life he’s dying for, no matter if fate may spit in his face and toss him aside with a discarding hand. He slides into his car, pulling out his mobile and calling Mike to clue him into the fact that over the last day or two he’s noticed Lalo Salamanca has made contact with you, and so an extra pair of eyes watching your movements couldn’t hurt security.
To his surprise, the heavy weight of guilt that plagues Mike’s conscience wins out, and he agrees to one night of ‘surveillance’, ‘and I mean one night only, kid. Just to make sure Salamanca hasn’t drawn Y/n into their little plot against Fring.’ He chooses the time and place, of course, but the dingy little abandoned plot the once vibrant and full of life playground rests on isn’t the worst spot in the outskirts of Albuquerque to end up at.
And that is how Nacho Varga finds himself leaning uncomfortably timid against the hood of his car, foot anxiously spurring up the dust. His arms clench as his muscles spasm across his chest, fingers near tearing the skin away as he breathes out heavily in anticipation. He’s not used to being so out in the open, as he glances around the burning desert skies; he’s not used to being so vulnerable, but god would he do it for you over and over and over again. He nearly falls to his knees in relief when your car rolls up to stop just before a flood filled ditch in the ground and you clamber out of the driver’s side with a confused smile lighting your face at the sight of his drenched face.
‘I thought you weren’t going to show up’, he starts as he scratches behind his neck. He looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights, about to run away with his tail tucked between his legs at the first sign of hesitancy or disagreement from you.
‘And miss an opportunity to be babysat for the night by the Ignacio Varga?’ You laugh at how bashful he looks before continuing, ‘Mike said you were so anxious to meet me that you were near blubbering on the phone.’
‘Yeah, he would say that.’ He’s looking westward out towards the far stretch of the golden hazed horizon as he replies sardonically, but he’s still smiling through the words as the two of you, as if drawn by some invisible red band of fate, head over to sit on the quite crooked rusted swing set. You sigh as you take your seat. ‘I hear you’re supposed to watch me for the night. Is that seriously all we can get?’
He blinks slowly, exhaustion set in his bloodshot eyes, before he closes them wearily for a moment. ‘For now, I promise’, he whispers out through tightly pursed lips after a few moments thought. ‘I promise.... But it’s enough - it’s more than enough. It’s everything, okay? This is everything to me.’ He looks so serious as he turns to stare at you tensely through the chained ropes that run past his neck that you can’t help but reach through the barred gap and squeeze his hand. He refuses to let go, never once breaking his gaze from you as he places your intertwined fingers down onto his kneecap as delicate as one might hold the fresh bloom of a spring petal.
The two of you end up kicking your feet across the sand and talking far through the night, not stopping even as the sky begins to burn a mulberry purple and the stars begin to break through the streaks of haloed light that shroud his eyes that glow with ecstasy. He realises, for the first time since his mother had died, he’s spent the whole time smiling.
You catch him glancing down to your lips every few sentences or so, but they always flick right back up to your widening eyes with the sweetest joy in them. It was if his soul was finally being allowed to unlock itself; all the beauty furled up inside of him blooming out through every crevice until it trails around him and roots itself around his body like a desert rose finally beginning to thrive through the drought. Until there’s nothing left of him but the thought, the prayer, the touch of you.
He comes to a breaking point; to the pass of no return, and he can’t hold himself back anymore. So he just leans out over his seat while you’re talking and kisses you between the ropes. For him, for a moment, the world and all it’s vexations seem to stop, and the softness of true life seems to seep in. He focuses in on the small details, trying to etch every single thing he can feel into the recesses of his brain so he can play it on repeat till his dying day: the way his nose is pressed up, squashed against your flushing cheek. How soft, how pliant your lips are despite your surprise, and how tenderly he brushes his bottom lip against your own and feels it set its corners in fire. How cold the tears running down the side of his nose are, despite how alight he is inside. How his breath can’t seem to escape past the gasps of his throat: too busy half-moaning and half-whimpering against your open mouth until you swallow them with your needy lips.
He gasps as you pull away from him to look up tentatively at his closed eyes, and for a moment you think he’s about to pass out with how intensely his face is screwed shut. He just swallows thickly, before surprising you and stomping up and leaving the swing seat thundering in his wake. He’s so flustered, and furious with himself for giving in so easily to something that he knows will only end in heartbreak and exploitation for you: how could he? How could he do anything but get up and leave, to get as far away from you as possible?
Yet you surprise him by skidding to a halt in front of him and cupping his cheeks, bringing him back down to earth by titling his chin down to look at you. You reach up to meet his lips again, and bless his heart, he just lets go in one big sigh and nods with that serious frown in his face when you teasingly whisper against his lips if he was seriously that flustered just by kissing you.
And his hands are shaking from where they cup round to rest against your sides, because he knows this is it. A rose can’t grow without a thorn within its stem, and his will be the death of him. But he doesn’t care. He just couldn’t care less, because while it’s a risky love, Nacho Varga would choose again and again to give all of himself away for you.