#lalo salamanca | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

richeeduvie · 2 days ago

Text

MADMAN || Lalo Salamanca

- UNO? -

Grey. Tension. Heat. August has never been hotter.

Yet, you realize that it hasn’t rained as hard as this in the city since you started work forever ago. Even then, it was winter - the air had no reason for heat. Now it encases you. Like you are nothing but a particle. You were glad Los Pollos Hermanos had air conditioning.

It was a quiet afternoon, and yet you were too scared to think about anything else besides sanitizing the icebox.

“Do you know where the where put the spoons?” You turned to the voice behind you, red hair met your eyes. Lyle smiled.

“I think, by the - the? I think it’s on the bottom of the right shelf in the back. I saw Susan put some there.” You answered, smiling back. Just as small-eyed as the one you put on for the customers. Habit, you think. But at least Lyle didn’t call you a lazy-good-for-nothing because you forgot to charge them for their chickens fries, or litter. As least you don’t think he litters.

He gives you a quick thumbs up with a low head and makes his way to the back. You turn, it’s been a surprisingly slow day, so slow that Mr. Fring didn’t need to show up until an hour ago. You’ve done about everything you could do without the hassle of customers, except sanitize the icebox and restock the back fridge. But you would save all those for later. Sometimes, when it gets as slow as this, you wish there was a customer or two to keep your mind busy. It also means a longer clean up time after closing, and recently - you could use more time away from home. Your father is even more of a hassle, but less of one when you come home at a later time when he’s fast asleep, but he’s been sleeping a lot these days - and keeping the mind busy means you don’t have to realize that is suppose to be a bad thing.

It stops raining. The sun comes out without a pause. You wish you were that quick, wondering if the sun shines that fast in other places of the world. Probably Florida if it’s not summer. And Hawaii, duh.

You hear Lyle come up behind you. His footsteps are too loud to be Mr. Fring’s and Susan and Daniel on their breaks. “God, it’s like, nobody ever came in here at all.” He says as he comes up to the side of you.

You shift a little bit farther and sigh through your nose. “Lyle, I’m really bored.”

“Don’t tell Mr. Fring that,” The corners of Lyle’s mouth spring up a bit. “It’s so slow, though, he doesn’t even need to come out of his office.” He leans on the counter with his elbows.

The place is empty, like empty empty. “If he comes out I’ll just be wiping the same spot like twenty times, it’s not like any other place needs wiping.” You tilt your heads towards him and sigh once more. It fills the air.

“Hey, uh, since we can probably get out of here early after cleaning up, do you wanna see if I can get Daniel and hang out at Harold’s?”

Harold’s, the bar. You keep forgetting Lyle can drink. It’s the hair and quiet voice that does it. You’ve been there once with him and Susan. Fine time, you suppose. But maybe you should get home early, just to see if the old man is in a good mood. You hope to god he’ll be asleep.

“I’ll see, but probably. If not, we can go to the mall tomorrow, you’re off right-“ the door chimes chimes. Your sentence trails off.

A man steps in as another follows. The first customers you’ve seen in about one and a half hours. And how - how peculiar they are. Strange seems to rude of a word.

There’s a shorter one. Thin lips with no hair. It suits him as well as his leather jacket and rings do. He has hard eyes. The taller one is mustached and wearing a button-up, sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

His arms are nice, strong looking.

You feeling your stomach lower just a bit, you blame it on the heat.

His hair is slick back just slightly. You notice one grey streak. Fitting.

You would like to think you’ve see men and people like them before. Like you’ve seen a more than dozen men like the one that seems to be walking closer, this grey-struck man. So you think that you have. You have to. What a silly thing to think otherwise.

“Hi, welcome to Los Pollos Hermanos, just let us know when you’re ready to order.” Lyle greets the two while stepping forward to the register. He turns to you and in a much quieter tone, tells you - “just let me know, whenever.”

You nod with a quiet “yeah”. These men come up quickly. Grey-streak takes the front, you assume hard eyes won’t do the ordering. The front man smiles, you think he’s been smiling since he walked through the door. But it’s wider now, maybe it just looks that way now that he’s closer. And he looks at you.

It feels like it was just a second. It had to have been. But it felt like it pierced you. But what a stupid thing to feel.

He turns his head back to Lyle. “Yes, hola! Smelt so good just from walking in.” Lyle returns the smile - but it seems strained. More strained than how Lyle usually looks - and the man looks at you again.

You feel the need to smile, so you do. Maybe this is how charm works. But this one is not out of habit.

“I think I’ll order the number five, and-“ he turns to hard eyes. “My friend, what will you order?”

Hard eyes sighs. Quietly, he also orders the number five.

“We’ll take two large drinks as well.” He pulls out his wallet. Lyle gives him the total.

You can’t stop staring at the streak, but it’s easy to pretend you’re not staring him. You almost don’t notice the couple of hundreds sitting in his wallet. The man looks at you once more. This time, you meet his eyes.

They’re black. You feel a twitch and you quickly turn your head. You hear him huff through his nose. Lyle closes the drawer and you can see out of the corner of your eye that he’s trying to give back the change. The man doesn’t take it. He’s staring, you’re a mousy little one

aren’t you?

“And how are you today, señorita?” You turn back, his smile is small with a wrinkled forehead. His eyes make you feel like you can’t breathe.

How stupid you are to feel this way, it’s just another man who order the number five, you should be getting on the order. Why does the answer feel so hard to find. Maybe your father is right sometimes, about and your stupid head.

“Good.” Your reply is meek, not costumer satisfactory. But the man doesn’t seem to care. His eyes shift.

“Glad to hear that.” You feel like he should’ve said more, but maybes it’s become somewhere in your head you like the sound of his voice, low and almost like gravel. “Well, I better let you get to it.” He steps backwards for bit then turns to follow hard eyes to a table. You start the order. Lyle seems strange, even for Lyle.

The order is done quite quickly and you hand it over to your co-worker to call it out, rushing to “restock” the back shelves before one of the two men can even get up.

What is it about grey-streak?

Lyle makes your way past you and to the end of hall - to Mr. Fring’s office. You think about your father sleeping, the sun, why the fountain refill bags are so heavy. How those strong arms can hold you, how you need to be held, like that sad little thing you are.

Lyle comes out of the office with a heavy breath, Mr. Fring follows soon after. He smiles at you and makes his way to the counter. He stares at the two men. He’s always staring, you catch him something. You wonder what he’s trying to find. Mr. Fring walks to the occupied table.

“Hello gentlemen, is everything to your satisfaction?” You wipe the counters and look towards the three men. Grey-streak man goes wide-eye and huffs loudly. He would be a loud man.

“This is the best chicken I have ever tasted!” His arm up on the table, slightly waving a napkin. He seems nice.

“Well, I’m delighted to hear that.” Mr. Fring laughs, slightly, you can hear your boss’s smile.

“No, seriously. It’s crispy - but it’s not dried out, and it’s so… flavorful.” His hand does a little gesture - he’s looking up at your boss with wide eyes and a laugh and you want to smile at his happiness. You feel dumb.

The conversation gets a little quieter, you hear something about investment and franchising. Grey-streak man wants to speak to the boss, so it’s his lucky day. He’s lucky enough to walk into the office. What’s going on?

You see Mr. Fring turn his head slightly towards hard eyes, who makes to make his eyes impossibly more intense with the shrug of his hands. Your boss turns to make his way back, but the man is already quite ahead of him. He passes you, and the air feels like it’s trapping you. Like it’s pulling you, somewhere. He turns towards you as his does his quick pass. He does a slight nod. You turn away, quickly. You don’t know why you feel like such a schoolgirl, it has to be the heat.

You pretend to work as the two stay in the office, Susan and Daniel come back from their break, leaving Lyle to go to his, before he makes his way outside, he lets you know about the men.

“You know that guy, not the one that just went in Mr. Fring’s office, but the one sitting down?” He puts on his jacket. “He cause some trouble last year.”

“Last year?”

“A little before you came, I think it’s him, but I - I don’t know.”

“What did they do?”

“I don’t know, just some weird, sorta creepy stuff where’d they sit around and just order nothing, like weird soliciting. The guy sitting is not the main guy though. And Mr. Fring let the other one into his office so maybe I’m wrong.”

“What but the guy in his office?” You ask, just making conversation.

“I haven’t seen him before. Anyway see you in fifteen.” His words get heavy and sweet towards the end. You give a quick smile as his walks out the back.

After a good six, the man walks back out. He’s smiling with closed fist. You give him a slight smile. He stops in his tracks and you feel another twitch. Your heart feels like it’s gonna to explode, you were always an overreacter. And how frail you look, you need someone, and how cute you are. It’s almost pathetic.

“I-I hope you enjoyed your meal, sir.” You put your hands together. He comes closer to you. He’s just a charming man. But there’s something about the eyes. But then again, you’ve never one for eye contact.

Look at him

“I certainly did, miss. Definitely coming back here again.” He walks farther from you, but his eyes never leave you. He’s smiling, and it’s natural, charming. Maybe it is just the eyes. Everybody has something about that.

This must be what someone confident looks like. Someone confident with dark eyes.

“I’ll see you later! Nacho! Let’s go, my friend.” Nacho follows the man, leaving his tray on the table. You go to clean it up.

It was just a man. Like all the others you’ve seen before, but you can’t help but stare at them through the window, and as they drive away, you see the man drop his cup out of the window.

Rude, but someone will pick it up.

Just another man. There’s no room to think about him with your father and your job and all the other things you shouldn’t be thinking about.

And somewhere, on the way to a chicken farm, the man asks his hard eye friend if he’s seen you around before. Hand under his chin, he can’t seem to let your frame go.

How it was so fucking easy to get you all riled and nervous. You were nervous, you can’t deny it. que chica tan graciosa ~ what a funny girl.

You need somebody, and he’s needs a little fun. It shouldn’t be to hard with the chicken man business. He’s always been a multitasker. He’s thinks about the ways he can get your address.

Hard eyes glances towards his boss, somehow he’s knows what he’s thinking. And even though he hasn’t known his boss long, he’s knows one thing.

You’re in danger.

#lalo salamanca #lalo salamanca x reader #breaking bad #better call saul #nacho varga #gus fring #los pollos hermanos #better call saul fanfic #fanfic

22 notes · View notes