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villa-kulla · 2 years

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What do you think Howard would have done if Lalo had died in the laundromat, like what happened in the show?

He was going out on his sabbatical and all, but he would never get that call from Lalo and probably would be able to find out that Gus was still alive and thriving in ABQ. Would he just be sad, and keep his distance from the city?

DON’T DO THIS TO MEEEE.

How dare you make me think about the death of characters in my otp, who are in fact, only an otp by virtue of their both being dead lmao.

Omg. Dear god. WELL. The plan (had Lalo not been shot and had his ‘come to Jesus’ moment and crawled away to die with Howard cue “you’re my guy”/”matches your shoes” love confessions + driving off into the sunrise together) was for Lalo to just go straight back to Mexico , enemy out of the way, cartel prince again, maybe missing Howard more than he thought, but able to compartmentalize and move on. And Howard was going to stay out of town for an indeterminate period of time to take the heat off, and honestly I don’t think he made it much farther than that in his head. All he knew was that he needed to get out: out of his job, his marriage, and his town. He would have holed up in some hotel a couple states over and called in regularly to check his messages both at home and at work, because Lalo said he’d check in just to let him know he was okay. Then he could make his decisions, figure out what to do with this fresh start, and move on. That was the PLAN.

But imagine Lalo dies and Howard keeps calling. And keeps calling. But there are no messages, no letters, not even a quick note. Howard wonders if Lalo just went clean break on him and feels temporarily huffy to not get so much as a “goodbye”. But even though Lalo was a lot of things, he was always honest with Howard, and if he said he’d reach out, he’d reach out. So Howard starts fearing the worst, calling all his contacts in Albuquerque, reading up on police raids, getting more and more paranoid. And eventually he finally does what he’d been avoiding, and calls the Pollos restaurant, and asks to speak to the manager. And when he hears Gus’s unmistakable voice, Howard just slowly hangs up and starts to cry, because if Gus is alive, then Lalo must be dead. And suddenly, cutting all his ties and starting fresh doesn’t feel as exciting and hopeful as it used to, because Lalo’s dead.

So Howard drives back to Albuquerque, hollow and grim, and starts closing up shop properly, but with less excitement than the first time he was going to get out of dodge. He quits his job officially, the divorce is finalized, and Howard wanders the streets like a ghost, no idea what to do now, which is stupid because it’s not like he and Lalo were going to end up together anyways, but somehow knowing he was out there helped, gave Howard direction and inspiration, and now that he’s gone, everything he embodied to Howard - fun, danger, passion, adventure - is gone too. But then one day as he drives aimlessly around town he winds up parked at a red light, stopped next to a laundry. Howard thinks of the laundry he sent Gus to, and stares through the window, and watching the machines inside spin and spin and spin gives Howard an idea...he can finish what Lalo started.

Fring is a dead man.

(can't make the read more work, warning that what follows might not go well for Howard.....but YOU STARTED IT WITH THIS TALK OF DEATH </3)

Howard starts planning, and he’s certainly not able to raid a fortified laundry guerilla style, like Lalo. But he can play to his own strengths, and sniffs out all the benefits and charity dinners in town, donates money to all of them, plays nice, circles the rooms with a glass of wine in hand, but eyes always sharp, until one day he gets lucky because across the room he sees him. Fring. Howard follows him into a deserted hallway, Lalo’s pistol tucked up his sleeve, and he’s almost at Fring’s back, swinging the gun up, when of course he’s slammed out of nowhere by two bodyguards, and drops the gun, and Fring turns around, knowing Howard was following him and says “Were you hoping to kill me, Mr. Hamlin? The last time I saw you, you weren’t nearly so obvious about it.” And Howard just spits out “Where's Lalo? What the hell did you do with him?” Gus just picks lint off his sleeve like “I’m not in the habit of leaving loose ends. Which brings us to what I should do with you.” And hearing it confirmed, or as confirmed as it could get, Howard just breaks down on the floor of whatever fancy hotel they’re in, and Gus motions for his guys to release him and steps towards him and says, “This is your only warning”. And he picks up the gus Howard tried to use and puts it in his own pocket and coolly says, “This isn’t your world, Mr. Hamlin.” And it’s like being stabbed in the chest, because Lalo had said that to him the last time they saw each other, but out of care, not as a threat, and it’s like Howard can still feel Lalo’s fingers brushing his jaw as he said it. He watches Gus leave through blurry eyes, but then his eyes narrow in cold satisfaction, because he’d never planned on shooting Gus here, didn’t even think he’d get close, knew he’d lose his gun, but that’s fine because inside Lalo’s gun, he’d put....A TRACKING DEVICE. Howard never knew which laundry Lalo was talking about, but now Gus or one of his goons is bound to go there, and Howard can FOLLOW.

Howard has a project now, he’s a man on a mission, and that mission is bringing down Fring. He has some vague plan to collect evidence on what Fring is doing, turn him over to the authorities, and if that doesn’t work, well, like Lalo told him, “there’s always a good reason to kill someone”.

But...unfortunately for Howard, more experienced men than him have tried and failed to take Gus down. And while Howard’s plotting goes undetected longer than anyone could have guessed, he’s simply not a criminal, and it’s really not his world. And maybe after a couple months of investigating Gus, and getting closer and closer, one day while he stakes out the laundry, the black bag comes down over his head and he’s knocked out.

He wakes up inside the superlab, bag yanked off his head, hands tied behind his back, kneeling on the dirt floor of some huge room. He’s facing Gus, and this time Gus is leaving nothing to chance, a cavalry of guys behind him all staring at Howard to make sure he can’t try anything. Gus says “you had your one and only warning to stay away, Mr. Hamlin. Any final words?”

It’s the end. Howard knows it’s the end. He failed to avenge Lalo, but he doesn’t have to fail Lalo’s memory. He asks himself what Lalo would say in this position, and he looks up at Fring and grins and says “Yeah. Lalo was right. Eres un hijo de puta and your chicken tastes like shit.” And when Fring steps forward, snapping open a knife, and cuts Howard’s throat, it’s so sharp and quick it doesn’t even hurt, and Howard collapses to the ground, slowly growing cold, wondering how the hell he got here, murdered by gangsters and about to die in a hole all alone.

That’s when Gus steps over him and yanks Howard’s head back to make him die faster, and hisses in his ear “Your lover died right here, exactly like this.” And Howard looks up at him, eyes wide, and Gus delivers his coup de grace and says “he’s buried under you right now.” He expects this to break Howard once and for all, but Howard just lets out a gurgling choking laugh because Lalo’s here? He’s with Howard? Can he feel Howard’s blood seeping through the dirt, trickling down to meet him? He’s here and Howard isn’t going to die alone after all, and suddenly Howard doesn’t feel so cold anymore, and he laughs again and then can’t stop laughing, and Gus takes a step back genuinely rattled because it’s like he’s looking at Lalo's ghost, laughing on the floor of the superlab while drowning in his own blood, staring up at Fring, face still fixed in a challenge. This Hamlin guy isn’t looking at Fring anymore though, because he’s turning his face to the dirt like he’s resting it on someone’s chest, blood spilling into the ground, eyes slowly closing, smile lingering, until he’s utterly still, gone now, somewhere else with someone else, and now Gus is the one who’s forgotten and alone, still alive to see another day, but no one left on earth who’d care either way. Covering his sudden crushing depression with disdain, Gus orders “get rid of him” and walks out. And there’s already a 6x6 patch in the ground where the soil is still loose, and they’re nothing if not efficient, so they redig the hole, not deep enough to see what might be left inside, and throw Howard in too, his face grey but still with that unsettling smile. And as they pour the dirt back over him, the last thing to be covered are Howard’s hands, cut loose now and curled into the dirt, cold and still, but almost like they’re reaching out to someone. And in the dim light of the superlab, where shadows dance on the walls and death is always close by, it's easy to imagine that only a couple metres down, someone is reaching back.

#togetherforever

So yeah.

Apparently that's what I think would happen.

THANKS FOR THE ASK I GUESS???

#anon #laloward #SORRY ABOUT THE ABOVE THOUGHTS #I KNOW IT GOT DARK BUT ALSO WE'RE ALL WATCHING THE SAME SHOW HERE <3 #my boys..........#so yeah anyways in shoot your shot they are MUTUALLY ALIVE AND HAPPY #but in this hypothetical scenario if lalo's going down then by god howard's going to follow. that's his GUY.#it's the ~romeo and juliet~ aesthetic of it all........#anyways. TOGETHER FOREVERRRRR.#but yeah as far as SYS is concerned we'll leave them on that beach lol #or - depending on if you've read Conviction more recently - lalo's motel room with clothes scattered everywhere

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