#the night of one of the murders and therefore never sees newman and never goes to the cops as a witness

[bitchthefuck1]

I feel like everybody has at least one highly specific AU that just rotates in their brain 24/7 like a rotisserie chicken

[believerindaydreams]

oops

Anybody on their hands and knees outside a bar's back door, retching in the crisp November air, really ought to be drunk.

People understand drunk. The occasional customers who come out this way, seeing him half-comatose and Blondie patiently watching over him, has every reason for miming a bottle and laughing; and Tuco doesn't blame them a bit. Even Blondie thinks he's drunk, although that's a misunderstanding that'll have to be put right.

"I spent the tequila money on food," he manages, when he's feeling clear-headed enough to get out a line without choking on it.

"Good," Blondie says. "I always did think you'd play better if you weren't soused every time."

"Blondie, we lost." Not badly, but more than they can afford. It's one of the exasperating aspects of this game that you can be up against the wall while a stake's burning a hole in your pocket, and right now even that's in danger. "Nobody was taking the bait tonight, I couldn't sell it."

"So we play better poker next time. That's all..."

Tuco huffs, does his best to hold back a scream. He has a precisely calibrated sense of how good they are at this, comparatively speaking, and if they try making it on raw talent alone they're going to starve to death inside the month. The hustle's where they earn the real money, always has been. "And you think you're fucking Paul Newman?"

"I don't think I am fucking him, actually," Blondie says. With a wry light-hearted tone that ought to be his, damnit. "If you weren't drinking, what's wrong? Are you sick?"

"Sure I'm sick. You think I'd be lying out here like this if I wasn't?" The sensation's lessening now, alabado sea María y todos los santos, but his body still feels like it's trying to reject everything he's done to it today. Half-smoked cigarette ends, chicken wings, the two rum and cokes he'd arranged with the waitress to get without the rum. Nice-looking girl, with the kind of dark sheen and soft black hair he likes; if things were normal with him that might have gone somewhere.

As it is, he's sober. Cold stone sober, and burning up with self-disgust- oh, christ. He gives up even trying, just lets himself collapse with the pavement cold against his face. That feels better.

"But you were planning to run the hustle tonight, si? They looked like the right kind."

Blondie scowls, but admits he was. Admits, moreover, that the main reason he hadn't was because nobody at the table could be convinced that the quiet, slightly listless interloper could be a high roller or anything close to one.

"Know how often I got drunk at Angel's?” Tuco asks him. “About twice, that whole time. I don't think I've ever been like that."

Maybe some people drink for the drinking; maybe he used to, but he's always insisted to Blondie that he only liquored up for the sake of the hustle- and this has the feel of one of those lies that turns horribly true and bites you. Soaked in liquor, it's easy to play a part, be exactly who all their marks want to hate so badly; but apparently he can't do that with a clear head.

An insidious, painful little thought hooks its claws into him, as has been happening more and more often these days: imagining what Angel Eyes would say. Or not say, but how he'd listen, curious and not judgmental, with that oddly reassuring attitude that nothing could possibly be so bad as what he'd seen....of course there's all too much reason for that; and a spasm of pure disgust runs through him, remembering a diner and blood on the wind.  

Which doesn't stop him trying to make sense of this whole mess, grasping for a clarity that would explain this for a letter, and therefore him; and the thought occurs to him that it's odd Blondie hasn't touched him this whole time. Standing two feet away and smoking a cigarillo, just looking down on him.

"You going to help me up?"

"Now I told you about whining, Tuco-"

It's not exactly common, for him to have a go at slugging Blondie when one of their nights goes wrong. But it's happened more than once: his temper flaring up fast and dissipating just as quick, after a rough and tumble and Blondie giving as good as he gets, height and clear-headedness more than a match for drunken pawing.

(The first time he'd woken up next morning, unable to credit that he'd blackened this white boy's eye without being lynched for it; and Blondie had never said a word about it.)

Different, this time: he can't blame it on drink, doesn't have the luxury of excuse to make him pull his punches, and therefore doesn't, just goes in hard and fast. Different also, because he only gets in one sharp hit below the belt before Blondie crumples like a loaf of bread.

"Blondie, the hell...what's all this blood? I didn't hit you that hard!"  

"That gunshot wound never did heal right," Blondie says, queer and pale; and Tuco calls him seven different kinds of a bastard while checking his partner's wound. It's gone sour, with a smell like death, and the makeshift wrapping's stained and old.

"So you weren't going to tell me about this. Or setting me up with Angel Eyes. Or that God in heaven came down and spoke to you, if that happened to you- Blondie, what do you think I'm here for, eh? Tell me that."

"Plague me, mostly,"; and the contrast between that devil-may-care expression and what lies below makes Tuco want to hit him all over again. "Think how this is going to look, if anybody sees us."

Fear kicks in then, the purposeful, necessary fear that's seen him through sundown towns and half of Texas without getting murdered; he gets Blondie back to the van fast and does what he can, to clean up the hole properly and bandage it with a fresh shirt. Fear for his partner, dying and leaving him alone...

fear that maybe he'd convince himself to leave bad enough alone, if it meant he could go home to Angel afterwards. He works all the more urgently because of that, while another one sticks in his throat. That maybe nothing he can do will help, because Blondie is an idiot and it's too late already.  

Which is what gives him the idea for their next scam.