Anyone else want to consider a Mando/Albert AU where they had a thing going on during camp?
And it was that closeness and mutual secrecy (courtesy of 1950s hyper homophobia making it illegal) which caused Mando to have a blind eye to what Al was doing. He dismissed any suspicious behavior. Because Mando otherwise seems very aware of things going on and with great recall. Something must have been clouding his vision to not suspect Bill was acting weird. Or he did notice but thought he knew what Bill's secret was.
It would also sort of justify why Mando was important enough to get a personal call from the Grabber through the radio. (Does it make sense given the supernatural parameters that a person needs to be a little special to hear? No. Not unless Mando has latent abilities. But something made him important enough for the conversation to happen at all.)
Oh, and one of the boys was burned in the kitchen, where Mando worked as cook. Not saying he was involved, of course, but maybe Al felt a little familiar hanging around there and knew how things worked.
I said "AU" but now I feel like a Mando/Al truther. 🔎
You may want to bring up that he tried to kill Mando, but let's be honest with ourselves. That is what he does when he likes someone. Cause he a freak.
I could get in the weeds about Al's thoughts dating Mando. Not gonna say it would act as a coincidentally timed trigger for him that led from, "I'm gay and that's what's wrong with me," to "Oh no, that still didn't fix and fulfill me. I think it's something else/something worse." ...But yeah...