Author note: I was upset today and a single sentence evolved into this monster. Weird that, this story is much more morbid than I was actually feeling . Feedback is really appreciated, it always is!
Summary: El only wants to touch Sands.
Note: Slash fic. Who doesn't love El and Sands!
I wrote this while listening to 'Sandman' by America. Over and over. I have no idea why, but I wrote this better when I listened to it. So I hope it's not crappy. Enjoy.
Touch.
"Don't you understand!"
"No…" El's voice a thick soup of confused bafflement.
"Don't you understand?!?" his voice was pleading, begging and filled with morbid self loathing; and it sliced through El's heart with no mercy.
"Yes" he breathed, his hair curtaining his bowed head, trying to please the distressed man.
Sands leaned into his chair, lighting a rolled cigarette, mind thousands of miles away. A place where El knew Sands could see blood red, lush green and swallowing black. Where he could witness the utter fear his victims faces held before they kneeled to the ground. Where he could set them up and watch them fall with glee, throw shapes with perfected precision.
Where El knew he didn't exist.
"I'm going out" was all the Mariachi said, picking up a soft leather wallet and closing the door behind him with a gentled thud.
The road was dry and barren in front of him, the sun an orb of angry fire burning everything in its merciful path. The dust kicked under his shoes, creating a cloud of almond smoke, his pants a soft jingle-jangle with each heel scuffed step. His eyes squinted slightly, strands of hair blowing across his face, leather jacket scrunching with the slump of his shoulders
Taking Sands home with him had been the single greatest and worst thing that had happened. El had found a love that he believed would never again have occurred after Carolina. This love, however, carried a dark and deep pain and it didn't allow El the things he wanted, craved, needed. Sands knew El loved him, maybe not the extent, but the American knew; and even though they had agreed there was a mutual feeling between them, nothing had progressed.
Sands would not allow it. And it was stabbing El from the inside, slowly killing him.
Every time El had gone to touch Sands it had been a violent outburst, a few curses and on the more worked up of times, some very well aimed hits from both men. A leading arm was often pushed aside, an accidental touch often hissed and accused at, a voiced plea to taste those soft, plump lips, growled at. And every time El had asked 'why?' it was always 'Don't you understand?'
But El didn't understand.
He reached the end of the unpaved street and turned around, ready to go back to his home, to their home. Maybe Sands didn't love El like El thought he did. Maybe Sands was just afraid he would lose his only form of shelter, protection, if argued otherwise; even if that was the case, El knew he could never leave the man because just being in the Americans presence was almost enough to satisfy a forbidden lust.
Almost enough.
Almost.
His hands dug in his jackets pockets, warm inside the lining. Warm like Sands. A smile flickered on the Mexicans face. There had been a time when he had touched Sands, felt the soft skin and curves of his angular face. The slight prick of missed stubble, the trace of high, arched cheekbones and the silk of red lips.
They had slept next to each other, Sands the better part of covered and El naked from waist up. Falling into a fitful slumber, Sands had unconsciously curled into El and El had traced with feather touch over Sands' face. Then the Agent had stirred and El retreated like a wounded dog, unable to sleep the rest of the moonlit night.
His wooden door appeared in sight and his steps slowed. Inside was only pain and misery with a mix of unreachable lust and desire. Outside was a burning sun and painful memories, but they were only memories and he didn't have to face a real Sands but a hologram of him. He could do anything with that hologram.
He pushed the door open and threw his wallet carelessly onto the small table they kept there, for keys and ashtrays, paper and pens and a contractible walking stick that Sands refused to use.
The view from the door way was of a dimly lit hall and a clear view of the lounge room, where El had left Sands not half an hour ago. Now the Agent was nowhere in sight, and either he had moved rooms or taken his own walk where he would return a day later in someone else's blood.
He thumped down to the kitchen, in part three year old tantrum and to notify Sands, if he was even there, that someone was in the house. Not that he needed to, the mans hearing was extremely acute, but El had one day found himself doing everything with a heavier touch to it and neither man had commented on it.
The sight would forever play in golden time slow motion with aching violin music in Els mind and he would never erase the image of a battered, broken Sands. Black ashtray filled completely, ash still smoldering, scotch glass fallen with the bottle next to it half empty and Sands' elbows on the table, hands folded over another, chin resting on top in statue manner.
His voice caught, and he stood in the door frame, "Sands…" he didn't know what else to say.
The Agent had either not heard him, or refused acknowledgment and inhaled loudly, bringing a graceful hand down to a still burning cigarette, clasping it lightly between two slender fingers.
El moved to Sands; Sands black long sleeved top catching in the baggier spots as his shoulders slumped forward. He stood behind the Agent, unable to recall the few steps it took him to get there, Sands' curtain of black hair slightly askewer, strands hanging over the sunglasses.
His hand ran against the slender, glossed wood of the chair back and he watched Sands shoulders tense quickly. "El" it was a tone of warning, but his voice sad and tiresome.
"Let me touch you"
"No" was the curt answer, but it held an undertone of pain.
It was an unspoken rule for El to never push on, never pass the no entry sign, yet tonight El found it was no longer bolted to the fence Sands had built, "Why?"
There was sharp intake of breath, and small heave of the shoulders and perhaps Sands was suppressing a sob. "Because….because…"
El's hand lifted slightly from the back of Sands chair, his fingers gently running through Sands just cleaned hair.
"El…" it was begged, and El's heart shattered.
"Why?" A mumble and El could not pick up the words, he pulled gently on the Agents hair, a sign for him to repeat himself.
"Because…I'm this hideous fucked up freak, which little kids point and stare at, or better yet, run and cry from." His thin, nimble hands held his throbbing head, "Because I'm a fucked up kind of guy, fucked up on the inside and now out. I'm not human El, don't you understand?"
Don't you understand? Three simple, little words caused so much pain, would forever haunt the Mariachi and he felt his eyes burn as his heart diminished into red dust. Three words that had been uttered earlier that day, every past day, and El wondered how he missed the cry of help.
"No you're not" his eyes soft with sorrow and love.
"Oh, Jesus Christ El." It was sharp yet still a soft whisper. "You really don't fucking understand."
It would be a lie to say he did, but El had a very clear idea. "Sands, you are not a hideous fucked up freak of a monster. You never have been to me, I love you because your this selfish, arrogant, egomaniac, with sharp wit and such a vile mouth you made virgin ears cry, but you're Sands and that's all I need, all I want"
A short laugh, of scoff and amusement, "You don't honestly believe all that bullshit do ya El? That someone can still love a man with no eyes and find him attractive and not just want him for a good little fuck?" he flicked the ash from the cigarette, "This isn't Beauty and the Beast, there sure as hell ain't any talking clocks, or annoying teapots and cups." His voice softened, "I'm not suddenly going to turn into a handsome prince charming."
El's hands continued running through the shoulder length hair, "There is no need for that. You already are"
His head hung lower, voice low and soft, barely audible, "Fuck you El" a hand brushed back the strands of hair "You know that's not true. You're alone, in this godforsaken hell hole, and you get a free little fuck from a blind man and you can ditch the blind fucker whenever you please because he's won't know any different when he wakes up one morning to an empty house."
El stopped his methodical hands, and felt the burning intrusion of tears. Sands believed that El would only want him for one thing, for sex, and then when he tired, toss him aside like he never existed. It pained El to know that's what Sands believed, that Sands believed he was unworthy of any form of love others received. It killed El; it ripped at his insides and devoured him. "I understand now."
A continuous rise and fall of Sands shoulders and he was crying for all those years he never got the chance to, never would again because with no eyes came no tears. He was crying for deprived loved, for misguided love, for craved love he never got.
His hand hovered, then fell gently on the thin mans shoulders, and this time there was no biting retort, no punches or cursed words and El had knocked a section of the wall down. He felt Sands shift from underneath him and he stepped slowly beck, unwillingly letting his hand slip off as Sands stood.
"El…" he stopped, a rare time lost for words, "I'm…"
But El knew what he wanted to say, and merely shook his head at the reflective, black, plastic glasses. "I am too"
Overcome in emotion Sands couldn't process, he stood only inches from El, then leaned in forwards, nose brushing against El's thicker one. "It's okay now" he slightly whimpered.
"I understand" El soothed. And El's lust and desire were filled as lips brushed gently with another, mouths parting slightly, moist air shared. Their lips smashed gently like sun setting shore waves and they parted slowly, small smiles on both of their faces.
Maybe now, El existed in that place Sands had, miles and miles away…
.
I hope that was okay. I'm not particularly happy with the ending, but… Anyway, review please, and let me know.