Disclaimer: I don't own Sheldon Jeffory Sands or any other characters from Once Upon A Time In Mexico. They belong to their respected creators. I just let them come and play. ;)
He'd set them up and watched them fall. Now, he was paying the consequences. His fingers curled around dry dirt as he lay in the middle of the street.
Who'd have thought, at this time yesterday, that Agent Sheldon Jeffery Sands would be laying in the middle of a deserted road on the Day of the Dead, blind, with a number of bullet holes riddling his body and causing the numbing pain that quiet possibly could match what his head was feeling.
A low rumbling chuckle escaped his throat dryly, stirring up the dust under his face and he turned his head, in vague involuntary effort to keep the dust out of his eyes. Or now, his empty eye sockets. He lay there for a long time, thinking about it luck. It was always his luck. It would be his luck to get shot and finished off, laying here like some common dog.
In the heat and humidity, the pain began to send him hallucinations, or what he was hoping was hallucinations, more like praying. Because somewhere in the back of his mind, a nasty little voice was talking to him. "You earned it, Sheldon." His fingers clenched around even more dirt. "You earned it!" "Shut up..." He muttered feebly. "And you know WHY you earned it?" The nasty little voice continued. "Shut up.." Sands muttered again. "Because you stood there, why she died!" That nasty little voice nearly screamed and Sands could have sworn it was right there next to his ear.
He actually reached around, to see if there was someone with a nasty little voice standing over him. "You stood there, while she died. Then you just turned your back and walked away." The nasty little voice hissed. "SHUT UP!" Sands screamed. "What if she didn't die, Sheldon?! And you didn't deserve what she offered to begin with!" "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" He repeated the words over and over again, until he ended up laughing, almost hysterically.
It wasn't till he heard the little bell on the bike that his hand shoved up into the air, showing the little boy he was still alive. The boy came to his side, "Senior?" The kid asked softly, leaning over him. "Yeah kid?" Sands asked softly. "Help me up, will ya?" The kid took Sands by the arm and hoisted up. He let the kid lead him somewhere and in no time, he was leaning against a cool stone wall, breathing deeply. "Senior?" The boy asked again as Sands listened to the disappearing footsteps of the FBI agent he'd pulled into the game. "Are you okay?" The boy asked.
Sands would have stared at the kid, if he had any eyes to do so. "Honestly, I don't know..." Sands answered. "You will be Senior... You will be." The little boy said. Sands felt his jaw move slightly as if to protest, but he had no strength left. He sank down the wall, feeling him self pass out. The words of the boy echo in his head. "You will be..." Yeah, if only, Sands thought and then he slipped into unconsciousness. All the pain fading for the time being. He was only semi conscious as the little boy began pulling somewhere else. As they tumbled through the door of a small house, Sands lost all recall what was happening.
She came out of the dust towards him, a desert eagle on her hip, her long hair in a pony tail. The sun glinted off of it. Sands looked up from where he was laying against the wall and barely grasped that in real life, it had been the other way around.
He could feel his blood oozing from his chest. Was oozing a good word to describe it. He really didn't have time to think about that. She was kneeling infront of him. Green eyes locked with his chocolate colored. "See what you got yourself into Sheldon." She said with a tilt of her head, the british accent evident. "I didn't mean for it to turn out like this..." Sands replied with a gasp of pain. "Of course you didn't. And I bet you didn't mean to leave me to die in that alley way...'" There was furry behind her eyes. "Cherry, please..." Sands almost begged. He never begged! He never begged to anyone but her....he realized with regret. "Please what Sheldon? What's done is done. You left me to die, and Now you paid the consequences. If you're a good boy, maybe the pain will go away for ever."
She leaned close to him, and he felt the nuzzle of a gun at his chest again. Her other hand touched his cheek. "I know, I know, it was just business, right?" She asked, pain in her voice. "Cerise..." He looked at her, using her real name, instead of the nickname he'd given her. "It wasn't....I had my orders." Her eyes softened slightly. "And look where it got you, Sheldon... You don't much follow orders any more, do you?" He couldn't answer, it was true, he didn't. He hadn't for a long time, not since, the alley.
"You know, there was only one thing I wanted you to do, while I lay there dying." Cerise said, her fingers brushing down his neck. "And that was hold me." She pulled the trigger. Sands felt the bullet enter his chest and the pain numbing his body. "I would have much preferred it, Sheldon, if it had been you who actually pulled the trigger that day." She said standing up. "But you didn't. You let Montero do it...." She turned her back on him as he felt his life draining. He watched her with his last breaths, walk out of the alley.