Chapter 2
Trusting
Disclaimer: Yes, I own El and Sands. They're mine, all mine!
Rating: R for language and a potentially disturbing scene
Summary: Just what is El up to, anyway?
Author's Note: You guys are the best. I mean it. I posted the first chapter of this story and promptly went into a panic. I'm still feeling insecure about the story, but the support and encouragement I have gotten has gone a long way toward making me feel better about things. Thanks to everyone. I love you all.
And many, many thanks go to Melody, who read this chapter and reassured me that it was not, in fact, the utter crap I thought it was. You're the greatest, girl.
Finally, a word of warning, some of you might be squicked by the last scene. I don't know what everyone considers icky, so I figured I might as well put up a warning, just in case.
****
Sands didn't like mysteries. He never had. He much preferred knowing what was happening around him. He needed to know what was happening around him. And since being blinded, that need had become an imperative. If he didn't know, he got nervous.
And when he got nervous, he got trigger-happy.
However, because El was the source of the mystery this time around, he had firmly put aside any thoughts of random shootings. He was still puzzled and wary, but he wasn't worried. There was a big difference between wary and worried.
Still, he wondered what was going on.
Since the day of the storm, the day he had killed Belinda Harrison, El had been different. Most of that was guilt at Lorenzo's death, but not all. Sands didn't know what the other component of El's weirdness was, and he didn't like that not-knowing.
He knew he had a problem with paranoia, but he thought El was spying on him somehow. Watching him all the time.
And he didn't like it.
So the night El accused him of love, he found himself sitting awake on the edge of his bed, sleep the furthest thing from his mind.
Not to disappoint El, but he didn't love Chiclet. He was incapable of love – he had known that about himself for as long as he could remember. He did like the kid, but in the end, the simple truth was that he used Chiclet. Being with the kid made him feel better about himself, made him feel almost human, for a time. So he grabbed what he could, and gave nothing back in return. No one could call that love.
He had wanted to rescue Chiclet's brother and keep Chiclet happy only because he didn't like it when the kid was upset about something. When the kid was upset, he moped around and cried a lot, and that did not make Sands feel good. And he had come to rely on Chiclet's visits to lift his spirits. So he had rescued Pablo for selfish reasons only, not out of any love for Chiclet.
You know what? asked the voice in his head. It's two steps forward, one step back with you, buddy. Ever notice that?
Shut up.
I just wanted to ask you why that was. If you had any brilliant ideas, since you're supposed to be so smart. Are you really so happy that I'm still hanging around? Want to keep me here a while longer?
"Shut. Up," Sands hissed aloud. His hands curled into fists, grabbing handfuls of the quilt atop the bed.
Outside, in the hall, he heard a sound. A quiet sound, as though the person making it did not wish it to be heard.
Immediately two possibilities presented themselves. Either someone had gotten in the house, for purposes unknown; or El was out there, for reasons unknown.
Sands drew one of his pistols, thumbed the safety off, cocked it, and aimed it at the door.
The sound outside came again.
He debated whether he should call out. If the person in the hall was a simple burglar, alerting the stranger to his presence might be a big mistake. On the other hand, if it was El, it would be best to find out what the hell the mariachi was doing out there.
He decided that staying silent was the better option. He rose to his feet and walked the four paces to the bathroom. He stepped inside and to the left, then turned so his back was to the wall. The towel bar pressed into his spine, but he ignored this. He held the gun with both hands in front of his chest, the muzzle pointed at the ceiling.
If anyone came in his room, he was going to shoot first and ask questions later.
For a long time nothing happened. He stood very still, listening with every fiber of his body.
The sound came again.
He tensed. One finger curled about the trigger.
Not yet, whispered the voice. Not yet.
He nodded.
The seconds ticked by. He did not hear the sound again.
When fifteen minutes had passed, he realized that he was going to have to investigate the source of that noise.
"Fuck," he whispered.
Slowly he stepped out from the bathroom. Silence surrounded him, making his heart beat faster. Sometimes he dreamed he was deaf too, imprisoned in a world where he could neither see nor hear, but could only scream.
He eased across the room, listening hard. The only things he heard were his own footsteps, his breathing, and the faint ticking noise the ceiling fan made as it spun endlessly overhead.
The door loomed closer; he could sense its solid presence. He raised his hand, but he already knew what he would find.
The door was closed. There was no one in the room. If they were there, he would have heard them by now. No one was capable of staying perfectly still for that long, not even El, although El sure had been trying to, of late.
But there had been someone. He knew it. He had heard them.
Are you sure? Really sure? Maybe it wasn't just your mind…oops, our mind…playing tricks on you?
"It better not be," he growled. Because if he could not trust his own senses anymore, what was he left with?
How about a seeing-eye dog?
"Shut up," he muttered.
He could fetch your Braille books!
"Shut up!" He stalked back to the bathroom. He laid the pistol on the counter beside the sink. "Shut up, or I'll do it."
The voice laughed. You wouldn't dare.
"Yeah?" He reached up and pulled off his sunglasses. "Last chance, fuckmook."
Go ahead. You always hurt the ones you…hate.
He turned on the tap, full blast. He stuck his hands under the water, cupping his palms. Water filled the bowl his hands made, ran over his fingers, and gurgled down the drain.
Before he could lose his courage, he raised his hands and threw the water in his face.
Washing every morning was quite a challenge now, he would have said, had anybody asked. He had to be very careful not to get water or soap or shaving cream or anything near the hollows where his eyes had been. He had learned very early on the price to be paid for being careless.
Water splashed over his cheeks, nose, chin, forehead. It ran greedily into his eyesockets, igniting a thousand fires in his head. The pain wrung a cry from him, and his knees buckled. He reached up and grabbed for the edge of the sink with both hands. He knelt on the cool tile for a long time, clinging to the sink, teeth gritted, water dripping off his face onto the floor.
But the voice in his head had gone silent.
After an endless time the pain receded. He reached out with his left hand and grabbed the towel hanging there. He gently patted his face dry, setting new fires as he did, then hung the towel up again. He staggered into the bedroom and fell across the bed.
The voice inside pouted, sullen and angry. But it remained silent.
"Got you, you fucker," Sands whispered, and fainted.
****
The next morning he had a dull headache, a reminder of the drastic measures he was sometimes forced to take in order to maintain his precarious hold on sanity. He shuffled into the kitchen, feeling almost hungover, and pissed as hell.
El was sitting at the table, drinking strong-smelling coffee. Sands walked past him without a word. He had nothing to say to El.
Yet.
He went to the utensil drawer beside the sink. He opened it and reached inside carefully; Chiclet knew to put things away in the right place, but El often forgot. Or so he claimed. Sands wasn't so sure of that. He thought El liked to mess with him sometimes, just to see what he would do. Nor was the autumn so far behind them, when El had deliberately misplaced things, just to piss him off and leave him groping for an object that was no longer there.
But today he found what he wanted easily. He removed it from the drawer, making no effort to hide what he was doing. He could hear the sounds of a coffee cup being set down, and he knew El was not paying him any attention right now.
He closed the utensil drawer – leaving drawers open where he could bang a hip or elbow into them was not allowed – and turned around.
El was sitting at the head of the table, with his back to Sands, a position he would never have allowed himself to be found in a year ago. This was good. It had been a while since El had felt the need to be on his guard around him, and that was even better. It meant today's lesson would be that much more effective.
Swiftly, silently, he swooped down on his prey. He seized a handful of El's hair and yanked the mariachi's head back. With his right hand, he held the butcher knife to El's throat.
He leaned in, so close he could have kissed El's ear, had he wanted. "What the fuck were you doing in my room last night?" he whispered.
El sat very still. Only his rapid breathing betrayed him. "What?"
Sands let the blade of the knife touch El's skin. "Don't make me repeat myself."
"I was not," El said.
"Really?" Sands said, his voice light. He pressed with the blade. From El's wince and indrawn breath, he knew he had just cut the mariachi.
"I didn't go in," El said hastily. "I just opened the door."
"You just opened the door. I see." He considered this. As soon as he had woken up this morning, he had realized that the answer to the mystery noises last night was staring him in the face. Or rather, sitting in his kitchen. "Why?"
El was breathing shallowly. It had been a long time – if ever – since El had been afraid of him, and Sands savored the sensation. It was nice to hold all the power again. "I heard something. I wanted to see if you were all right." The mariachi tried to shrug, as though this was nothing.
"You heard something," Sands said. He had found this act of repetition to be a very effective tool in interrogations. Repeat the victim's words back to them often enough, and they would get confused. They were more apt to slip up, and reveal something they hadn't intended. "So you got out of bed, walked down the hall, opened my door, and just stood there."
"Yes," El said, trying to sound casual. "You would have been pissed if you knew I was there."
"You heard a sound," Sands said, as though he was trying to solve a difficult puzzle by talking his way through it, "and you worried about me. Which, by the way, is very sweet of you. But instead of running down the hall and flinging my door open, in case I was being murdered or something, you crept down the hall and slowly opened the door so I would not hear it."
He pressed again with the knife. "What the fuck are you up to, El?"
El flinched. "Stop. You're hurting me."
"Good," Sands said, right into El's ear. "If you don't want to get hurt any more, you'll listen to me."
"I don't understand," El said, doing his best Little Lost Mariachi impression. "Why are you so angry?"
"You don't understand," Sands repeated flatly. Christ. He had thought El's intelligence had bottomed out, but here was evidence to the contrary.
He let go of El's hair. Quickly, before the mariachi could pull away, he put his arm over El's face, pressing El's head back against his stomach. His arm covered El's eyes. "Tell me," he said casually, twitching the knife, dancing the blade across El's throat, "what am I doing now?"
El did not move. Now he was barely breathing. "I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"No."
"Why not?"
El took a long time to answer, and when he did, he sounded defeated. "Because I can't see you."
"I could be doing anything, and you wouldn't know. I could be getting ready to stick this knife in you, and you wouldn't know it until it happened." He slid the knife across El's throat, furthering the shallow cut he had made.
El stiffened.
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Yes," El whispered.
"Now ask me again," Sands said, "why I'm so pissed off."
El held his breath for a long moment, then slumped. But only a little. With the knife to his throat, a little slump was all he could manage. "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry."
"I did not realize," El said.
"Of course you didn't," Sands said patiently. "That's because you are a fucking idiot."
El had no response to this.
"If you ever do anything like that again, I'm just going to shoot," he said. "No questions asked, no wondering what the hell is going on. Just shooting. Savvy?"
"Yes," El said.
"Good. Because I would hate to have to shoot you, El." He relaxed his hold on the knife a little. The lesson had been learned. It was time to put the weapons away and smile.
"I am sorry," El said again.
Sands shook his head. "Yes, I heard that part."
El continued as if he had not interrupted. "I am sorry for all the people who have hurt you. I am sorry that you feel you must hate me."
A jolt went through him. Damn, but El was good, coming up with zingers like that, reminding him that he had very few secrets left from the mariachi. He gave a snort, trying to sound scornful. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
But El's words had hit him. Hard. A succession of faces paraded past his mind's eye, all of them laughing, some of them having no faces at all because he had never seen them as they laughed at him. All of them had names, but some of them had names that he never allowed himself to think, because he could not bear to.
"Tell me I am wrong," El said.
"I thought I told you to quit with the psychologist bullshit," Sands snapped.
"Then I will tell you why you hate me," El said.
"Really?" For someone with a knife at his throat, El was feeling awfully brazen. Maybe he was going to have to teach the mariachi two lessons today.
"You hate me because you trust me, and you don't like that. You don't know how to handle trust."
"Oh for Christ's sake!" He was not going to stand here and listen to this anymore. He removed his arm from El's eyes and plunged the butcher knife into the tabletop, stabbing down it hard so the point stuck in the wood. He had an idea El's hand had been there only a few seconds before, but he didn't care. "I have had enough of this." He turned and began stalking away.
And El moved.
Fast.
Chair legs scraped, and clothing rustled. Wood and metal squealed as the knife was yanked free. Sands had barely begun to turn around when El grabbed him. He struggled, but El was fast and El was stronger, and before he knew it, he was bent facedown over the table, his left wrist twisted up behind him and the point of the butcher knife touching his cheek.
"You cut me," El said quietly.
"Fuck you," he snarled. He didn't know who he was more pissed with – El for getting the drop on him, or himself for allowing it to happen.
"I have played your games," El said, "but I am getting tired of them. Either you learn to trust me, or this ends. Today."
"What ends?" he scoffed. El's coffee had spilled when he had struck the table, and the smell was overpowering. "You think we have something here, El?"
The knife was removed from his cheek. He started to breathe a little easier, then tensed again as he felt the blade at his neck. "What are you doing?"
"Just trust me," El said.
The tip of the blade pushed his hair aside, exposing the back of his neck. El drew the knife across his skin, lightly, barely applying any pressure.
Sands remained very still. If he moved now, he would be cut, and he had no intention of letting that happen. El was trying to psych him out, but El didn't know who he was dealing with.
The blade trailed lower, over his shoulder, past his trapped hand and down his back. El traced gentle circles and other, more obscure patterns. The movements would start to come together, the arcane symbols almost becoming visible, then they would rise again, beyond his comprehension. The only sounds in the room were the soft rasp of the blade against his T-shirt, and his own, shallow breathing.
And was it possible, that this was arousing him?
Christ, it was.
His hips jerked, and the knife slipped. A thin line of fire scored across his upper back. Sands flinched. "Fuck!"
"That was your fault," El said reprovingly. "I told you to trust me."
The knife started moving again, trailing up his side. Sands tensed. He was not aroused any more.
Suddenly what had started out as a game was not funny. Not in the slightest. This was a contest of wills, and he was going to lose. He knew it.
He tried to free his wrist from El's firm grip. "Let me go."
El ignored him. Sands fought against a rising panic. Bad things happened when he was held down. Very bad things.
"Let go of me!" He gathered himself, knowing he would have only one chance at this. His left wrist was held too firmly, there was no going that direction. With all his strength he pushed himself to the right, rolling along the tabletop.
Into the knife. El yanked it away, but not quick enough. The cut this time went deep.
El let go of him. Sands staggered upright and whirled around, putting his back to the table. Blood ran down his right side where the knife had cut him. He drew his pistol and aimed at El, trying unsuccessfully to slow his racing heart.
"Are you going to shoot me?" El asked.
"I should," he gasped. The cut hurt, but worse was that sense of trapped panic. He had to relive that feeling in his nightmares all the time; it was not fair that he should be forced to feel it during the day. "Give me a reason not to."
"You need that cut bandaged," El said. "I will do it."
"Damn straight you will," he said, not liking the way his voice shook. "You did this to me, you fuck."
"I am sorry," El said, and he sounded sincerely contrite. "I only wanted--"
"For me to trust you, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. Guess what, El? I don't think it worked that time either." He fought the urge to reach up and press his hand to the cut. Not in front of El. In front of El he would be damned if he showed any pain. He had only a few shreds of dignity left. He meant to hold onto them as tightly as he could.
"Come on," El said. "Let's get you cleaned up."
For a moment Sands considered shooting him anyway, then he shrugged. He put the gun back in its holster. He would let El fix him up. He could always shoot the mariachi later.
That was another one of his rules. Take whatever you could from someone, and when they had nothing more of use to give, get rid of them.
It was a good rule to live by. So why then, he wondered as he followed El to the bathroom, was El still alive?
******