Turning Point

Disclaimer: El and Sands are the property of Troublemaker Studios' resident genius, Robert Rodriguez.

Rating: R for violence and swearing. Please note that this is not a nice chapter. El is not a nice man.

Summary: As he sinks further and further into darkness, El Mariachi makes a desperate attempt to resist what is happening to him.

Author's Note: This chapter makes a quick reference to one of the deleted scenes on the DVD. It also contains a scene with some very dark moments. Please be warned. I have mixed feelings for El in this chapter. On the one hand I hate him. But I also feel very very sorry for him.

Also, a note on updating. I have been building a house, and after a year of struggles, it is finally completed. I will be moving in this weekend. Hooray! Anyway, this means things are going to be very chaotic and busy for me over the next couple weeks. I will do my best to continue to update this story in a timely manner, but there may be a few times when several days passes between new chapters. Please bear with me, and I'll try to get back on a regular updating schedule as soon as I can. Thanks, everyone.

Lastly, thanks and hugs to Melody my beta reader and dear friend. I love you, girl.

****

El wasted no time putting his plan into motion.

They stopped in the first decent-sized town they came to, and got a hotel room. He locked the door, stuck a chair under the knob for good measure, and set his guitar case down beside the bed. Deliberately ignoring his sulky companion, El stretched out fully clothed on top of the bedspread and fell asleep.

When he woke it was almost eight o'clock. Sands was sitting on the windowsill, smoking.

El went to his guitar case and opened it. He strapped his wrist holsters on, slid their accompanying guns into his sleeves, put his jacket back on, and announced that he was going to the bar down the street.

Sands said he would go too. El told him to stay in the room. Sands hopped down from the windowsill and said he was coming. So El walked over and laid him out with one solid punch.

From on the floor, Sands glared up at him. Fucker, he said.

It's too soon, El said. We just got here. I'll go down into the bar, and spread the word that the blind gunfighter is in town. Tomorrow morning you can go into the city center and let everyone see you buying ammunition at one of the gun shops. The news will get out that you're here, and soon new men will arrive in town. Cartel men.

Sands stood up and said that was fine, but if you ever hit me again, you're going to get a bullet between the eyes.

El smiled, knowing Sands would hear the smile in his voice. I don't think so, he said, and walked out.

****

It was a good plan. It worked beautifully. Within three days cartel came sniffing, like dogs drawn to the scent of a bitch in heat. Sands arranged to be "caught" behind the bar, and a short but vicious gunfight ensued. The members of the cartel were killed. Sands walked away unharmed, and El stood in the shadows and watched it all.

The plan worked in the next town, too. And in the one that came after that. And in the one that came after that.

To Sands' dismay, El made it clear right from the start that he controlled everything. He dropped information and made sure it found its way to the right ears. He arranged the time and location of the gunfights. He did not do any of the actual killing, but there was no need. Sands was more than capable of handling himself. In his hands the guns took on lives of their own. They truly became his eyes then, and it was a rare occasion when he needed more than two bullets to kill a man.

The men who came to investigate the legend of the blind gunfighter were not always cartel, of course. Some were bounty hunters eager for the reward the cartels offered. Some were braggarts looking to add to their reputation. Others were just plain curious. Sands killed them all, although he took no pleasure in it. Killing was just another chore for him, just another way of passing the time.

El was not pleased, either. He felt none of the vicious satisfaction he had felt when he had killed Barillo. In fact, he drifted through the days and mostly he just felt nothing at all. The only times he came remotely to life were when he was baiting Sands, and making the other man angry.

Sands hated him with a single-minded passion that El would have found frightening at any other time. Yet he knew what he could get away with. He didn't fight back, he didn't shout and get angry, and he didn't threaten. No matter what El did to him, he just smiled, a chilling smile that spoke of deep patience and a long memory. Sands was not going to forget what El was doing to him. And he was not going to forgive.

El knew it was a sign of how far he had fallen when the only joy he got out of life anymore came from tormenting a blind man. But he didn't care. At night he lay awake for hours on end, thoughts of bitter self-hatred chasing themselves through his brain. He was actually glad Carolina was dead then. He would not have wanted her to see him like this.

Over and over he asked himself what the hell he was doing. He had thought he could find himself again by associating with the only person who could make him feel anything, but in actual fact he seemed to be losing himself. He didn't know who he was anymore. When he looked into the mirror, a stranger stared back. His thoughts were alien now, and music was a foreign language. He had not played his guitar in months.

He became desperate to feel. Something. Anything. One day he forced Sands to ride in the trunk of the car, using the excuse that it was not a good idea for people to see him driving into town with a passenger. It was better for the blind gunfighter to just show up unannounced. That time Sands did fight him, until El shoved his gun under Sands' jaw and told him to decide, get in or stay out, live or die, but make it quick, and Sands gave him a glare of blackest hatred, but he got in the trunk, and so El had no choice but to get back behind the wheel and drive on. And still he felt nothing.

Another time he staged a confrontation in a whorehouse. He and Sands crashed into a room where four cartel men were being serviced by several hookers. Sands killed everyone in the room, so the floor ran red with blood. El waited until they were clear of the building before lying, and saying the women had not been involved. He knew this was not true because one of them had been his contact, but Sands did not know that. He wanted to see what Sands would do if he thought he had killed innocent women.

What happened was Sands well and truly lost his temper for the first time since agreeing to this crazy deal. But when Sands got angry, he became even more calm and deadly than he usually was. He quite casually pulled his gun, and in a split-second it was aimed at El's head. So El grabbed the gun from him. A short but violent fistfight broke out, the first time they had come to blows in weeks. It ended with El bleeding on the ground and Sands unconscious. El stood up and mopped blood out of his eye, but still he felt nothing.

He went into a church one day, a small village church where the priest was saying Mass for five souls. He knelt at a pew in the back and bowed his head, but the words of prayer would not come. There was no comfort to be found in religion anymore, and the coolness of the church felt only clammy and cloying. He left before the communion service and hurried outside, where he stood in the dust and sun, dragging in great gulps of heated air.

Nothing worked. Nothing he tried made him feel alive anymore. He had made a mistake – quite possibly the last mistake he would ever make -- by choosing to partner with Sands. While he watched, Sands was methodically eliminating the Mexican cartels, but all El Mariachi felt was empty inside.

****

The long hours they spent together on the road were silent and boring. He did not like listening to the radio anymore; music had lost its charm for him. And they never talked. Sands seemed determined to ignore him as much as was humanly possible, and El had never been big on talk anyway. He had no problem with the silences.

Still, he was not yet willing to give in completely to the numbness eating him up from within. Anything was worth a shot. So he said, "Tell me about the coup. Tell me what happened on the Day of the Dead."

Sands said nothing. El scowled. He was not fooled by that passivity; he knew Sands was merely biding his time and waiting for the right moment to take his revenge. Every night when he went to bed, he wondered if he would wake up in the morning, or if Sands would slit his throat instead. It was a minor miracle that he had been so close to the man for three months now, and was still alive to tell it.

"I want to know what happened," El said. "Tell me now." In the beginning he had had to remind Sands of their deal quite often, using the man's desire to live against him. It had been a while since he had resorted to such tactics, though. Sands hated it, but he knew he had to do what El said. The survival instinct was strong in him, stronger even than his hatred of El Mariachi. So he obeyed. He cursed and snarled, but in the end, he obeyed.

Right now Sands let out a long, slow breath from between clenched teeth. "All right, fine," he said brightly. "Once upon a time there was a little mariachi who liked to keep guns in his guitar case..."

He told the whole story, all of it in the light drawl that meant he was but a heartbeat away from killing someone. El listened to it in stolid silence. He had guessed some of it, but most of the tale was brand-new to him. He had not known how Ramirez had become involved, or of Cucuy's betrayal, or that the woman who had saved him from the desert had actually been Barillo's daughter. He had not known about the kid on the bike, and how he had saved Sands' life. And he had not known about the gunfight in the plaza, where Sands had been shot twice, and where Ajedrez had died at the hands of her former lover.

"Did you scream," he asked, "when the doctor took your eyes?"

A quiver ran through Sands, and El knew he was holding onto his self-control by the slimmest of threads. "Yes," he said tersely.

El only nodded. He had hoped he would feel some of that twisted pity again, the way he had felt when he had first seen the dark hollows in Sands' face. But there was nothing. No pity, no anger, no sense of justice having been served. No nothing.

Listening to Sands talk, it seemed, was not the answer. Talk was not going to help him. He remembered the morning they had robbed the pharmacy, and still later, when they had stood in the living room of Lorenzo's house, holding guns on each other. Maybe that was what he needed. For too long he had only stood back and watched while Sands did the fighting and the killing. But maybe he needed those things. Action. Tension. Death.

He thought back to Sands' story and made a swift decision. There was one thing left for him to try. He would be taking a terrible risk, but then, if something was not worth taking a risk over, it was not worth having.

Nonetheless, he did feel a slight pang of trepidation. If this did not work, nothing would. If this did not work, he would never feel anything ever again.

And if it turned out that such a fate came to pass, he would not accept it. He would ask Sands to shoot him first. He thought wryly that it would probably be the first – and last – command he would give Sands that Sands would have no trouble obeying.

****

Some parts of Culiacan were green and pretty, but this was not one of them. These streets were gold with sunshine and dust, and black with shadows and old blood. El stood near the mouth of an alley leading between two ancient buildings, his arms crossed. He was waiting.

Sands leaned indolently against the wall to El's left. He was smoking. He looked very bored, but El knew that was a lie. He too was waiting. He knew why they were standing here. Someone was coming. Someone he was meant to kill. And he was ready. They had been in this place for three days, and this was the first time El had let him leave the hotel. He didn't even know where they were, although that was because he hadn't asked. He had learned early on not to ask questions.

The morning ticked by. El waited. For two days he had scouted this territory, learning the routine of his prey. He knew it was only a matter of time.

And then there he was, turning into the alley, right on schedule, the person El had driven all this way to see. The one person who stood between El and total darkness. Because if this desperate plan did not work, then there would be no hope for him at all.

El unfolded his arms and stepped forward, so his prey could see him.

The kid recognized him, and he smiled. "Quieres mas Chicle?"

Against the wall, Sands started in surprise. At the sound of the bike, he had dropped the cigarette and gone for his guns, but now he stood very still, unsure of what was happening. Very little surprised him anymore – or maybe he was just that good at controlling his reactions – and it was strange to see him appear so uncertain.

"Here he is," El said. He meant to say more, but that was when the boy looked past him and saw Sands.

"Señor!" The boy's face broke into a sunny grin. He dinged the bell on the handlebars of his bicycle. "You came back!" he cried in excited Spanish. He coasted to a stop, one foot on the pedals, the other on the ground.

Sands flinched. He took a step backward, so his shoulders touched the warm adobe behind him.

El took a deep breath and set his plan in motion. Please, please... "Kill him," he said.

The boy's smile froze. He turned to look at El through very wide dark eyes.

Sands was slow to react, as though he was having trouble convincing himself that he had heard right. "What? Shoot the kid? You're out of your fucking mind."

"Shoot him," El said again. He had no intention of letting the child die, but he meant to push Sands as hard as he could. He meant to push and not let up. He meant to push until Sands snapped, and then he would revel in whatever came next. Because surely then something would happen to make him feel. Something that would remind him why he was still alive.

"You told me we were here to meet someone who threatened my legend," Sands said. He pushed himself off the wall. Every muscle in his body was taut with tension. "You were talking about a kid? That's all kinds of fucked up, El."

The boy gave a small hop on one foot, perhaps trying to estimate how much time it would take for him to set the bicycle in motion and make his escape. "Don't move," El said coldly, and the boy went still.

"He knew you before the legend," he said. It was complete and utter bullshit, and they both knew it. But he stuck to the script, speaking his lines calmly. "He could destroy everything you have worked so hard to create. Are you going to let him do that?"

"He's just a kid!" Sands snapped.

And to El's everlasting joy, something finally stirred in his chest. He could not name the emotion, but just the fact that it was there at all made him want to weep with tired relief. Or it would have, if he had been capable of weeping.

Thank you, he breathed, not even sure who he was speaking to. God, maybe. Or Carolina. If she was still watching him from above. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

"Are you saying you won't do it?" he asked. Say no, please say no. Give me a reason!

The boy was in tears now. He stared at Sands with those big eyes. "Señor?"

"We made a deal," El said. He kept his eyes on Sands, not looking at the boy any more. He could not stand to see those tears, knowing he was the cause of them. Whatever else happened on this day, he would forever have to live with the knowledge that he had horribly scarred a child.

On either side of the alley, cars and trucks drove past. The occasional pedestrian passed by. Life was going on out there, but here in the alley, time had come to a standstill. El stood there and watched and that nameless feeling in his chest grew stronger and stronger.

For a long while Sands did nothing. He just stood there, a killer dressed all in black. He was standing in shadow, except for where a single diagonal of light crossed the top of his face. The sunlight played in his hair and reflected off one lens of his sunglasses.

At last a tremor ran through Sands. He lifted his chin. "No way," he said. "Deal's off."

That nameless feeling in his chest surged higher. Almost trembling himself, El drew his gun. "Then you leave me no choice," he said. Do it, do it please, do it!

Sands did not even flinch. He turned his head, as though to look the boy in the eye. "Go on home," he said. Still facing the boy, he pulled one of his guns and aimed it at El's head. "You shouldn't have to see this."

The boy started to stand on the pedals, then he froze. He looked fearfully back at El.

El gave him a sharp glower. "Stay right where you are," he said. The boy had done his part, but El could not let him go just yet. If the boy ran, he would shout and raise the alarm. Within minutes the alley would be swarming with the curious, the do-gooders, and the police. And that was not allowed. Not now, when he was so close to having all his answers.

Sands' mouth tightened. He turned to face El again. "Scarring the kid for life. That's nice, El. I bet you were a great father. Good thing your daughter died."

The boy gasped.

That nameless emotion in El's chest was suddenly joined by another one. And this one he knew the name of. It was rage. It drove out that other emotion, so that his entire being was overwhelmed by that red fury.

He feinted to the right, and Sands fired. The bullet spanged off the wall behind him. The boy cried out in terror and threw himself off the bicycle and to the ground.

El came in from the left. His fists flew. He used the gun. He was aware that he was not in control of himself, but he could not seem to stop.

The sound of the gunshot jerked him back to reality. His head snapped around, and he looked over his shoulder. The boy was holding the gun with both hands. It was Sands' gun. El had grabbed it and thrown it behind him, and in his rage he had never thought the boy would pick it up and use it.

The boy had only shot the wall, though. Maybe he couldn't bring himself to kill anyone. Or maybe he had aimed at El's head and missed.

Sands began to laugh. "Killed by a little kid. What a way to go, hey El?"

El looked back at him. Sands was slumped against the wall. His sunglasses had been knocked off, and his nose was bleeding. One arm was wrapped about his body as if he was in pain. But he was smiling. "Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?"

"I am not dead," El said. He turned around, and the boy backpedaled in fright. The gun trembled in his hands.

"No one is going to die," he said. "Not here." He held out his hand. He had no desire to hurt the boy any more than he already had. He was not angry anymore. He was empty again. "Give me the gun."

The boy's gaze jumped past him, to Sands. El glanced behind him and saw Sands shake his head.

"No more guns," El said. He tossed his weapon to the dirt. "You see?" He looked to either side, wondering why no one had come running into the alley at the sound of the shot. Then he remembered that these people lived under the shadow of the cartel. Barillo was dead, but someone new had taken his place. No one would want to investigate strange gunshots in the middle of the day. Not if they valued their lives.

"Don't you hurt him!" the boy cried. His voice shook as badly as his hands did. "I'll send you straight to fucking Broadway!"

Still slumped against the wall, Sands made a sound El could not identify. "Oh my God."

"No more," El said. He held up his hands. He judged the boy to be thirteen years old, at that awkward stage of childhood when the adult world was just beginning to open its doors. Surrounded as he was by drugs and poverty, in all actuality the boy had probably not been a child for many long years, but it was obvious that he had tried harder than most to retain his innocence. Today, though, the last of that innocence had deserted him. And there was nobody to blame but the great El Mariachi.

The thought made him sick, and that was another feeling he had not known in far too long, but this one was very unwelcome.

"Señor?" the boy called.

"Sí, sí," Sands sighed. He retrieved his sunglasses then stood up straight with a wince. "I'm coming." He walked toward the boy, giving El a wide berth. He took the gun from the boy and said, "I believe I had two of these."

The boy trotted over to the wall and retrieved Sands' other gun. El could not remember taking that one either, but he supposed he must have.

"Well," Sands said. He ran his sleeve across his face, wiping away the blood from his nose. "Looks like you're on your own again, El."

"No," El said. "You will not be getting away."

"Oh, but I think I will," Sands said. He placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. The boy began to back away, toward the mouth of the alley. He glanced once at his bicycle, and a brief spasm of mourning crossed his face. Then it was gone, and he had eyes only for El.

I wasn't going to let you kill him, El wanted to say. I just needed to feel something again. But he didn't seem able to speak the words. They stuck in his throat, choking him.

Sands and the boy reached the end of the alley. Sands put his gun away, so he could walk the busy streets of the town without drawing too much attention to himself. "See you around, fucker."

The man and boy disappeared.

*****