Chapter 2
El woke up – it was two o'clock in the morning. He wasn't sure of what, but he was afraid. He hated that feeling. El was in Sands' home. It was a strange place, probably only temporary. All the walls were bare, but his beds, and seats, and everything else were so extravagant. There was nothing in the kitchen, or at least the room which should have been the kitchen. There was no television. Only one stereo… but the music El could hear right now was not coming from the radio.
What he was listening to was a lone guitar, and the music was coming from the balcony. It was Sands. He was playing with a delicacy that he'd never shown before.
"Who's there?" he asked, placing the guitar against the stone wall.
"El" The mariachi responded.
"Oh…" answered Sands, "Are you naked?"
"No!" He was a little bit shocked at the question, "Why do you ask that?"
"I couldn't here your chains moving."
"Fine, I'm naked." He slept in the nude, but he was surprised that Sands caught that.
"You always seemed the type." The ex-Agent added.
"What type?"
"The type of fuck-mook to sneak up on a blind man with no clothes on." Sands laughed.
El wondered what 'fuck-mook' meant, but then he remembered why he'd wandered over here, "Since when do you play?" he asked.
"Since there's nothing else to do in this shit-hole."
There came the silence again. El looked Sands over; he was shirtless and wearing the same black pants he'd worn all day.
"Have you been up all night?" the American asked.
"No, only a few minutes." He answered.
"Did I wake you?"
"No." Yet another surprise, "Since when are you so considerate?"
"Since the nurses at the hospital wouldn't do jack-shit unless I said 'please'. They got all offended when I told them to fuck off."
That was when El noticed Sands' sunglasses. Did he ever take them off?
"You still there?" asked Sands, and even though he was standing four feet away El didn't answer.
He wasn't sure if Sands knew that he was still there but he picked up his guitar and began to play again. After a minute or two he actually began to sing. In Spanish. This was the strangest thing yet, Sands' accent was almost flawless.
"Que bienes a buscar?
No quiero ablar con tigo.
Porque no te vas?
Porque no te vas, por el mismo camino?..."
He trailed off and stopped playing.
"You're still there, aren't you, El?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I wanted to hear you play and I knew you would not if you thought I was still here."
"If it weren't for you I wouldn't be sitting here, even able to play at all. I feel like I get shot at, at least, 3 times a day. I would've if you had asked.
"No, you wouldn't have."
"I know." He laughed again and just played.
A/N: R&R!