Title: Caramel and Mocha (2/?)
Author: Kerttu
Pairing: Sands/El
Rating: R to be on the safe side
Disclaimer: As if anyone could own these guys!
Summary: Post-movie; severe case of AU; dreams can come true
AN: Not beta'ed, so all mistakes thus are mine. Bows to Maureen for giving me images of El and Sands doing everything possible (and impossible- sidewise under the bed, come on!) to each other, and to Ebe who has asked and pleaded with and nagged at me to give Sands his gorgeous eyes back.
The red-black striped sports car became visible again behind the curve. It was coming closer.
El sighed; he had noticed the familiar vehicle when it was good two miles away from the town. He was sitting in the shadow of one of the roof towers; he loved it there, it was peaceful and sunny, and now it made it easy to track the car with his eyes.
It did not surprise him to see the Gringo stepping out of the vehicle - Sands was by far too curious for his own good - but El had hoped that the American would not know how to come here.
He had hoped although he knew better. Sands could get his information when he really wanted it.
He had also hoped that even though the Gringo would know where to come he would not do that.
Apparently his hopes were crushed once again.
El's fingers ghosted over the strings but the sound was too soft to be heard. He kept watching the newest guest of their village. He had saved Sands, it had seemed a logical choice at the time but now the man obviously wanted some answers – the damned curiosity again - and El was not sure he had any.
Sands was talking and gesturing with one of the younger guitar makers, but it seemed that he had no luck. Recalling how the same situation had resolved itself the last time anyone came asking for the famous El Mariachi and got a negative answer, El took the sharp-shooter pistol Lorenzo had given him, and aimed it on Sands, balancing it on his crooked elbow. He could see through the scope that the American looked much better (considering the last time El had seen him, when Sands was stoned and shivering) but still too thin. He seemed unhappy of not receiving the information he wished for but he was not pulling a gun either.
Nevertheless, El tracked Sands, keeping a clear aim on him until the American had stepped into the only legal local establishment that offered rooms for rent.
It seemed that El had now plans for the evening.
Sands knew his prayer to meet El had been answered when he finished his second drink and got up from the table and the world around him began to turn dark. His consciousness gave a big and long fight kicking and screaming but whatever had rigged the game against him this time worked fast. All he heard was the sound of Mariachi chains and then nothing.
He came to in his own room, on his bed, unarmed and saw El sitting on his bed, aiming a big gun at him.
"You were looking for me."
"There are no other tourist attractions here, is there?" he slurred and slowly dragged himself into sitting position. The room made some masterful acrobatics.
El, who, thank God, stayed in focus, smirked and put the gun away. "You could say that."
"Vow, a joke from you! Did you buy a sense of humour along with that new fancy phallic symbol? And how are you living off my money?"
"Your money?" El's brows knitted exactly like Sands had seen in his imagination and he hated himself of being distracted so easily. "You promised us payment, Sands."
"Aah, but promises are not my strongest points." He flashed a quick smile and hoped that the drugged state did not mellow it sharpness.
"You mean - keeping them."
El's voice dropped, indicating danger, and Sands wanted to knee the man to his balls because, well, Pavlov was still in work here. He became aware that El had even found the tiny double-shooter he had stashed in his trousers. The thought of El removing THAT gun did nothing to abate his arousal. No siree. It was more like adding a barrel of gasoline into the bonfire. His breath hitched but his answer was still arrogant: "That too."
"I cannot understand why I bothered to kill all those people to save you." El had stood up and walked to the other end of the room. And, yes, his pants did jingle the way Sands recalled from his wet drug dreams. Or would it be a drug wet dreams?
"Glad you brought it up. Why did you?" He looked up in a way he hoped was indicating innocent curiosity. He could see that El was far from believing it.
"You could not defend yourself. Even a… bastard like you should have that option."
"Fair enough." Sands flopped back down and sprawled on the bed. The room stopped spinning. "I suppose I should thank you." His hand brushed the pillow and he knew he had hidden a gun under it. He could only hope – and wasn't he doing that a lot lately – that El had not found it already.
"Leaving me and this town alone is enough." El had turned and watched him.
"And let's not forget the money." Sands slid towards the headboard, as if to right himself on the bed and his hand slipped under the pillow.
Nothing.
"I would not be so careless with my guns."
Sands twisted, looking at El.
Who was holding his pistol and the damn Mexican was actually smiling.
"So you caught me." Sands sat up and spread his hands with a wide gesture. "Now what, when I am on your mercy, drugged and vulnerable?"
"I think the only time I have seen you drugged AND vulnerable was a week ago, when they carried you out from the cantina, unconscious, and I had to hot wire your car to follow you." El walked to the window on the farthest wall and put the American's gun on its windowsill. Sands noticed that all his other firepower was also laid out there. The Mariachi had been thorough indeed.
"How did you know it was my car?"
"I have eyes and…" El noticed from the corner of his eye how Sands compulsively swallowed when the man thought he could not see. "…some sources of my own."
"Hmm. Where did they take me?"
"Barillo's doctor had a practice not far from Vaca Volante. It was not hard to get in, they did not expect anyone to come after you." El leaned against the wall and looked at Sands. Now, when he was looking for it, he noticed that the Gringo was nervous. He hid it well but he was nervous.
"Was there a woman with them?" Sands faced him again. They did not trust each other. Just as well, at least it was plain to see for them both. 'And am I glad that I still can…'
"Yes."
"Did you… kill her?" Sands could not believe that someone else had done that. He remembered what he had dreamed of it. In a vivid Dolby Surround.
It had been SO PAINFULLY real.
In a matter of fact, EVERYTHING had been so real…
The drill and the dripping blood and the blind shoot-out and the restraints and El in the car and El in his bed and…
Was this even reality? How could he tell the difference? Did he even have to?
"Yes, I killed her. She shot at me first, though."
Sands snorted, jerked back into the present time: "She would, Ajedrez was like that."
That made El scrutinise him for a moment. "You knew her."
"Oh I did, in many ways and positions, and then again, I did not know her at all." Bitterness was plain to hear and El could not stop asking: "What did she do?"
"She was the one who… handed me over."
"She betrayed you."
"Oh, she was loyal" Sands spat it out with venom to spare. "To her family. She was the kingpin's daughter."
"Barillo's?"
"Yeah."
"That explains why she shot at me when I-"
"- stormed the good doctor's stronghold, sure." Sands sighed and gulped – he was nauseous.
Again. 'At least I am not in a car right now… But that was a dream, right?'
Drinking and drugs and especially thinking about the horrendous might-have-beens did not mix well it seemed.
"I knew her, too."
El's comment shocked a question out of him: "How?"
"She drove me back to the city when I escaped from the Barillo estate."
"It does not make any fucking sense, and no jokes about me being drugged since you were behind that one!" Sands pointed a finger at El. "… but how did you end up in-"
"You really cannot find much trustworthy help, can you?" El almost smiled before adding: "Cucuy."
"That whoring son of a bitch! I knew it! Damn!" Sands shrugged.
Not a wise move.
He was not a little nauseous anymore; it was more likely a tropical storm churning in his stomach. And who knew what they had mixed with his tequila this time? Especially for Gringos who come asking for El Mariachis shortly after the now already very dead Boogeyman had killed a man here…
Eye drops and a dash of methanol, perhaps?
'I could end up blind still…'
He managed to stand up but now the room was doing a roller-coaster impression, and the bloody thing was gaining momentum.
"Are you alright?" Ahaa, and the infamous concern of El made its appearance.
"Peachy." Sands forced to himself to take unsteady steps towards the bathroom door. Even that thing was flicking in and out of focus. So if he does not make it to the bathroom, what then? A major case of humiliation, that's what.
He made it to the bathroom and as a good boy threw up into the toilet but after that he could not get up anymore. And that WAS humiliating.
He did not recall how he got out of the bathroom and onto the bed but there he was and for some odd reason El sat again by his side and waited. Sans visible guns but he knew better than to assume that El had none on his person. Though it did intrigue him where had the Mexican hidden the big piece he had been showing off before.
Sands turned his head and something damp fell off his forehead.
And, lo and behold, the Mexican legend had even put a cold cloth on his forehead. How disgustingly cute.
'I was a… enfermero' Sands' false but realistic memory whispered to him with the caramel covered whip-leather voice. Voice made for sinning in the dark places.
The real El (Sands really-really hoped – AGAIN that little nasty verb – that this reality was the real one) felt his gaze and turned slightly: "How many Pedro's drinks did you drink?"
Sands shrugged and flinched. Now his extremely heavy head began hurting. "Go and fucking ask him. But I congratulate you for successful spiking."
"You are lucky to have been on your own legs at all. He knows his business very well." El picked the damp cloth up and began folding it.
"And what is that, exactly? Cleaning out innocent tourists who bring in money?"
"You, agent Sands," and Sands could hear both the amusement and the judgement in El's words although The's face was hidden behind his hair. "are no innocent, no tourist and you came here to clean out our money, am I right?"
Since El WAS right and Sands would have never admitted that, he was silent.
El, turned, smirked but did not poke. Instead he placed the cloth on the nightstand and asked: "Tell me, Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, why did you really want to see me?"
"You went through my things, didn't you?" Sands felt somehow violated. He had not thought that this pistolero would stoop so low. But El, who had turned his back again, HAD almost strip-searched him to get that particular pistol... One does pick up tricks of trade on their way.
El gave a small nod. "I did. You would have done the same."
"No."
"No?" A small surprised word from El and his voice again sent something inside of Sands flip-flopping. Not in the nauseous kind of way at all and oh, how he despised El for it.
"No." His little word was as venomous as the following. "I would have poisoned you, gone through your things while you would have been thrashing with pain and if you had been lucky I would have shot you."
"Are you trying to make me angry?" The look El cast over his shoulder could have almost been described as flirty.
"Am I succeeding?"
"No." El turned more, chiming, and faced him thoroughly. "My turn to be… Padre."
"Confide in you?" Sands slurred and grinned like a mad man. "Why should I?"
"You came here looking for me."
"Well, perhaps I wanted to see that you have once again entombed yourself into this little town." Sands sat up, ignored the roar of blood in his ears. "Which you have." He smiled sweetly at El, pushed his legs over the edge of the bed and got up. "I am leaving now."
"I do not think so."
El had not moved but he could feel the Mexican's gaze on his back.
"Are you going to stop me?"
"No, but you cannot walk or drive like this."
"Stoned up to gills? I have and I will." Sands stumbled (the Earth really WAS round) to the chair he had put his duffel bag on. He reached to take it and then abruptly the floor was getting closer. He braced himself against the fall but only barely. A pain blossomed on his shoulder and he heard a moan. 'My own pretty voice … my, oh, my.'
"I told you." El's hands steadied and lifted him and he fought them but the man was unmovable. "Stop it. You have to sleep the drug off."
"I will… not… "
"Look, Sands." El was sitting beside him on the floor, their thighs were touching, warm and secure, and the only thing keeping Sands even a little upright was El's arm behind his back. Take that away and he would fall back like a puppet without strings. 'And I thought I was a marvellous puppeteer…'
"You came here for a reason." El shifted and was now crouching. The spur on his boot scratched the floor when he turned. "I want to know what it is. I am almost sure I am going to be sorry later but I need to know."
"Fuck… you." Even that did not sound right.
El only sighed, and hauled him up. The world tilted again, the floor followed and then somebody flipped the light switch.
There was soft dirt under his bare back and El was doing something absolutely incredible to his groin only with one finger. "God!!"
"Much better." El was smiling, Sands heard it, and, although the Agent knew the smugness of the Mexican's tone should annoy him, he was physically not able to.
El overwhelmed him.
He could only feel the man, his touch, and right at this moment being blind was not an issue. Sands just gripped El tighter and tighter and wrapped himself around him like a noose when the climax tore itself free.
"So was this the reason you wanted to have flowerbeds? To have sex amidst pots of plants and dirt?" El held him and did not mind one bit that they were literally soiled all over.
"Well, I do love the smell of flowers as well, but mainly…" The American allowed his hands wonder in a lazy caress over El's chest and stomach.
"So you could grope a good feel while I am bent over?"
"Yeah." Sands reached up and kissed him. He had never missed any of his kisses. Not while angry and demanding satisfaction or while almost asleep.
A split-second of bliss when the somewhat coarse lips of El were dancing with his and then a gasp of pain against his mouth and a gunfire and when did he draw his own gun and emptied the clip… and then silence with his own harsh breathing puncturing it like a needle through a skin.
No other sound.
No other.
He dropped onto his knees. El's body was there, lying amidst the planting soil and the broken pieces of pots and it was still…
"El?"
He touched the chest and his fingers came off slick, slippery and now he smelled blood. He groped for the pulse, desperate, fear clawing at his throat, making his own breath catch, stop.
Nothing.
"No! Damn, no! El! Fuck!! No, you moron, you cannot-" Eyes that weren't there cried. Sobs he had not known having broke away and hunched him over. "Fucking no!!"
"Sands!"
He gasped awake and failed around in the darkness. A hand closed around his wrist, strong and serene.
Two sets of breathing.
Two.
Thank God…
"El?"
"Yes. You were dreaming." The voice of caramel and calm.
"One motherfucking nightmare." He realised he was shaking.
"Try to sleep. It's late." The hand wanted to withdraw but Sands clung to it. He could not stop his reaction. El sighed. "Lie down and go to sleep." There was a shuffle and single jingle of the pants' chains and The's fingers moved but didn't leave. And sleep came at once, curling around Sands like he had curled around the lifeline of El's touch.