Title: Caramel and Mocha (3/?)

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 ideas of smut (I hope 'under the kitchen table' satisfies your taste), and to Ebe who has asked and pleaded with and nagged at me to give Sands his gorgeous eyes back.

The next morning was the coldest Sands had ever experienced in Mexico.

Perhaps the reason for that were the altitude and a half-opened window that allowed the light stream in. If he recalled correctly that had been closed last night.

Perhaps it was so freezing because he was alone in his room, only a note on the windowsill under his gun. His normal side-arm, not the others. Apparently El had put other things back to his bag.

Although a blanket had been pulled over him, he was still shivering when he got out of the bed and went to retrieve the piece of paper.

All it said was: "I have my answer."

Sands wrinkled the note and growled, looking out at the small plaza and the big building across it. "Well, you Mexi-cunt, I haven't."

"So what did you learn yesterday?"

El turned and looked at Sands who was standing at the roof behind him. The put the guitar gently down and leaned his back against the stone railing.

"You have grown a heart."

Sands snorted: "Fuck you."

"And there is that, yes." El fixed his eyes on the horizon behind Sands' back. "That is most likely your other wish." The strong icy wind was whipping his unbound hair this way and that and El shrugged to get it out of his face.

Sands could not stop staring at El although the cold cut also through the jacket he had thrown on. He could not believe what he was hearing. But well, two could definitely play – and rig - THIS game. "It is too bloody freezing to do it here. Balls would fall off."

"True." El picked up his guitar and Sands made a silent promise that if the man began to pluck it he would be dead in two seconds flat.

But El did not.

He walked up to the American, still holding the guitar, looked at him, smiled with a tiny curl of his mouth and said: "Let's talk."

"You live in here?"

"Yes."

The mansion was huge and although in most part it was neglected and quite run-down, the four rooms El used were in pretty good order.

The Mexican led him through a corridor into a kitchen. It was much warmer here.

"Coffee?"

Sands stopped scrutinising the room and turned. El was holding up a pot.

"You made coffee?"

"I suspected that you would not take my advice and leave." El put the pot on the stove. He was handling the thing with care, so it had to be scalding.

"And you made coffee?" Somehow the concept of El measuring the right amount of coffee and hot water to make the every American's favourite morning addiction boggled Sands' mind. El just was not a domestic type, for one. Shooting bars apart and blowing up cars he could imagine with no difficulty at all but boiling – and literally boiling as there was no coffee-machine of any sort in sight – coffee for a person who by all means should be regarded as an enemy... It just did not compute.

"I think you need one after Pedro's specials. You managed to down two." El smiled at him over his shoulder. "Of course I asked him in the morning. And-" he turned and took two mugs off the shelf and put them on the handy counter by the stove. "I must say I am impressed. Many much bigger men have only drank half of one and fallen over."

Sands sat down by the table

"Well, I am special." He could do smug even while wondering whether he still was sleeping and if yes, then where and in what conditions.

"You certainly are." El put a mug in front of him. "It's very strong."

Sands nodded but waited until El had taken his own first sip. Little caution was never harmful. The man was right though, the coffee was extremely strong and bitter. "Do you have anything to-"

"Over there."

Adding sugar and cream (real cane sugar and real, thick cream) to his coffee, Sands felt surreal. Him, having coffee with El whom he had enlisted for assassinating a president. Him, being the one not asking questions. Him, still not sure whose dream this was.

"Why do you need me?"

He almost choked on his coffee. El was unpredictable, indeed.

"What are-"

"Let me tell you what I saw yesterday night."

"Oh, your big answer." Sands took another sip and decided that El did know how to make a good cup.

"I saw a man who came here searching for something or someone. He was very nervous when he found the answer to his puzzle." El's tone was quiet and the words were short but they built a cage. "And he cried in his sleep over him and needed his touch to fall asleep again, too scared even to open his eyes." There was a short silence and Sands felt like even the time slowed down. The act of sharing a cup coffee with El was suddenly as dangerous as being shot with a nuke. And El was continuing: "Why do you need me? What happened to you while you slept?"

"Wouldn't you just want to know." A sneer he could always do. Even then when his innards were filled with feelings that were as alien there as stones and shards of glass. And exactly as disastrous.

"I would." El stood and although he simply walked slowly towards him, Sands sensed the stalking predator in him. And he was the rabbit before a python. Mesmerised and helpless and absolutely sure he was going to be eaten. El stopped directly in front of him, pinning him with a look: "Tell me."

"No."

"Pity. Then all I can ever give you is this."

The kiss was so quick – not a snake, but a scorpion - that Sands was not sure he felt it at all. But he reacted and hit the man who had pierced his protective shields.

He used the mug, hot coffee splashing everywhere.

And then they were fighting, struggling, trying to get the upper hand and this was true and familiar violence, Sands could live with that and then-

He was crushed against the wall, chest-to-chest, hands held in an efficient although awkward grip.

"You did not draw your gun." A strong thigh pressed between his legs, nudged. "Any of them. Why?" El was close enough to be head-butted but then he would be dazed, too.

"I do not need a gun to kill you!" He pulled at his hands but El held firm.

"You do not need a gun because you do not have to kill me." The's voice was enticing him still, working its magic as it had done in his dreams. The small voice in his mind whispered, chuckling: 'Which ones, pray, tell me?'

Sands drew a breath. "I think I do."

"Why?"

Lovely-lovely confusion. Easy to exploit. Perhaps.

"Because-"

El cut in, his voice licking at Sands' mental pleasure centre: "You need me? Is that so bad?"

Confused, my ass. The had a 20/20 perceptive vision that would make an eagle look blind.

Sands bucked but El was ready and although they lost their footing and met the rather hard kitchen floor intimately, he was still not released. El rolled on top of him, pinning him again.

"Can't we talk about this?" The Mexican suggested, a little breathless after their scuffle.

"No! Fucking get your muck-coloured hands off!" A quick and VERY illegal move and they were on business again, all wired up on adrenaline and strong coffee.

It made no sense but at some point the struggle cease to be about hurt and began to be about pleasure.

Not in a million years would have Sands thought that he would get one of his strongest orgasms while being half-way under a solid wooden kitchen table, his hands twisted behind his back and dry-humped against the coffee-stained cold stone floor that was still littered with shards of his shattered mug.

"Are you calmer now?"

Sands shrugged, forehead against the tiles of the floor. He was shocked breathless and tired but he was not going to give in an inch.

El shifted behind him, his weight lifted, and the grip around his wrists tightened.

"I do not want to hurt you, so get up."

They did, although it was not an elegant move.

"I think you would like to wash, right?"

By that time Sands had regained his breath.

"What is this, anyway? First shag me and then clean me?"

"Move." He was pushed forward.

The Mexican walked him into the bathroom and shoved him a little.

When Sands twisted around, he faced a gun. His own, if his eyes were not mistaken. No surprise there. El had, after all, divested him of his weaponry once more. And yes, even the small gun had been removed from his pants.

He held still but gave a looney smile: "So now what? A wet dream in a wet environment?"

"I will leave you for a half an hour. The door will be locked."

Then El was retreating, closing the door.

"You son of a-" Sands threw himself forward but the barrel came up and zeroed on his forehead.

"Behave."

Then El was gone, the lock turned and he was alone in the bathroom.

"You. Are. Dead!!!"

The door opened inward but it seemed not only be locked but also bolted from outside. The rattling did no good.

A quick glance out of the window convinced him that he could not escape: he was two storeys up and they were high storeys. People of older days knew how to build an imposing mansion. There was no cornice to climb onto, either. And to top his bad luck, the window was nailed shut.

So the brightest thing to do was to clean oneself up and think how to get a drop on the man holding his gun.