Title: Caramel and Mocha (5/5)
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: Thank you, Kazren, for fabulous beta. The mistakes that remain are all mine. Bows to Maureen for ideas of smut (I figure that 'confused and languid' meets your approval), and to Ebe who asked and pleaded with me and then showed how beautiful that would be if I gave Sands his gorgeous eyes back.
They had spent the rest of the morning in bed, sleeping – El seemed to be able to slumber anywhere with anyone and Sands was still having a semi-hangover from the drug. Plus their mutual activity had only added to his exhaustion. When El noticed him yawning, he had just pulled Sands horizontal, held him close and murmured softly to him an order to sleep. This time Sands did not fight him.
He woke when a group of children ran screeching over the market place. El was still asleep, his face borrowed against the American's shoulder and for a moment Sands did not want to move an inch.
It felt nice there.
Nice and calm. Weird combination in his case, actually.
Weird and slightly frightening.
He slid out of the bed, hunted for his cigarettes and lit up.
He had to think. He was not used this kind of feeling at all.
He walked to the window and looked out.
The plaza had come to life after the siesta.
Sands leaned against the windowsill, observing the buzz of the rural guitar market, smoked, and realised that he was enjoying his sudden inner peace.
The last one was a rare thing and usually it made him weary but here and now, in this town and with this man… He was hard pressed to admit that he liked it.
Liked it a lot. 'I had no idea that orgasms worked like taser shocks.'
A movement behind him and he did not feel the need to attack.
Weird.
El's fingers twined into his hair and pulled his head back, slowly and sensuously. He loved even that, however odd that was. Then the cigarette was snatched away from his fingers and El blew out a long grey stream himself.
"I did not know you smoked."
El smiled crookedly and moved closer to hold Sands. "Carolina."
"What about her?" Sands leaned back, into El's shirtless embrace, and was rewarded with a nibble on his right ear.
"She did not like it…" Another nibble, now attacking his neck. A breath against his hot skin. "Because of our daughter and the bookstore."
El was pushing down his trousers, in the open view for everyone on the plaza and he could only cling to El's arm and allow it… and gasp: "Bookstore?"
The fingers coaxed his skin in flames and the voice only added fuel. "Carolina owned one. It burned down." El turned him around and kissed him. "Because of me."
"Figures."
El smiled, took another long draft and gave the cigarette back. Sands took it automatically, then looked at it accusingly and threw it out of the window. "Fuck that. Right now I want to-"
"Fuck me?" El's amusement was palpable and contagious and the Mexican saw how Sands' eyes twinkled with mischief. It was a good look on him.
"Offering?"
"Let's just… play."
Sands smiled, suddenly utterly cheerful: "Fine!"
A shove and El was sprawled on the floor. Before he could get up, Sands had shimmied out his already opened trousers and cowboy boots and pinned him down. El did not fight, only looked at him with singular intensity. No fear although a madman was lying on top of him.
"Are you not afraid that I would… twist your neck?"
El shook his head. "You would not be so quick with me."
"Oh no?" The amusement mixed with surprise suited Sands' features well, too.
"You would make me suffer first." The Mariachi's hands came up and pulled Sands flush against him. El reached up, kissed his throat and whispered: "Perhaps…A shot in the gut." Sands froze in his arms and El looked at him, worried. There was fear in his crazy lover's eyes, a flash of desperation. Somehow he seemed utterly lost and vulnerable, even more so than he had been while unconscious. "What is it?"
"El?" The Mexican waited, expecting him to continue. "This is not a dream?"
"No… as far as I know." The crease between El's eyebrows deepened.
"Are you sure?"
"This is Mexico, nothing is sure." El soothed the tense back under his hands with gentle caresses and Sands very slowly and seemingly reluctantly relaxed. "I sometimes see my dead wife guiding me."
"That is not convincing."
"No, it isn't. Not many things are."
"So what are?" Some of the cockiness had returned to Sands' voice. He was recovering from whatever had spooked him. He did it very quickly and El was not sure whether he was assured or frightened by it.
He shoved the issue aside, though, and answered. "A loaded gun in my hand… the guitar strings under my fingers…" El smiled a little. "This body on top of me."
"And what would you do with this conviction?"
"Take him back to bed."
In the afternoon of the same day they lumbered out from the manor to eat in the local equivalent of the fine restaurant (the tables had cloths and the fan on the ceiling worked) because they were both very hungry and El claimed to be too tired to cook.
"And you are not saying this only to save your sorry arse?" Sands commented when they were both sitting by the table and waiting their orders.
"Why?"
Sands only smiled.
"Oh, that." El smirked. "So did you shoot that cook?"
"Of course."
There was a flamboyant tease in Sands' answer but there was also pride and certainty that only comes with telling the truth.
A shiver rushed down El's spine. Sands was mad, he knew it but to hear it… And he had already slept with the man, gloriously so.
It was too late to turn away and too thrilling not to pursue.
So he leaned over the corner of the table and whispered: "Try not to do this here. I live here."
"Why?"
"Because they would not want-"
"No, why do you live here?" Sands took another cigarette out, lit it. "Nothing is happening here."
"Hmm." El sat back and thought about it. He had liked it that way: no guns, no blood, no pain. Only memories of good times… until Sands' men came and shuttered the status quo. "It's comfortable."
"Is it?" Sands was looking at him through the swirling grey smoke rings and it somehow made El think of a seducing demon. "I mean… Sure, you can find peace and quiet here but anything else?"
El pondered about it again. In some ways Sands was right: his life had been rather dull before Sands dragged him out but he had needed the slow turn of time. He had to numb the pain left by the deaths of his family. And it seemed now that here was the point when things would change again.
He had tasted the revenge and that was bitter but he had also tasted the rush of kill and that was like an old addiction flaring up. Plus Sands had thrown in a speedball of himself and El just knew that he was too hooked already to the American to go without. Sands had stirred his passion and that was a dangerous power to be meddled with.
"You brought passion back to me."
Sands laughed and nodded. "I did notice." He put the cigarette out. "But I am not staying here."
"Do you expect me to come with you?"
'Yes, you idiot of a Mariachi-shooter!' screeched the small voice inside Sands' head. Instead he cocked his head and grinned: "I think we did. The first time under your kitchen table."
El looked blank for a split second and then shook his head. "Is everything a game to you?"
"Sure, how else could I rig it? Talking of which…" Sands turned and to El's utter astonishment demanded in a fluent and very creative gutter Spanish where in hell was their food.
"You-"
"Speak Spanish, yes, I do. They did not send me down here for my good looks alone."
El just sighed. The food arrived – apparently the threat of promising to simmer someone's private parts and then feed them to the same someone worked. Sands dug into his paella with fervour of a hungry child.
El took it easier and just watched his companion. Sands had trotted into his rented room before the dinner and was wearing now another but very familiar cowboy shirt. El had seen it before, in the similar situation in a similar cantina. Only the food had been different and Sands had worn a cowboy hat. The Mexican swallowed his mouthful and asked:
"Why do you have roosters on your shirt?"
Sands glanced sidewise on his own shirt, still munching. He shrugged: "I like cocks."
El almost choked on his drink. Sands only flashed him a brilliant smile and went on eating, calm as ever.
"What do you-" El managed after he had forced his drink down.
"What I said." Sands looked up, realised that El was not following at all and put the fork down. "Let's enlarge your vocabulary then. Roosters and cocks are the same birds. The male-chickens as some lovely dictionaries put it. Very good brand of fowl to draw bets on." Sands took the fork up and drew a line into his food. "Roosters on this side of Atlantic," he tapped the curve of the plate closer to him. "And cocks on the other." He flicked his gaze up, flashed a brief half-smile: "Of course, I do like cocks on this side of Atlantic as well." He began shovelling the food again.
"That you do…"
El's low and rumbling comment surprised Sands a bit. The man missed no opportunity, did he?
He had not expected the Mariachi to be so… blasé about the whole mansex-thing, for one. This WAS, after all, a deeply Catholic country.
He did not like Mariachi's aptness of turning the tables in most physical encounters, too. It irked him even more that El seemed to get the upper hand also in disturbingly numerous conversations. The Mexican was not big at talking but when he did open his mouth… Images of what could come out of it or go in were extremely troubling in oh-so many levels. 'Damn the The to Hell and back.'
Sands sat up straighter and looked at the man. El only quirked his brow and took another sip from his glass.
The American smirked and pointed his fork at him: "Good. You are learning." He met El's gaze and somehow their smiles matched although they were not entirely nice.
Then again, they were not exactly the nicest of guys, were they? So that suited well, too.
The dream mirrored his daily actions – there was lots of physical action, both violent and pleasurable; there was bondage and growling submission and there was bliss. Also, in his dream, they had curled around each other afterwards and Sands had not minded still being bound with silken rope. He had, after all, had a vision (within his own dream!) of an ingenious plan how to twist El's neck while the man is deep-throating him. After really having been in the receiving end of that action he had no intention of breaking the neck attached to that amazing mouth. Oh no. He was going to do his damnedest to keep the two things attached to each other and to his cock.
But then he couldn't – El was kneeling on the floor, hands wrenched to his back, held. His hair obscured his eyes but they could still see each other.
And then they cut El's throat and were making him watch how his lover choked on his own blood and then they took his sight so the last thing he ever saw was…
"Sands!"
He came awake with a whimper and hated himself for that sound.
El drew him closer and held him. The calmness fell over him at once.
It was unbelievable - and utterly illogical, not to say ridiculous- how safe he felt with this man. He kept dreaming about losing him, goddamn't!
If they kept up their relationship ('Did I just think that?'), they could very well end up like that. And yet… he felt safe.
Sands traced the arm around his waist with his fingers and wondered. Why would he find this situation the best from all previous encounters? Why would-
"You still cannot sleep?"
El's voice curled around him as snugly as did his arm. 'And there's your answer, Agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands...' The little voice sounded as sated as he physically was.
He had taken his bags and moved into El's manor – for the time being.
Only for the short while when he was in this tiny shit-hole of a guitar-town.
El made a small sigh, indicating that he was still waiting for the answer.
"I do not sleep much."
"Bad dreams?"
Sands grinned, silent, but amused. 'Just a long detailed nightmare about being blind and helpless and sometimes locked up.' "You could say that."
El brushed his hair off his neck and kissed the revealed skin. "Tell me about your... sueńa."
Sands shook his head although he loved the feeling of how El seemed to caress his being by simply holding him close.
"Why not?"
"They are not real."
"While you are seeing them, they are."
The conviction in El's voice chilled Sands suddenly to the bones and he shuddered.
"What's wrong?"
He turned in El's hands and faced him. It was already almost past dusk but he could still make out his features and see the gleam of his eyes. "You make me feel, you bastard."
"That is bad?" El sounded honestly surprised.
"Yes." He burrowed closer, almost melding into El.
"Why?"
El's voice rumbled through him like an earthquake and he found his own conviction lacking the needed strength: "Because...."
The tiny Tim of his mind stirred again. 'Why is it bad?' He did not know. With El he felt and did not have to think, to plan, to weave patterns... Well, he still did the latter but with his senses, not with his mind. And he obviously liked that.
It was liberating. Not to keep in mind who to play against whom, how to balance the odds, which chips to set down, which to hold back.
With El he did not have to hold back.
At all.
He could strike (and hadn't he already done it?) out as much as he wanted and El would give it right back. Perhaps he would lose his mind and sanity completely when let loose but it felt - and exactly FELT - so good right now that he did not care.
"You do not know, don't you?"
"And you would not let me live that one down, will you?"
"I might." The warm mocking sound was a chocolate balm to Sands' stained soul. He mumbled to the slightly sweaty skin against his mouth:
"It does not make sense."
"What does not?" This time a wave of soothing caramel oozed over him, made him lazy and calm and… hap- 'SATISFIED' his mind half-hissed, half-slurred.
"Everything. All this. You and me."
"We?"
He couldn't answer, could not make himself say the incriminating personal pronoun but he relaxed in El's arms and the Mariachi knew the answer. He kissed Sands' hair and whispered: "It does not have make sense to be true."
And like that it was alright: there was an inner peace and an outer balance and they both could live with that.
And the pork was tasted and the tequila was drunk ("Always with lime, my dear El."- "Why?" – "Because lemon is for wuss-pussies!") and things went on as they did in their twisted ways in Mexico; only they were now afraid of two pairs of dark eyes on a trigger-happy honeymoon.