Darkness Rising
A Once Upon a Time in Mexico story by Merrie
Disclaimer: I own Jeffrey, Roland, Julian, Susannah, Emily, pretty much every character *but* SJ. Wanna trade? Please? I'll give you a cookie?
Author's Note: Whoa, this should have been updated a lot sooner than this. You have my deepest, deepest apologies.
Rating: R for naughty language, and a smut scene that I hadn't intended to write until it was already written. Original characters can be tricksy like that.
Chapter Thirteen: Falling Together and Falling Apart
"So what, you're just going to fucking sit there and eat breakfast like nothing's happened?" Jeffrey asked with a scowl. "That fucking bastard Rivers and his women are still after us and you just sit here like you fucking want to get caught. Well I don't want to get caught you sociopathic bastard," Jeffrey seethed.
"What are you worrying about? You don't really think Rivers is smart enough to catch us, do you? He's just a dumb cop, that's all. Him and those two trained bitches of his. It doesn't matter if he's in the CIA either. All of them are the same. They're all just dumb fucking cops who think that they will somehow be able to outsmart the bad guy. Well that's not going to fucking happen. So yes, I'm just going to sit here eating my breakfast, trying to ignore you."
"Oh fuck you, Sands. Like you could fucking ignore me. If you haven't noticed, you're paying more attention to me now than you ever have before. We're fucking having a conversation out loud for fuck's sake. And you even started listening to me when I tell you to do something. Not to mention the fact that you've started using my dialogue and mannerisms. What do you think of that, you pathetic bastard?"
"What can I do to make you just go away? I'm fucking tired of you. You're driving me fucking insane!" Sands yelled, slamming his hand on the table, causing his coffee cup to shake.
"News for you, you moron, you're already fucking insane. You're talking to someone who doesn't exist, and you've killed oh, over half a dozen people and yet you feel no remorse. You're sitting in the kitchen of a girl you and I just fucked and then killed eating breakfast while her body is cooling upstairs. If that doesn't make you as nutty as a fucking fruitcake, I don't know what does."
Sands threw up his hands in surrender. "Fine, I'm fucking insane. Are you happy now, you bastard? Will you leave me the fuck alone for awhile now?"
"I don't think you're comprehending what I'm fucking telling you, you witless bastard. I can't go away. I have no where to go. I'm inside your head, remember fuckmook? It's not like I can fucking pack my bags and take a vacation, no matter how much I might want one. I'm stuck with you, and I hate every minute of it. Well, except for the killing, that is. I rather enjoy that, actually," Jeffrey said with a somewhat weary smirk.
Sands just pressed his hands to the sides of his head in an attempt to block out the voice that was within. He didn't know if he could take much more of this. Just when he was about to seriously consider slitting his wrists with a fucking kitchen knife, the phone rang. "Fuck," he whispered.
"Don't answer it, fuckmoook," Jeffrey cautioned with a sneer.
"I wasn't 'going' to answer it, asshole," Sands responded in kind, allowing the phone to ring. When the ringing finally stopped, a small hysterical part of him feared just for a second that Halia had gotten up from her place on the bed and answered it. "Don't start thinking like that."
"Were you talking to me or to yourself, you fucking whacko?" Jeffrey asked snidely.
Sands was just about to tell his worse half where he could shove his comments when the phone rang again. "That's fucking it," he said, rising from his place at Halia's kitchen table and striding over to the place where the cordless phone hung on the wall. With a vicious motion, he yanked the cord out of the wall, silencing the phone immediately.
"Well good for you, you killed the big bad phone. Do you feel better now, you fucking moron?" Jeffrey asked with cheerful spite.
"I'll feel even better when one of us is gone. And you know what? I don't even care which one of us it is anymore. That's how fucking desperate I am to be rid of you," Sands said, his hands clenching into fists as he regained his seat at the kitchen table.
"Well with an attitude like that, you're never going to---" Jeffrey was cut off by the ringing of the phone. The ringing of the 'unplugged' phone. "What the fuck?"
"Maybe it's got a backup somehow," Sands said, sounding a bit freaked out, not really believing this explanation whatsoever. No, the phone was ringing clearly, in his head. He wondered who would be on the other end of the line if he picked it up. Another personality like Jeffrey?
"Oh great, now you've got fucking auditory hallucinations to go along with the antisocial personality and associative identity disorders. You are seriously fucked up. Do you even realize that?"
Sands didn't exactly know how to answer that one, so he simply slumped back in the chair, trying not to listen as the phantom phone kept ringing, and Jeffrey kept berating him.
***
"I don't fucking believe this!" Roland shouted at the top of his lungs. "It's been two goddamn days since that party and you're telling me that we've still got nothing on Sands? That he seems to have fucking disappeared off the face of the planet?"
"He can't hide forever, Roland. We'll find him," Susannah assured him in a soft voice, attempting to calm him down.
"That's not good enough, anymore. Half of the DC and Baltimore police forces are out looking for him and yet no one's turned up fucking anything. He nearly slit my fucking throat for God's sake and killed two people in public and yet, he got away!"
"Calm down Rivers, you're going to give yourself a stroke," Emily said with a sigh. "On the other hand, go ahead, flip out. Put yourself into an early grave for all I care," she said nastily. Tensions were running high for all of them, and tempers were becoming increasingly short.
"Oh fuck you, Cartwright. What the hell is your problem? You've been riding my ass since the day we started working together on this thing! Get over it! It was years ago!"
"Oh you self-centered bastard. How dare you bring that up," Emily said coldly. "Not everything is about you. But fine, yes I am pissed off at you for what happened all those years ago-I hold a grudge a long time as you may remember-but that has nothing do with my attitude toward you now. The truth is, I don't like you, Roland," Emily said, surprising him by calling him by his first name, "I don't like your methods and I think your fucking recklessness is going to get someone killed someday and I don't intend for it to be me."
"Oh what about you, Emily? You would spread your legs for Sands in a heartbeat; even knowing what he was, if he asked you to and you fucking know it, you fucking slut," Roland seethed, too pissed off to think about the consequences such a blunt insult would bring about.
"Even a psychotic bastard who would probably kill me as soon as we were finished would be a better fuck than you were, you son of a bitch." With that, Emily pulled her right hand back and punched Roland in the jaw hard, throwing off his balance and sending him to the floor. She then turned on a sharp heel and left the hotel room, slamming the door behind her.
"Fuck, that little bitch," Roland muttered to himself, holding his aching jaw in a hand. Then, he remembered exactly what he had just said and closed his eyes tightly in a wince. "I'm an asshole," he muttered softly, speaking to himself. "I shouldn't have said that."
"No you shouldn't have," Susannah spoke up, reminded him of her presence abruptly for the first time since he and Emily had started arguing. "You're a fool, Roland. We should be working together to catch Sands, but instead we're attempting to tear each other apart. And the only purpose that serves is to allow more time for Sands to be free and killing people. So I suggest that if you don't want that to happen, you go and find Emily right now and make right whatever animosity's between the two of you. Because frankly, we don't have time for this shit right now," Susannah said with somewhat surprising forcefulness. "Go," she said, her tone brooking no argument as she pointed to the door.
"I'm going," Roland muttered, rising to his feet and heading out the door after Emily.
***
It didn't take long to find Emily if one knew where to look, and Roland knew where to look. She was sitting in a deck chair at the side of the indoor pool of the hotel staring down at the still water. Roland glanced around briefly and reconfirmed that they were completely alone.
"If you've come to argue with me some more, I don't want to fucking hear it. You deserved that," Emily said, not looking up at him as he went around and locked the doors from the inside; somewhat surprised that he could do so, but wanting privacy as they talked, so not questioning it.
"I know I fucking deserved it. I'm an asshole, alright? Is that what you want to hear?" Roland said, walking over to her slowly.
"Well if you agree, what the hell are you doing here, Rivers? I don't want to talk to you. I just want to be left alone," Emily said sternly, turning to face him for the first time, her arms crossed over her chest as she stretched out on the long deck chair. Roland could see that she had been crying and he cursed himself.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," Roland said, taking a seat in the deck chair next to her.
"You don't expect me to believe you, do you?" Emily asked, raising her eyebrow in sarcasm. When Roland didn't say anything, she went on, "Fine. Whatever. Then why did you say it?" she asked slowly, turning away again, not wanting to see the tears thinking about his comments brought. She wasn't a simpering little moron; she was an agent for the CIA. She could take care of herself. 'Well then why do his comments hurt so fucking much?' she asked herself. "Why do you fucking hate me?" as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she would have given anything to have taken them back.
"First of all, I don't hate you," Roland said, looking down at his feet with uncharacteristic reserve. "I've never hated you. Even when I left you all those years ago I didn't hate you. I don't think I ever will. I may fucking argue with you at the drop of a hat, but I argue with everyone. I'm sure you know that better than anyone. You know me better than anyone. You always have," Roland muttered to himself, clearly not really happy with the fact. "And secondly, I don't know why I said what I did. I certainly didn't fucking mean it," he said slowly. "You just pissed me off and I reacted. Now granted, I reacted badly, but there's nothing I can do now but apologize. And in all fucking fairness, you evened us up pretty well by punching me. I think I'm still seeing stars."
Emily couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping her at that as she wiped at her tears out of his sight. "It's no more than you deserve," she said slowly, but the malice that had been in her voice earlier was gone. "And I didn't hit you 'that' hard, you big wuss," she joked softly. "So stop your complaining. I could have just shot you," she said with a completely serious face, although her eyes were twinkling with mischief.
"Would you have really shot me?" Roland asked, tuning to face her so that his knees hung over the side of the long deck chair.
Emily pretended to think about it for a moment, but eventually admitted in a soft voice, "No, I wouldn't. You may be an asshole sometimes, but I wouldn't shoot you. I couldn't shoot you. Stabbing you, on the other hand..." She smiled at the joke.
"Well that's a comforting thought to know," Roland said sarcastically.
"Oh shut up, you know what I mean," Emily said, rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't hurt—" her words were cut off by the pressing of Roland's lips to her in a passionate kiss. At first, Emily was confused. When she felt herself respond to Roland's kiss she was still confused, but that no longer mattered. All thoughts of whether this was right or wrong-it was definitely wrong-were thrown out the window with whatever inhibitions she may have once had.
Roland's thoughts were somewhat similar to Emily's. He didn't know why he had kissed her; it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Moving his hands to cup her breasts under her shirt wasn't necessarily a good idea either, but that didn't stop his hands from doing it. And when Emily moaned under his once familiar touch, he was only spurred on further. He knew her. He knew her skin, her smell, what made her hot, he remembered it all as if it were yesterday that they had had their moment together and not those handful of years ago when they were both incredibly more naïve and stupid than they were now. Well, incredibly more naïve and stupid than they had been, at any rate.
His thumbs found her nipples and he tormented them relentlessly as Emily's hands found his waist and undid his belt with light speed. She was in hurry it seemed. But Roland certainly didn't complain when one of her fast hands slipped into his pants and began stroking his already hardened length enough to make him moan in pure pleasure. 'Thank God she's wearing a skirt or else I don't think I'd be able to make it,' he thought to himself as his hands moved down to lift her skirt up and yank down her black lace underwear, silently thanking her for her choice of knee-high stockings as well.
He didn't ask her if she was ready. He didn't give either of them an opportunity to take a good look at what they were doing and reconsider. Hell, he didn't even ask if she was on birth control. He shared a brief look with her, and thrust into her with one movement, causing the deck chair they were both on now to teeter dangerously. There were no thoughts, only sex. It was pure; it was primal; it was definitely a bad idea.
The whole situation was a little ridiculous actually. They were both still almost fully dressed-Roland still had his tie knotted securely around his neck-but neither of them cared. They were in a public place and could be interrupted at any second, but again, neither cared. The only thing either of them cared about at this moment in time was themselves. They were rutting like animals, and on some level they both knew it. There was no thought in their act, only action, reaction, and a hell of a lot of unbridled passion.
When they came, it was simultaneous and completely unexpected. Emily moaned as her inner muscles contracted around Roland's length as he filled her. It was only then-after they had both come back to themselves-that they realized exactly what they had just done. "Oh fuck," Roland groaned, looking down at her wide-eyed face mere centimeters beneath him, their bodies still intimately joined.
"I think that's a pretty accurate statement, yes," Emily muttered, not moving from under Roland but frowning at the way the slats of the deck chair were digging into her back as he pressed her down into them. "I don't think these chairs are made for...that," she said softly, not wanting to come out and say what they had just done. It was a rather stupid self-denial actually, since she could feel just how closely they were still joined, but saying what they had just done out loud somehow made it even more real than the actual physical evidence did. "Get off of me."
"I'm getting," Roland muttered, pulling himself out of her slowly and standing up at the side of the deckchair, looking down at it, and her, as if they weren't really there. "Fuck me, we really just did what I think we did, didn't we?" he asked softly, still not fully comprehending, even as he zipped up his pants.
"There's those incredible deductive powers coming out to play. Bravo, Rivers," she said coldly, pulling up her panties and smoothing down her skirt, a stormy scowl fixed upon her face.
"Don't you fucking dare blame this on me, Brisbane. I didn't hear you fucking complaining," he said with a scowl, his previously somewhat blissed but utterly confused mood changing into anger with her biting words.
What was Emily supposed to say to that? He was fucking right. She could have stopped him but she hadn't. "And what about you? Did you get jealous about my little comment about fucking psychotics rather than you and decide to prove a point? Is that fucking it?" She asked coldly, sitting up straight in the debauched deckchair.
"You're a real fucking cun-" Roland didn't have time to finish the insult as Emily rushed to her feet and backhanded him across the mouth hard.
"If you 'ever' fucking call me that again you pathetic bastard, I 'will' kill you," she promised between clenched teeth.
"Lots of love to you too baby," he seethed, smiling with bloodied teeth from where she had split his lip open with one of the rings she wore on her fingers. He spit a wad of that blood down onto the cement beside her feet and turned on a polished heel and stalked out of the pool room without another word, practically wrenching the previously locked door off its hinges in his furious haste.
Emily just watched him go, her own anger annoyingly beginning to cool. 'Oh God, what have I done?' she asked herself in despair, sinking back down to the battered deckchair.
***
"What's in your head, you crazy bastard?" Jeffrey asked Sands with a frown, not liking how the other man was acting.
"You're in there, why don't you tell me?" Sands responded with a bit of a manic laugh.
"Calm the fuck down, Sands. I don't like the way you're fucking acting," Jeffrey muttered warily. He could feel something in Sands shifting and he didn't like it. He didn't like not knowing what was going on.
"Why Jeffrey, you almost sound frightened of me. Whatever could be the fucking matter? I thought you were the tough son of a bitch who was going to come out on top when the two of us finally decided to go at it?" Sands drawled slowly.
"Yeah, well excuse fucking me if I start to worry when you're fucking acting like you're about to go around the fucking bend at any second," Jeffrey said with a scowl.
"I already am around that bend, Jeffrey my dear friend," Sands said cheerfully. "Let's go up and check on Halia. I bet she's lonely," he said, standing up from the table and moving across the room to go upstairs.
"Sure..." Jeffrey said slowly, not knowing how else to respond. If Sands truly 'was' losing it, he was fucked.
"Glad you agree. And while we're up there, we can grab that big fucking gun of hers. I'm sure she must have more bullets somewhere," Sands said slowly, ascending the staircase.
"Good idea. It never hurts to be able to defend yourself," Jeffrey agreed without hesitation; both because he actually did feel that way, and that he felt if he disagreed with Sands right now he wouldn't like the result.
Nothing had changed in the bedroom, not that Jeffrey really expected that it would have. Halia was still lying on the bed-a ruined mess-her eyes staring blankly over to where he had been standing when he shot her.
"She was a pretty little thing before we got a hold of her, wasn't she? They all were," Sands mused as he noticed Jeffrey staring at her. He walked over to the side of the bed and moved a lock of hair that had been sticking on Halia's cheek to the side as Jeffrey watched, slightly horrified. "Thanks sugarbutt, it was fun," he said with a smirk before raising the hand he had used to move her hair up to her mouth and licking the transferred blood off of his fingertips.
"You're a sick bastard, you realize that?" Jeffrey said slowly.
"That's an instance of the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard one," Sands responded with a roll of his eyes as he cleaned off his fingertips. "Now where the fuck did that gun get to?" He moved away from the side of the blood-covered bed and began scanning the carpet for the used .45. "Aha, there you are," he practically cooed, picking up the weapon and sniffing the barrel delicately. "You know, I think I've always liked the smell of gunpowder and smoke. Did you know that?" he asked offhandedly.
"Yes, I knew that," Jeffrey said slowly. He liked the smell too, and would have admitted as much, but Sands was fucking freaking him out a little.
"Now if I were bullets, where the hell would I be," Sands asked himself aloud, humming under his breath softly as he searched. "Broadway baby," he exclaimed, upon finding a box of .45 shells tucked away in a corner of the same dresser drawer he had found the gun in. "That's improper gun safety, sugarbutt," he scolded the dead woman on the bed. "Aren't you always supposed to store the gun and the bullets in different locations or some such bullshit like that?"
Jeffrey didn't answer because it was clear Sands was no longer talking to him. He just watched as Sands took a seat on the edge of the bloodied bed and began loading the gun, continuing to hum to himself softly as he did so. Jeffrey recognized the song, it was 'I Shot the Sheriff,' by Eric Clapton. It didn't bode well for Jeffrey's current frame of mind. Sure, he didn't really care if Sands killed people-he'd even enjoy it-but a fucking psychotic rampage was never a good idea, and he feared that was where Sands was heading. "Just listen to me, Sands. Don't do anything stupid, alright?" he practically pleaded with his other half.
"Oh like what, go on a homicidal rampage, killing people left and right until I run out of bullets or until someone stops me? Is that kind of what you meant, Jeffrey?" Sands asked innocently. Jeffrey didn't buy it for a second.
"Yes, like that. Just...calm down. Get some fucking rest or something. You're not in your right mind," Jeffrey said with a frown, irritated that he was having to be the rational one all of a sudden.
"Right 'minds', Jeffrey," Sands corrected him. "If I can't fucking get rid of you, I might as well accept you, right? Well I tell you what. I'm not ready to fucking ever accept you! I fucking want you out of my head, and I will do so even if have to fucking blow my own brains out just to do so!" he put the now fully loaded gun against his temple. "I honestly don't care anymore, you fucking bastard. You've stolen my life away from me, and if I can't fucking get it back, I'd rather be dead."
"You're a fucking pussy if you think that's going to scare me, you pathetic bastard. You wouldn't dar—" Jeffrey was cut off as Sands shot a hole into the ceiling, the sound of the loud gunshot echoing throughout the room.
"Fucking try me," he said emotionlessly, holding the still smoking gun in hand but not moving it back to his temple.
"You've really fucking lost it, haven't you? You're not just fucking kidding around. You're really gone," Jeffrey asked incredulously, not quite believing it.
Sands frowned in distaste at the question, but answered anyway, "If you consider not giving a fuck about anyone or anything anymore and willing to do whatever it takes just to get rid of you, 'losing it,' then yes I suppose you're right. Also, I'm in the mood to kill a few dozen people right now, so I guess that's pretty far around the bend too," Sands said, rising from the bed and locating his two-toned tux jacket where he had thrown it the other night and forgot about it, slipping it on. He put the box of .45 shells in one of the pockets of his red and black pants after replacing the bullet he had fired into the ceiling. "I'm going outside to play," he said with a manic grin and left the room humming to himself again; gun in hand and in more than mood for violence.
TBC
A/N: Yup. I'm evil. I make you wait all that time, and I leave you at a cliffhanger. *wicked grin* I am sorry for making you wait so long, but not about the cliffhanger. And don't worry! I'm on summer break in a little more than a week, so I'll have oodles of time to write! In the mean time, feel free to review, it might just make me write faster, and read my co- authored OUATIM story, More than Darkness on www .adultfanfiction.net It's getting...long.
To my reviewers from last chapter, Psnoo, Skye29 and BlueTrinity, THANK YOU!!! You guys keep me writing, you really do.
-Merrie
A Once Upon a Time in Mexico story by Merrie
Disclaimer: I own Jeffrey, Roland, Julian, Susannah, Emily, pretty much every character *but* SJ. Wanna trade? Please? I'll give you a cookie?
Author's Note: Whoa, this should have been updated a lot sooner than this. You have my deepest, deepest apologies.
Rating: R for naughty language, and a smut scene that I hadn't intended to write until it was already written. Original characters can be tricksy like that.
Chapter Thirteen: Falling Together and Falling Apart
"So what, you're just going to fucking sit there and eat breakfast like nothing's happened?" Jeffrey asked with a scowl. "That fucking bastard Rivers and his women are still after us and you just sit here like you fucking want to get caught. Well I don't want to get caught you sociopathic bastard," Jeffrey seethed.
"What are you worrying about? You don't really think Rivers is smart enough to catch us, do you? He's just a dumb cop, that's all. Him and those two trained bitches of his. It doesn't matter if he's in the CIA either. All of them are the same. They're all just dumb fucking cops who think that they will somehow be able to outsmart the bad guy. Well that's not going to fucking happen. So yes, I'm just going to sit here eating my breakfast, trying to ignore you."
"Oh fuck you, Sands. Like you could fucking ignore me. If you haven't noticed, you're paying more attention to me now than you ever have before. We're fucking having a conversation out loud for fuck's sake. And you even started listening to me when I tell you to do something. Not to mention the fact that you've started using my dialogue and mannerisms. What do you think of that, you pathetic bastard?"
"What can I do to make you just go away? I'm fucking tired of you. You're driving me fucking insane!" Sands yelled, slamming his hand on the table, causing his coffee cup to shake.
"News for you, you moron, you're already fucking insane. You're talking to someone who doesn't exist, and you've killed oh, over half a dozen people and yet you feel no remorse. You're sitting in the kitchen of a girl you and I just fucked and then killed eating breakfast while her body is cooling upstairs. If that doesn't make you as nutty as a fucking fruitcake, I don't know what does."
Sands threw up his hands in surrender. "Fine, I'm fucking insane. Are you happy now, you bastard? Will you leave me the fuck alone for awhile now?"
"I don't think you're comprehending what I'm fucking telling you, you witless bastard. I can't go away. I have no where to go. I'm inside your head, remember fuckmook? It's not like I can fucking pack my bags and take a vacation, no matter how much I might want one. I'm stuck with you, and I hate every minute of it. Well, except for the killing, that is. I rather enjoy that, actually," Jeffrey said with a somewhat weary smirk.
Sands just pressed his hands to the sides of his head in an attempt to block out the voice that was within. He didn't know if he could take much more of this. Just when he was about to seriously consider slitting his wrists with a fucking kitchen knife, the phone rang. "Fuck," he whispered.
"Don't answer it, fuckmoook," Jeffrey cautioned with a sneer.
"I wasn't 'going' to answer it, asshole," Sands responded in kind, allowing the phone to ring. When the ringing finally stopped, a small hysterical part of him feared just for a second that Halia had gotten up from her place on the bed and answered it. "Don't start thinking like that."
"Were you talking to me or to yourself, you fucking whacko?" Jeffrey asked snidely.
Sands was just about to tell his worse half where he could shove his comments when the phone rang again. "That's fucking it," he said, rising from his place at Halia's kitchen table and striding over to the place where the cordless phone hung on the wall. With a vicious motion, he yanked the cord out of the wall, silencing the phone immediately.
"Well good for you, you killed the big bad phone. Do you feel better now, you fucking moron?" Jeffrey asked with cheerful spite.
"I'll feel even better when one of us is gone. And you know what? I don't even care which one of us it is anymore. That's how fucking desperate I am to be rid of you," Sands said, his hands clenching into fists as he regained his seat at the kitchen table.
"Well with an attitude like that, you're never going to---" Jeffrey was cut off by the ringing of the phone. The ringing of the 'unplugged' phone. "What the fuck?"
"Maybe it's got a backup somehow," Sands said, sounding a bit freaked out, not really believing this explanation whatsoever. No, the phone was ringing clearly, in his head. He wondered who would be on the other end of the line if he picked it up. Another personality like Jeffrey?
"Oh great, now you've got fucking auditory hallucinations to go along with the antisocial personality and associative identity disorders. You are seriously fucked up. Do you even realize that?"
Sands didn't exactly know how to answer that one, so he simply slumped back in the chair, trying not to listen as the phantom phone kept ringing, and Jeffrey kept berating him.
***
"I don't fucking believe this!" Roland shouted at the top of his lungs. "It's been two goddamn days since that party and you're telling me that we've still got nothing on Sands? That he seems to have fucking disappeared off the face of the planet?"
"He can't hide forever, Roland. We'll find him," Susannah assured him in a soft voice, attempting to calm him down.
"That's not good enough, anymore. Half of the DC and Baltimore police forces are out looking for him and yet no one's turned up fucking anything. He nearly slit my fucking throat for God's sake and killed two people in public and yet, he got away!"
"Calm down Rivers, you're going to give yourself a stroke," Emily said with a sigh. "On the other hand, go ahead, flip out. Put yourself into an early grave for all I care," she said nastily. Tensions were running high for all of them, and tempers were becoming increasingly short.
"Oh fuck you, Cartwright. What the hell is your problem? You've been riding my ass since the day we started working together on this thing! Get over it! It was years ago!"
"Oh you self-centered bastard. How dare you bring that up," Emily said coldly. "Not everything is about you. But fine, yes I am pissed off at you for what happened all those years ago-I hold a grudge a long time as you may remember-but that has nothing do with my attitude toward you now. The truth is, I don't like you, Roland," Emily said, surprising him by calling him by his first name, "I don't like your methods and I think your fucking recklessness is going to get someone killed someday and I don't intend for it to be me."
"Oh what about you, Emily? You would spread your legs for Sands in a heartbeat; even knowing what he was, if he asked you to and you fucking know it, you fucking slut," Roland seethed, too pissed off to think about the consequences such a blunt insult would bring about.
"Even a psychotic bastard who would probably kill me as soon as we were finished would be a better fuck than you were, you son of a bitch." With that, Emily pulled her right hand back and punched Roland in the jaw hard, throwing off his balance and sending him to the floor. She then turned on a sharp heel and left the hotel room, slamming the door behind her.
"Fuck, that little bitch," Roland muttered to himself, holding his aching jaw in a hand. Then, he remembered exactly what he had just said and closed his eyes tightly in a wince. "I'm an asshole," he muttered softly, speaking to himself. "I shouldn't have said that."
"No you shouldn't have," Susannah spoke up, reminded him of her presence abruptly for the first time since he and Emily had started arguing. "You're a fool, Roland. We should be working together to catch Sands, but instead we're attempting to tear each other apart. And the only purpose that serves is to allow more time for Sands to be free and killing people. So I suggest that if you don't want that to happen, you go and find Emily right now and make right whatever animosity's between the two of you. Because frankly, we don't have time for this shit right now," Susannah said with somewhat surprising forcefulness. "Go," she said, her tone brooking no argument as she pointed to the door.
"I'm going," Roland muttered, rising to his feet and heading out the door after Emily.
***
It didn't take long to find Emily if one knew where to look, and Roland knew where to look. She was sitting in a deck chair at the side of the indoor pool of the hotel staring down at the still water. Roland glanced around briefly and reconfirmed that they were completely alone.
"If you've come to argue with me some more, I don't want to fucking hear it. You deserved that," Emily said, not looking up at him as he went around and locked the doors from the inside; somewhat surprised that he could do so, but wanting privacy as they talked, so not questioning it.
"I know I fucking deserved it. I'm an asshole, alright? Is that what you want to hear?" Roland said, walking over to her slowly.
"Well if you agree, what the hell are you doing here, Rivers? I don't want to talk to you. I just want to be left alone," Emily said sternly, turning to face him for the first time, her arms crossed over her chest as she stretched out on the long deck chair. Roland could see that she had been crying and he cursed himself.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," Roland said, taking a seat in the deck chair next to her.
"You don't expect me to believe you, do you?" Emily asked, raising her eyebrow in sarcasm. When Roland didn't say anything, she went on, "Fine. Whatever. Then why did you say it?" she asked slowly, turning away again, not wanting to see the tears thinking about his comments brought. She wasn't a simpering little moron; she was an agent for the CIA. She could take care of herself. 'Well then why do his comments hurt so fucking much?' she asked herself. "Why do you fucking hate me?" as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she would have given anything to have taken them back.
"First of all, I don't hate you," Roland said, looking down at his feet with uncharacteristic reserve. "I've never hated you. Even when I left you all those years ago I didn't hate you. I don't think I ever will. I may fucking argue with you at the drop of a hat, but I argue with everyone. I'm sure you know that better than anyone. You know me better than anyone. You always have," Roland muttered to himself, clearly not really happy with the fact. "And secondly, I don't know why I said what I did. I certainly didn't fucking mean it," he said slowly. "You just pissed me off and I reacted. Now granted, I reacted badly, but there's nothing I can do now but apologize. And in all fucking fairness, you evened us up pretty well by punching me. I think I'm still seeing stars."
Emily couldn't stop a small laugh from escaping her at that as she wiped at her tears out of his sight. "It's no more than you deserve," she said slowly, but the malice that had been in her voice earlier was gone. "And I didn't hit you 'that' hard, you big wuss," she joked softly. "So stop your complaining. I could have just shot you," she said with a completely serious face, although her eyes were twinkling with mischief.
"Would you have really shot me?" Roland asked, tuning to face her so that his knees hung over the side of the long deck chair.
Emily pretended to think about it for a moment, but eventually admitted in a soft voice, "No, I wouldn't. You may be an asshole sometimes, but I wouldn't shoot you. I couldn't shoot you. Stabbing you, on the other hand..." She smiled at the joke.
"Well that's a comforting thought to know," Roland said sarcastically.
"Oh shut up, you know what I mean," Emily said, rolling her eyes. "I wouldn't hurt—" her words were cut off by the pressing of Roland's lips to her in a passionate kiss. At first, Emily was confused. When she felt herself respond to Roland's kiss she was still confused, but that no longer mattered. All thoughts of whether this was right or wrong-it was definitely wrong-were thrown out the window with whatever inhibitions she may have once had.
Roland's thoughts were somewhat similar to Emily's. He didn't know why he had kissed her; it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Moving his hands to cup her breasts under her shirt wasn't necessarily a good idea either, but that didn't stop his hands from doing it. And when Emily moaned under his once familiar touch, he was only spurred on further. He knew her. He knew her skin, her smell, what made her hot, he remembered it all as if it were yesterday that they had had their moment together and not those handful of years ago when they were both incredibly more naïve and stupid than they were now. Well, incredibly more naïve and stupid than they had been, at any rate.
His thumbs found her nipples and he tormented them relentlessly as Emily's hands found his waist and undid his belt with light speed. She was in hurry it seemed. But Roland certainly didn't complain when one of her fast hands slipped into his pants and began stroking his already hardened length enough to make him moan in pure pleasure. 'Thank God she's wearing a skirt or else I don't think I'd be able to make it,' he thought to himself as his hands moved down to lift her skirt up and yank down her black lace underwear, silently thanking her for her choice of knee-high stockings as well.
He didn't ask her if she was ready. He didn't give either of them an opportunity to take a good look at what they were doing and reconsider. Hell, he didn't even ask if she was on birth control. He shared a brief look with her, and thrust into her with one movement, causing the deck chair they were both on now to teeter dangerously. There were no thoughts, only sex. It was pure; it was primal; it was definitely a bad idea.
The whole situation was a little ridiculous actually. They were both still almost fully dressed-Roland still had his tie knotted securely around his neck-but neither of them cared. They were in a public place and could be interrupted at any second, but again, neither cared. The only thing either of them cared about at this moment in time was themselves. They were rutting like animals, and on some level they both knew it. There was no thought in their act, only action, reaction, and a hell of a lot of unbridled passion.
When they came, it was simultaneous and completely unexpected. Emily moaned as her inner muscles contracted around Roland's length as he filled her. It was only then-after they had both come back to themselves-that they realized exactly what they had just done. "Oh fuck," Roland groaned, looking down at her wide-eyed face mere centimeters beneath him, their bodies still intimately joined.
"I think that's a pretty accurate statement, yes," Emily muttered, not moving from under Roland but frowning at the way the slats of the deck chair were digging into her back as he pressed her down into them. "I don't think these chairs are made for...that," she said softly, not wanting to come out and say what they had just done. It was a rather stupid self-denial actually, since she could feel just how closely they were still joined, but saying what they had just done out loud somehow made it even more real than the actual physical evidence did. "Get off of me."
"I'm getting," Roland muttered, pulling himself out of her slowly and standing up at the side of the deckchair, looking down at it, and her, as if they weren't really there. "Fuck me, we really just did what I think we did, didn't we?" he asked softly, still not fully comprehending, even as he zipped up his pants.
"There's those incredible deductive powers coming out to play. Bravo, Rivers," she said coldly, pulling up her panties and smoothing down her skirt, a stormy scowl fixed upon her face.
"Don't you fucking dare blame this on me, Brisbane. I didn't hear you fucking complaining," he said with a scowl, his previously somewhat blissed but utterly confused mood changing into anger with her biting words.
What was Emily supposed to say to that? He was fucking right. She could have stopped him but she hadn't. "And what about you? Did you get jealous about my little comment about fucking psychotics rather than you and decide to prove a point? Is that fucking it?" She asked coldly, sitting up straight in the debauched deckchair.
"You're a real fucking cun-" Roland didn't have time to finish the insult as Emily rushed to her feet and backhanded him across the mouth hard.
"If you 'ever' fucking call me that again you pathetic bastard, I 'will' kill you," she promised between clenched teeth.
"Lots of love to you too baby," he seethed, smiling with bloodied teeth from where she had split his lip open with one of the rings she wore on her fingers. He spit a wad of that blood down onto the cement beside her feet and turned on a polished heel and stalked out of the pool room without another word, practically wrenching the previously locked door off its hinges in his furious haste.
Emily just watched him go, her own anger annoyingly beginning to cool. 'Oh God, what have I done?' she asked herself in despair, sinking back down to the battered deckchair.
***
"What's in your head, you crazy bastard?" Jeffrey asked Sands with a frown, not liking how the other man was acting.
"You're in there, why don't you tell me?" Sands responded with a bit of a manic laugh.
"Calm the fuck down, Sands. I don't like the way you're fucking acting," Jeffrey muttered warily. He could feel something in Sands shifting and he didn't like it. He didn't like not knowing what was going on.
"Why Jeffrey, you almost sound frightened of me. Whatever could be the fucking matter? I thought you were the tough son of a bitch who was going to come out on top when the two of us finally decided to go at it?" Sands drawled slowly.
"Yeah, well excuse fucking me if I start to worry when you're fucking acting like you're about to go around the fucking bend at any second," Jeffrey said with a scowl.
"I already am around that bend, Jeffrey my dear friend," Sands said cheerfully. "Let's go up and check on Halia. I bet she's lonely," he said, standing up from the table and moving across the room to go upstairs.
"Sure..." Jeffrey said slowly, not knowing how else to respond. If Sands truly 'was' losing it, he was fucked.
"Glad you agree. And while we're up there, we can grab that big fucking gun of hers. I'm sure she must have more bullets somewhere," Sands said slowly, ascending the staircase.
"Good idea. It never hurts to be able to defend yourself," Jeffrey agreed without hesitation; both because he actually did feel that way, and that he felt if he disagreed with Sands right now he wouldn't like the result.
Nothing had changed in the bedroom, not that Jeffrey really expected that it would have. Halia was still lying on the bed-a ruined mess-her eyes staring blankly over to where he had been standing when he shot her.
"She was a pretty little thing before we got a hold of her, wasn't she? They all were," Sands mused as he noticed Jeffrey staring at her. He walked over to the side of the bed and moved a lock of hair that had been sticking on Halia's cheek to the side as Jeffrey watched, slightly horrified. "Thanks sugarbutt, it was fun," he said with a smirk before raising the hand he had used to move her hair up to her mouth and licking the transferred blood off of his fingertips.
"You're a sick bastard, you realize that?" Jeffrey said slowly.
"That's an instance of the pot calling the kettle black if I ever heard one," Sands responded with a roll of his eyes as he cleaned off his fingertips. "Now where the fuck did that gun get to?" He moved away from the side of the blood-covered bed and began scanning the carpet for the used .45. "Aha, there you are," he practically cooed, picking up the weapon and sniffing the barrel delicately. "You know, I think I've always liked the smell of gunpowder and smoke. Did you know that?" he asked offhandedly.
"Yes, I knew that," Jeffrey said slowly. He liked the smell too, and would have admitted as much, but Sands was fucking freaking him out a little.
"Now if I were bullets, where the hell would I be," Sands asked himself aloud, humming under his breath softly as he searched. "Broadway baby," he exclaimed, upon finding a box of .45 shells tucked away in a corner of the same dresser drawer he had found the gun in. "That's improper gun safety, sugarbutt," he scolded the dead woman on the bed. "Aren't you always supposed to store the gun and the bullets in different locations or some such bullshit like that?"
Jeffrey didn't answer because it was clear Sands was no longer talking to him. He just watched as Sands took a seat on the edge of the bloodied bed and began loading the gun, continuing to hum to himself softly as he did so. Jeffrey recognized the song, it was 'I Shot the Sheriff,' by Eric Clapton. It didn't bode well for Jeffrey's current frame of mind. Sure, he didn't really care if Sands killed people-he'd even enjoy it-but a fucking psychotic rampage was never a good idea, and he feared that was where Sands was heading. "Just listen to me, Sands. Don't do anything stupid, alright?" he practically pleaded with his other half.
"Oh like what, go on a homicidal rampage, killing people left and right until I run out of bullets or until someone stops me? Is that kind of what you meant, Jeffrey?" Sands asked innocently. Jeffrey didn't buy it for a second.
"Yes, like that. Just...calm down. Get some fucking rest or something. You're not in your right mind," Jeffrey said with a frown, irritated that he was having to be the rational one all of a sudden.
"Right 'minds', Jeffrey," Sands corrected him. "If I can't fucking get rid of you, I might as well accept you, right? Well I tell you what. I'm not ready to fucking ever accept you! I fucking want you out of my head, and I will do so even if have to fucking blow my own brains out just to do so!" he put the now fully loaded gun against his temple. "I honestly don't care anymore, you fucking bastard. You've stolen my life away from me, and if I can't fucking get it back, I'd rather be dead."
"You're a fucking pussy if you think that's going to scare me, you pathetic bastard. You wouldn't dar—" Jeffrey was cut off as Sands shot a hole into the ceiling, the sound of the loud gunshot echoing throughout the room.
"Fucking try me," he said emotionlessly, holding the still smoking gun in hand but not moving it back to his temple.
"You've really fucking lost it, haven't you? You're not just fucking kidding around. You're really gone," Jeffrey asked incredulously, not quite believing it.
Sands frowned in distaste at the question, but answered anyway, "If you consider not giving a fuck about anyone or anything anymore and willing to do whatever it takes just to get rid of you, 'losing it,' then yes I suppose you're right. Also, I'm in the mood to kill a few dozen people right now, so I guess that's pretty far around the bend too," Sands said, rising from the bed and locating his two-toned tux jacket where he had thrown it the other night and forgot about it, slipping it on. He put the box of .45 shells in one of the pockets of his red and black pants after replacing the bullet he had fired into the ceiling. "I'm going outside to play," he said with a manic grin and left the room humming to himself again; gun in hand and in more than mood for violence.
TBC
A/N: Yup. I'm evil. I make you wait all that time, and I leave you at a cliffhanger. *wicked grin* I am sorry for making you wait so long, but not about the cliffhanger. And don't worry! I'm on summer break in a little more than a week, so I'll have oodles of time to write! In the mean time, feel free to review, it might just make me write faster, and read my co- authored OUATIM story, More than Darkness on www .adultfanfiction.net It's getting...long.
To my reviewers from last chapter, Psnoo, Skye29 and BlueTrinity, THANK YOU!!! You guys keep me writing, you really do.
-Merrie