He'd finally found a way to shut Sands up. El Mariachi watched the other man's usually neutral face, unguarded and expressive as he experienced pleasure. Applying a little more suction, El was rewarded by a low groan from the other man. The blind American was alternately needy, paranoid and snide. It was only by acknowledging the first trait that El was able to tolerate the other two.

His original intention was to leave Culiacan at the end of the Day of the Dead. El Presidente was safe, his friends had their share of the spoils, there was nothing to hold him there. A memory stayed his steps. While climbing out of a window to elude Marquez's guards, he saw the American lying in the dusty street, blood pooling around him. It was, he thought, very likely that Sands was dead. On the other hand, he'd once assumed the same of Marquez, and look how that turned out...

Sands gasped as El's lips found a tender spot and teased it. Perhaps there was some truth to the motto on the American's well-worn tee shirt: "When you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow"...?

He'd been gasping on the Day of the Dead, too. When El located the CIA agent, he was no longer lying in the street. He'd managed to drag himself over to the side of one of the buildings nearby. Sands had been there for a while; the long crimson streak upon the old stucco told the story. It began at about shoulder height, but Sands sat on the sidewalk with his legs splayed in front of him, panting with pain. There was a gun beside him.

In one hand, he held a pair of dark glasses. Sands was rubbing his forehead with the other hand, and the mariachi eased one of his guns out, approaching as steathily as he could. This was an unpleasant task, but El had learned from his mistakes.

The American's head came up, listening. When El saw the ruin of the man's face, all thought of killing him faded away. "Sands," he said quietly, trying to conceal his horror and pity.

"Well, well, if it isn't the world's deadliest guitar player," said the man in black. He attempted the insouciant smile El remembered from the cantina, but he was trembling.

Sands trembled with pleasure, his slender body arching with passion as the musician fluttered his tongue vigorously. Guitar licks were not the only type at which El was adept, as he proved now.

"Are you going to kill me?" Sands asked. From his tone, the answer was only of mild curiosity to him.

El hesitated. "No," he said at last. "Unless you try to shoot me first."

For a moment, the blinded man was clearly thinking about it. The hand that had massaged the ugly lump on his forehead hovered over the gun, and El waited, his own weapon already drawn. Seeing what had happened to the other man, the tears of blood crusted on his cheeks, he believed that Sands might actually wish to be put out of his misery.

"Oh, God!" Sands moaned, his hips arching. "Jesus! El--please!"

The American was tougher than El had expected. He'd refused to go to a hospital--he'd given the mariachi directions and his car keys, and the mariachi had ended up taking the wounded man to the boarding house he'd checked out of that morning. Fortunately, El's pragmatic landlady had been willing to shelter them and help nurse Sands, who, El thought privately, had pulled through out of sheer spite.

"Don't stop, don't stop!"

El didn't stop. His calloused fingertips applied themselves, staccato, to a particularly sensitive region. Sands howled and bucked, and the mariachi never looked away as the other man's face reflected need, lust...and finally relaxed, at peace.

"You never cease to amaze me, El," said Sands, burrowing against the Mexican as he stretched out on the bed beside him. "I never thought the big, bad El Mariachi would suck my cock. Or anyone else's, for that matter."

El recognized the remark for what it was, Sands trying to push a button. "I hope you won't be too disappointed," he said, trying to match the other man's tone, "when I tell you, you're not my first." He grinned at the expression this elicited from Sands.

"You've done this before?" the American asked in disbelief. His eyebrows arched above the hollows where his eyes had been.

"I was a lot younger," admitted the mariachi. "And more than a little drunk."

Sands snuggled against him. That was how this had started; napping together on a warm afternoon...El, dozing, was awakened by Sands's hand tracing the outline of his penis against the soft cotton of his underwear, as the American rubbed his own hard-on against the Mexican's thigh. "Go on," murmured the younger man, his cheek resting against the mariachi's shoulder. "Young and drunk--? Who was he? What happened?"

"It was after my hand was shot. I didn't think I'd ever be able to play again..." Remembering that era was still painful, but now, comparing his injury to the suffering Sands had experienced, it seemed more like a setback than the disaster it had been at the time. "A friend of mine took me in and let me stay at his place for a while..."

"And got you drunk and fucked you?" Sands asked hopefully. Obviously, he was enjoying a mental image of the scene playing itself out that way.

"No. He was also a mariachi. One night, he brought a woman home with him from the club he'd been playing at. I was sitting around drinking--I was drinking too much in those days. It was a small place, and when they started in, I was right there, watching them."

Sands made a cat-in-heat noise, reaching out to tweak El's nipple. "A threesome? I'm impressed."

"While he was fucking her, she motioned me to come over."

"Which you did?" smirked Sands.

"Of course. She sucked on me until I thought I'd explode. My friend had an idea. He graciously stepped aside and allowed me to take his place, thinking that the lovely lady would give him the same treatment." El hissed as Sands's hand grasped his cock, which was hard more from the memory than the afternoon's activities.

"She had other ideas that didn't include fucking you? You and your friend ended up--"

"Sands, who is telling this story?" El asked in good-natured exasperation. "She didn't care who fucked her, but she wanted him to rinse himself off first before she'd suck him. He didn't want to leave the party, so--"

The American whooped with laughter. "You took care of it for him?" He tugged lightly on El's erection, his fingertips navigating the subtle and not-so-subtle ridges. El was pretty sure he was blushing; the thought that he was glad that Sands couldn't see his expression sent a pang of guilt through him.

"Yes, I did." At the time, it hadn't seemed like a bad thing...he could taste the girl's juices, and his friend had encouraged him. El had been on the receiving end of enough good blow jobs that he had an idea of what would work, and it had.

"I'll be damned." There were times when it was safer not to say anything; this was definitely one of those times. "You're not drunk now," Sands pointed out.

"That's true."

The other man still played with him idly. It was disconcerting; El had minimal interest in further carrying on with Sands--the younger man had seemed so vulnerable earlier, horny and yearning and somehow fragile...it would have been cruel to push him away, so El had matter-of-factly done what needed doing.

"Well, don't get your hopes up," Sands said dismissively. "I've never gone down on a guy, and I'm not about to start now."

"Then would you mind letting go of my dick?"

Sands patted the head of it like a dog before releasing it. "There, happy? What ever happened to your friend?"

For a moment, El couldn't say anything. He'd managed to avoid thinking of that part, and it was enough to quell his lingering arousal. "He's dead." That terrible day in Santa Cecelia had sharp edges that lacerated his conscience even after so many years. "I am responsible for his death."

There was a half-snort of laughter from the American. "That's something we have in common."

"What's that?"

"You're responsible for the death the last person you gave a blow job to, and I'm responsible for the death of the last person who gave me a blow job. Before today, I mean," he added as an afterthought. "As long as neither one of us makes a habit of it, we're safe..." He yawned and let the sentence trail away.

When a man has neither eyes nor eyelids, it's difficult to be sure when he's sleeping, but as Sands's breathing grew deep and regular, the mariachi gently stroked the soft cascade of other man's sable hair. It was all too easy to imagine the consequences of getting involved with the American; Sands would be a very bad habit indeed.

All rights to Sands and El Mariachi belong to Robert Rodriguez.

This story was written for Yuletide 2005 and does not tie in to any OUaTiM fic I have previously posted.