He lost track of the days, and he sure as hell lost track of the bars.
They seemed to spend half their time in fucking bars, always ordering the booze and never drinking it. The bars were all the type of dives where the floors didn't get washed too often, sticking to his shoes and making him wonder what the fuck he was walking in. And they all had shitty music, and sometimes even shittier musicians.
Thank Christ for the smokes, at least. He made a point of lighting up at the door, leaving it hanging from his lip so his hands stayed free.
This one was pretty empty this early - not that it was a likely place to ever get lively, given the town they were in had two streets worth so much as a dog turd. A couple of conversations were going on down at table level as they walked in, and another higher with the clink of glasses - barstools up ahead.
Casual bang of a door to one side and fast flow of air with it, footsteps across in front and a squeak-scrape of chair. Restrooms off to his left, then. If he needed to take a leak, he'd only have to follow the stink, that so-revealing combination of bleach and badly-aimed piss.
Fuck, he'd have to be desperate before he'd use the facilities. Bad enough not knowing what was underfoot out here.
He followed El on past the bar, through another door into a smaller room, this one empty unless someone was deliberately keeping quiet. El brushed up against something, and Sands pulled the chair back a foot to sit in it, table right there to prop his elbow on as he scraped forwards again.
"Here." El pushed something glass-heavy across the table towards him, and he flicked his cigarette into the ashtray, his T-shirt dragging damp with his arm beneath his jacket. El wandered back off bar-wards to buy the usual prop drinks, and Sands tracked him half-aware through the other sounds. Knowing exactly where El was every second of every day was a fast-settled habit.
A couple of fans hummed lazily overhead, the slow shift of air something of a loser drawn against the July heat.
It could be worse. Back in Sinaloa right now, he'd be just as hot and with added humidity and regular showers of the involuntary kind.
He wondered just how much of a wash-out today was gonna turn out to be.
It was getting tougher to find reliable leaks, and they'd shifted operations to Baja and the Tijuana-run cartel Montejo had traded off with last winter. It had helped some, but he still wasn't holding out hope for much from the minor level dicktard they were meeting with. Of course it would have been easier to get quality info if they'd been offering quality incentives, but quite apart from the long term drawbacks of running through their resources too fast, they just couldn't afford to attract any more attention than they already were by adding 'guys who flash bags of cash' to their list of reasons for being talked about.
El came back fast - one benefit of a dead dive was a bored barman - and stuck a glass on the table in front of him, which he noted only so he wouldn't knock it over and coat himself in sticky booze fumes like some fucking bum.
El sat tapping at ninety degrees to him, fingernails quick and light on wood, irregular brush of fabric tied to the creak of his chair. Sands didn't like this sitting around any better, he just preferred not to take out the full page ad in Impact bold.
He wondered vaguely if they'd gotten here early or if the dipshit rat was showing up late.
Some of the sound dropped out too sharp - the low conversation from out front had hummed through the door, a constant background, and now it was gone. All he heard beyond the fans was traffic.
He leaned forward as he crushed his cigarette into the ashtray, keeping it low. "El?"
"Yeah." Nothing like a question, much more of an 'I know', and shit, but he'd kind of been hoping he was paranoid.
He knew he had a long-term fling thing going on with Paranoia, even with the Mariachi around. Not the kind of romance that was headed for marriage, just the regular dinner-and-a-quick-fuck type flirting that hung around, comfortable, till something better came along. He didn't like to think of it turning serious on him while he tried guarding his own back twenty-five-seven, which was another reason to keep El all bundled up with his South American plans. He liked the relationship he had worked out with Reality right now, thank you so much, and he didn't plan on throwing her over for any interloper. And, hey, a permanent room-share with Paranoia might just interfere some with that sleeping plan he had lined up.
"Exits?" he asked, because it was nice to know, even if he was kind of neutral on the answer.
"No."
Only the one way out, but only the one way in for the bastardfuckers too, and he already had a gun on that door.
Footsteps heading away, main door opening in a rush of traffic noise, falling back again with the slam. More feet, and a different door.
Two guns on the door now, and out from under the table. Fuck subtlety at this point, no-one else was gonna be playing it that way. El's guns had already clicked down into his hands.
He'd be a lot happier up against the wall, reduce the line of fire from that door when it opened, but it might be a bit late now for that. He pushed his chair back a foot, wood squeaking harsh.
"Table," El said.
Not exactly the most promising suggestion he'd ever heard. "Is that the best you can do?"
"Unless you have better."
Footsteps right outside the door, and if that was somebody's idea of stealthy they'd skipped a few classes in hired goon ed. He put a burst of automatic rounds straight through it, because it had sounded just as cheap as everything else in this dive. Drawn-out silencer thrum brawling with a chipboard explosion in his head, low thump when he stopped and a "Shit" from further away.
He smiled. Nice.
But there were more feet already right there, and the door was kicked open to slam back against the wall. El shoved the table forwards and over in a high crash and shattering of glass, Sands dropping down behind the sound. Short bounce and rattling roll as it hit, and the light, wobbling feel of it under his elbows had told him it was a heap of laminate shit that would be even less protection than that fucking door, but it stopped him being sighted direct as he flattened himself and fired round at the doorway. El's crouched movements and gunfire were right alongside him, and he emptied the rest of the M11's clip in a weave between the doorframes, reloading fast as El took the more controlled shots.
"Go." El's voice low at his ear; El bounced and rolled off forward and out into the main bar in a barrage of two-way gunfire, Sands on his heels and shooting high over him as far as the door, then flattening back against the wall.
El hated feeling cornered, liked room to move when he fought, and it had the added benefit of splitting the forces coming after them. Most of them would go after the obvious moving target, which was just fine with Sands. Knowing next to fuck all about the layout of the place, he was staying right where he was with only the one door to worry about.
El was clear now, off across the room, so Sands stuck his semi round the door-post and took out a few of the stupid fucks too busy shooting at El to be paying attention to what was behind them. That brought some bullet-whistling attention back his way fast, and he whipped his hand back in while his fingers were still attached.
The doorframe thudded and splintered alongside him, and he backed off along the wall, shooting the two noisy brainfucks who tried coming in after him. He stepped back into a chair that scraped high-pitched and too fucking obvious over tile, and he was still too close to the door, didn't like the angle they'd have on him. He kept both guns up, using his hip to guide him out and round the table and chairs by the wall, feeling backwards with his feet, cautious and slow.
The gunfire outside was more muted, feet thumping upwards somewhere above him - seemed like El had found the stairs. But there was still someone down here with him, shuffling and creeping not far from the door, trying to stay covered by the noise and almost making it. Sands stopped, held his breathing, tipped his head - listened as they came closer, edging along their own wall towards the doorway. Almost there - so close - and he opened fire across the door as they stepped in.
And the sound of it was all wrong, solid thunk of wood and wall, no satisfying wet squish and no change to the breathing, the breathing that was too fucking low, and the bastard had kept down, beneath the bullets –
His leg was gone from under him, and he was falling, falling away from the table into the room and who-the-fuck knew what, and he dragged both guns sideways as he fell, so much noise and he couldn't tell a damn thing that was happening as he sprayed bullets all round that fucking door. His shoulder smacked tile and his skull right after, no chance to brace for it, and he kept firing right at the door at the level he was sprawled at till both hands clicked empty.
Quick, scrabbling reload right where he lay, but he couldn't hear the breathing now, nothing close outside the high whistle of air down his nose and the ever-buzzing fans, and he dragged himself half-upright and oh, Christ, pain –
It felt like his fucking leg had been blown off, and he stashed his semi and ripped a glove off with his teeth and ran his fingers down and oh, fuck, thank fuck, it was still there, if all a bit wet and –
And fuck, fuck, fucking Jesus, that fucking hurt, and he really shouldn't poke at that hole in him, 'cos he'd a feeling he'd be shrieking if he only had the fucking breath –
But he hadn't felt anything move that normally didn't, and he figured his bone was still all shaped the way he liked it.
Okay, okay, so it couldn't actually be that bad, right?
Right.
His finger-memory had gotten pretty good by now, one of those skills he could have lived just fine without ever knowing he had, thanks, and the hole above his knee wasn't too big, neat-edged - probably a nine mill, or a thirty-eight - and thank Christ he'd at least passed on the option of higher calibre, 'cos that could've really messed him up, like he wasn't already, and shit, there goes the calm, rational moment, thoughts breeding and squeaking in his brain like trapped mice, and –
Stop.
Breath was good. Air slow and heavy through him, all blood and powder stink.
Okay.
The gunfire rattle dragged on with the fast-thudding steps overhead, explosive shotgun double-blast ripping through and over everything. El was still around and taking the fuckers down, and that definitely counted as A Good Thing right now. He tuned down through the range, listening beneath for the low hiss of stressed breaths, shuffle-tap of cautious feet on hard floor, and got nothing. Count two on his side, and speaking of which...
He pulled the glove back on, tiles hard everywhere beneath his fingers, and otherwise the tips all coming up empty. Swap the gun over, check the other side - nothing within reach except a sticky corpse. He couldn't even find his shades, which had slithered off to parts unknown while he'd been paying more attention to the bullet in his leg and shooting the fucker who put it there.
He had no clue about wherever the hell he was except the vague impressions he'd gotten on the way in, which right now meant the door to the main bar a few feet ahead and to his left, the upended table a few feet to his right, and not much else.
That part could be better.
Sweat was bubbling over his skin, itching and dripping down towards his (eyes), and he swiped the cuff of his jacket across his forehead. Remembered when the smell of blood suddenly got stronger that he'd just been groping over his leg and that oozing corpse to his left.
Fucking perfect.
Sound stopped.
All of it, or almost, just the droning buzz of traffic on what passed for the main street at the end of the block; nothing at all now from upstairs, no guns, no feet.
He turned his head, reaching for anything through the intrusive, stretched quiet; finally found the steps, steady, careful.
"Sands?" El's voice carried low and cautious, and not too far from the door.
And here he was still sprawled all over the floor and nicely coated in the leaking stuff. Christ, he'd probably make a real good Prom Queen Carrie right about now.
If he was going to get to his feet, he'd want a wall. There was one of those going free right by the door, and he squirmed over onto hands and one knee, groping ahead of him, hoping the shattered glass from their table hadn't spread too far this way, because he could do without slicing up his sole functioning leg at this point. His left leg was dragging, a lump of screaming lead chained on tight, and hey, better that way than the other.
"Sands?"
Slight sounds in the doorway, and then the shift of air with no breath.
Staring silence with really fucking obvious eyes all over him, and his hand stroked the wall for something to grab that wasn't old, roughened plaster, probably that burnt orange Mexico was so hot on, as if half the goddamn country wasn't already hot and burned enough, and it'd be looking real pretty now with the new red hand-paint effect.
El was moving again, in the room and circling around him, and Sands gripped at the doorframe, pulling upwards while he brought his right foot forward and under him, but his left knee was forced down onto tile, pain shrieking up through him and air tight in his throat, and he froze, arms locked and holding, fingers squeezing tighter.
Bullet-splintered wood dug needle-sharp even through the glove.
"Fuck, that hurts," he said eventually, when he felt like he could breathe, not choke.
"Then don't get shot." Something vicious and angry there beneath the dry, and oh, thank you so goddamn much, El. He got that he fucked up, thanks, his leg was actually telling him that part too.
El moved close now, closer, breathing warm on him and touching, and then Sands was gasping and almost heaving as he was hauled the rest of the way upright, El pressing him to the wall and easing his shoulder up under his left arm. "Anybody would think you were new to this," El told him, words by his ear, low with heat, and still not exactly good-humoured.
"Last time, I got the drugs in and running up front. Apparently that makes a difference."
El took a step forwards, and Sands moved with him, pushing his leg out ahead against the pain, braced for more when he transferred weight to it. And there was more, Christ there was more, and his knee buckled, his fingers clutching and dragging at El's jacket as he lurched sideways onto him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
He got his right leg back where it belonged, which for now seemed to be about under the middle of him, standing balanced with El only a light pressure against him. "Shit, it doesn't look that bad, right? I should still be able to fucking walk on it, right?" And his voice sounded almost okay, enough of the frustration in there to make it seem like there really wasn't a thread of panic weaving through it like a drunken frat party exodus, because he could deal with being blind, he could, he had, but he didn't know if he could deal with more, if his knee was fucked and he couldn't walk for months, and he was trapped –
El shrugged his shoulders up beneath his draped arm. "Sometimes the body over-rules you. It's nothing to do with how strong you are, it's just how it is."
El sounded normal again now, that dark, angry undertone gone. He sounded casual, unworried, and Sands decided he was going to believe that, because El should know more about gunshot wounds than just about anyone outside an ER, and believing it was a hell of a lot better than not.
"I hope you found the back door, because I don't feel like taking the tour out front." It wasn't even so much the horror freak show thing - if the locals could ignore that much gunfire, they could ignore a couple of blood-bathed guys who came staggering out afterwards just as well - but they'd parked the car round the back of the block and he wasn't planning on walking any further than he had to.
"I found it," El said. "Round the other side of the bar."
"So let's get going." Might as well get the worst of the pain part over with. It wasn't like it exactly went away when he was standing around.
El reached across him to his free hand, the one that wasn't wrapped around El. "Here." Light, familiar shape through the gloves. His shades. He flicked them open one-handed and put them on.
"Thanks." Nice to know El wasn't just being a complete asshole bastard while he was ignoring him dragging himself up off the floor.
They made their way back through the main bar, slow and uneven.
When he followed El, it all just worked, smooth and easy, placing his feet right where El had stepped, avoiding even the minor annoyance of small, loose stones. Forced to limp alongside him, it was a fucking disaster, and not just because his left leg bailed on him with less than a quarter of his weight.
They had to turn side on to get through doorways, Sands practically hopping, and lurching into El with every gritted-teeth excuse for a step. El didn't even have to say anything; Sands could feel him tense all alongside him, muscles locked and braced against him.
Walking forwards wasn't much better - slippy-squashy bodies and skittering guns and shattered wood waiting everywhere to trip him, and El was trying to steer him, but even Sands couldn't be sure where the fuck his feet were gonna end up as he stumbled his way past the bar, so no way in hell could El judge.
They shuffled their way along some narrow corridor behind the bar, Sands trying not to go crashing into either the wall or El and making a lousy job of both. Finally, air that didn't stink like a barbecue in an abattoir as they edged through the last door, the sun sledgehammer hot on him - one guess for an enclosed yard, all bare concrete and stucco.
El turned him and eased him back till he felt wall solid against him, and he sagged onto it, grateful.
"Wait here," El told him.
"Well, I'm not quite planning on taking a stroll."
El didn't say anything, just turned and jogged away, clinking and echoing footfalls.
The car couldn't be more than a block or so away, judging by the distances they'd walked to get round the front, but it still seemed to be a fucking age of standing and hearing nothing. Nobody out on the streets - big surprise there, the populace would keep themselves scarce till all the crazy bastards with guns were long gone. Still some cars moving around, though, just passing through, no clue what had been going on down a side street ten minutes before.
He was getting a serious case of déjà vu.
Major fucking pain. Check. Can't fucking walk. Check. Sweaty, sticky, wall baking him through his clothes and sun broiling him the other side. Check. Start of one vicious mother headache. Check. Seemed there wasn't a whole lot of difference there between smacking his skull on tiles or on stone.
(Mind-freezing, throat-choking horror, terror eating him through till every muscle shivered and cramped.)
No. Not even close, not now.
Drugs.
He fucking wished.
He carefully peeled off the gloves (remembering the blood this time, thank you, brain) before he fished out and lit himself a cigarette. Gun in one hand, smoke in the other, long, relaxed inhales as he listened, half his attention back on the door to the bar just in case, and while he could have used something stronger than nicotine, things could have been a hell of a lot worse.
The car was finally rattling its way along the street towards him, slowing alongside. Goddamn wreck really needed its tappets fixing.
Familiar sounds of doors and El, and then even more familiar hands brushing away the last of the unwanted flashbacks as he was shuffled and steered into the car seat. He thumbed the safety on his pistol, and pushed it in the glove compartment instead of risking the contortionist wriggle to get it back in its holster.
El had the back door open, and clicked up the guitar case lid behind him, distinct double latches. "Here," he said, dropping a cloth onto his shoulder. "Clean your face."
He worked his tongue round his dried out mouth, sucking on his cheeks till he could spit on it, and rubbed it all across his forehead, switched the cloth round and wiped over the rest of his face in case. He didn't have to look great, just pass a quick glance through the windscreen from cars coming the other way.
El was back in the car and groping round in the footwell by Sands' ankle. "Sit still. I'm going to cut the cloth away."
Yeah, he was gonna sit really fucking still, because he'd sliced his fingers finding one of the knives in that guitar case before he'd learned - El didn't piss around with knives any more than he did with guns, and if they were there, they were in perfect working order. A tug at his jeans, the smooth rip-sound of fabric sweeping up his leg, air flowing behind it over the sweat on his skin.
El stopped the cut at mid-thigh; a few seconds' silence as he looked, but he didn't start poking at the hole, thank Christ. Sands didn't want any more gunpowder adding to the mix of crap already in there.
"It will match the other leg quite well," El told him.
"Just two more for the full set, yeah. I think I'll pass on the subscription."
El dropped several things light and plastic-crinkly into his lap - dressing pads and bandages when he felt at them. "Bind it up for now. We'll deal with it properly later." El snapped the case closed and started the engine, pulling away while Sands unwrapped the dressings.
He'd really prefer not to touch it at all, especially not in a moving car, but they'd been hanging around too long already, and he could feel the slow ooze of blood over his skin both sides of his leg. He guessed a through shot had to be an improvement on having a bullet dug out of him, at least.
He couldn't remember much about the last time. He remembered getting shot, remembered those parts all too well considering, but not what came after - by the time the quack had doped him, combined with the leftovers of whatever the hell that bitch had shot him up with, it all got a lot hazier, if still a long way off any of his favourite trips.
He suspected he wasn't going to like this much.
Oh well.
Half his leg was throbbing at him in long, drawn out waves, a slo-mo Slinky kind of pain, forever tipping down the last couple of stairs. But even those waves had a focal point, and his fingers knew exactly where he'd found that hole in him, and he dropped a pad over it without touching. The out-hole was trickier, on the underside of his leg, and he had to press and hold the pad in place while he wrapped the bandage around one-handed; and that fired the pain right up, Slinky out of control hurtling down stairs too deep and steep, twisting sideways and falling...
It eased back some when he was done. Not as much as he'd like since he'd wrapped it tight, pressure to stop the bleeding. Back to throbbing, but with sharper points, yo-yo waveforms with a whiplash flick at the ends.
He figured he'd done as good a job as he could expect. He'd bandaged himself blind often enough before, but that had been with more space and in a room that wasn't moving. And with drugs. El was taking the corners steady, wide and sweeping, no sudden lurches, and that helped.
He fumbled El's pot of painkillers from the glove compartment, tipped two into his palm (right hand, since the left definitely had blood drying all across it and the right was only a maybe), swallowing one for that building headache - not likely to do much for the leg, but he might as well fix what he could - and holding the other out to El. Chains whispered instantly, and he let the capsule drop when El's fingers brushed dry beneath his.
"Thanks."
A couple of times early on he'd thought of pointing out that El didn't have to throw himself about quite so much and pull those lunatic stunts if it fucked him up afterwards. But it seemed to keep El alive and in as close to one piece as he was ever going to get, so he didn't bother questioning it.
Today's scuffle had been fairly short anyway. El would have some bruises, but a quick dose of the non-steroidals would keep him moving the same as ever.
He'd be a hell of a lot better off than Sands was.
Sands lit a cigarette, dragging deep on it before he passed it across to El. Lit another and kept that one for himself. El cracked his window open, air sucking all through the car and rippling past Sands' hair. He wound his own window right down, leaned on the door and stuck his face out, letting the dry air beat down the nausea faint in his gut, hint of salt as the wind veered in from the west.
He came to a fairly peaceable arrangement with his leg that if he didn't move around, it didn't bitch at him too much. The ibuprofen kicked out most of his headache. It was still a lousy state for travelling, but not the worst.
El drove a couple of hours before he pulled into - some town, Sands didn't really give a shit where. Bigger than the last one, wherever they were, big enough for El to make frequent turns weaving through the streets while he checked for a tail. Big enough with enough places to stay they could get lost in it. Stop, start, stop, start, while El did the pickier version of his hotel scoping. They'd want a place where a limping guy with blood-soaked sliced-up jeans could sneak in unnoticed, or just where nobody cared a horse's balls about it.
El found some place he must have figured would pass and left the car parked down some quiet side street while he checked in, traffic humming off behind Sands, flattened through the glass.
He wasn't looking forward to getting out. He'd gotten quite used to that peaceable arrangement, and wasn't so keen on breaking it.
He fired himself up another smoke while he waited.
El was back by the time it burned through, and he flicked the butt end out the door as El opened it, hearing the boot grind it into the street. He slid his legs out first, hanging onto door and roof to take some of his weight as he hauled himself upright, El's hands light on his ribs to steady him. He reached back in to get the gun from the glove compartment, before he arranged himself around El.
"So where's the back door?"
"Maybe twenty metres. You ready?"
Hell, no, but that wasn't gonna change. "Yeah, get going."
His leg seemed to have gotten over the immediate bullet-shock and decided El was right - it agreed to take most of his weight without checking out on him, at least, and he was only barely leaning on El when they made their way up to the room. The stairs were still a complete bitch of it, concrete impacting hard against his boot, and some bastard stabbing a knife hot into his knee every time he flexed his muscles to make the next step. He tried to fixate his brain on the odd feel of air swirling round just one leg, the denim flapping loose against him, but no big surprise it didn't work so well. They seemed to wind on up for fucking ever, though it could only have been the one flight.
El didn't bother with the usual routine, just steered him straight through to the bathroom, all buzzing fluorescents with tight, tapping echoes, and pine-scented bleach. At least it was the kind of place that understood the concept of cleaner, not always guaranteed in some of the dives El liked hiding out in. He felt the edge of the toilet bowl low against his legs - quick grope behind him, lid down, check - and sank back onto it, breathing out slow against the pain.
El was running the faucets - note the basin for future use - soap scent and scrubbing sounds to go with it. "Take the bandage off," he said over the water, "and I'll have a better look."
At least the bastard knew to wash his hands first.
Sands worked on unravelling the slightly twisted mass round his leg, which was fine till he got to the last few layers and it all started to stick. Bandage stiff with dried ooze beneath his fingers, layers clinging together, a tug to separate them each time around that went sharp through to the skin and the wound beneath, sending the yo-yo spinning and whirling again.
The dressing pad behind his leg was solid and still slightly damp, but nothing there was feeling too fresh, all tacky jelly blobs against his fingers. There was some ooze sluggish and clammy over his skin when he peeled it away, disturbing the clot, but if it had stopped once, it'd stop again fast enough. He dropped both pads to the floor, heavy thwock-splat on tile. He was dripping everywhere anyway, a bit more blood wasn't going to ruin the artistic ambience.
El was back and moving in close beside him, sitting on something that squeak-creaked plastic. Edge of the tub, most likely. "I'm going to clean it up so I can see."
Coming up, bullet fun for everyone. He pressed his teeth together. "So stop farting around and get it done."
He breathed in slow through his nose, braced for the first press of cloth soggy and warm over his thigh.
It wasn't so bad as it could have been. Not something he'd be volunteering for too regular, but El kept it light, starting away from the wound before he worked in, teasing the blood away from skin and hair instead of just scrubbing at him. It kept the squealing of his nerves damped well down under manageable through most of it, only rising into full knife-wielding bitchery when El briefly poked fingers round the holes in his leg. "The entrance wound should be left to let infection out," he said finally. "The exit wound's a little bigger. It needs stitches."
Sands had had his fingers in that medical box more than enough, and he knew perfectly well what was in there. Well, most of it anyway, he hadn't a fucking clue what was in the bottles. "You're not sticking a needle in me."
Slight pause then while El dug out his dry humour from the Mariachi repertoire. "I stick my tongue in you. I stick my cock in you. And now you're saying a needle is too much to trust me with?"
Well, there it was, dropped in so easy after all these weeks, the reference to how they fucked; and not only casual, but crude with it. Interesting timing, El. But it still wasn't happening. "Medicing by amateurs is slow and painful." He let his smile widen slow until it was all teeth. "You fucking me's only ever one of those, not both."
The amusement was there in the huff of El's breath before he even got as far as words. "You think I'm such an amateur? I learned from some of the best books, and I've had practice."
"If half those scars on you are your own work, damn straight you're a fucking amateur. I'll wait till we can dig me up a semi-qualified tailor, thanks."
Rhythmic brush of hair over jacket as El shook his head. "No doctors."
Sands leaned himself back against the cistern, resting a bent elbow on top of it, casual, stubborn, and fuck his leg and the way it screamed at him for moving. "A town this size has gotta have a local quack tucked up down a back alley somewhere who'll take cash instead of explanations. You know how to find them the same as I do."
"Any doctor whose ethics we can buy can be bought by others too," El said, level and soft.
Sands raised eyebrows at him, high and obvious over the shades. "You think I'm gonna live with bullet holes on aspirin?"
"There's stronger in the box. And only one bullet hole, or are you planning on more?"
"One bullet, two holes, dickbrain. And if you've got the good stuff, shouldn't you have fronted up by now?"
"Not before I knew how much you were going to bleed."
Yeah, some doctor El was, knew fuck all about drugs. "Screw that, I'll clot just as fast with the poppy juice in me."
"I'd like to be sure you're unconscious because of the drugs and not because you're dying." And it didn't matter how light El kept the words, the flicker-pause before was way more than enough.
Sands smiled, quick and quirked with amusement. "Well, that's real sweet, El, but I know I'm not dying and that's good enough for me, so cough it up."
El was already up on his feet and rattling at the countertop alongside the sink by the time he answered, voice as moisture-free as the desert air he'd spent the last couple of hours sucking in. "I think by now anyone would be sure you're unlikely to die."
You weren't, though, were you? Had something of a nasty moment by the door back there in the bar, didn't you?
He wondered just how much El didn't want him dead now.
He'd be willing to bet the Mariachi couldn't even call that one himself, not on any level he knew about. Wouldn't really know till he had to make a choice, and then it'd be a snap thing, right there.
But he'd be grinding the gears on it after today.
"Here." El stepped back his way and dropped four pills into his palm, all coated oval capsules but not the same size when he ran fingertips over them. The amusement stripped from Sands in a fast band-aid tug, and just as harsh. "What are these?"
"Two are the painkillers, the others are antibiotics." El ran water loud and splattering, then let it swish into a glass, set it on the counter beside him, thunk-ring.
The pills sat there in his hand, his head tipped down towards them automatically. Christ, he could still hardly believe he was reduced to this, just swallowing whatever he was handed and assuming they were what he was told.
Maybe his really big mistake had been taking Spanish and not French, but he'd no illusions the cunts wouldn't have strung him up and buried him in the fucking Congo with just as much glee.
He actually did believe El wouldn't harm him, not now - he wouldn't go quite so far as to say not for any reason, but not for most of them anyway. He'd worked hard enough to make damn sure that was how it was.
It wasn't the same thing as believing El wouldn't lie to him for his own asshole reasons, because he damn well would if it suited him, but it was the best he was going to get.
He stuck the pills on his tongue, took the glass and washed them back.
He reached into his pocket to his cigarettes, fished one from the pack and lit it, pulling smoke in deep and letting it drift out through his nose. He'd fucking well need it if he was going to do this.
"So what now, Señor Médico?"
El moved, fast, light, and the cigarette was tugged from between his lips. "You take a shower. You need one, and you're not doing it after I bandage you up." El's voice was altered, accent slightly slurred, and Sands reached out and snagged his smoke right back from the source of it.
"Fine," he said. "In maybe twenty minutes when the pills have kicked in some."
"In that case, you can finish smoking outside while I clean up." El backed off, reaching out, and something flapped slow through the air towards him. Sands grabbed it before it hit him in the face, rough loopiness of towel wrapping round his hand. "The bed's a metre and a half from the door at sixty degrees. The ashtray's on the table left of the head. Don't bleed all over everything."
"Not when I have to sleep in it too." He got to his feet easy enough with a bit of help from the cistern and the tub, wrapped the towel loose above his knee and limped through to the bed without too much hassle. Sank back onto it, laid out flat, pulling hard on the smoke settled between his lips.
Smiled when the bathroom door clicked shut behind him and the shower started up.
He might just have found that angle he'd been looking for.
Not that he'd been planning on getting shot precisely, because who the hell did, but he was never averse to taking an unholy fuck-up and making it work for him instead.
Not right now, though. This particular marinade needed time to soak and simmer a bit, since the Mariachi wasn't always the fastest thinker on sunset coast. A few days, definite, maybe closer to a week.
He could live with that.
He lay and smoked his way through his cigarette, slow, thoughtful, and then he just lay because he'd got a bum leg and nothing better to do.
When El came out of the bathroom in a wash of humid heat, Sands could feel the kiss of the drug around the edges, the slow seep of it through him. Enough to saw the points off the yo-yo, keep it slinky when he moved, not enough to have him hazing out in the shower.
Perfect timing.
He almost felt like humming as he swung his feet round to the floor, but it would be a pity to spoil the effect he had going, and he limped his way back to the bathroom silent like he'd been most of the trip here.
The air stretched along his skin with hot, clammy fingers when he stepped through the doorway, Sands suddenly fully aware of the layers of sweat clinging over most of his body. He left the door open to get rid of some of the choking dampness. It made no difference to him, and very little to El either that he could figure.
Stripping was easier than it might have been - El had sliced his jeans high enough so they slithered loose over his knee, no dragging. Bending that leg to pull off his boot and sock wasn't so great, but it was a beautifully numbed down take on pain compared to the earlier hot poker style fun on the stairs.
He started the water and let it run vaguely warm, shampoo bottle and soap lined up by the controls like always. Scrubbed over his face and pushed his head under the flow, rinsing fast while his hair soaked through. Stink of bleach and clashing flower-soap, flat and muffling gurgle through his head, nothing there beyond the cramped plastic-spray of the shower until he shook the water from his ears, and found again the soft steps and rustles and chinks of El dressing.
He soaped up his hair, rubbing at it a good couple of minutes, dragging his fingers right to the ends through the tangles, because he was fucked if he was gonna be walking around with dried gore in his hair. It'd be a hell of a lot easier if he cut it shorter, but there was no way he'd be taking a pair of scissors to it himself, and from what he remembered of El, that guy wasn't gonna be scamming cash as a quality barber either. It might just be worth doing if he could get rid of most of it, but he'd always have to keep it long enough to hide the fucked-up mess he could feel round the edges of where he used to have eyes, so he didn't see the point.
Water ran fast down his leg, past the throbbing, past the holes he could almost feel through him now his brain knew exactly where they were. No touching, no washing anywhere near, not yet. He tipped his head back high under the shower, scraping and squeezing his hair out behind him, keeping the soapy flow of it clear of his ears.
The door snicked shut, sudden, loud, immediate past the water. Not the bathroom door up close, the outer door distant and vital, and somebody was here.
He grabbed for the controls and snapped the water off, almost losing himself to go sprawling in the tub as he twisted on his leg, gripping hard on the faucet through the wobble and the shivers; slow drip, drip, drip behind him, his guns the other side of the curtain that would broadcast dramatic plastic 'come get me's if he reached for them, and... no.
Nobody was there, no threat out there because there was nothing, all silence, no El.
El had gone, and he hadn't said, and where the fuck had he gone?
He was alone with a bullet hole in his leg, and if anything happened now he couldn't run, didn't know where to run, didn't even know where he was - and oh, fuck, he didn't wanna be here, not like this, not again. He wasn't ever gonna get away from this, it was always gonna be there waiting for him no matter how many times he –
No. It fucking wasn't. He was going to fix this. Had it all laid out and just how to get it, and inside a week he'd have it played out exactly like he wanted. He was a seriously long way from being fucking helpless, and he wasn't ever, fucking ever going to do this shit.
He turned the water back on. Listened to the water as it flowed over his shoulders and down his body, hot and ending the shivers, listened through the water to the emptiness beyond; listened to the water splatter in the tub at his feet, wouldn't listen through it because there was nothing there, he knew that, and he wasn't paranoid, jumpy, over-reactive, any of those things that weren't about reality.
Fuck, but he could use some more of that opiate in him right about now to sand the corners off, leave him smooth and curved to roll instead of jagging and snagging on every change, every ripple in his predictions.
Or maybe he needed less of it, because Christ, he hadn't freaked out like this in months. He had his moments, yeah, 'cos hey, no-one'd be a hundred percent straight-threaded with the deal he'd been shuffled, but he had a handle on it. He went weeks now without any big-time brain-quakes, and he didn't lose it over minor shit like taking a goddamn shower.
The thing earlier in the bar, he could forget that, because that was about suddenly getting a bullet through the leg, and that didn't exactly fit into anybody's pattern of things to do on a good day. But he'd pulled it together now, he'd been good for hours, and he knew where it was all going, and fuck, he didn't need this. Not now.
He turned the water off again, and maybe he hadn't gotten every last bit of soap out of his hair, but screw that, it'd come out well enough with a towel. He stood dripping on the floor by the tub while he cleared all the water from his ears, then rubbed the rest of him half-dry.
He didn't think he was bleeding now, couldn't obviously smell it on him, but when every part of his skin was warm and damp it was a bitch to be sure. He wrapped the towel round his knee in case - no point in dressing when El was only going to start poking at his leg again.
When he got back. He hadn't said where he was going, but he always turned up again.
He grabbed his gunbelts from the toilet lid and his cigarettes from his jacket, wandered through to flop back down on the bed and lit up. Smoke in his lungs, air cooling as it sucked the last of the water from his skin, traffic buzz from outside (windows to the right, something close to six feet), voices through the wall, muffled some but not deliberately quieted.
Yeah, it was all good.
Heat flared over his face as he drew on the last of the cigarette, and the mattress was dragging on his bones in that perfect opiate way, extra dose of gravity laid on just for him.
He tried to keep track of the time until El got back, but it kept sneaking away from him when his brain wasn't watching hard enough, so he just lit another cigarette - or was it another another by now? - instead. His leg was still pulsing, regular rippling slow-wavy that made him think of the sea at childhood beaches, but it wasn't attached to the rest of him anyway, so his head didn't much care.
There were footsteps outside in the corridor, stopping by the door, but that was okay because they were the right steps, the ones he listened for, and the door clicked, and El came in rattling like plastic bags. Which was odd, until he considered the possibility that El might actually be carrying plastic bags, and that seemed plausible enough, so he quit worrying about it.
There was something he'd been meaning to say to El, but now when he wanted it, it had wandered off down a corridor somewhere in one of those twisty little ridges in his brain. Maybe it had gone looking for the missing Time so they could party along. He found himself saying instead, "Well, hi, El," which was a bit dull and unimaginative when he thought about it, so he added, "Long time, no see," because that just seemed a whole lot funnier.
El didn't laugh - no big surprise, he hardly ever did, had no clue about the whole concept of having a good time - and Sands rolled upwards, planning to prop himself on his elbow, but someone had tied his hair to the pillow and it was hard to balance. Or maybe it was the weight of the gun in his hand dragging him down, and he didn't actually want one of those right now, so he disentangled his fingers from grip and trigger and let it fall to the bed. It didn't seem to help much, and he dropped back full length himself, because it was just easier that way. Easier except his knee started waving at him faster and more dramatically, practically jumping up and down to get him to notice it, and oh, yeah, some dickless bastard shot him in the leg earlier today, and suddenly some things were making a lot more sense. "Fuck, what did you give me, horse pills?"
"I gave you enough. You'll want it."
And that made sense too, because hey, most people wanted drugs when they were offered. Especially right after they'd been shot.
El rustled over and sat on the bed with him, the plastic bags rattling too when he dumped them down between them, and the bags didn't smell of anything, but El did. Smelled of that cheap flower soap in the bathroom, exhaust fumes and the first hint of sweat layered beneath, and Sands curled in and sniffed seeking-close for those, because El really shouldn't be about poppies and TV ads with long-haired women draped over photoshopped meadows, clashing magnet pole images refusing to ever meet up in his brain.
Shiver of the mattress with shifting weight, El reaching over him in air-sound whisper, low chink and slide of Sands' gunbelts and the pistol that had been in his hand as El took them, and that wasn't right, he needed those, and he struggled to sit up but he was being pinned down; but he wasn't because there were no hands on him, there was only El, and El didn't do that unless he wanted him to.
"Sands?" The leather and buckles slither-clattered onto the table by the bed, and - okay, still there, still within reach, no problem, so he stopped arguing with the bed and let it suck him back down, because it was nicer that way. "Are you okay?"
Well, that was kind of a stupid question, 'cos why shouldn't he be? But El asked a lot of stupid questions. "Yeah, I'm juuuuuust fiiine." Funny how words could be almost like singing. They made everyone sing, made them sing all about themselves in little tones and notes and stresses, so pretty and perfect when you knew how to listen.
"I'm going to clean up your leg now, okay?"
El was being stupid again. "You already did that." He remembered it, cool and wet and painful like it wasn't now.
"I know. But this time I'm going to do it properly, so there's no infection."
"Okay."
El never tried to hide what he sang, and that almost made it more confusing because he sang so many different things, all tangled up in the weirdest way, switching fast between tunes where the notes met and crossed in thick knots. But every snatch of music he heard from El's voice, from his body, they were simple, open melodies, no bass drive clashing and devious. Sometimes for other people, not for Sands.
El turned rustly again - lots and lots of plastic bags and paper bags and unwrapping, but still El beneath it, thick rubbing fabric with low metal whispers, stale smoke jacket hanging open to brush against him, gunfire and oil and leather flickering with the movement so he could ignore the flowers and the lolling blondes. Something else sudden and sharp that made his nose itch inside, all edges and no flavour.
"Ready?"
"Hmmm." His hair was damp and cool and some of it was stuck to his face over one cheek, but that was nice enough when the rest of everything was shimmering like muffins right out of the oven and too hot to eat.
Something else on his skin, something starting cool and turning colder - maybe too cold, he hadn't quite decided; cold except where it burned right through him, fire shocking into his body, and it was almost - almost - vicious enough to drag him into moving, except it was already dying, flash-flame with no fuel, fading back.
He was Wile E Coyote, stunned and blinking after he tripped the explosives, only without the blinking.
"What the fuck was that?"
"Alcohol. I bought some. Believe me, you don't want to try cigarettes." Bright wash of humour over the surface, and something else, the troll lurking under the bridge, but that wasn't devious or double-dealing, that was El.
"Vodka, huh? No smell, no taste - hate it. Smokes are better."
"In your mouth, maybe. Not on bullet wounds. And it's medical alcohol." Movement, and scrapes over table, and lighter-click. "Don't set fire to the bed." Soap and tang-sharp fingers at his lips, and a filter was pushed between them, and smoke was good. Smoke made anything better, even a good drug high. Which he was settling back into very nicely now his leg was kindly shutting the fuck up again.
El's fingernail flicked the clinging hair from his face, fast, light sting. "Don't get too comfortable. I still have to stitch you. Turn over."
He was just fine where he was and how he was, but he wasn't hazed far down enough to miss the point that he'd be better off getting this shit over with while the drugs were still all there, and he wriggled over onto his stomach, careful effort to prop himself up on his elbows so's not to squish his cig into the pillow.
He clamped his teeth tight round the filter when El poured not-vodka over his leg again (and hey, lucky he'd kept that towel there, blood and booze for the bathroom instead of the bed) and tighter still when he started stitching, 'cos no amount of opiates was going to entirely remove the sensation of somebody sticking a needle through him, the slow dragging of thread.
His hair strung damp round his neck and shoulders, and it was easier if he concentrated on that, the cool fingers of sticky strands, waiting for tickling drips that didn't happen because it was just that bit too dry; but he was always still just that bit too aware he was lying naked on a cheap, sagging bed while El Mariachi sewed his muscle and his skin back together, and this had never made it into any of his varied plans for his life.
His smoke suddenly tasted foul, and that was because it'd burned right down and the filter was starting to smoulder, but he liked it where it was, squashed down flat and deliberately shaped round his teeth, so he kept it there till El reached over him and tugged it away.
In its absence, he threw his elbows out wide and flopped his chin down into the pillow. Which needed to be deeper and fluffier to really rate, because he stopped up with more of a jolt than a squish.
It was a lot easier to get comfortable once El stopped making voodoo with his leg and bundled it up instead.
Time went off wandering again for a while - could it be a while when Time was already missing? - maybe scoping out the hotel, or just chilling by the pool with tequila shots. But there wouldn't be a pool here, so maybe not.
El shivered and flicked round the room, the bed, the chair, the floor. Snick of guitar case, magazine and slide clicks, heavy, invasive solvent stench - all of it normal and El, along with the sleigh bell cliché jingling, sensation shifting through his senses without ever reaching out for it, solvent thick on his tongue making him swallow, dry-mouthed.
"Hey, can a guy get a drink around here?" And maybe El said something, Sands didn't much care so long as he showed up to hand him a glass. Water, even chlorine-laced straight from the main supply, tasted pretty good once you got desperate.
And then the water poured frigid all down his chest as he grabbed, because those were his guns scraping soft over wood, and no-one could have those, not even El, and he was trying to take them. And his fingers missed, he actually fucking missed, but the leather and metal dropped instantly back into place anyway, and El took the glass from him instead. "Okay. I'll get a towel."
Boots clicking on tile, and El was back with a flow of air that draped itself across his stomach, coarse-soft and bobbled. Not the original blood-and-vodka towel, it smelled of laundry, but he quite liked the water where it was, spread between his ribs and trickling down his sides. It felt strangely drier than some of the other bits of him, and cool was nice enough, and he brushed the towel away from him. He took the glass from El again, and there was more water, so he gulped it down.
Time seeped back in after that, less of the flickers and jumps between odd spaces. Sounds linked together, overlapping smoothly, scents flowing and fading in with the airflow. It was better when everything around him happened in some kind of reasonable order, no distracting random snatches.
The downside to it, and it was kind of a big one, was his leg wriggling its way back into a significant part of his consciousness again. And once the pain had reattached itself to the rest of him, it got noticeably harder to drift, and that left him noticing other things too.
Like just how much he needed to piss.
He pushed himself upright on the bed, setting off the screeching sirens in his knee again. His hair was hanging all round his face, and he could feel the tangles in it already, since he hadn't gotten around to combing it through before he flaked out on the bed for the duration. "Fuck."
"I take it you're actually back this time," El commented from across the room, and Sands already knew there was a chair there, wooden feet that squeaked against floor and a frame that creaked with El's weight.
Sands tipped his head and considered that. El's voice was clear in his head, distinct without rippling edges, even though Sands couldn't be a hundred percent sure right now if he'd succeeded in sitting himself fully upright. "Seems that way."
He reached over and snagged his semi from the table beside him. Okay, bathroom and toilet he had mentally flagged, if not a whole lot else - swinging his legs down to the floor and getting the direction was easy enough. Just a few steps across the room, and his knee had already settled into its new level of irritation, nothing too drastic - yeah it hurt, but so did a lot of things, so fuck it.
He rested his gun hand on the counter while he pissed, taking the weight off his leg for the duration, then drank something like half a basin full of water from the faucet to replace it, till his tongue felt like it fitted his mouth again. His hand slid out across the countertop automatically, and his comb was there, where it should be, so he dragged it through his hair a few times, enough to get rid of the worst of the knots before his knee started ramping up again, and he limped back out to the bed.
He leaned his weight on his hands, lowering himself careful onto the mattress, and tipped his head over at El's chair. "So, are you gonna tell me anything about this place?"
El gave him the rundown on the room and the length of hallway outside, details locking into place in his head, building his own maps round the numbers. Usually he double-checked, let his fingers familiarise with catches and handles, but his leg preferred he stay put for now, and it had been a while since he'd caught El on any mistakes or important omissions.
El had bought food too while he was out on the drugstore run - several somethings that might once have had aspirations towards tortas-dom, wrapped up cold in plastic, which explained why there'd been nothing to smell. And sodas to go with them.
Christ, he was so sick of fucking sodas. Though at least Coke with the capital gave him a half-passable caffeine fix.
He was still draped across the bed decoratively naked, and he had no real idea what he was about to eat, except there was definitely something cheese and something tomato-based. If he dripped salsa or some such shit all down him, it was gonna be easier to do laundry than to shower himself right now, with the bandage hassles. He reached down under the bed and yeah, his bag was right there too, so he found himself a T-shirt to dress in. Fuck pants, that would hurt.
His stomach was twisting around some, but it felt more the kind of uncertainty that would die back with food than a serious threat, so he nibbled carefully at the edges of the roll and let that settle before he tried anything else. It seemed to be safe - he didn't want to end up needing another shower today because he'd trailed his hair in puke, not after the experience of his last exercise in bathing - and he ate most of the rest. It didn't have much taste, but that was probably the best thing about it.
He ran a hand over his chin, auto-check for stray food, and shit, he needed to shave. That little matter had been bypassed in his earlier, drug-curtailed attempt at a shower. He must look like a fucking war zone refugee right now. But hygiene would wait a while longer, because there was still powder residue congealed and setting solid all over his guns, and that was gonna be a bitch to shift if he didn't get on it.
And the guns were right there, easy reach of his hand out left to grab them, but his leg was reminding him not to go wandering off round the room when he didn't have to. He unscrewed the silencer from his P14, ejecting the mag and chambered round in an obvious series of clicks and scrapes. "I'm guessing you're still hoarding the kit there, El, so toss it on over."
No fabric whisper from El, no strained squeak from the chair. "I can do that instead," he said.
Sands twisted his head to El, muscles set in what any stupid fuck would have to recognise as a glare. "The bugfucker shot me in the leg, not the head, and I can clean my own guns."
El shrugged. "You can, but you might prefer not to."
"Or I might prefer you to shut the fuck up and hand me the kit."
El made no more comments, and he did move, something landing on the bed a few moments later. Sands reached out to plasticised fabric, unzipping the case then flashing his hand up to snatch the silicone cloth from the air.
Cleaning wouldn't take so long - he'd only used the two guns today, nothing like the full set, and yeah, he felt it, the tug on torn muscle every time he twisted for the bore brush or solvent, but he'd looked after his own damn guns when he was in a much more pitiful fucking state than this, and no reason to break the trend. El sat rustling newspaper across the room, Sands following his breathing each time he pulled a patch from the muzzle and reached for the kit till he got the brief pause that told him the last one was clean, and he took another swab and ran it dry instead.
El always watched him when he cleaned, waiting to see if he ever fucked it up. He wondered if El actually knew he was giving him the cues so he didn't. Probably not - that degree of detail would exceed El's subtlety levels.
He ran fingers careful and slow everywhere he could fit them before he reassembled, squeezing his pinkie along the slide checking for chips or hair cracks, finished up by working the action through smooth and rubbing the surfaces down, and finally reloading.
By the time he was done with the auto, his head felt like it had been flexed out of shape then tapped back in with a precision hammer. Not pain, just disconnection and everything taking too long to process, and he had no clue whether it was still early or he should have been asleep hours ago.
He still hadn't shaved, and he limped his way back into the bathroom, his leg seeming to drag again, muscles seized up like something several hours dead, which as far as parts of his flesh were concerned wasn't so far off.
He brushed his teeth to get rid of the last of the tortas imposter, and decided to hell with anything else.
Except he wasn't going to sleep with his dick hanging out while there was any risk of some bastard sneaking up on them in the night, so he grabbed the loosest pants he owned from his bag and sat on the bed to ease them up careful past his knee. Some pain was inevitable, but not too bad, considering.
"You should take more pills," El said, and chinked through into the bathroom to rattle bottles, dropping the identical four capsules into Sands' palm when he returned.
"Which are the antibiotics?"
"The smaller ones." Sands swallowed both of those, along with one of the opiates, and held the spare back towards El.
El didn't take it. "You need to sleep."
"Not as much as I need to get out of the way if some fucker tries shooting me again. And while we're treading somewhere around the vicinity of that particular subject, I don't much appreciate being drugged up and then ditched."
"I thought I'd be back sooner." El didn't often bother actually saying sorry for his fuck-ups, but it didn't matter much when his voice got so low and quiet, just shining with the all-over guilt glaze.
Probably he didn't bother because he knew Sands didn't care horse shit for his guilt. "You're lucky I didn't shoot you the second you walked in."
"You didn't even react." Smile small and half-smug in El's words, and the bastard wasn't taking this fucking seriously.
"That's because I still had it together enough to know it was you." But he didn't know by how much. And if he'd taken one of those brief trips out like he had in the shower, he had no clue what the fuck he might have done.
He had no general objections to killing people, but he did prefer to be in charge of who he was shooting and why. Especially if he might start shooting at a guy who'd beat him damn near unconscious the last time.
"You've never failed yet," El said - still quiet, but he'd ditched the attitude.
No, he hadn't failed, because he made the goddamn effort for it. He could nail El half way across a crowded bar, but he needed his brain fully wired up for that. Or he'd always figured he did. Obviously he was better than he'd thought, which was kind of good to know.
Not that he was going to be thanking El for it.
He rolled back all the covers and sheets to the foot of the bed, and laid claim to the half of the bed next to his guns, settling slow on his right side with his left leg stretched out long to the corner.
He lay listening to the sounds of feet and water, fabric and steel, El cleaning up in the bathroom and then stripping himself of guns, which always took a while.
The mattress shivered and sagged as El stretched out alongside him.
"If you think you're getting laid tonight, you're going to have to reconsider."
"I had no plans." High, dessicated words, trademark twisted El take on humour. "You Americans are all the same."
"There's really no need to get personal, El," he said. "People who've just been shot usually aren't feeling too horny, and nationality's not got a whole lot to do with it."
El half-snorted, hinted layer of laughter under the dry. "I had a bullet hole and knife wounds too when I met Carolina, and it didn't stop me."
"Yes, well, we've already established you live at the far end of the bell curve. The rules applying to normal people don't seem to stick so well to you."
"I hope you're not saying you are one of the 'normal people'." El's voice changed in the pause, humour gearing through into thoughtful. Christ, he could almost hear the clutch dip. "Sometimes I don't know what you are, but you're definitely not normal."
"Well, obviously, else I wouldn't be here." Sands let the quirk at his lips drawl through the words. "Normal's no use to you, El, it'd bore you to suicide. And don't try and kid either of us you've been normal, because most men's wives can't stick a knife in a guy's throat from thirty paces."
"No, I have been normal. But it was a long time before." El spoke slow and quiet, the taking himself way too seriously voice that always made Sands want to snort with laughter. "Carolina was normal too, when she met me, normal for the place she lived. She only became like that because of me."
"Smart girl. Or not, of course, because the really smart thing would have been to head out of town as soon as you crossed the horizon."
The bed rippled again as El rolled sideways, words closer and propped higher over an elbow, amusement flowing back in. "If that's the right thing to do, what does it say about you?"
"Well, there you go with the obvious again. The really smart guys are the ones who don't get themselves strapped to a table and blinded, I think most people would agree."
El stilled behind him, and the pause dragged on long enough he actually started to think he might have shut him up. "We've both made mistakes."
And Sands almost, almost had to laugh, because that had to be about the biggest understatement on the loose since he told the bubblegum brat it was 'kind of a bad day'. "Oh, yeah, and we make the fuck-ups as full-on spectacular as we make everything else."
This time El did stay quiet, which would help if either of them were going to be doing any sleeping. Though the way his leg was still throbbing at him, it didn't feel like he would any time soon. Christ, he wished he could pop another pill and just drop out.
He tried rearranging his leg, bending the knee a little, feeling for a position that didn't put any of the muscles under tension. It hurt a fuckload more while he was doing it, but it seemed like it might settle better when he was done.
Not that it would stay that way if he did get to sleep. At best, he could look forward to waking up all night every time he moved.
He was too awake right now anyway. Oh, he had the tired-buzz drilling slow at the back of his brain, and if he had eyes they'd be blinking and raw, but it wasn't enough to beat down all the chemical alerts his body was feeding him.
It was kind of odd lying here so awake, aware of El there breathing in half-tension behind him, and not touching.
They fucked most nights. It was better that way, easier to sleep after it, and the bitching and complaints over sharing a bed had proved less drawn out and irritating than the arguments over who had to clean up, get dressed and go sleep in the other room.
Sometimes they were both too exhausted, El stiffening up like boil-washed leather, strides slow and careful. One of those times he'd passed out in the chair in Sands' room, waking in the early hours still clompy and more tight-assed than ever. Sands told him then that if he was going to snore there all night anyway, he should at least be fit to drive in the morning, and that had been the last of the separate rooms.
He wondered if El liked it better having someone else equally well-armed and twitchy around while he slept, or if that was another of those privileges reserved for the eyeless.
El shifted and edged in closer behind him, more of the heat, no dip of sheet between them, and he almost thought El was gonna touch him despite the no-fuck warning. But El obviously had too much respect for his fingers for that, because he held off, body curled and shaped around Sands' with almost no contact.
Not that it made so much difference. He'd likely end up with El draped all over him anyway, once they were asleep. He didn't wake up that way every time, but often enough, and it showed no hint of wearing off.
It got almost too repetitive keep kicking him away, but this goddamn country was hot enough already without a mariachi wrapped round him all night.
El's head dipped towards him, breath flowing against his neck through his hair, the rhythm of it slowing and spreading. Calm, eased, sleeping, and that helped.
The sounds of the traffic hummed regular through his head with the multi-sense of El.
His wired-up brain finally eased back on the signals, let the drugs in and let him relax.