[OUATIM] Songs for lost souls (PG-13)
The fic I've been whining about for the past month. Finally finished, and good riddance ^_^
Pairings: Sands/Ajedrez, El/Carolina
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: OUATIM property of Robert Rodriguez and assorted. Lyrics quoted property of John Porter and Anita Lipnicka
Summary: Ajedrez and El, two complicated people. Two people who are very, very lost.
Note: This assumes that Sands had time to visit Ajedrez before his meeting with Bellini. Time in OUATIM is mightily confusing. Also, the specifications of the request called for only El and Ajedrez; unfortunately Sands is not so easily contained, so he crawled into a few places.
Blamed on: guede_mazaka.
Also blamed on John Porter and Anita Lipnicka, who provided the soundtrack. Thanks to permetaform for a tidbit.
SONGS FOR LOST SOULS
Let’s play the guitar
Let’s tap our feet
Let’s sing of love
To make us all weep
- John Porter, "Cruel Magic"
El breathed in the air. Dust and cooking and car exhaust. It burned a little in his throat like a cigarette smouldering in its last moments.
Mexico was in that air.
This was Culiacan, Sinaloa. He was standing by the balcony of the small apartment Sands had found for him. On the way from the church he had only stopped to buy a new guitar, and it was in his hands now. He played snatches of melodies, but his fingers kept twisting in different shapes, suited to holding metal instead of wood and strings.
He was not sure he liked that.
He had the same misgivings about the affair he had fallen into in the last few hours. He knew revenge like the smell of an old lover's skin. But when he had dealt in it, he had worked alone. Now he was to be part of a plan with an aim he did not care for, a cog in an engine of a car heading to God knows where.
He did not care for it.
~
Ajedrez felt the eyes on her back. She was used to it, but not to that kind of look.
Enemy, those looks said. Policia. Government dog.
This was Culiacan, Sinaloa. She was in full AFN uniform, like a dark spectre a few days too early for the feast. The people she passed in those side streets regarded her as not a woman, but a danger. Someone to be avoided, fought, maybe feared for all their drug-lord bravado.
She liked that.
What she did not like was that once again she was doing menial jobs. Sure, send the girl out to show the colors and scare the bad guys off the Culiacan streets. Scout out hangouts, prepare contingency plans. Machine work, and she was just a cog.
She was tired of it.
~
El switched songs as routinely as he would reload a gun, Malagueña to Ella to La Vaquilla. He did not have to think about where his fingers would go on the strings. Between the bracer on his hand and the long years of practice (what else, after all, was there to do in the village if Carolina was busy with the child?) he was now a much better player than he had even been before. It was as if the same skills were used for playing as for killing, and now both were honed to a knife's edge. That was the problem.
He was first and foremost a mariachi, even after all these years. It was not his fault that life kept trying to mold him into something different. Even after all that had happened, he still found solace in his music. That was also true after Carolina and the little one's death. Somewhere beyond the pain and despair, he had found a home in the village.
But death with his whip of blood had caught up to him. It was ironic that this time Death wore the disguise of an overly chatty and quite probably touched in the head American. El was of two minds on whether the plan was just crazy enough to work, and that was not even going into the question of whether it was right or wrong.
Marquez would die, which was more than fine by him. The sheer sound of the name was enough to cloud El's eyes with a muted, cold fury. A drug lord's demise would go unmourned, and what did he care if Sands got his money? But the question remained. A murderer and a druglord against a good man whose only fault was being too good at his job. Marquez and Barillo on one hand, the President on the other.
Sands would call soon, and then he would have to choose
~
Ajedrez walked briskly. Out of the corner of her eye she noted the men she passed and the layout of the streets, but her mind was somewhere else. She was good enough to multitask like this, and she knew it. She was good, period. That was the problem.
For the AFN, she was the token female, no matter how good she was. For her father, she was both less and more than her gender: he acknowledged her skill, but never regarded her as a partner. That had led to the first choice she had made for herself. Token female or not, she had been almost happy working at eroding the AFN's attitude.
Then Armando Barillo came back into her life as quietly as he had left it. He was too reasonable; a few questions answered would not hurt the agency, would they now? And here it was her own father asking them.
Piece by piece, like blood not sucked out whole but in small bites. Now she was between the cop and the druglord's daughter, balanced precariously on the edge between the good fight and the bad.
If Sands was right, she would have to choose soon.
~
El eased into another song, a wordless lullaby. The guitar was a way to pass the time - he had only time left to him now. In the end, what did it matter? This was the way things were done in Mexico: whenever someone tried to rise above the rest, there was an army of jackals ready to drag him down, tear him to pieces on the crossroads. And right now he was but a pawn, waiting for his player to move.
What was he after? He was not sure he even had the strength to ask that question anymore.
Down in the street someone was walking quickly, combat boots raising up clouds of dust. He recognized the black clothes before he read the letters on the baseball cap.
~
Ajedrez took off her AFN-issue hat and tossed her hair impatiently. This was getting her nowhere. The minor drug runners would not be stupid enough to attack the President, and there was nothing the AFN could do to stop Barillo's scheme even if they knew about it. She was stalling.
What did she want, when it all came down? What was she after?
Somewhere ahead of her, she heard a guitar playing. She recognized the song, something her mother had used to sing. Look at the sun, it's so bright...
~
There was a scent of incense in the air. El was reminded of Carolina, of the way she loved to burn incense and scented candles when they made love.
The thought of Carolina brought a spasm of pain. He had not thought his frozen heart was capable of it. He had been looking for revenge when he found her, too. Vengeance brought him love, and took it from him. Was it worth it?
Carolina's face was bright in his mind, brighter than Domino's behind her. Happiness in one case, and time in the other, dulled the sting of memory. But the third pair of eyes staring at him from beyond the grave... He thought he knew the way the guitar must have felt, the one he shattered in the church.
In the mirage of memory, she was reaching out to him, the way she did when she walked somewhere high up in that reckless way of hers.
You'll catch me, won't you, Daddy? If I fall?
No. The answer lay not in love.
~
The convertible stood by the curb, and its smell brought a scowl to Ajedrez's face. Brand-new sun-warmed leather, spilled beer, a hint of cordite. Raimundo's car had smelled like that when he threw her into the backseat and pressed her face into the upholstery.
The thought of Raimundo brought a smile to her face. Say what you want about her father, he did know what to do with dickheads who messed with his baby girl. Later, when she turned sixteen, she handled such assholes herself. Creatively. After a while, she actually found guys she liked.
Fellow cadets, later subordinates, never superiors - the faces blurred in her memory. Too short, too fast, too lukewarm for her to miss them. One face stood out, dark eyes and glass-sharp cheekbones. One face she did not want to think about.
The first time she woke to see the American watching her with that strange childlike smile.
I like what I see.
No. Love was useless here.
~
El watched the woman in her federal police uniform. She was walking briskly, so full of life. Fighting, he imagined, to preserve some good in the world. One of the President's security force? Would she be dead in a few days, dead from Marquez's bullets? Was her blind patriotism, losing himself in a fight for an abstract good, the answer to his question?
~
Ajedrez watched the man in his mariachi clothes. He was playing the guitar, so calm. Music, she imagined, gave him peace and a nice, simple aim in life. Would he even notice the coup? Would he just walk on, maybe add a few more songs to his repertoire? Was his going with the flow, sticking with what she knew (her father), the answer to her question?
~
El pulled his guitar higher, changing melodies again and again. He caught the woman's eyes and nodded at her. Did she know?
~
Ajedrez laughed and blew the mariachi a kiss. She matched the rhythm of her steps to the melody. Did he know?
~
What do you want in life?
~
Freedom.
* * *
Ajedrez was playing a guitar when Sands came in. She kept trying to recreate the melody she heard the man on the balcony play. She did not stop while the American talked of plans and coups and a bright future. But the music did not help her reach a decision.
Then Sands took the guitar out of her hands. "Here, let me try."
His fingers brushed the instrument's sides tenderly before settling on the strings. He started a strange, feverish rhythm.
"You kneel by the graveside, with songs for lost souls," he sang.
Ajedrez thought it was more of a howl, an accusation
"I heard you were digging a deep, black hole."
He winked at her as he finished the line. He mimicked her frown.
"Whilst in contemplation - inside, you shivered and groaned." Here he drew out the last syllable so that it was really a groan of near pain. "Your knees turned to water, your face was the colour of bones, of bones, of bones!"
She was suddenly struck with how doll-like he seemed. A porcelain puppet moving as if jerked by strings. And he wanted her to put her life into his hands, to drop everything she was and follow him. He wanted to define her; by his side, she would only be his woman.
Her hands clenched. How dare he? How dare he offer her that, how dare that asshole just waltz right in and offer her a new life? She would be damned if she let anyone string her along like that. She would rather be damned than go along with it. She had two roads to choose from already, the AFN and her father. The third was not needed.
It was an impulse, but her decision was made. He was still singing, looking at her with those soulful brown eyes. Those eyes that used to touch her once. They did not, not anymore. Right?
And he sang.
"Ah, you were such a crazy cunt - you overdosed on your desire
"Have you come back to haunt me? And tell me I’m a liar, liar, liar."
~FINIS~
Author's notes:
John Porter and Anita Lipnicka provided splendid inspiration for this piece. Their album, "Nieprzyzwoite Piosenki", was published only in Poland for now, though I do hope they distribute it wider - all songs are in English. What does it sound like? Like if Tori Amos talked David Bowie into a duet.
The songs I used were "Sweet Jesus" (title and what Sands sings), "Cruel Magic" (motto) and "Nobody Else" (the lullaby). Short samples of all available here. For "Sweet Jesus" (bloody brilliant, slightly blasphemous and very OUATIM) you can even download a full live version, on the right and third photo down. Full MP3s can be arranged by appointment for acquaintances :)
And, ah, usual problems with my overly poetic El muse. What is it with that guy, anyway?
Comments? (yes/no/BANG!)
Pairings: Sands/Ajedrez, El/Carolina
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: OUATIM property of Robert Rodriguez and assorted. Lyrics quoted property of John Porter and Anita Lipnicka
Summary: Ajedrez and El, two complicated people. Two people who are very, very lost.
Note: This assumes that Sands had time to visit Ajedrez before his meeting with Bellini. Time in OUATIM is mightily confusing. Also, the specifications of the request called for only El and Ajedrez; unfortunately Sands is not so easily contained, so he crawled into a few places.
Blamed on: guede_mazaka.
Also blamed on John Porter and Anita Lipnicka, who provided the soundtrack. Thanks to permetaform for a tidbit.
SONGS FOR LOST SOULS
Let’s play the guitar
Let’s tap our feet
Let’s sing of love
To make us all weep
- John Porter, "Cruel Magic"
El breathed in the air. Dust and cooking and car exhaust. It burned a little in his throat like a cigarette smouldering in its last moments.
Mexico was in that air.
This was Culiacan, Sinaloa. He was standing by the balcony of the small apartment Sands had found for him. On the way from the church he had only stopped to buy a new guitar, and it was in his hands now. He played snatches of melodies, but his fingers kept twisting in different shapes, suited to holding metal instead of wood and strings.
He was not sure he liked that.
He had the same misgivings about the affair he had fallen into in the last few hours. He knew revenge like the smell of an old lover's skin. But when he had dealt in it, he had worked alone. Now he was to be part of a plan with an aim he did not care for, a cog in an engine of a car heading to God knows where.
He did not care for it.
~
Ajedrez felt the eyes on her back. She was used to it, but not to that kind of look.
Enemy, those looks said. Policia. Government dog.
This was Culiacan, Sinaloa. She was in full AFN uniform, like a dark spectre a few days too early for the feast. The people she passed in those side streets regarded her as not a woman, but a danger. Someone to be avoided, fought, maybe feared for all their drug-lord bravado.
She liked that.
What she did not like was that once again she was doing menial jobs. Sure, send the girl out to show the colors and scare the bad guys off the Culiacan streets. Scout out hangouts, prepare contingency plans. Machine work, and she was just a cog.
She was tired of it.
~
El switched songs as routinely as he would reload a gun, Malagueña to Ella to La Vaquilla. He did not have to think about where his fingers would go on the strings. Between the bracer on his hand and the long years of practice (what else, after all, was there to do in the village if Carolina was busy with the child?) he was now a much better player than he had even been before. It was as if the same skills were used for playing as for killing, and now both were honed to a knife's edge. That was the problem.
He was first and foremost a mariachi, even after all these years. It was not his fault that life kept trying to mold him into something different. Even after all that had happened, he still found solace in his music. That was also true after Carolina and the little one's death. Somewhere beyond the pain and despair, he had found a home in the village.
But death with his whip of blood had caught up to him. It was ironic that this time Death wore the disguise of an overly chatty and quite probably touched in the head American. El was of two minds on whether the plan was just crazy enough to work, and that was not even going into the question of whether it was right or wrong.
Marquez would die, which was more than fine by him. The sheer sound of the name was enough to cloud El's eyes with a muted, cold fury. A drug lord's demise would go unmourned, and what did he care if Sands got his money? But the question remained. A murderer and a druglord against a good man whose only fault was being too good at his job. Marquez and Barillo on one hand, the President on the other.
Sands would call soon, and then he would have to choose
~
Ajedrez walked briskly. Out of the corner of her eye she noted the men she passed and the layout of the streets, but her mind was somewhere else. She was good enough to multitask like this, and she knew it. She was good, period. That was the problem.
For the AFN, she was the token female, no matter how good she was. For her father, she was both less and more than her gender: he acknowledged her skill, but never regarded her as a partner. That had led to the first choice she had made for herself. Token female or not, she had been almost happy working at eroding the AFN's attitude.
Then Armando Barillo came back into her life as quietly as he had left it. He was too reasonable; a few questions answered would not hurt the agency, would they now? And here it was her own father asking them.
Piece by piece, like blood not sucked out whole but in small bites. Now she was between the cop and the druglord's daughter, balanced precariously on the edge between the good fight and the bad.
If Sands was right, she would have to choose soon.
~
El eased into another song, a wordless lullaby. The guitar was a way to pass the time - he had only time left to him now. In the end, what did it matter? This was the way things were done in Mexico: whenever someone tried to rise above the rest, there was an army of jackals ready to drag him down, tear him to pieces on the crossroads. And right now he was but a pawn, waiting for his player to move.
What was he after? He was not sure he even had the strength to ask that question anymore.
Down in the street someone was walking quickly, combat boots raising up clouds of dust. He recognized the black clothes before he read the letters on the baseball cap.
~
Ajedrez took off her AFN-issue hat and tossed her hair impatiently. This was getting her nowhere. The minor drug runners would not be stupid enough to attack the President, and there was nothing the AFN could do to stop Barillo's scheme even if they knew about it. She was stalling.
What did she want, when it all came down? What was she after?
Somewhere ahead of her, she heard a guitar playing. She recognized the song, something her mother had used to sing. Look at the sun, it's so bright...
~
There was a scent of incense in the air. El was reminded of Carolina, of the way she loved to burn incense and scented candles when they made love.
The thought of Carolina brought a spasm of pain. He had not thought his frozen heart was capable of it. He had been looking for revenge when he found her, too. Vengeance brought him love, and took it from him. Was it worth it?
Carolina's face was bright in his mind, brighter than Domino's behind her. Happiness in one case, and time in the other, dulled the sting of memory. But the third pair of eyes staring at him from beyond the grave... He thought he knew the way the guitar must have felt, the one he shattered in the church.
In the mirage of memory, she was reaching out to him, the way she did when she walked somewhere high up in that reckless way of hers.
You'll catch me, won't you, Daddy? If I fall?
No. The answer lay not in love.
~
The convertible stood by the curb, and its smell brought a scowl to Ajedrez's face. Brand-new sun-warmed leather, spilled beer, a hint of cordite. Raimundo's car had smelled like that when he threw her into the backseat and pressed her face into the upholstery.
The thought of Raimundo brought a smile to her face. Say what you want about her father, he did know what to do with dickheads who messed with his baby girl. Later, when she turned sixteen, she handled such assholes herself. Creatively. After a while, she actually found guys she liked.
Fellow cadets, later subordinates, never superiors - the faces blurred in her memory. Too short, too fast, too lukewarm for her to miss them. One face stood out, dark eyes and glass-sharp cheekbones. One face she did not want to think about.
The first time she woke to see the American watching her with that strange childlike smile.
I like what I see.
No. Love was useless here.
~
El watched the woman in her federal police uniform. She was walking briskly, so full of life. Fighting, he imagined, to preserve some good in the world. One of the President's security force? Would she be dead in a few days, dead from Marquez's bullets? Was her blind patriotism, losing himself in a fight for an abstract good, the answer to his question?
~
Ajedrez watched the man in his mariachi clothes. He was playing the guitar, so calm. Music, she imagined, gave him peace and a nice, simple aim in life. Would he even notice the coup? Would he just walk on, maybe add a few more songs to his repertoire? Was his going with the flow, sticking with what she knew (her father), the answer to her question?
~
El pulled his guitar higher, changing melodies again and again. He caught the woman's eyes and nodded at her. Did she know?
~
Ajedrez laughed and blew the mariachi a kiss. She matched the rhythm of her steps to the melody. Did he know?
~
What do you want in life?
~
Freedom.
* * *
Ajedrez was playing a guitar when Sands came in. She kept trying to recreate the melody she heard the man on the balcony play. She did not stop while the American talked of plans and coups and a bright future. But the music did not help her reach a decision.
Then Sands took the guitar out of her hands. "Here, let me try."
His fingers brushed the instrument's sides tenderly before settling on the strings. He started a strange, feverish rhythm.
"You kneel by the graveside, with songs for lost souls," he sang.
Ajedrez thought it was more of a howl, an accusation
"I heard you were digging a deep, black hole."
He winked at her as he finished the line. He mimicked her frown.
"Whilst in contemplation - inside, you shivered and groaned." Here he drew out the last syllable so that it was really a groan of near pain. "Your knees turned to water, your face was the colour of bones, of bones, of bones!"
She was suddenly struck with how doll-like he seemed. A porcelain puppet moving as if jerked by strings. And he wanted her to put her life into his hands, to drop everything she was and follow him. He wanted to define her; by his side, she would only be his woman.
Her hands clenched. How dare he? How dare he offer her that, how dare that asshole just waltz right in and offer her a new life? She would be damned if she let anyone string her along like that. She would rather be damned than go along with it. She had two roads to choose from already, the AFN and her father. The third was not needed.
It was an impulse, but her decision was made. He was still singing, looking at her with those soulful brown eyes. Those eyes that used to touch her once. They did not, not anymore. Right?
And he sang.
"Ah, you were such a crazy cunt - you overdosed on your desire
"Have you come back to haunt me? And tell me I’m a liar, liar, liar."
~FINIS~
Author's notes:
John Porter and Anita Lipnicka provided splendid inspiration for this piece. Their album, "Nieprzyzwoite Piosenki", was published only in Poland for now, though I do hope they distribute it wider - all songs are in English. What does it sound like? Like if Tori Amos talked David Bowie into a duet.
The songs I used were "Sweet Jesus" (title and what Sands sings), "Cruel Magic" (motto) and "Nobody Else" (the lullaby). Short samples of all available here. For "Sweet Jesus" (bloody brilliant, slightly blasphemous and very OUATIM) you can even download a full live version, on the right and third photo down. Full MP3s can be arranged by appointment for acquaintances :)
And, ah, usual problems with my overly poetic El muse. What is it with that guy, anyway?
Comments? (yes/no/BANG!)