Born of Madness 2/3

[xzombiexkittenx]

Series: Born of Madness (2/3)
Title: Masters in Reverse Psychology
Summary: Things are in a steady state of decline.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Nothing but the plot is mine. The title and Lj cut are the Murder By Death song of the same name.
Author’s note: Remember this one? Yeah, this took way too long to write, but it’s also 28 pages in size 10 font. I hope it’s okay. It's also split in two because it's really long and Lj hates me.

Born of Madness part one: Devil in Mexico

…that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes
because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
am in love. - Shakespeare


*~*~*~*

It was just too perfect. So perfect that Sands wished he had planned it himself. He thought briefly about finding the sheet to cover himself with, but since it would look rather undignified - and hadn’t he lost enough of that recently? - and El had seen it all before anyway, he decided that a languid stretch would be a much better plan of action. He could feel a grin curling up over his face as Lorenzo cursed and scrabbled for the blankets.

Promotion to Mexico. Cost? Two eyes.
Being kept as some sick pet project. Cost? Dignity and pride.
Getting your own back? Priceless.

It was when he tried to sit up, casual, unimpressed, getting back some lost self-respect, that Sands realized the tremors shaking his hands and the pounding of his heart was only due in part to fatigue and a rather good fucking. His body chose that moment to remind him, quite firmly, that it hated him and wasn’t going to push on any longer. Halfway through the motion of sitting up, Sands found himself curled up, huddled into a ball, gritting his teeth against the lancing pain in his head and, Christ, that wasn’t fair. Bad enough he had no eyes, but to feel pain where there shouldn’t be anything for the pain to come from, well that was just kicking a man when he was down and it hurt, oh it hurt.

A warm, rough hand smoothed his hair back from his face as another dragged the sheets up over him. There was rapid-fire Spanish going on above his head and Sands clung to the bed, nails grating through thin sheets and a thinner mattress to scrape against the bedsprings as though he could claw through to the floor. He grit his teeth so hard his jaw ached and tried to focus on the conversation as a diversion from the pain.

//…no more about it.// Christ on a crutch, El didn’t even sound angrier than if he were discussing the weather. Sands wondered if he should feel resentful about that or if simply trying to not scream was enough of a job for one man.

//You’re the one who strapped him to a table and let someone torture him. At least I-//

//I said no more.//

Then a warm arm slid under Sands’ knees and around his back and Sands clutched desperately at El’s shirt as he was lifted off the bed. Horribly embarrassing, but his head was aching fit to burst and for a dizzying moment he feared he would throw up. The way his guts were churning and how hard he was shaking, no matter the warmth leeching through El’s shirt to warm his bare skin, only served to make the pain worse.

//Get dressed. We leave soon.//

El’s arms hefted him into a more comfortable position and Sands buried his face in the crook of El’s neck, trying to breathe slow and steady and failing most badly. He clenched his teeth to control their chattering and tried to force his voice down into a normal pitch and not the wavering mewl of some kind of victim. “Put me the fuck down, jackass.”

El toed a door open and then set Sands down in the tub. Sands slipped sideways on the porcelain, cracking his head against the side. “Is that better?” El asked sarcastically and turned on the shower.

Sands jerked and slipped further, hissing unhappily.

“You look like shit,” El said and his voice was dry as the dirt outside. “Bones and bruises.”

Sands tried to crawl out from under the water-spray but his hands skidded on the wet tub and he couldn’t make his legs come up under him. “Gee thanks, El, rub it in a little more.” At least his stomach seemed to be settling again and the pain in his head was lessening.

“You want to know what I see?” El knelt down next to the tub and snatched up the shampoo, dousing Sands’ head with it and rubbing it in, even as Sands clawed at his hands, trying to make him stop.

“Not really.”

“You’re black and blue-” a grating of nails on scalp and a tug on Sands’ hair- “needle marks and lacerations until I wonder if there’s a person under there at all.”

Sands grinned at him, spitting out water and soap. “Aw, you’re such a sweet-talker.”

El pulled the sheet away, turned the water up higher. “And you’re a whore.”

The feel of the wet bandage around his eyes was wholly disgusting, but he was too tired to fight El over its removal, and it would be a fight. It was always a fight. “I’m just society’s child, my dear El.” Sands made a small protesting sound when a rough washcloth began scrubbing at him. “Jesus with a strap-on, I can wash myself.” He hated how petulant he sounded but the shaking had started up again as his anger ebbed away with the dirty water and it was all he could do to slump down in the tub and try not to fall over again. The water spray felt like a thousand tiny pinpricks on his over-sensitive skin and the tequila was wearing off.

“Why Lorenzo?” El’s voice was so low that for a moment Sands wasn’t even sure that he’d heard anything. “He’s not like us, Sands.”

Sands’ laugh was more like a sob. “What? He’s still got some grain of humanity left in him and we’re so fucked already that it’s wrong for us to even look at someone still so alive?” He trailed off into giggles and they weren’t healthy sounding, but he didn’t care and he couldn’t make them stop. “Christ on a cracker, El, if you wanted to fuck him you could.”

El froze. “You are treading on dangerous ground, Sands.” And then he grabbed hold of the back of Sands’ neck and was kissing him as though he could suck the poison out of Sands’ words.

Sands wrapped his fingers into El’s hair and pulled, hauling himself up by his handholds until they were standing in the water spray, El stepping into the bathtub to shove Sands back against the wall. His lips broke and bled and his head banged back against the tiles, sending sparks of pain flashing though his head and he moaned into the kiss, then moaned again for an entirely different reason when El’s soapy hand found his cock and fisted around it.

“Sweet fucking Satan and all his angels,” Sands panted, clinging to El, relying far too much for his own comfort on the arm around his waist, holding him up.

El’s mouth trailed over his cheek and down his neck, to bite on the exposed skin of Sands’ throat, teeth sinking in so far that Sands could feel the tendons scraping together and he whimpered because it hurt, but it also felt damned good as teeth were replaced by a tongue so much warmer than the water, dragging over the abused skin. El growled against his jaw and the hand that had been so nicely wrapped around Sands’ erection went away. Sands opened his mouth to protest but then the arm holding him up moved too and he was turned and roughly shoved against the tiles, cheek bruising against the wall as one hand came up to cover his mouth. El pushed up behind him and god, when had he got those idiotic pants off without Sands noticing?

There was no preparation, just El kicking his legs apart, throwing him even further off balance and then El’s other arm around his waist pulling his hips back, even as the teeth on the back of Sands’ neck forced his shoulders and head forward. He could feel his knees giving out under him, half from the shakes and half from the slow push of El into him, a steady burn that ripped a litany of muffled whimpers and moans from him, too incoherent to really be the curses and insults he meant them to be. He dug his fingernails into the caulking between the tiles, feeling them rip and snag, and his face scrunched up like he was squeezing his eyes shut, but then that only served to hurt like hell and Sands hissed between his teeth and shuddered. As if in reaction, El gripped his hip harder and proceeded to pull almost entirely out and then slam him against the wall.

It had to be bruising El’s knuckles as much as it was bruising Sands’ face and he was really too sore for a fucking this violent but his hips jerked in El’s grip, trying to get some sort of friction.

Then El hooked a foot around his leg and they were moving, falling, Sands’ dropping to all fours - pushed more like - and El’s body above him was blocking the water so added to his withdrawal-and-in-the-process-of-the-second-fuck-in-an-hour shudders, he was also shivering from the cold. The change in angle made him cry out against El’s palm and he pushed back, sliding and falling over on the bottom up the tub, with only El’s arms holding him in place.

If Lorenzo had been well-meaning, if not a little hasty, and as considerate as Sands figured he had the capability to be, El was nothing of the sort. Knees bruised against the tub, shoulders and neck reddening with bite marks, ass clenching and relaxing in little spasms against the hardest fucking he’d had in years. And damned if it wasn’t one of the better ones as well. El’s supporting arm shifted away to finally jerk Sands off, but it meant Sands slipped on shaking, unsteady arms and wound up with his face in an inch of bathwater, ass in the air. He couldn’t breathe, El’s hand over his mouth, inhaling water through his nose and he struggled, torn between fear and pain, and bone shaking pleasure, then trembled, and spent, and he had to try and get his head out of the water so he didn’t end up with his own ejaculation all over his face, drowning in an inch of dirty water.

The teeth rattling thrusts didn’t ease up at all, but El did him the courtesy of shoving an arm under his shoulders, which in turn lifted his torso and head enough that he could suck in deep lungfuls of air through his nose, panting. Panting which turned into a continuous gasping intake and then a high-pitched whine that coincided with El’s rhythm into him. Finally El stiffened and shoved into him one last time. Sands wasn’t exactly expecting a post coital cigarette and a snuggle, but he expected a little more than what he got;

“Towel is on the toilet seat.” El opened the door. “Clean up and get dressed, we need to go.”

Sands lay in the bath for a while longer, letting the lukewarm water clean him off, rinse the semen off his thighs and the lingering soapsuds off his body. He ripped at the bandage covering his eyes, irritation and upset twisting his mouth and eyes so his face ached until he was dizzy and disorientated.

He crawled out of the tub, kneeling on the cold tiles of the floor, fumbling for the towel. He wrapped it around himself, tried to get up, slipped on a puddle of water and fell down again, cracking his shoulder against the toilet.

The door opened. “Do you need help?”

El again. This time wrapping the towel more firmly around Sands, helping him to his feet and then down so he was sitting on the lid of the toilet and didn’t that just make his ass ache like he’d been pounded through the porcelain. The same hands that had held him down, drawn rough pleasure out of him, now smoothed his hair back from his face, using a hand cloth to dry his skin.

Sands wanted to laugh but it hurt too much to just sit, and he dreaded to think what kind of aches another fit of the giggles would bring on. Jesus, everything El was doing and his own pathetic responses were casebook Stockholm Syndrome if ever he’d seen it. Hurt him and hold him, punishment and reward. Only Sands couldn’t decide if the fucking was punishment or the gentle hands holding him now, easing the shudders still running up and down his spine. He was beginning to suspect neither, and both.

“You look better,” El said wringing out Sands’ hair into the towel. “Your eyes, how do they feel?”

Sands barked out a laugh that jarred far too many hurts for him to count. “Like I don’t have them.”

El smoothed fingertips over Sands’ cheek and jaw. “He filled in the…space with-”

“Stone.” Sands turned his head away. “I know.”

“I don’t think it is stone. It’s-”

Sands snarled at him, for all that it hurt. “It’s something like stone. Marble, glass, who the hell cares?” El leaned in and did something unforgivable, he wrapped Sands in his arms and held him, like he cared. And that hurt more than his eyes. “Christ, I’d sell my soul for a fix right now.” He stayed silent and pliable after that, allowing himself to be moved about like an oversized doll.

El dried him and dressed him, murmuring softly as he went, explaining what he was about to do, so as not to startle Sands, not that he had the energy to be startled. Blue jeans, still too big, heavy black boots over socks that had a hole in the big toe of the right one, plain white shirt, hair tied back, clean bandage for his eyes and a cigarette, rolled and lit for him, placed between trembling fingers.

He was just too exhausted to even begin trying to figure it out.

*~*~*~*

Lorenzo was waiting in the kitchen for them.

El let go of Sands’ arm when they reached the table and he felt as though he had just been dropped in the middle of the ocean and told to swim to shore. It didn’t help that Lorenzo immediately got to his feet and put his arm around Sands’ waist. Well, really, it did help because it felt like his knees were going to give out from under him at any second, but other than that, it did nothing to alleviate the situation that he’d managed to get himself into. El’s snort of…anger, irritation, jealousy? Well, no matter what it was, it didn't exactly add to the moment.

“Are you all right?” Lorenzo’s voice was low, as El picked up the bags; judging by the sound he was trying to carry all of them at once, and was failing.

Sands grinned, it felt wrong, even to him, but that didn’t mean he was going to stop. “Fan-fruit-fucking-tastic. Now close your pie-hole and help me limp my battered ass to the car. And Christ on crack, someone find me a pair of jeans that actually fit my fine ass.” God, he was repeating himself and his head was starting to ache again. If it wasn’t such a terribly pathetic thing to do, he would seriously consider finding the nearest gun and using it to blow the headaches out.

“I thought you said it was battered.” El’s voice drifted over from the doorway, a little strained from the effort of carting all the bags.

“Oh now he grows a sense of humor,” Sands griped as he started the tedious and laborious job of making his knees obey his desire to walk in a straight line without leaning on Lorenzo. “It’s both, fucktard. It’s finely battered, like fish. Happy?” Lorenzo turned a laugh into a sound half cough, half choking hiccough and shifted his grip on Sands so Sands had very little choice but to lean almost entirely on him. Sands dug an elbow into Lorenzo’s gut and snarled at him.

Lorenzo made a hurt sound, which probably had less to do with the elbow and more to do with the metaphorical cold shoulder.

Sands took a modicum of pity on him and sighed. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, string-bean,” he muttered. “I may not appreciate it, but I need the help.”

Lorenzo squeezed gently with his hand on Sands’ side, in reply. It would have been sweet, even affectionate, if that hadn’t been where El had dug his fingers in until Sands bruised. He squirmed unhappily but was saved from explanation by El himself.

“Are you two coming?”

Sands wanted desperately to roll his eyes, but he settled for sneering in the general direction of El’s voice. “Already did.” Twice.

The car was running by the time they got outside. Lorenzo sat in the back, sideways, legs stretched out over the seat, with one guitar case (with guitar) and one bag on the floor where his feet should have been. El drove, because god forbid anyone else should be trusted behind the wheel, never mind that he either drove like an old lady or a maniac, with little happy medium. Sands sat in the passenger seat, bitterly facing out the window.

It was hot in the car because, of course, the AC was dead as Sands’ pride. It hadn’t gone easily, but it wheezed and rattled its last before they were halfway down the drive. Now he felt like he was suffocating and the dust came in the window if he rolled it down, so that, apparently, was out. Thank Christ there was at least a sunroof because he didn’t really feel like sitting in an oven for the next day, thank you very much. Sands tapped his foot irritably, nervously, feeling like he had spiders crawling over his fucking skin and he wanted to scratch, and scratch, and scratch until he bled because he felt like shit.

El reached over and put a hand on his knee, stilling the movement of his leg. “Don’t.”

Sands bared his teeth at him, more of a grimace than a smile and gave him the finger. “I’m putting the window down,” he announced, and did so.

It was dusty, and the air blowing in wasn’t much cooler than the air in the car, but at least it was moving. Sands stripped off his shirt - tucking it behind him so his already sweaty skin wouldn’t stick to the seat - picked up his bottle of water and poured it over himself. Now that was better. He sighed and slumped down, legs starting their tapping again.

In the backseat Lorenzo made a sound that was half irritation and half arousal. “Christ, Sands, you’re going to fuck up the leather.”

Sands twisted around in his seat to face Lorenzo and leered at him. “We can do that later, if you like, but right now I’m hot enough to fry eggs on, so if you don’t like it, you can blow me.”

El slapped Sands’ knees into stillness again. “Sands,” he snapped. “Hold still or I will make it so you can’t move.” His voice dropped low enough that Sands could barely hear it, and he knew that over the whistle of the air blowing past the window, Lorenzo wouldn’t be able to catch a word of it. “You choose, either hold still, or I will have you until you can’t even crawl, tie you up, and put you in the trunk.”

“I have to do something,” Sands hissed, jerking away, “because if I don’t I’m going to unbuckle this seatbelt, crawl onto your lap and strangle you to death.” He too dropped his voice. “I’m fine with the share and share alike El, but you fuck me up and I’ll put a bullet in your skull, comprende?”

“With what gun?”

Sands calmly unbuckled his seatbelt and then launched himself at El trying to get his hands around El’s throat.

*~*~*~*

In retrospect, it had been a bad idea. A damn satisfying one, but pretty fucking stupid nevertheless. Oh he’d got his fingers dug deep enough into El’s throat that it would leave bruises and he’d broken the skin, made El bleed in return for all he’d done.

For one glorious moment he’d been back in control as the car fishtailed off the road and screeched to a halt. Lorenzo was shouting and one of the jolts had shocked the AC back to life, cold air roaring over them and someone was making a sound somewhere between a scream and a howl, and Sands suspected that it might have been him. But what did any of that matter when El’s shout of anger and pain was choked off and all Sands could taste was blood from biting down on his lip when the car ran off the road?

Of course, like most of his plans these days, this one didn’t work out quite how he’d planned.

Not that a great deal of planning had gone into it; mostly just a rage that had been creeping up under his skin for days and days now.

Then El dug his fingers into the tendons in Sands’ wrists until his hands snapped open and he was bent backwards, snarling in anger and pain before he was shoved back, head cracking against the door. He couldn’t see it coming, so of course El caught him dead across the face with his hand. It may have been open handed and not an actual punch but, quite frankly, Sands wouldn’t lay odds on it, because it hurt like a bastard and it knocked his head against the door again. Then it was El’s hands around his throat, dragging him, disorientated and aching, across the seat and out the driver-side door to be pushed down onto the ground, dust rising up to fill his nose and mouth.

Another door had slammed, and then the feeling of a shadow coming between him and the dragon. Lorenzo, shouting: “Jesus, El! Leave him alone! He’s sick, don’t bait him.” Lorenzo, sweet, stupid Lorenzo stepping into the line of fire for him.

Sands tried to get up, but his traitorous body failed him again and he collapsed back into the dirt, wheezing. “The both of you can fuck off,” he snapped. “I told him, I told him what I’d do.”

//Lorenzo, get out of the way.// El was so furious he was calm. Sands should have seen that, but insanely he’d thought that maybe he was going to get off with a bit of a beating. Those he could handle. He’d had them before, he’d get them again and he was CIA…ex-CIA maybe, but Christ, basic training was tougher than this shit.

Or at least until Lorenzo lost his fight with El. Giving up to the man he wanted more than anything, willing to step back and wait, silently in the car as El hauled Sands to his feet, shoved him face down across the scorching metal of the trunk of the car, bound his wrists behind his back with spare guitar strings, gagged him with an old, putrid rag and did as he’d threatened. Well, not quite everything he’d threatened because they couldn’t let Lorenzo see that, now could they?

Reflecting back on it, holding still had been a much better option than being stuffed in the trunk with wire shredding his wrists and so little air that he passed out a moment after smacking his head for the third time as the car pulled back onto the road.

*~*~*~*

He woke up when a freezing cold rush of water was unceremoniously dumped over him. “Good, you’re still alive.” El again, loosening the gag so Sands could spit it onto the rapidly drying ground.

His hands were numb and his wrists felt like a teenage suicide attempt. Sands could think of thirty six different ways he could curse El to hell and back, up and down every generation of his family but his mouth was dry and he couldn’t come out with anything more than a croak before El rolled him onto his stomach, cutting away the guitar wires. El helped him sit up; crouching down so Sands could lean against him. His hands lay limply in his lap because just twitching his little fingers felt like red ants chewing their way up his veins into his shoulders, and now that the blood was circulating properly again it was dripping out of the lacerations on his wrists.

Christ, if he lost his hands because of this…

Sands shuddered, turning away from El as much as he could, limbs moving in jerky motions, protesting every inch. El grabbed his head and pulled it around, pressed cold glass to his lips. Sands was many things, but he wasn’t so stupid that he would refuse water at a moment like this.

After a few sips his mouth felt a little less like the Sahara desert during a heat wave and instead was just unpleasantly dry and dirty. “What is this?” he asked tiredly. “What do you want me to do?” He tried moving his hands, and they hurt, but he could still wiggle all his fingers. El tipped more water down his throat and then the glass was gone again.

“I want you to behave,” El said placidly. “Can you stand?”

Sands managed a sneer. “What the hell do you think? You stuffed me in the back of the car for God knows how many hours. You did this, you fix it.” El sighed and lifted him off the muddy ground. Not carrying him - apparently his compassion only went so far - just holding him up as Lorenzo had done earlier. And speaking of… “Where’s the string-bean?”

“Inside.”

Ah, El, a man of many words. “Well where the fuck are we, Dorothy? ‘Cause this doesn’t feel much like Kansas anymore.” Every step they took towards wherever felt like spikes digging up from his feet into his head.

“An abandoned church.”

Shit. Sands had had just about as much as he could take of churches, and motels, and dirty mattresses and being slung about like a sack of bricks. Blood dripped off his fingertips and it made him feel slightly nauseous; he was glad he couldn’t see the damage. “Y’ know, I think we have a little anger management problem we need to work on, eh jingle-butt?” Sands hissed in pain as he slipped a little, tripping over the first step that El hadn’t seen fit to warn him of. And since when were walking legends so fucking cruel anyway?

El stopped at the top of the stairs. “You tried to strangle me,” he said finally, as though Sands were an idiot and it was all clear as day.

Clear as mud more like. “And you’re a goat-buggering nutjob, what’s your point?” Sands jerked them forwards, better to get inside so he could sit down and rest again. Get something else to drink. But for all that his head hurt; at least his eyes didn’t feel like they were haunting him.

El shoved him up against a wall, wood digging splinters into Sands’ back. “Keep pushing, Sands,” he said quietly, and Sands saw it as the threat that it was. “Because I will put you back in the car.”

Sands lunged forward, grabbing El’s hair with one hand and throat with the other. His fingers were slick with his blood, and they spasmed, protesting the movement, making him grind his teeth against the pain, but he pulled El into a fierce kiss.

Sands’ chapped lips broke and bled and El was all but holding him upright, but El was kissing him back, thigh between Sands’ legs, lifting slightly. Sands squirmed happily, mouth falling open as he panted for air. It was still too hot out for this, and he was sweating out moisture he very badly needed, hair already damp and sticking in tendrils to his neck and face. Sweat trailed down his spine as El silenced his moans with sharp teeth and deceptively soft lips, one hand sliding between them, up over Sands’ chest, pinching one nipple painfully hard before pulling Sands’ head back.

“Are you going to be good?” His voice was soft as sandpaper over polished glass.

Sands tightened his grip on El’s neck, though one handed it wasn’t enough to possibly hurt him. El snarled in reply to that hint of a threat, fingers digging into Sands’ scalp, pulling his hair sharply and bit his throat, hard. Sands struggled, but it only made his rising erection dig into El’s thigh, drawing a strangled whimper from him.

“I won’t be bullied,” Sands hissed. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you’re fucking with the wrong chess master, amigo.”

El let him drop, and drop Sands did, crumpling to the splintering deck. “This isn’t a game.” Footsteps thud-clinked off and Sands hauled himself up on elbows and knees to spit curses after him.

Lorenzo came out a moment later. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. Then; “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

Sands sighed. “Don’t be sorry, be useful, and help me the fuck up.”

Lorenzo did as he was told, one arm around Sands’ waist, one of Sands’ arms over his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have let him-”

“No,” Sands said shortly, “you shouldn’t have. But I’m too tired to fuss about it now, so find me water and a bed and we’ll call it even.”

“You need medical attention.” Lorenzo moved them slowly into the church and then eased Sands down onto a pew. “Christ, were those guitar wires?”

Sands lifted his wrists so he could lick at the blood seeping from the wounds. They were deeper than he might have hoped, but not life-threatening. “Well, you know El. He knows what he knows and that ain’t saying much.” He sighed. “Just bandage me up and get me a beer and I’ll be fine.”

Lorenzo kissed him, hesitantly. //I am sorry.//

“I know.” Sands pushed him away. “But I’m too tired for all that.”

It was about two in the morning when Sands wasn’t too tired. He was wired on cheap coffee, slightly drunk on the rot-gut tequila Lorenzo had snuck him, and near nauseous from nervous energy. Lorenzo had done as he’d been told and wrapped Sands’ wrists up in the cleanest cloths he could find but they ached and stung if Sands so much as moved his hands at all.

El, man of few words, had neglected to mention to Sands that it was an abandoned monastery, not just a church, so they each had a cell to themselves. Lorenzo had deposited Sands in a room, made sure he was tucked into the bed with his tequila and had left him alone, without so much as letting him know where he was going to be in relation.

At two in the morning Sands had morphine cravings so badly that he thought he might die from them.

Sands finally crawled out of the bed. He stood for a moment, hesitant and hating every second of it, before leaning over to put his hands on the bed, fumbling his way along the side until he found the wall. He moved his hands to the wall and began a slow circuit around the room in pursuit of the door. Finding it wasn’t really the problem, nor was getting it open - at least El hadn’t locked him in - it was figuring out where the hell he was going now that he was out.

Somewhere in the dark both Lorenzo and El were sleeping.

He decided he didn’t care who he found first.

Keeping his hand on the wall, fingertips brushing over textured wallpaper, Sands crept down the hallway. One near disaster with a decorative table later and his fingers caught on a doorframe. Sands pushed open the door and sucked in a deep breath through his nose. He couldn’t smell anything but smoke, and dust, and the alcohol on his own breath. Squaring his shoulders, Sands shut the door behind him and stepped out into the unknown.

Whoever’s room it was was awake, the bastard, watching him curiously. Watching him fight not to stick his hands out in front of him and wave them about in the air as though he could shape the room with his fingers. Watch him stumble over a guitar case. Watch him crack his knee against the bedpost before he finally crawled on to the mattress, flopping down next to whichever mariachi he’d managed to find.

He rolled onto his side, putting one hand on the mariachi’s chest and leaning closer to brush his cheek against bare skin, sniffing, tongue sneaking out to taste.

El.

Well shit. Sands couldn’t decide if he was disappointed or grateful as El caught his wrists up in one hand and pinned them to the mattress between them. It shouldn’t have surprised him; Lorenzo would have got off his ass to help Sands find his way to the bed. He squirmed a little, in pain from the pressure on his fresh wounds, but it wasn’t enough that he was willing to complain about it.

“What are you doing here?”

Sands sneered at him, not trying to struggle because he had no desire to fight another losing battle with this man. “What the fuck do you think I’m doing, beans for brains?”

“I told you, in the car,” El said, sounding perplexed. “If you can’t be civil…”

“You said no such thing!” Sands craned his neck up, trying to get contact with something other than just El’s hands on his wrists. “You said if I didn’t hold still.”

El sighed and let go, moving mostly away. “Sands…” He sighed again. “What do you want?”

Sands knew it was more than a little sad, and more than a little desperate that he reached out after El. His fingers caught nothing but air and he sunk back onto the mattress, biting at his lip. “I don’t know,” was what came out of his mouth, startling them both with its honesty. “Christ, El, I don’t want your pity, but a little fucking sympathy wouldn’t go amiss. Isn’t that your schtick anyway? Helping the helpless?”

“You’re not helpless.” But El brushed his fingertips over the angles of Sands’ face in something close to sympathy. Or perhaps it was just pity.

“No,” Sands agreed. He turned his face away from the caress. “No, maybe not, after all.”

El’s fingers tangled in his hair, turning his face back. It was no where near gentle and Sands had to struggle not to lean into the pain, or sit up and try to drag El in for a kiss. “I’ve never been the hero,” El said bleakly. “I did what I did for revenge.”

Sands reached out again and this time he touched the bare skin of El’s chest. His hands were shaking as he smoothed his fingertips over old bullet scars. “Whatever you say. Lorenzo might disagree.”

El let go with one hand, using it to pull at the collar of Sands’ shirt, half ripping it open and savaged Sands’ mouth, using his teeth and tongue to scrape open all the old cuts on his lips until Sands was whimpering and squirming and the taste of blood had swept away the taste of the cheap tequila. When El let go, moving so far as to sit on the edge of the bed, Sands was shaken enough that he crawled across the sagging mattress after El.

“He’s two doors down, to the left,” El said without inflection. “I suggest you go there.”

Sands laughed, startled, and touched a hand to his mouth. His fingers came away sticky with blood. “You’re bat shit loco, you know that right?” He got up anyway, only stumbling slightly. “You think he won’t know what you’ve been doing to me?”

El made a sound that sounded a lot like a shrug. “That is not my concern.”

Sands hit him. It went a little wide, so it only glanced off El’s cheek, but his point was made. “If you fuck Lorenzo up over this,” Sands hissed, “it is not my job to put him back together. Since you’ve done a shitty enough job at playing mother hen for me and we don’t like each other I dread to think of what you’d do to someone you actually give a good god damn about.”

“Get out.”

Sands took the hint and left, managing to catch his shoulder on the doorframe hard enough to hurt and hard enough to make him stumble again, but he didn’t stop until he was out of the room and away from El.

He stood in the hallway and leaned against the wall, head tipped back. If he’d had eyes to close, he would have shut them, but as it was all Sands could do was groan softly and thump his head against the wall. It didn’t help the morphine cravings, or the growing feeling that he had managed to botch another situation beyond repair. Something was going to blow up in his face. Something had to break. Sands just hoped that that something wasn’t going to be him.

Options. He had options.

Sands rubbed at his face and pretended that he didn’t want to scratch his skin off because it felt like if he didn’t, it was going to crawl off. Fucking morphine.

Option one: He could go back to his room and spend the whole night tossing and turning.

Option two: He could go back to El’s room, get into a blistering argument and probably provoke El into fucking him through the mattress. That said, there was a chance he’d just earn himself another trip in the trunk of the car.

Option three: He could go two doors to the left and find out if Lorenzo would finish what El had started.

Sands thumped his head against the wall once more, just for good measure and straightened up. There was a soft creaking sound and his hand twitched towards the belt El wouldn’t give him for a gun he didn’t have.

“What are you - Christ, what happened to you?” Lorenzo, out of his bed in the middle of the night to check on him (because who else would be thumping their head against the wall at the ass-crack of dawn?). Of all the sweet, stupid things that sweet, stupid Lorenzo has asked, ‘are you all right’ and ‘what happened to you’ were on a pretty even par.

“Close encounter with an end table,” Sands said, only slightly sarcastically. He let Lorenzo steer him down the hall, two doors to the left. “What’s your excuse?”

Lorenzo settled Sands down on the creaky little bed and shut the door behind them. “What did El do?” Lorenzo, bless his socks, actually sounded angry. It made Sands want to laugh but he had the feeling that if he did, it was going to come out sounding a lot more bitter than he wanted it to. So he shook his head instead. Lorenzo sat next to him, one long leg jittering up and down, as though he was the one with morphine cravings.

Sands put his hand on Lorenzo’s knee, not holding it still, but it stopped moving anyway and Lorenzo’s gun and guitar calloused fingers closed over Sands’. “Don’t worry about it,” Sands said, trying for dismissive but coming out sounding more tired than anything else. It felt like Lorenzo was wearing nothing but boxers, which was kind of funny, because he didn’t wear them under his pants; he only had them to sleep in. Sands ducked his head down so his hair curtained his face and tried not to cling to Lorenzo’s hand. He tried not to flinch when Lorenzo caught hold of his chin and gently turned Sands to face him. Sands didn’t quite succeed at either of those goals.

His mouth hurt from the gag earlier, from the cuts in the corners of his mouth and the chapped, peeling skin of his lips to his bitten tongue and raw throat. He probably looked like hell too, Sands thought, but Lorenzo just brushed his hair back away from what was left of his face and kissed his sore mouth. Where El had been all anger, and teeth, and hard, bruising hands, Lorenzo was almost chaste as long, surprisingly delicate musician’s fingers stripped what was left of Sands’ shirt off.

Lorenzo sat back and swung his legs up onto the bed, making the mattress springs creak in an alarming way. He pulled Sands after him until they were both lying down, Sands head tucked into the hollow between Lorenzo’s neck and shoulder.

“Can you sleep,” Lorenzo asked, “or are the cravings too bad?”

He knew. The fact that he knew and those wonderful hands were still stroking over the bruises and bones of Sands’ back made Sands' mouth twist into a sneer. “If I could sleep,” he spat, “would I still be here?” God, of all the useless things he could have ended up as, an addict and a pivot for two less than emotionally sane and stable mariachi was not what he might have envisioned.

Lorenzo sighed. “Probably not.”

Sands huffed crossly into the warm curve of Lorenzo’s neck and turned a little until he was more comfortable. Lorenzo was warm and solid against him and if he hadn’t been suddenly in the throes of falling asleep despite himself, Sands might have been more surprised to hear the soft, “Goodnight gatito,” or the equally quiet, “Sweet dreams.”

*~*~*~*

El’s strumming that damned guitar and staring up at him from under his eyelashes. El is all dark reds and blacks against the lighter wood of the guitar. The strings vibrate and the light catches them, fracturing and fragmenting until it seems as though the light itself is part of the music. It’s the most beautiful thing that Sands has ever seen.

“I killed him,” El says and Sands leans back in his chair to better watch the play of fingers over chords.

Sands pushes at the pork and rice and each grain is a different color of white. The tequila next to it is a rainbow oil slick and Sands tips it out, just to watch it spread across the shine of the tablecloth.

There’s a shadow behind El, curves of an arm, dip of a stomach and line of a throat. Sands can’t make the figure out in the light, which seems to stop, just behind El, and even El is a little blurry now. The light is fading and Sands can see a sweep of eyelashes and a twist of lips but then the light is gone altogether and he can’t see at all.

He can’t see

He can’t see.

Sands woke up with a choked shout and he was covered in cold sweat and shaking so hard he thought he ought to have tumbled out of bed. Next to him, still sleep warm and a little sweaty, Lorenzo grunted and caught his arm.

“Go back to sleep,” Lorenzo said, his voice rough from sleep. “It was just a dream and it’s still early.” He tugged at Sands until he lay back down, still trying to catch his breath.

It was dark, which made sense, because Sands was blind and one stupid dream, no matter how vivid, wasn’t going to change that. He felt angry then, and cheated. Sands shoved at Lorenzo though they were too close for it to really hurt, or even to move him at all. “Fuck you,” he snarled. “Fuck you. I don’t know what you look like, and I don’t know where we are, and I’m never going to know.” He sucked in a breath that trembled and broke in his mouth. “Even in my dreams everything’s going black.” Sands shoved at Lorenzo again, or maybe he was pulling him closer, it was impossible to tell. “Fuck you.” It sounded like a sob then and Sands clenched his teeth against it, dug his teeth into Lorenzo’s shoulder to keep from screaming. “I’ll never know what you look like.”

If the bite hurt, Lorenzo didn’t mention it. He wrapped his arms around Sands instead and stroked his fingers over Sands’ ribs like they were his guitar strings and the angry, harsh panting of Sands’ breaths were music. “I can tell you, if you like,” Lorenzo said finally. As though that was what really mattered.

Sands shook his head. “No.” He licked where he’d bitten in the only apology that Lorenzo was going to get. “I’ll figure it out. I’ve got bits and pieces already.”

Lorenzo laughed and said, “That’s all I am,” though that felt to Sands like that should have been his line. “Go to sleep, gatito,” Lorenzo said again, though Sands was awake enough that he knew what it meant. He didn’t call Lorenzo on it, so Lorenzo said, “Don’t dream.”

It was the nicest thing anyone had said to Sands in a long time.

*~*~*~*

Sands faced the mirror, running his fingertips over his face. The communal bathroom almost echoed, like it was bigger than all the shitty little motel rooms they’d stayed in put together. Sands had shoved a chair under the door handle so he could have a little privacy while he showered in the tepid water and tried to shave. His face felt rough and the stubble itched, adding another minor irritation to his already lengthy list of aches and pains.

He needed the shave, rather badly, but since he was in no mood to ask Lorenzo for help, and he’d slit his own throat with the razor rather than ask El, he was on his own with the task.

The razor had been right in front of him. Right there, under his hand. Sands bit his lip to keep from doing stupid like screaming, or punching the mirror in front of him (useless, stupid thing that it was these days) and patted his hands over the cool surface of the stone countertop until he found it again. Nothing was ever simple anymore. He reassured himself of the position of the razor a second time and then played ‘hunt the soap’ for a few moments. One of the two mariachi might have had shaving foam, but he wasn’t able to look for it, and if he asked them for it, one of them would insist on helping him, which was what he’d been trying to avoid in the first place. He would make do with what he had.

Sands was almost as sick of making do as he was of abandoned churches and El’s attitude.

It took him almost half an hour to shave. Next time they passed a semi-decent drugstore he was making them stop so he could buy an electric razor, Sands decided, and patted his face dry. Each careful scrape of the cheap, plastic razor had been preceded by searching fingers and a held breath. He’d only cut himself three times, twice on the left side of his jaw, and once, right across the throat. Sands ran his fingers over and over the almost raw skin until he was certain he hadn’t missed a single hair, not one patch of itchy stubble. Anything less than perfect would mean he couldn’t take care of himself.

He was going to ask El for a gun and bullets.

No.

Sands winced and splashed Lorenzo’s aftershave on his face. It burned and stung badly enough that he had to wince again.

No, he was going to tell El to give him a gun and bullets. Enough of the dependence, he was going to start striking out on his own. Not that he had any idea where he would go once he could walk out on his own two feet.

Sands pulled the chair away from the door and ran his hands over his body one last time, just to make sure. Jeans he’d stolen from Lorenzo and then hacked the excess length off, because with the weight he’d lost, Lorenzo’s clothing fit him better, despite the height difference. A shirt, not inside out, though he had no idea what color it was, which irked him, and the boots that El had given him. He’d brushed his hair and pulled it back into a pony tail. He’d scrounged up a pair of sunglasses that he was pretty sure were the wrong shape for his face and probably made him look either like his nose was huge, or that his forehead was deformed. But still, better than walking around with his bare face hanging out. Or something like that.

He made his way to the kitchen without too much drama, and the kitchen, too, echoed like it was something large and communal for all the good little monks to join together in. If anyone had asked Sands, he might have said it was all a bit gay really, but no one asked.

“Hey.” Lorenzo. Sands could hear the sound of Lorenzo chasing his cereal around the bowl with his spoon. He sounded as beat upon as Sands felt. “You found El?”

Sands didn’t ask for help even though he had no idea how the room was organized. He walked slowly, trying to just follow Lorenzo’s voice, because if he could shoot people without being able to see then he should damn well be able to sit down at a fucking table. His knees bumped up against the long bench before he expected them to, but he caught himself against the table and nothing fell, so that was one small mercy.

Sands was as sick of small mercies as he was of making do.

“No.” He sat down carefully and, with a bravado he didn’t feel, held out one hand for the cereal, for the coffee, whatever Lorenzo would hand him first. “Not since last night.”

There was an awkward pause that not even the gurgle of Lorenzo pouring a second cup of coffee and pressing it into Sands’ hand could fill. “You shaved?”

Sands shrugged. His stomach turned over at the idea of drinking the coffee black but he didn’t want to ask for the sugar and milk. “Yeah.” He burned his mouth and tongue when he tried to drink, so he set the mug down, keeping one finger barely brushing against it, so he’d be able to find it again without having to think. “Got any tequila?” he asked, only half joking.

Lorenzo scraped something across the table, and a cool bottle touched Sands’ wrist. “Yeah.” Lorenzo tapped at his bowl with his spoon again. “Help yourself.”

Sands took the bottle, trying not to look as surprised as he felt. “You sound like shit,” he said. “Since that’s my job, I’ll bite: What’s up?” He drank from the bottle as fast as he could, trying to ignore the taste. He gasped for air, when he was done and it burned his throat and his guts but he hadn’t spilt any on his clothing. “You’re usually all about taking the booze away from me in the mornings.”

“El…you…I’m not an idiot. You fucked, if not last night, then before,” Lorenzo said tightly.

There wasn’t really much Sands could say to that. “Yeah.”

It seemed like a dam had been broken because Lorenzo kept talking. “I could smell him on you, last night. I thought maybe then, but it didn’t smell like that and you seemed mostly okay…I though maybe you…Christ, Sands, he put you in the trunk, he treats you like shit-”

Sands cut him off with a laugh. “He treats you like shit too.”

Lorenzo went quiet again, then, softly, “Yeah.” He sounded like he was turning to look at Sands, but maybe he was turning to look away. “I think I love him, you know?”

Sands downed as much tequila as he could without choking. “I know.” He tried to smile but it felt sharp and strange. “I think you’re a sentimental nut-fuck, but I know.”

“He wasn’t like this before.”

“Were any of us?”

There’s another long silence and then Lorenzo said, “I was.” He took the bottle from Sands and Sands could hear him drinking almost as desperately as Sands had. “If he gets any worse, I can’t save you. I was like this before, and I know that I won’t be able to save you.”

Sands wanted to say that he didn’t need saving, but he didn’t feel like summoning up the energy to lie. He took the bottle back from Lorenzo instead. “I don’t expect you to,” was what came out instead. There was a story somewhere there. Someone else Lorenzo hadn’t saved but Sands didn’t want to know. Instead, he pulled the t-shirt off and dropped it on the floor before catching hold of Lorenzo’s shoulder, so he could find his jaw and then his lips. There was a crash when Sands pushed Lorenzo back against the table but nothing spilled on him, so he ignored it.

They fucked like it didn’t matter that Lorenzo was in love with El, or that Sands was too cracked not to hate both of them for what they’d done to him. Maybe it didn’t matter, Sands thought, a little wildly, as he pressed slowly into Lorenzo as Lorenzo’s fingernails raked stinging lines over Sands’ shoulders and back. Maybe it didn’t matter because Sands thought he might be a little bit in love with the pain too, and maybe that’s what El’s attraction was. Or maybe it didn’t matter at all, because everything was fucked.

Lorenzo sat with his head in his hands when they were done, and Sands couldn’t tell if he was crying because he couldn’t see. Lorenzo was only breathing heavily, but his shoulders were shaking and when Sands touched Lorenzo’s face his fingers came away wet with what could have been sweat, or might have been tears. Sands sipped his coffee and wondered if he ought to have another shower again. But he used his free hand to stroke Lorenzo’s hair and didn’t say anything when Lorenzo leaned against him like he was the last sturdy thing in the world.

*~*~*~*

El didn’t reappear from wherever it was he went until late in the evening. Sands only found him because he could hear someone playing the guitar and he was looking for Lorenzo, totally lost in the monastery without either of the mariachi to tell him which way he was going.

“Sands.” Just his name, like a fact, like El had to announce to himself that someone else was in the room just to make them real.

Sands grinned and bowed mockingly. “In the flesh.” He walked up to El, almost managing a saunter, and ran a faltering finger over the strings of the guitar. “Where are we?”

El swatted his fingers away. It actually hurt a little. “Mausoleum.”

It was fitting, Sands supposed. “Charming.” He sighed and reached out until he felt the cool stone that El was sitting on. Someone’s tomb. Sands moved a little along until he was able to hop up next to El. “Lorenzo knows.” He didn’t reach out for El because it felt a little like he would be betraying Lorenzo if he did. It made him feel a little nauseous trying to work it all out, so he didn’t.

“Of course.” El plucked out a tune that was dark and somehow cold. Apt, considering where they were sitting. “What did you expect?”

Sands shrugged. “That you might care, considering you just about declared your own insane-o brand of love for the kid the other day.” He stuck a hand in one of El’s pockets and came out with a tin of cigarillos before El could smack his hand again. There was a soft hiss and it took Sands a moment to realize that El had his lighter out and lit. Sands stuck the cigarillo in his mouth and let El light it for him. “Thanks.”

“Love?” El took the tin back and it sounded like he was laughing.

“You know it, I know it, and Lori’s not an idiot, he’ll figure it out too.” Sands gratefully exhaled a long stream of smoke and flopped back so he was lying down, legs dangling, on the tomb. “Then what will you do? I don’t think he’ll take being stuffed in the trunk very well.”

El’s guitar scraped against the stone as he put it down. “Every one I love dies.”

Sands sighed and dragged on the cigarillo. He’d have liked to have seen the memo that made him everyone’s confessor. “Well don’t love him then,” he snapped, aggravated. “Just fuck him and have done with it. It would save me from a whole monkey-barrel full of pain, that’s for sure.”

“You like the pain.” El’s tone wasn’t accusatory, or mocking, or questioning. It was said in the same flat tone that he had announced Sands name to the room. Just a fact.

A fact that made Sands squirm uncomfortably where he lay, because it wasn’t true. He didn’t like the morphine cravings, or the way the guitar wires had cut into his wrists, or the aching his face got sometimes. At the same time, when El pulled on his hair just a little too hard, or dug his hands into Sands’ hipbones just a little too tight…yeah. He liked that. More than he’d admit. Instead he grunted in a sort of non-committal way. “You ever think about not being a spaniel-licking fucknut?”

El was silent for a long stretch. “What does that even mean?” he asked finally.

Sands snorted. “You’re an even bigger idiot than Lori and I put together.” He rolled over slightly so his head rested on El’s thigh. “How’s that for clarification?” He smiled a little when El ran a hand over his hair and cheek, skirting around the sunglasses and then scowled when he realized that he had smiled at such a pathetic show of emotion.

El stroked around his hairline for a while and Sands relaxed, smoking quietly, enjoying the cool silence. He didn’t enjoy it quite as much when El pulled the sunglasses off, catching his wrists in one hand so that Sands couldn’t fight back. Ash tumbled off the end of the cigarillo to paint his cheek when El smudged it away. Sands snarled, and spat, and struggled, but lying down with his hands held firmly up by his face made it hard to do much of anything more than rage uselessly against El, the ever immovable object. He quieted again, tired. El didn’t let go of his wrists, but resumed petting his hair with his free hand.

“Can I at least smoke?” Sands asked and he meant for it to come out sarcastically but it sounded plaintive instead.

El plucked the cigarillo from between his fingers and held it to Sands’ lips. Unwilling to let good nicotine go to waste, Sands took the drag while he had the chance. He could almost hear El’s smile. “I like you better de-clawed,” El remarked.

Sands bit him.

Loss of all his dignity seemed to Sands to be a perfectly good reason to bite someone. Being the bean-shitting ass hat responsible for the loss of dignity did not give El the right to retaliate by cuffing him over the back of the head, hard enough that his eyes…his face, ached all over again. Sands struggled again but El held him down easily. It was humiliating, to say the least and Sands did the only thing he had left to him; he expressed his ire loudly, explicitly, and at great length. El stayed silent and implacable until Sands was finished and then held the cigarillo to his lips again.

Sands inhaled crossly. “I’m not de-clawed,” he snapped, hoping that as he spoke the smoke got into El’s eyes. “Or neutered, or anything of the fucking kind.” He squirmed happily when El’s fingers rubbed at the back of his neck and all the tension knots there started to unravel. “So you can go fuck your - mmm, just there - yourself.”

“Someone will come for you,” El said conversationally. “From your government.”

“Well they can fuck themselves as well.” Sands’ fingers curled and uncurled as he tipped his head forward to give El better access to the back of his neck.

El sighed, but kept massaging. “Will you go with them?”

Sands would have shrugged, but he was feeling far too relaxed to move much at all, so he just hummed the vocal equivalent of the shrug. “Depends on if they’re trying to kill me or not.” El let go of his wrists but Sands didn’t bother doing anything with them, so they just thudded onto El’s leg.

Footsteps echoed sharply though the mausoleum then drew up short. “Oh…I…sorry.”

That traitorous emotion, guilt, crept back up on Sands and kicked him in the guts. The obvious hurt in Lorenzo’s voice killed any good feeling that Sands might have been experiencing. He tried to sit up but El’s hand clamped down on the back of his neck, holding him in place and Sands didn’t bother to fight. Not in front of Lorenzo, it wasn’t worth the overall drama that would ensue.

“Stay.” El’s tone didn’t leave any room for disagreement. //What was it you wanted?//

“Fideo called.” Lorenzo’s footsteps came a little closer, hesitated and then he walked up so he was standing next to the tomb El and Sands were sitting on. “He found his phone, I guess.” Lorenzo sounded like someone had run over his dog.

The cigarillo found its way back into Sands’ hand again and he took what should have been a long, soothing drag. It didn’t do a damn thing to assuage his guilt or steady his nerves. “Well there’s a miracle of modern fucking technology,” Sands said snidely. “Calling on a phone. What will you crazy Mexicans think of next?” El’s fingers pinched hard enough to make his neck knot back up again in protest and Sands hissed unhappily. Lorenzo’s aborted sound of protest didn’t help matters.

“Look, he says there are agents crawling over Culiacan like flies on shit - Sorry Sands - and they’re looking for him. Word’s out that if Sands is alive, he won’t be for long.”

Sands sighed. “Does that answer your question, El?” He shoved at El’s leg but El didn’t move his hand so Sands settled back down again with a grimace. “Does this mean we have to move again?” He took another drag and blew a few thoughtful smoke rings, or at least he imagined he’d blown smoke rings. “Because as shitty as it is here, I’m kind of sick of El’s granny driving.”

Lorenzo brushed an errant strand of hair out of Sands’ face and then jerked his hand away. “Fideo’s not in on this one, not after what you - not after what the…”

“Not after you tied me to a table and let that turd munching quack of a doctor operate on me without painkillers,” Sands filled in, not a little smugly.

“He said we should hand Sands over and let his government deal with him, get him off our hands.” Lorenzo’s words all bunched together in a rush and Sands would have bet good money that Lorenzo wasn’t looking at him. “He said it would be more humane. Like putting down a rabid….” Again, Lorenzo trailed off miserably. “Shit, Sands, I’m sorry.”

Sands waved his hand magnanimously. “Stop apologizing, you’d think I have feelings to hurt.” He shoved at El in earnest. “And for fuck’s sake, let me sit up, my back is starting to cramp.” El released him and Sands pulled away, rubbing at his neck in silent protest. “If you’re going to turn me over, then do the decent thing and give me a gun so I can take care of myself, because I’m not going into custody, I’ll tell you that much.”

Lorenzo started pacing. “We’re not turning you over.”

“We’re not?” El actually sounded amused by the whole situation. Sands wanted to hit him, but that never turned out well so he sat silently fuming and smoking instead. //What do you suggest then, Lori?//

Lorenzo’s heels scraped on the floor as he turned abruptly. //Give me the car, let me have him if you won’t do your part. I won’t believe you’d keep him alive this long just to fuck him and let him die. I’ll take him and you can walk off into the sunset, or whatever it is you want. I can look after him.//

Lorenzo’s Spanish was rapid-fire and if Sands hadn’t been fluent, he might almost have missed something. As it was he just swung his legs to shake out the morphine jitters and waited to see what El’s opinion on him was, and when they would remember that he was sitting right fucking there.

//I looked after Fideo while you were gone, and he was drunk all the time. My share of the coup money can hold the two of us for over a year if I’m careful and I can always play for more. He’s better, El, he’s sorry-//

“No I’m not,” Sands said, but no one was listening to him.

//And I don’t want you to go but I won’t let you turn him in because we’re no better than him and I can look after him without you. I don’t need you-//

El pushed Sands off the tomb. Since Sands wasn’t expecting such a rude gesture, he landed badly, right on his ass, and cracked his shoulder on the way down. //Have him then.// El hopped down from the tomb and picked up his guitar. //I’ll leave tomorrow.// His footsteps were loud in the resulting silence.

Sands groaned in disgust and pain and pushed himself onto hands and knees. “Well done,” he said tiredly. “I’m sure that’s the result you were aiming for.”

Lorenzo caught hold of his arm and helped him up. “How much of that did you understand?”

Sands gave Lorenzo a disgusted look. //You know, for being so sure that you and I can survive without him, you really don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I’m not sorry, you can’t take the CIA on your own, and if El walks out, he won’t come back.//

“You…”

“Yeah.” Sands sighed and rubbed at his face. El had taken his sunglasses when he left. Figured. “I’m smarter than I look, I know.” He pulled Lorenzo down to his height and kissed him, as hard and as cruel as El had ever kissed him. “We’re fucked.”

Lorenzo turned away. “I know.”

*~*~*~*

part two of part two