Born of Madness 1/3
Series: Born of Madness (1/3)
Title: Devil in Mexico
Summary: Sands isn’t coping very well.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Nothing but the plot is mine
Feedback: Is better than cookies (and I really like cookies).
Author’s note: This has been kicking about in my head for a while, I need to get it out because goddamn, this bunny has been gnawing on me for months. The title is from a Murder By Death song, from the album Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them, which is an awesome album for writing OUATIM fic to.
…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
*~*~*~*
The light breeze sent up dust devils along the road but didn’t quite manage to reach the porch of the church where Lorenzo was sitting. Without that breeze he was left in dead air with the sun warming up to full strength above the faded roof of the abandoned church. Lorenzo was slumped down in a creaky old chair that he’d dragged down off the dias. It wasn’t comfortable and dug into his shoulders where they pressed against the carvings, but it was better than sitting on the dirty porch and getting paint chips and splinters all in his ass.
He was sweating, shirt unbuttoned to the centre of his chest, boots toed off to sit, forgotten, inside under one of the pews, and he had a borrowed hat pulled down low over his eyes to combat the sun that seemed determined to creep in over the tops of his sunglasses and get in his eyes. He’d brought a cooler of beer out and there was perspiration running down the side, as if even the plastic was sweating in the heat. A bottle dangled lazily from his fingertips, half gone and the other half already warming. Lorenzo didn’t know where the bottle-cap had pinged off to, and he wasn’t really sure that he cared enough to hunt around looking for it. Let El be fastidious about this ‘being on the run’ business, he was too hot and too bored to bother with such things.
There were terrible sounds coming from above him, filtering through the enormous stained glass of the window above the door. Screams, upon screams from a throat too tight from the pain to produce full volume, only a desperate, choked howl. Lorenzo ignored the sounds and sipped on his beer, grimacing at the taste as it heated in the sun. After a few moments the cries abruptly ended, to leave only the sound of the dust in the wind and the creaking of the old chair Lorenzo sat in to break the silence.
Lorenzo raised his eyes up as if he could see through the brim of his hat, through the broken, holey roof of the porch and behind him into the church and smiled. //Five. Four.// He took another sip of his beer. //Three. Two. One.//
El stormed out of the front doors, dropping down into the chair facing Lorenzo, and snagged a beer, scowling. //I can’t give him any more morphine per dosage or it will kill him.// He pressed the bottle to his forehead. //It’s barely keeping him down and I can’t tell if it’s the pain, nightmares or his coming off the drugs that’s making him so violent.//
//Three questions; Is he going to live? What are we going to do with him if he does live? How long do you think we can stay here before someone notices?// Lorenzo stared out down the dirt road, deliberately not looking at El. To look at El would be to reinforce what he already knew was there, what had been there for the past week.
El’s eyes weren’t as dead and tired as they used to be. Something in him had reawakened after the Day of the Dead. Maybe it was saving the president. Maybe it was finally laying Carolina’s memories to rest. Maybe it was that every time he came back from looking after Sands he was pushed, goaded and dragged into feeling something. Even if that was nothing more than irritation and frustration. Something in him had been rekindled and it had nothing to do with Lorenzo.
El heaved a sigh, tipping his head back to glance balefully towards the stained glass window on the second floor. //He might die.// El sipped his beer more slowly. //I don’t know. I don’t know what he’ll be fit for if he does recover...One more week, and then we go.//
Lorenzo rolled his eyes and stood, stretching the kinks out of his legs before turning on his heel and heading into the church.
It was too warm on the second floor, though in a different way from outside. Dark walls at odd angles pressed in, giving the room a sort of heat and pressure, and the double bed was too big for the space, cramping everything. The stained glass window shattered the sickroom into a thousand splinters of color, throwing light over the filthy, broken body lying naked and tangled in dirty sheets and feverish dreams.
Lorenzo put a hand to Sands’ forehead, Sands was worryingly warm. //Why is he tied to the bedposts?// He didn’t need to look around to know that El had followed him, he could feel him, the small hairs on his neck rising and prickling.
//He kept trying to pick at his wounds.// El leaned over to brush Sands’ sweat damp hair back from his face. His hand bumped against Lorenzo’s and the younger man snatched it back like it had been burned.
//He needs a bath,// Lorenzo said snidely, trying to resist the urge to rub his hand on his jeans. //It stinks in here.//
El raised an eyebrow. //Are you volunteering?// He shook his head with a little smile at Lorenzo’s expression and Lorenzo felt unaccountably proud of himself for producing such a result. //I’m going to stop giving him morphine and let him scream it out.// El said as if coming to a long deliberated decision. //He can’t recover like this.//
Lorenzo looked away from Sands’ body, up at the fractured figure of Christ glowing above them. There was a catholic bleeding heart on his robe over his chest and he smiled down at them benignly. Lorenzo closed his eyes in a fit of anger at the sleepy, stupid way the Christ above them watched the sickroom, and the pathetic vision of Sands whimpering in his drug induced stupor, and El’s calm, tired eyes. He made a movement, half shrug and half shudder, as if he were shaking something off his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets.
//Do as you please. He’s your project,// Lorenzo muttered, turning to retreat back to the porch once more.
*~*~*~*
Six days later and the interminable heat still wasn’t letting up. El had retreated to the wine cellar, supposedly to see if there was anything worth taking, but was more likely just sitting down there in the cool and damp, playing his guitar. The tunes he now played were, if not upbeat, at least didn’t sound like he was planning his own funeral. Lorenzo was much happier to join him now, rather than wanting to go somewhere quiet and kill himself just because of the misery in the chords.
Lorenzo lay on his back, one hand dangling off the bed to brush against the cool bottle of his beer, and stared alternately up at the patterns of light on the ceiling, and over at Sands. He’d been given guard duty, something El had deemed necessary once he’d stopped administering morphine. For whose sake and safety, and for what purpose, Lorenzo wasn’t sure. So he lay there in the broken light, watching Sands. He was still dirty and smelt of sweat, and sickness, and fear, but the expression on his face was much more peaceful. Sands’ mouth was partly open, lips soft and his breath steady, none of the sickly wheeze that had plagued it remaining. His limbs were relaxed, bullet wounds pinkening, fragile scars.
“Why the bleeding cunt of holy Mary, am I tied to a bed?”
Sands’ dry voice startled Lorenzo so badly that he actually fell off the bed, landing with a painful thud on the hard wood of the floor. “You’re awake,” he said, stupid as the Christ smiling above them.
“Very astute.” Sands tugged, weakly but thoughtfully, at the strips of fabric keeping him immobile. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to be untied now.” His voice was an easy, sarcastic drawl and it crawled under Lorenzo’s skin, pricking at his nerves. Surely someone so weakened shouldn’t sound so damn bored and cocky, as if he weren’t utterly helpless.
Lorenzo climbed back onto the bed and stared deliberately at Sands, knowing that even if the man couldn’t see him looking, he’d be able to feel it nevertheless. “You’ve been out for almost two weeks now,” he said by way of reply. “You were raving and wouldn’t lie still and heal so we tied you down.” Tied him down and forced sleeping pills and painkillers down his throat until he’d lain quiet and compliant. That, and Lorenzo knew he was being vague. Hell, he’d not be happy if he was blind, bound, and ignorant of his whereabouts, or his captors and he was a little put out that Sands didn’t seem to care.
Sands seemed unperturbed by all that. “Lord, love a duck,” he sighed. “I thought I was supposed to be the one with no fucking eyes-” and even all the sharp-tongued sarcasm couldn’t hide the bitterness there- “but if not, then you might want to pull your finger out of your ass and notice that I’m lucid now.”
Lorenzo shrugged, not caring that Sands couldn’t see it. “Not my problem.” He picked up his beer from off the floor and took a long pull from it. “I didn’t tie you there and I’m not going to let you loose either.”
The tip of a kitten-pink tongue darted out to wet Sands’ lips and the blind man swallowed visibly. Lorenzo thought meanly it might be a hint of fear until Sands squirmed as much as he could and smiled prettily at Lorenzo. “Well at least gimme a beer then.”
Christ, even with his eye sockets bound by a sweat-yellowed bandage, dark hollows under razor sharp cheekbones and teeth that badly needed a brushing, there was something beguiling about the man. With a sigh, Lorenzo held the bottle to Sands’ mouth and he swallowed greedily until Lorenzo took his drink back. “Easy, gringo, you’ll make yourself sick.”
Sands let out a soft purr of contentment. “Christ that’s good.” His voice was as breathless as if he’d just had incredibly good sex, and not a few swallows of cheap, warming beer that tasted of piss.
The door creaked open and Sands’ turned his face towards the sound, fast as thought, and Lorenzo could see his fingers twitch around the bindings. El raised an eyebrow at Lorenzo and shut the door behind him.
//So he’s awake then?//
Sands’ lips curled back into something between a grin and a snarl. Lorenzo smacked him before he had the opportunity to say anything rude. El’s other eyebrow went up as Sands hissed in pain at the jarring of still-sore wounds.
El moved to the bed, picking at the knots around Sands’ wrists which had been pulled and damped down with sweat and pulled again until they were near fused that way. “Do you remember me, Sands?”
There was a definite stiffening to Sands’ relaxed pose. “El Mariachi.” The stiffness gave way to a resigned slump and Lorenzo felt unaccountably sorry for Sands. “Still standing then.”
The slight twist to El’s mouth made Lorenzo wonder exactly what had passed between these two, prior to la Dios de la Muerte but now was not the time to ask.
El finally gave up with unpicking the fabric and instead pulled a knife out of his boot and cut the bonds away. “Still.” He let the rags drop to the floor, lifting one of Sands’ arms from where it lay, examining his wrist. It was ringed with bruises and the delicate bones there stuck out sharply from soft, pale skin. Apparently content that Sands wasn’t hurt badly from the makeshift cuffs, El let the arm drop.
Sands didn’t move to help or hinder him, only drawing his arms in against his chest when El was finished with him, rubbing at his wrists with a petulant twist to his lips.
“As are you,” El pointed out. “The bullets are out, the holes mostly closed and you will heal.”
Lorenzo wanted to point out that the man had had his eyes gouged out, but it seemed unkind and unnecessary, so he silenced himself with another sip of beer. Some grain of mercy made him put the bottle into Sands’ hand, curling his fingers around it to be sure Sands knew what he had hold of.
El made a small sound of impatience. //Alcohol will not help.//
//Have pity,// Lorenzo said with a shrug, rolling to his feet. //Poor bastard’s been fucked six ways from Sunday.//
Sands sat up abruptly and threw the bottle at Lorenzo’s head. Thankfully, the quick movement had made Sands dizzy and he was still weak, so he missed by some considerable distance, the bottle bouncing harmlessly off the wall, not even breaking, the last of the beer puddling on the floorboards. Sands snarled at Lorenzo, reaching down to tug at the cloth around his ankles, swaying a little as he sat there.
“I can understand you, you know,” Sands hissed.
There was something decidedly pathetic about the scene. Sands was skinny and fragile, naked save for the sheet and the fabric bandaging his eyes. The futility and determination with which he attempted to free himself was enough to make even the hardest pistolero soften in sympathy.
Except, perhaps, El. El, who simply swatted Sands’ hands aside and sliced the fabric away. “I would prefer not to have to kill you, Sands. Be good or I leave you behind.”
“Well fuck you,” Sands said brightly. “No one asked you to haul my carcass out of the grave and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be grateful.”
El let out a little huff of air. “If he fights, kill him.” And he left, mouth a hard tight line, the door shutting a little too loudly behind him.
Sands’ laugh was brittle as dead leaves underfoot. “What crawled up his ass and died?”
Lorenzo considered just following after El and leaving Sands to fend for himself. Halfway out the door he made the mistake of looking back and the sight had not improved. Now Sands was on his knees, one hand trying to hold the sheet in place, even as it tangled around him, hindering his progress, and the other hand fumbled along the bed, half supporting him, half searching for a touch-stone in all the blackness. Lorenzo shut his eyes but the image was burned into his retina. He owed this gringo nothing. Less than nothing.
He put one hand on Sands’ shoulder, halting his progress, letting Sands know where he was standing. “I can get you some towels and show you where the shower is, if you like.”
It wasn’t gratitude on Sands’ face then, it was something bruised and sore that might once have been pride, forced down into submission. “Thank you.”
*~*~*~*
Sands leaned against the door frame of the bathroom, ostensibly because it looked good and made him appear confidant, but Lorenzo noticed it also took the weight off of his bad leg. He had taken the bandage off his face and his hair was carefully pulled back so it wouldn’t aggravate the wounds. Other than the obvious, he looked a lot better cleaned and clothed.
“Lorenzo, right?” Sands hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of the jeans. They were a touch too big for him, and the motion nearly pulled them down over his hips. He scowled, hauled them up again and flashed a feral smile Lorenzo’s way. “You think you could get me a belt? Preferably sunglasses, some pain killers, and an ass load of guns as well, but right now I’ll settle for being able to walk without my pants falling around my ankles.”
“Sorry amigo, you’ll have to take it up with El.” Lorenzo tossed Sands a beer and bottle opener and he caught them out of the air. “Belts and guns will be right out, but maybe some aspirin.”
Sands popped the cap off the beer and took a long drink. “Shit.” He turned to face the soft clinking of El’s approach. Lorenzo tried not to stare at the ruins of his eyes.
El reached out and plucked the beer out of Sands’ hand. “Not until you are healed. Clean clothes and a pretty smile do not a healed man make.” He took Sands’ chin in his free hand, turning his face from side to side, examining his eye sockets. Sands stood quietly, not protesting the indignity of being manhandled, although his hands curled up into loose fists by his side. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve had my eyes gouged out, been shot and pumped full of enough morphine to give me an addiction,” Sands sneered at El, mouth twisted with bitterness. “Other than that, I’m feeling peachy.”
“Good.” El patted him on the shoulder. “Then we can leave now.” He handed the beer to Lorenzo, slid one arm behind Sands, holding his elbow and his waist and drew him away from the wall, steering him roughly towards the door.
Sands dug his heels in, in protest. “Hold up hombre.” Despite the placidity of his voice, there was a tight panic to his body. “I need water, painkillers, a goddamn belt and some explanation of what the hell is going on.”
El half lifted him, continuing their progress out the door. “I got a call. Since you gave me what I needed and lost your eyes and your revenge I thought I would repay my debt. Though you are proving to be just as irritating like this as you were before and I intend to get rid of you as soon as I can.”
That made Sands twitch in El’s grip. “What do you mean I lost my revenge? I shot that bitch right in her guts and felt her bleed out. I was close enough to feel her die.”
“I killed Barillo,” El said simply. “Guevera is also dead.”
Sands went limp, slipping out of El’s grip and collapsing on the floor. “No.” There was a desperate finality to that one word.
Lorenzo flinched and turned away so he couldn’t see the raw pain on Sands’ face.
*~*~*~*
El drove.
It was Lorenzo’s car, and El was a terrible driver but that was just the way things seemed to be. Lorenzo sat in the front seat, sun visor down, not to block the sun, but so he could spy on the man curled up in the backseat next to Lorenzo’s and El’s guitar cases.
El was not an interesting man to watch when he drove. He sat, hands in the ten and two o’clock positions (unless he was driving away from something, and then his hands would lie where they fell) eyes ahead, and just drove. Not even Lorenzo could watch something that dull for hours, even if it was El.
Sands, on the other hand, was interesting in his misery. He hadn’t moved of his own volition, or spoken, or responded to anything either El or Lorenzo had said after he’d collapsed. He’d sat where they’d put him in the backseat, Lorenzo fixing the seatbelt around him and putting his own sunglasses on Sands’ face to ensure no passersby saw what they shouldn’t. If it weren’t for the tightness to his mouth and the slight, automatic, unconscious wince that Sands made every time a bump in the road jarred his wounds, Lorenzo would have been hard pressed to say if Sands was conscious at all.
The sun was low on the horizon when Sands moved, one hand coming up to push the sunglasses a little further up his nose. He let out a sigh, like the last breath of the dying and tipped his head back. “Do either of you smoke?” Sands had the air of one who was drowning and had fully accepted that fate.
El didn’t turn around to look at their passenger, but he stared long and hard into the rearview. The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he wanted to say something, but he remained silent.
Lorenzo opened the glove compartment and pulled out his somewhat crumpled pack. //You need me to light it for you?//
Sands scowled. “Do you have matches or a lighter?” His hands were impotent fists on his lap.
“Matches.” Lorenzo stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. //Hold out your hand.// Sands did as he was told and the strain of that was clear on his face. Lorenzo twisted around in his seat and carefully put the cigarette in between Sands’ fingers.
Sands took a long, grateful drag and smoke poured out of his nose and between his lips. The addition of nicotine to his bloodstream seemed to loosen something that had been wound too tight before. “Not that I’m not grateful for the rescue, but I would kind of like to know what you intend to do with me.” He grinned at Lorenzo in the mirror. “I mean, I’d ask El Silencioso here, but it seems like the stick rammed up his ass is compromising his vocal chords.”
Lorenzo didn’t laugh. He managed to turn it into a cough at the last second, glancing out of the corner of his eyes at El. The corner of El’s mouth had actually quirked up into a smile. That alone was enough to startle Lorenzo into gaping and therefore missed his space to answer Sands. Instead El did it and that kept Lorenzo silent for a while longer.
“You may stay with us until you are healed.” El’s hands relaxed from their position on the wheel, one reaching out to snag a cigarette of his own. “As for now, we will find a motel. It would be best not to overexert yourself in the beginning and this road must be painful for you.”
Sands’ mouth pressed back down into a thin line. “I’ve felt worse.”
*~*~*~*
Dawn was just thinking about beginning when Lorenzo was awoken by the sound of hiccoughing, wretched misery. Half sobs, half screams that came from a throat too worn out by prolonged laments, so the sounds broke and cracked and folded in on themselves. Lorenzo cracked open his eyes and peered about the cheap, dirty, motel room. El was sleeping, snoring softly, Sands was gone. No real surprise there then, because the day El made a sound like that was the day that Lorenzo ate a hat. Not his hat, because he didn’t own them, they gave him hat hair, but that wasn’t the point, and he was digressing because it was some ungodly hour and Sands was howling at the moon like an animal when he really should be shutting the fuck up and going to bed.
He rolled out from under the blankets and made his way outside to where the sound was coming from. Sure enough, Sands was curled up in the dirt on his hands and knees and he was heaving as though he would be sick from the force of his wretchedness. Lorenzo wondered what it would be like to be in such a position. Would he really want someone seeing him in such a way?
He bit his lip and walked across the yard to crouch next to Sands. The scuff marks in the dirt showed that Sands hadn’t made his way outside easily. It looked as if he’d fallen twice and crawled the last few meters. Now, barefoot and dusty, illuminated in the cold, flat light of the beginning of morning, Sands looked even less like the callous, manipulating character that El had described to Lorenzo.
Carefully, Lorenzo put a hand on Sands’ back, and the touch only made Sands jerk, startled, but didn’t stop the noises spilling from his lips. Lorenzo tugged him upright into a careful embrace, Sands’ head against his chest, Lorenzo’s arms cradling his body. Gradually, and with a desperate sort of strength, Sands’ hands came up to twist and grip the fabric of Lorenzo’s shirt and the sobbing tapered off to weak shudders and gulping for breath. When Sands had quieted to an exhausted compliance, Lorenzo eased them to their feet, one hand tracing soothing patterns over the bumps and ridges of Sands’ spine.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, amigo.”
They made a slow trek back to the room, though Sands was carrying his own weight he moved as if there were a pressure on his shoulders that could never be lifted. Lorenzo didn’t tuck Sands in to bed with a pat on the head and a ‘sweet dreams’ because he’d been privy to some of Sands’ nightmares and he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, never mind this revenant of a man. Instead, Lorenzo brought Sands into his own bed and pulled the blankets around them with one hand, keeping Sands tucked in the protection of his other arm. Sands curled up around him, head on his chest, breath warm and moist on his neck and drifted off restlessly into the sleep of the mentally and physically exhausted, fingers still clutched tight in Lorenzo’s clothing.
Lorenzo lay awake for a while, breathing in the scent of stale sweat and pain. Sands’ fingers were in rigor on his shirtfront and the still-rasping breaths were thick with painkillers and cheap tequila. Sands’ bones stuck out, elbows and knees uncomfortable jabs into Lorenzo’s skin. He whimpered in his sleep and burrowed deeper into Lorenzo’s embrace. Lorenzo wondered when it was exactly that he had become the one picking up the slack from El’s misplaced idea to take in the gringo and why he hadn’t just dumped Sands into El’s bed and let him deal with it.
He didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until he woke up again to see El standing over them with an amused twist to his lips.
//Long night?// El enquired sweetly.
Lorenzo scowled. //You didn’t have to hear him last night.// He slid out from under Sands, raising a mental eyebrow at the fact that Sands didn’t even twitch.
El frowned then too. //What do you mean?//
//Christ, El, he was outside screaming his soul out. How did you not hear it?//
El ran a hand through his hair and shrugged, unapologetically. //I was tired. Forget it, he’ll be fine.//
Lorenzo shook his head. “You’re an idiot.” He tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his shirt and failed. “Just because his body is healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to survive this.”
//If you feel concern, then so be it. I have no such reserves about his character. Now, I am going to make breakfast. Do you want any?// He spun on his heel and then froze.
“What?” Lorenzo peered in the direction El was looking.
“The pain medication.” El’s eyebrows twitched into a worried frown. “There was more in the bottle before.”
“Shit.” Lorenzo looked over at where Sands lay sprawled, motionless. “Oh shit.”
El made it to the bed first, rolling Sands onto his back. He wound his fingers into Sands’ hair tipping his head back and started administering mouth to mouth. Sands jerked under his hands, fingers coming up to dig trenches into El’s arms. El drew back, startled, and Sands lashed out, landing a lucky punch square on El’s jaw.
“What the fuck!” Sands scrabbled back on the sheets, sliding uselessly, confusion and panic written all over his face. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on?” He huddled in the middle of the bed, head moving back and forth, searching out his attackers.
El put a hand to his jaw with a slight wince. “What did you do with the pills, Sands?”
Sands turned his head to face El so fast Lorenzo thought he might get whiplash. “Oh Christ,” he muttered. Sands dug into the pocket of his jeans and held out a handful of the little tablets. “There, you want them back? Fucker, I need these more often then you give them.” He was sulking now as El took them from him.
Lorenzo, finding the humor in it, started to laugh.
“What?” Sands’ bemusement was replaced by wonder. “You thought I’d capped myself, didn’t you?”
El, on the other hand, wasn’t laughing. He slapped Sands hard enough to knock him back onto the bed. “If you ever…” He was so furious he could barely get the words out. “Get up and get dressed,” El said finally, before walking away to the kitchenette.
Sands touched his face, an affronted expression twisting his mouth but the careful way he held himself made Lorenzo wonder exactly how much the blow had hurt.. “Ass sucking mother fucker,” he griped, sitting up again. He flinched then, fingers to his temples, massaging gently. “Sweet Jesus with a strap-on, get me some fucking painkillers before I start killing things.”
Lorenzo sighed. “Sorry amigo, better just do as he says and get some food down you.” He put an apologetic hand on Sands’ shoulder, only to have it shrugged fiercely away. Lorenzo felt unaccountably sorry.
“I’m not your friend,” Sands spat. “I’m a fucking good-will project gone to hell. So either get me some painkillers or fuck off and let me writhe in agony on my own.”
Lorenzo followed sheepishly after El.
*~*~*~*
The scene around the breakfast table reminded Lorenzo of growing up, as he pushed his cornflakes around his bowl, watching them go soggy.
El played his father, brooding and angry. True, his father had never sat at the table cleaning and oiling his guns, coffee left to go cold in front of him. The air of contained violence, the way his fist would tighten whenever he so much as looked over at Sands, that was true to his past.
Sands, hunched over his mug as if the meager steam rising could warm the chill in his bones, played his mother. The faint bruises, the sadness, the desperation, and wounded pride and pain. There was a fragility in Sands that wasn’t going away with the passing days. It was getting worse, the cracks spreading, feathering out. Lorenzo didn’t know how much longer Sands was going to last before he fell apart.
And there Lorenzo sat, in between them, uncomfortable now as he had been as a boy, hearing his mother cry in the night when she thought no one would hear.
He slammed his spoon down into the bowl, milk sloshing over the side to splatter on the table cloth. Sands flinched, like his mother would have done, though he didn’t make any sort of move to clear it up. El gave Lorenzo a hard look, the look asking why he had to behave in such an immature manner when couldn’t he see how no one needed him sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
“You’re both fucking idiots,” Lorenzo said, pushing his chair away from the table and standing. “Take Sands to a doctor.” He turned and started to leave.
Behind him Sands spoke up. “No doctors.” His voice was as firm and decisive as it had been in days.
“I agree with Lorenzo.” El put the gun down, a promising sign, but Lorenzo was too mad to care.
He was back in the bedroom, digging though his things with no real purpose when the shouting began. There were crashes, sounds of things breaking, being thrown and knocked over. A soft cry and the sound of skin hitting skin. Christ. Lorenzo stuffed his things back into the bag, pulled out two guns and stormed back to the room.
He was expecting to see Sands on his knees, a brand new bruise flowering on his pale skin. El’s fist would be clenched, Sands would be crying…Only, he really couldn’t imagine Sands crying and that was more a projection of his mother again. That said, was it really in El’s nature to hit Sands, bedroom lapse notwithstanding?
Either way, it turned out not to matter what he thought he’d see, because he was wrong.
El was leaning back against the kitchen table, half sitting on it, Sands standing between his legs, pressed up against him. Yes, there were new bruises forming, one side of El’s face was reddening and a collar of finger-prints starting to bloom around Sands’ neck. What really threw his initial tableau off was that Sands appeared to have his tongue halfway down El’s throat, his fingers clenched in El’s jacket.
Lorenzo swallowed hard, trying to think of something to say, and coming up with nothing at all.
Then El shoved Sands back, knocking him to the floor. “You go.”
Lorenzo stowed his guns. //Christ, I leave you two alone for two seconds…//
Sands snarled up from his sprawl on the floor, ignoring Lorenzo completely. “Fuck you, El. God damned banjo fucking son of a rat whore.” He slammed his palms against the floor. “I had my fucking eyes gouged out by the last doctor I went to and I have no intention of another one coming within fifty yards of what’s left of me. What do you want from me? You want begging? I can do that.”
El sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. //Lorenzo, check a phonebook, call Fideo, just get someone who will see him.//
Sands crawled across the floor, head down and bumped his face against El’s shins like an overgrown cat, rubbing his cheek against the dusty fabric. “Please,” he said softly, voice a low, seductive purr. “I’ll do anything if you don’t take me there.” And under the seduction there was an air of desperation.
Lorenzo felt slightly ill. “Sands, get up, we know you’re bullshitting.”
El didn’t seem to agree with Lorenzo’s deduction. He leaned down to grab Sands by the arms and dragged him to his feet. He held him still even as Sands tried to shove at him, fighting his grip, clawing at his shirt, going for El’s face and eyes until El spun him around, seizing his wrists in his hands, pinning him against his chest. There was something hollow in Sands’ face as he slumped, resigned, the fight gone out of him as abruptly as it arrived.
Lorenzo could see that Sands wasn’t living, whatever that meant. He was simply existing, and how Lorenzo could tell the difference, he wasn’t sure, but he knew enough to see that what Sands was doing was somehow different to himself, to El, even to Fideo who has found himself a haven at the bottom of a bottle. It was somewhat disconcerting. There was something missing from Sands and watching him crawl across the floor, ostensibly to whore himself out in exchange for avoiding the doctor, only confirmed that. Then El pushed Sands at Lorenzo, and he was glad he had stowed the guns because he probably would have shot Sands by accident and the gringo was heavier than he looked, but far too sharp, all bony edges and bruises.
//Well what the hell am I supposed to do with this?// Lorenzo asked lightly, trying to ease some of the desperate tension in the room.
El gave him a hard look. //Whatever you want. I’ll get the doctor. You keep him here.// And then he was gone and Lorenzo was left with an armful of a man shuddering with something that might have been fear, or might have been anger.
“Please just kill me,” Sands whispered, as Lorenzo settled him down onto a chair. He sighed and put his head in his hands. “On second thoughts, don’t, I want to die with dignity in the hands of an equal. Not a guitar fucking fret sucker.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “It’s for your own good.” He sprawled down in the chair opposite. //If they can fix your eyes, even a little bit, it might help ease the pain. No more pills.//
Sands flipped him the bird, not lifting his head.
*~*~*~*
El had his forearm pressed diagonally across Sands’ chest using the hand of that arm to hold onto one of Sands’ wrists. His other hand pressed down on the opposite shoulder, trapping Sands’ arm between their bodies and Fideo - lately arrived - had sprawled across Sands’ legs, using his weight to keep them down. Despite the weight of the two men, Sands was doing a fine job at fighting them off. The table he was held down onto shook and groaned under their combined weights as Sands cursed and struggled as though his life depended on it.
Lorenzo got a misplaced hand in the groin before he managed to tie Sands’ arms and legs down to the legs of the table. Fideo got up but El stayed where he was, holding Sands’ torso down.
//You might want to put a strap around his chest.// El suggested.
Lorenzo shrugged. //Just stick him with the morphine and he won’t feel a thing.//
Sands let out a low, pained moan, the kind of sound that sent frissons of discomfort down Lorenzo’s spine even as El’s mouth thinned out into a frown. “No. No morphine.”
Sands shuddered and jerked like the girl from the exorcist and the table rocked on its feet. “Goddamn Christ in hell,” he snarled but it was wholly lacking in venom and shot through with desperation. “I’ll kill you, I swear to fucking high Moses on the mountain and all his fuckass saints in hell. Let me go you bastards…” a sob ripped out of the snarl and Sands sagged back, limp limbed. “Please don’t…oh god, please don’t.”
“Give him the fucking morphine,” Lorenzo hissed, “or I’ll do it myself.”
El shook his head and picked up the last coil of rope, looping it over Sands’ stomach and down under the table to lash him in place despite the renewed struggles and cursing. //He’s an addict now. We can’t afford to suffer a relapse.//
//So instead he’ll just suffer?// Lorenzo glared at El, not entirely sure why he was fighting Sands’ case against the most stubborn of juries, but someone had to and Fideo had wandered off again to wait for the doctor. //You’re not that heartless, no matter what you’d want us to be-// He was cut off by the door swinging and crashing open under a drunken hand and then a timid, mustachioed doctor came tiptoeing into the kitchen before Lorenzo could finish that thought or get his answer.
*~*~*~*
Lorenzo swallowed the beer down as fast as he could and never mind the taste, and never mind the way his stomach churned and protested. He was sweating and it had nothing to do with the heat, cold drops of moisture running down his spine and soaking into the underarms of his shirt. El didn’t seem any more comfortable, perched on the railings of the porch like a giant cat. He had his guitar in his lap but though his fingers would twitch over the strings they were more like spasms than real musical thoughts, and they always ghosted a hair’s breadth away from actually touching or making any sound.
Lorenzo felt no pity for El’s discomfort.
Inside the motel room Sands was screaming. He’d been screaming, on and off, for something close to an hour.
“You’re a sick man,” Lorenzo said, and his voice was as strained as Sands’ sounded from the drain of listening to the hellish noises from inside the rooms. “I wouldn’t do that to a dog, never mind a man.”
El didn’t move from his perch. “He will survive. We’ve all been operated on without painkillers.”
Lorenzo shook his head in disgust. “Not like that, El. He’ll never recover.”
El was silent for a moment and the air around them seemed to vibrate with Sands’ howls. “He is strong.” But there was a shred of uncertainty in his voice. It was enough to drive Lorenzo to his feet.
“Fuck this,” he said, tiredly. “I’m giving him the fucking morphine and I’ll deal with the results myself.” Lorenzo set his beer down as Fideo crawled out from under the porch, the only place with any shade, and the owner of the motel came storming over. “You can dig us out of this hole we’ve just landed ourselves in with the establishment.”
He went inside into the kitchen and nearly walked out again.
Sands was bleeding from the wrists and ankles where he’d rubbed the skin raw trying to get away. His face was one mass of blood and the doctor was coated in it. It didn’t look like much of an improvement. It was a matter of moments to find the last of the morphine in El’s bag and to return to the scene of what looked like a particularly gruesome torture scene.
//Get off him,// Lorenzo snapped, and the doctor backed off gratefully, babbling something about being unable to work under such conditions. Lorenzo caught hold of Sands’ face between his hands, stroking the skin there, making soothing sounds under his breath. “Sssh. Easy, amigo, easy, I’ve got the morphine.”
Sands stilled under his hands and the horrible screams stopped, tapering off into hoarse whimpers. “Please just kill me,” he said for the second time that day, and this time Lorenzo knew it wasn’t in jest.
“I’m staying here,” he promised, prepping the needle. “Nothing bad will happen, I swear.”
Sands submitted to the needle with only a sharp intake of breath when Lorenzo pushed the plunger. The insides of his elbows were still a little swollen from all the needles before and it was a pretty good indication of how much agony he must have been in to make any sort of sound at all.
They waited until Sands went limp on the table. Lorenzo dragged a chair over to the table, settled himself into it and took one of Sands’ hands in his own. The doctor took a hesitant step forward and Lorenzo nodded tiredly.
//Finish this quickly.//
*~*~*~*
Sands slept in Lorenzo’s bed that night and neither he nor Lorenzo was talking to El. Sands wasn’t talking to El because Lorenzo had given him more morphine and he was in no state to be talking to anyone. Lorenzo was just furious and therefore giving El the cold shoulder.
It was absurd, Lorenzo thought bitterly as he lay on his back, Sands curled around him, still whimpering in his drug induced sleep. Here he was, mad at the man he wanted desperately to pay him the slightest scrap of attention, the man he’d go to hell and back for, just for a smile. And why was he mad? For a man he really shouldn’t have given a damn about but who had scratched his way under his skin and taken up residence somewhere in the space between pity and admiration.
He fell asleep, plagued by restless, uncomfortable dreams not knowing where El had decided to spend the night and irritated that he cared about that as well as everything else.
*~*~*~*
The lips on his were demanding and insistent, rousing him from sleep. Lorenzo cracked open an eye to find a bruised, bandaged Sands hovering over him, arms shaking, hands planted either side of Lorenzo’s head to prop him up.
The sun was already shining unmercifully through the window and there was still no sign of El.
Lorenzo brought his hands up to gently push Sands off him. Sands collapsed to one side, shaking with the effort it had taken him to do such a simple task. He grinned at Lorenzo, breath awash with the tequila that had been on the night side table, clever little bastard.
“Don’t tell me I’m high, because the pain in my head is telling me, quite firmly, that I’m irritatingly lucid,” Sands said, half to himself. “So we have options. One, you can find me some fucking painkillers like the good boy I know you can be. Two, you can put a bullet in my head.” And there was still no sign of the joke that Lorenzo felt should be coming. “Three, you pine after El until I find a gun and kill him myself for what he did to me and then we battle it out, an option I’d rather not take. Four, you fuck me into the mattress until I forget that someone took a fucking drill to my skull, again.”
Lorenzo got the impression that he was staring stupidly at Sands, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to shut his mouth, which was hanging open in an incredulous ‘o’ shape. “What was that about El and I?” he asked finally.
Sands snorted. “Don’t be an ass.” The only one who doesn’t know is El, and he’s a fucktard.”
“So I would want to fuck you, why?”
“Because I’m pretty when I’m broken,” Sands said, and it sounded like he was quoting someone else. Something Lorenzo had no intention of asking about. “That, and no matter how much you protest, you’ve got a hard on that isn’t going to go away because the cold showers here are more like lukewarm.” He made his point by putting his hand over - and oh god, Sands was right - the rather uncomfortable erection under Lorenzo’s suddenly too-tight jeans.
Lorenzo’s breathing hitched and he grabbed Sands’ bandaged wrist, not pushing him away, or pulling him closer, just holding on. “You’re insane,” he said and it sounded like a curse.
Sands’ smile sharpened into something that looked like it could cut through diamond. “That’s not the point.” Then he was crawling on top of Lorenzo, hand tightening and relaxing in a maddening, massaging motion as his mouth found Lorenzo’s again for an angry tequila tainted kiss.
Lorenzo ripped Sands’ hand away, rolling them over, nearly sending them both off the edge of the narrow bed, as the mattress springs groaned their displeasure. Sands writhed unhappily underneath him, trying to ease the pain of Lorenzo’s weight on his bruises.
“Shit,” he cursed, when Lorenzo grabbed the hem of his shirt and dragged up roughly up and over Sands’ head to fall onto the mess of clothing already on the floor. “I said fuck me, not crush me to death.”
“Shut up,” Lorenzo said happily, grinding down, and that was enough to make Sands’ mouth stop spewing out mangled swears and instead drew out a high-pitched whine as he twisted up to meet Lorenzo’s hips.
Sands was shoving his hands in between their hips, yanking at Lorenzo’s button fly and his own zipper, and it felt as though his bandages were unraveling in the process but his mouth was hot and it tasted like all the times he’d wanted to curse El for just being El.
They were both sweating in the tangle of half dragged down jeans, worn sheets and the cloth trailing from Sands’ wrists by the time Sands hooks a leg around the back of Lorenzo’s hips and Lorenzo spilt tequila over his hand before twisting his fingers up inside Sands. Sands hissed and arched up into him, fingers digging trenches into Lorenzo’s back.
Whoever told Sands that he was beautiful when he was broken, wasn’t too far off the mark. The bruises and scrapes blossoming over his skin, the edges and hollows of not enough to eat and too much pain, etching out his bones make him into something more than just a CIA officer fallen from grace. He was nothing that Lorenzo wanted, and everything he desired for the moment. More tequila spilling over the bed, and it wasn’t really enough at all, but since Sands didn’t say anything, Lorenzo didn’t ask before pushing in. Sands biting down on his already abused wrist to keep from crying out.
Sands was his anger towards El’s callousness and his own feelings for El, his frustration with Fideo’s drinking, his bitterness of Sands’ attention from El, his anger, and his sorrow, and his apology, and his excuse. Sands took all of it and swallowed it down into his bruises and bones as he took the sharp, hard thrusts of Lorenzo’s hips with a manic grin and a returning twist upwards.
It didn’t take as long as Lorenzo might have hoped, as he collapsed entirely on top of Sands, both panting and sticky.
“Get off,” Sands gave him less than a heartbeat before protesting, shoving at him crossly. For all that, he sounded sated and thoroughly pleased with himself.
Lorenzo groaned and obliged.
El chose that moment to walk into the room.
TBC
Title: Devil in Mexico
Summary: Sands isn’t coping very well.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Nothing but the plot is mine
Feedback: Is better than cookies (and I really like cookies).
Author’s note: This has been kicking about in my head for a while, I need to get it out because goddamn, this bunny has been gnawing on me for months. The title is from a Murder By Death song, from the album Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them, which is an awesome album for writing OUATIM fic to.
…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
*~*~*~*
The light breeze sent up dust devils along the road but didn’t quite manage to reach the porch of the church where Lorenzo was sitting. Without that breeze he was left in dead air with the sun warming up to full strength above the faded roof of the abandoned church. Lorenzo was slumped down in a creaky old chair that he’d dragged down off the dias. It wasn’t comfortable and dug into his shoulders where they pressed against the carvings, but it was better than sitting on the dirty porch and getting paint chips and splinters all in his ass.
He was sweating, shirt unbuttoned to the centre of his chest, boots toed off to sit, forgotten, inside under one of the pews, and he had a borrowed hat pulled down low over his eyes to combat the sun that seemed determined to creep in over the tops of his sunglasses and get in his eyes. He’d brought a cooler of beer out and there was perspiration running down the side, as if even the plastic was sweating in the heat. A bottle dangled lazily from his fingertips, half gone and the other half already warming. Lorenzo didn’t know where the bottle-cap had pinged off to, and he wasn’t really sure that he cared enough to hunt around looking for it. Let El be fastidious about this ‘being on the run’ business, he was too hot and too bored to bother with such things.
There were terrible sounds coming from above him, filtering through the enormous stained glass of the window above the door. Screams, upon screams from a throat too tight from the pain to produce full volume, only a desperate, choked howl. Lorenzo ignored the sounds and sipped on his beer, grimacing at the taste as it heated in the sun. After a few moments the cries abruptly ended, to leave only the sound of the dust in the wind and the creaking of the old chair Lorenzo sat in to break the silence.
Lorenzo raised his eyes up as if he could see through the brim of his hat, through the broken, holey roof of the porch and behind him into the church and smiled. //Five. Four.// He took another sip of his beer. //Three. Two. One.//
El stormed out of the front doors, dropping down into the chair facing Lorenzo, and snagged a beer, scowling. //I can’t give him any more morphine per dosage or it will kill him.// He pressed the bottle to his forehead. //It’s barely keeping him down and I can’t tell if it’s the pain, nightmares or his coming off the drugs that’s making him so violent.//
//Three questions; Is he going to live? What are we going to do with him if he does live? How long do you think we can stay here before someone notices?// Lorenzo stared out down the dirt road, deliberately not looking at El. To look at El would be to reinforce what he already knew was there, what had been there for the past week.
El’s eyes weren’t as dead and tired as they used to be. Something in him had reawakened after the Day of the Dead. Maybe it was saving the president. Maybe it was finally laying Carolina’s memories to rest. Maybe it was that every time he came back from looking after Sands he was pushed, goaded and dragged into feeling something. Even if that was nothing more than irritation and frustration. Something in him had been rekindled and it had nothing to do with Lorenzo.
El heaved a sigh, tipping his head back to glance balefully towards the stained glass window on the second floor. //He might die.// El sipped his beer more slowly. //I don’t know. I don’t know what he’ll be fit for if he does recover...One more week, and then we go.//
Lorenzo rolled his eyes and stood, stretching the kinks out of his legs before turning on his heel and heading into the church.
It was too warm on the second floor, though in a different way from outside. Dark walls at odd angles pressed in, giving the room a sort of heat and pressure, and the double bed was too big for the space, cramping everything. The stained glass window shattered the sickroom into a thousand splinters of color, throwing light over the filthy, broken body lying naked and tangled in dirty sheets and feverish dreams.
Lorenzo put a hand to Sands’ forehead, Sands was worryingly warm. //Why is he tied to the bedposts?// He didn’t need to look around to know that El had followed him, he could feel him, the small hairs on his neck rising and prickling.
//He kept trying to pick at his wounds.// El leaned over to brush Sands’ sweat damp hair back from his face. His hand bumped against Lorenzo’s and the younger man snatched it back like it had been burned.
//He needs a bath,// Lorenzo said snidely, trying to resist the urge to rub his hand on his jeans. //It stinks in here.//
El raised an eyebrow. //Are you volunteering?// He shook his head with a little smile at Lorenzo’s expression and Lorenzo felt unaccountably proud of himself for producing such a result. //I’m going to stop giving him morphine and let him scream it out.// El said as if coming to a long deliberated decision. //He can’t recover like this.//
Lorenzo looked away from Sands’ body, up at the fractured figure of Christ glowing above them. There was a catholic bleeding heart on his robe over his chest and he smiled down at them benignly. Lorenzo closed his eyes in a fit of anger at the sleepy, stupid way the Christ above them watched the sickroom, and the pathetic vision of Sands whimpering in his drug induced stupor, and El’s calm, tired eyes. He made a movement, half shrug and half shudder, as if he were shaking something off his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets.
//Do as you please. He’s your project,// Lorenzo muttered, turning to retreat back to the porch once more.
*~*~*~*
Six days later and the interminable heat still wasn’t letting up. El had retreated to the wine cellar, supposedly to see if there was anything worth taking, but was more likely just sitting down there in the cool and damp, playing his guitar. The tunes he now played were, if not upbeat, at least didn’t sound like he was planning his own funeral. Lorenzo was much happier to join him now, rather than wanting to go somewhere quiet and kill himself just because of the misery in the chords.
Lorenzo lay on his back, one hand dangling off the bed to brush against the cool bottle of his beer, and stared alternately up at the patterns of light on the ceiling, and over at Sands. He’d been given guard duty, something El had deemed necessary once he’d stopped administering morphine. For whose sake and safety, and for what purpose, Lorenzo wasn’t sure. So he lay there in the broken light, watching Sands. He was still dirty and smelt of sweat, and sickness, and fear, but the expression on his face was much more peaceful. Sands’ mouth was partly open, lips soft and his breath steady, none of the sickly wheeze that had plagued it remaining. His limbs were relaxed, bullet wounds pinkening, fragile scars.
“Why the bleeding cunt of holy Mary, am I tied to a bed?”
Sands’ dry voice startled Lorenzo so badly that he actually fell off the bed, landing with a painful thud on the hard wood of the floor. “You’re awake,” he said, stupid as the Christ smiling above them.
“Very astute.” Sands tugged, weakly but thoughtfully, at the strips of fabric keeping him immobile. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to be untied now.” His voice was an easy, sarcastic drawl and it crawled under Lorenzo’s skin, pricking at his nerves. Surely someone so weakened shouldn’t sound so damn bored and cocky, as if he weren’t utterly helpless.
Lorenzo climbed back onto the bed and stared deliberately at Sands, knowing that even if the man couldn’t see him looking, he’d be able to feel it nevertheless. “You’ve been out for almost two weeks now,” he said by way of reply. “You were raving and wouldn’t lie still and heal so we tied you down.” Tied him down and forced sleeping pills and painkillers down his throat until he’d lain quiet and compliant. That, and Lorenzo knew he was being vague. Hell, he’d not be happy if he was blind, bound, and ignorant of his whereabouts, or his captors and he was a little put out that Sands didn’t seem to care.
Sands seemed unperturbed by all that. “Lord, love a duck,” he sighed. “I thought I was supposed to be the one with no fucking eyes-” and even all the sharp-tongued sarcasm couldn’t hide the bitterness there- “but if not, then you might want to pull your finger out of your ass and notice that I’m lucid now.”
Lorenzo shrugged, not caring that Sands couldn’t see it. “Not my problem.” He picked up his beer from off the floor and took a long pull from it. “I didn’t tie you there and I’m not going to let you loose either.”
The tip of a kitten-pink tongue darted out to wet Sands’ lips and the blind man swallowed visibly. Lorenzo thought meanly it might be a hint of fear until Sands squirmed as much as he could and smiled prettily at Lorenzo. “Well at least gimme a beer then.”
Christ, even with his eye sockets bound by a sweat-yellowed bandage, dark hollows under razor sharp cheekbones and teeth that badly needed a brushing, there was something beguiling about the man. With a sigh, Lorenzo held the bottle to Sands’ mouth and he swallowed greedily until Lorenzo took his drink back. “Easy, gringo, you’ll make yourself sick.”
Sands let out a soft purr of contentment. “Christ that’s good.” His voice was as breathless as if he’d just had incredibly good sex, and not a few swallows of cheap, warming beer that tasted of piss.
The door creaked open and Sands’ turned his face towards the sound, fast as thought, and Lorenzo could see his fingers twitch around the bindings. El raised an eyebrow at Lorenzo and shut the door behind him.
//So he’s awake then?//
Sands’ lips curled back into something between a grin and a snarl. Lorenzo smacked him before he had the opportunity to say anything rude. El’s other eyebrow went up as Sands hissed in pain at the jarring of still-sore wounds.
El moved to the bed, picking at the knots around Sands’ wrists which had been pulled and damped down with sweat and pulled again until they were near fused that way. “Do you remember me, Sands?”
There was a definite stiffening to Sands’ relaxed pose. “El Mariachi.” The stiffness gave way to a resigned slump and Lorenzo felt unaccountably sorry for Sands. “Still standing then.”
The slight twist to El’s mouth made Lorenzo wonder exactly what had passed between these two, prior to la Dios de la Muerte but now was not the time to ask.
El finally gave up with unpicking the fabric and instead pulled a knife out of his boot and cut the bonds away. “Still.” He let the rags drop to the floor, lifting one of Sands’ arms from where it lay, examining his wrist. It was ringed with bruises and the delicate bones there stuck out sharply from soft, pale skin. Apparently content that Sands wasn’t hurt badly from the makeshift cuffs, El let the arm drop.
Sands didn’t move to help or hinder him, only drawing his arms in against his chest when El was finished with him, rubbing at his wrists with a petulant twist to his lips.
“As are you,” El pointed out. “The bullets are out, the holes mostly closed and you will heal.”
Lorenzo wanted to point out that the man had had his eyes gouged out, but it seemed unkind and unnecessary, so he silenced himself with another sip of beer. Some grain of mercy made him put the bottle into Sands’ hand, curling his fingers around it to be sure Sands knew what he had hold of.
El made a small sound of impatience. //Alcohol will not help.//
//Have pity,// Lorenzo said with a shrug, rolling to his feet. //Poor bastard’s been fucked six ways from Sunday.//
Sands sat up abruptly and threw the bottle at Lorenzo’s head. Thankfully, the quick movement had made Sands dizzy and he was still weak, so he missed by some considerable distance, the bottle bouncing harmlessly off the wall, not even breaking, the last of the beer puddling on the floorboards. Sands snarled at Lorenzo, reaching down to tug at the cloth around his ankles, swaying a little as he sat there.
“I can understand you, you know,” Sands hissed.
There was something decidedly pathetic about the scene. Sands was skinny and fragile, naked save for the sheet and the fabric bandaging his eyes. The futility and determination with which he attempted to free himself was enough to make even the hardest pistolero soften in sympathy.
Except, perhaps, El. El, who simply swatted Sands’ hands aside and sliced the fabric away. “I would prefer not to have to kill you, Sands. Be good or I leave you behind.”
“Well fuck you,” Sands said brightly. “No one asked you to haul my carcass out of the grave and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be grateful.”
El let out a little huff of air. “If he fights, kill him.” And he left, mouth a hard tight line, the door shutting a little too loudly behind him.
Sands’ laugh was brittle as dead leaves underfoot. “What crawled up his ass and died?”
Lorenzo considered just following after El and leaving Sands to fend for himself. Halfway out the door he made the mistake of looking back and the sight had not improved. Now Sands was on his knees, one hand trying to hold the sheet in place, even as it tangled around him, hindering his progress, and the other hand fumbled along the bed, half supporting him, half searching for a touch-stone in all the blackness. Lorenzo shut his eyes but the image was burned into his retina. He owed this gringo nothing. Less than nothing.
He put one hand on Sands’ shoulder, halting his progress, letting Sands know where he was standing. “I can get you some towels and show you where the shower is, if you like.”
It wasn’t gratitude on Sands’ face then, it was something bruised and sore that might once have been pride, forced down into submission. “Thank you.”
*~*~*~*
Sands leaned against the door frame of the bathroom, ostensibly because it looked good and made him appear confidant, but Lorenzo noticed it also took the weight off of his bad leg. He had taken the bandage off his face and his hair was carefully pulled back so it wouldn’t aggravate the wounds. Other than the obvious, he looked a lot better cleaned and clothed.
“Lorenzo, right?” Sands hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of the jeans. They were a touch too big for him, and the motion nearly pulled them down over his hips. He scowled, hauled them up again and flashed a feral smile Lorenzo’s way. “You think you could get me a belt? Preferably sunglasses, some pain killers, and an ass load of guns as well, but right now I’ll settle for being able to walk without my pants falling around my ankles.”
“Sorry amigo, you’ll have to take it up with El.” Lorenzo tossed Sands a beer and bottle opener and he caught them out of the air. “Belts and guns will be right out, but maybe some aspirin.”
Sands popped the cap off the beer and took a long drink. “Shit.” He turned to face the soft clinking of El’s approach. Lorenzo tried not to stare at the ruins of his eyes.
El reached out and plucked the beer out of Sands’ hand. “Not until you are healed. Clean clothes and a pretty smile do not a healed man make.” He took Sands’ chin in his free hand, turning his face from side to side, examining his eye sockets. Sands stood quietly, not protesting the indignity of being manhandled, although his hands curled up into loose fists by his side. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve had my eyes gouged out, been shot and pumped full of enough morphine to give me an addiction,” Sands sneered at El, mouth twisted with bitterness. “Other than that, I’m feeling peachy.”
“Good.” El patted him on the shoulder. “Then we can leave now.” He handed the beer to Lorenzo, slid one arm behind Sands, holding his elbow and his waist and drew him away from the wall, steering him roughly towards the door.
Sands dug his heels in, in protest. “Hold up hombre.” Despite the placidity of his voice, there was a tight panic to his body. “I need water, painkillers, a goddamn belt and some explanation of what the hell is going on.”
El half lifted him, continuing their progress out the door. “I got a call. Since you gave me what I needed and lost your eyes and your revenge I thought I would repay my debt. Though you are proving to be just as irritating like this as you were before and I intend to get rid of you as soon as I can.”
That made Sands twitch in El’s grip. “What do you mean I lost my revenge? I shot that bitch right in her guts and felt her bleed out. I was close enough to feel her die.”
“I killed Barillo,” El said simply. “Guevera is also dead.”
Sands went limp, slipping out of El’s grip and collapsing on the floor. “No.” There was a desperate finality to that one word.
Lorenzo flinched and turned away so he couldn’t see the raw pain on Sands’ face.
*~*~*~*
El drove.
It was Lorenzo’s car, and El was a terrible driver but that was just the way things seemed to be. Lorenzo sat in the front seat, sun visor down, not to block the sun, but so he could spy on the man curled up in the backseat next to Lorenzo’s and El’s guitar cases.
El was not an interesting man to watch when he drove. He sat, hands in the ten and two o’clock positions (unless he was driving away from something, and then his hands would lie where they fell) eyes ahead, and just drove. Not even Lorenzo could watch something that dull for hours, even if it was El.
Sands, on the other hand, was interesting in his misery. He hadn’t moved of his own volition, or spoken, or responded to anything either El or Lorenzo had said after he’d collapsed. He’d sat where they’d put him in the backseat, Lorenzo fixing the seatbelt around him and putting his own sunglasses on Sands’ face to ensure no passersby saw what they shouldn’t. If it weren’t for the tightness to his mouth and the slight, automatic, unconscious wince that Sands made every time a bump in the road jarred his wounds, Lorenzo would have been hard pressed to say if Sands was conscious at all.
The sun was low on the horizon when Sands moved, one hand coming up to push the sunglasses a little further up his nose. He let out a sigh, like the last breath of the dying and tipped his head back. “Do either of you smoke?” Sands had the air of one who was drowning and had fully accepted that fate.
El didn’t turn around to look at their passenger, but he stared long and hard into the rearview. The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he wanted to say something, but he remained silent.
Lorenzo opened the glove compartment and pulled out his somewhat crumpled pack. //You need me to light it for you?//
Sands scowled. “Do you have matches or a lighter?” His hands were impotent fists on his lap.
“Matches.” Lorenzo stuck the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. //Hold out your hand.// Sands did as he was told and the strain of that was clear on his face. Lorenzo twisted around in his seat and carefully put the cigarette in between Sands’ fingers.
Sands took a long, grateful drag and smoke poured out of his nose and between his lips. The addition of nicotine to his bloodstream seemed to loosen something that had been wound too tight before. “Not that I’m not grateful for the rescue, but I would kind of like to know what you intend to do with me.” He grinned at Lorenzo in the mirror. “I mean, I’d ask El Silencioso here, but it seems like the stick rammed up his ass is compromising his vocal chords.”
Lorenzo didn’t laugh. He managed to turn it into a cough at the last second, glancing out of the corner of his eyes at El. The corner of El’s mouth had actually quirked up into a smile. That alone was enough to startle Lorenzo into gaping and therefore missed his space to answer Sands. Instead El did it and that kept Lorenzo silent for a while longer.
“You may stay with us until you are healed.” El’s hands relaxed from their position on the wheel, one reaching out to snag a cigarette of his own. “As for now, we will find a motel. It would be best not to overexert yourself in the beginning and this road must be painful for you.”
Sands’ mouth pressed back down into a thin line. “I’ve felt worse.”
*~*~*~*
Dawn was just thinking about beginning when Lorenzo was awoken by the sound of hiccoughing, wretched misery. Half sobs, half screams that came from a throat too worn out by prolonged laments, so the sounds broke and cracked and folded in on themselves. Lorenzo cracked open his eyes and peered about the cheap, dirty, motel room. El was sleeping, snoring softly, Sands was gone. No real surprise there then, because the day El made a sound like that was the day that Lorenzo ate a hat. Not his hat, because he didn’t own them, they gave him hat hair, but that wasn’t the point, and he was digressing because it was some ungodly hour and Sands was howling at the moon like an animal when he really should be shutting the fuck up and going to bed.
He rolled out from under the blankets and made his way outside to where the sound was coming from. Sure enough, Sands was curled up in the dirt on his hands and knees and he was heaving as though he would be sick from the force of his wretchedness. Lorenzo wondered what it would be like to be in such a position. Would he really want someone seeing him in such a way?
He bit his lip and walked across the yard to crouch next to Sands. The scuff marks in the dirt showed that Sands hadn’t made his way outside easily. It looked as if he’d fallen twice and crawled the last few meters. Now, barefoot and dusty, illuminated in the cold, flat light of the beginning of morning, Sands looked even less like the callous, manipulating character that El had described to Lorenzo.
Carefully, Lorenzo put a hand on Sands’ back, and the touch only made Sands jerk, startled, but didn’t stop the noises spilling from his lips. Lorenzo tugged him upright into a careful embrace, Sands’ head against his chest, Lorenzo’s arms cradling his body. Gradually, and with a desperate sort of strength, Sands’ hands came up to twist and grip the fabric of Lorenzo’s shirt and the sobbing tapered off to weak shudders and gulping for breath. When Sands had quieted to an exhausted compliance, Lorenzo eased them to their feet, one hand tracing soothing patterns over the bumps and ridges of Sands’ spine.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, amigo.”
They made a slow trek back to the room, though Sands was carrying his own weight he moved as if there were a pressure on his shoulders that could never be lifted. Lorenzo didn’t tuck Sands in to bed with a pat on the head and a ‘sweet dreams’ because he’d been privy to some of Sands’ nightmares and he wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy, never mind this revenant of a man. Instead, Lorenzo brought Sands into his own bed and pulled the blankets around them with one hand, keeping Sands tucked in the protection of his other arm. Sands curled up around him, head on his chest, breath warm and moist on his neck and drifted off restlessly into the sleep of the mentally and physically exhausted, fingers still clutched tight in Lorenzo’s clothing.
Lorenzo lay awake for a while, breathing in the scent of stale sweat and pain. Sands’ fingers were in rigor on his shirtfront and the still-rasping breaths were thick with painkillers and cheap tequila. Sands’ bones stuck out, elbows and knees uncomfortable jabs into Lorenzo’s skin. He whimpered in his sleep and burrowed deeper into Lorenzo’s embrace. Lorenzo wondered when it was exactly that he had become the one picking up the slack from El’s misplaced idea to take in the gringo and why he hadn’t just dumped Sands into El’s bed and let him deal with it.
He didn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until he woke up again to see El standing over them with an amused twist to his lips.
//Long night?// El enquired sweetly.
Lorenzo scowled. //You didn’t have to hear him last night.// He slid out from under Sands, raising a mental eyebrow at the fact that Sands didn’t even twitch.
El frowned then too. //What do you mean?//
//Christ, El, he was outside screaming his soul out. How did you not hear it?//
El ran a hand through his hair and shrugged, unapologetically. //I was tired. Forget it, he’ll be fine.//
Lorenzo shook his head. “You’re an idiot.” He tried to smooth the wrinkles out of his shirt and failed. “Just because his body is healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to survive this.”
//If you feel concern, then so be it. I have no such reserves about his character. Now, I am going to make breakfast. Do you want any?// He spun on his heel and then froze.
“What?” Lorenzo peered in the direction El was looking.
“The pain medication.” El’s eyebrows twitched into a worried frown. “There was more in the bottle before.”
“Shit.” Lorenzo looked over at where Sands lay sprawled, motionless. “Oh shit.”
El made it to the bed first, rolling Sands onto his back. He wound his fingers into Sands’ hair tipping his head back and started administering mouth to mouth. Sands jerked under his hands, fingers coming up to dig trenches into El’s arms. El drew back, startled, and Sands lashed out, landing a lucky punch square on El’s jaw.
“What the fuck!” Sands scrabbled back on the sheets, sliding uselessly, confusion and panic written all over his face. “Jesus Christ, what the fuck is going on?” He huddled in the middle of the bed, head moving back and forth, searching out his attackers.
El put a hand to his jaw with a slight wince. “What did you do with the pills, Sands?”
Sands turned his head to face El so fast Lorenzo thought he might get whiplash. “Oh Christ,” he muttered. Sands dug into the pocket of his jeans and held out a handful of the little tablets. “There, you want them back? Fucker, I need these more often then you give them.” He was sulking now as El took them from him.
Lorenzo, finding the humor in it, started to laugh.
“What?” Sands’ bemusement was replaced by wonder. “You thought I’d capped myself, didn’t you?”
El, on the other hand, wasn’t laughing. He slapped Sands hard enough to knock him back onto the bed. “If you ever…” He was so furious he could barely get the words out. “Get up and get dressed,” El said finally, before walking away to the kitchenette.
Sands touched his face, an affronted expression twisting his mouth but the careful way he held himself made Lorenzo wonder exactly how much the blow had hurt.. “Ass sucking mother fucker,” he griped, sitting up again. He flinched then, fingers to his temples, massaging gently. “Sweet Jesus with a strap-on, get me some fucking painkillers before I start killing things.”
Lorenzo sighed. “Sorry amigo, better just do as he says and get some food down you.” He put an apologetic hand on Sands’ shoulder, only to have it shrugged fiercely away. Lorenzo felt unaccountably sorry.
“I’m not your friend,” Sands spat. “I’m a fucking good-will project gone to hell. So either get me some painkillers or fuck off and let me writhe in agony on my own.”
Lorenzo followed sheepishly after El.
*~*~*~*
The scene around the breakfast table reminded Lorenzo of growing up, as he pushed his cornflakes around his bowl, watching them go soggy.
El played his father, brooding and angry. True, his father had never sat at the table cleaning and oiling his guns, coffee left to go cold in front of him. The air of contained violence, the way his fist would tighten whenever he so much as looked over at Sands, that was true to his past.
Sands, hunched over his mug as if the meager steam rising could warm the chill in his bones, played his mother. The faint bruises, the sadness, the desperation, and wounded pride and pain. There was a fragility in Sands that wasn’t going away with the passing days. It was getting worse, the cracks spreading, feathering out. Lorenzo didn’t know how much longer Sands was going to last before he fell apart.
And there Lorenzo sat, in between them, uncomfortable now as he had been as a boy, hearing his mother cry in the night when she thought no one would hear.
He slammed his spoon down into the bowl, milk sloshing over the side to splatter on the table cloth. Sands flinched, like his mother would have done, though he didn’t make any sort of move to clear it up. El gave Lorenzo a hard look, the look asking why he had to behave in such an immature manner when couldn’t he see how no one needed him sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
“You’re both fucking idiots,” Lorenzo said, pushing his chair away from the table and standing. “Take Sands to a doctor.” He turned and started to leave.
Behind him Sands spoke up. “No doctors.” His voice was as firm and decisive as it had been in days.
“I agree with Lorenzo.” El put the gun down, a promising sign, but Lorenzo was too mad to care.
He was back in the bedroom, digging though his things with no real purpose when the shouting began. There were crashes, sounds of things breaking, being thrown and knocked over. A soft cry and the sound of skin hitting skin. Christ. Lorenzo stuffed his things back into the bag, pulled out two guns and stormed back to the room.
He was expecting to see Sands on his knees, a brand new bruise flowering on his pale skin. El’s fist would be clenched, Sands would be crying…Only, he really couldn’t imagine Sands crying and that was more a projection of his mother again. That said, was it really in El’s nature to hit Sands, bedroom lapse notwithstanding?
Either way, it turned out not to matter what he thought he’d see, because he was wrong.
El was leaning back against the kitchen table, half sitting on it, Sands standing between his legs, pressed up against him. Yes, there were new bruises forming, one side of El’s face was reddening and a collar of finger-prints starting to bloom around Sands’ neck. What really threw his initial tableau off was that Sands appeared to have his tongue halfway down El’s throat, his fingers clenched in El’s jacket.
Lorenzo swallowed hard, trying to think of something to say, and coming up with nothing at all.
Then El shoved Sands back, knocking him to the floor. “You go.”
Lorenzo stowed his guns. //Christ, I leave you two alone for two seconds…//
Sands snarled up from his sprawl on the floor, ignoring Lorenzo completely. “Fuck you, El. God damned banjo fucking son of a rat whore.” He slammed his palms against the floor. “I had my fucking eyes gouged out by the last doctor I went to and I have no intention of another one coming within fifty yards of what’s left of me. What do you want from me? You want begging? I can do that.”
El sighed and pushed his hair out of his face. //Lorenzo, check a phonebook, call Fideo, just get someone who will see him.//
Sands crawled across the floor, head down and bumped his face against El’s shins like an overgrown cat, rubbing his cheek against the dusty fabric. “Please,” he said softly, voice a low, seductive purr. “I’ll do anything if you don’t take me there.” And under the seduction there was an air of desperation.
Lorenzo felt slightly ill. “Sands, get up, we know you’re bullshitting.”
El didn’t seem to agree with Lorenzo’s deduction. He leaned down to grab Sands by the arms and dragged him to his feet. He held him still even as Sands tried to shove at him, fighting his grip, clawing at his shirt, going for El’s face and eyes until El spun him around, seizing his wrists in his hands, pinning him against his chest. There was something hollow in Sands’ face as he slumped, resigned, the fight gone out of him as abruptly as it arrived.
Lorenzo could see that Sands wasn’t living, whatever that meant. He was simply existing, and how Lorenzo could tell the difference, he wasn’t sure, but he knew enough to see that what Sands was doing was somehow different to himself, to El, even to Fideo who has found himself a haven at the bottom of a bottle. It was somewhat disconcerting. There was something missing from Sands and watching him crawl across the floor, ostensibly to whore himself out in exchange for avoiding the doctor, only confirmed that. Then El pushed Sands at Lorenzo, and he was glad he had stowed the guns because he probably would have shot Sands by accident and the gringo was heavier than he looked, but far too sharp, all bony edges and bruises.
//Well what the hell am I supposed to do with this?// Lorenzo asked lightly, trying to ease some of the desperate tension in the room.
El gave him a hard look. //Whatever you want. I’ll get the doctor. You keep him here.// And then he was gone and Lorenzo was left with an armful of a man shuddering with something that might have been fear, or might have been anger.
“Please just kill me,” Sands whispered, as Lorenzo settled him down onto a chair. He sighed and put his head in his hands. “On second thoughts, don’t, I want to die with dignity in the hands of an equal. Not a guitar fucking fret sucker.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes. “It’s for your own good.” He sprawled down in the chair opposite. //If they can fix your eyes, even a little bit, it might help ease the pain. No more pills.//
Sands flipped him the bird, not lifting his head.
*~*~*~*
El had his forearm pressed diagonally across Sands’ chest using the hand of that arm to hold onto one of Sands’ wrists. His other hand pressed down on the opposite shoulder, trapping Sands’ arm between their bodies and Fideo - lately arrived - had sprawled across Sands’ legs, using his weight to keep them down. Despite the weight of the two men, Sands was doing a fine job at fighting them off. The table he was held down onto shook and groaned under their combined weights as Sands cursed and struggled as though his life depended on it.
Lorenzo got a misplaced hand in the groin before he managed to tie Sands’ arms and legs down to the legs of the table. Fideo got up but El stayed where he was, holding Sands’ torso down.
//You might want to put a strap around his chest.// El suggested.
Lorenzo shrugged. //Just stick him with the morphine and he won’t feel a thing.//
Sands let out a low, pained moan, the kind of sound that sent frissons of discomfort down Lorenzo’s spine even as El’s mouth thinned out into a frown. “No. No morphine.”
Sands shuddered and jerked like the girl from the exorcist and the table rocked on its feet. “Goddamn Christ in hell,” he snarled but it was wholly lacking in venom and shot through with desperation. “I’ll kill you, I swear to fucking high Moses on the mountain and all his fuckass saints in hell. Let me go you bastards…” a sob ripped out of the snarl and Sands sagged back, limp limbed. “Please don’t…oh god, please don’t.”
“Give him the fucking morphine,” Lorenzo hissed, “or I’ll do it myself.”
El shook his head and picked up the last coil of rope, looping it over Sands’ stomach and down under the table to lash him in place despite the renewed struggles and cursing. //He’s an addict now. We can’t afford to suffer a relapse.//
//So instead he’ll just suffer?// Lorenzo glared at El, not entirely sure why he was fighting Sands’ case against the most stubborn of juries, but someone had to and Fideo had wandered off again to wait for the doctor. //You’re not that heartless, no matter what you’d want us to be-// He was cut off by the door swinging and crashing open under a drunken hand and then a timid, mustachioed doctor came tiptoeing into the kitchen before Lorenzo could finish that thought or get his answer.
*~*~*~*
Lorenzo swallowed the beer down as fast as he could and never mind the taste, and never mind the way his stomach churned and protested. He was sweating and it had nothing to do with the heat, cold drops of moisture running down his spine and soaking into the underarms of his shirt. El didn’t seem any more comfortable, perched on the railings of the porch like a giant cat. He had his guitar in his lap but though his fingers would twitch over the strings they were more like spasms than real musical thoughts, and they always ghosted a hair’s breadth away from actually touching or making any sound.
Lorenzo felt no pity for El’s discomfort.
Inside the motel room Sands was screaming. He’d been screaming, on and off, for something close to an hour.
“You’re a sick man,” Lorenzo said, and his voice was as strained as Sands’ sounded from the drain of listening to the hellish noises from inside the rooms. “I wouldn’t do that to a dog, never mind a man.”
El didn’t move from his perch. “He will survive. We’ve all been operated on without painkillers.”
Lorenzo shook his head in disgust. “Not like that, El. He’ll never recover.”
El was silent for a moment and the air around them seemed to vibrate with Sands’ howls. “He is strong.” But there was a shred of uncertainty in his voice. It was enough to drive Lorenzo to his feet.
“Fuck this,” he said, tiredly. “I’m giving him the fucking morphine and I’ll deal with the results myself.” Lorenzo set his beer down as Fideo crawled out from under the porch, the only place with any shade, and the owner of the motel came storming over. “You can dig us out of this hole we’ve just landed ourselves in with the establishment.”
He went inside into the kitchen and nearly walked out again.
Sands was bleeding from the wrists and ankles where he’d rubbed the skin raw trying to get away. His face was one mass of blood and the doctor was coated in it. It didn’t look like much of an improvement. It was a matter of moments to find the last of the morphine in El’s bag and to return to the scene of what looked like a particularly gruesome torture scene.
//Get off him,// Lorenzo snapped, and the doctor backed off gratefully, babbling something about being unable to work under such conditions. Lorenzo caught hold of Sands’ face between his hands, stroking the skin there, making soothing sounds under his breath. “Sssh. Easy, amigo, easy, I’ve got the morphine.”
Sands stilled under his hands and the horrible screams stopped, tapering off into hoarse whimpers. “Please just kill me,” he said for the second time that day, and this time Lorenzo knew it wasn’t in jest.
“I’m staying here,” he promised, prepping the needle. “Nothing bad will happen, I swear.”
Sands submitted to the needle with only a sharp intake of breath when Lorenzo pushed the plunger. The insides of his elbows were still a little swollen from all the needles before and it was a pretty good indication of how much agony he must have been in to make any sort of sound at all.
They waited until Sands went limp on the table. Lorenzo dragged a chair over to the table, settled himself into it and took one of Sands’ hands in his own. The doctor took a hesitant step forward and Lorenzo nodded tiredly.
//Finish this quickly.//
*~*~*~*
Sands slept in Lorenzo’s bed that night and neither he nor Lorenzo was talking to El. Sands wasn’t talking to El because Lorenzo had given him more morphine and he was in no state to be talking to anyone. Lorenzo was just furious and therefore giving El the cold shoulder.
It was absurd, Lorenzo thought bitterly as he lay on his back, Sands curled around him, still whimpering in his drug induced sleep. Here he was, mad at the man he wanted desperately to pay him the slightest scrap of attention, the man he’d go to hell and back for, just for a smile. And why was he mad? For a man he really shouldn’t have given a damn about but who had scratched his way under his skin and taken up residence somewhere in the space between pity and admiration.
He fell asleep, plagued by restless, uncomfortable dreams not knowing where El had decided to spend the night and irritated that he cared about that as well as everything else.
*~*~*~*
The lips on his were demanding and insistent, rousing him from sleep. Lorenzo cracked open an eye to find a bruised, bandaged Sands hovering over him, arms shaking, hands planted either side of Lorenzo’s head to prop him up.
The sun was already shining unmercifully through the window and there was still no sign of El.
Lorenzo brought his hands up to gently push Sands off him. Sands collapsed to one side, shaking with the effort it had taken him to do such a simple task. He grinned at Lorenzo, breath awash with the tequila that had been on the night side table, clever little bastard.
“Don’t tell me I’m high, because the pain in my head is telling me, quite firmly, that I’m irritatingly lucid,” Sands said, half to himself. “So we have options. One, you can find me some fucking painkillers like the good boy I know you can be. Two, you can put a bullet in my head.” And there was still no sign of the joke that Lorenzo felt should be coming. “Three, you pine after El until I find a gun and kill him myself for what he did to me and then we battle it out, an option I’d rather not take. Four, you fuck me into the mattress until I forget that someone took a fucking drill to my skull, again.”
Lorenzo got the impression that he was staring stupidly at Sands, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to shut his mouth, which was hanging open in an incredulous ‘o’ shape. “What was that about El and I?” he asked finally.
Sands snorted. “Don’t be an ass.” The only one who doesn’t know is El, and he’s a fucktard.”
“So I would want to fuck you, why?”
“Because I’m pretty when I’m broken,” Sands said, and it sounded like he was quoting someone else. Something Lorenzo had no intention of asking about. “That, and no matter how much you protest, you’ve got a hard on that isn’t going to go away because the cold showers here are more like lukewarm.” He made his point by putting his hand over - and oh god, Sands was right - the rather uncomfortable erection under Lorenzo’s suddenly too-tight jeans.
Lorenzo’s breathing hitched and he grabbed Sands’ bandaged wrist, not pushing him away, or pulling him closer, just holding on. “You’re insane,” he said and it sounded like a curse.
Sands’ smile sharpened into something that looked like it could cut through diamond. “That’s not the point.” Then he was crawling on top of Lorenzo, hand tightening and relaxing in a maddening, massaging motion as his mouth found Lorenzo’s again for an angry tequila tainted kiss.
Lorenzo ripped Sands’ hand away, rolling them over, nearly sending them both off the edge of the narrow bed, as the mattress springs groaned their displeasure. Sands writhed unhappily underneath him, trying to ease the pain of Lorenzo’s weight on his bruises.
“Shit,” he cursed, when Lorenzo grabbed the hem of his shirt and dragged up roughly up and over Sands’ head to fall onto the mess of clothing already on the floor. “I said fuck me, not crush me to death.”
“Shut up,” Lorenzo said happily, grinding down, and that was enough to make Sands’ mouth stop spewing out mangled swears and instead drew out a high-pitched whine as he twisted up to meet Lorenzo’s hips.
Sands was shoving his hands in between their hips, yanking at Lorenzo’s button fly and his own zipper, and it felt as though his bandages were unraveling in the process but his mouth was hot and it tasted like all the times he’d wanted to curse El for just being El.
They were both sweating in the tangle of half dragged down jeans, worn sheets and the cloth trailing from Sands’ wrists by the time Sands hooks a leg around the back of Lorenzo’s hips and Lorenzo spilt tequila over his hand before twisting his fingers up inside Sands. Sands hissed and arched up into him, fingers digging trenches into Lorenzo’s back.
Whoever told Sands that he was beautiful when he was broken, wasn’t too far off the mark. The bruises and scrapes blossoming over his skin, the edges and hollows of not enough to eat and too much pain, etching out his bones make him into something more than just a CIA officer fallen from grace. He was nothing that Lorenzo wanted, and everything he desired for the moment. More tequila spilling over the bed, and it wasn’t really enough at all, but since Sands didn’t say anything, Lorenzo didn’t ask before pushing in. Sands biting down on his already abused wrist to keep from crying out.
Sands was his anger towards El’s callousness and his own feelings for El, his frustration with Fideo’s drinking, his bitterness of Sands’ attention from El, his anger, and his sorrow, and his apology, and his excuse. Sands took all of it and swallowed it down into his bruises and bones as he took the sharp, hard thrusts of Lorenzo’s hips with a manic grin and a returning twist upwards.
It didn’t take as long as Lorenzo might have hoped, as he collapsed entirely on top of Sands, both panting and sticky.
“Get off,” Sands gave him less than a heartbeat before protesting, shoving at him crossly. For all that, he sounded sated and thoroughly pleased with himself.
Lorenzo groaned and obliged.
El chose that moment to walk into the room.
TBC