(no subject)
Title: Break in the Routine
For: hippediva because it’s her birthday and because she has stupid neighbors.
Fandom: Once Upon A Time in Mexico, El/Sands
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Unbetaed. Xposted to agentsands
*~*~*~*
Every morning Sands debates the merits of just giving the whole world the finger and staying in bed. His mornings go something like this:
The alarm goes off at precisely 9:00am which doesn’t mean shit, because most nights Sands is up until five or six in the morning and he’d have to sleep until the afternoon to make himself feel rested. He reaches out anyway and turns the alarm off and lies still for a moment, waiting for his heartbeat to calm down from the shock of the loud beeping that wakes him. It would be so easy to just roll back over and sleep.
He’s always exhausted. It’s no longer an aggravation to know he’s only napped and not slept. Aggravation takes too much energy and he doesn’t have the energy to spare.
Sands gets out of bed. He sleeps naked because it’s cooler and because it means he has one less thing to put in the laundry. Laundry is done on Tuesdays, when the Laundromat is emptiest. He has three wash baskets, one for whites, one for blacks and one for colors. Once he’s out of bed, Sands walks, three steps left, two forwards, into the bathroom. He showers, he shaves, he brushes his teeth, and he dries his hair. This takes him around half an hour on a good day. He’s had it take up to two hours on bad ones. He goes back into his bedroom and gets dressed. Jeans, t-shirt, socks, boots, sunglasses, cane.
He hates that cane like he hates the memory of the Day of the Dead. It’s a reminder, looped around his wrist, bumping against his thigh. It’s a deadweight. It’s his own personal ball and chain but he tends to forget it if he doesn’t pick it up first thing in the morning, so around his wrist it goes.
Coffee. Black.
Sands drinks the first cup quickly and then makes another, this one with sugar. He doesn’t trust himself not to drink spoiled milk, sometimes smell isn’t enough to tell and he can’t see the fucking due date anymore. He listens to the news on the radio while he drinks his coffee and if he’s feeling generous, he’ll keep it turned down. If it’s one of those mornings where it takes him almost two hours to shower and shave, he turns it up so it wakes up his - usually hungover - flatmate.
Sands turns up the radio and drinks his third cup of coffee. He only drinks three cups if it’s a terrible day. It’s a terrible day. He is one year older, not a bit wiser, and blind to boot.
His flatmate stumbles into the kitchen. He won’t say anything about the radio. Last time he did that, Sands gave him such a verbal flaying that it actually made Sands smile for the rest of the day. Sands doesn’t smile very much these days. He doesn’t smile now, he barely even nods at the mumbled ‘good morning’ he gets in greeting. In the course of the day, Sands will drink somewhere between five to ten cups of coffee in one day. It might account for his insomnia but it doesn’t explain why he’s so lethargic all the time. If Sands didn’t know himself better, he’d think it was depression.
Sands washes his mug and puts it back in its place. He leaves the radio on when he leaves the apartment but it doesn’t make him feel any better. It’s two blocks to the bar he drinks at. Sands takes his time. He smokes a cigarette or two before he settles down on the little patio out back, in the corner that gets the sun all day. Sands sits with his back to the wall and his gun under his jacket. The CIA is paying him disability pension in US dollars and he spends most of it on coffee and liquor. Living in Mexico is cheap and he knows this shitty little town too well to ever leave it. He still drinks tequila, but he drinks a lot more of it now and he drinks it without the pork. They do serve pork, when the chef is around, but it’s mediocre, the way Sands likes it.
He falls asleep in the sun, around noon. Usually he’ll manage to nap for an hour, maybe a little more. Then he drinks more tequila and thinks about thinking about getting a job. He doesn’t need one, but it might give him something to do other than drink himself to death. He smokes another cigarette and hates his life.
Sands would rather put a bullet in his head than admit how old he is. Older than his teeth but younger than his fillings. He feels like he’s a hundred.
To celebrate, Sands has another shot. He was going to do that anyway, but he toasts himself and then he laughs. The staff don’t bother him, he’s their best customer and they don’t care if he’s a little bit crazy so long as he pays his tab. Sands pays his tab once a week, every Monday morning, like clockwork. He doesn’t do anything spontaneously any more. Spontaneity takes too much effort.
He’s at something around eight to ten shots when he hears footsteps come towards him, hears a chair scrape out and someone sit down across from him. Sands blows smoke in the intruder’s general direction and tells them, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off.
It’s El.
Of course it’s El. Jangling into town, just to make sure that all his good deeds haven’t gone astray after only a year. Heard about the blind gringo with a mouth like a sewer and decided to investigate. Of course it’s El, because it’s Sands’ birthday anyway, so the day couldn’t get any worse. Sands decides that the best, that the only, course of action, is to ignore El and hope he goes away. El talks and Sands thinks about killing himself. He thinks about suicide at least once a day, but he won’t pull the trigger because even that would take too much emotional energy. He’s pretty sure that El is saying something important, but he sips at his shot, smokes, and ignores El a little more.
It all comes out, in the end. What happened to him, that is. El wants to know the story behind the Day of the Dead and Sands opens his mouth to tell El to fuck off again, and what comes out is the truth. All of it. The whole squalid story of betrayal, hatred, and this unending apathy. He even tells El it’s his birthday.
El is quiet after that, just watching Sands get increasingly drunk. He offers to walk Sands home, and Sands laughs, tells El that if he wants to make himself useful, he can go get Sands another drink and a pack of cigarettes. It takes a lot to surprise Sands these days, but El manages to do so when he gets up and comes back a minute or two later with exactly what Sands asked for. He sits in the chair next to Sands, rather than across from him and asks if Sands is in any pain.
His face stopped hurting months ago, he’s even lost his limp, but yeah, it hurts. It hurts like hell every time he wakes up and it hasn’t all been a godawful nightmare. Some days Sands wonders if he didn’t die after all, and if this isn’t hell.
He doesn’t say any of that to El. Sands tips down his sunglasses instead, flashes El the ruin of his face and a bitter smile. “No,” he says.
El calls him a liar, a drunk, and a scheming little bastard and Sands doesn’t deny a word of it. When El wishes him a happy birthday, Sands tells him to get fucked.
Somewhere between one shot of tequila and another Sands finds himself back in his own apartment, sprawled out on his bed. His clothes aren’t anywhere he’ll remember, strewn between front door and bedroom floor and he can’t bring himself to care, because it’s the first time someone’s touched him in weeks and the first time it hasn’t been to poke at what’s left of his face since the Day of the Dead. He wonders if it’s survivor’s guilt that makes El’s tongue curl over the bullet scars on Sands’ legs and arm, and what makes El kiss him like they’re lovers and not two men who more than cordially dislike one another. It’s certainly not what drives Sands to his knees in front of El, or what bends him almost double, shaking like he’s cold and biting El’s lip as El pushes into him. Sands knows his own motives and it’s all to do with his routine and how much he hates it and how good it feels when he realizes he’s lost both his sunglasses and his cane somewhere along the way and El’s slamming into him so hard it feels like they’re going to break either the bed or Sands’ back and it doesn’t matter that Sands is blind, or El’s got more ghosts than he knows what to do with, or that they’re both insane to be doing this.
Sands smokes in bed, getting ash on the sheets most likely. El has the ashtray on his stomach and Sands is curled up, head on El’s shoulder, not caring how messy he’s being because the sheets are all but ruined anyway.
He asks El, casually, how long he’s going to be in town and the shoulder under his ear lifts slightly in a shrug because El’s got nothing to do and no where to go. It’s the best birthday present that Sands has had in years.
For: hippediva because it’s her birthday and because she has stupid neighbors.
Fandom: Once Upon A Time in Mexico, El/Sands
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Notes: Unbetaed. Xposted to agentsands
*~*~*~*
Every morning Sands debates the merits of just giving the whole world the finger and staying in bed. His mornings go something like this:
The alarm goes off at precisely 9:00am which doesn’t mean shit, because most nights Sands is up until five or six in the morning and he’d have to sleep until the afternoon to make himself feel rested. He reaches out anyway and turns the alarm off and lies still for a moment, waiting for his heartbeat to calm down from the shock of the loud beeping that wakes him. It would be so easy to just roll back over and sleep.
He’s always exhausted. It’s no longer an aggravation to know he’s only napped and not slept. Aggravation takes too much energy and he doesn’t have the energy to spare.
Sands gets out of bed. He sleeps naked because it’s cooler and because it means he has one less thing to put in the laundry. Laundry is done on Tuesdays, when the Laundromat is emptiest. He has three wash baskets, one for whites, one for blacks and one for colors. Once he’s out of bed, Sands walks, three steps left, two forwards, into the bathroom. He showers, he shaves, he brushes his teeth, and he dries his hair. This takes him around half an hour on a good day. He’s had it take up to two hours on bad ones. He goes back into his bedroom and gets dressed. Jeans, t-shirt, socks, boots, sunglasses, cane.
He hates that cane like he hates the memory of the Day of the Dead. It’s a reminder, looped around his wrist, bumping against his thigh. It’s a deadweight. It’s his own personal ball and chain but he tends to forget it if he doesn’t pick it up first thing in the morning, so around his wrist it goes.
Coffee. Black.
Sands drinks the first cup quickly and then makes another, this one with sugar. He doesn’t trust himself not to drink spoiled milk, sometimes smell isn’t enough to tell and he can’t see the fucking due date anymore. He listens to the news on the radio while he drinks his coffee and if he’s feeling generous, he’ll keep it turned down. If it’s one of those mornings where it takes him almost two hours to shower and shave, he turns it up so it wakes up his - usually hungover - flatmate.
Sands turns up the radio and drinks his third cup of coffee. He only drinks three cups if it’s a terrible day. It’s a terrible day. He is one year older, not a bit wiser, and blind to boot.
His flatmate stumbles into the kitchen. He won’t say anything about the radio. Last time he did that, Sands gave him such a verbal flaying that it actually made Sands smile for the rest of the day. Sands doesn’t smile very much these days. He doesn’t smile now, he barely even nods at the mumbled ‘good morning’ he gets in greeting. In the course of the day, Sands will drink somewhere between five to ten cups of coffee in one day. It might account for his insomnia but it doesn’t explain why he’s so lethargic all the time. If Sands didn’t know himself better, he’d think it was depression.
Sands washes his mug and puts it back in its place. He leaves the radio on when he leaves the apartment but it doesn’t make him feel any better. It’s two blocks to the bar he drinks at. Sands takes his time. He smokes a cigarette or two before he settles down on the little patio out back, in the corner that gets the sun all day. Sands sits with his back to the wall and his gun under his jacket. The CIA is paying him disability pension in US dollars and he spends most of it on coffee and liquor. Living in Mexico is cheap and he knows this shitty little town too well to ever leave it. He still drinks tequila, but he drinks a lot more of it now and he drinks it without the pork. They do serve pork, when the chef is around, but it’s mediocre, the way Sands likes it.
He falls asleep in the sun, around noon. Usually he’ll manage to nap for an hour, maybe a little more. Then he drinks more tequila and thinks about thinking about getting a job. He doesn’t need one, but it might give him something to do other than drink himself to death. He smokes another cigarette and hates his life.
Sands would rather put a bullet in his head than admit how old he is. Older than his teeth but younger than his fillings. He feels like he’s a hundred.
To celebrate, Sands has another shot. He was going to do that anyway, but he toasts himself and then he laughs. The staff don’t bother him, he’s their best customer and they don’t care if he’s a little bit crazy so long as he pays his tab. Sands pays his tab once a week, every Monday morning, like clockwork. He doesn’t do anything spontaneously any more. Spontaneity takes too much effort.
He’s at something around eight to ten shots when he hears footsteps come towards him, hears a chair scrape out and someone sit down across from him. Sands blows smoke in the intruder’s general direction and tells them, in no uncertain terms, to fuck off.
It’s El.
Of course it’s El. Jangling into town, just to make sure that all his good deeds haven’t gone astray after only a year. Heard about the blind gringo with a mouth like a sewer and decided to investigate. Of course it’s El, because it’s Sands’ birthday anyway, so the day couldn’t get any worse. Sands decides that the best, that the only, course of action, is to ignore El and hope he goes away. El talks and Sands thinks about killing himself. He thinks about suicide at least once a day, but he won’t pull the trigger because even that would take too much emotional energy. He’s pretty sure that El is saying something important, but he sips at his shot, smokes, and ignores El a little more.
It all comes out, in the end. What happened to him, that is. El wants to know the story behind the Day of the Dead and Sands opens his mouth to tell El to fuck off again, and what comes out is the truth. All of it. The whole squalid story of betrayal, hatred, and this unending apathy. He even tells El it’s his birthday.
El is quiet after that, just watching Sands get increasingly drunk. He offers to walk Sands home, and Sands laughs, tells El that if he wants to make himself useful, he can go get Sands another drink and a pack of cigarettes. It takes a lot to surprise Sands these days, but El manages to do so when he gets up and comes back a minute or two later with exactly what Sands asked for. He sits in the chair next to Sands, rather than across from him and asks if Sands is in any pain.
His face stopped hurting months ago, he’s even lost his limp, but yeah, it hurts. It hurts like hell every time he wakes up and it hasn’t all been a godawful nightmare. Some days Sands wonders if he didn’t die after all, and if this isn’t hell.
He doesn’t say any of that to El. Sands tips down his sunglasses instead, flashes El the ruin of his face and a bitter smile. “No,” he says.
El calls him a liar, a drunk, and a scheming little bastard and Sands doesn’t deny a word of it. When El wishes him a happy birthday, Sands tells him to get fucked.
Somewhere between one shot of tequila and another Sands finds himself back in his own apartment, sprawled out on his bed. His clothes aren’t anywhere he’ll remember, strewn between front door and bedroom floor and he can’t bring himself to care, because it’s the first time someone’s touched him in weeks and the first time it hasn’t been to poke at what’s left of his face since the Day of the Dead. He wonders if it’s survivor’s guilt that makes El’s tongue curl over the bullet scars on Sands’ legs and arm, and what makes El kiss him like they’re lovers and not two men who more than cordially dislike one another. It’s certainly not what drives Sands to his knees in front of El, or what bends him almost double, shaking like he’s cold and biting El’s lip as El pushes into him. Sands knows his own motives and it’s all to do with his routine and how much he hates it and how good it feels when he realizes he’s lost both his sunglasses and his cane somewhere along the way and El’s slamming into him so hard it feels like they’re going to break either the bed or Sands’ back and it doesn’t matter that Sands is blind, or El’s got more ghosts than he knows what to do with, or that they’re both insane to be doing this.
Sands smokes in bed, getting ash on the sheets most likely. El has the ashtray on his stomach and Sands is curled up, head on El’s shoulder, not caring how messy he’s being because the sheets are all but ruined anyway.
He asks El, casually, how long he’s going to be in town and the shoulder under his ear lifts slightly in a shrug because El’s got nothing to do and no where to go. It’s the best birthday present that Sands has had in years.