Summary: Night falls hard, for Sands. Standalone story.

Pairing: Sands/El

Rating: R. For sexual situations, not all of which are nice. Please take note.

Disclaimer: Everybody herein belongs to Robert Rodriguez. The lyrics are out of “It Just Won’t Quit” and belong to Meatloaf and Jim Steinman.

Is this a blessing or is it a curse?
Does it get any better--can it get any worse?
Will it go on forever or is it over tonight?
Does it come with the darkness?
Does it bring out the light?

He is learning to hate these motel beds.

He has been in a different one nearly every night, a random sampling, ample quantity for statistics. In certain fundamental ways, they are more or less the same.

There is the way the cheap springs creak (especially when they do so repeatedly), metal against resisting metal. There is the way the mattresses slump, particularly in the center and along the edges. There is the way the linens retain the scent and clamminess of any fluids spattered on them, blood or otherwise.

There is the way the thin sheets sometimes get tangled around his limbs. There is the way his own breathing sounds louder in his ears when it’s muffled by a pillow.

There is the way that someone else is in the bed with him.

And I never really sleep anymore
And I always get those dangerous dreams
And I never get a minute of peace
And I gotta wonder what it means

The first night it happens, he is just a shade too drunk.

El, he knows, is the same.

Their car has limped into town on three wheels, the fourth so deflated that Sands is half-convinced they reached this village by dint of driving in one huge ever-shrinking spiral.

It is much too late to contemplate food. Sands has not gotten any rest, because the listing of the car felt like a slow, slow lopsided freefall that went on for hours. El has not gotten any rest, because he was the one driving through the endless desert that stretches itself leisurely between little one-horse half-pint no-name villages like this one (Sands’ suggestion that they switch off was summarily ignored). And, oh yeah, it’s apparently nearly two a.m.

It is not too late to contemplate drink. Frustration and dust and irritability and what he realizes now in retrospect was probably sleep deprivation are good motivators. Drink is also easier to come by, and the manager of the tiny one-and-only inn is at least capable of keeping back his yawns just long enough to hand them a couple of bottles along with their key.

A couple of bottles, he also realizes in retrospect, was almost exactly a couple too many.

It is also much too late for that now.

It is an ungraceful, fumbling affair, a barely-cohesive impression of lips and uncertain hands and the moist steam of breath on his skin; the unfastening of clothing is too cumbersome a task to contemplate for long, and simple friction takes the least amount of effort and tactical maneuvering. But it almost doesn't matter, because sounds are strangely flavored with tequila and words are blanketed by fatigue, and reflexes respond only to lazy, undemanding pleasure.

Afterwards, tequila and fatigue and pleasure swirling languidly inside him, he does not know exactly when he drifts off to sleep.

He knows when he wakes up, because that is when he stops seeing things.

He lies there on a mattress that's so soft it's gone right past comfortable into the territory of its opposite and shivers, half in reaction, half with genuine chill. The latter is a relief; chill means that it's probably very late in the night, and very late in the night means that it's close to being very early in the morning.

There is an arm looped over his left shoulder, warmth all along his side. Breath in his ear, breath on his cheek. Steady, and even, and hypnotic.

The sharp-edged vividness of the dream has evaporated. When he touches the wisp of memory, he is left with only a confusion of streets and sun and buildings, and the sensation of pursuit--or more accurately, of being pursued. The rest is blankness.

The actual events of the nightmare are not important, though. He's seen this sort of thing so many times already, the regular nightly showing (sometimes with matinees), and there are no original plots left out there anymore.

All the same, he slips his right hand beneath his pillow, because while his conscious mind knows all this, his subconscious mind does not. His subconscious tells him nothing; only slides claws painlessly into his chest, interrupting his breathing, drawing tension along his limbs. His subconscious is an insidious son of a bitch.

El is sleeping on his side, weight divided by narrowed area, creating a gentle slope in the quicksand of the bedding.

He withdraws the gun and tucks it next to his leg so he can lie with his elbow straight and muscles uncramped. From this position, it will be easy to jerk the muzzle upwards to aim at whatever needs aiming at (happy to oblige, just let him know, preferably in advance). He settles the grip against his palm, brushes his thumb over the safety (still on), curls his forefinger through the ring of the trigger guard.

Poe could take a lesson from this bed, which ratchets itself smaller and smaller with every heartbeat. On one side, the edge of the mattress; on the other, the edge of the well of heat that is the mariachi. He hefts the gun in his hand, its familiar bulk a counterbalance against the pull of the man next to him.

It is not enough. He eases his way out from under the arm on his shoulder and pushes himself from the bed, mattress yielding unpleasantly as he turns. Takes two short steps and finds the wall (faintly lined with dried paint drips—all right, he is going to choose to believe they're paint) he knows is there; they make sure of that each night, re-arranging the furniture of every room they stay in (like rock stars, but with fewer guitars and more sobriety and much, much less money).

He follows wall and windowsill and wall again until one of the rickety wooden chairs bumps lightly against his knee. Quietly, he settles himself in it; it's a hard unaccommodating piece of furniture, and whoever made it clearly decided as a design aesthetic that comfort is for wimps. It barely qualifies as being sufficient for sitting. It is certainly not sufficient for sleeping.

It is enough. He cradles his gun in his lap, and waits for morning.

And there used to be such an easy way of living
And there used to be every hope in the world
And I used to get everything that I went after
But there never used to be this girl…

This is the seventh night.

He arches upward as El’s hands slide down to his waist and curve around it, fingers deliberately stroking too-slowly, too-lightly over the sensitive skin at the small of his back.

Teeth scrape against his chest, sparking pain but not breaking the skin. El never draws blood. El seems to have no reluctance about bruises, though, and Sands often finds them the next day, as unaccustomed stiffness or unexpected deep aches.

Sometimes he wishes El preferred cuts instead; open scratches are easier for him to locate afterwards by touch, whereas bruises are readily-detectable by everyone except him, and he never knows who is looking. It is not so much that he cares what they see; he just wants to know what it is they fucking think they’re seeing.

He smothers a moan as his knees are forced farther apart and a hand clamps brutally around him. The corner of the sheet that he has twisted his fingers in nearly cuts off his circulation.

The heat of the room is oppressive, the bed almost suffocating. Sweat threatens again to trickle into empty sockets; he wipes it away, slickness momentarily cool on his forearm.

The hand loosens, is replaced by the softness of lips and the steel edge of incisors. No--

“Yes,” he gasps aloud, but still he reaches out, because while he needs this, he doesn’t ever, oh god, he doesn’t ever want it. He presses his palm to El’s jaw, feeling long silk strands curl around his wrist. Like Ajedrez’s hair used to, only she never did this, only he never let her do this.

Only he has already let her do her worst.

The steel jaws tighten a little, and he trembles.

He remembers fleeing for his life through nightmare streets in the dazzling sun.

Maybe I’m crazy and I’m losing my senses
Maybe I’m possessed by a spirit or such
Maybe I’m desperate and I got no defenses
Can you get me a prescription for that one perfect touch?

The third night it happens, he is entirely too sober.

He is practically shaking with weariness as the sound of small traffic and pedestrians begins to filter in through the car's half-opened windows. The tire was fixed yesterday morning; the seat no longer feels like it's waiting to tumble him out the passenger side, but still he has not let himself doze off during the day-long drives.

Less than two weeks ago, he would hardly have blinked at the prospect of plowing through multiple nights on just a scant few hours' sleep each. His time (and, on occasion, other people's time) was his own as an agent, wakefulness and rest stretched and rewritten to suit his needs. But less than two weeks ago was el Dia de los Muertos, and healing is the first order of things these days.

The dreams are waiting, just beyond that unreliable, slashed-gossamer veil that separates consciousness from unconsciousness.

So when the room door closes behind them, he turns and launches himself at where the click of the lock sounded, hears and feels the thud as he pushes El back into the thick wooden panel. He gets a firm whack on the side of the knee from something heavy and hard-surfaced, because it seems that even when surprised and off-balance, El still has the presence of mind to swing his precious guitar case out of the way of something as immovable as the door.

Sands ignores it, just as he ignores the roiling in his stomach and the way the last of his insides turn to ice as he finds and clasps El's face between his palms and throws himself into the kiss.

It is not a gentle kiss this time, and it's returned in kind, as an arm wraps itself his waist and Sands is backed across the room. Automatically, he shifts his balance to resist the push, because there's a cliff edge at his heels for all he knows, and El's arm is no kind of guarantee.

But he'd rather plunge off a cliff than into another nightmare, so he allows El to move them; only clasps his hands tightly behind El's neck, because if he falls, he's damn well taking the mariachi with him.

El stops momentarily and there's the thump of the guitar case being set down (probably on a table or chair, since El's body stays right with his, and that's what he wants, right?). Another two steps and a soft edge hits the back of Sands' knees, and despite himself he redoubles his grip.

Then he takes a breath and shoves forward just sharply enough, and feels El brace himself and those powerful muscles flex and the floor tilts and Sands lands on the bed hard, weight atop him driving him into the sagging mattress. His body rebels without his input, longstanding reflexes and fresh memory lashing out against restraint. The weight retreats a little, and El's voice says, "Easy, easy," and Sands thinks about listening to it; but then something brushes against his cheekbone, oh god, and he jackknifes, heel of his right hand flying out towards the source of that voice. But El isn't El for nothing and the blow only partly connects, the minor impact jarring Sands' arm.

That wrist is suddenly immobilized and El gets as far as, "I don't want to h--" when Sands reaches out with his free hand and grabs El's collar before he can disappear.

"No," Sands growls, and isn't entirely sure what he's protesting even as he yanks El down and lets the mariachi spill the remainder of the sentence into his own mouth.

He can’t afford to dream again. He can’t.

He overrides the other man’s attempts to be careful, thrusting himself recklessly against El. When the fingers that tug at his shirt buttons hesitate, Sands twists the collar in his fist until his still-captive right wrist is wrenched down to the bed and a bone-deep flare of pain jolts through him to the shoulder.

Sands laughs, but only around the gasp and the lead pooling in his guts.

He lifts one knee, in the process sliding it along the outside of El’s thigh, an unambiguous invitation. In response, hardness presses between his legs; hardness digs into his hips, gunmetal no more solid than flesh.

Deliberately, he rotates his trapped wrist, reawakening the strain.

If nothing else, the previous two nights have taught him this: that languor and closeness are traps, luring him into unguarded sleep. The dreams lurk beneath him always, waiting for slumber to deliver him, unknowing, into their blood-tinted waters.

The quieter his rest, the easier their prey.

His arm is released; buttons give way in rapid succession. Slightly cooler air on his skin, blotted out an instant later by the heat of breath and mouth and tongue.

It is not enough. He needs something that will drop him straight into the pit of oblivion, where even nightmares, drawn to the scent of unclosed wounds, won’t be able to find him.

Reaching down, he cups El’s chin in his palm, then slides his palm lower to curve around El’s throat, feels it smooth and damp with sweat, and squeezes--

I don’t know what it is but it just won’t quit
I don’t know what it is but it just won’t quit

He barely manages to choke back the scream. Sensation of dull knife piercing his knuckles, salt-copper in his mouth. Just because El will not draw blood doesn’t mean these sessions are bloodless.

He keeps his fist jammed between his teeth, because El is not done. Six nights ago his reaction might have given El pause; but this is the seventh night, and Sands has filled up the intervening time by throwing plenty of shapes. Successfully: for El has shifted from the temperance (indifference?) of the first two nights to this barely-leashed viciousness with an ease which sends chills up Sands’ spine if he examines it too closely. But which, he tells himself, was never really any kind of surprise at all.

He can’t afford to dream again. He can’t.

The actual events of the nightmares are not important. It is that he even dreams at all, because when he wakes up is when he stops seeing things.

Because when he wakes up he goes blind, all over again. Oh jesus, oh jesus, every night when the dreams come and the dreams inevitably fade away he learns, and learns, and learns what it’s like to go blind all over again.

So he lets El slam into him, once, twice, loses count; lets El shred him raw from the inside out; lets El tear him apart a little more every night, just to stay sane.

And afterwards, adrenaline-ebb and exhaustion and lingering pain drag him down into unconsciousness.

Later, he knows that he has slept, because for a time there was nothing at all.