Rating: R bordering on NC-17
Pairing: El/Sands
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Robert Rodriguez and assorted.

The rhythm of El's fingers on the strings unconsciously matched the beat of Sands' pacing across the room. The agent was scowling at someone through the phone, animated and talking loudly for the first time in a month.

"Yeah right, just peachy-keen!" he hissed, gripping the cellphone hard enough to make the plastic creak. "I pulled it off, at considerable cost to myself if I may say so, did not compromise the agency's involvement, and got out of it on my own. You can take that pity-fuck job and shove it!"

He listened for a moment longer, then hung up. He eyed the cellphone as if he wanted to shoot it. "Well, fuck you."

He sat down on the chair next to El's. "Well, looks like that's it for the agency. Bet you wish you hadn't hauled my ass to the doctor's now, right? Should have just let me fucking bleed to death there."

El lay his guitar to the side and turned to look at Sands. He took in the taut skin over too-prominent bone, pale next to dark hair and sunglasses. It had been a month since the Day of the Dead, but the wounds had been deep. "What are you going to do now?"

"Hang around, probably. At least it's never boring with you. Either you want to kill someone or someone wants to kill you."

El scowled, and then suddenly Sands' hand was on his face. Slim fingers curled around the mariachi's cheek, then skimmed across the nose and touched his lips. The touch was just firm enough not to tickle. El's eyes fell closed for half a second before he made a conscious decision to open them again.

Sands laughed as he pulled his fingers back. "I can just see your face right now. What you got yourself into, right? Entertainment for a retired spook - didn't I tell you? They're giving me a fucking pension!"

The laughter became choked as Sands got up to pace the room again, his steps unsure. "Retired - retired - does that mean I'm supposed to go to fucking Florida now? Learn golfing, blind golf, what a hoot, doesn't change me-"

El jumped to his feet and grabbed Sands to prevent him from crashing into a wall. The American was reduced now to inarticulate gibbering mixed with a choked-off manic laughter. He spasmed, and would have fallen if El hadn't been holding him up.

"Sands!" El shouted. "Sands!"

"Sands, Sands, sands of time..." the agent giggled. "But it doesn't work now, still Sands, not CIA, not anything, watch me fall-"

El looked at the trembling, giggling man. And slapped him.

The force of the blow threw Sands to the floor. The shades skittered into a corner.

Sands raised himself on his arms and remained in that position, motionless. His hair framed his face in soft dark disarray. His eyes - the hollows where his eyes should be - looked straight at El, dark and empty. In the dim evening light he seemed a marble figure, breathless and beautiful. A tragic angel after the fall, El thought.

Then the pale skin on one cheek reddened, showing the imprint of a hand.

El knelt beside Sands and, tentatively, touched the man's arm.

"I'm sorry." He heard his own voice hesitate, almost break.

A half-moment of hesitation, and then Sands slumped against him, grateful for the support. El felt the warmth of the other man's body and how relaxed, utterly exhausted it seemed against his own tense arms.

"Don't be sorry." The agent's voice was hoarse and muffled; El felt its vibration against his shoulder. "I needed that."

There was some stumbling, but they managed to get up together, with Sands half-draped over El. The mariachi steered them to the bedroom, which for the past month had been Sands' main place of residence as damaged muscles healed. The bed was still unmade.

Sands showed no inclination to give up leaning on El.

"You need to rest," El said. He leaned the unresisting man against the wall and turned to face him. "It will help."

"Don't think so." Sands raised his face to El's. "Too messed up."

El shook his head solemnly. "No."

Lips twisted in a sudden, razor-sharp smile, and then Sands face was getting closer, and El closed his eyes because it wasn't really fair to look when the other person couldn't-

-

-Sands decided El tasted like cinnamon and a touch of pepper, and this unusual mix demanded further investigation. So he kissed the mariachi again, slow and nice and not in a hurry at all...

Movement that was probably El's brain kicking in and panicking, and all right, he had a right an all, but that made Sands lose his grip and fall sideways. He managed to land on the bed, and the old bedsprings creaked with protest.

He wasn't still too clear about his own thoughts, steering clear of the tangle they'd been in just minutes before, but this didn't really need conscious thoughts. He arched his back, his hands in his hair, covering his face and hoping like hell this looked like he remembered it did.

He hoped he wasn't imagining the approaching footsteps.

Then a hand in his hair, and he turned to nuzzle at it. Creak of bedsprings again and the other hand was at his shoulder, skimming down his arm as if afraid he'd turn to dust.

"You don't know what you're doing." El's voice was hoarse, and wasn't it fair that for once the Mexican bastard was the one freaking out?

I know, he mouthed, and applied his knowledge of judo in an unorthodox move that ended with him on top of a firm, warm body on a narrow bed that was barely big enough for one. Oh my, not quite so reluctant now, are we? Not when I do this-

Apparently he wasn't the only one able to maneuver in a bed really too small for any movement at all, because suddenly he was on his back again. Not like he was protesting, since his mouth was occupied again.

Then he was protesting with an incoherent moan as all contact was denied. Who does he think he is anyway...

A touch at his throat, and he almost jumped. The scrape of a fingernail against his skin as the top button of his shirt was unfastened sent shivers throughout his body. Only one hand on him, sometimes as little as a single finger, and it burned him. All his senses melted down into touch, and he barely heard the jangle of chains.

Then both hands were at his hips. Firm pressure, but not where that pressure was needed the most. Sands' shirt was completely open now, and he could feel warm breath on his bare skin. That meant... El was kneeling beside the bed, his head right there-

A tug on a button of his pants, almost accidental, and that slightest change in pressure was enough to make Sands moan. A low, drawn-out sound, and that was good because before he finished, El swallowed it right out of his mouth. Hot and wet and not gentle at all, and just what he needed to ground him, ground him here, in fucking Mexico that took his eyes and got into his blood. He wrapped a leg around the mariachi's thigh and pushed, up and hard and fast and don't let me think ever again, just touch me like this, hands down my back and mouth on my throat and nothing but this is real.

Clothing was dealt with in sharp tugs and curses, but efficiently. Skin on skin was even better, and who cared if the bed creaked in protest. Just this, just like that, if he could have this forever as his one shining fucking moment he'd be happy like he didn't know what, and now his fingers were making El moan, and that was just right, payback's a bitch and no fair if Sands should be the only one here writhing like a cheap whore. Just like that, faster and harder and-

And-

Afterwards, they slept, on a single bed in an unlit room. So no-one saw the way El's fingers tangled in Sands' hair, and no-one saw the tears dry on Sands' face.

~FINIS?~