Sorry about that...the story just posted is pre-slash, I suppose. And, even though there's no real sex, I would give it an R rating just for graphic material.

As an aside, a brief intro:

I write under the name "Garnet" and have been in X-Files fandom for some time now. Am also currently quite mad about Pirates of the Caribbean, though have taken time out to go a bit keen over Agent Sands. (big shock)

So far, am very very pleased by the quality (and gritty details) of all the Sandsfic I've read. Keep up the good work!!!

Garnet

PS: Any (potential) beta readers out there fluent in Spanish?

Hey, so I got inspired. Here's a a piece of my (still working on it) very first Sands fic. Please let me know what you think, and whether I should go ahead and try and do more on it or not. And please pardon the Spanish if I've haven't gotten it quite right...

TITLE: El Hombre Sin Ojos
AUTHOR: Garnet
PAIRING: El/Sands (maybe, eventually, who knows?)
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, and kinda scary anyway
SERIES: No idea yet
SUMMARY: Takes place right after the movie
WARNING: Graphic stuff, not very nice

There was dust everywhere.

Dust in his mouth and hitching deep in his lungs and in his eyes. Or, where his eyes would be if he still had eyes anymore, which he didn't, and there was no use crying over that, even if he could anymore, which he couldn't, thank you for not fucking asking.

Not that he wasn't used to dust.

He had, in fact, become quite a connoisseur of dust over the past five years. Thick dust, fine dust, white dust, red dust that smelled ever so faintly of peppers. Dust that lay on his skin the morning after and dust that rose to mask the sun like a cloud of Biblical locusts come to call on Hell's less than green acres. Dust flavored with cheap beer or the slow burn of good tequila. Dust mixed with sweat and limes and blood and shit. With somebody else's bitter jism. With his own.

Dust that was always moving, getting on out, going places, and dust that just settled in and set up shop and brought down the value on the neighborhood.

Not that this particular neighborhood could get much lower.

Not that he was in any position to be choosy.

He only had a little cash left and a handful of ammo and a fucking bullet hole in one leg, a matching one in his arm, and blood all over his face. Not to mention a raging headache, heartburn, and the sudden thought that, this time, he wasn't going to make it.

Well, he had been pretty sure of that a while back, but other things had gotten in the way.

Like putting the stop to a nice little coup de etat and pumping a couple of his own bullets into miss hot pussy cold lead gonna see you dead now sucka don't fucking call me a little monkey bitch. After which, he coulda woulda shoulda died, but that all that dust was getting to him big time and he heard the bells ringing—not the bells of heaven or even of some local goddamn church, sounding out the death knell of liberty, freedom and some pansyass el liberal presidente—but those cheap ass bells on that fucking kid's fucking
cheap ass bike.

After which, he couldn't just lie around, now could he? Sucking wind and making like some big black hole in the ground, even though there were these big black holes in his head. Where his fucking eyes used to be, if you really must know and just didn't get the memo.

Dust…dust we are and unto dust we must return…well, every motherfucking ancestor in all of old Me-hi-co must be swirling around this province, this town, this room, this bed. Just like the kid, hovering in the corner, not saying a word but breathing in all that delicious dust de la morte. Just another ghost waiting to be paid. In pain, if not in cold hard chewing gum cash.

The guitar player had wanted payment in pain, too. As if revenge could buy you a condo in Rio or some lunatic's castle in Spain. As if it could buy you out of a government job where you had grown sick on the spam they were feeding you day in day out year after year—thick grey compressed meat of need to knows and gotta get this dones and don't ask so many fucking questions, kapesh?

Well, he'd wanted out and now he was out, done, finished, kaput, no longer one of the a little mad a lot bad boys playing in the sandlot of some third world country more full of drug lords than common sense, but just some used up useless tool that nobody had bothered putting away.

And, Jesus, but it hurt. Not his eyes, though they hurt, too. Hurt like a mother, like every last rainy day come at once, like no pain that he had ever felt before and ever wanted to feel again. Pain that throbbed and ached and itched and just wouldn't fucking stop.
Pain that burned inside him, the only warmth he could find right now. As if it was twenty below in this goddamned excuse for a room, rather than a hundred plus in the shade. The cold of death, breathed out by all those nameless, faceless ghosts.

Sure, just come on in and make yourselves right at home, boys…share my pain…

Because what really hurts are not those two gaping holes in his head, but that he couldn't make sense out of it, that he couldn't make it make sense no matter which way he spun it. That he was no longer the man in charge, the man with the plan, the man who decided…for whom, for what, for where, who lived and who died and who did not having a fucking good day at all.

Seriously, folks, for all those of you at home right this second watching Wheel of Fucking Fortune, the balance of the universe had gone all out of whack this afternoon if you hadn't noticed. It had all been fucked, and he had no clue how to fix it, how to unfuck it, even if it could be done. Or even if he the strength anymore.

The strength of will or the strength of purpose or even the goddamn balls for the job anymore. Though he still did have his balls, at least they hadn't yanked those out by the roots. He should be thankful for that. Yeah, right…

He had fucking loads to be thankful for.

"Yo, kid," he called. "Get your ass over here, por favor."

That soft little breathing moved closer, though he suspected the kid remained just out of range. Not a complete little idiot then, even if he had come back for him. Led him here. Waiting to see what he would want, what he would do, who he might off next.

Maybe, it would be himself.

If he wasn't one of those ghosts already, that is.

He raised a hand and, just like that, the kid was there. Small fingers closing around his own, warm skin, almost hot, a touch that was obviously meant to be comforting in some way and wasn't in the least. He'd never needed anybody before in his life and he wasn't
about to start now. A definite lack of vision or not.

He told the kid to go out and get him some food, some painkillers, some Tums, some tequila. Not necessarily in that order. The kid must have nodded, because he said nothing. He did take the last of the cash he held out, though, and closed the door gently behind him as he left. As if afraid of stirring up the dust anymore. Like yet another morte might crawl out of it when he wasn't looking.

Well, he wasn't looking and the fucking dead came anyway.

And they didn't even knock.

***

"Well, well…" A voice said, such a familiar voice even though he'd heard it just a few times before. Smooth and rough and low and musical all at once, a goddamned mother fucking lovely voice. One that sent a very different kind of heat through him and made him wonder just how many bullets he did have left in his gun.

Well, well, indeed…El…

And why in the hell are you here? Haven't you gotten enough blood in your system already? Wasn't that nice little fuckfest up at the palace enough for you? Jesus, man, get a life already. Oh, sorry…my faux pas, man…my bad…

You had a life and El Generale shot the living crap out of it right in front of you and you've been dying for a little old fashioned revenge ever since. Eye for an eye, as it were.

Jesus, but he was feeling morbid. And hungry and hot and cold and just a little tetchy.

"What the fuck do you want?" he asked. Okay, a lot tetchy.

He sensed the man moving into the room, then heard the door close and latch behind him. Which was not good.

There was a laugh then, just as low and rough and lovely, and he revised that to definitely not good.

"I'm cleaned out," he said. "If money's what you're looking for." But he already knew it wasn't. It never had been. His finger tightened ever so slightly on the trigger and he brought the weapon up slightly, holding it across his body. Listening, listening…the
only sense that made sense anymore and that gave him half a chance of survival.

"No," came that voice again. A little to his right now. Fuck, he hadn't even heard the sucker cross the room. Not even a single tinkle of those goddamned mariachi bells. Least he could do was jingle, the inconsiderate bastard.

"Look," he said—part of him instantly diverted by the word, at how much people just assumed—and he smiled, probably right down the barrel of the fucker's gun. Probably amusing the fucker no end. He forced himself to concentrate again, to sound encouraging even. "You got what you wanted…right? So that means that now's the time for you to take off, fade back into the woodwork, vaminos, vanish, okay? Got to be about a few bizillion cops hanging around, not to mention some soldatos of Barillo and Marquez entirely at loose ends these days, and you kinda happen to be their catch of the day, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, yes," El said. A man of few words and very large guns. One of which he finally knew for sure was pointing right at him because he could feel it touching his mouth now, tracing its way along his lips, a cold metallic kiss. One that tasted of cordite and oil and dust. The bitter kind. With a chaser of copper.

Oh, joy…now, this was just what he needed to make an otherwise cheery day even more unbearable.

Somehow, he forced himself to hold still, as if that were going to do any damn good. As the other man took the gun from his hand and tossed it on the floor with a rattle that sounded like dry bones and castanets. Before he felt his sunglasses being lifted off his face, betraying those empty sockets to the world. To whoever might be looking. Idly, he wondered if they were full of dust already. If anyone would tell him if they were.

But El was making these tsking noises now. "That must have hurt," he said.

He didn't bother with trying to answer. The gun was rubbing its way along his teeth now, a jarring sensation. About as jarring as having some asshole staring into a couple of holes in his head.

"Marquez is dead," El said then, his voice betraying nothing of what he felt about that little tidbit. Not that it was exactly a news bulletin, either that the General was dead or just where Mister Mariachi's head might be about the man's timely demise. "And Barillo, yes. The men you set up to die. The men you set other people up to kill. But not the Presidente. He's still very much alive. I thought you might want to know that."

The gun moved away from his mouth and slowly traced along his cheek instead. If the other man stuck it into where one of his eyes used to be he would scream. Honestly. See if he didn't.

"That detail wasn't part of my plan," he said.

"Oh, no?" Cool metal pressing in on his cheekbone now.

"No," he repeated in his best let me explain it to you slowly you stupid asshole tone of voice. "I never wanted the man dead. That little waltz came down from higher up the food chain than me, comprende? Or near as I can figure. I just joined the dance when the word came down about how fucked up things would get if Marquez succeeded. Being that he's in Barillo's pocket, as it were."

"So your government wanted him dead." El sounded like he didn't entirely believe that, or as if he didn't want to. Two points for the fucker.

"Not exactly," he replied. I mean, why lie when the truth made even less sense. Even to him at this moment. Especially to him at this moment. "Near as I can figure, it's more a case of interdepartmental cooperation being what it isn't these days. One humorless gringo in some windowless little office sends down a memo saying hand's off the
whole situation with the brand spanking new El Presidente till we know which way the wind blows. Probably persuaded of this by a few million reasons delivered in a small suitcase direct from our friend Barillo's hand. While, unbeknownst of the deal that went down right next door to him, yet another humorless fuck in another windowless office gets a memo about a certain generale's sudden ambitions and says, whoa, wait a minute, we can't have our cozy little neighbors to the south going all coup de etat on us. Being that Marquez is all cozy with mister high and mighty drug lord, so anyway…they make a few calls to a few more humorless fucks, who make a few calls, and one memo cancels out the other, and nobody really knows what the fuck is going on, except that the next thing I know I'm sitting in some dive bar with some one-eyed joker with an attitude problem telling me you're the man for the job. Let the President die if that's how it goes down, but don't let Marquez take office no matter what. It's as simple as that."

Simple? Nothing was ever simple…but he was rather proud of that little speech all the same. Even though it had exhausted him to make it. He realized that he was shivering slightly. That it seemed to be getting colder all the time, as if El had brought even more of the graveyard with him.

"Oh, I can see that," El responded. "And the money?"

Okay, now, that was just getting spooky. Either the man was way smarter than he had taken him for, or someone had talked. Except that the only people who'd known about his plans to get a little on the side were dead. He'd whacked one of them himself. And a fine
job it had been, too, even if the bitch had gone and kissed him first. Her mouth like butterfly wings, tasting of sugar and limes like it always did. Like it never would again.

He opened his own mouth to fork over his best bullshit answer, but that gun was already sliding along the bone, heading for his right ear. Burrowing into it almost to the point of pain.

"Don't bother," El said softly. His voice was in his left ear now, so close that he could feel the man's breath tickling the sensitive hairs there. Raising even more sensitive hairs on the back of his neck. "I know how much you believe in keeping the balance, so I went ahead and arranged to have all that wealth redistributed to those who most needed it. In your name, of course. You've made a lot of people very happy."

"Well, that's just…" he replied, in a falsely-bright voice. "Smashing."

"I thought you'd think so."

"So, is that what you came here to tell me? That I'm the flavor of the month these days. Sugar daddy to some entire poor spick town?"

That gun barrel was caressing the center of his ear now, sending sparks of pain shooting through his skull. Making his right eye itch, the motherfucker.

"Among other things," El whispered. A whisper that made other parts of him itch, despite the fact that he wasn't feeling precisely peachy at the moment, despite the fact that he might very well be about to die any second now. Or, maybe, because of just that very fact.

His dick being just as much as connoisseur of death as his nose was of dust. A little pain, a few choice threats, the taste of blood…in fact, this had all the markings of a good old-fashioned seduction scene as far as the junior Sandman was concerned. He wondered how
far old El baby was going to take it. Then he wondered how far he could make him take it.

"Who did this to you?" the other man asked then, an honest enough curiosity in his voice.

"What the fuck do you care?" he asked, instead of answering.

"I don't." But then the gun vanished from his ear and he sensed El's attention had shifted. "You do know you're bleeding all over the bed?"

"No shit, Sherlock."

Without warning, a hand closed over the wound in his leg and he stopped breathing for a moment, jagged pain burning up his nerves from even that light touch, turning the blackness in his head momentarily white with incandescence.

"Jesus, fuck…" he spat, wishing he had his goddamned gun back. Not sure if he wanted more to shoot himself in that moment or the man touching him. Even his incipient hard-on was fading, the priss. It sure would have been nice to die here with a friendly boner.

But the hand was already moving again, inspecting his left arm a little more gently—and that hurt, too, though not as bad as the leg—before calloused fingers grabbed his chin hard and tilted his head back, making him feel like a goddamned manikin, broken strings and all. Like some laboratory specimen pinned under broken glass. Some part of him noted that the shivering was getting worse.

"You're not looking so good here, Sands," El said in this way too fucking reasonable voice. "In fact, if I leave you here like this, odds are you're going to die. You've lost a lot of blood already…and I think you're going into shock."

He laughed; he couldn't help himself. Even though it made him feel dizzy and even more sick to his stomach. Where was the kid with that fucking Tums? With his tequila—that would warm him right up. See if it didn't.

"Hello?" he hissed out into all that empty space. "You think it matters? You think any of this matters anymore? I'm through, you stupid fuck. I'm done. Dead man walking here. My own people hung me out to fucking dry in the end and that bitch of Barillo's set me
up and they took my eyes, man. They took my life."

"They didn't take your life," came the quiet response. "They just gave you your death."

Only El could say something like that and have it come across sounding like poetry rather than bullshit. Of course, that velvet and steel voice of his didn't hurt. Either did the sudden dizzy drop in his head right then, as if his brains had just poured themselves out on the bed along with several pints of vintage Sands blood.

Dimly, he realized that those hands were holding him up now, rather than hurting him. That El must have put his gun away at some point, the stupid shit. That mistake could get him killed. Never trust anyone. Period. If he had listened to that, then he wouldn't be in
the shithouse right this minute. He would be fucking rich and on his way to some white sand beach, where he could retire in the manner to which he'd always wanted to become accustomed.

He wouldn't be blind and dying in some lower than low rent room on the lousy back hand of God's petty indifference.

"Go away," he managed to whisper. Though it almost sounded more like a plea than a demand.

"No," came El's response, as he pushed him down to lie flat on the bed.

"Fucker…"

"Yes."

And then his head wasn't just spinning. The bed was spinning. Fuck, the whole room was spinning, that good ol' Wheel of Fortune going round and round, Vanna White waiting in the wings with that insufferable plastic smile on her face, and he swore that somewhere
he could hear guitar music, those goddamned church bells ringing, and both of them were prayers. Hymns to that great uncaring God.

The same one who had fucked him over. That had fucked them both over.Who had allowed them to steal El's heart once upon a time and now had turned away as they had stolen his eyes, leaving nothing but darkness behind.

Not that he believed in God. Not that he had believed in much of anything for a very long time now.

"Just go away…" he somehow managed to breathe for the second time, just barely hanging on by his fingernails even as he forced the words out. Hanging on to the touch of those hands that he had never known and yet found almost insufferably familiar at that moment. White hot on his cold flesh. Pulling on all those broken strings. He hated them. He needed them.

"No."

Hate won out and he tried to pull away, but effort sent him spinning faster, so fast that even those hands couldn't hold him anymore. As he was lost to an even deeper shade of darkness. To the cold and to all those vengeful ghosts.

One of them the biggest Mexican he'd ever seen.

Okay, so here is another splash of fic. Am working on pt 3 right now. I promise it will be longer. (If everyone cooperates for once...)

TITLE: El Hombre Sin Ojos,
THANKS: to Laura for some Spanish, any mistakes or manglings of the language are mine or deliberate, your choice


Soft voices.

Sharp pain.

The sense of being smothered.

He fought, but he couldn't figure out up from down, let alone wherehis arms or legs were right now.

My name is…

My name is…

But even that was gone. Stolen from him. Eaten by the darkness that lay thick around him, that lay like dust and sour pork on his tongue. The serpent had turned at the last, swallowed up its owntail, its scales gleaming like tarnished silver, like bone. As a
woman laughed somewhere, throaty and familiar, the sound she'd made when he'd been deep inside her, laughing and laughing as cold metal bit into his eyes. As it drilled, as it ripped, as it tore.

He couldn't escape it. He couldn't fight it. He couldn't see…oh, God…

He could taste his own eyes.

He screamed, and suddenly there was a small dry hand slipping into his own, larger hands—strong and hard and ruthless—pushing him down, holding him flat, hands slick with blood. Before something hard clashed into his teeth, pried open his mouth, poured inside, bitter and thick.

He was made to swallow it. His nose pinched shut. Breathing in spit and dust and bile. His head spinning, his heart pounding as blackness burrowed itself deeper and deeper into his skull. The snake spitting poison on his face, acid etching its way down his cheeks. And that voice not laughing at him anymore, but purring softly into his ear. Telling him he'd been a lousy fuck. Telling him he'd always been blind. That, next time, they'd take his dick.

No, no, no…

He couldn't live through that, not again. He would rather die, he would rather kill himself, he would rather kill every last one of them. Make the whole damn world pay in blood in horror in pain a thousand times a million more he knew how to hurt them he knew how to
make them dance it was the one thing he had always been good at.

Oh, Jesus God fuck, he'd never asked for this. He'd never wanted this. He couldn't stand it.

If only he could remember his name. If only he could forget her voice. If only they would leave him the fuck alone.

My name is…

My name is…

***

Sands…

Sheldon Sands.

Nope, it just didn't come trippingly off the tongue like it should. Like he would have preferred it to.

Not like good old Bond...James Bond. But then Bond was a wuss, anyway. Always had been. Bond was just this stuffed in a black tux shaken not stirred couldn't chase off the girls with a pointed stick just fucking shoot him already why don't you kinda guy who gave spies and secret agents and real spooks a bad name.

He had absolutely loved being a spook. Really. No kidding. Scouts'honor.

Well, not that boy scouts weren't fucking wusses, too, come to think of it. Jesus, could you even believe his folks had wanted him to be one once—a heart-wrenching little story that definitely didn't have the happy ending it deserved, not even in good ol' Cleavertown, USA— and, though that hadn't worked out the way they'd wanted exactly, he had taken one of their mottos to heart.

Always be prepared.

To cheat. To lie. To kill. To steal. To fuck who he had to fuck and fuck over who he had to fuck over and, generally, to be the one bad ass that nobody, but nobody, fooled with. To always expect the best and be prepared for the worst, because the best almost never
happened. Because those rare occasions that it actually did, it just damn well ruined your whole perspective on things. It threw the balance of the universe right off, even if not everybody was smart enough to see it, and what happened after that was nothing but purely fucked.

Just like this deal had been fucked. Probably from the beginning, but he hadn't known that. He hadn't been prepared. He'd been caught off balance for the first time in his life, flailing around like any amateur with a gun and a dream. Go figure. It hadn't been a pretty
sight. Not that he'd actually had to see it.

Still, if you wanted the truth, plain and unvarnished and nothing nice about it, he had been prepared to die out there on that street. He'd even been dressed for it. Always dress for success. But though they'd shot the shit out of him and left him there with his face in
all that fucking dust, he hadn't died. And now here he was at loose ends, wandering around in that proverbial mind numbing midnight party like there's no fucking tomorrow cause there just might not be Nietzschean darkness of the soul.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

Yeah, right. What a prick tease that was.

***

He didn't know how he knew, but he knew it was night. And that he was not alone.

The man didn't have a guitar, but there was still music in the air. As if his very presence strummed chords, formed melodies, dropped notes. Perfect little notes in an imperfect world. No wonder they hated him for it.

Something warm lay over him, his fingers caught in woolen strands. Probably one of those cheap blankets they sold out on the streets. Red and gold and green and white, the colors of liberty intertwined. As if someone could weave freedom out of thread and dye, rather than blood and bullets and cold hard cash.

He didn't want to move. He didn't want to think. Pain waited for him, floating just beyond the fringes of his awareness. He was quite sure of that, even if everything else was muted right now. Just as he was sure he never wanted to feel that kind of pain again, to be
that helpless, though he knew there was little hope of that. Shit happens, my man, and it had just happened all the fuck over him. There was no going back from that. There was only going forward.

If only he could see how…

Then he heard a soft breath, taken and held. Followed by the scratch of a match, the hiss of sulpher. He smelled warm wax and heard the faint jangle of bells, dropping like a progression of perfect notes into the night. As if someone had just gone to their knees. Someone who had a lot of practice with it, or more natural grace than they deserved.

All before a voice whispered, "…forgive me…" and then went silent once more.

Even the music in his head.

***

He felt numb all over and sick to his stomach and his tongue was a wad of dry cotton ticking in his mouth. Rancid cotton ticking. From the mattress of some two-bit whore who smoked too much and drank too much and never bothered to change the sheets even after she'd fucked half the population of her dusty little town and half the less discriminating touristas, as well.

"Shit," he mumbled. Then swallowed hard as the taste and the nausea only grew worse.

"Here," a voice replied, then he dimly felt his head being lifted, something cool pressing against his lips.

Water, blessed water. He gulped at it, one hand flailing up to grab the plastic bottle it was pouring from as if it were the fucking grail. As if his only soul depended on it. Only to find it being yanked away from him, his fingers briefly touching somebody's stomach
instead—soft cloth and warm flesh beneath, the quick flex of muscle as whoever it was moved back. Out of his reach.

Well, shit…

He sank back down, his own breath harsh in his ears, the world just about fuzzing out on him once more. A nice little Twilight Zone effect all for his own benefit. Don't bother adjusting the picture. We control the horizontal. We control the vertical. But then Rod
Steiger had nothing on a good combo of blood loss and heavy-duty painkillers.

It took him a while, but finally he realized that something was tied around his head, tied over his eyes. Or where his eyes should have been and weren't and were never going to be anymore. He reached up and had only just touched soft cloth when his hand was grabbed and pulled away. Was tucked back down at his side, firmly but gently.

"No," that same voice chided and the name it was attached to finally came swimming up out of the numbing darkness that was his happy little world now. Well, something almost a name. If a name told you exactly what a man wasn't as much as it told you what he was.

El Mariachi.

The guitar player. The killer of drug lords and an all around maniac with a heart of minted pain. Yet another one of his former fingers in the former pie. A man who had every reason to resent him and no reason at all to be here, unless he was planning on tormenting him to death with that deadly silk over steel voice of his. He didn't doubt it could be done. Life was funny that way.

In fact, life was pretty damn funny all around when you were nearly out of your skull on some kind of chemical after burn. When somebody had ripped your eyes right out of their precious little sockets while you were still alive and kicking. Though, at least the holes they'd left behind didn't hurt anymore. In fact, nothing really hurt right now. There was nothing but nothing.

It made him feel like an uninvited guest in his own head.

So what the fuck had the man given him? `Cause this was one Mexican nutbar he really didn't want to be alone with when he was off his game. And he was so fucking far off his game right now that it was the one thing that wasn't funny.

"Hey," he breathed. "Kid here?"

"I told him to go home," came the quiet reply. He heard the distinct sound of those annoyingly sweet another angel just got her wings bells as El moved around the room. Man came with his own soundtrack. He should be jealous. Really, he should. Any minute now.

Especially since the son of a bitch was probably sitting down across the room from him right this moment, putting his feet up and popping his Tums and drinking his tequila. Staring at him with a perfectly good set of black Hispanic eyes. Beautiful eyes. Haunting even. A direct window into someplace where the pain never died. And so, hey, the man lost his dear wife and their precious kidling once upon a time, sure, no shit that sucks, who ever said it didn't—but what was that compared to what they'd done to him. To what they'd taken away from him.

If anyone should be able to bitch around here it was one ex-spook, ex-spy, ex man about town, Agent Sheldon Fucking Sands.

And he'd get to it, too. Damn straight if he didn't. And then that bastard would have to listen to him. To how he'd gone out and taken one for the team. For the gusto. For the gipper. For truth, justice, and all that other homegrown shit. Not to mention for a chance at some good old-fashioned revenge.

If nothing else, my friend ojos negros would just groove on that. Oh yeah, he was probably grooving even now.

El ate other people's misfortunes for breakfast.

"Why the fuck are you still here?" he asked. He tried to push himself up a little higher on the bed, but failed miserably. Which was just jim dandy.

"Does it matter?"

Well, not really. He let his head sink back into the pillow. Except that if the guy kept on answering his questions with questions, he was going to have to revise that. It would matter because he was going to haul off and dust the fucker first chance he got. Put him
out of their misery. All those other ghosts should sure as shit approve of that. Everyone needed a little more asshole in their diet.

"I already told you," he said. "I've got no more money. Nada. Nothing."

"I don't want your money."

He turned his head a little to one side, trying to see if he could figure out exactly where the other man's voice was coming from, but even that made him tired. Besides, though he could hear a dog barking somewhere outside, the more distant sound of a car horn playing an old Frank Sinatra tune, he swore he couldn't even hear El breathing. Maybe, he didn't.

The dead got their kicks in other ways.

"Did you enjoy killing him?" he asked, swallowing hard as the words tore at his throat. Sweet Jesus, it felt as if he'd been eating glass. But he didn't want to have to beg for more water. Begging had never been his strong suit.

"Marquez?"

"No, Micky-Fucking-Mouse…of course, Marquez."

"He needed to die," came the response, still in that low and reasonable as shit tone of voice.

"Just like your brother?" So he was pushing the bastard; he had nothing better to do right now, no pressing engagements, no heavy dates.

"No, not like my brother."

"So you didn't enjoy it."

He expected another excuse, but what he got instead was the jingle-jangle of more bells, before fingers laid themselves heavy across his throat, right over the pulse point, tipping his head back. The other man's breath frosting across his tongue.

"Shut up," El whispered. "Unless you wish me to kill you."

He had to ask. He couldn't not ask. Just as he couldn't not smile. "But would you enjoy it?"

"You decide."

"Yeah," he replied, still smiling. "You would. I really think you would."

For one heartbeat, two, almost three, those fingers tightened, and then they released him just as easily and he heard the man walk away.

"Fuck," El spat, then went silent again.

That made him feel good, good enough to try and sit up again, and this time he actually managed to get his shoulders up off the bed, before the world slipped sideways on him. The nausea rising again, making him choke. Beneath the cloth, his missing eyes suddenly
flared back to life, sending slivers of broken glass and liquid ice shooting through his head and he clutched at them, trying to grind the pain away, to tear it out of his skull.

Someone hissed something in Spanish—a word he didn't catch—and then hands grabbed his and held them. A body forced his back down to the bed beneath its own weight, the springs creaking wildly beneath them, and he smelled sweat and leather and cordite. Odeur de pistolero.

The pain ebbed to an almost manageable level, but he shuddered anyhow. Faintly, he could feel the other man's breath on his face, sinking into his open mouth. Before he closed that tiny distance between them, nudging those lips with his own, finding them a little dry, but soft for all that. They were sweet as well, sweeter than he'd have ever thought, as if El had been sucking on Day of the Dead candy skulls. Maybe, even eating the eyes right out of them.

Then, damning everything and mostly himself, he kissed him. Hard.

The other man pulled back as suddenly as if he'd been shot. He heard a shocked intake of breath, then something struck him on the side of the face, making the pain swell and explode—filling him up completely with one moment of sheer black unrelenting fucking agony—before he knew nothing more.

***

Always be prepared. Thank you mommy and daddy. I sure got my merit badge in that, even if I refused to wear that freaky little neo-Nazi uniform.

Never trust anyone. Especially anyone he was fucking. After all, how smart could they be in the first place, right?

But, most of all, keep on keeping on. Walk the line. Maintain the balance. Don't let anyone know too much, have too much, be too much. Cause, for sure, if they do, they'll use it and abuse it and you'll be the one picking up the pieces later. Whether you volunteered for the job or not.

Except that he'd fallen off somewhere down the line. He had trusted that bitch. And, as it turned out, he hadn't been prepared either. Of course, there had been a few extenuating circumstances. There always were, especially when things happened that screwed the pooch six ways to Sunday. But that didn't make it better. That didn't make it right. That couldn't bring him his eyes back.

Not that she hadn't been a damn good fuck. Hot and tight and shitfire crazy in the sack, willing to try just about anything and go just about anywhere, and this place just at the back of her neck had tasted ever so slightly of honey and peppers. She would come
crawling up him, her skin whispering secret messages to his, and then suck him down into her until he thought he might come out on some other planet entirely.

And, sure he rode her all the way to hell and back, but mostly she'd liked to sit on him, grind herself down on him, her eyes gleaming like polished pebbles in the dim light of whatever cheap hotel room they'd ended up in. As he held those ever so biteable breasts. As he'd bit them until they'd bled.

Keep the balance and, oh man, but don't forget he'd killed her for it, but it hadn't been enough. It would never be enough. It would have been better if he could have stuck his dick down her throat and made her choke on it. As he took her eyes out—those lovely brown self-satisfied, holier than thou eyes—with something slow and dull. An old spoon, maybe. Yeah, scoop the fuckers out and feed them to her.

Washed down with the hot splash of his own come.

That would have been justice. That would have felt good.

Especially when he doubted that anything else ever would again.

El Hombre Sin Ojos,
So, here is the last bit of this. I think this "completed" series is part 1 of a larger whole. Hopefully, the boys will cooperate for another part. Yeah, I know that's a lot to ask...
THANKS: again, for the Spanish to Laura


Garnet

It was night again and, this time, he was alone.

His head felt clearer, but it wasn’t necessarily a plus. His arm ached and his leg throbbed and as for those ragged little holes in his skull…well, they just fucking hurt. Pure and simple. A hollow, echoing, couldn’t move without feeling like more of him was about come gushing down his face kind of pain.

Still, there was no use bitching about it. At least, without anyone around to hear him do it so that he could get something out of it. So, ever so slowly, feeling every muscle pull and stretch and ache in the process, he sat up. He pulled his left arm over to rest across his lap then and just stayed like that for another few minutes, hunched over himself, trying to catch his breath and not do some real moaning, anyway.

Fuck, but that hurt.

Finally, he reached up and traced fingers over the bandage on his shoulder. It was tight, just tight enough to get the job done, not too tight to be constricting, but a dampness in the middle of it told him that he was bleeding through it a little. He tested the one on his leg next and found it just as thorough. Though it hurt more when he touched it, the bleeding there at least seemed to have stopped.

But then El must be a real whiz with digging out bullets, bandaging, shit like that. If even half the stories were true, he certainly got enough practice.

His shirt and pants were torn and heavy with dried blood. Well, at least he was still wearing them. His vest had vanished, however, and all his gear. His guns.

His sunglasses…fuck…

He reached out and felt the edge of a table, then fumbled across the surface of it with his fingers until they bumped into something slick. He explored it and realized it was familiar, plastic, round, a bottle. He picked it up and shook it, hearing the slosh of liquid. He fumbled the cap off one-handed and put it to his mouth, only then hesitating. He couldn’t see what it was—how could he know what it was?

But he was so goddamn thirsty.

Finally, he just shrugged and tipped it back and was relieved to find it was just water. Lukewarm and tasting ever so slightly of plastic, but wonderful for all that. He drank it down and swiped his arm across his mouth.

He was still thirsty, but even half a bottle of water was making him feel a bit better. Well, functional anyhow. Okay, alive. Mostly.

But he wouldn’t stay that way for very long, if old El had run off with his guns. As if—what? The man didn’t have enough of his own? Fucker had more guns than sense. But then, that’s why he’d wanted him for the job.

That’s why he’d wanted him…

He put a hand to his mouth as he remembered that brief kiss. The one he’d inflicted on the other man, some part of him already knowing what the response was going to be and saying, hey, just bring it on, I can take it. If I can take this, then I can take anything. Not that it hadn’t been worth it—the pain, the hammer blow to the face that had almost knocked him clear into next week, and had certainly put him out for several hours, if not a whole fucking day. Though it would have been more worth it to have been able to see the shock and anger in El’s eyes. Probably, the man looked even prettier when he was angry.

Not that he wasn’t just as fine when he was being stone cold serious. Oh, yeah. Deadly and dark, a volatile combination that was almost guaranteed to get his engine revving. To put his dick into overdrive. Pity it obviously hadn’t done the same for El. Well, hey, his loss, man. His fucking loss.

He ran his fingers across one cheek then, feeling the exquisite tenderness of a bruise there—some more of mi amigo El’s work, and a fine job it was, too—and then belatedly realized that someone had cleaned the dried blood and gunk off his face. All that had remained of his eyes and now it was gone.

Just as the other man was gone, the kid, everyone. But then he didn’t need anybody. He never had. No matter what they had done to him, what they had taken from him, they couldn’t take that from him. He’d just like to see them try. He’d killed people for a whole lot less. A whole fucking lot less.

He touched the cloth tied over his eyes, then pulled it off and twisted it between his fingers. The edges were smooth and the cloth itself was soft, whispery fine, obviously silk. Expensive then. He wondered what it looked like, if it was plain or patterned. A white scarf for surrender or a black one for death. Or even red, for all the blood he’d spilled out on the thirsty street. But, hell, for all he knew, it might be rainbow colored or some clashing green and purple paisley, suitably garish for the grisly vision beneath.

Balling it up, he pitched it away, then raised his right hand to his face again. Skimming that bruise—no doubt, it would be green and purple as well, soon enough—before touching the torn flesh just above his right cheekbone. The sense of emptiness was almost overwhelming and the pain within suddenly intensified as well, a deep ache that went all the way back into his skull.

The next moment he smelled something burning, tasted salt and metal and his own blood, and his stomach rolled. Roughly, he tried to swallow down the memory and the sour tang that had come with it, only to suddenly feel an even more insane urge rising up inside him. Black, bleak, bitter, sharper even than the pain. The need to claw at his own face. To tear at what wasn’t there anymore. To scream. To cry. To murder. Himself, the whole world, every last fucking good thing that had ever existed. Because it was a lie. They were all lies. Life wasn’t good, never had been. Life was just shit.

Life was just this…

But, oh God—how could this have happened to him?

He bent half over and pressed the heels of his hands into his own cheekbones, pressed hard and hard and harder until white pain etched through his head. Hot, cold, electric. Stealing his breath away. Acid filled his mouth again and he heaved. But nothing but more pain emerged, as he choked on stinking dust. One spasm following another, his whole body shaking. And he couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t stop.

Helpless, he had been so very helpless, more helpless than he had ever been in his whole life, and they had all enjoyed it. Ajedrez, her father, their pet doctor. They had gotten off on his pain, his horror, his blood. But she had gotten off on it most of all. She had laughed. She had touched him. Kissed him. Long and slow and thoroughly. And then left him there in the darkness. Stoned out of his mind on pain and whatever drug they’d shot him up with.

With what was left of his eyes running down his face and his heart trip hammering and the taste of her tongue like sour candy in his mouth.

But it had happened and it was happening and there was nothing he could do about it now, nothing he could do at all. Except die, and he’d already tried that already, thank you very much. It had hurt. A lot. And it hadn’t even gotten the job done.

Not like El would have. Not like El could have. Except that he hadn’t killed him either. Just left him here, alone again, in this ever present darkness. As if he only needed ghosts for company now. As if only they could give him what he desired.

Whatever the fuck that was. Anymore.

Revenge had been easy. It was the rest of it that was hard.

He gave himself over to the luxury of one moment of pure unadulterated panic, and then ruthlessly swallowed it back down. Nope, no use in losing it now. The time to lose it had already been and gone and he’d just fucking missed it. Probably because he’d been way too busy trying to stay alive to notice. Go figure.

He lowered his hands and tilted back his head, holding his breath and listening as hard as he could. But all he could hear was the faint hiss of blood though his own veins, the soft scratching of something inside the walls—mice or some of those monster truck sized cockroaches they grew around here.

Yup, that’s right. He was alone. Abandoned. On his own.

So, first things first. His guns, his shades, more water. A quick little recon. Gotta get things back under control. Find out what’s going on. What isn’t going on. Who he needed to bribe or threaten or shoot or fuck in order to get his ass out of this stinking little town. Before either Barillo’s men or El Presidente’s or even his own fucking people found him and fed him a little more lead.

Washed down with an after chaser of more of that sweet Mexican dust.

He felt along the edge of the bed, then shuffled his legs off the side. The movement made his leg throb harder, but he ignored it. The floor was solid beneath his feet, and he slowly pushed himself up. The wounded leg immediately burned and buckled and he grabbed the table with his right hand. Then simply hung there, part way down, half way up, his other hand curled protectively in towards his chest, his hair spilling across his face, as he just concentrated on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Shuddering a little. Waiting patiently for the pain to surrender.

Finally, he lifted his head again and ever so slowly forced himself to straighten. He forced that leg to take as much of his weight as it could bear, and then some. No slackers allowed around here, no sir.

One step. Two. Three. Almost falling. Reaching out. Grabbing a hold on another table, a long narrow one this time, a moment before his fingers suddenly, blissfully skated across a tangle of cool leather and metal. He pulled one of the guns and briefly held it up to his face, as if just the touch of it could soothe the pain, or at least scare it the fuck away. Propping himself up against the table, he popped the clip and shook his head when he found there were only two bullets left.

The second gun wasn’t much better. Four bullets there. Bringing his count up to a total of six. Better than nothing, but still not good. Half a dozen bullets were no way to win a revolution, let alone up his chances of surviving the fallout of one. Not that he had done too badly, so far, if one overlooked the obvious. After all, he wasn’t dead. Yet.

That had to count for something. That always counted for something.

He wrestled himself into the gear, wincing as he felt something pull and tear some more in his shoulder, and then explored the rest of the table. He found the spent shells of several candles, a baggie with the remains of something pungent and foul smelling in it, another couple of empty plastic bottles, and the cell phone he’d gotten back from Jorge. He held it up to his ear, but the battery must have run down because he couldn’t even get a dial tone. He tucked it away in his pocket anyway and went looking for his shades.

He found them in the bathroom of all places, laying at the back of the sink as if someone had tossed them there in passing. Maybe, someone had. Maybe, El had taken a fancy to them. As if he’d imagined they could hide his own mistakes, his own sins, behind a flat black gaze only to discover that they did just the opposite.

He smirked as he slid them back on, then lifted his head as if he could see his own reflection in the mirror.

“Well, hello there,” he said, conversationally enough. “Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. I do hope you enjoy the view. ‘Cause it don’t get any better than this.”

The man in the mirror didn’t bother answering. But then how was he to know if anyone was even there, let alone if the fuck was listening.

***

The first time he’d killed a man he’d known it. That one real thing.

The one everybody else spent the rest of their lives looking for, whether they called it love or God or forgiveness or truth or bliss. Well, since he didn’t believe in love and God—if He existed—could go fuck Himself, and forgiveness was just bullshit for letting somebody else run your life when you were too chickenshit to do it yourself, and truth was simply a lie, a paper thin mask over the harsh realities of the real world, that one that nobody wanted to see, let alone live in, that left bliss.

Killing the fucker had been his bliss.

Say that again, boys and girls, and, this time, let me hear how much you mean it…

Death was his bliss. Well, no, let’s rephrase that. Death wasn’t his bliss. Killing that particular asshole had been his bliss. Because he’d needed to die. Because it was the right thing to do, and not just because those had been his orders. He’d never done things just because they’d told him to do them. A lot of guys with nicotine stained teeth and three thousand dollar suits had said an attitude like that made him a bad agent, but none of them had been able to argue about the fact that he got the job done. Maybe, not quite like they’d imagined it or preferred it and, sometimes, with a higher body count than they thought was strictly necessary…but results counted for something.

Results kept him on the payroll. Not that that counted for much, either.

Especially once they’d shuffled him down south of the border and left him kicking around on his own for months at a time. Back alleys, dirty bars, dirtier whores, their bronze thighs closing around him and holding him tight and tighter as if he might otherwise change his mind, quit in mid-fuck, yank his dick out and just go home.

But where was his home now? Here or some long lost dream of America. Of blue skies and green grass and the midnight shush of sprinklers. Florid, wet, safe. Familiar. Boring.

Yeah, so he’d hated it here at first, but he’d gotten used to the dust, the smell, the flies, the constant clamor of bells, and the rhythmic click and grind of rosary beads. To the bright colors that failed to hide the hungry realities of the market square, the beggars on the streets, the orphaned kids selling cheap junk on the corners, or sometimes just selling themselves. To the shake and jingle and loud bass thump of the girlie shows, the peep shows, the desperate sadness and too-bright eyes of the painted women as they stalked the darkness, hoping it would hide the lines of use on their face, their bodies, their souls.

He’d gotten used to the shuffle of the old men and older women, their own eyes brown, bloodshot, inscrutable, as they trudged from home to well to market and back again. As they haggled with the tourists for each extra dollar, peso, penny, and knelt to kiss the hands and feet and rings of a thousand unwary saints. As they lit a veritable sea of white and red candles, illuminating the agonized, inhuman face looking down at them from above. As if God could see their pain better that way.

He’d gotten used to the water. The food. The music. The language. To the smell of piss and shit and puke and blood. To peppers and limes and smoke. To cheap beer and even cheaper tequila. To drinking because there was nothing better to do. Drinking just to get drunk. Drinking to get him through the morning after.

As he waited, watched, bided his time, pushing a little here, tugging a little there, doing his bit. Bribing. Threatening. Cajoling. Calling in his reports every few weeks at first and then every few months and then hardly at all anymore. When he’d started to honestly suspect that nobody was really watching or listening, let alone cared. When he realized that they’d probably forgotten about him.

Until they finally wanted his services, that is. Until they suddenly needed him again. Their dirty little secret. Their wayward son.

Giving him the bat signal at last on some breathlessly hot night as he lay on a stained mattress in a stinking dive, a bottle in one hand and his gun in the other. Not thinking of offing himself, no way, no how, never, not his thing at all no matter how dark the world had gotten lately, how abosofuckinglutely meaningless, but just laying there thinking. Smoking a cigarette that burned his lungs. Sucking down some more of that cheap tequila. Just fingering the trigger and wondering if he would ever get that joy, that bliss, that essential purity of mind and self and body back again. Wondering if it would come to him if he found somebody to kill who really needed killing.

Rather than just wasting his time killing the shits who annoyed him.

No matter how personally satisfying that had proved to be.

***

The water from the bathroom faucet was foul, too foul to drink, and he spat it back out again and took a piss instead. After he’d tucked himself away, he went back out into the other room and just stood there. His head raised. His arms loose at his side. Trying not to think. Trying to just be. Blanking out his fears, his thoughts, all the discomforts, one by one. Thirst, pain, exhaustion. Letting it all go as he tried to feel the world around him. To get a sense of it without using any of the senses that remained to him.

He’d done it before. Caught hold of that sweet, almost illicit knowledge. That strange surety. Unheard, unseen, like trying to catch fragrant smoke between impossibly clumsy fingers. It had occasionally gotten him out of bad situations in the past. Whispered to him that the shit was about to hit the fan. Warned him when somebody was lying, was following him, had a gun, was thinking about killing him.

He’d put it on with the guns and the gloves down on the street that day and, more than listening to their laughter, their screams, it was that which had allowed him to shoot those two men at the gate of El Presidente’s little deathtrap of a palace.

It was like being at the center of the whirlpool. The eye of the storm. That split second when the pleasure peaks, but before you actually come. When everything slows and almost stops, leaving you walking in your own little bubble of forever.

If you wanted to be crude, you could call it a gut instinct. Or even some kind of fucking sixth sense. Hell, you could even call it a break from reality and get your ass locked up for it. And, sure, it wasn’t perfectly reliable. But then what the fuck really was? And it had obviously failed him big time when it came to seeing through Ajedrez until it was already way the fuck too late. But then he hadn’t been listening to it then, had he? He’d been listening to his greed and his dick, and his dick had never been all that discriminating.

But he let that go for the moment. He let it all go and took one step, then another, then—still listening inside himself—he stopped. He reached out and immediately touched the edge of that same table. Felt his fingers dip into the ruin of a candle. Perhaps the very one that El had lit that first night. As he’d pleaded with that great uncaring God for something he could never in a million fucking years have.

“Perdoneme,” he said softly. “Yeah, man, as if…”

He dug his fingers in the wax and found himself imagining warm flesh instead. The heat and movement and flash of the man. From what he’d seen and heard, El Mariachi lived, breathed, ate, slept, shit and pissed music. It was in his soul, his blood, his dreams. But he suspected what was in the other man’s heart was something entirely different. Something cold instead of melting hot. Something that did what needed doing and then walked away again afterwards. Leaving pain and death and destruction behind. The jangle of broken strings.

El was quite honestly the stuff of legends. Not that he believed in legends, anymore than he believed in miracles or God or any of that other mystical pap, but it had intrigued him in the beginning and it still intrigued him now. Not that there was much use to that since the man was probably walking to yet another town even as he stood here. Sweat running down his back beneath that worn black jacket, all those fucking bells tinkling their warning, his dark hair falling down in his face as if trying to hide those tragic eyes of his.

The man hadn’t admitted it, but he must have enjoyed killing Marquez. If he enjoyed anything anymore.

“Betcha it gave you a real boner,” he said. “Too bad you didn’t have the balls to use it.”

It was certainly enough to give him one. But then he would have enjoyed being fucked by the man. Being fucked through the sheets, out of his mind, into another realm of existence, blind, stupid, what have you. It would have hurt. It would have been tremendous. It might very well have been the end of him. As he suspected it would have been worth every whimper, every scream, the loss of every last lingering shred of dignity.

He swiftly pulled both guns, aimed them at that looming darkness, and then put them away again. He smoothed his hands down the remains of his shirt and re-adjusted himself in his pants. He took in one deep slow breath and held it, smelling his own sweat, blood, the faint perfume of burnt wax. As he heard the far off barking of that damn dog again, the sound of even more distant church bells. Then turned and walked out the door.

And was only half way down the hall beyond when he heard them coming for him.

End Part I

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