THE AMAZING INVISIBLE MAN

"Once upon a time, I had fingers that could work." Sands' voice is dry, fitting for Mexico and its longest mile and its sun-cracked wood and clay bones.

El's busy ignoring him and doing mariachi-type things. The slide of a rag or a shirt sleeve against solid mass, clicking, thudding, hollow. He's been at it for fifteen minutes. Sands, ticking the seconds away with the fingers he can't feel.

Probably polishing guns, or knifes, or anything just as easily snapped to his forehead and discharged. Short-lived itches of unease curdle into instant loathing.

As much he can tell, the room is small, tiny even. El doesn't feel any further away than a couple feet. The air is close, stuffy. Sick with generic cleaner the maids use to cover what goes down in these places.

"Once upon a time, I had you twisting around one."

El's racket doesn't break for his voice, "No. Not truly."

"I had you by the balls," Sands says. "You. Already dead, high on that hero vengeance, on a leash."

"Once upon a time, you were honourable?"

That sorta gets Sands. His eyebrows almost go up before he realizes that's a bad idea (eye sockets sore as all fuck, nerve-edged, concentrated burn). He tries to fist his fingers, impulsive, fails, and falls on licking his lips in the end.

"Flashback: I'm the depraved bad guy."

Sudden changes to guitar strings twanging. Sands turns. He's getting noise same as ever: signal a voice, a foot fall, a click - look to see who or what it is. Another impulse. Eventuality is him getting used to the blackness not lifting (like always sleeping never waking).

"So my hand's fucked sideways. I can't load a gun."

The distinct music of a gun being snapped and checked.

"You can't see anyway."

Sands tries to laugh. He gurgles around the saliva and leftover blood in his throat instead. Oh, the grace of it all.

"I seem to have this strange memory of a certain dick mariachi shrieking like an infant when he saw my," he knows El picks out the splinter-inch falter, "situation."

Step back to the car. To being on the road, and the light just failing, and Jorge just seeing the someone on the road. Then jump to Jorge pulling over. El heard Sands before he saw him, and when he saw him, he bit his tongue so hard he's still tasting hot metal.

"The doctor said nothing of your hand?"

"Oh, yes. And I'm just pulling your chain, ass-fuck. I've been able to wiggle my little finger this entire time. See?"

Sands lifts his left arm. The fingers don't budge, or twitch, they stay curled in at the palm. It sways. When he's put it back down, El closes the lid to his guitar case, takes a stride, snatches Sands' wrist, and hikes it into the air. He's twisting it sharp enough to justify the first ow.

"You feel that."

"Fucker! Christ, ow, OW!"

"You must not be trying hard enough." He doesn't just drop it, he flings it at Sands and goes back to his corner and his guns and his Mexico.

You don't break bread with a guy you previously tried to play. Especially, and this has to be somewhere high on the list, if you're blinded, gutted, and left belly down in Mexico's graveyard beforehand. There's Devious Weasel etiquette there. Like you're not expecting that soup to have a strange tang, or it to leave a sick twist in your throat, your skin, your stomach. Like it won't turn your insides out.

You're not so crazy you won't suspect poison.

"What is this?"

"Chicken noodle."

"What, from a can?"

Sands stirs the liquid in the bowl, the spoon scraping the bottom on every rotation. Clank. Clank.

He has enough curiosity to bring the spoon, noodles and all, to his face. Smells like soup, probably looks likes soup, but does it, the question of questions, taste like soup?

"Buy yourself a new pair of pants, asswit. I'm not eating this."

Sands is a smooth-talker, a fast-thinker. He doesn't usually back into a situation he can't cheat, or purr, or persuade, or claw his way out of. Everyone's blind-sided, they'll tell you. It happens. But they always, always ever forgot to tell Sands that it'd be literal.

"You're out-numbered..." Same cheap, one room motel; different room. "Out-numbered... Out-numbered... What do you do?"

Different room, different keys. Different bed. Let them play with Jorge's head and pin it on getting a jump on anyone sniffing around too close. Your cat and mouse, musical chairs.

"Fight."

Sands sighs. "Alright..."

"You're out of ammo, what do you do?"

"Fight."

Sands sucks his teeth. "Oh, good answer. But how about this one?" He doesn't just grin he radiates, "You're blind," and feels the edges of a headache coming on. "What do you do?

There isn't just silence anymore. It's utter silence. It's so complete it crosses itself twice and comes back to slap you in the face.

"Fight." If Sands hadn't somehow expected how close the answer would come to his ear, it might have been a freak out.

"How are your fingers?" El says, like fucking ash. Sands wants to bite but doesn't.

"You haven't been sucking down the cigarillos again, have you?" He pries.

Skip corners, question to a question, change of subject, stay in control. It's a trick he used on his mother one too many times, you'd think she'd have seen through it in the end. The end was what police called suicide.

"So?"

"They're just dandy, Mister El. Fuck off."

The one thing you usually know not to do with a blind, crazed, beaten-down, snake-in-the-grass gringo, is touch him. More than once. More than once in a week. In a month. Three months.

But here's El. And here's El touching. Him. The Amazing Invisible Man. Twice in a day. If you didn't expect the barrel to the forehead, the bullet, the snarl - you obviously had it coming. That's how it works.