mojavedragonfly (mojavedragonfly) wrote in hidden_treasure, @ 2008-03-22 15:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | ouatim |
After The Dust Has Cleared by Miss Becky
Fandom:Once Upon A Time in Mexico
Type:Fiction
Title:After the Dust Has Cleared
Author:Miss Becky
Pairing:none
Warnings/Rating:PG-13
Where to find more by this author:Miss Becky's fanfiction.net profile
Link: After the Dust Has Cleared
Why should people click?
Once Upon A Time in Mexico (OUaTiM) is a small fandom of the movie sequel to "Desperado." The movie stars Johnny Depp as a corrupt CIA agent (Agent Sands), and Antonio Banderas as the guitar-playing gunfighter Sands tries to manipulate (known as "El").
Miss Becky's first OUaTiM trilogy, called "Still Standing" is an absolute classic in the fandom, and I can think of nothing better to rec first in order to introduce people to OUaTiM. After the Dust Has Cleared is followed by When All is Said and Done and finally, by Que Queires en La Vida. The first two stories are action-adventure, but not slash, though the relationship between El Mariachi and Sands is angsty and intense. In the third story (which is in English, despite the Spanish title) Miss Becky satisfyingly gives us a slash relationship. I guess you could refer to the first two as pre-slash. I have a friend who has trouble believing in many slash relationships, but she totally accepted this one because of the intense build-up to it in the first two stories.
In After the Dust has Cleared, which, like many OUaTiM stories, begins right at the end of the movie, El Mariachi, a man who often operates more on instinct than on reason, kidnaps the injured Agent Sands from the home of Jorge Ramirez, for reasons even he isn't entirely clear about. Sands slowly heals while El drives them aimlessly from town to town, telling the blind Sands nothing about where they are going or why. For some reason, one of my favorite moments in all of Miss Becky's stories is the scene where they eventually try to kill each other, and reach some kind of understanding.
He should have done it right away, he saw that now. The day after the botched coup, the day after everything had fallen apart. He should have taken Lorenzo and Fideo and gone after the remains of the cartel with everything he had. Smashed them before they could reform.
Instead he had let his own basically romantic nature intervene, and so now here he was, hundreds of miles from anyplace familiar, and his only companion was a blind CIA agent who hated him only slightly less than he hated himself.
(snipped here for brevity of this post)
Two weeks on the road had restored Sands’ wiry strength, his wry humor. He still walked with a limp, but even that was fading. The pain from his missing eyes was receding too; he could turn his head to catch a sound and not wince anymore. Dressed in black, instead of a stupid T-shirt and a big hat, he looked exactly as dangerous as he was.
"Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to unlock the door?"
El shook his head. The jingling accessories on his outfit notwithstanding, he had no doubt that Sands had always known where he was, from the moment he had stepped out of the motel lobby. The man’s hearing was that good.
(snipped again)
The instant he set foot inside the motel room he knew something was wrong. He dropped the guitar case and started to turn, but Sands was on him before he could even begin to bring his free arm up in self-defense. A sharp blow on his jaw sent him reeling, and a fist clubbed him on the back of the neck, sending him to his knees.
Then the assault stopped, as quickly as it had begun. Sands backed away, until he stood with the back of one knee touching the sagging bed in the middle of the room. In his right hand he held El’s pistol, the one El had been carrying at his hip ever since leaving Ramirez’s.
"Fuck," El swore.
(snipping much fighting)
He turned around. The CIA agent was crawling on his hands and knees, ignoring his broken fingers. He had his shoulder against the wall, using it to guide him forward. Except Sands had gotten turned around in the melee, and instead of heading for the door, he was only going further into the room. And in another step, he was going to realize it himself.
The thud as Sands’ head struck the wall made El wince. Sands stopped and raised his hand and immediately found the corner he had crawled into. He splayed his fingers on the wall. For a moment he just knelt there. Then he lowered his forehead to the carpet in defeat, his hand still touching the wall. A soft sound escaped him.
El felt a strange tug in his chest, and knew it to be pity. I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but that was ridiculous, because it was Sands who had created this mess, and it was Sands’ own fault that he was moaning on the floor in the corner of a strange motel room.
But El still felt sorry for him. And he remembered that he had thought he was meant to be Sands’ second chance, and suddenly all the lies of the past two weeks seemed petty and mean.
He started forward, and Sands froze. In a flash the CIA agent turned so his back was pressed into the corner. His injured hand was close to his chest, the other held out in a gesture of forbidding. He looked ready to spring at a moment’s notice, ready to fight to the death.
El was not interested in fighting. He sat on the bed and clasped his hands in his lap. His right eye was slowly swelling shut, and he could feel a lump forming on his jaw. "Mexico City," he said. "I have contacts there. We need information if we are to take on the cartel."
Sands let his head fall back against the wall. "Why?" he asked. The bored nonchalance was gone; he sounded genuinely confused. "Why do you want me with you? Is this your idea of revenge? Or is it a twisted joke, sending the blind man to face the evil drug cartel?"
"No," El said. He shook his head. "I want you with me because you are a gunfighter." He stood up and got no pleasure from seeing Sands flinch. He was through fighting. He was tired of having to be on his guard all the time around this man. If they were going to defeat the cartel, they were going to have to work together. Starting now.
He crossed the room and retrieved the gun from the floor. He shut the door and drew the security chain. He drew the curtains and moved his guitar case atop the plastic table beside the tiny TV. The housekeeping done, he went back to the bed and sat down again.
Sands had regained his composure. Although he still sat in the corner, it was obvious that he was there by his choice now. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.
"Why don’t you want to?" El asked back. "The cartels are full of dangerous men. They corrupt the youth of this country. They took your eyes. Can you really tell me you don’t want to get back at them? Vengeance is not always a bad thing, Agent Sands."
"Bullshit," Sands said.
El felt like he had been slapped. "What?"
"This isn’t vengeance. You only think it is. Destroying the cartels won’t give me my sight back. It won’t bring your Carolina back, or your daughter."
El dropped his head. Everything was black for Sands now, but he had seen right through El, effortlessly. And despite himself, El had to admit that Sands was brilliant at what he did. No wonder he had virtually run all of Mexico from his cell phone.
Sands looked right at El, the dark sunglasses giving him an unnerving, penetrating stare. "So now tell me the truth. Why are you doing this?"