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The rhythm in the desert is different - no steady clap, clap of his boot heels, like the building climax of a mariachi whose audience is smoke-heavy, heady with tequila lust... just the unpredictable, uneasy shift and grind of the sand beneath his feet, and the water-sweet jingle of the chains hanging from his hip, over his thigh.
there is music though, in the steady ripple of the sand-waves building to duned crescendo but he finds that he can't look after a while, can't face out when there's no end to it in sight, no end ever...
the sash crossing his chest is smooth, slick (like skin, wet skin, warm with blood, wet and sun-dark) in comparison to the harsh sand whipping up into his face, his clothes. the rough skin of his hand catches on it nonetheless, calloused, skin dry and tight but for where it sweats beneath the soft leather almost-glove.
the sluggish shifting of heat on the horizon of the black ribbon of ashphalt is a relief in its softness, familiarity, the rough black surface underfoot like a harsher replication of the black leather of his guitar case, pressing through his clothes onto his back, where the hot skin prickles at the looming mass of silent desert behind him.
it takes him a while to drift upwards out of the beat of his steady gait, the reguar creak of leather and shifting of chains; a while to realise that the gradual rushing getting louder isn't the sound of the sun setting, fat and saturated above the horizon. he turns out of reflex more than any conscious notion, and the car - black, glistening red in the light - crunches into the gravel ahead of him.
the inside of the car is dark and hot, hazy like the edge of the desert. there's a boy with his hair half-plastered down with sweat, half-sticking at all angles, stiff with the wind and the open window, arms hanging loosely off the black vinyl steering wheel. "hey," he says when el angles his head down towards him "got a light?" his accent is american, but a semi-hoarse drawl where sands was concise and cynical.
the kid's brows fold down towards his mouth as he breathes in through the cigarette, the zippo making a sharp ching as it flicks closed again in el's fist. the boy blows smoke out for a long time. "where you headed?" he asks eventually, and el shrugs. the boy taps ash out the window. "us too." el's eyes flicker, he sees that there's another boy sprawled on the bench back seat, face flushed red (sunburn, probably) where it isn't plastered to the vinyl.
the driver's grinning wryly when el looks back at him.
the engine has a beat of its own, road-sound close beneath el's feet, and the broken white line flashes steadily in the yellow headlights as the air from the desert cools, the light leaving the world and hiding the sand, hiding everything. the car is filled with the slow, steady rhythm of breathing from the depths of the back seat, as if those watching the road more closely have ceased to do the same. silent.