CATEGORY: Drama/General, movie-fic.
THANKS:
As usual, thanks to Mara Trinity Scully, after whom I will be naming all
of my children and future pets. I can’t
believe she
doesn’t charge me for her high-quality editing.
DISCLAIMER:
They ain’t mine. Not the characters, not the dialogue. I’m
just having fun with them for awhile, and I’m not
making money
off of ‘em.
DISTRIBUTION: Just ask, and you can have it.
AUTHOR’S NOTES:
My most wonderful editoress suggested that I open this with a note that
says “TAKE ME
SERIOUSLY!
I AM A SERIOUS FIC!” Basically, the point of this is, if you simply
scan this fic instead of reading it
thoroughly,
you’ll probably miss the point. Not only will you miss the point,
but you’ll flame me horribly for what you think I’ve
done that
I haven’t actually done. Also—it ain’t fluff, people. So don’t
dismiss this just because you don’t like romance.
Footsteps
by
Centaur
One hundred
and fifty-three.
That’s the
number of dents in the square metre of sheet metal that makes up the ceiling
above my head. I know because that’s
probably the
number of times I’ve counted them. There’s not much else to do in
that cold cell, alone, while I’m waiting—
There, I hear
it. What I’m waiting for, I mean.
Footsteps.
Her footsteps,
heading back to her room after her watch.
I’d know them
anywhere, the sound of her footsteps. Quick, even, and determined,
the pace of a person who moves with a
destination.
But at the same time light, a woman’s footsteps. The creaking of
the floor is much quieter than it is when one of the
guys walks
by. When Dozer tramps down he hall—well, let’s just say you can tell
where his name came from.
I listen for
her footsteps every night, just to hear them move past my door and to think
about what it would be like if she
stopped and
came in. I wonder if her body looks anything like her RSI under those
scrubs—if she could pull off black leather
as well in
the real world as she does in the Matrix.
I can’t help
but smile to myself. Damn, that woman is hot.
The footsteps
are louder now, closer. Almost to my door. And then, amazingly—
They stop.
For a moment,
there is silence. I hold my breath, straining to hear something,
anything, but there is only silence.
The latch on
my door turns, opens. I sit up.
She steps in.
Closes the door behind her, turning the latch securely, then rests her
elbows on the wheel and cups her forehead
in her hands.
Her back is to me, I can’t see her face, but her posture reflects confusion,
frustration, and something else…
something
I can’t pinpoint. I stand up and walk over to her.
“What’s wrong,
Trin? Are you okay?”
She exhales
sharply into her hands, then lifts her head and tilts it back, her eyes
focused on some point past the ceiling. She still
isn’t facing
me, which is good because I don’t want her to see me staring at the exposed
column of her neck.
“No,” she says,
finally. Her voice is almost a whisper. “No, I’m not okay.”
“Anything I
can do to help?”
“I can’t—oh
God, I can’t do this anymore…” Her voice trails off, and she turns
to look at me with a gaze I’ve never seen from
her, her blue
eyes glowing red and hot as a neon sign.
“What?”
She grabs my
shoulders and pushes me back to my bed, sitting me down forcefully.
And then, before I can react, she grabs me
by the back
of my neck and brings her mouth down hard on mine, her lips pressing and
moving insistently. I feel her lift her
knees one
at a time to rest on the mattress outside my thighs, so she’s straddling
me, perched over me, tilting my head further
back.
Her tongue presses at my lips and I open them, letting her push into my
mouth as she pushes me back on the bed.
Her hands are
on me, tugging at my clothes, clawing at my chest. So I touch her
too, thrilled to feel her shiver and moan into
my mouth.
Suddenly, somehow,
our clothes are gone, and all I feel is flesh crushed against burning,
scalding hot flesh. I let my touch
wander her
body, truly as perfect here as in the Matrix, skimming her leg, her back,
her breast. I run my hand through her
sweat-slick
hair as I hear her gasp my name:
“Cypher…”
And then, without
warning, she vanishes and I’m enveloped in darkness as I wake up alone,
cold, and stiff in my bed.
Always
alone in my bed.
Sometimes,
I don’t know what I see in her. Hell, she’s made it perfectly clear
that she’d feed her arm to a Sentinel before she
let me touch
her. Well, actually, she’d probably be more likely to feed my
arm to a Sentinel if I ever so much as looked at her
sideways.
And she’s so damn frigid all the time, concealed behind that thick shell
of hers—I wonder what she’s hiding. I’ve
never seen
her with anyone—anyone—even though she’s had plenty of chances.
I mean shit, there was Gamma, who got
killed last
year, and Titon, who got transferred to another ship, and Ares, who got
over her eventually before he got killed, too.
Even Tank
had had a thing for her at one point, but he gave up and moved on.
I hate
giving up.
That’s the
real reason I’m doing it. Turning them in, I mean. Because
they’re making me give up, because I know we can’t win
and I hate
it. At least this way I won’t remember. Yeah, I don’t like
the fact that they’re all going to have to die in the process,
but hell,
two hours after it happens I’ll have forgotten it.
I start counting
ceiling dents to pass the time, waiting for my hard-on to diminish before
I go back to sleep. For a brief instant I
consider slipping
into the bathroom and having an intimate moment with the five Palm sisters
to take care of it, but the thought
depresses
me so I don’t bother. There really are one hundred and fifty-three
dents in that sheet of metal, you know. Strange,
the little
details like that that I remember in my dreams. One hundred and fifty-three
dents.
I hear footsteps.
Her footsteps. Moving through the hall in a slow crescendo
as she comes closer to my room, and I wait,
expecting
to hear the sound peak as she passes my door, and then fade slowly away—
But that doesn’t
happen. She stops before she gets to me. She’s close, I know,
but she hasn’t passed me yet.
She stopped
next door.
Neo’s room.
As silently
as I can, I get up and slip out into the corridor. She’s left the
door open, so I peek in.
What I see
triggers my gag reflex, and I swallow down the desire to retch with anger
and frustration right there in the hallway.
He’s passed
out on the bed with his shoes still on, the moron. He over-exhausted
himself with his training today. I knew it was
too hard for
him. But her—
She has a tray
of food and some water that she’s setting down by his bed. And then,
as she goes to stand up again, she stops
with her face
in front of his. For a second it looks like she might kiss him, but
I know she’s not that forward or that stupid. But
she’s still
there, inhaling his breath.
After a few
seconds she rises and turns back to the door. I lean against the
wall and wait. She doesn’t seem surprised to see
me when she
closes the door, and her maddening way of being able to mask her reactions
just pisses the hell outta me. There
are times
when I really, really want to hit the woman, and this is one of them.
Just once, bam, hard across the face, for
everything
she’s put me through. I would never do it, though, because she has
the power to have me kicked off the ship for
something
like that, plus she could probably hurt me a hell of a lot worse than I
could hurt her. Well, that and the fact that I’d
never forgive
myself afterward.
But damn, sometimes,
it’s tempting.
“I don’t remember
you ever bringing me dinner,” I say quietly. She says nothing and
looks at me impassively, which only adds
to my frustration.
I bite down the edge of sarcasm that threatens to cut its way out.
“There’s something about him, isn’t there?”
She meets my
gaze evenly. “Don’t tell me you’re a believer now.”
“I just keep
thinking if Morpheus is so sure, why hasn’t he taken him to see the Oracle?
She would know.”
Her voice takes
on the don’t-fuck-with-me edge that I love so much. “Morpheus will
take him when he’s ready.”
Without another
word, she turns and walks away.
For a moment
I stand there, stunned. I don’t really know if I’m more pissed off
about the fact that she obviously likes this guy,
or the fact
that she’s all of the sudden decided to start believing in the stupid prophecy,
or the fact that as usual, I’m just getting
shafted.
I think a part of me had hoped, before, that I could arrange to take her
with me when I left. I really didn’t want to see
her dead.
But no, she wouldn’t come, and the machines wouldn’t want her to come.
She’s meant to be on this side of the lie,
the “real”
side that’s no more real than the Matrix. Nothing’s true, anymore.
All that matters is who’s at the right place at the
right time.
I already know
the place.
Smith will
come if I call him.
It’s time to
go arrange the time.
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