Vis-à-vis
Alhazred - [email protected]

The Matrix and all related materials are copyright Warner Brothers, etc. No profit is generated by this work.

This 'fic contains pretty obvious slash and, to quote the ratings information on the Reloaded DVD box, some sexuality; hence the 'R' rating. The content is around the level of the scene in question from Reloaded; if you can handle that, you can handle this. If it still isn't your thing or you don't even know what 'slash' means, please press the back button on your browser.

I

Most of Zion was thrilled to be here, to have one last moment of bliss before the battle to end all battles came. But Sparks was idly weaving through the rabid dancers, unable to decide if he was trying to get out or find someone he knew. The problem with these things, Sparks decided, was Locke.

Well, not really Locke, just what Locke was to Captain Niobe. Consequently, Niobe was always behind the scenes at these things, so while Ghost remained one of the two or three people who stayed home to either meditate or do who-knew-what, Sparks was left in a massive hallway with a quarter-of-a-million people he didn't know. On more than one occasion over the past three years had sighed, looked up and thought, why couldn't I have a sane ship, like every other Operator?

Hell, the Nebuchadnezzer might have been infamous for Morpheus' constant...well, for Morpheus. But the Logos was a damn...what were those things that people watched in the Matrix? It was a damn soap opera.

This brought Sparks back to the current problem with his existence; he was lonely as hell. Ghost and Niobe were the closest thing he had to a family, but since they had lives, he often found himself wishing leave would end more quickly whenever the Logos was in dock. Pretty much all of his (very few) friends and acquaintances had families of their own to spend time with. While Sparks had once found the seedier underground-type crowds in Zion enough to satisfy his needs for company and other things, the novelty of rope and whips had worn off to emptiness after a short time.

It was about five minutes after the party officially started when Kid realized Neo had probably left already. Probably with Trinity, the idea of which conjured up a few mental images he could half-live without. Not that he had anything against Trinity, because she was a kind person.

No, he simply envied her, for every waking moment she had was spent with the One himself.

Parties made Kid uncomfortable, a throwback to his days in the Matrix, he figured. The constant doubting of reality, while proving to ultimately be the key to freedom, took priority over making friends. Anti-social behavior led to being anti-social, and being anti-social led to being too much of an outcast for social gatherings. He was, however, partly thankful for this, because he had had no good friends to leave behind, leaving only his mother to worry about, and she would be free soon enough if Neo had anything to say about it.

Still, he had to admit it was one hell of a party, even from his vantage point from the side of one of the temple's stalagmites.

Maybe it wouldn't be all that harmful to get out on the floor a little, at least a few feet away from a higher altitude. From higher up, Kid could see another field-born like himself every now and then, their plugs a distinctive giveaway in the minimal-dress-required setting of a rave. If they could do it, why couldn't he? After all, they were just taken from the Matrix by others, not freed by the One.

Sparks didn't know how Ghost kept that celibacy crap up. Not getting any simply because he didn't know anyone who fit his admittedly low but existent morals to get any from was bad enough, but Ghost didn't even try. "Celibacy is a hands-on job," he would say; Sparks was sometimes the only one in the room who understood the sheer innuendo in that statement and it didn't tone down the complete weirdness of hearing it from a guy who usually just quoted really deep philosophical lines.

Still, it was a true statement. Sparks figured he'd have nothing better to do tonight than prove it. Alone on possibly one of the last nights of his life, Sparks was resigned to spending it in the company of his hand as soon as he left the temple.

And then someone bumped into him. This was nothing new, considering he was walking across the floor of the temple and through the middle if a huge party, except his daydreaming had made him unprepared for this impact.

The severity of said impact was likely the result of the person bumping him being bumped and loosing their footing themselves, a domino effect that could go across the entire room if it hit the right people.

Sparks was the end of this one. He fell flat on his back in an oddly empty space on the floor, the guilty bumper, who most certainly had indeed been bumped himself, half falling on top of him and half hitting the dirt. "Well, that was odd," Sparks started to say.

And then he realized why no one was standing and dancing in this spot.

Everyone in this little area was gathering around to get drenched when someone dumped more water on the crowd. Plenty of it splashed away from the little gathering as well, and Sparks was soon quite wet with freezing cold water, his clothes instantly soggy and stray hair matted to his forehead and over his eyes, the ground beneath him turned to mud.

While Sparks just blinked and pushed the hair out of his face, the one who had been bumped into bumping him was much faster to react, scrambling off of his feet, franticly apologizing but not really loud enough to be heard over the part. He looked familiar.

"I'll live," Sparks yelled up at him, straining to be heard over the thrumming music. "Actually, this is the most excitement I've had all day."

Sparks continued to sit on the floor for longer than most sane people would, but it really was the most exciting thing that had happened to him here. On top of that, he was in far too much of an overly neurotic 'blah' mood to immediately expend the effort into getting up.

When he was offered a shaky hand up, he decided it was probably time to cease being lazy and courteously accepted it, though being helped up by a kid smaller and at least ten years younger was certainly odd.

Sparks tried to dust himself off, but this proved hopeless, for while his back had kept the dirt underneath it dry and the water had only reached to about his waist, his hands had hit mud and the mud rubbed off from his hands more than onto them. "Well, Sparky, you've just made an idiot of yourself," he mumbled.

The kid was still looking at him apologetically, less dirty but even more wet to the point of shivering. Cold water was a great feature at temple parties for three very simple reasons. Its supply was unlimited and subject only to the recycling machines pumping out enough for the city to live, keeping it cold expended no heat energy that could be used elsewhere, and the cold was not a major issue when many people were dancing and sweating their asses off.

Sparks, and for that matter, his newfound friend, were not dancing, and both were smart enough to realize the other had no intention of joining the party anytime soon.

Sparks lived on a lower level, most likely closer to the temple. Feeling bored and compassionate, not to mention ecstatic at the idea of having another equally lonely human being to talk to, he pointed his thumb behind his head. "My place, dry off?"

Sparks didn't seem like he'd take 'no' for an answer, so Kid followed the exceedingly un-energetic man straight out of the temple, pausing only to get his sandals on the way to the elevator.

"Oh, christ, where the hell did I leave my boots," Sparks scratched his head and shivered as he looked across the temple's entrance, built so expansively for the sole purpose of allowing a quarter of a million people to take their various footwear off before entering their makeshift holy ground.

The eccentric search that ensued was surprisingly short, though Kid was quite surprised to see his impromptu 'victim' eventually slip on a pair of Navy standard-issue boots. The kind ship crews wore, and the markings required on military gear owned by civilians through trade and whatnot were nowhere to be seen. Military personnel of any kind were required to stand out whenever possible so some kind of authority figure might be found more quickly during an emergency.

Neither of them had made any effort beyond shaking to warm up and it was defiantly cooler outside the temple, but Kid was suddenly quite interested in getting on this man's good side. The war stories he could probably tell aside, it would be nice to know the nuances and unforeseen difficulties ahead of time, from someone with experience, before actually attempting to enlist and get on the Nebuchadnezzer.

He tried not to think about the fact that in the next few days, he might be torn apart by a Sentinel poking around the ruins of Zion.

Perhaps ironically, the only thing on Sparks' mind was the simple thought that he needed new boots. They weren't quite worn through yet, but he wasn't eager to let them get that far and they were so close he didn't even bother lacing them. He figured he could always swipe Ghost's if it became necessary.

During the short elevator ride up, Sparks sneezed. He convinced himself that it was psychological, wrought on by absolutely hating wet clothes. He motion of leaning on the back wall to recuperate when Kid looked at the door lights to see the level number jogged Sparks' memory.

Or rather, the port in the back of Kid's head jogged it. Of course, everyone knew of the incredible freed mind that escaped the Matrix by dying and believing so much that the world really was out of whack. He had grown almost as famous, if staying more of a sleeper celebrity, than Neo.

Sparks almost wanted to shove him through a training program and see if he could survive an Agent in the Matrix the same way he survived his own death. It would certainly save Ghost and Niobe a lot of headache. And keep them out of danger, more often than not.

Rubbing his eyes, Sparks gave himself a mental kick in the face for the incredible amount of insensitivity in that thought. Self-substantiation was one thing, having a high enough threshold of pain to maintain the belief that you are not really being shot seven times and having your bones broken by fists that can punch through a concrete wall, well...Sparks doubted even Ghost could meditate enough to have that mindset.

After the elevator but before reaching their destination, Kid forced himself to speak. "So...hey, you work on a ship, right?"

"Woohoo," Sparks waved a finger next to his head, testing the lock on his door. He had, as he suspected, forgotten to lock it. "Y'got that right, Kid. Name's Sparks, Operator on the Logos. Don't remind me."

Not entirely comfortable, Kid did not hear the sarcasm in this statement and gave up for hunching slightly and looking at the floor. Sparks picked up on this and decided to fix it, but the first thing he did was shut the door behind them and turn on the heat, all before kicking his sickly boots off.

He loved machines, as long as they weren't trying to kill him. Non-homicidal machines gave poor drenched inhabitants of Zion free, unlimited heat from the Earth itself. "So we find out the Osiris left an info drop in the Matrix, right? And what does the entire crew do? Against my better judgment? They go in a post office with a private army for security to pick it up. And of course, within five minutes, they were running like pansies away from a few dozen automatic weapons," Sparks accentuated this point by pretending to run like an epileptic fool as a method of getting to his closet. "Does anyone ever listen to me? Noooo. Pfft."

He was somewhat aware that he was behaving a bit more buzzed than neurotic, but was there really that much of a difference? Besides, Kid found this fairly amusing and chuckled, which, in turn, caused Sparks to feel better about his distinct lack of manners. Sparks tossed a random towel across the room, landing it perfectly on Kid's head, and both of them found this equally amusing.

Toweling his hair dry, Kid watched Sparks shuck off his wet shirt, looking for a clean one in the closet and coming up empty. Sparks made an offhand comment about being very bad at remembering to fill out his laundry ticket when he needed a few things washed.

Quite suddenly, Kid grew uncomfortable again, though not directly because of Sparks. He had thought of what this might be like with Neo sometimes, in his quarters, clothes coming off, Trinity nowhere in sight...

But he couldn't have Neo. He didn't know why that bothered him and, as a consequence, Kid obsessed over the fact as much as he obsessed over Neo. It wasn't like he was, well, that kind of guy. True to the Matrix, women outnumbered men in Zion and plenty of them most certainly had the appeal young men such as himself were drawn too.

Hell, Kid thought, Trinity herself definitely had, even if she was a bit too old, the kind of looks and personality he saw in any of the women he'd ever been interested in. Very distantly interested in; outcasts rarely had girlfriends.

Instead, he always looked at Neo, believed in Neo. Worshipped the ground he walked on because he was the One. More importantly, as far as he was concerned, despite what the very object of Kid's (admittedly bizarre) affection would often say, Neo had freed him, mind and body. Maybe owing your life and your freedom to someone went deeper than simple gratitude.

Sparks didn't know any of this was going through his guest's head when he turned around and looked to see that Kid was no longer trying to dry off, only pretending to still try, now half-turned around and staring at a spot on the wall.

It hit him there, and he really couldn't blame the next-to-nil booze he had consumed.

He just didn't want to be alone tonight.

Kid wasn't paying enough attention to really register Sparks walking up behind him until he felt warm hands rest on his shoulders, warm even through his wet shirt.

"Here, let me help." Sparks silently cringed as soon as he heard his own mouth talk. That had to be lamest line ever, and he sat in front of a Matrix feed staring at the code as a job for three years, so he knew it was lamer than most badly acted 20th century erotic movies.

Taking the towel in one hand, Sparks tried to peel Kid's shirt up as much as he could with the other. To his slight surprise, Kid added his own effort and his shirt soon joined Sparks' on the floor.

Wrapping his arms around him, Sparks kept his pretense and rubbed his towel across Kid's chest, taking care to massage around the plugs. He was still cold having only now just been rid of the worst, wet article of clothing he had been wearing, and Sparks felt the coolness against the warmth the heat had given him, from the cold plugs in their methodical pattern and the dampness itself.

Sparks had stood right in front of the heater for just long enough to notice, or, Kid thought, enough to notice from his position. Sparks' embrace was oddly comforting. He did his best not to squirm when Sparks grew braver and trailed a hand down farther.

And then he stopped. Kid wondered why, if it was something he did, but in truth, Sparks was about five seconds away from an instant panic attack. Just add hot water, he had told Niobe when she once asked him what an 'instant' panic attack was.

Sparks didn't remember many, if any of the reasons for his behavior on rare occasions when freaking out was likely to happen. But he had a feeling he might remember this one.

Frozen in place, his arms around the much younger man (the term 'man' used loosely since 'boy' would have been accurate, he randomly thought,) Sparks realized none of his few partners in the past were machine-born, from the Matrix.

Sparks knew things about the past that only two kinds of people knew; those born in the fields and plugged into the Matrix, and the Operators who stared at the Matrix day in and day out. So he also knew, and should have remembered, that a machine-born teenager had an entirely different set of taboos than a Zion-born man ten years his elder. Not even touching the funny 'gay' thing, there was also the whole shebang about children under eighteen being off-limits to adults over 18.

In Zion, children grew up much faster. The minimum enlistment age had nothing to due with mental readiness for combat, more for keeping the future generations of the human race from getting killed and endangering the species. But a kid so fresh from the Matrix that his hair had barely grown probably wasn't in that groove yet. Hell, some freed minds never accepted certain aspects of human life in the real world.

Deciding that the awkward moment was possibly worse than anything else that would happen, Sparks moved his hand past his waist and down just a little further.

Quite quickly, Kid sucked in a breath and clenched his hands into fists. He started to tense from the sensations, not just the hand rubbing in but Sparks' breath against his neck. Sparks eased off, slowly bringing his hands up and rubbing Kid's shoulders for a minute. Finally letting go of the embrace he had held Kid in, Sparks eased him to the bed and sat down, guiding Kid to come down on top of him and have all the control he wanted.

Their eyes meeting, Kid straddled Sparks across his lap and rested his hands on Sparks' shoulders, leaning him against the wall, grinding into his crotch.

A little surprised by this amount of initiative, Sparks let his head tilt back as he groaned, his hands reaching under Kid's legs to shove his pants down. He was quite content with the result even if he couldn't get skin against skin, and he didn't think Kid was quite prepared for the real fun this position could be anyway.

This didn't stop him from shoving his thumbs under the waitband of Kid's pants and tugging them down as well. With a squeak, Kid closed his eyes and rode Sparks even harder, prompting Sparks to pump his hand faster and occasionally buck his hips up. Thus, the vicious cycle was balanced, Kid leaning forward to use Sparks as leverage with a death grip on his shoulders, Sparks randomly changing his rhythm every so often.

It ended when Kid leaned back and came with a small cry, a lot of heavy breathing and shaking, his eyes clenched shut. Sparks, however, didn't look away from his face or even blink despite the distinct feeling of something wet on his skin coming back. For a moment, it amused him to think he was smart to have not bothered properly drying off earlier.

Rational thinking went away quickly when Kid, still not quite down from his high, moved off of Sparks' lap and let his hand do the rest of the work. He obviously had never done it to someone else before but his enthusiasm more than made up for it. Surprised, Sparks yelped and added to the mess in short order.

Content in the afterglow and glad with the relatively harmless way things had gone, Sparks let out a breath he'd been holding, laid back on the bed, and closed his eyes for a second. He felt Kid moving around and looked to see him with the now-damp towel he had dried off with, wiping off his hand before he folded it over. Sparks lied still as, ironically enough, Kid silently and gently wiped off the mess on his face before trailing down his neck and chest until the towel was no longer dry enough to really be of any help.

Sparks was still rather messy, but it was good enough. Kid lay down facing away from Sparks and Sparks held him once more, not absurdly close because there was plenty of heat in the room, but close enough for comfort.

~~~

Hours passed, and Sparks was at the point of not wanting sleep despite having never gotten up from his own bed. One of his arms kept falling asleep underneath Kid, though. He never moved when Sparks thought he would, in fact, he hadn't really moved at all and Sparks was beginning to memorize the pattern of the data port drilled into the back of his head. But he didn't mind. They could hear the party still going strong even now, and the Logos was going out fairly early today. It was going to be easier to deal without sleep all day than to get an inadequate amount and have to get up.

He learned, instead, that Kid was fun to talk to, in part because they probably had the same neurotic disorders. Kid would talk about odd things he'd gone through in the Matrix, culminating in his eventual, history-making bid for freedom, the story of which convinced Sparks even more so that anyone who set foot in the Matrix was a complete loony with a death wish. Sparks would tell him horror stories about the Logos, though it only made him more eager to be old enough to join a crew.

When there were no more stories to tell, Kid wanted to say something serious. Concordantly, he asked the question most pertinent to his situation, but perhaps it was also the most irrelevant. "Hey Sparks?"

"Yeah?"

"Why?"

"Why you or why this much?" Sparks said, his thumb idly playing over the outline of the port at the back of Kid's head.

Kid asked, "Why me?"

The answer was not 'because you were there,' but Sparks couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't imply it. "I dunno."

Rolling over and looking at Sparks face-to-face, Kid couldn't help but think of how he ended up here, not just in Sparks' bed, but all of it. "Why this much?"

For once, Sparks felt he had been asked a simple question. "'Cause I don't like being lonely."

Less than a year ago, it was common for Kid to be sitting in front of his computer screen, so terrified of false reality, of dreams that told the truth more than waking moments did, being the outcast with delusions and no direction because the world just didn't add up. Comparing it all to being free and with someone, even a man in his mid twenties, Kid said, "Yeah...neither do I."

~~~

-For anyone in doubt; yes, the Architect-speak is intentional. 'Vis-à-vis' means 'face-to-face.'