Jaysus, the list of details gets longer every time I do this. A case of TM;DR?
Title: Someone Else's Heat
Fandom: The Matrix
Character: Mouse/Zephyr (OC)
Word Count: 987
Prompt: From
fanfic25, 5/5: 'Fire'.
Notes: Contains non-explicit dudes who like dudes.
Summary: Everyone here is unique in some deeply meaningful way. Mouse is just cold.
Heat is too precious a commodity to be wasted, Mouse repeats to himself as he closes the boiler room door behind him. Too precious. It's not too bad when they're navigating the deeper tracts of human industrialisation; those deep tunnels that lead to Zion, excavated during the last breath of civilisation, or the mines that thrived when there was some kind of worth in gold or diamonds. When they're out near the surface, though, it's very cold. Cold enough that the Sentinels give off heat signatures, cold enough to be a little less careful with the hot water, cold enough to send Mouse dashing for his cabin to grab a third blanket.
Mouse is always cold. It's something remarkable about him, especially in a world where being an elite computer genius is a prerequisite. Tank can read people like picture books, Cypher can describe the taste of tortellini or Baked Alaska like it's on your tongue as the words leave his lips. Mouse is just cold, a kind of cold that has Switch eternally worried about him and made Apoc jump the first time they shook hands. It's not a short-term thing either, Mouse knows. Of everybody on the ship, he was the closest to not making it out of the 'fields' alive. The infirmary was home to every one of the crew for a week at most. Mouse spent three there, mostly sleeping, occasionally drifting towards the shores of consciousness and finding Morpheus glancing worriedly at him. After a few sleepless nights, Morpheus had decided that was just the way Mouse was; that no amount of muscle rebuilding or circulation work would stop Mouse being cold.
The boiler room is comforting to Mouse. It reminds him of something primal, like a heartbeat or a mother's arms. When the nerves get too much, he retreats to the warmest part of the ship, and gets rocked to sleep by the sounds of steam and fire. When something goes wrong - when the boilers won't start or work too well and Dozer starts looking frazzled - they send Mouse down to have a look. He's spent enough time down there to either know how it works or to be the cause of the problem. He doesn't mind: it gets him closer to the fire that he craves. And when Tank mentions Zion, and how it's built in the one place where heat hasn't yet released its grip, Mouse gets understandably excited.
Tank is right: near the Earth's core, it's still warm. It's not tropical, which Mouse almost let himself believe, but it's like spring in New York, and for once he's able to walk around with his shirt sleeves rolled up as though he has something important to do. If anybody asked, he'd tell them that all he really has to do is find a replacement valve for one of the water pipes; something they haven't been able to scrounge from ruins or through ship-to-ship communications. Either way, it doesn't matter: the busted pipe is a blessing. If not for irritating breakdowns, Mouse wouldn't be talking to Zephyr right now.
He calls himself Zephyr, at least, and Mouse isn't one for asking about what the guy was doing before he was freed; he's more concerned with the way his heart keeps shuddering in his chest, and how every time he thinks of something clever to say, the words change in his mouth and sound far less rational than he'd intended. Zephyr doesn't seem to care, and Mouse secretly suspects that he's going through some similar ailment. He can tell because of the way Zephyr says he knows exactly where to find the valve Mouse wants, but it's not there, or there, or any of the places he checks, and no, don't go away, it'll turn up. When he finally finds it, half an hour has passed and been filled with chatter that seems idle on the surface, but now Mouse knows how old Zephyr is, where he lived in the Matrix, and why he's on leave from his old ship, the Philemon. It's at that point that Mouse realises he has nowhere to stay except on the ship, and mumbles a few words about having to go, and even manages to trip over those words. Zephyr holds him by the wrist, and puts the valve into his hand before he forgets it, and quietly stutters a number that Mouse won't make sense of until his brain stops ringing with nervousness.
Three hours later, Zephyr opens the door of Unit 199 and finds Mouse standing there, wringing his hat between his hands as though part of him wishes he could evaporate. They stand in awkward silence for a moment, smiling bashfully at one another, but when Zephyr moves closer and Mouse grins, all bets are off. Mouse finds himself staring with a mixture of awe and concern at the scars on Zephyr's chest, and between kisses he hears the story of how the Philemon's boiler blew up, and took some of Zephyr's skin with it. After a while the story is less interesting than the kisses, and Mouse shivers with anticipation as Zephyr kisses down his neck, hands running through his hair and dancing expertly around the socket on the back of his skull and then Mouse has his mouth on Zephyr's again, trying to swallow the fire that hurt Zephyr, to take it and make it his own, aching with more I want than he's ever had in his life.
In a way, he succeeds: when Zephyr is curled against him, and they're both on the edge of sleep and watching each other drifting in and out, Mouse can feel heat seeping into him. Zephyr turns and settles his burns against Mouse's shoulder, and sighs contentedly, and Mouse closes his eyes and thinks, for a blissful moment, that being cold isn't the worst thing to be in Zion.