Cheap Motels Can Do That To You

Formerly 'Is this some kind of Joke?'

A/N: Okay, the reviews where really good last time but for a few mentions of bad grammar and suddenness. So, I went through it again. I have a habit of typing up spur-of-the-moment stories without a thought for making it look nice. Maybe it's a little better now, huh? Huh? Huh? Enough Enzo impressions, this is set before the first episode Andi and Matrix appeared as *ahem* adults. But after the last episode they're kids in, because everyone nows they practically started that part of season three with those two making out (please excuse crude terms, but it's true. Those kisses make me sick!). It's sort of before they realized they loved each other. Yeah, like all those other fics. Let's just say that they're 1.6. Um, yeah. Bye!

The game cube lifted, leaving two sprites and a dog behind. Matrix and AndrAIa scanned their new surroundings tensly, ready for danger. When nothing leapt out at them, they glanced at each other.

"The usual?" asked AndrAIa.

"You know it. Opperation cheap motel."

AndrAIa turned on her five-inch heal and walked down the street in search of some place to stay that night. Some place that they could afford...

She found a grayish building at the end of a dark alley. There was a flickering neon sign in the window that proclaimed 'Bates Motel'.

She shivered. "Creepy. Come on, Frisket." She patted her leg for the dog to catch up.

She walked inside, and stepped up to the pinched-looking female binome at the desk. The binome looked up at her only when she placed both hands on the desk and leaned forward in a Matrix-like position.

"Yes?" the pinched binome said sharply, as if AndrAIa were wasting her valuble time.

"What're your rates?"

"Ten units a night." the binome replied.

"Do you have any empty rooms?" AndrAIa asked, and the old One began to look through a much-outdated data pad on her desk. After several nanos, she looked up.

"Yes, we do."

AndrAIa had to fight an urge to laugh. The idea that this wasted little building wouldn't have any rooms was absurd. The pinched old One sensed what the sprite was thinking and looked deeply offended. After a moment while Andi fought to keep a straight face, the binome said curtly, "Would you like to reserve one?"

AndrAIa nodded, and filled out the simple forms before she left to find Matrix.

"Do we really have to do this?" Matrix asked through clenched teeth.

They were standing in front of a small shop with a huge display window. A bucket of soapy water sat between them on the ground, and each held a squeegee.

"I mean, they could have had us do anything else. Think about it, washing windows? They're doing it just to see us out here."

"Yeah, well, at least you don't have a shirt like this. Feels like I'm going to pop right out every time I stretch."

This particular take had not occured to Matrix. He grumbled at the thought of little binomes inside the shop, staring hypnotically at the sprite straining her, well...confinements. He stepped over closer and sqeegeed the top part of the window she could hardly reach, guarding her with the pretence of helping out.

"Anyway, Enzo, do you have a better idea of how to get the last three units we need for that stupid room?"

"Yeah, actually." Matrix frowned. "I'm a renegade, I wipe out virus's, not dusty windows. Clear enough?"

AndrAIa shook her head. "Fine. Pout all you like, but any room is better than no room. This system is a cold one."

He waved his empty hand exagerratedly, flipping soap suds all over her. "Well, look at you! You know, most people would have changed clothing protocals once they started to...to, ah..." he wondered why he'd pursued this line of conversation. "To, um, get bigger." he finished flatly.

AndrAIa laughed out loud at his sudden embarrassment. It was true, in the past couple of cycles she had changed more than she, a game sprite who had never grown or changed at all in her original home, could have guessed. But it was still funny to listen to Enzo fumbling about it.

"Come on, Sparky." she said, bumping him playfully with her squeegee. "Let's get a room."

Matrix followed AndrAIa and Frisket towards the hotel. Normally, he would have walked along side her, but he didn't know where it was, and he needed to think, anyway.

He had always felt differently about Andi than anyone else. She was an amazing girl, and she had been his best of only a few friends for cycles. They had become closer than ever in their time in the games, until almost nothing was a secret between them. Enzo hadn't even noticed the feelings growing stronger, but in retrospect it seemed obvious. She had always been there for him; when he had been ready to give up the search for Mainframe altogether, she had comforted him. She was a never-ending well of patience. She had to be, he knew he was a pain in the ASCII sometimes.

AndrAIa giggled a little ahead of him, jerking him back into the present. His eyes refocused on her backside, and he looked at his feet in embarrassment. It didn't matter that she hadn't seen and didn't know, he knew.

"Here we are. I know it's dingier than usual, but it's cheap, and that counts for a lot." AndrAIa gestured towards a dark, rather depressing building at the end of a dark, depressing alley. Matrix didn't look her in the eye, only grunted and kept walking.


LATER THAT NIGHT

"Enzo?" AndrAIa had asked the sound of footsteps behind her. He came into view, and she smiled. He grumbled in a more good-natured way than usual.

"Matrix, AndrAIa. Matrix."

She came up to him closer, and smirked. "I know."

"We'd better get some rest." Matrix said, brushing past her. AndrAIa licked her lips. She'd found a problem with their cheap motel room.

"Uh, Enzo? I sort of noticed that, ah, there's only one..." She blew a breath of air between her lips with a hiss. "The rest facilities are, well, less than...adequate?"

It wasn't supposed to be a question. What she'd wanted to say was that there was only one bed. And no couches or, well, anything. However, she was afraid of sounding eager at the idea that they would have to share or one would sleep on the floor. Well, she was sort of eager...Enzo was a wonderful person underneath all his traumatic issues...

She gave herself a mental slap on both cheeks. Not the time, not the place. Matrix, meanwhile, had decoded the cryptic message, and said gruffly,

"Well, I'll sleep on the floor." Exactly what she had expected, and this would solve the problem. But she caught herself saying,

"Oh, no! Please, I will."

Matrix looked indignant. "What? You, sleep on the floor? Please, you'd be cold!"

"So would you..."

Things continued in much the same manner, awkward tension built up into a barrier until neither could focus on what their respective goal was. Finally, in a slip of conscious decision, Matrix picked her up, flung her on to the bed, and sat down heavily on the other side with his back to her. The moment he did so, he felt his stomach tense up. He'd faced the User countless times, he'd stood up to virii in many systems, but he could not sleep in the same bed as someone he'd known for more than half of his life. AndrAIa, for her part, lay in an odd position with her knees still tucked up as she had landed, her eyes wide and her thoughts much the same as Matrix's. At long last, she heard Matrix mumble something directed at her, and summoned up enough voice to ask him to repeat it.

"I said, go ahead and get comfortable. I'm not sleepy."

"Enzo, please. Just get some rest. We need to sleep and be energetic tomorrow, so lie down and...and sleep!"

"You, too, then. I can't sleep if you aren't going to."

"Fine! I'll just go to sleep, then!"

"Me, too! Fine!"

"Fine!"

Under different circumstances, AndrAIa would have laughed. They were incredibly juvenile sometimes. However, her nerves were stressed to breaking point, and she yanked her side of the covers back and climbed under with a vengeance, then pulled the comforter up to her chin and turned directly away from Matrix. She heard the covers rustle and felt the bed creak and sag as Matrix did the same.

As they lay there, AndrAIa couldn't quite decide if this was good, bad, or just plain embarassing. She lie awake on her side long into the night, her mind not much eased at Matrix's first snores. True, he was asleep, and they were on opposite sides, turned away from each other, but still.... She wouldn't be able to sleep like this. Not when she was being so alert to whether or not she was getting to close to him, let alone touching him. She tried not to shake and wake him up.

Just then, she heard him turn over, and his sleeping hand came to rest just touching her shoulder. She didn't know whether to try to push it away and risk waking him, or just leave it there and enjoy it. She twisted in place, trying to move the hand. She rolled over, careful not to roll over it, and was about to make an award-winning effort to move it away, when he moved again, and she found herself with his hand on her shirt.

Mental sirens alerted her of the sudden danger, flashing red across her vision. She had never had anything touch her there before, not with this resulting tingle, and she was panicked as to what to do.

She really wondered what to do now. In stress, she let out an involuntary squeak, just enough to wake Matrix.

He shook himself awake, and immediately noticed what had happened. He moved his hand away quickly, feeling horribly self-conscious.

"Sorry..." he mumbled under his breath. AndrAIa swallowed hard and turned away, still somewhat disconcerted.

" 's okay." she said, barely managing to get that much of a slurred sentence out. She rubbed an arm against herself, as if trying to rub her embarrassment away. Matrix turned his head up to stare at the back of her head. He wanted to say something, wanted to tell her how he felt, but her reaction made her feelings obvious. His thoughts would only be rewarded by more awkwardness and a larger communication gap than the two had ever experienced. But he could not keep it bottled up. Other things, other feelings and emotions were always boxed away and kept in the dark, but this one pushed to get out. He decided the consequences were worth having it known to both of them.

"Was it?" he asked softly, and his hand slid back over and on to her side. AndrAIa gave a shuddering little gasp, and Matrix knew he'd done something wrong. He pulled back.

"No, no..." AndrAIa turned around to face him. "Don't, I...I don't mind."

"AndrAIa...I wanted to say-"

"I know. Me, too." She cut the end of his sentense off. Matrix let out a great sigh from the considerable distance of his toes.

"See you in the morning, then." he grunted, settling into the covers better. AndrAIa felt odd. She'd just shared one of her inner-most feelings, and all he said was 'see you in the morning'? She turned back towards the outside of the bed and sighed a little herself.

After a moment, she felt and arm slide around her waist and pull her slowly closer to the middle of the bed. She smiled.