The voice is familiar, like an ancient itch that aches where you can't scratch, and so is the cadence and rhythm of the speech: but this time there is something desperate behind the breath of words, some dark and terrifying twist to the familiarity itself: like a razor blade buried in a candy apple, like a child's toy used in a ritual sacrifice.
Like going to pet a friendly-looking dog a split second before you realize that it's dead.
Even though there is thin gray light in the air, it feels like night: everything is holding its breath. A heartbeat, a heart that does not even exist: does that make it tremor any less? The smells of gravel, dirt, wool, in Neo's nose: the vaguest dry hint of the taste of blood and the pavement cold against his cheekbone. There is an arm locked around his throat, in just that place that always triggers a gag reflex rather than an airlessness, and fingers, angry, demanding fingers, pressing into his hip, leaving imprints in soft leather. They're too close, ifar/i too close, and why he hasn't reached down and pried the fingers away from his body must just be because he hasn't gotten that far yet. And there's something else, too, something his mind has simply blacked out of his awareness, but his body has a mind of its own: something pressing into him, into his hips, from behind him. A weight leaning on him, that should by all rights not be there at all. And weight is putting it primly.
"Because after all, Mr. Anderson, in the end it's the only truth. You're---"
"---mine," Neo whispers, his eyes snapping open into total disorientation.
It's dark -- but then again, when isn't it, really? -- and he is lying on his back, every line of his body taut with trembling tension. His hair is damp with sweat, the scent of it heady in his nose, and he shivers in the dim light because his shirt is wet with it, too. And jacked in or not, he swears he can taste the blood: bitter, copper, thick. But his mind is throbbing, and there's something else: the ragged fabric of his pants is clinging to his hips in a way that makes him feel somehow violated. Reaching down and shoving aside what's left of the blanket, he plucks at them, biting his lip as he pulls cloth away from physical signs that he refuses to admit.
This isn't the first time.
I won't.
I don't belong to you. I don't even hate you anymore: I'm you, and you're me. There's nothing to hate. I belong to Trinity. I love her. She owns me in every way there is. You... you're not even human. I'm not yours. I can't be.
I can't be.
...can I?