Trinity woke to an all to an all too familiar pounding in her head. She groaned as the pain hit its peak. She reached up and rubbed her temples, desperate for relief. When that failed, she reached to her left hoping to feel Neo beside her. Instead, her hand found nothing. Where the hell was he, she thought to herself, gently turning her head to see if he was even in the room. A single boot rested on the edge of the bed. Neo lay sprawled out on the floor, arm draped over his face.
She nudged him, maybe too aggressively, with her foot. His own boot-clad foot slid off the mattress and landed with a thud on the metal floor of their cabin. The sound reverberated and echoed, causing Neo and Trinity to squeeze their eyes shut.
"Why do my eyes hurt?" he moaned horsley.
Trinity didn't respond, suddenly distracted by the scratchy sensation of her sweater. While the military issue uniforms weren't cashmere, her second-in-command uniform was definitely not this uncomfortable. She looked back towards Neo who, despite his rude awakening, hadn't moved. The sudden realization dawned on her.
Had they swapped clothing? She grabbed the hem of the shirt she was wearing and noticed the distinct grey of a low ranking crew member draped over her body. Jesus.
"Neo, wake up." He didn't stir.
Trinity forced herself into a seated position, wincing as her head protested against the upward motion. The room appeared to spin and Trinity felt like she was going to throw up. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this sick to her stomach.
"Neo," she called out to him again. "What happened last night?"
He pointed towards the far corner of their cabin, one arm still shielding him from the now bright lights. A jug of engine degreaser lay on it's side, lid missing somewhere in the room.
"Is that empty?" she asked, somehow knowing that the answer was a definite yes. That jug had been nearly full of Dozer's moonshine the night before. She remembered sitting down with Neo in the mess hall, celebrating some accomplishment of his. Clearly, not that big of an accomplishment if she couldn't remember what it was.
To her dismay, Neo nodded slightly in response. Trinity racked her brain, trying to remember what had happened, but the pounding of her head made the task too difficult to bear. She couldn't recall the last time she had been this hungover, if ever. Perhaps when she graduated from the Academy? Yes, definitely then, and that had been almost a decade ago.
Trinity rolled over, pleased to see that her sober self had left painkillers on the side table. She dry swallowed them, gagging at the chalkiness. She glanced back to Neo, who was now upright. His eyes were red and he looked exhausted. She tossed the bottle of medication towards him and they both shuddered as it rattled on the floor.
"Trinity!" he exclaimed, the sound of the bottle still echoing in his ears. "Neo, don't yell," she scolded, resting her head in her hands again.
Neo was ready to argue, but realized it was no use. He had no sense of volume right now and even a whisper was too much for his head to bear. He leaned back on his hands and stretched his legs. He had definitely had better days. His one sock foot caught his attention.
"Uh, Trin? Have you seen my boot?"
"Which boot?"
Neo wriggled his foot. "The left one." Trinity shook her head no, instantly regretting the movement.
"We drank a lot, didn't we?" A rhetorical question.
"I don't even like that shit," Neo deadpanned, almost disappointed in himself. He was too old for this shit.
"Nobody does, Neo. We drink it out of necessity." He agreed, but wondered if finishing off the entire jug had been a necessity.
Trinity, having stood up, stretched her hand down to Neo. He took it and allowed her to help him up. He felt dizzy and leaned on her for support. She wobbled slightly, still feeling the effects of the alcohol.
"I guess we better find that boot, huh soldier?"
The pair slowly stepped out into the hallway, squinting at the white overhead lights.
"I bet you wish you had your sunglasses now." Trinity laughed, agreeing with him. She'd kill for her glasses, and maybe a bloody mary, too.
"Do you remember anything from last night?" She asked him, returning the attention back to their mission.
"I think we started in the mess hall? Link was there."
Link had, in fact, been there. At least in the beginning. He had drank with them for a little while before retiring to bed. "Don't get too crazy," he said, winking on his way out. Unfortunately, neither of them heeded his advice.
They were quite a pair, Neo and Trinity, wearing each other's clothes. Trinity's hair was matted to her head and Neo stomped through the halls, still only wearing one boot. Why he hadn't bothered with leaving it behind in their room was beyond him. It was a comical sight and neither of them felt the need to acknowledge the other's appearance.
Even walking seemed too draining, but Neo and Trinity eventually made it to the mess hall, relieved to find it empty. Neo examined the table, trying to recreate the night before. While he tried to piece together his memories, Trinity searched for his boot. She opened every cupboard and drawer and looked under the table. Neo questioned her searching techniques, but Trinity asserted that there was a possibility that they had hidden his boot on purpose. While they didn't find his boot, Trinity did discover that every spoon in the cutlery drawer had been bent out of shape.
There is no spoon.
Trinity couldn't help but laugh at the newly recovered memory of Neo and herself sitting cross-legged on the table as he tried to teach her how to bend the spoons with her mind. God, she thought to herself, smiling at Neo who had flopped onto the floor in defeat. They really shouldn't drink anymore.
The pair rested for a moment at the table, contemplating where they had gone next. Ultimately settling on the engine room. Trinity flashed Neo a knowing smile. Of course they had gone there next. A favoured location of the ship for it's warmth, darkness, and, most importantly, the privacy. They had had their deepest conversations as well as some of their heaviest romps behind the machinery, the clanging and humming of the machines masking any sound that they made.
Neo winked at Trinity, smacking her bottom. "Let's go, soldier," he teased, feeling powerful in the ranking officer's uniform, before rushing out of the room before she could react. Too shocked to respond, let alone with something witty, Trinity followed after him.
The machines hummed as per usual, a testament to Trinity's capable maintenance. She stood in the entryway, admiring her work. No other ship was as old and functional as The Neb was, and she was damn proud of it. Her technical prowess had earned her quite the reputation among the fleet, giving everyone else yet another reason to respect her. If only they could see her now, a high-ranking officer frantically searching the ship for a missing boot after a very drunken night. She felt lucky that no one would believe it.
Neo was on his hands and knees, crawling on the floor, and Trinity couldn't help but laugh. She couldn't imagine what the scene might look like to onlookers. The One had his rear end poised towards her and, for a brief moment, Trinity considered straddling him and riding around the room. No, she thought to herself. Drunk Trinity would do that, not Sober Trinity. She peered behind the servers before turning her attention back to Neo. She bit her lip.
"Fuck it," she said aloud to herself more than Neo, and hopped onto his back, resting her full weight on him. Startled, Neo collapsed under her. Sober Trinity might not engage in such behaviour, but she wasn't Sober Trinity, she was Hungover Trinity and there was a difference. She laughed, daring him to get up, pressing into him.
Her behaviour surprised him - it wasn't like Trinity to be this playful. Not that he minded, though. He liked this carefree side of her and he wished that he could see it more often. He pretended to struggle against her, lifting up just slightly, then collapsing again.
"God Trin, I love that laugh." She smiled. "I bet that's not all you like." Trinity pressed her breasts harder into his back, feeling him sigh against her. Neo decided enough was enough and flipped her over, pinning her arms above her head. "You make a terrible Watson," he breathed, kissing her collarbone. She struggled at first, ultimately giving up, too aroused to fight back.
"And what, that makes you Sherlock Holmes?" She scoffed at him, gaining the upper hand momentarily. To her surprise, Neo tightened his grip around her wrists and bit her shoulder just hard enough to get a reaction. Trinity exhaled sharply. "I'm calling rank, Trin. In this shirt, I'm unstoppable."
And unstoppable he was. Neo quickly got to work, slipping one hand under her shirt and the other into her pants. She moaned against his mouth as he stroked and touched her, her own hands grasping at Neo's waist, hopelessly trying to free him from his pants. Neo stopped for a brief moment, removing their lower garments, consciously keeping the officer uniform on.
Trinity's pants were caught on her boots now while only one half of Neo's lower body was naked. And there they were, pants around their ankles, Neo missing one boot, fucking on the engine room floor. The sex was quick, both still recovering from the alcohol, but enjoyable. Neo had Trinity calling out within minutes and she bucked against him, feeling pleasure crash over her. Neo came shortly after, eventually collapsing on top of her while panting in her ear. Trinity ran her fingertips lightly over his back as they both panted heavily. After a moment, Trinity finally spoke.
"By the way, Neo, we definitely were here last night." Neo waited for her to continue. "You see, under there? We clearly abandoned the glasses last night in favour of drinking straight out the bottle." Neo followed her outstretched arm and strained to see what she was pointing at. In the very far corner lay two mugs.
"When did you notice that?"
"Oh, about twenty minutes ago, I just didn't say anything since I didn't want to come across as insubordinate to a superior." She reveled in Neo's dumbfounded expression. It was her turn to wink at him, and she did so as she stood, over accentuating the sway of her hips as she walked.
"Coming, Captain Sherlock?"
"Already did, Officer Watson."
While both were feeling very satisfied, Neo and Trinity were not much closer to finding Neo's missing left boot. The engine room had been a bust - well, not a total bust, Neo had said - so the continued onward to their other favourite spots now convinced that they must have drunkenly slept together elsewhere on the ship.
"Don't we keep extras on the ship?" Neo finally asked, searching under the control panel in the cockpit. "You think we keep an extra,10.5, left boot on the ship?" They hadn't bothered with restocking newbie supplies during their last stint in Zion after Commander Locke had demanded that they run on a skeleton crew.
"I look like an idiot," Neo finally admitted, gesturing to his feet. "What if I have to spend the next few months like this? What if we threw my boot overboard?"
Trinity laughed. "I highly doubt your boot's AWOL, Neo. And either way, you look like an adorable idiot."
Leave it to Trinity to hit him with the backhanded compliment. Neo instinctively reached for her left hand, running his thumb over her knuckles. He froze when he reached her ring finger, surprised by an unfamiliar sensation on his fingertips. They both looked down at her hand, noticing for the first time that she was wearing a ring.
It wasn't necessarily a ring, per say, more so a crudely twisted length of copper wire. It made her hand look delicate and Neo couldn't help but feel hopeful that one day he could give her the real thing assuming that Zion followed similar Matrix traditions. On second thought, fuck tradition, he thought. He and Trinity were the furthest thing from traditional and conventional. Hell, they moved in together after knowing each other for a month. And that was after the fact that Trinity had stalked him online for six.
Trinity remained fixated on the homemade ring on her finger, unsure of what to say. She couldn't remember any conversation or exchange that would have resulted in Neo crafting a ring for her.
"Do you ever think about getting married?" Neo asked her, running his thumb over the back of her hand, suddenly feeling sentimental. Trinity shook her head. "That's not something I ever saw for myself if I'm being honest." She shrugged and pulled her hand away. She felt uncomfortable. After spending nearly a decade at war, love had always been the last thing on her mind, let alone marriage. She saw herself as too independent to be tied down to someone, especially legally.
Some things had changed, though. Neo had changed a lot of things in her life for the better and she couldn't help but think it might be nice to settle down when the war ended. A pragmatic at heart, she knew not to get her hopes up. Too many times she'd been left feeling disappointed and it seemed that for every step they made towards peace, the machines pushed them back twice as far. She looked back up at Neo, sensing the hurt he felt. He was the romantic of them, after all.
She took his hand again, giving him a reassuring squeeze. "Neo, I don't know what happened last night and I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that I want to spend every waking moment with you. It's just hard to even picture tomorrow." She turned her gaze towards the tunnels through the windshield. Neo pulled her into his arms.
"I understand, Trin."
Trinity returned the embrace, wanting to lighten the now too serious mood. "I'm eager for an upgrade, though"
"So is that a yes then?"
Trinity shook her head.
"A proposal doesn't count if neither of us can remember it. Plus it's too reckless, even for me, to marry the guy you've been sleeping with for a month."
"I never thought you were interested in taking things slow," he said, brushing his lips over her cheekbone. Trinity shrugged.
"Well, sometimes I like to take things slow." She reached down, fingertips just barely grazing him. She loved how he stood at full attention under her touch, eyes glossing over.
"And sometimes," she said breathily, looking up at him, "I like to take things fast. Usually from behind, though."
Trinity interrupted his attempt to return the gesture. "We still haven't solved the case of the missing boot. Let's go."
It was late afternoon now, and Neo's boot was still missing in action. Unfortunately for him, Trinity's monitoring shift would be starting soon and there wasn't enough time to search or continue what they had started in the cockpit. Back in their bedroom now, Neo sat on the bed and watched as Trinity cleared up the remnants of the previous night.
"I figure you want your uniform back," he stated bluntly as he reached for the hem. She stopped him.
"No, keep it. Pass me that one beside you." She pointed towards a sweater that Neo had thrown onto the floor presumably last night.
"You sure?" She nodded, slipping the grey sweater over her head. Neo couldn't help but notice the glint of the wire ring still on her finger. She brushed her fingers through her hair, struggling to rake through the knots. Once she was done, Neo gathered her into his arms and kissed her deeply before resting his chin on her shoulder.
"You know you don't have to wear it." Trinity nodded, knowing he meant the ring and not the sweater. "I know." Maybe later, she thought to herself, appreciating the gesture for now. She kissed him once more before heading to her shift, assuring him that she would contact the nearest ship and ask for an extra pair of boots. New boots needed for wear and tear, she promised, not because of drunken stupor.
With Trinity gone and the fun over, Neo was now very aware of the return of the dull ache behind his eyes. Trinity's tidying forced him to seek more painkillers in the medbay and Neo made a mental note to suggest that perhaps they keep a stash of medication in their cabin.
Neo shut the door of their cabin quietly and turned towards the medbay, only to be stopped by the sight of Morpheus also leaving his quarters, in his hand, a left, size 10.5, military issue boot in hand. Neo wanted to shrink away more than he did at that moment reeling at the flashes of memories from the night.
Trinity hadn't been able to keep her hands off of him as they stumbled through the narrow halls of the Neb. Truthfully, neither could he. They kissed sloppily, teeth clashing together. Neo remembered the taste of alcohol on her lips and the drunk love in her eyes. He remembered falling, more than once, and he remembered how desperate Trinity had been to protect the bottle they had been drinking from. This stuff is irreplaceable, she yelled, unable to control the volume of her voice.
They were a flurry of limbs, grasping at each other as they struggled to remove each other's clothing. Trinity reached for the door handle behind her and they stumbled inside, tripping over the lip at the bottom. They fell, laughing, beginning their drunken lovemaking on the floor.
Neo cringed at the memory wishing he could slip away unnoticed. He thanked every god he could think of that they hadn't made it to the bed. Neo couldn't remember how and when they finally made it back to their own cabin, but he remembered how frantically Trinity had jumped up as the realization dawned upon her. This was not their room.
They had scrambled to gather their clothing, forgetting Neo's boot in the process as they ran out. In their haste, they hadn't even shut the door.
Morpheus's voice brought him back to the present.
"I believe you have been looking for this." He handed Neo the boot, which Neo took while refusing to look his captain in the eye.
"Thank you sir," Neo stammered. Morpheus turned on his heel and strode away, both hands clasped behind his back. Neo let out a sigh of relief. Maybe his memories were wrong. Morpheus must have found it in one of the supply closets. Surely that was it. Just as Neo thought he was in the clear, Morpheus stopped. He spoke without turning.
"I expect that you two will keep your private endeavors to your own bedroom from now on." Neo felt like throwing up more than he had this morning. "Yes sir, of course sir."
Trinity could never, ever know about this. Not ever. Neo lied when she asked him where he had finally found his missing boot. "I checked the engine room again, we must have been too hungover and missed it." Trinity cocked an eyebrow, though she didn't press the matter further. Neo could tell that she was skeptical.
"I would have figured Captain Sherlock was so unobservant." She ran her fingertips over his chest and he shuddered against her. "Elementary, Officer Watson, I wanted you to think I didn't know where my boot was."
"Mhm," she hummed. Trinity accepted the lie and allowed him to shove her down onto their bed. She liked this dominant side of him, but this would be the last time she let him don her uniform and let this unwarranted power go to his head; she'll allow Neo to have his fun but tomorrow, she'll take charge again and solve the case of his missing boot.