Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Author's Note: Let me summarize.
No, let me explain.
I couldn't stop writing after finishing the Tron Kink Meme fill We Are Pilots (back in February). I wasn't done with the story and I wasn't done with the characters, especially Sam and Tron. I was filling other prompts to pass the time before editing Pilots and decided to set one of the fills in the Pilots verse. Next thing I knew I was writing a series of time stamps to expand on the world I created post-Legacy. They are of various word lengths, feature various characters, and are out of chronological order. I will not be posting these time stamps in chronological order; I'm leaving it up to you to figure out how the events go together and how everything's connected.
While the overall rating of the collection of time stamps is "T" some are rated "M". I will include that in the A/N at the beginning of said chapters.
This time stamp is rated M.
Le Disko
1: Waiting
He always meant to go back the next night.
It was all he could ever think about. Time ticked louder and louder in the back of his head as he went through the motions that day and tried to stay off Alan's radar. He might have dozed off during the scheduled meeting with the project team leaders but Roy was kind enough to kick his foot and jolt him back awake during Ed's presentation. He tried not to grow more frantic as time counted down - or up, depending on how you look at it - and was fairly jumping out of his skin when Quorra finally emerged from an impromptu meeting with the game developers over the upcoming relaunch of ENCOM's iconic videogames that made the company - and his father - a household name.
"We should go home first," she said before he could open his mouth. "You look terrible."
"I'm fine-"
"I know you spent several days on the...in there." She watched other people walk by them and then added in a lower voice, "But technically you were up the entire night."
"No I wasn't."
"Taking a nap between crashing a light jet and fighting a group of Sentries while coming back from the Outlands doesn't count. Get some rest. We'll go to the arcade afterwards."
Five and a half hours later he woke up on the couch with Marvin's butt in his face and his phone trying to vibrate off the coffee table.
"Alan, it's almost twelve. What-"
"We got a problem."
Three days now, and he hasn't set foot in the arcade. Three days and he hasn't turned on all the lights and sounds, walked down the hidden stairs to the basement, sat in front of the touch screen table to activate the digitizer, and gone into the Grid to find Tron. He can't think straight, can't focus, and nobody blames him, except they think he's stressing over the still anonymous hackers getting past ENCOM's legendary firewalls to access sensitive data in the biggest scandal since Flynn's disappearance, and not over the person-shaped program he promised to come back to almost four days ago.
"We've done all we can," Alan says while Sam buries his face in the crook of his elbow. "Give it time; this'll all blow over soon enough. I've seen this happen before, with your father."
"What, the whole 'stockholders leaving burning shit on your doorstep' act?"
Quorra clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh.
"Something like that," Alan says. He places his hand on Sam's shoulder, adds, "I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yeah, sure," Sam mumbles.
He waits until the doors click shut and then quickly sits up. Quorra's already on her feet, helmet in hand.
"Got the toolkit?" he asks as he shoves folders into his backpack and grabs his jacket.
She waves him a flash drive.
"Adapter?"
"It's in your backpack."
"Good. Come on."
He knows the route to the arcade from downtown like the back of his hand, and his mind goes on autopilot while dodging evening traffic along the 110. Three days, going on four. It's too long, too damn long. The pull of the Grid has been burning hotter and hotter with every waking hour; it's a near constant struggle trying to remain focused on the task at hand here in his world-
"Speed trap!" Quorra yells while also giving his sides a tight squeeze. He immediately cuts back on the Ducati's acceleration and it rumbles along behind a small freight truck.
Tonight there isn't a cop hiding in plain sight, radar gun in hand. It's all the excuse Sam needs to dive for the rapidly shrinking space between the truck and the gaudy new Camaro to his right. Quorra shrieks and clings to him tightly as the Ducati roars through the opening and cuts off the car. Sam laughs as he watches the driver flip him off through the side view mirror.
The flush of adrenaline brings to mind the lightcycles, the momentum and the rush of the sleek beauties rocketing down the streets of TRON City. Sam swallows hard at the thought; he wants to be back on the Grid, surrounded by light and energy, with the potential to do anything literally at his fingertips.
He needs to go back. He made a promise to save the Grid before its programs fought each other to the death - deresolution - and left behind nothing but empty buildings. He made a promise to save his father's legacy and transform it into something greater.
He made a promise to come back to Tron.
His heart pounds in his ear as he tilts the Ducati around the corner onto a small street. Months, Quorra had speculated, a few days here should translate to several months on the Grid. She talked about pinning down the exact calculations but all he could think about was the reason why his father disappeared. Sam can't do the same to the Grid. He can't just install a Codified Likeness Utility to take care of things and walk away from the servers for days at a time, but he already just did that.
What'll he find when he goes in? The Grid had been decaying slowly the past six months but it was still standing when he went in looking for his father's plans. It couldn't have changed that much, right? But the Grid knows he's been there. The programs know a User's still out there somewhere, and the things Enyo and Crystal said about his presence...
He almost passes the arcade but the bright neon glow jumps out at him and he quickly puts the brakes on the Ducati. It screeches to a stop at the corner of the block and he kicks the stand, turns off the engine while sitting back and removing his helmet.
Quorra's the one who jumps off the bike and runs to the locked door. She turns to gesture to him, her head aglow under the old streetlamp as if it's encased in a fiery halo. It's a breathtaking sight and not for the first time he remembers how different she is from everyone and everything he's ever known.
"Sam."
He fumbles a bit with the key ring until he finds the right one, shoves it into the keyhole, and unlocks the door.
He glances at her skeptically before turning around and saying, "I said I'm staying out of this-"
"You're the best systems utility program on the Grid, the best architect-"
"The only system architect left."
"That's why we came to you-"
"I said no."
Enyo looks at Tron, the optimistic cheer uncharacteristically flickering out. Squaring her shoulders she asks, "What are you afraid of?"
Shaddox stares out the east-facing window of his current living quarters. "Can you say to my face that he will come back?"
Tron starts. "I did-"
"You didn't. It's been too long, but I still see the old you, the faithful you. How do you do it? After the Creator, after Clu, how?" Shaddox gestures at the distant silhouette of the city's tallest skyscraper. "What makes him so special?"
Tron drops his gaze to the floor and clenches his hands. The words are on the tip of his tongue - "He's different." - but they sound so weak in the face of Shaddox's questions. The old system utility is right, after all. What makes Sam so different from the sysadmins before him?
An uneasy sensation grips his chest, twisting code in a vice grip, as the thought flicks through his code. He misses the painful need that burned in his circuits during the first centicycles; all he feels now is a growing emptiness, a hollow feeling that won't leave even after he downs half of Crystal's energy stock during the lull between search-and-secure missions. The work he's done with Enyo and the Sirens on Sam's behalf feels more rote than full of purpose, and he hates that. Even worse, he hates that he doesn't know what to do. He'd watched the collapse of Flynn's visions hoping something could still be salvaged, fighting a losing cause while trying to make Flynn see. Clu...he can't. Not yet.
But Sam is different. Tron knew he was different from the second he-Rinzler knocked him down and made him bleed in front of hundreds of thousands of programs. Sam is not his father. He's not Flynn. He's different. Better, even.
"Have you no faith?" Tron says, ignoring the shaking in his voice.
"I lived under the radar for a thousand years, watching Clu build his 'Rome' while Flynn hid in the Outlands. I salvaged this sector after the Reintegration because it was the only thing I could do. I know what's coming for the Grid and I won't sit around any longer, but I can't...trust a User's word again."
"What about ours?" Tron asks. "What about mine?"
"To unite the Grid? What good will that do? The infrastructure is damaged and only a sysadmin can repair it. I'm not going to pretend that the situation will get better; one visit from a User after twenty-five point two cycles-"
"Twenty-five point two oh eight cycles," Enyo inputs unhelpfully.
"-changes nothing."
"We're not the only ones looking for you, you know," she continues. "Utilities are hard to find these days since Clu rectified most of them and the Reintegration wiped them out. And if, say, Octane can't have you do you really think he'll let anybody else?"
"Threatening me won't do any good. I've survived on my own for a very long time-"
"I'm being practical here-"
"You don't know what it was like. You aren't a User-dependent utility," Shaddox interrupts. "I left because I couldn't do my job. Clu was trapped by his directive, unable to function as he should because Flynn was never here to address Clu's concerns."
"We're not here to argue about Clu," Enyo says. "Sam promised he'll come back. This is his Grid now and he has a reason to keep coming back."
"So did Flynn, and look what-"
White light blazes out of the edge of Tron's field of vision and he jerks his head to the window. Directives and subroutines falter, stutter to a stop, and then kick into gear with an electric roar.
"-happened," Shaddox says, pointing out the window to the skyline. His eyes widen.
Enyo says something - maybe his name, to tell him that there's a bright star in the sky when there wasn't a second ago - but all Tron hears is the faint echo of her voice chasing after him. He's already on the faulty lift, waiting for it to move faster, pacing in a tight circle while his circuits flare and illuminate the cracked walls.
The small crowd at the entrance to the degraded building had grown larger during the testy conversation with Shaddox. Tron immediately moves to jump over the side of the staircase but Cyrus detaches himself from the other programs and hurries to him.
"It's him, isn't it-"
"Stay here."
Enraptured by the portal's light, the crowd doesn't notice the security program weaving through it. Cyrus isn't quite as agile and bumps into quite a few programs.
"Well what about Shaddox? Did you-"
Tron kneels down in the middle of the narrow street and brings up the Grid's code. It appears as a gridded map of the city, lines and code glowing a soft and familiar white. As he inputs the necessary command lines a circuit draws itself underneath the code, forming a manhole cover.
"What is he doing?"
He shoves the manhole cover aside and it crashes into the street, shattering into broken pieces of code. Cyrus flinches away and Caix, with her beam katana already in hand and blazing green, freezes in her tracks.
"Disperse the crowd," Tron says with a brief glance at the star to make sure it's still there. "We don't want Octane, Luce, any of the sector leaders noticing the traffic here. Tell Enyo to write a shortcut to the hangar, and once you're all there don't leave."
"Where do you think you're going?" Caix demands.
Tron climbs down the rungs while the street haltingly seals the shortcut entrance, separating him from his team. His footsteps echo down the tunnel, rapid beats abruptly transforming into a constant hum as he runs, pulls apart his baton, and rezzes a lightcycle underneath. His helmet unfolds and encases his head, dimming the thin circuit lines lighting the way and dulling the shrieking wind. He flattens himself on the lightcycle's body and coaxes it along, pushing it to its limit; it hurtles down the narrow path, weaving through the curves, honing in on its destination - the faintest glow of translucent rungs at the far end of a long straight stretch of tunnel.
The city hums all around him, code vibrating within the tunnel's walls. Using these shortcuts always unsettles him; quick as this mode of travel is it blinds him to whatever goes on above his head, which is the antithesis of what a security program should be. Enyo thinks it's fascinating - "What happens if I create another shortcut while in a shortcut-guess I can't. Should tell Sam that." - but he doesn't think about it; all he cares about is getting from here to there as quickly as possible, and then out into the open where he can function.
He only wishes his lightcycle can fly, because he can't get to the end of the shortcut fast enough.
Something glows in the distance. The closer he gets the better he can make out the translucent rungs showing the way up to the surface. Tron pulls the lightcycle up short and sits up; the helmet folds back as the vehicle's circuits dim from inaction. Tron stares at the hovering steps - fifteen, always fifteen - and the circle carved into the intersection overhead. Above ground and right in front of him will be the building supposedly fashioned after those from the User's world. High in the sky will be the portal's bright star. Inside the building will be... will be...
Four hundred eighty millicycles and counting. He thinks about Shaddox's words and what they say about him. How long would he have waited? How many more millicycles, how many more centicycles? Would he have waited another twenty-five cycles? A thousand years? Until the Grid turned to dust and broken code? And then what?
I waited, and it wasn't enough to save Clu, Flynn, or the Grid. Why are you different?
Tron stares down at back of his trembling hands. They're not the hands of a security program, a warrior and a defender. He clenches them tightly to the point of pain, ignores the circuits flashing in protest as he dismounts. He leaves the baton on the floor as he starts climbing.
The machine slams back into place, closing off the entryway and dampening the jukebox's classic rock track to a mumbling melody while Sam jumps down the steps two at a time. He almost misses the last three and staggers against the brick wall, swearing at the jarring pain shooting up his right ankle.
"Sam!" Quorra calls out.
He ignores her, jams the key into the lock, and flings open the door. The touch screen table across the room from him has gathered a fine layer of dust, but nothing else has changed. The servers are still humming and yellowed light still streams in from the small window above the table. He takes a deep breath and it cuts through the sterile stillness of the room.
"Upload up the toolkit after I go in."
He flings his backpack onto the couch, limps to the table, shoves the desk chair out of the way, and wipes the dust off the screen with his jacket sleeve. The action reminds him eerily of the first time he discovered this room and the touch screen table, and he shrugs off a shiver crawling up his spine. The running clock abruptly disappears and several windows pull up. He types in a command and the digitizer starts humming.
"What else?" Quorra asks. She walks to the side of the touch screen, attaches the USB adapter and digs the flash drive out of her pocket.
He glances at the drive as he types in another command modifying the data conversion. He has no idea what the toolkit will look like inside the Grid but what he does know is that he can't deal with the diagnostic programs yet. He needs time to assess the Grid's current situation, find Enyo and get her report, find Tron and...
"Three minutes," he says. "Give me three minutes before you load it."
"Why?"
His hand pauses over one of the two options prompted to him, and he looks up at Quorra. She immediately takes a large step back and out of range of the digitizer.
"Something I need to do first."
Unable to hold her gaze he looks down at the screen and activates the digitizer. He feels rather than hears it power up; a sudden burst of noise, and the air rips out of his lungs as the digitizer converts him. The relative warmth of the basement room shivers away but he only feels the frigid neutrality of the Grid for a split second; the digitizer rapidly reads and converts his digital DNA, and in the blink of an eye he's sitting in front of a glossy black table in a barren room. A deep breath and the walls glow soft white; he glances down at the circuit running along the edge of his jacket and the lines curving around his feet. Another breath and they brighten while a warm and familiar hum flushes through his body.
The chair crashes to the floor and breaks down into cold shards of code as he runs out of the room and up the never-ending stairs. There's no old TRON machine hiding the secret passage and there are no rows of equally old arcade games lining the walls and down the middle of the building. There's nothing to block his way as he runs for the double doors and shoves them open.
The city is still standing. The streets are empty and skyscrapers tower over him from all sides. He looks up, taking in the skyline and the otherworldly glow of the Grid, and then drops his gaze to street level.
His heart stutters to a stop.
Tron stares at him, frozen halfway up the curb. Behind him is a manhole in the middle of the intersection, and Sam realizes that the program wrote a shortcut to right here. Mouth dry, Sam forces himself to look at Tron, at the tense, trembling lines and the uncharacteristically vulnerable gaze. The promises he made three days ago - How many days in the Grid? - loop in his head; he was supposed to come back the very next night, supposed to come back to the Grid that needs his touch and the program that needs his presence.
Something happened and I couldn't find the time. I couldn't get away. I had to take care of this. They needed me there. Excuses flit through his head and they all sound so wrong, so much like what Quorra told him about the days leading up to the Purge. It's the same thing, the same stream of excuses and apologies Flynn had made again and again to Tron and Clu. It's everything Sam thought he won't do.
What makes him feel sick to his stomach, though, is that Tron is just standing there, staring at him like he's a hallucination. It breaks his heart, makes the short feet between them look like miles. He wants to say something, do something, break the brittle line of tension strung between them, but he doesn't know how to start. But if not him, then who?
"How-" His voice scratches, skips a beat. "How long?"
The answer comes readily, albeit faintly. "Four hundred eighty point oh one millicycles."
"What-"
Tron steps up onto the sidewalk. There's a shift in his gray eyes, like a gathering storm is building behind them. "One hundred sixty days, give or take a few."
Five months. Sam can't imagine what that's like-he can, he still vividly remembers waiting for Flynn to come home. There's a lump in his throat that he can't swallow back down, and he can't quite meet Tron's gaze.
"Fuck," he whispers. "Shit. I'm sorry, I didn't-"
Tron closes the distance between them in five strides, curves his hands around Sam's face, and tilts his head up to kiss him.
Sam reaches out instinctively, raking fingers through dark hair and clutching at the program's shoulder with his other hand. Tron rumbles at the touch, presses his tongue insistently against the line of Sam's mouth, and Sam lets him in without another thought. The familiarity of Tron's taste and touch, the feel of the energy-tinged mouth and slick tongue, shiver and ache down his throat and up his spine; he had tried to hold onto the echoes as he forged through the long days on the other side, but in the real world-his world, because the Grid is just as real, they became faint tantalizing memories buried under by everything else. But here there's only the cold sterility of the Grid, the living hum of the code underfoot and all around him, and Tron. There's only Tron, and that's all Sam wants right now.
His lungs burn - his body burns - when they finally pull back and the rush of cold air down his throat jumpstarts his heart, sharpens his senses. Tron breathes hotly against his wet swollen lips, looks him all over with dark, dark eyes and flashing pupils. Sam sees the cracks breaking Tron's barely controlled facade; the program's hands shake as he strokes along the curve of Sam's jaw with his thumb.
"Okay," Sam says. A deep breath. "That's-that's one hell of a-"
"Shut up," Tron interrupts, and kisses him again.
The rough, trembling edge of his voice echoes uneasily in Sam's head as Tron wraps a hand around the back of his neck and starts pushing him back. Sam tries to reach behind him to open the doors and pull them inside; instead he hits the hard surface, back curving awkwardly against the disk dock between his shoulder blades. Tron leans in, pressing up against him from chest to hip, and swallows up Sam's hoarse attempt to say his name.
His other hand is everywhere, skimming up the slope of Sam's shoulder, fingers stroking the tense line of his neck and thumb pressing feather-light on his Adam's apple before sliding under the collar of his jacket and down his front. Sam drags in short harsh breaths at the slow build of friction and pressure, pushes against Tron's hand and bites at his mouth. He feels rather than sees long fingers marked with violet lines bend around the hem of his shirt, and then flinches involuntarily when a circuit-tipped finger brushes against sensitive skin.
"Why the clothes?" Tron rumbles against the corner of his mouth.
He can say he's not interested in running around the Grid in conspicuous Disc Wars armor and that he feels more comfortable messing with Grid code in his regular attire, but instead he says, "That a problem?"
Teeth scrape along the side of his jaw. "I like it."
Sam flinches again when Tron slides his hand under his shirt and pushes up, exposing his side to the Grid's neutral chill. He then groans as the program traces seemingly imaginary lines all over the side of his body; Tron's touch burns, moves with precision and with a hint of strength, dragging a long line down his ribcage to the sensitive spot right under his hip joint and back up. Sam hisses into his mouth, hips jerking forward at the flare of pleasure; his knees shake and he clutches at Tron's waist to steady himself.
He feels it in the bruising kisses, in the way Tron presses up against him to eliminate the space between them. He feels it in his compulsion to keep contact, to feel the program shiver and thrum with every stroke and slide up and down his tensely curved back. The need beats louder in the back of his head, coils tightly in his chest and makes it impossible to breathe or think. Sam drags curled fingers over the circuits on Tron's shoulders and down to the bright nodes low on his back; Tron shudders, buries his face in the crook of Sam's neck and moans as Sam slides his thumb along the burning edge. Circuits flare purple-white and energy pulses, snaps through Sam's fingers and up his arms like electricity and cold fire. Sam presses his forehead against Tron's shoulder, gasping for air as the pleasure lingers and burns under his skin. The program's wound up so tight, throbbing hot and needy under his hands, moving helplessly against him in erratic thrusts, but that's as far as he goes. Sam knows he can do more, had felt it and relived it in his mind for the past few days, and god he wants that force, that hot living wall of electricity and heat crushing him against the door and making him come alive with friction and blinding light. Maybe he just needs to coax it out, pull it out of the program and make him snap.
So Sam moves his hands up and drags fingernails over circuits, scrapes teeth along the program's jaw. He slides the flat of his tongue along the trembling line of Tron's neck, feeling another moan vibrate up his throat, and then turns his attention to the violet circuits on his sternum. Tron tightens his grip on Sam's waist and makes a strangled noise when Sam flicks his tongue out at a circuit. It's quick and teasing, meant to tempt and tantalize, and yet it shivers hot-cold down his body, numbs his mouth for a few lingering seconds and tingles under his skin. Breathless, he looks up at Tron, searches through the pleasurable haze in the gray gaze for the focused storm. Tron blinks once, then narrows his eyes and growls as he presses up against Sam and works a knee between his, lets go of his waist to tug at one of the belt loops on the front of his jeans. Heat floods Sam's chest and downward, and he gasps, jerks up and presses the inside of his knee against Tron's thigh before remembering that no, things don't work that way here.
Tron leans in, tongue slipping into Sam's mouth before his lips seal around it, and slides the heel of his hand over textured fabric, deliberately kneads that sensitive spot between hip and leg before moving down along the outside seam of his jeans. Anticipation crawls under Sam's skin, pounds in his head as Tron kisses him hungrily, curves his hand under his thigh, and tugs his leg up. Sam reflexively wraps his arms around Tron's shoulders as he balances uneasily on one foot, wondering for a jarring second how stupid he must look right now; his heart catapults up his throat when Tron takes a hold of his other leg and easily hoists him up. Sam curls his legs around Tron's waist, breathes light and fast as he looks down at the program.
It takes just a second, a questioning look and Sam breathing out, "Yeah, okay," and shifting his hips against Tron. And then Tron's shoving him against the wall with a thrust, forcing the air out of his lungs. Circuits slide against fabric and skin, rough and hampered by the layers, but the friction burns bright and it's like he's on fire. Sam reacts instinctively, hooks his ankles together and pushes at Tron's back, urging and encouraging him to keep moving; he crushes their mouths together, tangles his hand in tousled hair and scrapes fingernails over the program's scalp. The kiss is messy and bruising, full of teeth and tongue, and matched only by their reckless movements, the near violence of Tron's erratic thrusts and the painful drag of Sam's fingers over violet-white circuits.
There is no pause, no breather, no time to think that maybe they should take this inside and onto the floor; there are snatches of ozone-tinged breaths, a moment when Tron takes a hand off Sam's leg to slide it under his jacket and shirt up his back, a halting cry when Sam roughly strokes the circuits on Tron's sternum, but they don't stop. Sam hisses, arches against Tron's hand as it burns a trail up his back and down his spine under the disk dock. He's not wearing armor and the only visible circuits are on his clothes but it feels like there are lines on his skin, throbbing and snapping lightning underneath as Tron works them with the dexterity and focus of a seasoned warrior. He knows where to push and slide, how to draw Sam out to the edge; the pressure swells, rising higher and higher with nowhere to go, and Sam twists against Tron, desperate to let it out.
"Fuck," he gasps. "Oh god, fuck, please."
It slips out as he digs his fingers into the circuits behind Tron's shoulders and tightens his legs around the program. Tron shudders, drags his hand down Sam's back and braces himself against the wall, and thrusts forward. Sam swears at the sudden flush of heat and need, presses his forehead against the program's shoulder and holds on with shaking limbs; his knee slides down an inch and the back of his leg rubs up against the circuit at Tron's hip. Another shudder, and Tron thrusts against him again, rumbling louder with every push and pull. Sam gives back as good as he can, wrapping an arm around Tron's shoulders for leverage as he moves the palm of his hand and his fingertips all over the circuits and hard planes of the program's body; he shuts his eyes against the heat spiraling upward with each electrifying touch, makes embarrassingly hitching sounds as Tron shoves him against the wall again and again. Every rough thrust pushes his shirt up a little more, exposing bare skin to the nodes marking down Tron's front, and the circuits burn and snap through him with each slide.
It's incredible. Overwhelming. All he can feel is the lightning's embrace, the electric roar through his body and mind, the need pulsing and throbbing through the network of circuits under his skin. It burns bright under his eyelids, fills his lungs with ozone and his head with white noise. He's so close that it hurts and he grits his teeth, twists his hips against Tron as he seeks some kind of release.
Sam finds himself swearing mindlessly between ragged drags of air, alternating between "Tron," and "Please," and thinks he'll go mad when the program slows instead, leaves him aching and empty. The lips at the shell of his ear whisper his name, sex-rough and trembling, and he slowly lifts his head off of Tron's shoulder. He looks down at flickering pupils and tousled hair and parted lips wet with spit, and then gasps when Tron shifts against him, adjusting his grip and pushing Sam that much closer to the edge. One shuddering breath, and they stare at each other, frozen in that moment in between. Another breath, and Tron's kissing him, crushing him against the wall, sucking out air and breathing in heat and lightning. Sam braces his hand against the circuit on the left side of Tron's chest and curls his legs to drag Tron closer, to make him move again. And Tron obliges with a roll of his hips, presses all the way up against him and sets a slower rhythm that lets Sam feel everything - the wet slick slide of Tron's tongue against his, the hand gripping his thigh bruisingly hard, the circuit pulsing under his hand, the taut hard body moving and pushing him closer, closer, closer-
"Oh god." He feels the first shaky rush under his skin, tastes static and traces of power as he pulls away from Tron's mouth and tries to breathe. "Fuck, I can't-"
He's shaking and stretched too thin at the same time, can't make sense of the pounding in his head and the heat unwinding in his chest. Tron isn't doing much better; he shudders, flinches at the barest caress of his circuits, moans low and needy as lines and nodes flare white. The semblance of control from earlier slips as he suddenly thrusts hard against Sam, and the friction burns like a lit match. It threatens to die down into that unending, taunting, mindless thrum, and Sam drags the program's hips back to his, hisses at the rush of cold heat as Tron rocks against him. They don't really kiss, sliding bruised lips against each other as Sam presses his forehead to Tron's and loses himself to the incessantly building pressure under his skin and the frenzied need unraveling in his chest and his groin and his head.
"Sam," Tron breathes into his mouth, so quiet and calm and so unlike the tightening grip on the back of Sam's leg and the tense, trembling body moving against him with increasing desperation. "Sam-"
"Right here." There's light behind his eyelids, violet and bright. The air ripples, heavy with ozone, and the pressure is just there. "S'okay. Let go."
He doesn't mean to say it - he doesn't mean a lot of things, he just wants Tron to stop holding back - but it's too late, and Tron lets go. Teeth close on Sam's lips as he slides his hand along Sam's leg to his ass and thrusts up with his entire body. There's a sensation like a white-hot electric pulse transferring from program to User, need and pleasure pushing and pulling through every point of contact, and Sam unravels completely. He can't breathe and a single word traps itself in the back of his throat; he curls his legs up and clutches at the trembling, keening program tightly because he lost touch with gravity, with his mind, with everything, and Tron's the only tether left.
The roar in his head gradually dies down and he feels Tron slip, feels his knees buckle. Disoriented, Sam clings to the program tightly, suddenly fearful of falling, but the hand holding his weight up is still steady. Tron buries his face in the crook of his neck, rumbling loudly as he slowly slides them down to the ground. Sam curls up on Tron's lap and sags against the wall, exhausted but hyper aware of his surroundings. Aside from the still rapid beat in his ear and the purring in front of him everything's so quiet.
Too quiet.
He cracks an eye open, and then blinks both as he takes in the weary smile on Tron's face and the sudden lightness in his gaze. His circuits still pulse purple and Sam lifts a heavy hand up, slides his index finger along the edge of the light on the program's sternum. There's a hitch, a shuddering pained whimper, and Sam lets his arm drop. Tron leans forward, pressing his forehead against Sam's shoulder, and Sam suddenly has an unobstructed view of darkened towers and a cyan glow beyond the silhouettes of skyscrapers.
He clears his throat. "We-" His voice cracks. "I think...all the lights..."
Sam doesn't notice the hand resting on his hip until Tron kneads it, and he hisses, arches against the program. He's too sensitive and he aches everywhere, joints throbbing and feet going numb, but he can't bring himself to move into a more comfortable position. Then Tron raises his head and presses a slow kiss to the side of his neck. To the curve of his jaw. The corner of his lips. Sam sighs as Tron kisses him languorously, caresses his mouth with care.
"Quiet," Tron says. "Just be quiet."
"Was he always this cranky?"
Tron blinks at him, not sure who he's talking about.
"Shaddox," Sam says. The wind almost rips away his voice. "He kept talking like I pissed in his coffee."
He has no idea what that's supposed to mean, but he knows what Sam's getting at. "He doesn't have a reason to trust you. Not yet."
Sam sighs and stares down at the platform. His shoulders sag and there are lines on his face, and Tron wants to reach over to rub them away. Instead he walks over and places a hand on Sam's arm, squeezes once to get Sam to look up at him. "Give them time."
"How much time? The Grid's in worse shape. Don't think the utilities I ported over are gonna help convince the others that I'm in charge now."
No, they won't. The programs Sam ported in are meant to assist Shaddox and Crystal's sister Nyx with only the Grid's infrastructure. They play no role in convincing sector leaders to back down. They have no power over the Sentries and Black Guard still wandering in the abandoned sectors and in the Outlands.
Sam rubs the back of his head and Tron follows the motion, recalling the deep red line on the back of his hand from where a Light Disc grazed it. "Sorry. I should be more optimistic, but it's been really crappy the past few days and-and all I could think about was you waiting for me here."
Those words, that look, the way Sam stiffens and turns away makes something lurch in his subroutines. Tron wants to take that guilt away, throw it into the Sea of Simulation, and let it sink into the lifeless waters. Instead he curls his finger under Sam's chin and tilts his head up to say, "You came back."
He doesn't tell Sam that during the quiet millicycles he'd go out to the balcony and look eastward, wondering if this second is when the portal lights up the sky. He doesn't talk about the centicycles he spent patrolling the Rho Sector on his own, or the questions programs asked about the User who came back, the User who promised to save the Grid and then disappeared like another User a long time ago. He doesn't say anything about the weight of time bearing down on him as it ticked on, about the aching loneliness and emptiness that often made him feel hollow and nonexistent. He keeps quiet about the things Shaddox said, the doubts and disillusionment that had started to cloud his mind.
"You're quiet."
Tron blinks and his eyes focus on Sam's mouth. "I was just thinking."
"About what?"
"Our agreement." He glances up at blue eyes, darker than his circuits yet illuminated with some inner light that he attributes to Sam's User status.
"Tron-"
"You can't neglect your life on the other side. You can't do what he did."
"I know that." Sam's eyes cloud over and he tilts his head a little higher. "But I can't just abandon you for months at a time-"
"You're not abandoning us. What we have to do doesn't always require a User's permission; you won't visit as frequently as Flynn did, but you do this, you'll prove to the others that this is a permanent-" He stops at the expression on Sam's face. Maintaining the Grid in his absence isn't the topic here. "A thousand years passed before you came to the Grid. Twenty-six cycles before you came back. And another forty-eight centicycles... Three point seventy-seven centicycles won't hurt, and I won't just be waiting. I'm still protecting the system. Still fighting for you."
I fight for the Users. It comes out so readily - it is his code, after all - but the slight emphasis on "you" suddenly changes its meaning. Not surprisingly Sam picks it up and the corner of his mouth quirks upward before he kisses Tron.
"Stop making it so hard for me to leave," he says. He doesn't step back to cross over the narrow retractable bridge to the tower of wind and light, and Tron doesn't let go of his arm. "Have to write that monitor you requested."
Tron nods. He tilts his other hand, slides his palm along the side of Sam's face to bury his fingers in short thick hair, and tilts his head up to swallow the name on the tip of his tongue. He presses into Sam's mouth, memorizing its hot slick shape and the taste of sweet raw energy, and shivers when Sam moans and kisses back. The low needy sound almost deafens him to the constant roar of the active portal behind them, but it's still there and it won't stop reminding them that Sam needs to leave.
"Yeah," he says hoarsely when they pull back. "Yeah, I have to...have to go."
At that Tron lets him go and takes a slow step back. He watches Sam gather himself, square his shoulders, and turn around to face to the narrow bridge... and then turn back around. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"
Tron frowns. "You asked me that before."
"I know. Forget it." Sam shrugs, nonchalantly adds, "Just wanted to see what you'd say."
That makes no sense. They know Tron's place is here. He's a program; he can't just leave the Grid like Sam can. More importantly, he's needed here, even if most of the Grid still can't see him as the program he used to be before... he lets the thought slide away and forces himself to say, "I'll see you around."
Sam nods and smiles at him. "Yeah, see you around."
Tron wants to look away. It was already hard enough the first time Sam stepped into the pillar of light, let go of his disk, and disappear. He can't turn away, though, because when after Sam takes his disk off and lets it float out of his hands he turns to look straight at him. His eyes are a shade of blue Tron can never find on the Grid. Then the light becomes too bright and Tron's forced to avert his gaze.
The winds die and the Sea directly under the portal stops stirring itself into a frenzy. Tron blinks and immediately looks at the portal, now devoid of power and presence. Three point seventy-seven centicycles will pass until it lights up again and Sam comes back.
The seconds start ticking in the back of his head as Tron walks down the steps from the platform to the landing and pulls out his baton.