A few hours after he gives the keys to Sam, Alan calls him, and when there's no answer - after ten calls, no less - he makes his way to the arcade. Despite Sam's dismissal of it he knows, somehow, that Sam would never truly ignore some indication that his father might still be around, somewhere.
It takes him a while, but he manages to find the hidden basement. Stands there for a minute or two, trying to work out exactly what to do when there's a bright burst of light, enough to make him cover his eyes.
When it passes, Alan lifts his head, blinking past the white spots that dance before his eyes, and finds himself staring at... at Kevin. Older, like himself, but still obviously Kevin, who's holding onto a girl who looks to be about Sam's age. Sam himself is already moving, sweeping past them all towards the exit, and when he says Sam's name, just barely a whisper, the boy in question jerks his head around with a frown gracing his features. Alan can't not notice his eyes, their usual bright blue replaced with a deep orange. Within seconds he's turned away without a word though, swept past out of the room and there's a moment of stunned silence before Alan speaks again.
"Someone needs to explain to me what's going on."
ooo
It takes a surprisingly short amount of time for Alan to be brought up to speed. Kevin's been trapped in the Grid - the Grid probably takes the most time to explain, because really? - his program, CLU, has gone rogue and is ruling it, programs called ISOs evolved all on their own and they were brilliant until CLU destroyed them because they weren't perfect, the girl with him is called Quorra and she's an ISO, and Sam...
Sam had been caught by CLU. CLU had reprogrammed him, and Kevin admits that he doesn't even know how because Sam is a user, not a program. They'd hoped that bringing him back once they'd recaptured him would undo the damage.
"Evidently not," Alan comments unnecessarily, sees Kevin flinch and if he were less overwhelmed he'd apologise because he knows he's being curt and rude, but as is he just shakes his head and turns away. It's too much for him; Kevin back after all these years, everything he's learned about the Grid, the fact that Sam has been violated and twisted in such a way. Sam. He'd always known that Kevin coming back had the potential to be awkward, since that night three years ago when Sam had pressed up against him, drunk and needy and calling him daddy, and Alan had given into it despite himself.
Sam coming back like this only makes it harder, and once Alan has taken Kevin and Quorra back to his house he excuses himself without a word, sinks down into bed and prays for sleep so that he doesn't have to think about everything that's happening.
ooo
Alan awakes to lips against his earlobe, and he can almost kid himself that everything is normal, that he dreamt everything last night. Almost. He catches a glimpse of Sam's eyes, though, and everything comes rushing back as he stares into them, irises a burnt orange. He's always loved Sam's eyes. He can't say the same for them like this. Sam is surprisingly open to Alan pushing away from him, at least, just sits on the edge of the bed and watches as Alan dresses himself. His head cocks to one side in a quick, birdlike motion as Alan moves towards the door, and then he's up, following almost as if he's compelled.
Alan hates it, and he says so. Hates it even more when Sam just cocks his head in that quick motion again and makes a noise somewhere between a hum and a purr.
At the very least, Sam's willingness to follow him makes it easy to get them all in the same room together, because Kevin and Quorra are already in the living room when he gets down there. He can see Kevin's eyebrow raise at the way Sam is following him like some sort of lost animal, but he shakes his head slightly. Now isn't the time. When Sam is back to himself, and when he makes the decision to broach the subject, is the time, not while Sam is broken and violated and following him helplessly.
"The only way I can see to fix him is to take him back to the Grid and get rid of the corrupted code in his disc," Kevin tells Alan, once they're all settled. "But since CLU's still running around, it's not safe for me to go back."
Kevin's plan is, evidently, to send Sam back with Quorra - and Alan gathers that she's already been informed of where the problems are likely to be - but when she moves towards him Sam actively growls. He shifts closer to Alan, lips pulled back from his teeth in an animalistic snarl, and much as the look on Kevin's face makes it pretty clear that he disapproves, the plan is quickly adjusted to include Alan going to the Grid as well.
"He'll come around," Quorra tells him quietly at the arcade, while Kevin is busy preparing the computer to send them into the Grid, and Alan doesn't want to know how a program has managed to surmise his relationship with the man currently hovering behind him and frowning. "He just needs to get used to the idea," she adds when he doesn't respond, "It's good though, because I don't think we'd have been able to help Sam without hurting him if it hadn't been for you."
Watching the way that Sam recoils whenever Quorra or his father moves towards him - slower with Kevin, which Alan supposes makes sense if CLU and Kevin have the same face, but still there - he's inclined to agree.
It doesn't make it all that much easier, though.
ooo
The differences are even more obvious once they're on the Grid, Quorra's glowing blue circuitry contrasting with the deep orange of Sam's. He's a little more himself, at least, but it's off-putting, given what... aspects of himself seem to have returned. He seems determined to distract Alan and Quorra from fixing his disc; growling at Quorra whenever she tries to touch the disc, pressing himself up against Alan and purring when Alan tries to do anything.
"I'm fine, Alan," he purrs, breath against Alan's ear and erection pressed against his leg, the tight suit hiding nothing. He won't give up on it, and Alan doesn't want to really think about the implications of Sam being even more sexual than usual. Doesn't want to think about what CLU might have done to him while he was open and wanting in this way.
"Daddy," he whines out eventually, changing tactics. Alan can see the way Quorra's head tilts when Sam climbs into his lap, repeating the word in a high voice. "Daddy, I've been naughty," he whines again, tries to pull Alan's hand away from the disc and towards his ass. It's all Alan can do to ignore it as the pleas get increasingly desperate, Sam helpless and practically whimpering in his lap, although at the very least it makes it easier to re-apply Sam's disc once they've removed all the damaged and corrupted code they can find.
Sam promptly passes out in Alan's lap, and Alan can't decide whether to be more worried about why he's unconscious, or grateful that he's not trying to grope Alan to death any more.
ooo
Despite Quorra's misgivings about removing Sam from the Grid before they know the results, Alan insists that they return to the real world before Sam awakes. It'll be easier if Sam wakes up somewhere familiar, somewhere he's woken up a lot of times before. Quorra agrees to it eventually, and Kevin almost immediately once they're back in the arcade. When he realises that Alan is driving back to his own place rather than Sam's, his expression changes, but again Alan shakes his head and doesn't comment.
The time for that will be when Sam can join in the conversation, and Kevin knows that.
It doesn't mean that Kevin is particularly impressed when Alan carries Sam up into his bed, but before he can say anything Sam is jerking awake suddenly, still half in Alan's arms. His eyes are blue again, which is good, but on the other hand he's pressing himself into Alan's arms like Alan is the only thing real in the world, and he's choking and then he's sobbing into Alan's shirt. It doesn't even matter that Kevin and Quorra are there; Alan can't do anything but sit beside him on the bed, hold Sam close to him and wait for the hysterics to pass.
Sam hasn't cried like this since that night he'd turned up as a child, covered in cuts and bruises where he'd fallen off his bike, begging Alan to be allowed to stay because Sam's dad was gone and he was lonely and it hurt and his grandparents didn't understand.
It's all Alan can do not to cry himself as he waits for it to pass.
He can feel Kevin and Quorra watching, and he looks up once Sam has begun to calm slightly. Quorra looks distressed and close to tears - can a program cry? - herself, and Kevin... Kevin looks like he understands. Maybe it's something in the way they fit together, the way Sam is calming in his arms and the way that Alan holds him so close that it's barely possible to see where one of them ends and the other begins.
And in that moment, as Sam begins to quiet, Alan knows that it's going to be okay. They're going to have to explain their relationship to Kevin, and they're going to have to find out exactly what CLU did to Sam on the Grid and deal with the aftermath, and it'll be hard and it'll hurt. But it'll be okay, sooner or later, because they have each other, and Kevin is back, and Quorra is there, a miracle born within a miracle.
It might take a long time, but they'll be okay in the end, all of them.