Disclaimer: These are not my characters and they would most likely never do these things. Sigh.

Warnings: One-sided slash, severe rambling, overuse and under-comprehension of programming terminology.

As an aside: Trust your Technolust.

I've written this code so many times it's likely that I know it by heart. It would be more practical, certainly, to write the program out once and save it, but just this once I allow my paranoia to spruces my sense of practicality. I'm not sure what the reaction of my faithful underlings would be to my little obsession, but I am in no way eager to find out. So I type out the entire program, over and over, only to delete it when I'm through. As a result, the program changes ever so slightly in its every incarnation, though the basic idea of it always remains the same. If only the obsession itself were so easily deleted, so easily altered. Generally, although hardly as a rule, the program does help me to further sublimate what feelings I do have for him. I know that he is not mine, and that I cannot have him, and the program seems to highlight this as often as it masks it. I have never once allowed my personal preferences and desires influence my actions, and this usually serves me well, however difficult it is becoming to seperate what must be done from what I know I have no hope of doing. Despite the trouble re-writing the program causes me, however, I do find it affords me a certain amount of welcome distraction between watching the city, monitoring the work in my lab, and meetings with the inane traitor May.

Her feelings for me are entirely understandable, even deliberately caused, but the girl nonetheless turns my stomach. Traitors are not to my taste, no matter how useful. My tastes run more to the loyal-unto-death types, even the verging-on-boring types. No, May does not appeal to me, nor does the insidious Java. They are each lowly and self-serving in their own snide way, and I spend as little time around both as I possibly can.

For years, I had thought myself to be impervious to any kind of affection for another living person. I sought solace only in my computers, and interacted only where it was necessary that I do so. It became apparent, quickly and painfully, that this was not the case after all, when I first joined the Technos. It seemed that even the sort of heart-grinding unrequited love that I had always so despised was not entirely beyond the scope of my emotions. When these new and dangerous variables were brought to light, I did the only thing I could do. I suppressed them completely.

The program that I am writing, and will most likely write again tomorrow, is not a complicated one for its kind. There is no dialogue, for instance, aside from my improvisation. There are no reality-warping effects so common in Paradise programs, no knights in shining armour, except metaphorically. There are only my sleeping quarters, him, and me. Logically, even the room itself is not a necessity, but I find that an empty void is not conductive to the sort of atmosphere it is my goal to create. There are, of course, minor components to the program apart from the stage and the actors, such as gravity, light, temperature, but with these I take the path of least resistance and copy code from other sources.

I spend what I realise to be an inordinate amount of time on his face. I like to be particularly meticulous with his expressions, especially. I have the contradictory way he can seem to be warm and incisive all at once down to a science, or perhaps an art. I know his scowl, his laugh, his unguarded smile all from memory. I have to be a bit more creative when it comes to how he must look caught up in the heat of passion, those soft lips of his parted just so, warm eyes half-closed in ecstasy. I've added and removed components to suit my mood over time. Sometimes, for instance, he looks up at me with a beatific sadness that, even though I know is nothing but code, still manages to catch my breath in my throat and make my heart skip a beat. Once, when I was feeling particularly dissatisfied with everything and particularly vicious, he threw his head back and just screamed for five of the longest seconds of my life. It was the worst sound I had ever heard out of my nightmares. Since then I've mostly maintained a certain template.

The program was intended to be nothing more than an outlet, nothing more than rough, animal sex. It was intended as a distraction to ease a hunger I refused to acknowledge and nothing more. We never once kissed, in the early months. He would only take me violently until his loop ended and the program terminated, leaving me with no less lust for him than before. It grew more intimate, however, as we began to regard one another more and more as companions rather than as mere colleagues. He has never been anything if not trusting. As I grew closer, in my own way, to the real one, his digital doppelganger grew warmer in reflection, becoming more like the man himself. The program became infinitely sweeter, more like lovemaking than mere physical contact. It became something to be savoured, rather than something to fill a necessity. It does take longer to create kissing and foreplay than it does to create raw sex, but this is one case in which I consider aesthetics above efficiency. As I have no basis for comparison, I can never know if my estimations regarding the taste of his mouth are correct. I nevertheless find the program to be a pleasant distraction, regardless of the level of work involved.

Subtly, day after day, I find my obsession grows, and the program with it. I can no longer pretend I feel only lust for Jay. Sometimes, in my program and in my dreams, I tell him that I love him. He has never once answered me.