His User sighed silently. Deeply enough to resound as if he was powering down.
"[I don't want you to do this to please me.]"
Tron rose a brow, offense written on his face and his User started, talking with his hands, gesturing about helplessly.
"[Even like this]" (and his User had done nothing if not catering to his needs selflessly; to the point that Tron still couldn't figure out whether users, at large, were capable of any kind of selfishness during passion) "[I'm not sure if I'm not forcing this level of intimacy on you.]"
He shook his head piteously but stubbornness was still written all over his face. "[I need to make sure.]"
The program sighed.
"[I have waited to be able to have you this way since the first time you came, looking like one of us. ...]" He shook his head. "[No. That's not true; I have wanted you since the first time I felt your eyes and your hands on me, drawing my patterns; in defrag, while I was in beta.]"
A silence fell, and his User showed courage again. "[Has it...grown from the way I wrote you?]"
"[I do not know if it is in my hard code. What our User gives us is private. His username when he assigns us a mission, the details of his mission as well, are to be kept secret unless directly asked. Most Tower Guardians hardly explained us anything on Encom.]
"[But after I met Flynn, each time when he came physically to meet us; every time I naively hoped that it would be you. Sometimes, it almost drove me mad. Once, I... I resented you. Not only for your absence, then, but also for never having come along with Flynn... And I thought of this level of my need, of you, as a burden. A cruelty.] [I ask your forgiveness.]
"[At times, under Clu, I actually had wondered it; if it came from my hard code. If it could be rerouted, or removed altogether; whether that part of me influenced my performances. And how much.
"But the next minute, I stopped being myself; even my designation wasn't mine anymore. That way I got my answers: If it was a simple byproduct of soft code, Clu would also have found a way to erase it or corrupt it.] [And if it was hard code alone, it would have been changed now, with the current... test, that you are running. This update I warned you against.]"
He stepped forth and placed a palm against his User's chest (I am ok. Don't dwell on that. please hear me out), yet not perceiving anything past the data that pulsated and parsed so deliciously compatible under his io dots.
He lowered his head. "[Your credentials, the shattered remnants of your signature, and my need of you were what kept me rooted in my initial directive. Under what Clu added, twisted. I rejected his name three times even after he broke my internal security functions apart.]" He smiled.
"[It is no longer a burden, since you knew me completely in any way I asked. I can use the memory to sate it, now. The distance of our worlds does not hurt anymore. Whether it is from hard code or from my Spark, now it is only a blessing, so I do not want to loose it.]
His User struggled to let the solid wave of guilt that had mounted pass away from him.
"[Tron...]"
"[No, my User,]" he whispered. "[You have given me many blessings; blessings realized and blessings-to-be.]
"[It took me longer to appreciating the later before... Before. "[Now I'm glad for them all.]"
"[So you changed your mind about this update?]" his User perked up, hopeful.
"[No.]"
Alan-One slighly sagged, a hand in his pocket, as he looked away.
But when he tried to hide his grin, there was much less strain in his mirth that what had been months ago, the first time they had discussed what had happened to him, and happened twice.
This time, Alan-One's simply covered his hand, then his arm, and studied him closely as he softened his tone.
"[Still, you could be way more selfish. It would help.]"
"[If I was more selfish that I already am with you, it would very like be a blaspheme- and "[ (he added before his User could brush it off) "[I'm not talking about the kind of blaspheme that you usually find amusing. You don't seem to have an idea of how much I-]"
Tron sighed, breath shaking, and over than a little annoyed. He frowned, searing a hole in his User's symbolic interface.
"[I'm just going to mute you next time.]"
