Summary of story:

The MCP tries a new torture tactic on Tron. Ram wants to repay a favor.

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Favors (working title) Part 1

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......

Ram is pretty sure that, at least from some folks' perspectives, there's something wrong with him.

At least, from a common-sense, self-preservation sort of viewpoint, there's probably maybe something kinda wrong with being excited like this, over seeing Tron in a fighting rage.

Specifically-- Ram's processing speeds up, grabbing more memory more quickly than he's exactly allowed to, just to twist his body out of the way fast enough to dodge that absolutely merciless disc throw-- especially a fighting rage that's aimed at him.

They both drop to a crouch. Tense. Panting. Guarded, eyeing each other from half-lowered faces from a too-short distance apart, as Tron's disc returns to him.

And even his grab, recapturing it, has a feral sort of power that makes something hot and needy pulse all through Ram's circuits, on the skin and several more layers down. Repressing visible violet is getting closer and closer to impossible.

Odd how close fear and revulsion can be to desire. Maybe all it takes is the littlest error, an unclosed tag, a stack overflow, to change one into the other.

And that's in spite of how the only thing that still jolts Ram awake in primal fear, sometimes, is the all-too-plausible thought that the MCP will eventually decide to pit him and Tron in a death-duel against each other. (Worst thing by far that Ram ever imagines, though it's almost an afterthought how thoroughly Ram himself would lose that match-- the devastation it'd wreak on Tron, to have to do that, is most of the nightmare.)

And even though this is a training match with the safety programming turned on-- (and now Tron charges at him like an absolute surge of power, no warning at all, faster than tank rounds, and Ram ducks out of the way and cannot believe that slashing disc didn't hit him that time; honestly, by this point he can barely still believe this even is a training match)--

Even so, with it feeling this close to his worst fear, how in the hack is Ram still fighting to suppress purple, trembling with arousal through every swipe and parry, like his body's begging for all that terrifying power to be unleashed on him in a whole different--

Ram knows. Of course he knows.

Because Ram's not oblivious. He knows what kind of energy Tron's trying to burn off. And how this isn't the ideal way to do it, not by a long shot. And if he'd been sure how Tron would react, he might've just skipped the whole fight and offered the other option right from the start, but--

He manages a throw, curving his own disc cleverly from his hand at a point in his evasive dance where most opponents would never have expected it-- but Tron doesn't miss a thing. He slams his own disc into it, hard, knocking it halfway across the room. And oh, glitch it, that disc sure does have a whole imprint of Ram on it, because Ram feels the impact all through his own code, and it ought to hurt halfway to deresolution, but instead it--

...well, turns out this is when repression can't hold on anymore, and for a picocycle and a half his whole circuit array throbs in edge-of-overload levels of pleasure and flashes blinding, hot, humiliating purple, and ...Tron definitely saw that.

Oh yeah. He's fragged.

---

The whole thing reached this turning point earlier in the microcycle. They were in their cells, separated by the transparent forcefield, waiting for the next battle. Both restless. Ram spinning and flipping his disc, Tron pacing and glaring at him through the barrier.

"Stop it."

A thing Tron never said before about Ram's disc tricks, no matter how much Ram practiced them. And with a strange, hot snap of anger behind the words that actually shocked Ram into stopping.

"What?" Ram held the disc by its edge, vertical, like how he always examined it after calibration, though for now his eyes were still wide and staring at Tron. "What'd I do?"

And of course it was nothing Ram had done.

He got the truth out of Tron, slowly, like the most torturous debugging. MCP had been cutting shifts on the game grid. Cancelling matches, replacing them with nothing but idle time. For Tron specifically.

Which should have seemed like a blessing -- Tron loathed that senseless violence, so far from his intended function-- but things weren't so simple.

They were cutting fights, but not cutting rations. Serving Tron the same portion of liquid energy fuel as usual. And, if he refused to drink the liquid, they forced in a supplement from ambient power levels in a more painful form, heat or electricity. Tron wasn't being allowed to refuse his charge... but also wasn't allowed to use it up on combat.

And, for a program so hyperfixated on his User, the only place for all that pent-up power to go was into the I/O functions.

The deepest drive in any program's instincts: the drive to serve the Users. Which, apparently, in this Encom system, tended to take a.... particular form.

Centered in some of the most sensitive, vulnerable functions of one's code. Aching with denied need. Straining for the pleasure of completion.

Plenty of roads to get there, though. Program bodies were versatile, and there was a lot they could do for one another. Maybe not all as exquisitely satisfying as one's True Purpose -- but plenty good enough for now.

Not that Tron was the sort who'd admit that easily. Tron was the sort who, left to his own devices, would repress desire like a quarantined virus and try to save himself, all pure and untainted, for his User.

And so poor Ram, new to this System, might never have even learned these all-important facts of life... if it weren't for the good luck that Tron, early in their time as cellmates, had happened to find Ram in more-or-less the same sort of predicament... and the inhibitions of a somewhat prudish User-believer got outweighed by a good program's ethical obligation to help a friend and ally in need.

Or at least, Ram imagined that was how Tron thought of what they'd done with each other.

Hard to imagine what he really hoped, sometimes.

So, this time around, Ram was gonna be careful. This time around... instead of the mathematical exchange that made sense to him-- offering help for help, repayment in kind, when seeing Tron needing what he'd once needed-- Ram instead took things a bit more circuitously.

"I'm still new here, you know," he reminded Tron. "Still got a few shifts of training I'm supposed to complete. If you need a good fight, you could sign up to do some of that for me. Burn off some energy in a non-lethal match. Conscript-to-conscript counts as valid Standard Substandard training, if I remember right. And I gotta say I'd appreciate it-- it'll be a lot less Substandard, coming from a fighter like you."

And Tron, from a face too security-quarantined to allow Ram any hint of what he was really thinking or wanting, replied with a long, stalling silence that ended in a yes.

---

Nothing repressed about Tron's energy now. It's free and it's glorious and it's gone way beyond training, standard or otherwise, and Ram's probably in real danger but still he rolls just barely out of the way with his back arching in desire.

Tron's slid into something far from his usual fighting style. He's barely even using his disc now, he's holding it clutched to his side like it's almost in the way-- the bulk of his attacks are full-body lunges and shoves, which Ram's evading with more and more difficulty, and Tron might be saving the disc for a sudden surprise attack but Ram has a feeling that's not quite it.

Danger, for sure-- as far as Ram knows, the safety programming in these practice matches only goes as far as non-deadly mods for the discs, so there's still a very real chance to get outright bodyslammed to death. But again, that's not what Ram's feelings are warning him about, and fear still won't take the place that common sense might want to assign it.

A swipe of Tron's leg is the closest thing to a surprise that Ram gets-- and when it comes, he's only a little shocked at himself for succumbing so willingly to it. More excited than dismayed, to feel that heel collide with his own, seizing his fragile balance. His back hits the floor with more thrill than pain or fear.

And then it's-- too much, too much. Too much to even try and fight anymore, and he just--

He just lies there, trembling, the pressure of the floor sending shivers through his docked disc, the power of Tron's proximity making the air tingle.

Holds his breath and waits, all circuits throbbing purple. Head tips back, eyes close, legs spread open as he just leans back and... and just braces himself for it.

For Tron--

Time passes like a beating rhythm. Four or five beats, waiting for Tron to crash down onto him, but nothing... and he opens his eyes, at last, slow.

Tron is kneeling on the floor, facing away from him-- hunched over, shaking. Maybe crying.

Ram sits up. Slowly, so carefully, reaches out a hand.

But Tron senses when the touch is near, and draws himself away from it in a panic, and still won't turn to look at Ram. Ram withdraws his hand, aching.

"Tron?"

Tron's voice is so rough, like he's broken on every level, barely managing to force words through it. "Don't get close, Ram. Don't. I... I can't control what I'd do if you touched me."

"And what's that? Hurt me? Derezz me?"

A glitched-sounding rumble comes from somewhere even deeper in Tron, and Ram sees the colors of his lights dip into sensual lavender.

"...No."

"Tron." Ram's hand extends again-- closer and closer to touching, but not quite, not overstepping that boundary-- not yet. "Tron, I know what you need. Go ahead. I promise you, it's okay."

Nanocycles of nothing but heavy, ragged breaths. Then: "There's surveillance here. They're watching."

Sliding into a cross-legged position on the floor beside him, Ram sighs. "If they wanted to stop you they would've already."

Tron doesn't move, just stays curled around himself, colors pulsing. "How can you possibly know that?"

"From experience." Ram's tongue slides over his lip. "...Trust me. They want to watch."

"Oh, Users, oh no." Curling in tighter, burying his face in his hands.

"What?" Ram scoots just a little closer to him. "About being watched? Or about me having experience?"

"Either." Tron's head lifts, by just a few pixels, from his cupped hands. "Both. How did... who..."

Ram's mouth twists in amusement, irritation, a messy mix of feelings. "Hey. I'm not some little alpha or beta. Pretty sure I'm older than you. You've said your User is still working on you. I've served the public at an insurance company already. If anyone's the innocent little youth here, it's you."

"I am not!" Tron's head finally lifts all the way, turning to look fully at Ram now. His eyes are dark, hot. "...And I don't think the time before you entered this system really counts, not in the same way. Remember how I had to teach you everything--"

"Shh." That is much too vivid a memory in Ram's core, and it's why this is so frustrating. He holds eye contact now that he's got it, and he lifts his hand again, calculatedly slow, as much as he can move without scaring away this flighty beast. "...Yes, I remember, believe me. But all you need to know is, I kept on learning after that." Tron stays surprisingly still, watching the hand like it's hypnitozing him. And Ram tries not to break the spell, tries to keep his tone matter-of-fact, his words as informative and friendly as always. "I... I know what I'm doing. And they did this to you on purpose. Humiliation tactic. They want you demoralized. I mean, their ideal outcome was probably if you'd lost control and killed me-- or done something else terrible to me." He echoes Tron's wince in sympathy, and hurries to keep talking. "Which you didn't, okay? You stopped yourself. So you beat them already. And the best way you can go on beating them is to get through this with as little shame as possible."

Tron's head lowers again, but his eyes don't fully leave Ram. "I... can't just turn off shame."

Ram nods. "Which is probably good, because if they see some shame they'll think they won at least a little, so they won't feel like tormenting us any extra. But the point is we stay strong on the inside, right? To keep surviving, til we can bust out of here. For the Users."

"...I can't make you do this." And the spell's broken; Tron's face falls back into his palms. "You shouldn't have to."

"I want to." Oh, oh how Ram wants to. "I help people. Friends help each other out. You helped me."

"I didn't do that to put an obligation on you." Tron's softly rocking as he speaks, muffled in his hands. "It's me who should repay you, except I can't. I... there's not a microcycle that goes by without me being sorry for that, Ram."

Ram's hand, still on its slow slow journey toward Tron finally stalls in midair. "You're sorry that we..."

"I mean-- well, no," Tron's voice rasps, so painfully bleak. "It's not like we had other choices that weren't worse. You remember how you were-- nobody'd even shown you how bodies work in this system-- and programs that don't figure out how to manage their I/O power levels, they can't focus and they don't last, not here in the game grid. And I... I wanted you to last."

With a sigh, Ram drops his hand, folds them both in his lap. "And I'm glad I did-- why wouldn't I be? I'm glad we-- aren't you? what's wrong? Did I..."

"No! You did nothing wrong." Tron's head jerks back up again, eyes bright in something like panic. "You're-- it's my shame. Even though I didn't do anything I didn't need to. It's still... sad. That I had to do that to you. Interfacing with someone should be a-- a bond like nothing else. I shouldn't have had to take that away from you." He's babbling, like he can't stop trying to explain himself, like he's scared of what'd happen if he stopped. "Wasn't fair. You deserved to have something better for your first time-- something sacred, like it ought to be-- if not your User, then at least someone you got to choose."

"Hey." And Ram leans in close again-- and this time without calculation, almost before he realizes it, his hand's reached out to rest, very gently, on an uncircuited spot of Tron's shoulder. "How much do we ever get to choose anything?"

The contact is warm, repressed. It doesn't rip away all Tron's self-control, like he warned so over-cautiously. The fire's all too palpable underneath, but still buried under so much fear and indecision. Data-transfer through the touch buzzes with a complex static of feelings, nothing getting through very clearly.

And Tron stays stiff but unresisting. "Not much," he says, his voice low and tight. "We aren't made to choose things, really. But to me, that just means it's all the more precious whenever we can. Not everyone feels that way, I guess." Indigo and pink flicker in circuits around the touch, and Tron's eyes flicker between glancing down at himself and glancing back at Ram. "Some programs are fine with not having a choice. Maybe you're fine with it. I don't know. It's still sad that you've had to be fine with it. That you could never have gotten another option if you'd wanted one."

Ram feels a sad smile overtake his face. "Maybe. But, Tron? Just so you know-- if I did have the choice-- if I had all the programs in all the systems in the world to choose from-- if I could touch and love and bond with anyone at all, anywhere-- I'd want you, more than any of them." Breath catches on how true it is, and his fingers tighten. "Lots more. Not even close."

"Ram." Tron's tension increases under Ram's fingers, both leaning into him and trying not to. "Ram."

"I mean-- yeah, maybe that isn't a choice, really. Maybe I only feel that way 'cause of how you taught me about the system, when I was new. Maybe I can't help wanting you so much, because I was this soft little half-compiled newbie, back when you touched me and shaped me into what I ended up being. And... yeah, it's glitched-up that you had to do that. Not gonna try and claim it was healthy. Nothing is, here. But-- honestly?-- do any of us ever know for sure why we want anything we want? Everything we feel could be someone's hand shaping us, for all we know."

"The Users' hands I'm fine with." Tron's voice seems so small. "But my hands shouldn't be doing their job. Not on you." And his eyes dip down to look at his own hands, clenched in his lap to try and hold back whatever they want so badly to do-- and then at the hand that's on him already.

Ram presses that hand in just a little, feeling Tron heat up under the touch. "Maybe they shouldn't have. But they did, they had to. And... now I want them on me some more, Tron. Haven't-- haven't been able to stop thinking of you, ever. How you felt on me. I've tried to make myself feel like that, and... well, I've figured out a lot on my own, but nothing comes even close to you. Nothing. No one. Can't stop wanting you, this whole time. So bad."

"R-Ram." There's a hot shiver building in Tron now, and Ram can feel it, and oh, how it makes him want.

"When you never made any move toward me, after that..." The pain of the memory makes its way into Ram's words, and he doesn't try and stop it. "When you just got all distant, I...I figured it was because of who you already belong to. I figured you never really needed or wanted anyone else except Yori and Alan-1. I figured that anything else you'd told me-- about how you'd bring me home and I'd be part of your life, and Yori would love me, and Alan-1 would let us meet him together in the I/O Tower, and all the things the three of you were gonna do to me-- was all just because I needed to hear it, right then." His voice cracks in that remembered hurt, but his touch stays soft. "And I-- I told myself I had to be thankful for that, and just leave it. You helped me, and I'm still alive because of it, and I don't have any claim to anything more."

Tron says nothing, but the chaos that Ram can sense through tactile data-transfer starts to carry some clear strains of a sharp, sweet sadness.

Ram swallows, leaning just a bit closer. "And-- if I have to, I can go on telling myself that. 'Cause I'll live. I want you, but a want isn't a need. Still... if I'm understanding what you're saying? If the only reason you didn't offer me any more of that was 'cause you felt guilty about it? If you've been thinking of what you did as some... some sin against me, something that'd hurt me more to repeat?" His eyes narrow; the hurt turns his voice just a bit sharp again. "If you've been holding back for my sake? Then... I want to know, Tron. So I can tell you what a glitch you're being. And so I can let myself loose and do everything to you I've been wanting, without any more guilt-- hard enough to blast away every last trace of all that guilt from both of us."

Tron's shaking under his hand now, the banked fire rising, eyes only barely still looking up at Ram from his lowered face. Breath is slow, heavy.

"So." Ram takes in a couple slow breaths of his own. "You've got three choices. I'm gonna number them zero to two, because the first one's not even really a choice, it's just nothing. Zero: You can sit there and keep not saying a thing, and I'll... leave you alone. And if your energy issue doesn't resolve itself, I guess I'll live with whatever happens to you in the games because of it. Though, I do want you to last, Tron, as much as you wanted me to last. I'm not gonna hide that."

Tron's face lifts, pixel by pixel, still hypnotized by Ram's touch and his words, riding them now toward something new.

"Then..." Ram notes the change, tries to move and feel in harmony with it, fears anything sudden that could still break this new spell. Keeps talking; keeps his voice achingly gentle. "Then, there's choice number one. If you admit you need my help, but if that need isn't a want-- then say so, and I'll-- I'll get you through this, as quickly and... as professionally as I can. And keep my feelings to myself. Won't be easy, but I'd much rather have the truth than a happy lie, and there's no way it could ever stop me being your friend, no matter what. Life'll go on afterwards. We'll survive. I'll keep helping you, fighting for you, til I get you safely back to Yori and Alan-1 where you wanna be. Because friends help each other out."

Through the contact he still just feels sweet sad pain. In Tron's eyes he sees a curiosity that fears, but wants to trust.

"Or..." And Ram lets his processes quicken, his circuits brighten and heat and start to shift hue, as the rest of the thought rushes from him. "Then, there's choice number two. If this does mean more to you, if you want all of me, right now-- my hands and my body and my mind too, all my feelings free and open-- if you want that now and later, again and again, as many times as possible, for as long as we can have it--" He gasps, surprising himself with what the thought makes him feel now. "Oh, Users, Tron-- if that's it, just say the word and it's all yours. But only if it's the truth, okay? I'll take whatever truth you have-- just tell me what you want and I'm-- I'm here for you, no more questions. Any of those. Zero or one or two."

A moment of total stillness. Then, Tron shudders beneath his touch-- and suddenly, with a broken moan, his walls crumble, data-transfer leaking through in a garbled stream of pings to Ram's mind.

It's a shock that makes Ram stiffen all over, the anguish as fire and chaos rises in that touch, the panic under Tron's desperation to keep his calm exterior, and even though Ram of course knew it must be like that underneath it all, it still jolts him like a power surge and he gasps as his mind scrambles to make sense of the transmission.

Tron's thoughts are reduced to binary, but a binary fighting to express something more complex than it can with just those two values. Zero, it cries out to him. One. Trying to answer his question, and Ram's swept into that anguish as he wonders if maybe that hopeless zero or one really is the answer Tron wants to give him-- until they join up, and Ram gasps and soars into sync with Tron's thoughts at last.

One-zero. A binary two. And he means it-- oh, oh, he means it.

Yes, yes, yes.

"Tron."

"Ram." Tron leans toward him, those anguished eyes finally, fully trained on him; that strong mouth reduced to a quiver. "Please."

"Yes."

And Ram surges forward, a half-stumbling motion that ends with him on his knees almost in Tron's arms, both hands cupping the sides of Tron's neck and jaw, feeling the code glitching, burning, beneath the touch.

It's a torrent of electricity, the overcharge desperate to ground itself in Ram's body, and they both fight to stop it pouring into him too fast-- Tron shaking with the effort to contain himself, Ram braced against the onslaught, even as part of him is just starving to take it in all at once.

He has to try and last, he'll be no good to Tron for a while if he just lets the overload crash him within this first picocycle of touch-- but it's such an intoxicating storm of pain and pleasure and terror and delicious temptation, full, full, full-- and he lets out a helpless whimper, half-laughing, dizzy with it all, wanting it all.

Tron lurches forward and Ram tumbles back-- and then Tron is a delicious hot heavy pressure on top of him, falling in between eagerly spread thighs and rubbing himself, hard, frantic, against Ram as their whole bodies align, circuits to circuits, shuddering-- flashing sensual purple in the ecstatic relief of energy-current that courses into Ram's body through each and every point of contact.

Oh, oh-- Ram twists and bucks as it swells within him, supercharges his entire render, until sparks crackle across his skin, so sharp and hot and good-- and Ram just stays like that a moment, unmoving as he fights to balance on this edge of immolation, to be fire to match Tron's fire, without letting it disintegrate him to ash all at once--

and it stabilizes, barely--

--he is so, so filled with the heat and electric charge, still, stretching him to the very edge of what he can contain. Taking in as much as he can bear, until it's hurting, burning, searing him inside--

and then, slow, agonizingly, microvolts at a time, it starts to ease off.

The inert code around him-- air, floor, wall-- begins to leach away a trace of it, the osmosis of energy that can't help but leak just a little, even when one holds back overload with all possible strength--

--and it takes just some of the pressure from him, electron by electron, absorbs just enough of his achingly full overcharge into the environment until Ram has just room to begin to relax, for just an instant, without the threat of breaking-- to begin to breathe--

And Tron groans, an agonized sound of relief as he bucks involuntarily against Ram-- and he lets out another fast hot rush of electric charge, not nearly enough, but just as much as he can release into the tight space he's been allowed.

It fills Ram again, to the edge of bursting-- and Ram's breath catches on sharp, rough waves of pleasure and he arches violently in Tron's arms-- taking it, letting it take him.

A breath, another. Barely. Again their combined renders can just barely hold the lightning-storm of what Tron's been repressing all this time. Ram gasps in pleasure and pain and awe that Tron's even been able to contain this til now. Again it strains him to the edge; again he nearly overloads, nearly crashes into oblivion but only just manages it-- hanging on, holding it in-- because Tron can use him for longer, like this. A warm solid body that can take his charge, not the elusive energy-cloud he'll break up into when he can't hold it anymore.

Which he knows he can't stave off forever-- he hasn't got the divine strength of a User. Only the love and lust of an ordinary program's body that's spent many, many microcycles teaching itself to be used like this-- to give and take pleasure and energy, because so often in this place it's the only way he can help anyone, and helping is what he's made for--

--and right now, blazing with Tron's power, he feels like maybe his own divine User actually just made him to help Tron, just Tron, and maybe the purpose of everything, everything else til now has been to prepare his body and soul for this--

Again, in agonizing increments, power ebbs away into his surroundings, leaving him a modicum of relief. And again, before he can rest for more than a few picos, again Tron loses control, unable to hold himself back-- and again, sobbing in aching pleasure, Tron clutches Ram and thrusts hard, and a whole-body wave of power-transfer follows the movement from Tron's body into his, setting Ram aflame to the outermost pixels of his graphic-interface.

And again-- again Ram wraps arms and legs around Tron and welcomes him and takes it, arching his back and sliding circuits against hot-violet circuits as he lets himself be filled to the edge between pleasure and pain.

"I--I'm sorry," Tron groans, mouth hot and panting against the circuits of Ram's neck, "so, so sorry, oh, Ram, I can't--"

And Ram whimpers and buries his own mouth in the hot lines between Tron's neck and shoulder and bites him, hard and sharp, as he hangs on long enough for the sparks on his skin to arc away into the air, until there's just enough negative to make room for Tron's next energy-pulse, and moans against those circuits, "no, no, don't you dare be sorry, you fragging-- ah, ah, ah, oh, please Tron, give it to me, again, now, now--"

And Tron just loses it. His body's pounding Ram against the floor, and his charge is coursing into him so hard, so fast, electrifying him again to the edge and-- and over it, now, a hot burning rush that's too much, much more than Tron meant to release, but his self-control's gone now and he can't stop himself in time--

"Ahhh!" Ram throws his head back, biting his lip in one last desperate effort to hold the decision gate shut and hold off overload for a few more nanocycles-- but it's too much, too much charge and his body's not enough to contain it and his strength is already depleted by all the assaults that came before, and-- he just can't any longer.

It torrents hard and merciless through his pathetic attempt at control. The futile clench turns into an endlessly reverberating spasm of pleasure, a rhythm that pounds through his overload and drags it out far, far longer than he thought it could last, the sensation exquisite and excruciating and so, so painfully good, for so long that his throat aches and his circuits burn from the throbs of purple and his thighs exhaust themselves in trembling until he arches in one last jerky motion and collapses, still quivering everywhere.

Lightheaded, floating away from consciousness, he gasps against Tron's neck in between the aftershocks. "I-- ah-- crashing, gonna restart--c-can't help it-- oh, Tron, don't stop though. Still here. Keep doing whatever you need--"

Ram's awareness glitters away into the almost-nothingness of afterglow, becoming a mist of light where his whimpers of pleasure echo for a moment after his body is gone.

In his last thoughts, he expects he'll come back to consciousness with Tron still writhing in the warmth of his cloud, releasing as much as he can into the half-alive glow of him-- desperate for Ram's body to reappear and give him something solid to grasp again, to grind on and ground his charge in, to fill and burn and use until he's satisfied.

Ram's prepared for that-- oh, he's so, so very ready. Ready to take and take and be taken, to be Tron's used and abused outlet for as long as Tron needs it. He comes back to life gasping, arched-- hand stroking at his inner thigh in still-tingly desire, legs open and begging for it.

And so he's... actually a little shocked, when he opens his eyes and instead sees Tron partway across the room, turned away from him again, lying curled up on the floor trembling.

Sighing, Ram rolls to his hands and knees and makes his way over to him. Lies down facing Tron, half-curled up in a mirror of his pose, close enough to touch, and gently reaching out a hand to his shoulder.

"Hey. Hey, I'm here."

Tron flinches and moans at once, leaning into the touch even as he tries to pull himself back from it. Through such a small point of contact, the tips of just three fingers, Ram already feels the inferno of energy; already has to expend effort not to let it rush in and overtake him all at once.

"Ram."

"I know you still need me. You don't have to hold back so much. I can take it. I want to."

"W-why. How can you want to--"

"Because look at you. How could anyone not want you. Come here." Tron doesn't, but Ram still slides closer, and Tron cries out and clenches his hands but doesn't try to retreat.

"Shh," murmurs Ram as he deepens contact, allowing the hand on Tron's shoulder to trace slowly, slowly toward the bright beacon of the nearest circuit, its color already bruising to a magenta glow, as if calling to him.

Oh, it's hard to control himself even now. The first brush of a single fingertip, on that pointed circuit that spikes upward from the circled T of Tron's chest, already takes in a mad rush of electric energy, burning and tingling all the way up Ram's arm and he gasps, twisting in the effort to keep the point of contact small.

It's only because of the smallness of that touch, one finger on one circuit, that he can stop the current from bursting all the way through him all at once. And it's a fight against desire, because near-everything in him wants to take it like that, a hot fast rush into shattering overload.

Tron, too, squirms under the delicious torture. "Thought you --ah, ah-- thought you said no holding back--"

"Well, unfortunately I have to, because you've gone and held in the charge so long." Ram presses in hard at the sensitive juncture where that spiky circuit joins up to the circle, and both of them gasp at the burst of energy that rushes in to fill Ram's body once again. Rapid-charging him more than halfway, already, from the near-tapped-out power reserve that he woke up with after that first overload.

His thighs stretch and the tingling pleasure of the charge makes his hips buck against air, as it reaches the I/O code at his center-- all of his circuits flare hot, bright, as newly sensitive shades of pink and violet settle in. "Ahh, oh, frag... ahh-- S-See? If I let it all into me at once, it'd take me out as fast as it did the first time. I --I wouldn't have to go this slow if you hadn't let your overcharge get this bad. Repressed fraggin' firewall."

Tron's head falls back and he makes such a loud, long, frustrated noise that Ram almost wouldn't have thought him capable of it. Oh, Tron's going to be so ashamed of all this, afterwards, if he remembers it at all. He already is. Poor guy.

"Ram, I can't," he sobs. "How long are you going to torture me like this, I can't--" Then he clamps his mouth shut, like he's realizing the alternative, realizing it's either torture or letting himself loose on Ram like before... and he just moans, long and deep and shuddering through closed lips, as he thrashes in near-agony underneath the gentle touch.

"Hey. Don't worry," Ram murmurs, lips close to his ear. "Shh, it'll be okay. I can make it go faster. Got more control now. Now that I can manage how much I let you in-- I got room to work with, don't have to just wait for the extra to dissipate. I can release it my own way..."

And in one fluid motion Ram rises to his knees, and Tron, taking the cue from how he moves, rolls onto his back-- chest rising and falling fast, legs bent and spread, and suddenly Ram is there, kneeling right between them--

--leaning forward, still touching only one finger to one circuit on Tron's chest but skating rapidly downward now, trailing violet heat until he's caressing Tron's side and hip. "Mmm-- yeah, ah-- n-now, watch this."

And without any further change in his right hand's gentle circuit-stroking, Ram bites his lip, holds eye contact with Tron as he brings his idle left hand to a mirroring spot on the left side of his own body--

--hissing in the instant sparking shock of pleasure, as he makes contact with the circuits of his own side-- makes a spot of violet blossom on his own hip. "Ooh. Oh, oh, oh yes--"

And again he nearly loses it, nearly loses track of the flow of power he's trying to govern right now, but he holds his breath and tosses his head back and bites down harder on his lip and just barely stays in control--

--keeps the flow of pleasure and power and stimulation coursing through him on the path he's planned. Opening to take in Tron's rush of release, as much as he can let in, and oh, it burns and fills him again in such glorious aching fire and--

--and oh, Users, it's even better when he looks down and sees Tron's relief glow in the gasping ecstasy of his face, at the same moment he feels the echo of that same primal sensation reverberate from his point of contact with Tron's wildly flashing circuitry-- that strong, gorgeous body tossing in pleasure, helpless under Ram's simple touch, oh it's so, so, so good--

Ram leans back, arching in his own helpless response, and lets his left hand press fully, sensually against his own circuits. Splayed against multiple lines at once, the touch of a finger sending jets of purple down all of them. An obscene display of arousal and Ram makes the most of it, leaning shamelessly into it, showing off for Tron's furiously blushing gaze.

The sultriest smile as he looks down at himself, eyes sliding between the lascivious caress of his whole hand on his own circuitry, and the delicate torture of one fingertip on Tron's, and the blush of frustration on Tron's face as he knows Tron's fighting hard to hold himself back from begging for more--

And Ram, with an indulgent smile, leans down and gives him more.

Opens the path, presses in harder to deepen his touch on Tron's lightline, welcomes the fast rush of more and more and more, as Tron groans and bucks and lets loose, and Ram lets the jet of power shoot all the way into him so fast, so hard--

--and all the while he touches himself, strokes around his hip onto the circuitry of his belt and down to the lines of his thighs-- sliding down, around, between--

--and cupping himself right there, now-- fingers curled in pleasure, his own I/O code swelling hot in his hand, hips pushing forward involuntarily--

--clenching his legs around it and-- and just letting himself go. Letting himself just lose it, just start bucking lewdly into his palm, while he turns the energy flow around, just right-- and---

and oh, oh, now the raw power of that pent-up overcharge comes striking like lightning from the single point where Ram's finger still touches Tron, a fiery jolt up his arm and down his whole body and-- and it hits him, full force, between quivering thighs--

--and oh, oh, oh, Ram is just a conduit now--jerking without control, caught in electric current so violent he's barely anything anymore, just a path for Tron to release through--

--and yes, oh, yes it rips through him so much faster than he could have planned and yes yes yes yes yes-- He convulses between the hand on Tron and the one that's gripping and stroking now at his own sensitive code, and he rides the wave of energy-release on his own shaking thighs and arching back, and he screams pleasure that's both his and Tron's, as the overload crashes heavy and hard, glittering and bright and hot, burning through them both.

It's a multi-format stream of energy-discharge, all the different kinds of energy that the MCP forced into Tron, which have all churned in agony within Tron's render, all this time-- shifting and transmuting back and forth between different forms, as energy always does. Sparks of electric charge, blazes of heat and light, spills of hot fluid, rushing through Ram in ever-shifting, transforming waves, and bursting from him at the point of release, over Ram's spasming fingers as he rocks against himself in ecstasy--

--his face flushed hot and his whole body shuddering, glorying in the rapture of it. Of being here in the fiery presence of Tron, being the bringer of Tron's pleasure and the path to Tron's relief. So good-- so, so, so perfectly, unbearably good--

He finds that the hand he'd been trying to control, the one finger on one circuit of Tron's hip, has splayed out without his awareness, and is now stroking Tron as blatantly, as sensually as Ram's stroking himself-- and oh, oh, how that widens the conduit! How it lays Ram wide open for Tron's release to pound through him, so much faster and harder than he could have planned--

If there was any plan in this, Ram supposes he had the idea that he would bring himself to overload several times, regulated slow and careful through that small touch-- with the inflow of power keeping him online after each time, able to stay conscious and solid and keep taking more from Tron, with just enough of a rest between discharges. He wasn't expecting it to be like this--

--this long, fast, continuous barreling rush of overload, merged between his body and Tron's, going on and on and on, pleasure that tops out all the senses, so intense he can't even grasp how he's still conscious through it all--

......

...[finish up the climax & reboot, then into the pillow talk]...

......

"You're, um... v-very good at this."

"I've had practice. You were my first, but you weren't my second. Or third, or fourth or... well, I'd try to tell you I lost count, but you know I'm a calculator. Don't suppose you'd want to know the exact number anyway."

"Who..."

"Pretty much everyone. There's a need here. And I found out how to fill it. We all have a desire to be useful. You ever hear that guy two cells down, when he starts freaking out like, 'If I don't get some random access I'll go crazy?' ...That's me. I'm who they call 'Random Access' around here. And yeah, I do save some of them from going crazy. Really."

"They shouldn't call you that. It isn't your name."

"Close enough. I don't mind. I think it fits."

"Or your function."

"No, but I'm written to help folks with their needs. And I decided on my own what kind of needs that could include."

"That's... a lot of autonomy for an actuarial calculator."

"I'm not the average actuarial calculator. I know statistical outliers when I see 'em, and... well, I am one, for sure."

"You really are, Ram. Your User must really be something."

"Probably. You know he's here, right? In this System. He must be. 'Cause otherwise I don't think I'd have felt his Call when I arrived here. He noticed the MCP bringing me back. He recognized my code appearing back in the system, somehow, and he tried to reach out and check on me and find out why-- and couldn't, 'cause MCP had locked me up in here where I can't answer."

"That's true. Huh. Why do you suppose you weren't in this system from the start, then, if you were made here?"

"Not everyone's like you. Your User definitely made you to serve him, here, where he works. But I think mine made me to serve others. End-users, somewhere else where he sent me. I don't think I felt any contact with him there, at the insurance company. I remember he used to check in on me before that, when he still had me in beta, but... that's all I remember of him, and it's all vague. Nothing I remember is really clear at all, until I was brought back here."

"This place is special."

"It is. I have... a weird idea about it, actually. I think this might be the only system where we can be like this. Y'know. Thinking. Feeling. Alive. Y'know the disorientation that programs get in transport, when they come here? I think it's them trying to make sense of suddenly being alive. Trying to make sense of their whole runtime of past memories-- ones that are all just factual data, without any feeling attached. Memory just in chaos, scrambling to fill in emotional context where there wasn't any, before."

"I.... I've had the same thought. But why? What do you suppose makes this place so different?"

"Not sure. Maybe something in how the computer's built here. I mean... it runs the MCP. And I know that's not normal. Something about that, maybe? Some kind of processing power we couldn't have accessed anywhere else, augmenting what we can do here."

"Maybe."

"Or maybe the Users here just have especially strong spirits."

"Maybe."

......

...[some sort of ending to wrap up]...

......

*****

END OF LINE

Summary of story:

After Ram helps Tron with his overcharge, he offers to help plan for some future needs.

*****

Favors (working title) Part 2

*****

......

...[flesh out the dialogue below, add more lines for Tron, & descriptions of what they're doing]...

......

"Hey. You've done nothing wrong. Don't be ashamed. Don't play into what the MCP wants. Remember? Humiliation tactic."

"You really think he planned all this?"

"Yeah I think that. He's found out he can't break you with pain or danger. He's moved on to psychological torture. If you've got a weakness at all, it's that you can't stand to be seen like that-- vulnerable, losing control of your own needs."

"Ugh. That's... that's... glitch it! I hate that."

"I know, right? Such a dirty hack. Making your hate for vulnerability into a vulnerability itself. I... I guess it doesn't help to say 'don't be ashamed,' does it? Because that's really not a thing you can switch off. I wanna help you find a way to patch that. But I guess I don't know how. And that... well, that doesn't feel fair."

"No it doesn't. Me having a vulnerability that you don't. I'm the security program. How do you manage that?"

"You mean, be immune to humiliation? I don't even know-- just am, I guess. Shameless by default. If anything ever does start to embarrass me enough to be a problem, I run it through routines that turn it to pleasure, til the embarrassment's part of what I'm getting off on. Can do that with most feelings, actually-- it's why he stopped using pain to torture me, too."

"Hah. I... I'd say I want that skill, but even the idea of doing that seems too embarrassing for me to consider. I guess either I'm too repressed-- or you're just indecent."

"Probably both. I wish I could do something to help, though. Don't exactly know what your shame is like, but it looks really uncomfortable. Wish I could take some of it off you."

"It's okay. I think... I think you just being here is helping. Some, at least."

"I'm glad."

"..."

"Would you want help with, um, other stuff?"

"Like what? Not like we can do anything now, through that forcefield."

"Yeah, I'm talking about times like now. If you need something but I can't reach you to help."

"What do you even mean?"

"Like I told you, I've learned some things. Maybe things that'd help you, if you haven't experimented as much as I have."

"...I haven't. Apart from the I/O Tower, it's... it's pretty much only been Yori. And she always took the lead."

"Ever touched your own circuits?"

"Barely ever. Haven't found it very satisfying."

"Suppose I show you what works for me."

"What, right here?"

"Where else?"

"You think the guards will notice?"

"Probably won't care if they do. I've done it in here alone before. And if they do object, worst they'll do is hit us with their staffs. Wanna risk it?"

"You're incorrigible, Ram."

"And you better be thankful for that. Because I try things, and I collect data, and I share it. Who knows, I might have something that'll help make it better for you."

......

...[transition; some dialogue; some description of how they begin]...

......

"It helps to lean your back on the wall. Pressure on the disc, it's... nice. Plus, if you get nervous about dangers from behind, a wall at your back can help you relax."

"Counterintuitive that relaxing is a goal here. Seems like the whole point is to build tension."

"You'd think, right? But even that build can't happen without some relaxation in the right places."

"What's the right places?"

"Varies. You gotta find that on your own. Can change from time to time, too. Same goes for what places need the tension built."

"..."

"When you find a spot, like-- oh!-- Oh yeah. When you find where the sensitivity is, you might get the urge to just go crazy on that spot, but trust me, it won't make things better or even faster. You gotta move off for a while, gentle strokes around the area, and come back slow, little by little."

"Huh. That's also counterintuitive."

"I guess. But maybe think of it like a battle. One-on-one, direct, a strong enough opponent might fight you off. But strategic retreats, surprise attacks..."

"So I'm at war with my own body."

"What other body could stand a chance against a warrior like you? And hey, it means you win eventually, no matter what."

......

...[more description of them touching themselves, then Tron starts to express some frustration]...

......

"Ram... how do I... why isn't it..."

"Sometimes it takes a while. It's okay."

"But it keeps... I don't know..." Struggle for words. Such a Tron sort of frustration. Something slipping away from him. A barrier he can't articulate.

"Mmm. What are you trying to imagine? ...If you're comfortable telling me, I mean."

"...Imagine?"

"Yeah. You're supposed to imagine. Pick a fantasy. Think about how you'd rather be doing it."

"I... I don't think I have fantasies."

And no, Ram supposes he doesn't, probably. Tron's a very straightforward sort of program. Sure, he has things he wants... but to him they're goals, directives. Usually certainties, until proven otherwise.

"Well, a... a hope, then, I guess. You want to be with Yori, right? And Alan-1? It'll probably help if you think about something like that."

Ram's eyes are still closed, so he gets Tron's response only in the deliberate slowing of sound, of breath and motion from behind the forcefield. The sound of Tron trying to marshal his own thoughts; a watchman's too-conscious effort to watch himself. Ram doesn't envy him. So much vigilance, at every step of everything. So hard to ever let go.

Ram thinks in speculations, probabilities that range from near-certain to vastly unlikely... and those can shift with the lightest thought sometimes. His own fingers play an intuitive dance of pressures against his circuitry in tune with the scenarios that rise and fall in his thoughts.

He's well aware of the line between speculation and fact. He'll welcome any thought that brightens the pleasure, and keep it for as long as it keeps heating his circuits, and he won't bother questioning whether it's a thought applicable to real life.

He won't tell Tron what he's thinking right now-- and he won't stop, because what's inside his mind can't do any harm, as long as it stays in there-- but he's riding toward his own pleasure on a stolen fantasy right now, one that should belong to Tron before Ram should even consider it.

Yori. Alan-1. Tron and Yori carrying Ram into the Tower; their bodies bathed in ethereal light, leaning together to form a triangle pointed at the heavens-- Tron in the center now, with a lover holding onto him from each side.

As his lightlines burn and deepen in color under the quickening movements of his fingertips, Ram becomes the self in the fantasy, a supporting buttress. Giving freely of his own energy, alongside Yori's, to boost Tron's sublime pleasure, as the beam of Tron's most central love courses, fast and hot, up and up and higher up, into the Realm of the Invisible--

"Ram."

It's Tron's voice, low and rough in the dim cell outside the light of his imagination.

And Ram speeds through guilt and worry-- mishears it first as an accusation (oh no, did Tron notice the illicit fantasy somehow?) and then as a new plea for help (...oh no, is Tron having trouble again?) before he realizes, with a hot-purple full-body blush, what it is.

......

...[they bring themselves to climax, Ram spurred on by the thought that Tron's fantasizing about him. ...dialogue afterwards to be determined]...

......