AsterControl.com - (News)
Fanworks: Tron: Fics: Substandard Training
Ram/Tron
Summary
After Ram helps Tron with his overcharge, he offers to help plan for some future needs.
Inspired by Overcharged by kesomon
Author's Note:
This is yet another part of filling the Towerverse gaps, like how Ram and Tron get from their first time ("Input and Output: From Beta To Release") to the later established relationship.
Because even after taking care of Tron during the events of ("Standard Training" Ram would want to be sure Tron knew how to take care of himself.
Even more inspired by Kesomon's Overcharged than the previous fic. But then... my whole Tron-fan identity really is. It's how I got here. Thanks yet again, Kesomon, for tolerating how absolutely messed-up crazy I was in the early days of falling in love with Tron fandom. You're the best, and this fandom is the best.
SUBSTANDARD TRAINING
The divided prison cell is quieter than usual.
No pacing, this time around. Ram's been leaning his back against the clear forcefield and can't quite see Tron on the other side, but he knows the silence of Tron just sitting there, still as hardware, frozen as death.
And for once, Ram has a pretty clear idea of the reasons for it, this time.
His circuits blush, hot with the still-recent memory. It's... going to take a long time for that memory to fade. Longer than he wants to let it. He turns toward Tron, just a little, just enough to see the outline of him in the dim light.
"I'll figure something out," he says softly.
Tron flinches, so Ram knows he heard.
More silence. Then, a very very controlled Tron-voice: "Figure out what?"
"You know." Ram lets a slow grin spread across his face. "...How to arrange chances to do it again."
Silence. A long, long silence-- about what Ram expected, really. He sighs before Tron can let that silence drag on any longer. "Don't tell me you don't want to."
"What we want isn't the first priority," Tron murmurs, still clamped down far too hard on any expression of feeling. "Survival's the first priority."
"And this helped you survive, didn't it?" Ram doesn't look straight toward him, but his peripheral vision detects another flinch. "And me, before. You said it yourself--- getting overcharged with no outlet, it can kill a program. Especially when you've gotta focus in the Games to stay alive."
"Didn't say I wasn't grateful." Tron's voice remains even. "I am. We relieved each other's overcharge, we got back to baseline power-levels. We survived. Now we just get on with things."
"And you're not thinking clearly," Ram snaps, "if you think getting on with things isn't gonna require more of the same. You think the MCP is just gonna stop doing that to you?"
And Ram hears Tron's breath catch-- suspiciously like a sob.
Then, almost too quiet to hear: "...No. No. I can't. I can't let myself do that again."
The words are simple, as always. But Ram can sense the complexity underneath. The wanting-- but the rest of him fighting, not letting himself want.
The guilt of it... the shame.
Ram sighs again, harder, more frustration released in the sound.
"Hey. You've done nothing wrong. Don't play into what they want. Remember? Humiliation tactic."
And there's another silence from Tron, but this one feels somehow less still, less empty. Tension swells through it, until Tron's voice breaks it at last, still small and raspy.
"You... you really think the MCP planned all that. The overcharging, the... pushing me into situations with you?"
"Yeah." Ram tips his head back, letting his helmet clunk against the wall. "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."
"Oh!" It's a low, harsh sound, and Ram sees the light change in the room from the angry flare of Tron's circuitry. "That's... that's... glitch it! I hate that."
"I know, right?" His own circuits feel a pang of sympathy, enough to turn his head a little more toward Tron. "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." Tron's still not entirely in Ram's vision, but his pout is audible. "Me having a vulnerability that you don't. I'm the security program. How do you manage that?"
Ram's mouth draws to the side, a smile he can't quite help. "You mean, be immune to humiliation tactics? 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." Tron fidgets, discomfort evident from just the vague outline of his motions. "I guess either I'm repressed-- or you're just indecent."
Ram nods. "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."
There's another few beats of silence, but the conversation doesn't seem finished. And when Tron makes no move to continue it, Ram turns toward him some more, finally having to adjust his whole position on the seat. His arm comes to rest below the transparency, supporting his chin as he stares through.
"Would you want help with, um, other stuff?"
Tron's hunched over, hands folded in his lap, and his head lifts only slightly. "Like what? Not like we can do anything now, through that forcefield."
"Yeah, exactly." Ram taps on it, feeling the sharp little shock he's gotten too used to by now. The invisible shield becomes visible for a picocycle: an airy pink-and-purple grid in response to his touch, before it fades again. "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?" And Tron uncurls his body and raises his head, but it somehow makes him look even more guarded.
Ram notices the brightness of Tron's circuits, and the conscious effort to subdue the light. And how it fails; even the dimmest light he can manage is still glowing brighter than normal.
Tron wants to believe the overcharge is gone permanently. But clearly nothing's changed yet, about how much the MCP is charging him, and how much of the charge he's getting to expend. He's still got excess power pent-up, and he's going to have to face that eventually.
Ram shrugs, trying not to stare. "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." Tron's head goes back down, his shoulders forward, like he's trying to hide again. "Apart from the I/O Tower, it's... it's pretty much only been Yori. And she always took the lead."
Ram chews on his lip as he thinks about that. Tron doesn't talk much about Yori. Not since that first time.
And Ram would like to know more-- would like to imagine a clearer picture of what that looks like. Yori and Tron together, with Yori taking the lead.
But... but that's none of his business. Not right now, anyway. For all of Tron's assurances that Yori'd be okay with what they've done together... that Yori would even welcome Ram to share in their fun... and for all the fantasies Ram's had about that... they've still gotta survive long enough to get out of here before that reality can even come up.
"...Ever touched your own circuits?"
Tron's answer is short, quiet. "Barely ever. Haven't found it very satisfying."
And Ram doesn't even know anymore, how much of the pang he feels in response to that is sympathy, and how much is wanting.
His voice comes out a little breathy, as he glances down at his own brightness. "Suppose... I show you what works for me."
Tron jolts upright, but can't conceal the flash of his own lightlines, a little shifted in color value already. "--What, right here?"
Ram allows himself a sly smile. "Where else?"
"You..." He sees Tron catch his breath, sees the lighting shift as his chest rises and falls. "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." A short, breathless laugh, another flash of light.
Ram's mouth is dry as he smiles back, but he licks his lips as seductively as he can. "And you better be thankful for that. Because I try things, and I collect data, and I share. Who knows, I might have something that'll help make it better for you."
This time the silence is heavy with promise-- a promise fulfilled, at last, by Tron's low sound of approval-- and then a quiet rush of words, straining too hard to sound noncommittal. "Fine. Go on then. Show me what you know."
...Ram's not quite prepared for how the sound of those words rushes all through him, like heat.
But he rallies, adapts-- it's what he does, after all.
"Mm. I know a lot of things. Any preference? We can start simple, or we can start with something more intense that'll probably get you there sooner..."
Tron's voice cuts sharp. "I didn't say I was going to do anything but watch you and take notes." And then softens, sudden. "...What did you mean by more intense, though...?"
"Oh, disc play, for one thing--" Ram catches himself, trying to remember Tron's different from a lot of the other soldiers he's learned from along the way. More pious-- a lot easier to shock. Ram modulates his voice, tries to sound less casual, more technical. "I mean... touching your own disc. With hands or mouth. Can feel like someone else's touch on you. Intense." He reaches back, starting to undock the disc from his own spine to demonstrate.
But Tron holds up a hand in protest. "No! No, I--" His voice is sharp enough to make Ram's eyes focus on him a moment, and the scandalized blush that darkens that stoic face is at war with the deepening hues in his circuitry.
Oops. Too much, Ram realizes.
To Tron, his disc is sacred, to be saved for his User and no other. Even on the battle grid, when he's given no choice but to desecrate it, spilling enemy voxels like a common weapon, just to keep himself alive-- he still raises it up afterwards toward the Invisible, as if to have it cleansed. Without apology, but with a glare of such rage on his face at what he's been forced to do to its purity-- even through the defiant faith he flaunts with the gesture, trusting his User and no one else to make it clean again.
He's not going to do the things Ram would suggest doing to his disc right now. No matter how fast it'll get him to overload. And he's not gonna want to watch Ram do it, either. Tron is not ready for that. Not for a long time.
Ram almost flinches as he steels himself for Tron's reaction. But Tron, surprisingly, calms himself and continues in a lower tone. "No. Thank you, but-- I think I'd rather just start... simple."
"'Kay." Ram nods... shifting position, bringing his hands to rest on his thighs.
Not looking at Tron anymore, turned far enough away now to offer almost a semblance of privacy. Weight resting against the cell wall, gently compressing his disc against its dock. A shiver radiates out through the intricate circuitry there; he can feel the violet blush of it.
"It helps to lean your back on the wall," he begins, through quickened breath. "Pressure there, it's... nice. Plus, if you get nervous about dangers from behind, a wall at your back can help you relax."
Amusement half-hides behind the discomfort in Tron's voice. "Counterintuitive that relaxing is a goal here. Seems like the whole point is to build tension."
"You'd think, right?" Ram manages a chuckle. "But even that buildup can't happen without some relaxation in the right places."
"Mm." Tron's voice sounds absent, preoccupied. "...What's the right places?"
Ram resists the urge to steal a glance at him; keeps his eyes closed; his hands gently, slowly stroking up his own thighs. "It.... it varies. You gotta find that on your own. Can change from time to time, too. Same goes for what places need the tension built."
No sound, and yet the silence from Tron feels tenser and tenser, and Ram would really like to peek over and see if Tron's doing something now, but he's not going to break this too-delicate spell.
His own hands approach the upturned circuit-ends on his upper thighs, and the tension in the air seems to make that spark of contact against the end-nodes all the more electric. His hips jerk; he feels the violet energy burst so sharp it's almost painful, and massages it into a mellow glow of pleasure.
"When you find a spot--" he gasps, "--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." His touch softens, demonstrating on the heat of his own aroused circuitry. "You gotta move off for a while... gentle strokes around the area... and come back slow, little by little."
"Huh. That's also counterintuitive." Tron's voice, deep with interest in spite of himself, only makes more heat rise in Ram's lightlines.
"I guess." He laughs breathlessly, hands pressing down hard on his thighs. "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..."
Tron returns the chuckle. "So I'm at war with my own body."
It's an oddly accepting voice for such words, and Ram takes encouragement from that. "Hey. What other body could stand a chance against a warrior like you? And... hey, it means you win eventually, no matter what."
And Ram finally does risk a glance over at Tron, and, oh-- oh, it's so worth it.
Tron's leaning back in an arch of arousal, one leg up on the bench, the other stretched out, every line pulsing indigo to violet. Lips swollen and slightly open, hands hovering over his sides, not touching anything yet but oh, this image is going to stay burned in Ram's mind forever.
And this voice, so very Tron and yet a side of him Ram's barely ever heard-- thick and rough with wanting. "Oh. Oh, Ram...Where do I start?"
Ram swallows and manages to speak, through the haze of his lust. "...W-Where you like. Anyplace that's particularly craving it?"
"N-no." Tron twitches, hands stalling in indecision, as if afraid to touch anywhere. "All feels the same, really..."
"Mm, okay.... Then..." And Ram's a little hesitant in asking it, but it's gotta be the best approach --even if does also happen to be the one that appeals to his prurient curiosity. "...Um... where does Yori like to start?"
Because, from what little Ram's learned about Yori, she certainly seems like a program who knows what she's doing. Not to mention that, well... taking a page from her technique is probably the best way to get a good fantasy going in Tron's mind.
Tron says nothing. But Ram hears the half-stifled gasp; sees the flash of purple-pink as Tron's fingers brush one of the small, pointed circuit-lines that spike upward like tiny horns from the circle of his chest.
Ram bites his lip and arches into his own hand at the sight of it. Of the rush of color spreading fast, ahead of Tron's fingers as he glides his touch around the edge of the circle and down the lines that branch off below it. He's clearly remembering, if not exactly fantasizing yet-- there's a sureness to the movement despite the trembles.
And then Ram sees Tron's tongue slide over his lower lip, sees his head lean back, his hips push forward as his hand follows a blushing circuit down toward his belt, and--
"Oh--" And Ram chokes on a groan and has to stop looking. His lower lip quivers in the grip of his teeth, as his eyes clench shut, lashes fluttering against heated cheeks because the sight of it's too much-- the pulse in all his functions; the blaze of tingly sensation that chases his own circuits in sympathy, he's-- he's going to overload right now if he lets himself watch another picocycle of this.
In the dark behind his eyelids he centers himself, letting the sharpness of pleasure mellow and soften again. A nanocycle of stillness before he dares to brush his fingers at the circuit-nodes on his thighs, little by little, and gasp in a shiver of pleasure before it becomes too much and he has to retreat once more.
At war with his own body, but in a different way from Tron. Ram's rival right now is a too-fast overload, while Tron's is going to be his own inhibitions, his own repression, as he fights on the side of release.
Time proves the prediction right, as Ram listens while parrying his own body's seductive assaults.
Ram's hearing is hyper-attuned to every sound coming from Tron's side of the forcefield-- partly because they're most of the fuel for his fantasy, of course, hopelessly smitten as he is. But also because... well, first and foremost, he's here to help. And Tron will betray his need for help in small, stifled noises, long before he'll dare to do something as vulnerable as asking.
And now the noises of frustration are getting less small, less effectively stifled, and Ram can't help but notice it. He presses his back against the wall just hard enough to make a little rush of pain spike through his disc-dock-- the only way he can bring his focus far enough off of the things those sounds do to his inflamed circuits and swelling functions-- and onto recognizing those same sounds as cries for help.
"Tron?" Ram blushes more deeply at how thick, how needy his voice sounds. "You, uh... d-doing all right?"
And to Ram's surprise and near-painful lust, Tron doesn't even bother with a moment's pretense of being fine. Instead he outright moans, easily in the top ten most anguished and most painfully arousing noises Ram has ever heard from him-- and it's not helping that the first word in that moan is his name."Ram... how do I... why isn't it..."
Ram stills his own touch again, drags himself back once more from the edge, gasping-- and manages to speak. "It... ohh... Sometimes it, ah, takes a while. It's okay."
Nothing but harsh breaths from Tron for a while, and then: "Mhh. But it keeps... I don't know... ah!"
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?"
Ram doesn't know if he can get Tron to say anything about that-- or endure hearing it himself, if he does-- but oh, right now it's all he has to offer. "...If-- if you're comfortable telling me, I mean."
"...Imagine?" And Tron's voice sounds so lost now-- as if he hadn't even thought about that.
Ram sighs. So much for Yori's technique being good fantasy fuel.
"...Yeah. You're supposed to imagine. Pick something to fantasize about. Think of 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, unless proven otherwise.
And memories, of course.
But apparently memories aren't enough-- apparently they can fizzle out once Tron's too-literal mind remembers they're over.
Tron needs something that's not over. Future, not past. Something that can be looked forward to.
Ram sighs. Don't we all.
"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. And-- and keep thinking about it, for as long as you can."
And 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.
Difference between a security monitor and an actuarial calculator, Ram supposes.
He thinks in speculations, probabilities that range from near-certain to vastly unlikely... and those can shift with the lightest thought. His own fingers play an intuitive dance of pressures against his circuitry, in tune with the scenarios that rise and fall in his mind... as he listens to the sound of Tron's now-quickening breaths, and lets it ease him back into the addictive warmth of his own self-pleasure, his own fantasy.
Ram'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'd be good or even possible in 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... well, 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. The image forms in his thoughts, brighter and brighter until he can almost believe it, almost feel it, in the touch of his own hands now sliding inward from the circuits on his thighs, approaching the ache where his I/O functions are sensitized and swelling with need.
As lightlines deepen in color around the quickening movements of his fingertips, Ram becomes the self in the fantasy, a supporting buttress. A power source to be taken, used, consumed for Tron's need, for Tron's relief. Submitting to it, leaning in hard-- gasping in delirium as he's drained through every pixel of that delicious contact with Tron's body, he gives freely of his own energy alongside Yori's-- as if they were both equal partners to Tron, sharing in the ecstasy of love received as much as given.
He blushes and can't hold back a helpless whimper at the feel of it, cupping himself, thrusting into his hand in rhythm with the fantasy. To imagine giving, now, and glorying in the feel of it. Giving of himself 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 freezes, 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.
"...Ram...!"
"Oh, Users, oh Users--"
The blasphemy bursts free from Ram's throat with no more control than the rest of what's bursting from him, and his whole render convulses as if pinned on the energy wall, power rushing through him that can't possibly be all his own-- "Tron!"
He's crashing over the edge, nothing can stop it now-- and Tron's voice, still groaning his name, is a current carrying him over that edge as if he's a data-fragment caught in the sheer power of it.
"Ram-- Ram--" and Tron's voice cracks, like he's begging-- and the boundaries of Ram's imagination crack along with it, and Tron's voice is suddenly there with him, with him and Yori and Alan-1 in that bright blaze of love inside his fantasy of the Tower. Tron is there, muscles tightening and tingling through the pressure of bodies to welcome and devour Ram's touch as he shares and gives and loves-- drinking his energy through every point of contact and thanking him for it, the whole time, with those shattering moans of pleasure. "Oh-- oh yes, Ram-- Ram-- yes--"
And Ram's hips jolt into his hand with an aching lightning-bolt of pleasure and he doesn't even have any more sense of the borders of his fantasy-- oh, Users, for all he knows Tron might actually know it all now; for all he knows he might be pinging it all to Tron in full-sensory direct data-transfer and they might be actually sharing the same fantasy now-- because he's got no more mastery of mind and communication than he has over his body, and his body is completely beyond control.
Thrashing and tossing on the hard narrow bench as he grinds and slides and comes against the clumsy pressure of his hand in an absolutely humiliating display and he can't stop-- he's screaming Tron's name and Yes and so many loud incoherent noises, his throat hurts, it's much, much too loud and too bright and the guards absolutely know about it now and he can't stop--
Overload is a spreading wildfire from where he bursts into hot electricity beneath his hand. He can feel the dissolution of everything, body breaking apart into pixelation and scattered energy, and cognitive processes following close behind. But his voice resonates, reverberates, in sound and sensation, in his mouth and his ears, after he's no longer able to think, after he's no longer able to do anything except burn and scream and feel.
His face shimmers away into tingles of afterglow with what must be the most wrecked, debauched expression lingering on it, pulsating in time with the obscene sounds of ecstasy that vibrate from his throat-- the last of them still, unmistakably, including Tron's name.
When he re-materializes from the energy-cloud of afterglow, the first sensation's a deep sharp ache of loneliness.
He turns his head to face the forcefield, to face Tron lying on the other side-- waking, rematerializing along with him. And to recognize that lonely ache in the other face, as they look at one another silently for a while.
It feels wrong, of course it does. That moment, that dissolving-- it's meant to be shared. To blur the lines between two bodies, two lovers, at the end of an interface. The rightful culmination of what such intimacy means.
But then, there isn't much that ever feels right, here.
And at least-- (he sees the flicker of warmth, understanding in Tron's eyes, before the eye contact breaks)-- at least what happened up to now feels... as right as it could be, under the circumstances.
A jolt of impact from above shocks him out of the thoughts. A sentry-guard, standing on the transparency of the cell's roof, thumping it with the bottom of his staff.
Hard enough for the pain-shock charge in the weapon to ionize the whole air of the cell. Too fast for Ram to brace himself for it-- both he and Tron seize up in agony, bolts of electric charge lancing through their renders, for an excruciating picocyle.
When they come out of it, gasping and half-focusing reproachful eyes up at the guard, he just looks down at them in a textbook image of disdain, and mutters some half-coherent slur before stomping out of sight onto the roof of another cell.
Slowly, their eyes find each other again.
"Thought that might happen." Ram's lips don't quite manage the brave smile they attempt.
"Yeah, you did warn me," Tron admits, rubbing the back of his neck. "Worth it, though."
Ram's mouth trembles, and for a moment the smile feels real.
"I do appreciate it," Tron says. And maybe they're both just tired, maybe they're not thinking clearly, but the words seem to come easier than words of thanks usually come out of Tron's mouth.
"I'm glad," Ram manages. "That I could teach you something that might help. You've sure helped me a lot-- it's all I can do."
Tron nods. "We've got to be here for each other. It's the only way we'll survive. Only way we'll get to..." His head turns to the side as he trails off, but Ram catches his meaning.
Survive long enough to get out. To find freedom-- and all the pleasures, all the fantasies that it promises.
Whether or not they'll ever actually be real. You've got to believe in them, at least a little, at least for now. That's what keeps you alive long enough to get the chance to find out.
"Just promise me one thing," Ram murmurs, watching Tron out of the corners of lowered eyes. "Well, two things."
"What things?"
"You'll take care of yourself. Stay alive-- whether that means coming to me for help, or using what I've taught you. Shame isn't worth derezzing for."
Tron doesn't make any gesture of yes or no... only asks, "What else?"
"And... if they do it to me too... when they do..." Ram isn't gonna lie to himself that his prior history of shamelessness will save him from being the next little experiment in overcharge manipulation. The MCP always tries things more than once.
Not madness, really. Just the reality of statistics. Because the variables never are precisely the same. You've gotta expect different results eventually, because it's impossible to ever do exactly the same thing twice.
"...They will try it again. On me, as well as you. And... you know what I'm gonna be like, if I get that way."
"Hah." Tron's laugh is mirthless. "You'd be a mess. Rubbing yourself on everything. Trying to interface with the guards' staffs when they come in to herd us to the games."
"Yeah." Ram doesn't even try for a fake laugh, just a nod in acceptance of the fact. "It'll be stronger than shame or self-preservation, for me. I'll have no control. Throw myself into the worst danger, just for the chance of an overload."
Silence becomes almost oppressively somber for a pico, as Tron seems to realize, on a bit of a deeper level, just what being Ram means, underneath all the surface-level teasing and jokes.
And Ram lifts his head in acknowledgement of that. "Which is why... well, I guess all I really want to ask of you is... try and keep me as safe as you can, if it comes to that. But no risking your life for me."
Another sharp silence, as Tron fixates uncommonly clear eyes on him-- but with the thoughts behind them suddenly unclear, suddenly uncharacteristically hidden.
Ram shrugs. "Everyone knows, you're the important one here. The one who's got a chance of being able to beat you-know-who and free the System. So... if you gotta step back and let me get derezzed in the most undignified way you can imagine, to keep yourself out of danger?... then I'm... well, I'm fine with that. Users know, shame isn't one of my concerns... and like I said, neither is pain or fear if I put my mind to it. I wouldn't suffer too bad. And it'd be a fitting way for me to go out, I suppose."
Tron's eyes are still clear, and his voice sharp. "That isn't going to happen."
Ram blinks. "Tron. You know the MCP will--"
"Don't care what he does." Tron doesn't move-- except for his lips and his speech, he's suddenly back to being as still as hardware, frozen as death. "You aren't going to die from it. I won't let you."
The ache in Ram's chest takes him by surprise, sharply sweet. "Tron. I don't want you sacrificing yourself--"
"Won't sacrifice myself. Or you. We're both surviving. We're both getting out of here."
"But if that isn't possible--"
"It will be."
"You know that's also part of the MCP's tactics, right? Compromising you by threatening someone you care about."
"I care about the safety of everyone. That's my function. Him threatening that just makes me want to put a disc in his neck."
"So if he tried to use me, personally, to lure you into danger--"
"I'd go into the danger, and I'd derezz him, and I'd bring you personally out."
Their eyes challenge each other for a couple nanocycles, silent, still-- before Ram sighs and lowers his gaze.
So much for expecting a program like Tron to entertain the subject of probabilities.
He can only hope some things, the few important ones, are as certain in reality as they are in Tron's mind. There's no getting any real, statistically-aware reassurance from that program. Even about the preservation of his own stubborn security-monitor life.
"I love you," Ram whispers, knowing those vigilant ears will hear it. "I know it's a vulnerability. I know it can be used against me. I know saying it is practically admitting I'm gonna get killed. But I can't help it. Love you."
Long moments pass, uncounted. Tron just continues his slow, even breathing and gives no answer.
And Ram just leans back... activates the subroutines that turn pain into pleasure... smiles through it... and lets himself take that as all the reassurance of Tron's safety that he's going to get.
END OF LINE
Fanworks: Tron: Fics: Substandard Training
AsterControl.com - (News)