tanks4thememory

Clu blinked down at his hand and whisked it back again like the mattress burned to touch. Why had he done that? Too much, too fast, entirely out of sequence with the prompts around it. But there were items bubbling all through his priority queue in a bright jangle of inputs, half of them blocked or transmuted by the wall of gauzy power between him and his own intent. So he overdid it, or did nothing at all when he meant to move, or lost the packet altogether halfway through.

Unsteady. He was literally unsteady, still running too hot, and off-balance in a number of other ways. At least his code-brother was helping him to stand. And gradually, to sit.

And--slagging his flawless taste?

"I do live here," gruff, but without anything to it, half a sigh into his shoulder. "It's efficient."

Then it registered: it filtered down that his code-brother had said, they could work on it. Like. We could. As in, us.

Clu squinted. That felt--weird, but good. Very good, to suppose he might not be hearing more Yes, Your Eminence out of a careful and observant program. Maybe his code-brother did want to stay. It was a hope he hadn't quite held out until now. Clu had started his runtime as part of a set, circuits coded a bright operations blue that blazed almost white: User management, stainless as an echo. But he couldn't go on like that. He couldn't remain as he was made and still do as he must, and so--

Like any good, true scientist, one with courage, he'd tested himself first. And with rectification intent made almost no difference: it hadn't gone down easy just because he wanted it. But it had to be done. After all, somebody had to do something about the way things were. And so he'd looked within, reached right down into himself and realigned every line by hand: it had to be perfect.

Clu swore not to any one person, and not to any creed of protection, but to the System.

The System had answered him with his present power, and everything that came with it--including all the responsibilities he'd just tried to rinse away for good. The System needed him, and he, alone, was failing it.

But his code-brother had been rezzed to the gold. Had always been able to rely on himself and always gone his own way, sure and strong. And now their paths were branching together for a time.

Clu intended to hang on for as long as that might be.

We can work on it.

"Hah!" He turned the idea over, slowly, with a shaky grin. "...I'm, picking the linens."

His code-brother gripped him in turn, braced an arm around his back so that they were balanced close against each other. Compared to the tangle he'd snaked them into, his code-brother's touch was downright comfortable, an embrace that tucked them both neat to the mattress, secure and safe. Clu considered that with a pensive hum.

He'd just have to try harder if he wanted to pull both of them down onto the bed--a heady, bright buzz of an idea that sadly skirled off into nothing effective. He still couldn't quite grasp the exact tasks he wanted, or not in the right order, and he might not for some time.

Maybe that was okay. His code-brother would be there.

That chuckle glided warm through Clu's processes and neatly held his attention, snared by the almost jaunty tone that went with it, salted and dry.

Clu considered that night, hummed grittily with the sudden, vivid memory of their first meeting. He nodded to his code-brother's points, almost keeping tempo, and only just managed to avoid expressing whatever wanted out about the binders. That was--treacherous and almost spiky up the mains, a harsh square wave of something hot and cold that he'd make a mess of fer shure, something that nonetheless tugged his tongue flat in his mouth a moment. There was a definite charge there.

He actually growled, before the words he wanted found their way out.

"Y'were fearless," a rough, sudden crow of admiration. "Even when you knew I had you! Coulda done anything," that twinged, same as the binders; he felt himself flicker, "to you, at all, and you were not afraid. Y'were ready to glass me," he acknowledged, wry, "but not afraid."

Something, something, and tidings of great joy--those, or Chicago lyrics, hazy with warmth and the idea of mellow strings.

Clu shivered pleasantly for the warm weight of his code-brother's arm, for steady soothing touch, even the crisp crackle of feedback it roused. It was nice, somehow--there was something nice about it. They were warm together. And it kept him listening, even through everything he couldn't make up for. Even through the outline of all he'd done.

The kind of admin the Grid needed? If his code-brother truly saw that in him, well.

Maybe it was really there.

"Careful, man, I'm gonna hold you to that." But he said it soft. Clu ducked stinging eyes shut tight against him with a nudge. "Maybe just, hold, you for a bit."

He leaned into his code-brother's grip and gently returned it, pulled snug beside him.