tanks4thememory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tanks4thememory) wrote2020-12-09 10:29 pm
tanks4thememory) wrote2020-12-09 10:29 pm
Two heads are better than one
Who: Clu1 and Clu 2 (a_perfect_end)
The life and times- and sexytimes of Clus One and Two in the ABO universe, collected here for the sake of convenience and avoiding page clutter. Multiple scenarios, lots of fun. Mostly of the NSFW variety.
Where: Their User world abode and possibly other places
When: Some undetermined time post Legacy and after this thread
What: ABO sexytimes and maybe other things; a Clu on Clu catchall
Warnings: VERY NSFW. Multiple kinks, ABO related warnings, sorta incest depending how you view programs from the same User, basically enter at your own risk if you're not into that sort of thing
The life and times- and sexytimes of Clus One and Two in the ABO universe, collected here for the sake of convenience and avoiding page clutter. Multiple scenarios, lots of fun. Mostly of the NSFW variety.
problem drinker; and related content; step light
It was still something of a pilot study, but he was also working on proper delegation of less vital initiatives. As it became clear that he could not do everything himself, Clu had focused instead on reassigning priorities to the fistful of programs he trusted--those who had remained in the wake of his worst decisions, who were steadfast despite everything, and who against all odds proved as capable, strong, and tireless as even he could ever wish for. They reached for perfection as hard as he did, and delivered only their best.
This was their largest and newest endeavor. The settlements were a real issue. Helium, Germanium, Astatine: programs had cleared out in the wake of the Purge and surrounding events, returning to the capital, but by and large leaving their superstructures and gear behind. To say nothing of the deafening silence from Purgos and her ilk, the intel vacuum through which poured a steady, endless trickle of strays and rebels and resource hogs who now plagued his beautiful, perfect city.
Clu had left the Argon assignment up for grabs, partly to see who dared volunteer. He'd also done it, somewhat, to put choices among task lists back into their hands. And partly as bait for the User. For the only one who had truly escaped him, vanishing into the wilderness.
When his code-brother volunteered, Clu was fiercely proud--and just as intensely worried. Not so long ago, the settlement had been a trap for Tron himself. The hasty disarray of their, marked departure would have left known and unknown dangers, to say nothing of the hazards inflicted by Tesler's various failed initiatives. Odds suggested the cost of dredging Argon might be very high versus the benefit.
It was not a mission for the faint of heart, but his code-brother had more courage than either of them knew what to do with. And if it galled that he sometimes used that courage to redirect Clu himself, well: maybe it was necessary. Certainly it had increased his efficiency, and lifted the health of the System in turn--data didn't lie.
Meanwhile, Clu's queue had been swamped by a particularly thorny power allocation issue. While it was not an emergency, it was urgent enough to absorb all the rest of his attention. Two shifts had blazed past before he even looked up from his desk.
He was learning better than to make Jarvis fret on purpose. The nervy program had discovered he could set Clu's code-brother on him, and to detract from the Argon mission now might be disastrous. Besides, all that stress nipped into Jarvis' performance in a really irritating way.
Of course this insight did not apply to Clu himself. How could it? He was built strong, coded more densely than even shock troopers, and he didn't frighten easily. He was made to be tough, designed that way, and the problem before him was almost entrancing in its elegant refusal to yield.
...Would they have to build a new plant?
The hope of construction burned, even as his eyes squinted and stung in protest. Three--three and a half? Shifts. Yes. It had been a while.
So he filed a status ticket for Jarvis, all's well, and got halfway into the call-tree to start the area survey when the report he needed arrived:
Not one, but two bad sectors here made work impossible in this area.
He'd snarled some impressive language--half a dictionary file of the things Flynn said when he was angry--and pitched his pad at the wall.
Like that would help. Was trying to break stuff always gonna be his first response? Couldn't he do any better than that.
Clu sighed heavily, scooped it up, and ran the readouts again. He sneered at the totals, considered them with narrowed eyes. Scrapped his ambitious hopes of the last several intervals and instead started marshaling repair-restore-and-defrag teams.
Within the next shift, they had their marching orders, and Clu had a frozen subroutine at the back of his neck so intense that it leached power when he stood up. Everything went sort of--grey--and he fell back into his chair more than he sat, growling.
He lowered his head to the desk, folded on his hands, and tugged his fingers through his hair. His processes gradually swam back into focus.
How much rest could he need? He wasn't even working that hard. He was just, fulfilling his function.
He knew there were ways around this. The deep backfile whispered to him, reminding him just how long he'd spent without any sort of charge, murmuring delightedly about the white, soothing as water.
Surely one couldn't hurt. It'd help him relax. There was plenty of the next shift to go, and nothing else on his schedule; the reports were templates, and already dumped to his terminal. Short of another emergent crisis, things were running perfectly without him for the first time in a long time.
And if that stung, if the his processes coughed up useless from some deep, bitter place, if it was pointless, he hardly noticed.
Clu was not an idiot. He'd never touch the red again. This was different. Might be nice to indulge, for once. What harm could it do?
Except that one gradually trickled into two. The more relaxed he became, the easier it was to pick up another. And that low rumble in the back of the queue grew louder and louder.
He won't show. He never has, and now you're risking your only--Tron was right about you, so you took his--and now all your plans are scrap--Imperfect--
Clu poured out another one and downed it mechanically, like he could physically rinse the static out. Any plan to explain or account for himself went blurred and quiet. His musings spread and vanished into the gauze of white, leaving behind only the certainty that it was his fault. That everything was his fault.
There was nothing to alert him to an authorized entry, even under their enhanced security, and so he was completely unprepared for the halogen vision in his doorway.
He froze. Full lockup.
No one should be there. Least of all--
"Flynn?"
His own voice was small to him, distant, like it had come from somewhere in the bottom of his feet. A memory jangled to the fore of his processes, bright and strange--some User superstition that if you spoke the names of powers, they appeared.
"Flynn."
With growing certainty. He was up from the chair and just as quickly down from it, more than awe buckling his knees, a harsh and profane rush of the white kicking through his systems, core crushed tight and eyes pinched shut. He didn't trust himself to open them again, not least because he usually woke up, right about now.
And it was the only thing holding in a mounting urge to sob.
Where was Rinzler? Their whole shared mission outcome was right there before him, and Clu was almost too overcome to move.
"You shouldn't, be, here." He shuddered, reached out with a trembling hand, drew it back again. "It's dangerous for you here."
After all, he'd broken it so thoroughly.
no subject
He was about to shake his head, sigh, and go to his brother with an 'I can't leave you alone for five nanos, can I?', but that plan was discarded before it even fully formed when he noticed the way the admin had completely locked up at the sight of him. And any further plans that attempted to form also quickly dissipated when he heard what his code brother called him. There was a moment of lag from him, and the admin apparently took his silence as confirmation, because he repeated their User's name more certainly, abruptly rising from the chair and just as abruptly falling to his knees. Was it reverence or the high grade? Probably both. But whatever it was it gave Clu a moment to process.
He opened his mouth to correct the admin, but closed it without speaking, calculating quickly. If his code-brother was mistaking him for their User, then he must have drank enough to render his scans useless. And Clu, like any good hacker, was also a good actor. And there was no doubt in his processes that his code brother needed to have a talk with Flynn, even if he wasn't nearly ready for the real thing yet. And Clu suspected that the same was likely true of Flynn, wherever he was.
But would impersonating their User, even for his code-brother's benefit, be a step too far? In the old system, it would have been borderline blasphemous to do such in any sort of seriousness. The Grid was something of a different datafile, of course, but still... And if the admin remembered enough of this to piece together what actually happened, would he be angry? Maybe even think Clu was deliberately trying to make a fool of him? Did the potential benefits, in this case, outweigh the risks?
The shaking hand reaching out, then drawing back again, mingled with the tightness in his code brother's voice lined up the calculations. Decision gate reached; if the admin was angry later, Clu would apologize. But he clearly needed this. And Clu believed Flynn would forgive him for this particular bit of misleading data.
"Eh, you know me," he said, crossing the room to stand in front of the admin. Now well within touching range, he deliberately brightened his circuits, both to obscure his features slightly and to somewhat simulate a User's warmth. It couldn't quite match, but he doubted his code brother would be able to tell the difference just then. "I was never one to let a little danger stop me from doing something I needed to do. And you know, you could easily make it less dangerous, if you wanted. You gave the order marking me as a threat; you could rescind it." Not really an admonishment, just a statement of fact. Flynn was only marked as a threat in his own system because of the admin's orders, and those orders could be changed or outright canceled.
He debated just leaving it at that for the moment, but instead added, "Still, danger or not, it's good to see the place again. You've certainly been busy since we last met, haven't you?" The not-quite-question was at once straightforward- there had indeed been a fair number of changes made to the system since the coup- and laced with a bit of wry humor. Because, well, it would be fairly obvious what the admin had been 'busy' doing immediately prior to his arrival.
no subject
Clu had run a version of this simulation many several hundreds of thousands of times, past obsession and leaching into fantasy. What he'd do, what he'd say--how good it would be, to show Flynn what could become of his precious Grid when its inhabitants didn't need him anymore.
He'd prepared extensively, and so it was not to be: of course instead it should be that when he was low, his Maker would appear. But Flynn didn't sound angry with him. Arch, maybe, which Clu had certainly earned. And then some.
It's good to see the place again.
Clu almost couldn't look up, but that stirred him. His scans were fried, scattered in the wall of white between him and the world--he'd overdone it, like he overdid everything. All that came to him was a vague true he didn't really need, all bright, warm energy signature. He knew his own User. Didn't he?
Flynn was standing right in front of him, near enough to touch, and if he could just work up the nerve.
"I--yeah," he agreed, slowly. When they last met, it had been a hell-for-leather chase, Clu doing his best to wipe them both off the map in a clash of bikes. "I, uh, we're working hard. Building Utopia." He couldn't keep the pride out of his voice or hold down the faint, loopy grin. "You should see the new distribution centers, man--nobody goes hungry, ever. Not even strays. We've almost solved for static bleed, too."
Once they figured that out, they'd be able to go anywhere, even in the Outlands--maybe come visit?
It was a stupid idea, saccharine, all down to the white. Flynn didn't want to be found. That was why he'd appeared here, instead, in Clu's sanctuary. And as for the danger:
"Nah, no way. I can't let you go," with a bullish shake of his head, "I cancel the order, everybody freaks out, Rinzler shows up anyway. And you get hurt, 'cause of me--" A squall of sorrow bubbled up from somewhere deep. "I, don't think I can fix it."
He lashed an arm around Flynn's ankles and gripped tight. Not trusting more, not daring less. It was less a vow and more a sniffle, but determined.
"I won't let him have you."
no subject
Still, he'd begun this simulation, and there was nothing for it but to see it through now. "Well, I wouldn't exactly call it Utopia," Clu said, his tone wry. "There's a long way to go to get there yet." His tone softened as he continued though. "But the distribution centers are definitely a step in the right direction. I'm glad everyone is being provided for."
Because Flynn would be, of that he had no doubt. It would hurt their User to know that others were suffering because he'd fallen short or been unable to help in some way. So having that suffering relieved, even by a hand other than his own, couldn't be viewed in anything less than a positive light.
He was just drafting a response to the admin's next words when his arm whipped out to wrap around Clu's ankles. Startled, he jumped slightly and almost stumbled, but managed to catch himself on the edge of the desk, allowing him a moment to steady himself and regain his footing, such as it now was. Still, the startle at least gave him an excuse for the brief pause as he gathered his processes and responded.
"Oh now you don't want me getting hurt because of you?", he said, allowing bitterness and a bit of anger to creep into his tone for the first time in the encounter. Because in Flynn's eyes, the hypocrisy in such a statement would be rather glaring. "Could've fooled me, given that the last time we saw each other you were trying to kill me."
"And Rinzler's your doing too, isn't he? Guess you knew that Tron would never join you willingly, but you couldn't bring yourself to give him a dignified death either. So instead you stripped him down until he was a shadow of his former self, almost literally; someone who can never tell you 'no'. Or much of anything else. Though I guess you at least had the courtesy to stab him in the front, rather than the back."
Harsh words, perhaps, but mostly true. Flynn had trusted his admin program implicitly, and had been repaid with betrayal, banishment, and the loss of a dear friend. Whatever his code-brother's reasons might have been, and however good his recent work was, that wasn't something their User would soon forget, nor a wound that would be easily healed.
cw THIS TOOK A HARD VAGUELY SUICIDAL LEFT.
The whole scenario was too strange for clean calculations. Clu was past making them, anyway, frame humming in white gauze that clouded any ill-ease, that sharpened and somehow muted his goals under a gathering realization that this was going better than it had any right to. The odds kept running away from him, sliding in weird vectors, tangled in floating points that refused to just compute already.
Flynn staggered slightly under his grip, steadied against the edge of the desk. He'd clearly needed a moment to find his words, too, which was--
Was that a good sign? And they still had so far to go, to get it right.
"...I know." It was only the truth: perfection was somehow always just out of his reach. "We try. I'm, pleased you like it."
This was an old feeling, a warmth he'd almost forgotten. A sense of rightness, at once lighter and more intense than mere certainty. Clu was just on the verge of actual gratitude, blooming in his core like he imagined sunlight must be.
Instead he felt his lips peel back from his teeth for the change in Flynn's tone. Whatever he'd almost said or almost done in turn vanished into bitterly familiar territory.
Not least because everything Flynn said was true.
Because Clu deserved it.
"Man, I wanted to smash you." Forthright, heated, truth bubbling out that he would otherwise never let escape. "Smear User cubes all over the pavement." No, not voxels--what was it they were full of-- "Blood, whatever. And you got away!" He winced at the sudden stinging in his eyes. "You always do."
That wasn't the point, though, was it? Clu didn't need to worry about Rinzler: he'd brought this on himself. On all of them, whether it was right or not. He'd taken Flynn's world away--twice--and driven him into a corner, some edge of the screen only glitch knew where, alone in the desolate hinterlands.
And as for Tron--
Clu let go, swaying back onto his heels with a hard low noise. He wanted to stand, wanted to leap back in retreat like physical distance could do something about the entire cascade of things he was feeling. Only, he couldn't find the faulting commands.
"Oh, Flynn--No, it's not--" He might take that for denial. His own Maker. Clu pushed the rest of it over his tongue: "It's worse than that."
No one else knew this. Every shred of it had been thoroughly scrubbed, and the cleanup itself purged entirely.
Well, Rinzler also knew--they were the only ones there, after all.
"You, after you ran," gruff, ragged even under the white, "We fought. Well, he fought; I was just trying to keep up with him! You know what he's like." Low whistle, through his teeth. "We--we really had it out, man!"
"It was a lucky shot." Clu made a noise. Was it laughter or a sob? He could feel where he was flickering, bright as a broken streetlight. "He came apart in my hands. There was--there wasn't much of him left, and he was just peeling through my fingers. I had to act fast. So I reached down, and I picked up another disc. There wasn't time to stand there and format him. Them. It."
Programs did not need to breathe and could not cry. Clu could feel where he was panting, wet-faced. "Are--is he why you're here?"
And he bowed his head and bent his neck before the god that had fled him in terror.
How did it go? Off with his head.
"Please. Do it."
IT CERTAINLY DID
But whatever that retort would have been, it was canceled by what followed after. The statement that what he'd done to Tron was even worse than Clu has suspected somehow. So bad that it rocked the admin back on his heels. "Worse how?", he asked. There was nothing feigned about his confusion just then, but he knew the moment the words left his mouth that he wasn't going to like the answer.
He was right. He very much didn't like the answer. But it explained so much. The double discs. Why the code that had slowly turned Tron into Rinzler was so different than any trojan code he'd ever encountered. Why it could alter other programs so drastically under the right- or rather, wrong- circumstances. It wasn't a trojan at all. The remains of another program had effectively been grafted onto Tron's partly derezzed code, two irreparably broken programs merged into one functional one.
An act of desperation that had preserved Tron's life. But at a terrible cost. And the result was Rinzler. Vicious and efficient and deeply, deeply broken. No recompiler could fix something like that. Clu himself had tried and failed. And he suspected that his code brother had too. The only way they could even begin to sort Tron out of Rinzler would be... with the help of someone so far out of reach currently they may as well not exist.
But that was an issue for another millicycle. What mattered right now was his code brother's tears. The way he bent his head, ready for a fatal disc strike, having apparently interpreted Clu's shock as accusatory. Accepting death. Asking for it even.
For a moment he was frozen in indecision, drafting and discarding a dozen different replies. But he finally settled on the simplest one of all. Instead of a disc strike, the admin would feel a hand gently laid on top of his head. A gesture that, if it couldn't really convey pardon, at least conveyed mercy. "I didn't come here looking for revenge, Clu," he said softly. "I'd be lying if said the thought hadn't crossed my mind, especially early on, but well... let's just say I've had a lot of time to think about things since then."
He sighed, carefully swinging the chair that the admin had recently vacated around so he could sit in it and still face his code brother. His hand remained resting on the admin's bowed head for a moment until he sat back. "Hurting you won't fix anything," he said. "We've both done more than enough of that; hurting each other, intentionally or not. I'm here because..." He paused a bit uncertain how to phrase it for a moment, before opting for the most general truthful answer possible. "...Because we need to talk."