Two heads are better than one

[tanks4thememory]

Who: Clu1 and Clu 2 (a_perfect_end)

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.

Comments

[tanks4thememory]

Clu smiled slightly, reassuringly. Something about the admin's request had sounded... lost, in an almost beta-like way. What he was requesting certainly wasn't, but the intense want, almost need for him not to leave was. Was he afraid that if the hacker left, then he wouldn't be coming back at all? Sadly, he could see how his code-brother's muddled processes might jump to that conclusion. Even if logic would always overrule it under normal circumstances, it wouldn't surprise him at all to learn that that particular fear was always nibbling like a gridbug at the back of the admin's processes.

The fear of losing another connection. Losing the progress they'd made together. Of falling back into old, destructive patterns without the hacker's stabilizing influence. The fear of just... being alone. Because if one thing had become abundantly clear, it was that despite his independent circuit color, the admin really didn't do well alone.

"It is a nice room," he agreed. "Would be nicer if it looked like someone actually lived here, but... we can work on that." A promise to stay and a subtle promise that it'd be for longer than just this downcycle. That he wasn't just humoring his over-charged code-brother.

He slipped an arm around the admin's back in similar fashion, keeping him supported and balanced. It was significantly more comfortable than the previous hold, and let him accept his code-brother's offer to sit in a somewhat dignified manner, carefully guiding them both to sit back on the bed somewhat gently rather than being pulled by the overcharged admin's weight and just flopping over. He settled them back onto the mattress as his code brother spoke, their sides fitting together even more comfortably once seated.

He chuckled a bit at the claim that his code brother had wanted him almost from the beginning. "Really? What was it that made me so attractive back then? The function binders? Maybe the free code fragments stuck all over me? Or maybe it was the fact that I probably looked like I wanted to take your head off when we first met?" He was mostly joking about those things, of course. But he genuinely did want to know what had sparked this particular desire. After all, their initial meeting hadn't exactly been friendly.

His expression softened though, as he gently rubbed his code-brother's side with the arm he had slipped around him. Still more a soothing gesture than anything else, though there were a few circuits there and on his back that would get a little friction from it. "You have caused a lot of damage, yeah," Clu said. There was no denying that, really. "But you've realized your error and are trying to correct it. To undo the damage you can, and make up for what you can't. To be the kind of program you were meant to be, the kind of admin the Grid needs. There's a lot of work to do yet, but you're getting there."

"And I for one intend to stick around and help you keep doing that. Flynn once called me 'dogged and relentless', and it's as true now as it was then. I'm not going anywhere, brother. You can count on it."

[a_perfect_end]

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.

[tanks4thememory]

Clu had indeed been rezzed as an independent; his function wouldn't have allowed for anything less. As a hacker, he'd needed to be able to adapt to new scenarios on the fly, to overcome the challenges of rugged terrain and increasingly hostile systems, and navigate through his missions with minimal User input most of the time. Much of the time, he wasn't able to run to the nearest I/O tower to check in and get new instructions; if there was a decision to be made while on a mission, he had to make it.

Not that Flynn had ever left him hanging. Clu had always known that his User was watching his back from somewhere in the Invisible Realm, and Flynn had always done his best to make sure he was as prepared for any mission as he could be. But once he was sent out, he was largely on his own. He couldn't really say he preferred that sort of life, living out of his tank more often than his own in-system quarters almost; having a comfortable bed and a handy defragger was definitely a good thing. But there would always be part of him that itched for the next mission, the next challenge. For the giddy energy rush of successfully evading security, of solving another puzzle. For the static buzz of danger, clambering over rugged code formations, avoiding gridbugs and recos, hiding in dark corners waiting for a security shift change.

The system had been so much wilder then. And he'd been designed to overcome whatever it could throw at him. Maybe this still new connection to his code-brother was the latest challenge thrown his way. A challenge not to overcome or evade, but to nurture and steady. To be a force for balance instead of chaos. Well... maybe a little chaos; he was still a hacker after all. But not the same sort of chaos he'd been sowing on the Grid prior to his capture.

He'd been secretly uploaded with Flynn's last monitor, rerezzed, revamped, updated, and upgraded and tasked with investigating the troubles on Grid quietly, from the shadows, the way the likes of Tron and Anon never could. Just in time to see his investigations rendered moot, and for everything to come crashing down around him. After that? After that had been disturbingly familiar territory for quite some time. Infiltrating a hostile system with a power-mad dictator at it kernel. DO everything within his power to harry and confound that dictator's efforts toward familiar destructive ends.

His current situation was a twist he never would have predicted. But all in all? He wasn't complaining.

"Oh it's certainly efficient, alright," he said regarding the room, his tone clearly implying that he didn't think the design had much else going for it. But that tone broke into a slight chuckle at the comment about linens. "Deal. Maybe we can get some other colors in here, at least; everything on the Grid is so monochrome." That was something he definitely missed about the old system; compared to the Grid, it had been a riot of glowing colors, as diverse as the programs who called it home. Everything on the Grid felt just a bit flat by comparison, even if the resolution was much higher. He wasn't sure if that had been Flynn's idea or his code brother's, but it made the whole place a bit bland and depressing, at least to his processes.

The admin processed over his other question, seemingly struggling a little to get his vocal functions to cooperate enough to properly answer the query. Clu noted the odd flicker at the notion of him being at his code-brother's mercy, filing it away to process more later. He smiled wryly at the notion that he wasn't afraid though. "Oh I was afraid," he said. "Would've been stupid not to be, at least a little bit. But I was way more angry. And definitely ready to glass you." His tone shifted to something a bit more serious for a moment. "Though really, once you've already derezzed once for what you believe in, having to do it again doesn't hold quite the same terror anymore."

He'd never told Flynn that he retained the memory files of his last moments. And probably wouldn't even if he were to have the opportunity. Flynn had seemed upset enough by the knowledge of how Clu had been lost originally the one time he'd met him in this life; there was no need to compound that unless his User specifically asked. Which he doubted he would.

The admin curled a bit closer, returning his grip and half-hiding his face against Clu's shoulder. A gentle smile crossed his face, though it was laced with just a bit of mischief. "I can handle being held," he said. "And returning the favor. Although... if you still want to do more than that, I'm gonna have to disengage for a nano here shortly. Gotta get my own disc and outfit off, you know?" Oh yes, definitely a bit of mischief in both his smile and his tone, even as he leaned his head gently against his code-brother's.

[a_perfect_end]

Truth was, the monochrome schema was a leftover that reflected the Grid's design history: rapid iteration from one particular code base and coding style, by one person--by one single, singular User grinding it out in his spare time.

"He used to say we'd add that later," muttered Clu, sad without understanding why. "What's, why, what--" there was nothing wrong with his aesthetic preferences--halogen gold, mellow streetlight orange. They couldn't be wrong and still be perfect, and so instead of asking what was wrong, he changed thequery parameters, blurting: "Why!"

The overcharge, again. Pushing him to reactions he wouldn't normally allow.

Clu didn't quite sigh. He let his head roll back with it, carefully mellowing his next words until they came out sly and curious.

"What's your favorite? We could get some of it up here." After all, under the right conditions, gold and gold made purple. "Don't really know what it was like," he admitted. "The old--! The last system, I mean. Encom's. Yours."

He liked the being braced snug against his code-brother, but man! Man, oh man, he was positive he did not want--whatever it was that was so compelling about standing over his code-brother like that--out on the table between them just yet.

This was all so, new. Better to nip down his runaway tongue for now.

"Bull," a soft snort, though he still had no idea what el toro really had to do with lying, conceptually. "You forget, man, I have stacks of data and a whole pile of logs, now that I know it's you--Reckless and relentless."

But the words were fond. Somehow, at the bottom of this tank of red, Clu had discovered that he was fond of his code-brother. And when he talked of belief, of derezzing for it, something went tight and brilliant deep in Clu, live-wire hot.

"Y'won't have to do that, ever again." It was almost a vow, from someplace deep. "Not with me."

Clu had settled in firmly, discovering that once he was allowed to, he liked that very much. The glint of his code-brother's mischievous smile only just caught his eye.

Something about needing out of his clothes, to which Clu could entirely relate. Even naked, he still felt almost grilled, radiating heat and other energy castoff.

"Yeah," wry, even as he thrilled quietly to the way their heads rested together. The steady nearness of a fond presence. "Yeah, you don't wanna overheat either."

And for the offer of more he let himself gleam in return, circuits and eyes the same kind of bright, a certain sudden laser focus piercing the veil of red.

He meant it for a gradual smooth lean and ended up flopping back onto the mattress, caught a nano in the richness of soft, dark sheets.

"No kidding?" He huffed out a laugh, just a little grit to it. "Man, don't let me stop you."

With a great big grin, all teeth, gazing up at his code-brother with something bright and intense that was too gauzy with energy to be worship.

Clu had never passed up the offer of a show.

[tanks4thememory]

"Why?", Clu repeated at his code brother's exclamation. "Because this is a bedroom, not a command center; it's meant to be relaxing, not intimidating. Solid gold is all well and good when you're looking to be imposing, but cooler colors are way more relaxing. Blues, greens, purples... maybe even a bit silver or white. Not that we should turn the place into the End of Line, or anything, but it could do with some cooler lights."

The mention that his code brother didn't know the old Encom system gave him a bit of an idea though. "I could show you, if you want. I've got plenty of memory files, not just from Encom_511, but from a lot of other systems I visited. I could copy some over to a readme, and we could use that as a starting template. Not just for here, but for other places on the Grid too. It wouldn't be too hard to update most structures to reflect the design." Of course doing it Grid wide would be a huge, ongoing project, just due to the sheer scale of it. It would take time. But it would be eminently doable.

He chuckled at the way the admin refuted his claim to having a normal sense of fear. What even was a bull, honestly? In context he knew that it meant 'lies' or 'nonsense', but that was clearly just a euphemism. Were 'bulls' especially dishonest or something, so much so that the terms had come to be interchangeable? Or was there some other connection that he was missing due to not having a User's frame of reference? Probably the latter.

"Just because I don't tend to show fear as often as some doesn't mean I don't feel it. After all, hacking wouldn't be nearly as much fun if I wasn't afraid of getting caught, and the consequences of what that would mean. But for what it's worth, I'm glad that that's one particular fear I don't have to worry about any more."

When his code brother shifted out of his grip, Clu didn't resist, echoing the slight laugh for the way he flopped back. He really was so, so fragged. He made a note in his priority queue to be sure the admin would have something to take the edge off when he woke up, but for now there were other tasks to attend to.

Like pulling his boots off and settling them in front of the little table that housed the disc charging station. An odd action, perhaps, as he could have simply derezzed them with the rest of his clothing template, but old habits died hard. In any case his Grid suit covered his feet, so it didn't really reveal anything, though the fabric wasn't nearly durable enough for extended use walking outside.

Boots set aside, Clu stood up and removed his disc, placing it on the charging station with his code-brother's, noting thankfully that the rack was designed with two charging ports. A hopeful gesture on his brother's part, maybe? Or just the standard design that he'd felt best fit the room? Either way, it worked out, as now he wouldn't have to stack their discs awkwardly on top of one another; it was doable, but not really recommended.

That done, he derezzed his outfit, doing so a bit more slowly than normal from the top down to give the admin a chance to appreciate the view. The circuits revealed largely mirrored those on his default template, at least on his upper body, though the further down they were the more differences became apparent. Perhaps the most obvious difference was the palms of his hands, though, criss-crossed with such a complex web of delicate circuits that they almost seemed to shimmer. A hacker's hands were his most valuable asset, designed to facilitate the optimum connection to the system and make reading and working with code and energy as easy as possible, but Clu's were complex even by hacker standards. It was no wonder Flynn had called him his best.

But his derezzing template also revealed the evidence of how hazardous being a hacker could be, as a number of scars were in evidence. They were obviously long since repaired and well healed, but they were there; mildly discolored bits of surface render that spoke of long ago injuries. Many of them jagged lines that left circuits slightly dimmer where they intersected; clothing templates evened everything out, but on bare shell, the effect was difficult to miss.

Still if Clu was at all self-conscious about them, he didn't show it, instead spreading his arms slightly and turning around once, slowly, so that his code-brother could get a look at him from all angles. "Well?", he said. "What do you think?"

[a_perfect_end]

"But, but," softly, "I'm this color, and it's, my, room?"

Clu was aware that he was--touchy--and intensely vain, but something in the hacker's explanation pinged to related ideas, echoed somehow down into his own most private suspicions: that maybe not everything in Clu's own life needed to be a utilitarian monument to his conquests?

And, that, was intriguing.

"Hmm," rumbled Clu, drawn out long through a squint, ending in a puff of air through his nose. Not yes or no, but-- "I mean, it's worth a try."

And at the mention of a readme, at the chance for new data, Clu grinned sharp. The two of them with their heads bent together over a datapad, solving the same problem and cuddling on the same couch, was an abrupt, bright concept that burned warm in his overtuned circuits.

"Yeah, man! If you want, I'd," the thought went slippery, and he finished, "that'd be great."

"You must have seen so many interesting things," with a soft wistfulness he never would've let escape otherwise. Clu caught himself spending far too long wondering what outside was like, how Flynn's world must be, as it was. Tron had looked askance at him for that, asking if he wanted to be like the User--or if he wanted to be him. A ridiculous impossibility and foul sacrilege.

Like most things with Clu, the truth was more direct and much more dangerous: he was curious.

That same curiosity was focused now on the hacker in front of him, his mercurial forked sibling who insisted that he felt fear, all right--and that he felt the joy of facing that fear while achieving his objectives, and that tantalized Clu.

"Oh," gruff, sing-song, "I dunno. You're," how would he have put it in a gloating mood, "wrapped up in my lair, pretty good."

He was sure bull must be some class of monster, a crafty one that always lied. There was a vague concept tag of a tiny man waving something red, and that factored into Clu's hypothesis. The bull itself made no sense, but the useage was clear: any flatly untrue data, often given in an attempt to impress.

But his code-brother was only more impressive for admitting his own fear.

"Oh, I'd like that." To see the whole Grid bloom in the promise of more, a diversity of options he hadn't contemplated. He blinked. "I think."

"Reskinning wouldn't take that long to start," thoughtful, gently letting the idea grow between them out loud, skyscrapers shining in a waterfall of colors sparkling in his processes. "Although it'd choke stuff at scale. Let's--" oh, just maybe--"Let's start with our apartment, huh?"

Ours. It was a hope gently delivered, but unmistakable. He could always plead out, c'mon, I was cooked when I said it: an exit for both of them, no harm done. Clu might be the only one interested in more, and he knew he was--he knew--

It was difficult to hang on to any one specific thought for long. Anyway, he didn't want to chase off such a strong talent, and his code-brother would be staying awhile either way.

The answering laugh had him grinning a bit. His vision was finally straightening out, but his equilibrium was just, gone, and everything felt like it was, sort of hovering. He really was entirely fragged.

Tomorrow would hurt. But that was tomorrow.

Clu sat up a little, swaying, craning his neck for the way the hacker neatly settled his boots by the table, arranging them when he could have dismissed them: it felt like being let in on a secret. And his disc fit the charger elegantly. Clu hadn't quite planned it--that was the charger that came with the table template--but it made for such a nice symmetry.

His code-brother took his time, turning slowly and giving an almost languid tap of dismissal above his collarbone. The template dissolved down his frame in a bright band of disappearance, inch by gleaming inch, betraying geometry only in glimpses. His signature matched his template only so far as the shoulders, and rapidly spread in algebraic intricacy. He grew almost in affine fractals, spiked in complex branches that put Clu in mind of feathers: something intricate and fragile, turned with inifinite precision by an unseen hand. Those magnificent circuits curled up his wrists,, and where Clu himself terminated in the fingers, broad and hot as fangs--his code-brother's lattices ended there, in his palms, in cupped traces so delicate that they seemed to disappear on their edge--

Clu had bright ideas of silk, of web, of lightning, a wash of concepts in User reference that rolled through him in sheer awe.

An entirely different and no less complex feeling boiled through him for the understanding that some of these were scars, one or two thick as rope above dimmed interconnected circuits. Each was a lesson, an act of desperation or bravery knit into his brother's code and worn vivid on his skin.

(What was a net? What was a cobra?)

"Man," low, slow, gone ponderous with heavy regard and the weight of his own tongue. He coughed, once, tried again, trying to sit, straightened. "Man, look at you," But of course he couldn't; Clu did not allow mirrors, not at all, not in his own private space--except--

"You are really something else, you know that?" Bright and forthright. "Classic lines, perfect tuning," grinning, "You are, you're beautiful, and I--I mean," at least 1024 things jammed the queue at once and what escaped was, "Do they hurt?"

Soft concern, with a quiet huff for how it sounded, how it wasn't quite what he'd planned.

"I mean, do they, bother you, will it bother you if I--" red made his tongue fearless even as it slowed him down, "do more than look?"

[tanks4thememory]

Clu smiled for 'our apartment', his code brother picking up the thread of hope he'd offered and subtly testing its strength. "'Ours' huh?", he said, his tone amused, though not rejecting the idea. "You might change your tune if you knew what my quarters looked like on a typical microcycle." He had been made when Flynn had been in full on bachelor-pad mode, living off takeout and cheap coffee, working until three AM in a wrinkled robe, and eating cold pizza for breakfast at one in the afternoon; it very much showed in how his quarters were typically organized. Or not organized, depending on your perspective. "But provided you can deal with the dose of organized chaos I bring to the party, I could get behind the idea."

Did he want more? He wasn't entirely sure. It'd be something they'd need to discuss when both of them were sober before any real changes were made. But now that the offer was out there for him to consider... he found it interesting, if nothing else. He'd never roomed with anyone else before, and had seldom shared sleeping space with anyone but Bit. What might it be like to take the alliance, and friendship, with his code brother in what for both of them was a new and untested direction? Once things had settled, he was game to find out.

In the present, he allowed the admin to look at his circuits for as long as hi liked. The old systems had favored intricate, narrow patterns, while the Grid favored bolder, thicker circuit lines in simpler arrangements. It proved an interesting contrast, and another graphical shift that he'd privately wondered about. That much had to have been Flynn's idea, and he'd like to know what had prompted it.

Being called 'beautiful' though? That was a new one. His smile broadened, not fading as his scars were mentioned. "At the time they happened, they definitely hurt,", he said. "But now, no. I could probably get rid of them if I was vain enough, but each one of them has a story attached. And I'd rather have the stories than a pristine render."

"So you can touch, if you like." He moved right up against the bed, the circuits on his calves contacting those on his code-brothers as he straddled him while remaining standing. Already touching and eminently touchable. And able to touch in return. He combed the fingers of one hand through the admin's usually (perfectly) neat hair, down the side of his neck to linger on the circular node near his collarbone. His fingers traced the ring, a deliberate tease, judging by the hint of mischief that lit his eyes and turned his smile into a true hacker's grin. "We're going to be doing a lot more touching in a nano anyway."