Ello, lovelies~! :D

Yes, I live. Many apologies for taking so long. m(_ _)m But anyway, please read and review~ ^_^

-x-

"Come here." My heart pounded irrationally, and I shoved the Recognizer to a halt. I didn't trust myself to speak, since I have a bad habit of saying the wrong things. Instead, I carefully made his way over to where Ram lay on the ground. The program reached up for my hands, and I had no choice but to hold them in my own gently. Hey, the dude was in pain, here. Who am I to refuse him his comforts?

We stayed like that for a little while, just staring at each other. I could feel Ram's eyes skittering all over my body, but I didn't really mind too much. I was busy, anyway. I could feel his hands, although both his and mine were covered by weird gloves, and they were oddly warm, like a computer that had been running too long. He didn't have a pulse, and I was surprised he didn't notice mine. It was going awfully quickly.

The man—no, he's a program, not a human, I can't think of him as human—wasn't looking up at me through his eyelashes, though they were certainly long enough for that. Lora had looked at me that way, before Alan had gotten to her. I was glad, actually. It would've looked deceivingly feminine on Ram, and he was already girly enough. Instead, nothing was blocking his dark eyes from thoroughly looking me over, cataloguing every nuance. My mouth went dry at his scrutiny, and I swallowed, suddenly nervous. I looked away from his eyes, my gaze traveling slightly downwards and landing on his lips. His mouth was slightly open, and he was panting a bit in pain. I forced himself to block that train of thought before it went too far, looking away from his parted lips and back up to his eyes. I became suddenly aware of the fact that Ram was slowly lifting up from the ground, leaning towards me. I leaned in as well, my heartbeat thumping away in my chest.

We remained like that for a moment, eyes no longer wandering but locked in a heated gaze that I could feel searing me. My hands were slick with nervous sweat, and I was glad for the gloves. The skin-tight suit, however, may not have been the best of ideas. We leaned in, getting closer and closer, and I unconsciously parted my lips slightly. Then, Ram winced, and the moment was gone.

"Oh, my User!" he exclaimed. "Users are Users, they..." I looked down at him, my pulse slowly returning to normal as I regained my composure. Not only was he a program, but Ram was male. He was a he, and I was straight, and therefore, he was off-limits. To borrow a program phrase, my parameters did not allow his condition. However, my logic was very hard to swallow in the face of Ram's sudden open stare, unguarded and full of revelation. He really needed to look somewhere else. I couldn't do anything but hold his gaze, desperately hoping that it didn't mean what I thought it did. This is it, I realized, gulping. He's noticed.

"Are you a User?" Oh. Simultaneously disappointed and relieved, I nodded. I chuckled weakly, trying to diffuse the tension that maybe wasn't actually there, and Ram laughed with me. "Flynn," he started again. I looked back down at him. I wiggled my fingers for lack of something to do with my hands, and wondered idly just when exactly I'd let go of Ram's hands, but I didn't grasp them again. "Help Tron." I nodded quickly, swallowing. Anything, I wanted to say, but my mouth was dry and the words wouldn't come. Then Ram was gone.

-x-

"Don't, you'll be derezzed!" I looked over his shoulder at Lora—no, Yori. She wasn't Lora, and I needed to remember that before I did something foolish. The flashing light lit her face, and I couldn't think anymore. I leaned in and kissed her then, in the harsh light of the MCP, and she kissed me back. Before she could stop me, I leapt from the carrier, flinging myself into the beam.

Once inside the MCP, I was enveloped in a whirlwind of calculations, caught up in all the information being processed by the program at the time. The influx of data was staggering, and I started to lose myself in it. It's up to Tron now, I thought to myself, struggling to remember even that one name as I was immersed in the inner workings of the MCP. I couldn't remember my name anymore, or why I was here. There was only the whirling ones and zeros, the sheer amount of numbers. In the howling chaos, the last thought rose unbidden to my mind, remaining constant even as I dissolved into the shifting strands of code. The yearning that whispered through my mind just before I lost awareness was a longing for dead programs, and the impossible knowledge that their lips would've been softer against mine than any that came before.

-x-

Thanks for reading~! I hope you liked it! Please review! ^_^