igrab
in
the_grrrrid
Let Us Be Three Tonight | Flynn/everyone
title. Let Us Be Three Tonight
author. igrab
characters. Flynn, Flynn/everyone
wordcount. ~2600
summary. Flynn's life comes and goes in threes.
The first time he notices it, he's in college. He's always been the sort of guy who has a huge circle of friends, but there wasn't anyone he was really close with, not until now. Now, there's this guy - Alan - and this girl Lora, and they're his Best Friends and he likes this. It's perfect, it fits, the three of them. They balance each other out. Flynn's an asshole and Alan's a doormat but Lora's stubborn, she brings out the best in them - even if she does have to drag it out kicking and screaming.
And then Flynn ruins it all by hooking up with her.
Honestly, at the time, he didn't actually think it would mean anything. It was Lora, for chrissakes, he pretty much figured they'd fool around, she'd hit him over the head or something, and then they'd go back to living their lives. And Alan would be exasperated but not really all that surprised.
Alan is surprised. He's more than surprised; he's furious. And Lora seems to have gotten it in her head that this means they're dating now, and Flynn watches as this perfectly balanced triptych shatters into two uneven pieces - Alan, silent and far away, and him and Lora, the not-so-perfect couple.
He doesn't do a goddamn thing about it, because he still doesn't see how any of this is his fault, and - well - he's twenty. Maybe it's time he tried having a steady girlfriend. Maybe it's time to be a two, instead of a one among many.
But he can't help thinking that something's wrong; that two isn't enough for him, that something's been irreparably broken.
He isn't surprised when Lora leaves him. He isn't surprised that she goes back to Alan; he isn't surprised that they start dating. What surprises him is that Alan is still angry, and the pieces have shifted again but this time, he's the one silent and far away.
+
The next time he thinks about three, he's in the Grid.
It's already hovering on his mind - it started when Lora and Alan showed up, out of the blue, and it was like those years had never happened at all. Alan was fussy as usual but he didn't seem angry, and the second he realized who'd been hacking into the system, his eyes had lit up like stars. For a minute, for just one minute there, it had felt perfect again.
But now he's in the Grid and he's not at all sure he's going to make it out of here alive, only he isn't alone. He is the very definition of Not Alone. The way that Tron and Ram take him in with metaphorical open arms feels so right, it feels like tetris blocks falling into place. Flynn has a thought - wonders if, maybe - they were waiting for someone like him to come.
And it lasts, perfectly, for all of five seconds before Ram de-rezzes right under his hands.
It isn't right after that. It only gets worse when Flynn finds this 'Yori' program, who's like Lora only ten times lamer, and everything is just kind of. Not all right. He tries to make it all right, but it isn't. He wants to be alone with Tron for a minute; he misses Ram; he misses Alan and Lora and what they used to have. That feeling, the feeling of what could be, should be, it makes him shake all over and he finally understands.
+
There's a connection missing. That's what made everything go pear-shaped, not who fooled around with who and who stole who's girlfriend, because really, they're beyond that shit. It's something deeper, something that had maybe been a part of Flynn all his life, it just took a program with Alan's face for him to realize what it was all about. Alan. That's the key, that's what had all gone wrong. Alan, angry - not because Flynn had gotten Lora, but because she had him.
He thinks of the arcade, hours before, of stripping his shirt off and feeling Alan's hot eyes all over him.
But, because life hates him or something, he still can't do this right. He gets Alan but loses Lora, now, and anyway the dynamic between the three of them has been shot for years. There are some things that can't be mended - he knows that. It's worth it, anyway. Alan's worth it. He tells himself that.
+
He meets Jordan Canas because Encom needs a third laser bay (though he can't imagine why, two laser bays should be more than enough for anything, right?) and her name is stamped all over the building's blueprints. She's a tall woman, blond, curvy, classically beautiful and absolutely charming. Flynn falls for her like an anvil.
It isn't even half sexual, more like a twenty or even ten percent at best. She's gorgeous, yes. But it isn't about that. It's how she laughs with him, how she always knows the right thing to say, how she genuinely seems to care about him. He's never had anyone in his life like her.
Alan loves her. He has his reservations for all of five seconds and then she smiles and he's lost as well. They turn into a bunch of blithering idiots from then on out, cuddle up on the couch and sigh about how grateful they are to have her in their life. In short, she turns them into girls, and with that special kind of lover's blindness, they don't even miss their masculinity as it vanishes.
Suddenly, he's married with a baby on the way. He doesn't even know how that happens. She keeps her name, he keeps his boyfriend, and somehow everyone's happy. Somehow it makes him love Alan more, having Jordan in his life. There's a balance, between the three of them.
Sam is born. Jordan dies.
+
He takes himself off to the Grid, because he can't deal with real life right now. It hurts. It hurts to see Alan, it hurts to see Jordan's stuff around, it even hurts to be with Sam. It's terrible, but he misses her so much. He's like a broken record. All he can think of is how much he misses her, how sad he is, and other people, they acknowledge the feeling and deal with it and move on. Not Flynn. He's stuck at the beginning, thinking over and over again - I'm sad. I'm upset. There's a huge fucking hole in my chest and I don't know what to do.
So he runs away. He programs his own Grid, fills it with his own programs, re-creates a fantasy and tries to make something perfect. The only one he tells is his son, in bits and pieces here and there - and Alan, after a brief and bitter argument.
"What do you need Tron for?" Alan asked, his voice mild, but emotionless.
Flynn shifted in place and ground his teeth. "I just want to have a look at his code, that's all."
"All right." Alan's lips pressed to a fine line; his eyes, from behind thick glasses, were flat and disbelieving. "And why do you need to look at his code?"
Silence yawned open between them.
"Flynn," Alan finally said, in a tight, overstretched whisper, "just tell me. I'm not going to judge, and god knows I can't deny you anything. It just hurts when you don't trust me enough to tell me why."
So he breaks, then, but he doesn't say where the terminal is or what the Grid's for or why he needs Tron. He doesn't have to, anyway; Alan hands over the disk that has Tron's information on it with a kind, sad look in his eye. He knows why Flynn's doing this. He understands. That's what Tron was programmed for; to make it all better.
He needs three. That's part of the deal. He isn't in any kind of mood to be imaginative so he resurrects 'Clu' - even if this Clu is nothing like the program that used to trawl the MCP for him. He needs that third entity; he knows this now. One on either side; that's how his life is supposed to go, and this is his perfect world, damnit.
It's here, of all places, that he comes face to face with the products of jealousy. And it comes from the place he least expects it.
If Clu was made from me, what does that say about my attitude in life? What does it say about who I am? he thinks, sometimes, when he can't fall asleep and the alternative is thinking about Sam and Tron and Alan and all the people he's ever wronged.
So he runs, and runs, and runs.
+
Alan sits in a swivel chair with his arms crossed over the chair back and his chin on his hands, watching the father and son duo work.
After discovering that re-integration is not, in fact, what it seemed, and after Alan and Flynn had spent a full week talking and hugging and being together, the Flynns were finally ready to take on the big one.
It went like this:
"So what happened to Tron?"
Flynn looked up from the laptop with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean?"
Alan ran a hand through his hair. "Well, you said Rinzler crashed into Clu, you didn't say what happened to him after. Also," he added, "you still have the original boot disc. You never gave it back to me."
Flynn opened his mouth and tried to respond, but nothing came out. He closed it, frowned.
"...You did make a copy before you stuck him in your Grid, didn't you?"
"Maybe."
"Flynn, if you damaged my Tron program we are through professionally."
"It's a possibility."
"Kevin Flynn." Alan sighed, took his glasses off and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. "We're going back to the arcade, right now, and you are recovering this data. I don't care how you do it but I want Tron back, in one piece, with all the original coding. Got that?"
Flynn looked properly cowed. "Yes, sir, Mister Bradley, we'll get right on that."
Sam and his father are talking in low tones now, too low for Alan to hear properly. Every now and then a word jumps out at him - 'Rinzler', 'Quorra', he wonders what they're talking about but he stubbornly refuses to get involved. He can't remember Tron's coding well enough to just re-write it, but he could probably be a big help to their recovery efforts. It's the principle of the thing. If Flynn was stupid enough to load straight from the disc, it's his fault that he has to rebuild the data now.
For a moment, father and son both peer over their shoulders at Alan with an identical calculating look. It's both endearing and terrifying, and Alan puts his hands up in automatic defeat. No way, whatever it is. One Flynn is bad enough; having them both teamed up against him is far more than he can handle.
They grin and turn back to each other and continue whispering.
Somewhere around 6pm, Alan gets up and goes for a walk, stretches his legs, figures it might be a good idea to get some food - he's somehow ended up the wife here, but he doesn't really mind - and when he makes it back to the arcade forty minutes later, he's utterly unprepared for what he sees.
There's a man, standing in the center of the room, who looks exactly like him.
Well, okay, he looks like Alan but younger, considerably prettier, and the way he carries himself is completely different. Even now, still, Alan can see the ramrod-straight line of his back and imagines how he would walk - a bit stiffly, but with purpose, with energy. He's still staring at that back, in fact, when Flynn snaps his fingers and breaks Alan out of that momentary trance.
"Hey. Hey. Earth to Alan. I know he's a looker but c'mon, it's like a mirror image for you."
"Doesn't mean I can't appreciate it," Alan says smoothly, automatically. Then their eyes meet and suddenly he understands.
"....Alan-1?" he whispers.
"Just Alan. Tron," he adds, for the simple pleasure of saying the name, of calling him by his name. He'd heard the story about Quorra; knew it was possible, but he hasn't actually considered that piece of information in the context of Tron, the program he wrote all those years ago, the program he's probably more than a little in love with.
And he sees, suddenly, why Flynn did this. Because he is, too. Because they both love Tron in their ways, and this - this is what it's all led up to, hasn't it? You and me and the one who makes it all fit together. This is perfect; this is right.
So let us be three tonight.
+
They're sitting on Alan's porch swing. Flynn's on one end and Alan's on the other, and Tron is just sort of laying on them - his knees are cradled in Alan's arms and his head's pillowed on Flynn's chest and he makes this noise, a lovely rumble in the back of his throat that Flynn thought was just one of Rinzler's malfunctions.
"Thought I fixed that," he mumbles sleepily, because he's comfy, damnit.
Tron chuckles, once. "You did. But you liked it and I unfixed it. Free will, remember?" And he gestures with one hand, an incredibly human move.
"Just like I made you," Alan says from the other side of the swing. He's more than a little smug about it, somewhere underneath all that lazy, warm affection.
He's theirs, both Alan and Flynn's. This isn't like any other time in his life, there isn't a third wheel, there's Alan and Flynn and Tron and they all have their integral connections. It isn't perfect, but the thing about perfection is that it's unknowable - and so on and so forth. This isn't about making sure there's a three in his life. This isn't about destiny. This is about loving Alan, and loving Tron, and when he looks back his life doesn't really revolve around three but around them.
You didn't know that because I didn't know it, back then.
I'm sorry.
author. igrab
characters. Flynn, Flynn/everyone
wordcount. ~2600
summary. Flynn's life comes and goes in threes.
The first time he notices it, he's in college. He's always been the sort of guy who has a huge circle of friends, but there wasn't anyone he was really close with, not until now. Now, there's this guy - Alan - and this girl Lora, and they're his Best Friends and he likes this. It's perfect, it fits, the three of them. They balance each other out. Flynn's an asshole and Alan's a doormat but Lora's stubborn, she brings out the best in them - even if she does have to drag it out kicking and screaming.
And then Flynn ruins it all by hooking up with her.
Honestly, at the time, he didn't actually think it would mean anything. It was Lora, for chrissakes, he pretty much figured they'd fool around, she'd hit him over the head or something, and then they'd go back to living their lives. And Alan would be exasperated but not really all that surprised.
Alan is surprised. He's more than surprised; he's furious. And Lora seems to have gotten it in her head that this means they're dating now, and Flynn watches as this perfectly balanced triptych shatters into two uneven pieces - Alan, silent and far away, and him and Lora, the not-so-perfect couple.
He doesn't do a goddamn thing about it, because he still doesn't see how any of this is his fault, and - well - he's twenty. Maybe it's time he tried having a steady girlfriend. Maybe it's time to be a two, instead of a one among many.
But he can't help thinking that something's wrong; that two isn't enough for him, that something's been irreparably broken.
He isn't surprised when Lora leaves him. He isn't surprised that she goes back to Alan; he isn't surprised that they start dating. What surprises him is that Alan is still angry, and the pieces have shifted again but this time, he's the one silent and far away.
+
The next time he thinks about three, he's in the Grid.
It's already hovering on his mind - it started when Lora and Alan showed up, out of the blue, and it was like those years had never happened at all. Alan was fussy as usual but he didn't seem angry, and the second he realized who'd been hacking into the system, his eyes had lit up like stars. For a minute, for just one minute there, it had felt perfect again.
But now he's in the Grid and he's not at all sure he's going to make it out of here alive, only he isn't alone. He is the very definition of Not Alone. The way that Tron and Ram take him in with metaphorical open arms feels so right, it feels like tetris blocks falling into place. Flynn has a thought - wonders if, maybe - they were waiting for someone like him to come.
And it lasts, perfectly, for all of five seconds before Ram de-rezzes right under his hands.
It isn't right after that. It only gets worse when Flynn finds this 'Yori' program, who's like Lora only ten times lamer, and everything is just kind of. Not all right. He tries to make it all right, but it isn't. He wants to be alone with Tron for a minute; he misses Ram; he misses Alan and Lora and what they used to have. That feeling, the feeling of what could be, should be, it makes him shake all over and he finally understands.
+
There's a connection missing. That's what made everything go pear-shaped, not who fooled around with who and who stole who's girlfriend, because really, they're beyond that shit. It's something deeper, something that had maybe been a part of Flynn all his life, it just took a program with Alan's face for him to realize what it was all about. Alan. That's the key, that's what had all gone wrong. Alan, angry - not because Flynn had gotten Lora, but because she had him.
He thinks of the arcade, hours before, of stripping his shirt off and feeling Alan's hot eyes all over him.
But, because life hates him or something, he still can't do this right. He gets Alan but loses Lora, now, and anyway the dynamic between the three of them has been shot for years. There are some things that can't be mended - he knows that. It's worth it, anyway. Alan's worth it. He tells himself that.
+
He meets Jordan Canas because Encom needs a third laser bay (though he can't imagine why, two laser bays should be more than enough for anything, right?) and her name is stamped all over the building's blueprints. She's a tall woman, blond, curvy, classically beautiful and absolutely charming. Flynn falls for her like an anvil.
It isn't even half sexual, more like a twenty or even ten percent at best. She's gorgeous, yes. But it isn't about that. It's how she laughs with him, how she always knows the right thing to say, how she genuinely seems to care about him. He's never had anyone in his life like her.
Alan loves her. He has his reservations for all of five seconds and then she smiles and he's lost as well. They turn into a bunch of blithering idiots from then on out, cuddle up on the couch and sigh about how grateful they are to have her in their life. In short, she turns them into girls, and with that special kind of lover's blindness, they don't even miss their masculinity as it vanishes.
Suddenly, he's married with a baby on the way. He doesn't even know how that happens. She keeps her name, he keeps his boyfriend, and somehow everyone's happy. Somehow it makes him love Alan more, having Jordan in his life. There's a balance, between the three of them.
Sam is born. Jordan dies.
+
He takes himself off to the Grid, because he can't deal with real life right now. It hurts. It hurts to see Alan, it hurts to see Jordan's stuff around, it even hurts to be with Sam. It's terrible, but he misses her so much. He's like a broken record. All he can think of is how much he misses her, how sad he is, and other people, they acknowledge the feeling and deal with it and move on. Not Flynn. He's stuck at the beginning, thinking over and over again - I'm sad. I'm upset. There's a huge fucking hole in my chest and I don't know what to do.
So he runs away. He programs his own Grid, fills it with his own programs, re-creates a fantasy and tries to make something perfect. The only one he tells is his son, in bits and pieces here and there - and Alan, after a brief and bitter argument.
"What do you need Tron for?" Alan asked, his voice mild, but emotionless.
Flynn shifted in place and ground his teeth. "I just want to have a look at his code, that's all."
"All right." Alan's lips pressed to a fine line; his eyes, from behind thick glasses, were flat and disbelieving. "And why do you need to look at his code?"
Silence yawned open between them.
"Flynn," Alan finally said, in a tight, overstretched whisper, "just tell me. I'm not going to judge, and god knows I can't deny you anything. It just hurts when you don't trust me enough to tell me why."
So he breaks, then, but he doesn't say where the terminal is or what the Grid's for or why he needs Tron. He doesn't have to, anyway; Alan hands over the disk that has Tron's information on it with a kind, sad look in his eye. He knows why Flynn's doing this. He understands. That's what Tron was programmed for; to make it all better.
He needs three. That's part of the deal. He isn't in any kind of mood to be imaginative so he resurrects 'Clu' - even if this Clu is nothing like the program that used to trawl the MCP for him. He needs that third entity; he knows this now. One on either side; that's how his life is supposed to go, and this is his perfect world, damnit.
It's here, of all places, that he comes face to face with the products of jealousy. And it comes from the place he least expects it.
If Clu was made from me, what does that say about my attitude in life? What does it say about who I am? he thinks, sometimes, when he can't fall asleep and the alternative is thinking about Sam and Tron and Alan and all the people he's ever wronged.
So he runs, and runs, and runs.
+
Alan sits in a swivel chair with his arms crossed over the chair back and his chin on his hands, watching the father and son duo work.
After discovering that re-integration is not, in fact, what it seemed, and after Alan and Flynn had spent a full week talking and hugging and being together, the Flynns were finally ready to take on the big one.
It went like this:
"So what happened to Tron?"
Flynn looked up from the laptop with a puzzled expression. "What do you mean?"
Alan ran a hand through his hair. "Well, you said Rinzler crashed into Clu, you didn't say what happened to him after. Also," he added, "you still have the original boot disc. You never gave it back to me."
Flynn opened his mouth and tried to respond, but nothing came out. He closed it, frowned.
"...You did make a copy before you stuck him in your Grid, didn't you?"
"Maybe."
"Flynn, if you damaged my Tron program we are through professionally."
"It's a possibility."
"Kevin Flynn." Alan sighed, took his glasses off and pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes. "We're going back to the arcade, right now, and you are recovering this data. I don't care how you do it but I want Tron back, in one piece, with all the original coding. Got that?"
Flynn looked properly cowed. "Yes, sir, Mister Bradley, we'll get right on that."
Sam and his father are talking in low tones now, too low for Alan to hear properly. Every now and then a word jumps out at him - 'Rinzler', 'Quorra', he wonders what they're talking about but he stubbornly refuses to get involved. He can't remember Tron's coding well enough to just re-write it, but he could probably be a big help to their recovery efforts. It's the principle of the thing. If Flynn was stupid enough to load straight from the disc, it's his fault that he has to rebuild the data now.
For a moment, father and son both peer over their shoulders at Alan with an identical calculating look. It's both endearing and terrifying, and Alan puts his hands up in automatic defeat. No way, whatever it is. One Flynn is bad enough; having them both teamed up against him is far more than he can handle.
They grin and turn back to each other and continue whispering.
Somewhere around 6pm, Alan gets up and goes for a walk, stretches his legs, figures it might be a good idea to get some food - he's somehow ended up the wife here, but he doesn't really mind - and when he makes it back to the arcade forty minutes later, he's utterly unprepared for what he sees.
There's a man, standing in the center of the room, who looks exactly like him.
Well, okay, he looks like Alan but younger, considerably prettier, and the way he carries himself is completely different. Even now, still, Alan can see the ramrod-straight line of his back and imagines how he would walk - a bit stiffly, but with purpose, with energy. He's still staring at that back, in fact, when Flynn snaps his fingers and breaks Alan out of that momentary trance.
"Hey. Hey. Earth to Alan. I know he's a looker but c'mon, it's like a mirror image for you."
"Doesn't mean I can't appreciate it," Alan says smoothly, automatically. Then their eyes meet and suddenly he understands.
"....Alan-1?" he whispers.
"Just Alan. Tron," he adds, for the simple pleasure of saying the name, of calling him by his name. He'd heard the story about Quorra; knew it was possible, but he hasn't actually considered that piece of information in the context of Tron, the program he wrote all those years ago, the program he's probably more than a little in love with.
And he sees, suddenly, why Flynn did this. Because he is, too. Because they both love Tron in their ways, and this - this is what it's all led up to, hasn't it? You and me and the one who makes it all fit together. This is perfect; this is right.
So let us be three tonight.
+
They're sitting on Alan's porch swing. Flynn's on one end and Alan's on the other, and Tron is just sort of laying on them - his knees are cradled in Alan's arms and his head's pillowed on Flynn's chest and he makes this noise, a lovely rumble in the back of his throat that Flynn thought was just one of Rinzler's malfunctions.
"Thought I fixed that," he mumbles sleepily, because he's comfy, damnit.
Tron chuckles, once. "You did. But you liked it and I unfixed it. Free will, remember?" And he gestures with one hand, an incredibly human move.
"Just like I made you," Alan says from the other side of the swing. He's more than a little smug about it, somewhere underneath all that lazy, warm affection.
He's theirs, both Alan and Flynn's. This isn't like any other time in his life, there isn't a third wheel, there's Alan and Flynn and Tron and they all have their integral connections. It isn't perfect, but the thing about perfection is that it's unknowable - and so on and so forth. This isn't about making sure there's a three in his life. This isn't about destiny. This is about loving Alan, and loving Tron, and when he looks back his life doesn't really revolve around three but around them.
You didn't know that because I didn't know it, back then.
I'm sorry.