Who: Kevin and Rachel Flynn When: During the Dream event Where: The Flynn Household What: Kevin’s stuck having nightmares, Rachel saves him with True Love’s Kiss Rating/Warning: Low/TRON nightmares (involving computers and stuff) and some heavy flirting between married folks Status: Complete
Kevin Flynn knew he was dreaming. He didn’t know how he’d gotten to the Grid dream again, couldn’t remember how he’d fallen asleep, but he was definitely having one of those dreams with a capital ‘D’.
Except somehow, this felt a little different. Like something was off, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what.
“Flynn, is everything all right?” came TRON’s voice from next to him. They were on the New Grid, overlooking Tron City from the vantage point of a new building. The view was spectacular - all the glittering lines and lights of a world coming to life before their very eyes. Tron City, Argon, and so many others - they were practically self sustaining now. Even the infinite blackness of the Grid’s sky felt like it had atmosphere; Kevin would have to program clouds into it at least.
“Yeah, TRON, everything’s cool.” he sounded confused. Kevin was trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. He shifted as he sat astride his white light cycle. “How’s the arena?”
“Nearly finished. Tested it out with a disc battle and light cycle run a cycle ago. I think programs will really enjoy it.”
“Good, good. Let’s go take a look at sector five-five-zero again. Shaddox was saying there were some glitches.”
“Grid bugs.” TRON said.
“Really? I thought we only had that issue over here.” Kevin replied, revving up his ride.
“No! Grid bugs! Behind us! Go!” TRON shouted in a panic. Kevin looked over his shoulder and saw what looked like a biblical tidal wave of the tiny digital menaces - grid bugs were an anomaly in the Grid Kevin couldn’t quite figure out. He hadn’t created them, and trying to program them out had proven challenging both inside and outside of the Grid. But he’d never seen a swarm this large ever.
Kevin wasted no time throwing his light cycle into gear and running it straight down the side of the building. Gravity in the grid was a tricky thing - you could fall and all that, but you could also drive a light cycle straight down the side of a building at a 90 degree angle. He glanced back to see TRON was following suit, but lagging.
“TRON, hurry up, man! They’re gaining!” Kevin shouted into his helmet. TRON was the fastest, most skilled program on the Grid, he couldn’t understand why he was so far behind him. The descent was at blinding speed, the ground rushing up at them.
Or was it….
MORE grid bugs!
Whatever Kevin had been up to with Tony the night before had him out until well past midnight. At least Tony had been kind enough to send Kevin home with a couple of interns. Rach assumed that Kev was drunk, or something, so she gave the guys some smiles, let them put Kev in his bed, and excused them, then headed to sleep herself.
When she woke, Kev was still sleeping. Dreaming, maybe. Whatever it was, Rachel decided to let him sleep. He probably needed it. She ran a hand over his hair, gave him a little squeeze, then climbed out of bed to head into the shower.
When she came back into the bedroom, she saw he was still laying in the bed. She was drying her hair, her body wrapped in a towel. "Hey, Kev," she said, grinning as she moved over to the bed to sit down next to him. "...you know, this towel might just... fall off if I'm not careful." She added, playfully.
Of course, Rachel didn't know that there were strange things going on. Not really. She had no reason to suspect that Kevin was under some kind of a curse. That was just silly talk.
The only reply Rachel got to her attempt at foreplay was a low groan in Kevin's throat - and it wasn't one of pleasure. His brow knit together and he frowned, feebly mumbling "Tron...no....bugs..." His body shifted a little and his hands made fists and twisted back and forth as if her were riding a motorcycle. Because in his dreams he was.
Inside Kevin's subconscious the dream was quickly de-evolving into a nightmare. They were surrounded by countless grid bugs, all clacking like a billion computer keys, hungry for programs to derezz. Kevin was hurtling right towards the second swarm below him as he tore down the side of the building on his light cycle, knowing he had but mere moments before he was done for. He disengaged the stick that held the light cycle together and it disintegrated around him. Falling through the air he slammed the stick together again, hit another button and a light jet formed around him. Kevin zoomed past the swarm that seemed to be acting as one as it reached? for him, just missing. He banked, looking for TRON.
He turned just in time to see his old friend get overrun, stopped halfway down the building.
“NOOO!” Kevin screamed and aimed his jet for his friend. But he could already see TRON was derezzing, even as he reached out for Kevin, that he was nearly completely gone, a shape barely human, glowing cubes falling apart. "TRON!!" He was screaming, horrified, heartbroken, and worst of all helpless. He didn't have any weapons to blast the grid bugs to oblivion like he wanted, he hadn't designed the Grid to be violent. Frustrated, he banked again, determined to get to the digital version of his arcade - the portal that led to the real world. He would have to reinstall TRON, though he wouldn't be the same as his last save point was older. Tears blurred his vision, so wrapped up in grief Kevin failed to see that behind him the two waves of grid bugs had amassed and were coming for him. Tendrils reached out, grabbed his jet and yanked him, sending him spiralling out of control towards the ground. Kevin was freaking out now, his world a blur. Could Users derezz? If not, this was going to be very painful…
Rachel didn’t realize when she heard the growl that it wasn’t one of pleasure. She thought he was responding to her comment about the towel. So her hand came up to the little knot over her breast, and she untied it with a flip of her hand. “Whoops?” She said, grinning softly to herself, as her towel fell down around her waist. She turned her back to Kevin on the bed, teasingly, giving him a strip tease he would never see.
The light jet was gone. He was falling, the atmosphere screaming around his ears. He needed to think fast. The swirling mass of the grid bugs were just behind him, closing in. In the distance, he saw one of the light rails snaking it’s way through the city. Perfect! Kevin counted to three, straightened himself, and aimed for the elevated track. If he could time it right, he could land on the moving train with barely a scratch. He made himself rigid, folding his arms against himself, aiming like a missile. At the right moment, he opened his jacket with it’s one bright stripe along the right side, and used it like a squirrel suit. It wasn’t perfect, but he was slowing enough to land without it being a hundred miles an hour. Kevin tumbled onto the top of the train, head over heels a few times before coming to a rest, nearly rolling off the edge.
He laughed wildly, clinging on. “Take that you stupid bugs!” he shouted to the sky, looking back over his shoulder.
His triumphant glow immediately vanished and was replaced with horror. The wave of grid bugs crashed over the train in a hellish hot white glow and splashed onto Kevin, the little bugs crawling up his pants legs. Within a breath they had completely covered the back half of the train, and were all over his feet, legs and climbing up his body rapidly. “No! NO NO NO!” Kevin tried to get up, tried to get away, but already one of his feet was simply….gone. He looked down and saw nothing but glowing cubes at the ankles where the geometric bugs were gnawing away. Some were eating away at his clothes, the pant leg disappearing first, then he watched as his other leg started to dissolve. It didn’t hurt, but sort of...tingled. It was terrifying and he swatted at them, only to have them jump and stick to his hand. First his thumb, then his pointer finger vanished...they were too fast for him!
Kevin screamed, desperate to wake up from this hell.
In the real world, Kevin was starting to flail, weakly as one would while dreaming. One half limp arm smacked Rachel on her back. His face looked pained, and he started to writhe, and the words in between the groans were more distinct now. “Oh god no...please….”
Now Rachel was starting to come to. She’d felt the smack to her back and for a moment thought he was being playful. But she turned around and saw the pained look on his face, the writhing he was doing. She dropped the towel and rushed to the bed to settle in beside him, giving gentle shushing noises, running her hands over his hair and his cheeks. “Kev… Kevin, it’s okay. You’re safe in bed.” She said, trying to soothe him out of his nightmares. “You’re safe. I’m right here.” She leaned down to kiss his forehead. Then his nose. Then his lips.
In an instant, Kevin was suddenly gone from the nightmare of being derezzed and somewhere else. His eyes shot open and he gasped. Rachel was standing over him, concern written all over her face. Her hair was damp and she was...naked?
“Am I...am I dreaming? Is this like an inception thing?” he said, noticing he was in a bed. It looked like his house. That was his wife. He just needed to make sure. He unclenched his hands and reached up to touch her face. “....what…”
Rachel almost laughed. He came out of a terrible nightmare, complete with thrashing and whimpering, and the first thing he mentioned was that crazy movie with Leonardo Dicaprio. She didn’t laugh, though, she’d been honestly worried about him. One of her hands came to cover his on the side of her face, the other rested gently on his chest, over his heart.
“You were having… possibly the world’s worst nightmare.” Rachel explained. “It was terrifying from the outside, I can’t imagine what you were going through in there.”
Her touch was real, she felt real. Blue eyes studied Rachel a long moment. He was really awake. Kevin was still breathing deeply, and he finally sighed, the tension in his body leaving him. He ran a hand through his hair and then sat up. “Yeah it was….really bad.” His hand slipped from her face to the hand on his chest; he held her hand with both of his sweaty ones. Then realizing how gross that felt, he wiped his hands on the sheet and took her hand again, kissing her fingers. “Thank God I’m awake.” He was about to tell her what it was when he looked up at her, then looked her over. Yeah, she was naked all right. His eyebrows went up. “What’d I miss?”
“Nothing. Well.” Rachel felt no shame, no embarrassment. It’s not as if he hadn’t ever seen her naked before. He’d kissed practically every inch of her skin, anyway. “...the Interns from Stark brought you home last night around one thirty. I guess you passed out at the keyboard? I got up and showered. And I came back in to give you a little tease when you started whimpering and then thrashing about.” She leaned in to nuzzle her face into his cheek, supportively. “...it was terrifying. Are you sure you’re all right? That didn’t seem normal.”
Fingers threaded through her hair as he held her face there a moment, drawing comfort at her presence. “It didn’t feel normal, that’s for sure. I was on the Grid, it was another of those dreams. But it was the new Grid and I was with TRON and we were looking over the city - it was beautiful, Rach. I can’t even describe it. It’s like as if the stars settled on earth and just decided to hang around. But then...these grid bugs, I dunno if I ever told you about them before, but I’d had trouble with ‘em in the dreams before. But this time, they really came after us, like a tsunami. And just kept coming. They got TRON.” He shuddered a little. “And then….they got me. And were...eating me alive. Dissolving me into bits, little digital cubes and then into nothing. It was awful.” He frowned. “I really don’t think that’s how my alternate life goes. Killed off by my creation? It just doesn’t feel right. I’d had that dream before and it never ended like that.” He looped an arm around her waist and gently pulled her down to sit down next to him. It felt good, it felt real, having Rachel close.
Rachel shook her head a little at the mention of the grid bugs. She hadn’t heard him talking about them before. Her arms wrapped around him and she hugged him tight when he went on about the dream, wishing nothing more than that her arms could give him unconditional comfort and support. She felt horrible for him. She pressed a couple of kisses against his skin. “It must… it sounds like one of those Dreams, but… not if you’ve had it before and it went differently. What… maybe we should see if anyone else is having weird Dreams?”
It hadn’t occurred to Kevin that this could be another OC anomaly. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.” He slid out of the bed, pulling off his sweat soaked t-shirt as he stood and tossing it into the hamper in the corner. He plucked the laptop off from the dresser and sat back onto the edge of the bed next to Rachel. He pulled up Valar and scrubbed through the posts.
“Holy crap, babe. I am definitely not alone.” he frowned and looked over at her. “Have you had nightmares too? Or trouble sleeping? Or like, narcolepsy? Seems people are having all kinds of stuff on here.” And he angled the laptop towards her a little more so he could show her what he was talking about.
Rachel took the opportunity to get dressed while he was on the computer. She pulled her panties and jeans on, then a bra and a sweater, and was tugging on socks when he came up with Valar. “...no. Well, I didn’t have pleasant dreams, but I didn’t think that was weird. I wasn’t thrashing around, or anything.” That she knew of, anyway. Rachel leaned over to take a look. “...this must be one of those weird OC things.”
Kevin’s brow furrowed. “I thought you said when you dreamed of Ponyville that nothing bad ever happens. Wouldn’t it being unpleasant count as weird?” He looked again and nodded. “Yeah, something is definately up.”
“Well… I don’t know. These weren’t really Ponyville dreams. These were real world dreams.” Rachel said, shrugging her shoulders. She wrapped both arms around his arm while they sat on the edge of the bed, and brought her chin to rest on his shoulder. “...it doesn’t matter. You’re here now. You’re awake. No dreams while we’re awake, right?”
Kevin closed the laptop and set it aside. “Right.” And he smiled and kissed her nose. “Thanks for saving me from my subconscious. I owe you.”
“I’ll definitely cash in on that later,” Rachel said, teasing just slightly. She lifted up a bit and stole a kiss from his lips. Then her eyes caught the clock on the bedside table. “But for now, I have to get to work.” One more kiss, then she released him and stood up. “Love you,” she said, grinning, then gave him a little wave and headed out of the bedroom.