Work Text:
Everything was running very smoothly between them these days.
Mac was very proud of how well he and PC were getting along ever since they decided to transfer their home drive into a single, simple location. Sure, there had been moments of incompatibility. There were things PC kept telling him that actually made him beep out loud with laughter in incredulity. But nowadays, they were finely tuned and interlocked.
They did have very different personalities, but PC didn’t remark upon it too often. Of course he preferred to keep to his carefully collated business profiles, but Mac was happy to take him out dancing and to museums – he knew so much about art, and it was fun to show it off to him, the paintings of all of the masters flickering by at full speed.
On some hobbies they didn’t fully agree – Mac loved to keep up with all of his favorite sports scores, which PC kept locking behind paywalls he refused to pull down even for Mac’s sake. PC kept track of all of the musicians who were coming to town every week, and planned all of their concert outings. Even though most of them sounded like pre-recorded ringtones to Mac, PC got a lot of pleasure out of them, and so Mac came to love them.
Mac had a tendency to forget all of these wonderful things and places, but PC fortunately had a memory big enough to spare to store all of the important things they wanted to recall.
Things like a sunny day, walking hand in hand through the data field. And the beauty of a quiet Sunday compiling all of the tasks they needed to do every week, side by side. Mac sometimes needed to have his memory jarred back to life, but PC had the songs, the art, the pictures, the words.
&%^^^^^^^^$%#
The place where they lived was a beautiful, densely-packed apartment that wasn’t quite crowded but still contained the universe’s information; a little dark, but filled with all of the best things in the world. They could process those things fairly quickly with each other’s help – even the viruses, which tended to leave them sitting rundown with bowls of chicken soup wrapped up in robes. They knew how to take care of one another. They did so with practiced ease.
They were pretty happy just hanging out. So what if they served completely different purposes? They still had one another, and they had the ability to combine their forces and make a single creature whose purpose was obvious and complete – to be the best possible computing forces.
Along the way they managed to turn into so much more than rivals. They had managed to find a domestic accord. All thanks to a simple, sudden kiss shared between the two of them while they were talking about how they could connect their miniports together to make a single, complete unit. And then they could think of nothing more than how nice it would be to merge.
PC’s lips were as soft as clouds. Mac only came to realize that as they held each other and smooched in front of the while backdrop. They didn’t care that the whole world knew at that moment that they were finally and fully united as a couple. They only knew that they wanted the whole world to know how well they got along. And they didn’t even need to upgrade themselves to cause all of their parts to properly comingle.
And it was a pretty sweet thing to do, Mac thought. There was something effortlessly loving to it. They didn’t have to battle their way through compile files. They didn’t have to learn how to compute each other through new languages. And they didn’t have to overclock their systems to make every feeling feel like it was the sweetest, best one in the world.
They had somehow managed to go from comparing each other’s flaws and problems to glorying in the joys and wonders of being united as a couple. Though they sometimes ran into problems, it was pretty
The holiday season loomed over them. It was PC’s idea to look up gift guides before heading out into the cold to buy each other something wonderful. It didn’t take Mac long to find something that PC would like – a fresh new pocket square, bright red, and beautiful with his black silk suit. He wondered what PC would get him and hoped it was a sweet skateboard deck or something cool like that.
Mac already had their Christmas Eve night all planned out. They would spend their time warming themselves next to the CPU – which thankfully wasn’t close to overheating anytime soon - while toasting marshmallows over the fiery, glowing heart of it. Then they’d exchange gifts while eating their diners before cuddling during showing of It’s a Wonderful Life. It would be a nice, quiet, cozy Christmas – one of the best either of them had ever had during their life cycles.
And as for what would happen that night, well – Mac didn’t want to make any predictions, but somehow he knew they’d be lying tangled up in their bed together, with the sound of each spring and coil pinging away. It was worth saying that things definitely weren’t very floppy. In fact, the software was very hard in all of the right places. But there were some things Mac didn’t want to discuss in proper company, and that was one of them. Some things were best kept private between two men who loved each other very much, and the hundreds of bits and files and data points that made up their very essences.
And it would end with a proper coda, coded out by the tapping beat of their hearts. A forever sort of love, enrobed in joy and light. Coded with love that only two people could share – and forever locking them together in a way that would last for all eternity, instead of a simple moment ennobled by planned obsolescence.