The moisture wasn't sweat, Sam recalled, licking his lips as he twisted his disc in his hands, mind touching on and then rejecting strategies. No, he'd already made the mistake of getting close enough to grapple once and he didn't think Tron would let him go so easily if he was that dim again. "Conversion disorder? I think I should be tired and sweaty so I am?"

"That's how Flynn explained it to me, when I asked," Tron murmured.

Sam watched him for a moment but he seemed content enough to wait for Sam to recover from his most recent loss and Sam sighed, rolling his shoulders back in an attempt to increase the blood flow and ease the ache building there. "That explains the blood too, I guess..."

"Are you injured?" Tron stiffened. 

Sam blinked. "Just my pride and a few bruises. I was thinking back to the first time we fought." Tron's concern faded under a frown and Sam watched, surprised, as the program docked his disc. "Are we...done?"

Tron nodded, eyes moving over Sam thoughtfully before he crossed the platform and held out his hand. Sam hesitantly handed over his disc and watched Tron call up a basic status report. "Dude, I'm seriously OK..."

Tron's eyes tightened and he dismissed the first report and called up another, more complex. Sam sighed as Tron's eyes scanned the information faster than Sam could read it and decided that he might as well sit down since it didn't seem like his input was needed. He knelt long enough to hook into the steady, solid, somehow flat presence that was the base code for the platform and updated the cosmetics. Then he sat in the new chair and waited for Tron to finish whatever he was doing.

It took several minutes, and Sam had long since distracted himself juggling a few legacy bits that had started coming out of hiding since the Grid had been rebuilt. 

Yes yes yes! One screamed on its way up, while Sam caught one crying no no yes?

Tron caught the second mid-descent and the third at the crest and sent them both gently to the side where they hovered tentatively in their negative forms. Sam blinked, letting the last one free to join its brethren, feeling its shift from positive to negative as it left his fingers. "What's up?"

Tron was looking down at him, forehead furrowed in a frown. Sam's brows arched when he reached out and lifted his right wrist, straightening his arm out and gripping his bicep. Right over that cut, Sam realized. "It's all healed up, you know," he said slowly.

Tron's attention shifted from Sam's arm to his face and his hazel eyes bore into Sam with a bright, merciless force. "You bear a mark there."

"Yeah..." Sam said, faintly uncomfortable with the regard. "Only when I'm on the Grid, of course, but...I guess it's that conversion thing. I expect that kind of wound to scar."

"Good. Perhaps you will learn what I could never teach your father," Tron said, grip tightening before he released Sam's shoulder.

Sam flexed his bicep to help remove the lingering ghost of the program's hand. "What was that?"

Pain radiated out along his back like a bright star, driving all other considerations briefly from his head. The platform was almost quiet without the harsh pants of his own breath.

At least he wasn't nauseous anymore.

Strong fingers gripped his arm abruptly and tugged him over onto his stomach, something in the motion forcing Sam's lungs to expand again, and painfully. Weight settled against the small of his back -- a knee, maybe -- and his other arm had been trapped under him at an awkward angle, twinging painfully when he tried to work up enough force to dislodge the program.

Throat dry and choking on air, Sam still tried to twist his arm free and roll out, but found Rinzler had locked him down too tightly to break the hold so quickly. 

"Be still. You could have damaged your port."

Sam stilled, muscles remaining tense but no longer actively trying to work up enough traction to buck Rinzler off. "I thought we didn't stop until blood or surrender?"

"Sparring is not meant to do permanent damage," Rinzler muttered, squeezing Sam's shoulder. "No one here knows how to repair a damaged User."

Sam swallowed and turned his head to lay flat along the floor. "Fine."

The feel of something foreign probing his port was oddly strange, considering the port itself was something he'd only had for about a week and a half. Or the Grid equivalent. He'd only just recently started getting used to the shift it required in his balance.

Now he could feel Rinzler's fingers brushing over the new almost-limb he'd acquired as he felt for hairline fractures, and the odd feeling only increased. Finally, the hand slid back to the rim of his disc-dock.

"Can I get up n--hey!" 

Rinzler finished rising, taking Sam up with him by the grip he still had on his arm before releasing him. "You seem to be intact. Inform me of changes."

Sam's jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed in a solid #6 and Dean felt his own shoulders tense in instinctive defensive response as his brother hustled him into the booth with a combination of shoving and crowding, dropping in quickly behind him like he was worried Dean was going to try and dive back out. 

Dean casually slid around the half circle in a slightly awkward scoot, pointedly stopping at the very edge of the other side. 

Sam rolled his eyes. "Can't you keep your mind out of your pants for ten minutes? I mean, really Dean, remember...you know, the harpy?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "I remember, Sam." He was glad Sam was feeling better but that didn't mean he had to take his unwarranted bitching. "I know how to keep my eyes open. Which one of us is still shaking off two years of rust, huh?" 

This was an easy job, not one they'd been driven to by Sam's head-splitting vision dreams, and even if it wasn't, Sam had no right to get angry over Dean appreciating the eye-candy in an adult-circuis, for God's sake. Just then, the lights dimmed a little further, and two spotlights came on, angled up. The room quieted at the queue.

"That means you don't make mistakes?" Sam hissed, voice dropping in response to the change in volume. "Bullshit, man. I've seen you after them. Hell, I've stitched you up after a few."

Dean glared, but his attention was pulled up at the sound of gears. There was a false top to the roof that was rolling open now, lowering someone on a giant swing.

"It's him!" One of the men whispered in the booth beside them. "Thurday's Sapphire!"

Dean stared as the man was lowered closer, the fine structure of his features becoming easier to make out in the dim light. His chin was cleffed, the fine arch of his mouth just generous enough to be interesting without overwhelming. The blue of his eyes was so intense that Dean could feel the intensity when they passed over him briefly. 

"You need a minute?" Sam asked, tearing Dean's attention from the descending form. 

"Huh?" 

Sam narrowed his eyes and Dean exhaled forecefully. "Harpy, 2 o'clock."

Sam blinked, automatically looking that way. Dean knew what he was seeing: the girl was pretty, but not pretty enough to get a front spot in any of the shows. She was fit enough, but not so much that she might be tapped for one of the acrobatic numbers. Nothing exceptional that would put her in the spot light at all. Nothing except the faint white lines the spilled just a bit over her shoulder and continued, from Dean's quick perusal, down her back. 

Those lines could raise in a heartbeat, becoming nearly invisible and razor sharp wings, according to the lore they had. 

"Good work," Sam muttered, ducking his head in a silent apology. Dean shrugged and Sam continued with a lopsided, sheepish smile. "We'll find her tonight, I guess."

"Less potential casualties," Dean murmured, eyes straying back up to the showrunner to find himself pinned by those deep blue eyes before they slid away as he stepped from the platform to the ground.

"The lights are on but you're not home," the man sang, drawing out the words with a teasing carress. Dean swallowed as the rough tremble of his voice slipped into his ears and down his spine with a warm shiver. The heat only grew as the man continued. "Your mind is not your own...your body sweats, your body shakes...another kiss is all it takes."

The dude -- he was NOT calling him Thursday's Saphire, fuck that -- turned back towards Dean's side of the room and this time, when his eyes drifted toward the booth, they lingered deliberately. Dean lost a moment caught in those eyes and watching his mouth shape the words of the song. Eyelids fell incrementally, somehow translating as a smirk, and Dean blinked, breaking the spell.