You don't mess around with TRON feat. Jim Hopper
Summary: Jim Hopper meets his first computer.
Jim Hopper x gn!reader | Rating: 18+ MDNI | Word Count: 989
Content Warnings: mention of computer hookers, boomer levels of tech confusion, shag carpet, mentions of smoking to the filter, VHS not explained, tube tv (potential static), 1980's Disney was funded by LSD and fever dreams, Jim Hopper has a temper, descriptions of DOS, inappropriate use of fake commands/coding, Jim on Tech violence
Author's Notes: happiest of birthdays beloved buglet @strang3lov3! I have this gift to fuel your TRON (1982) and Jim Hopper lust.
Thank you to @noxturnalnymph for her eyes and grammar, and @bitchesuntitled for the approving once over. Thanks also to @saradika-graphics for the dividers.
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“God dammit!”
You heard the telltale signs of Jim’s patience wearing thin in the shag-carpet and wood-paneled living room of your doublewide trailer. You already knew what was pissing him off - the new computer you got from your California-based, tech-savvy cousin.
You’d already been dicking around with it for the past week in the evenings, but Jim was meeting this thing for the first time.
As you rounded the corner and felt the transition from slightly tacky linoleum to the carpet under your feet, there he was, hunched over and semi-hidden in a cloud of cigarette smoke wafting out with each frustrated breath as he bogarted the almost-to-the-filter embered nub. His brows arched in lupine madness as his fingers, one at a time, tried to type in the DOS coding you assumed from the paper you had written out next to the keyboard.
“Fuck!”, he barked, jerking his hands back from the keyboard after another mistake was made.
You tried to hide the smug smile that tugged on your lips. “Hit ‘return’ yet?”
“No.”, he snapped back, eyes not moving from the black screen littered with green text,
“Then hit ‘backspace’ and fix the error.”
Jim paused and held his hands up off the keyboard with his index fingers still pointed down. He looked like a confused t-rex with the little arms and fingies out. His eyes looked to be scanning the keys, then, like a rabid chicken, one hand struck out and the finger hit the ‘return’ key.
“FUCK!” Jim stood up so fast that your kitchen chair fell back onto the carpet with a heavy thud. “Fuck this bullshit! This shit is rigged! Can’t even get to the fucking menu or anything!”
You watched him start his meltdown with your arms crossed and leaned against the brown and orange-patterned, highback chesterfield. “You mean you didn’t even boot it yet?”
“Boot what?!” He finally looked up at you, his jaw tight, and the last pathetic flickers of the cigarette burned out against the filter in his mouth. “What didn’t I boot??”
You stared back, but with far less intensity and more amusement. “You mean you couldn’t type ‘P1” then hit ‘return’ twice to get to the main screen?”
He just froze, except for his adam’s apple bobbing, at your question. After a beat, he shifted on his feet, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. “You - what? The P- what?”
“P1. Return. Return.”, you said with a little more emphasis, your hand coming out and making a circular motion along with your words. “Like it says on the paper.”
Jim looked at you a little more frazzled and confused. “What paper?”
Your brows furrowed. “What were you typing?”
“The code stuff!”
“What code stuff?”
“From that computer show!”
Now you were getting frustrated. You had no idea what ‘computer show’ Jim was talking about, so you came around the makeshift desk in your living room and looked at the screen.
$ whoami LOGIN INCORRECT $uname -a LOGIN INCORRECT $ login -n root LOGIN INCORRECT # bin/history INVALID COMMAND run self-awareness; INVALID COMMAND login/backdoor INVALID COMMAND vi LLLSDLaserControl.c INVALID COMMAND ./sanity_check INVALID COMMAND ./configure -o test.cfg INVALID COMMAND
The little cursor blinked below the lines of declined coding and your eyes widened. “What the fuck is this?”
Jim sputtered, angry and just as perplexed as you, motioning to the computer dramatically. “The code shit from the computer show!”
“What the fuck is the computer show??”
“You know, the one with the people in the computer and the lights and the hookers?!”
“The hookers?!”
With every response, you each got louder and more confused, before it dawned on you.
“TRON??”, you demanded loudly. “You’re typing code from TRON into my computer??”
“Yeah! The computer show!”
You let out a deep breath, eyes still wide, and shook your head at JIm. “There aren’t any hookers in TRON!”
“Yes there are! The freaky neon ladies, hanging out in the computer’s recreation section or whatever!”
“Oh my fucking god, Jim!”, you hollered, not believing that he would think for a minute Disney would have computer hookers in a kids movie.
“THERE!”
Jim grabbed your shoulder with one hand as the other pointed at the screen. “There! Computer Hookers! See? Right there!”
He had paused the vhs, causing the screen to ripple and distort, at the moment that Flynn was running through the Grid, and passed a pair of neon-clad women, watching him provocatively.
You leaned forward and squinted at the curved, glass screen of the TV. “Well, I’ll be damned…”
“That’s right!” Jim stood up, arms raised in celebration; he then turned and pointed at you. “I told you! You don’t mess around with J- oof!”
Jim bent over, holding his belly where you’d landed your forearm across him.
“It’s rude to gloat, Jim.”, you huffed. “But yes, you’re right. There are apparently hookers in a Disney kids movie.”
Still smug, Jim stood up straight, chest puffed up, and walked over to the computer. “Stupid fuckin’ thing… can’t even handle computer hooker commands!”
When his fist was raised back as he was going to punch the screen of the computer, you stood up and hollered out, “No Jim!”
But he didn’t listen. As his fist collided with the static-charged screen, it was like a portal opened up, and his entire forearm disappeared into the black with green text. He looked at you, confused, then BOOM. A bright flash was followed by Jim’s body reducing into 8-bit pixels along with the fax machine-sounding scream he let out.
You covered your eyes as another bright flash lit up the room and when you uncovered them, Jim was gone. You ran over to look at the now black screen, and up in the top right hand corner, you saw:
opt/LLL/controller/laser/jim.hopper.compu.punch.exe ACTIVATED
“Huh. Guess the computer really CTRL-ALT-DELETED Jim from existence.”, you sighed and then unplugged it from the wall.
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