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[snarkeater]

Hello. I’ve found your works just recently and now absolutely in love with them! I hope I don’t sound rude but would you ever consider writing about Dominus when he was Vos? I know canon didn’t give a lot to work with. Still, I think your take on his character would be interesting to read

An intriguing idea... Hmm.

[snarkeater]

No-win situation

An early visit from the DJD + some unexpected complications = Pharma in a bad situation.

Pharma sighs, pausing a moment to study – really study – the image on the suspended view screen hovering over his patient’s head. Projected on screen, a daunting mess of interconnected, highly-corroded wires dare him to try memorizing their individual positions relative to one-another as they weave together in tight, twisted coils that burrow deep into the patient’s already cramped core.  Although the image on screen doesn’t immediately afford him an actual view of any bifurcation points, he knows they’re there; challenging as it might be to track each wire’s path through the system, it’s very plain to see that they multiply in number as they go along.

Lifting his free hand to adjust the angle of the view screen, Pharma frowns at the streaky image, disappointed.

Splicing...  He disparages silently, surveying the tangled mess with a weary mind.  And a bad job, by the looks of it.  Shaking his helm but keeping his optics on the screen where he can see what he’s doing, he makes a face and tentatively plunges the camera-embedded precision instrument in his other hand past the corroded wires, far enough to confirm what he suspects lies just behind:

The mech’s spark casing.

Of course it’s right there, Pharma thinks, irritated.  I mean, if you’re gonna splice, why be sensible about it?

The casing is badly cracked – a dangerous situation, the fellow was right to seek help – and, Pharma can’t help but wonder, behind that…?

Digging in a bit more, slightly to the left this time, Pharma’s instrument captures a glimpse of something else on camera:

A transformation cog – wedged in solid, but intact.

In other words: a choice.

Frustrated, Pharma retracts the instrument from the bot’s chest and sets it aside temporarily.  Pulling his gaze from the view screen, he raises it, instead, to the stippled ceiling above and considers his options.

The mech’s circumstances are an absolute nightmare; even without fatigue in the picture, it could take hours to complete the work required to set the bot right, and based on past experience, Pharma knows the chances of success, ultimately, are piddling.  He learned long ago to keep his expectations in check – you never really know what’s under the hood until you get in there and see it, that’s a fact – and while curve balls definitely used to and can still occasionally be the light of his life, today the unexpected complexity feels more like a defeat than an opportunity.  He was hoping this would be easy.

Pharma’s digits curl into fists.

He should’ve planned better. He could’ve avoided this…

Unfortunately for Pharma, however, there’s no way to back out; the mech’s only going to be offline for so long, spending precious, government-funded and closely-tracked facility resources while he’s at it, and conflicted or not, someone’s got to make something happen in that time, or there will be questions.  Granted, some might come sooner than others, but, regardless, no one likes questions...

Pharma drops his gaze from the ceiling; in its descent, it alights upon a familiar but unwelcome figure standing across the room, on the other side of the operating theatre’s reinforced glass wall.  Watching the proceedings inside with a proud countenance and a vested interest, the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division patiently waits for Pharma to make his next move.

Chafing under the sense that Tarn is confident of the victory that’s yet to be handed to him, Pharma bitterly likens him to a domesticated animal: hungry, but not concerned enough by the scarcity of its food to have the sense to not play with it before eating it.

Not giving himself the chance to mentally visualize the infuriating smile he’s convinced lies behind that wretched mask, Pharma looks away – back down into his patient’s exposed core, to the nest of interwoven wires and components nestled there.  At the sight of it, a strange numbness falls over him.

The complexity, the hour, his hands – they’re shaking again…  When was his last recharge?

There will definitely be questions, yes; the questions will come, Pharma knows with a cold brand of certainty, because there’s no way he’ll be able to satisfy both his professional oath and his personal obligations tonight—

He simply can’t do it. He’ll have to pick one, or risk failing at both.

Loosening his fists, Pharma takes up the instrument he set down earlier as well as another from a nearby tray.  Leading with the camera first, he slides the device back into place inside the patient. In the end, the choice, he’s pleased to discover shortly after returning his attention to the dirty view screen, is remarkably easy to make:

Regardless of the amount of he work he puts into it, or whether or not he succeeds, all scenarios are effectively a loss for him – and, if he’s being honest with himself, it’s likely the same for the poor sod on his operating table, one way or another.  It’s common knowledge that medical professionals routinely face unreasonable expectations – from the outside or from within; like it or not, part of reality, though, is that unfortunate things happen all the time, and it’s ludicrous to think that any single person can consistently work miracles to stop it.

Ludicrous.

So let them ask their questions, Pharma decides, lifting the second instrument: a small knife, perfect for stripping wires.  There’s so much corrosion there already, especially near the gap in the spark casing – it won’t be difficult to make it look natural.

And bring on the backlash.

[snarkeater]

Rob yourself

Nickel stumbles across an old personal item of Kaon’s that causes him to take account of what he’s given up over time. 

"Not gonna lie," Nickel pipes up, confusingly casual after having handily torn Kaon a new one over a handful of dubious safety violations only moments ago.  "Every morning for the last little while, a part of me expects to see our fearless leader at my office with a mess of extra-crispy circuits and a conspicuously mellow vibe about him...  If you see what I'm sayin'."

Anyone with even a lick of social aptitude would've left it there, but Nickel – granted, like all of her comrades aboard the Tyranny – isn't average in that respect; although blind and sitting well away from her at present, Kaon doesn't need to see Nickel's brow ridge to know it's waggling shamelessly, and neither does he need to see her mouth to know the crude words already forming on her lips:

"Are you two fragging yet?"

Kaon likes Nickel – quite a bit, actually – and even though the purpose of her visit to his quarters this afternoon is ostensibly to perform a routine health and safety inspection and is not one of their usual play dates, the fact remains that they do spend a decent amount of their free time together and they do share a relationship that Kaon would readily define to any outsider as a healthy friendship.

All of that aside, however, there is something to be said about keeping one’s peas and carrots separate; having barely finished licking his wounds from a sound dressing down, Kaon finds himself struggling to bounce back fast enough to keep up with the unexpected change of context.  It's especially hard to do when he can still hear Nickel moving around near the shelves behind him, methodically combing every inch of his habsuite in her search – he's sure, she's done it enough times now – of more reasons to write him up and call him out as a slob in a formal report to their mutual boss.

He likes Nickel, no one can deny that – but try as he might, he doesn't think he'll ever understand her.  She's too...quirky.  Quirky is a good word.

"Ha!"  Kaon scoffs and turns crosswise in his seat, kicking his legs up over the padded arm rest; he lets his head loll back, one hand instinctively reaching down to seek comfort from the Pet.  The creature isn't there, though, so he wiggles his digits, hoping the motion will entice it out from wherever it's wandered off to.  He's going to need the emotional support if he can't shut this conversation down in the next few seconds.  "It's not like that..."  Kaon sighs, frowning.  It’s not the best response, but after a fruitless bit of fishing around for something better to say on the topic and another bit of fantasizing about Nickel having a sudden and very serious but not fatal malfunction, he manages a simple shrug.  "I respect him."

Nickel knocks something to the floor – something containing a bunch of other, smaller somethings, by the sound of it – somewhere to Kaon's left.  Forgoing an apology for the mess in favor of a snarky retort, she snorts:

"Yeah, sorry, but I’m afraid those things aren't mutually exclusive, Sparky."

Curiosity piqued by the noisy spill, the Pet reappears, smooth spine sliding under Kaon's outstretched fingers; he follows its curvature until the beast settles, sitting up with its head tucked obediently under his hand.  Kaon doesn't reply, opting instead to dig the tips of his fingers into the crooks of the Pet's pointed ears.  For now, it's easier and safer to stay silent and work little circles into soft fur than to verbally admit that Nickel's right – that she caught him off-guard, and that he misspoke.

Sort of, anyway.

Lucky for him, the tactic works; Nickel continues her rummaging without pressing the issue further, leaving Kaon in peace for nearly five whole minutes until, eventually, she addresses him again, having stumbled upon something of interest in his belongings:

"What's this?"

The Pet shifts to meet her as Nickel draws near, ears pulling away from Kaon's fingers; at the same time, a snug-fitting, cool metal object is carefully placed over Kaon's face, covering his voided optics in a perfect fit.  Once the initial surprise passes, it takes him only a klick to recognize the object; momentarily lifting his hand away from the Pet, he touches the item's smooth surface, reacquainting himself with it.

It's his old visor – Amp's old visor.  From before.

He forgot he still had it.

Nickel's voice is hovering over him now, her face about a foot over his, he gauges, talking down at him.  She sounds...intrigued, mostly.  "I don't think I've ever seen you wear that."  She muses.  Her digits join Kaon's in a brief exploration of the visor’s unmarred surface before pulling away.  "Why don’t you wear it?  It's really lovely..."

With a small smile, Kaon drops his hand back down to the Pet, resuming his earlier ministrations.  "Oh, I've worn it a few times," he says, deliberately vague, "but not a whole lot.  And not recently.  It's just an old thing..."  He leaves it be; Nickel is still hanging over him, looking at him intently.  Processes halted.  It's hard not to laugh at how intensely expectant she is: there's a story there, and she knows it.  She wants it – bad.

Kaon makes an effort to keep his expression neutral; who knows – if he can string her along long enough, he figures, maybe she'll forget why she came by in the first place and bugger off...

"Well," Nickel ventures, opportunistic, fingers already moving to lift the visor from Kaon's face, "if you're not gonna wear it, can I have it?"

At that, Kaon grins.  "If you forget all that safety violation nonsense you're planning on reporting me for," Kaon counters cheekily, "maybe I'll think about it."  Unsurprisingly, this stills the greedy fingers and nets him a defeated huff.  Kaon chuckles, pleased with himself, and Nickel moves off to resume her assessment of his living space.

Left to his own devices, Kaon can't help but touch the visor again, the feel of it sending his mind back through time; it is an old thing, and he could give it away – better someone use it than it spend the rest of eternity collecting dust on his shelf, honestly – but, at the same time, it has a certain sentimental value, and he's not ready to part with it yet.  It links him to a time he hasn’t and doesn’t want to forget, and to a version of himself he still feels connected to, in spite of everything that's taken place since.  It’s almost as though he still has something to learn from it, or, rather, from the memories attached to it.

'Go without', Tarn had suggested, shortly after Kaon first joined the Division.  'You'd be surprised how much mileage you can get out of a fearsome appearance...'

'You'd be surprised how much mileage I can get out of just being me', Kaon had replied, smirking, and he’d meant it, but the one-two punch delivered by the fullness of Tarn's subsequent laugh and Kaon’s own compulsive eagerness to please had promptly plucked the visor from his face regardless.

Never to be worn again.

Removing it from his face now, Kaon delicately sets the thing down over his chest with the soft 'tink' of metal on metal.  How many other things, he wonders, has he changed since that day?  How many other things has he traded for a kind word, a look in the other direction, or a small amount of trust?

How many other things has he changed, and forgotten?

Frighteningly, it occurs to him now, it’s impossible to say.

"You're right."  Kaon says, eventually.  "About what you said earlier."

The rummaging at the back of the room stops.  Nickel is listening.

Still working through his own thoughts, Kaon lays his hand over the visor and expels a long ex-vent.  "Those two things – they're not mutually exclusive.  I know that."  He chooses each word with care as he lines up his thoughts into something suitable for sharing.  "Ignoring for the sake of this conversation that it’s far too easy for you to lose sight of the fact that Tarn is the guy who signs our paychecks, like I said: I respect Tarn – a great deal – but there are some things about me that I don’t like, and those things..."  He pauses, thinking, tapping a finger over the visor.   "Those things, I think, might make it impossible for that respect to go both ways."

Just saying it, he realizes as soon as the words have left him, feels bad.

Things stay still in the habsuite for long enough afterwards that Kaon starts to wonder if he missed Nickel’s departure, but after a while he hears her again, hovering over his upturned face like before.

"You could work on those things, you know."  She counsels quietly.  "It’d be good – and not just for you."

Idly, Kaon fingers the visor.  Nickel’s sincerity is soothing, but it doesn’t make the dirty feeling go away.  "I know, but it’s—"  He stops when Nickel presses a kiss to his forehead.

It’s part of who I am.

"No buts."  Nickel insists.  She means well, at least.  "I won’t report you this month.  You’re welcome.  Also, sorry about the box of shells I knocked over."

With that, Nickel moves away, towards the door; Kaon hears it slide open and feels a wave of relief – he has some things to think about, or he’ll pick up the mess Nickel made, or maybe he’ll just sleep, he doesn’t know – but before it closes again Nickel calls out to him a final time:

"Let me know if you change your mind about that visor."

[snarkeater]

A fine thing

Being surrounded by normal people and doing normal things can occasionally make Tarn weird.

Just one left, Tarn notes with satisfaction, taking inventory of the short list of new messages on his personal communication device.  Almost everyone’s through and back on board, even Tesarus, who, for obvious reasons, usually takes longest. 

Not bad at all.

Ahead, the waiting area is bustling with customers and staff alike; tuning out the cacophony of mixed voices coming from the crowd and the crackling public address system overhead, Tarn stows his phone and picks a path to the row of seats closest to him.  Square in his sights, a few meters across from him, is a trio of empty seats flanked by a couple of bedraggled bots unattractively wearing the day's work on their faces; without a second thought, Tarn makes a bee line for it, weaving through packs of meandering minibots and flocks of over-buffed flyers with a degree of agility and speed better suited to field maneuvers than weekend civilianism, and takes the center seat.

The mech to his right seems to have an opinion about his seat choice – he gives Tarn a side-eyed look when he sits down and collects his limbs tighter to his frame – but Tarn is unmoved.  He's got another fifteen minutes, tops, left in this place before he can free himself of all the ancillary annoyances around the core experience for what he hopes is the next little while, and this poor bastard isn't going to further sour what left's of it for him.

Just deal with it, for frag's sake, Tarn thinks and – pointedly – leans back, lifting a leg to cross his ankle over his knee, mostly blocking the seat to his left, and stretching out an arm over the back of the empty seat to his right, claws just barely grazing the opinionated mech's shoulder.

It's a dick move – he knows it is, even if he chooses to continue to stare forward steadily and not acknowledge it whatsoever – but there's just something about this place that rubs him the wrong way.

The team comes here regularly – everyone does: it's the best place in-system to get a wash and proper detailing done, and it's surprisingly affordable, as a bonus.  The problem with that, of course, is that it's extremely busy – all the time – and that popularity comes with certain inconveniences that Tarn finds particularly irritating, even in short bursts.

It's loud, it's messy, it's chaotic, and it has this...overwhelming sense of the mundane about it that pulls a string in Tarn's spark that's been badly out of tune for some time.

He can feel it now, for instance, as he idly scans the next group of bots that exit the doors to the wash racks and fixates on a particular individual among the lot.  A handsome speedster with great posture and a noble look; free of any personal hang-ups that might make doing the same difficult for other people, Tarn makes deliberate eye contact as the mech walks out into the waiting area.  As is often the case when Tarn does this, the other party experiences a moment of confusion; to the speedster's credit, though, it's not so evident on him as it typically is on most others – as a result, Tarn's not entirely sure whether or not the mech recognizes him as the leader of the DJD, and instead of growing panic on the stranger's face, Tarn only detects casual curiosity.

It looks quite good on him, Tarn decides.

The speedster looks away before Tarn does, turning left and eventually taking a seat in the gallery of chairs on the other end of the room – presumably to wait for someone still inside.

Tarn waits exactly one minute, watching others walk by without really seeing them, and then looks across the way, easily locating the seated speedster through the moving curtain of mechs.  The fellow is reading a slim datapad, noble features even nobler in profile.  

As Tarn watches him, considering, he allows himself a brief fantasy in which he isn't Tarn, but, rather, some other mech.  In this fantasy, he imagines himself as he might've been, under different circumstances and had he made different choices earlier on in his life – a fellow like that speedster, he gauges by the look of him, with a normal job and a normal life. A fellow who comes to this place to get cleaned up and fixed up and doesn't pay half a month's wages for it because his scrapes and nicks are just common wear and tear, not industrial-grade damage.  He imagines what it would be like to have normal problems – maybe he'd need credits, or he'd suffer from existential angst, or he'd be plagued by loneliness. Maybe, Tarn muses, plucking the dissonant chord in his spark, it'd be all of those things.  Or none of them.

Regardless of the details, it would definitely be a simpler existence than his current one, and maybe there's something in that...?

Across the rows of seats, the speedster looks up from his datapad and casts a glance in Tarn's direction. Catching Tarn's eye, he offers up a tentative but genuine smile.

It's instantly clear to Tarn that the bot has no idea who he is, and the wave of cognitive dissonance caused by that fact assaults Tarn with enough intensity as to make him feel physically ill.

A simple life, perhaps, but...

This time, it's Tarn who looks away first.  Suddenly, the floor is much interesting than the stranger, or anything else around him.  It stays the most interesting thing for a while.

"Ready?"

Tarn's helm snaps up, optics lifting from a spot on the floor to gaze up at the mech standing above him expectantly.  It's Kaon, the last of his crew to exit the facility and his ticket out of this place. The screwed-up expression on Kaon's face reminds Tarn that it's loud, and immediately he feels a strong compulsion to leave the noise – of all descriptions – behind.  He gets to his feet at once, but before he can act on the impulse to go, something draws his attention and stills his mind, firmly pulling him from the grip of his errant thoughts:

Freshly-cleaned and shining like the rest of him, the golden Decepticon emblem on Kaon's collar seems especially bright under the poor light.

Looking to make a stabilizing connection, Tarn reaches up to touch it.

Yes, he concludes, eyeing the thing and using it as a fulcrum to set all the pieces back in their proper places in his mind and in his spark, forcibly dispelling the dissonance – yes, he could have chosen an easier life, but nothing easy, he knows all to well, is worthwhile.  So it would've been a wasted life.

Tarn's optics flick upwards, to Kaon's face.  

The problem with people, in Tarn’s opinion, is that they aren't ever satisfied with what they have – it's that loose bit that makes it easy to manipulate them, that makes them vulnerable to corruption and ruin.  Ambition is good, as is the desire to improve, but those things are different than the thing that Tarn's describing; the thing Tarn's describing doesn't drive people, it's what makes them stand still, or spin in circles. It's a form of rot.

But Tarn knows better than to let that rot take hold; this place – it has that power, if Tarn allows it to work its insidious tendrils into his spark – but he won't let it. Those foolish delusions hold no sway over him because he knows that what he has...

Calm now, Tarn's claws fall away from the emblem; he gives Kaon a nod.  "Ready."  He tells him.  Kaon wastes no time leading them out.

What he has is a damn fine thing.

[snarkeater]

Five minutes

Pharma doesn’t feel young any more, but he remembers what it was like when he did.

Sitting alone at a small table by the window, Pharma finishes the last of his lunch, optics watching the clock set over the mess doors.

Two minutes.

Two minutes and he'll back on the floor with a fully-scheduled afternoon ahead of him, packed solid with no margin whatsoever for the unexpected – exactly the way he likes it.  Of late, anyway.

He rolls the last spoonful of energon around in his mouth but it tastes more like the spoon than anything else; it's a few days old, so it's possible it's just naturally losing its zip, but then again...  His lunch habits haven't changed and neither has the recipe; this particular preparation was one of Ratchet's concoctions – one of a precious few that didn't taste like tar – from days past, when they were still learning their profession and had more free time to spend on things like failing at the culinary arts.

As though uncomfortable under Pharma's stare, the clock over the doors apologetically deducts a minute of said free time; at the same moment, the doors slide open and a pair of mechs filter into the mess, talking.  Ambulon and First Aid.  Engaged in conversation around whatever's on the data pad in Ambulon's hand, neither of them notice their commanding officer at the far end of the room.

At the sight of them, Pharma's brow creases.  Spoon still in his mouth and all chewing activity stopped, he eyes them briefly and then returns his attention to the clock, pointedly noting the time.

His optics narrow.

It's much, much too early for either of them to be on break; moreover, Pharma's made it abundantly clear, on multiple occasions, that they're not to take their breaks together. Ever.

Pharma's lips purse around the end of his spoon.

He could say something – call out to them and take them to task on the spot – but, as he generously affords them a few additional seconds of critical observation, it doesn't actually appear they've come to have lunch.  Rather, they're working on something, Pharma guesses, discussing. Not chatting per se.

Mollified enough to feel that the infraction no longer warrants to be immediately addressed, Pharma finally plucks the spoon from his mouth and sets it down, swallowing the last of his food.  On cue, the clock above the doors signals the end of his break; as he collects his things and makes to get up, however, a peel of laughter rises from the table nearest the exit, masking the short screech of his chair sliding back along the floor.  Pharma looks up.

Across the room, First Aid is bent forward, hands and forehelm resting on the table in front of him, shoulders bobbing.  It's muffled now but he's laughing, and he's having a hard time getting a handle on it, by the sounds of it.  Ambulon is similarly infected, but he's got things under control a bit more; he's tapping the screen of his datapad with a couple digits and looking back and forth from whatever's on-screen to the top of First Aid's bowed helm, grinning through something he's struggling with little success to say with a straight face. He's talking low and fast, and Pharma bends an audial but he can't quite hear what the mech is saying...

Something about the night before – a voicemail message, maybe?  Or no – something on a report?

Ambulon's practically whispering, and he keeps cutting himself off every couple seconds to stifle or trip over a giggle.  It's near-impossible to understand him, but...but...

What is it?  Pharma can’t help but wonder, curious even though he knows there's no real hope he'll actually hear the joke – or even understand it if he did.  Tell me...

Primus knows he could use a laugh too.

As he continues his desperate, wasteful focus on the pair across the way, the clock above the exit moves the hour steadily away from the end of Pharma's break time and digs ever deeper into the slot allotted to his next appointment.  He's aware of it, somewhere at the back of his mind, but instead of urging him into action like they would normally, the glowing digits on the wall take a back seat to something spontaneously higher in priority: a memory.  Roused from the dark reaches of the past by the familiarity of the scenario unfolding in front of him, the memory floats by, taking center stage as it does and temporarily queuing all other processes behind it.

The storage room – it used to stink of cleaner and grime because Pharma didn't bother to clean out the mop bucket after his shift.  He'd leave the dirty water in there overnight and would take care of it the next day because doing it that way meant he'd have an extra five minutes or so to stand in the storage room at the end of his shift and talk to Ratchet while Ratchet collected the stuff he needed for the start of his shift.

They used to take advantage of that intersection of time to tell each other the stupidest things about their last shift, or what they'd seen or done, or who they'd spoken to the day prior. Never once was the information exchanged in that room useful; they had to make the best of the time they had in there, so the funnier or the more amusing whatever it was that they tossed back and forth at each other, the better.

After all, it was only five minutes.

The memory fades, leaving behind – Pharma's sure of it – the faint scent of spoiled cleaner.

Up ahead, Ambulon and First Aid slowly grow quiet; the first to spot their boss at last, Ambulon goes very still and lightly touches First Aid's arm as a subtle warning.  Effectively caught, neither of them try to get up and leave – they know better than that; instead, they shift in their seats.  And wait.

They wait – faces drawn and shoulders slack, they wait like the obedient sparks they are, but the backlash they're bracing for never comes.

Pharma gets up and walks to the front of the mess, but instead of stopping by First Aid and Ambulon's table he walks by it without a glance, stopping by the exit to throw his empty energon container in the bin there.

Popping his spoon back into his mouth, Pharma takes one last look up at the clock overhead before disappearing into the hallway beyond, sparing the stunned mechs behind him all reproach.

Because five minutes, he figures as the doors slide shut behind him, never killed anybody.

[snarkeater]

Good company

Tarn gets his first clue that, maybe, tackling personal challenges solo isn’t the only option.

Nickel told him once – on the one occasion where he'd lost enough of his wits to somehow think it both wise and necessary to acknowledge it out loud to someone aside from his own reflection – that the best cure for addiction is to keep good company.

Profoundly baffling, the comment was immediately dismissed as a bit of worthless tripe, or – depending on his mood from one day to the next, when the thing would weasel its way back to the forefront of his mind – a damning judgment spoken out of turn, meant to insinuate unkind things about their comrades that the minibot had no business insinuating, whether disingenuously or not.

Either way, much as it's traveled in and out of his active memory since she initially shared it with him, Tarn's never found any truth in Nickel's suggestion – much less any practical application for it.

Take now, for instance; choosing to seek Kaon out this evening was a very deliberate act on Tarn's part, achieved with the singular goal in mind of providing him with a distraction – and not just any distraction, but the most complete of distractions available to him while aboard the Tyranny.  With more surprises to offer than the combat simulator's most advanced routines – and with a far better view for the time spent – surely, Tarn figured, an engaging conversation with Kaon would do the trick.  And if it didn't, well...  He could always direct irritation at the Pet (slim chance of it not being around for the event, after all), or focus on the music playing in the lounge, vaguely uncomfortable the entire time because Vos' definitely turned up the heat again and it's making him feel...  A bit off, maybe?

But, perfectly crafted as the distraction might be, it isn’t working.

Kaon hasn't stopped talking since they sat down, but Tarn's been quiet long enough that he can't recall the last thing he said.  Sitting across from the other mech, Tarn idly rotates his empty glass with a single claw, twisting it this way and that in the shallow pool of liquid collected under the base.  Kaon is animated – his face, his hands, all of it, exactly as Tarn anticipated – but the steady stream of words spilling out of his mouth may as well be in some long-dead and impossibly obscure tongue for all Tarn's capturing of them.  Optics focused on a spot of unsightly rust nestled between the interrogator's left thumb and forefinger, Tarn wrestles with a frequent and persistent mental visitor.

The visitor in question has come to remind him – again, as abruptly and as urgently as it has each time it's done so today, and yesterday, and the day before that also – that he's missing something, and that he needs to get it back.  The something is at his core, set deep under all of his plating – blackened and spent, he imagines it now, having seen countless like it with his own eyes enough times to have the crispest of mental images.

A useless husk—

Tarn resists the urge to touch his chest plate, unwilling to give the visitor any more sway than it already has over him.  He's already personified it – the incessant need; now, that particular battle was lost so easily and so early on after his reconstruction as to be downright shameful.  The insidious influence doesn't deserve any further victories over him, but...

Damus, Tarn mourns, never had these problems.

How long has it been, Tarn succumbs despite himself, since his last transformation cog replacement?  Four weeks?  Closer to six?  Six is...

Kaon's dialogue and the surrounding lounge firmly relegated to the background for a spell, Tarn anxiously tongues the rough split in his lower lip and spins – once again – the same string of thoughts around in his head that he's been spinning around since he burned out his cog and failed to transform three days ago.

He can't ask Nickel to replace it – she won't, it's too soon since the last time.  He could press her, but he'd rather not; she's made her opinion on the matter of his excesses abundantly clear, and there's no sense stressing their relationship over it.  At least not now.  They could make an emergency trip to Messatine, but that would be a waste of fuel, and of the team's time...

But then again, if he can't transform, he's a liability – a weakness – and he can’t do that to his team.  Right?

It’s unacceptable.

Tarn's optics abandon the rust spot on Kaon’s hand and slide down to stare, instead, at the smooth edge of the table closest to him; under the table and secondary in terms of interest, the Pet's tail swishes happily between his knees, slapping each of them over and over again as, across the way, its master rubs at its jaws.  The swishing would drive him crazy if he wasn't already being driven crazy by something far more distracting.  By comparison, the Pet is only a mild irritant.

The more he spins the poisonous thoughts around, the more real the need becomes.  The itch becomes an ache, the ache a craving, and the craving – the craving becomes cause for Tarn to fancy himself deprived of something fundamental to his being.  Such a simple, basic pleasure it is to transform...  The rush... It's so satisfying, so empowering, so exquisite.

How much longer, then, Tarn despairs, can he allow himself to be denied that joy?  That right?

Spark coiled tight and internal heat gauges rising more rapidly than they would if Vos' ambient temperature proclivities actually had anything to do with it, Tarn begins to panic – quietly, without moving, and completely unbeknownst to his conversation partner.  The poisonous thoughts spin faster, and the visitor's whispers continue to urge him to take action.  Any action. He needs to do something about this now. Right now.

Now!

Stiffly, under compulsion, Tarn starts to get up; as soon as his aft's cleared the seat, however, Kaon's voice catches his attention, pinning him in place mid-motion:

"Where are you going?"

Tarn looks up at once; puzzlingly, Kaon doesn't look alarmed – just curious.  Struggling for several seconds to break through the mental fog that’s flooded his processors, Tarn fails to come up with a response to the question – for himself, or for Kaon.  Baldly disarmed, he simply stares back, stuck and embarrassed by his apparent transparency.

The dead end is potently sobering.

Without a word, Kaon bends down to rub at the Pet – effectively giving Tarn space.

Across the table, the fog clears from Tarn's mind almost as quickly as it came, but uncomfortable thoughts linger behind; if he can't keep the visitor out – if he can't control his addiction – then he's no better than any common beast, organic or otherwise, both slaves in equal measure, as far as he sees it, to their biology or memetic ancestry.  Lesser beings.  Pathetic.

And Tarn is more than that.

"Go, if you need to," Kaon says eventually, angling his helm up and laying his hand on the table in front of him, "or stick around."  He smiles, one side of his mouth curling upwards a bit more than the other.  It's different.  "I suspect you could use the latter, though, and...I really don't mind repeating myself."

Ah.

Tarn's optics stay locked on Kaon's face for just a klick longer, internalizing the sincerity there, and in that instant something finally falls into place – something about Nickel's suggestion from way back.  About keeping good company.  Frankly, it's amazing it never occurred to him sooner...

It was never about anything so simplistic and shallow as distraction.  It was about trust, and support – things they have as a team, but as individuals...?

Humbled, Tarn sits back down.

Beasts can’t learn, but Tarn does not classify himself a beast.

"I'll get us another round."  Kaon says and scoops up their glasses.

[snarkeater]

I can't tell you my delight when I got a notification that you had posted something. I'm so happy you're writing again ♡

Awwww, thank you for saying so!

[snarkeater]

Tough spot

Pharma doesn’t have enough of the things that most people would need in order to be successful at climbing out from under all the weight piled on top of him.

Hands submerged to the wrists in the wash basin in front of him, his digits carefully clean the coiled, fragile tubing with practiced skill as he bobs his helm, optics shuttered, and tries his best to dump the entirety of his focus into the song playing over the radio. It’s been a shameful number of years since the song in question – or any of the other musical content he’s heard on the station so far since his deployment to this pit-damned place – was anything anyone could describe as popular, but beggars, Pharma’s come to grudgingly accept, can’t be choosers: frankly, it’s a wonder there’s a local station here at all...

The sick and the dying should be so lucky, really.

Likely for them as well but definitely in Pharma’s case, the ambient music – much like the meticulous and repetitive cleaning of the instruments – met its end as an effective distraction well over an hour ago.  With a new cycle only moments away and a retreat to his berth still an unattractive option he doesn’t much care to revisit, it’s become a sort of life support – something to keep basic systems ticking along while leaving his mind free to work things out.

But try as he might, he can’t do it.  He can’t work things out; there’s just too much in the way – difficult, labyrinthine thoughts deny him clarity.

It’s a mess, and it’s been like this for a while.  It’s...

It’s frustrating.  On a deeply personal level.

His hands are shaking.  Stilling them in the basin, he releases the sterilized tubing and lets it float upwards in the cloudy cleaning fluid, away from his tingling digits and to the surface where the loose coil gleams a cool white-blue under the stark task lighting.  Pharma’s optics reignite to stare down at it; below the surface, his hands are still shaking.

It’s stress, he reminds himself, moving quickly to hold back the familiar, precarious collection of darker thoughts that threaten to topple forward the instant a doubt of any kind pops into his mind nowadays.  It’s stress – that’s all.  Nothing he’s unaccustomed to.

'Yeah', an equally familiar voice rattles wryly somewhere at the back of his memory banks, 'right.'

The tone – escapee from an earlier era both welcome and welcome – stings more than the concentrated cleaning solution that's slowly burning its way into the articulations of his fingers; as though scalded, Pharma yanks his hands from the wash basin.

Ratchet.

Deliberately, optics riveted upon them as he holds them unnecessarily high above the liquid's surface, Pharma flexes his digits, willing them to grow still with every fiber of his being.  In his mind, although only momentarily unattended, some of the precarious thoughts spill forward; watching them fall and feeling disconnected from them as they do, Pharma renews focus on his quaking hands.

It is stress, Pharma silently asserts.  Ratchet doesn't know.  He can't know.  And let's be honest, even if he did know, he probably wouldn't—

The frustration peaks.  Pharma's fingers curl into fists.

Stress is common; at its worst, it can cause physical damage – but there is typically time enough to stop that from occurring if it's detected early on.  Primus knows there are plenty of mitigation options available: people can choose to change their environment, they can invest in friendships, they can explore different viewpoints, pick up a new hobby, listen to music, reconnect with nature...

Isolation, however, is most assuredly not recommended.

Pharma's optics flick up to look out the window across the room.  He can barely make out the glow of the nearest freestanding heating column through the raging blizzard, and the thing, he knows, is only meters away.  There may as well be nothing at all out there.  On the radio, very much in the background now, the same song he's heard four times today plays a fifth time.

Pharma presses his fists, clenched tight, to either side of the wash basin.

And, of course, while under the effects of stress, those fortunate enough to have the option can and should take comfort in loved ones...

Helm lowered, optics shuttered once more, he grits his dentae and braces through a wave of anxiety and mixed emotions: personal failure, abandonment, confusion, shame, and fear, all packed together in among a host of others.  The current is strong – stronger every day, it seems – but it ultimately fails to overtake him.  It all eventually passes, leaving Pharma exhausted in its wake.

See?  Plenty of options.

Loosening his fists, digits finally still, Pharma sighs heavily.

Just not for him.

[snarkeater]

Will you ever write Pharma-centric pieces? I really like his character and I'd love to see what you could do with him.

Short answer: yes, I will. He's my fav', even though we learned things about him late in the narrative that unexpectedly humanized his character and made him somewhat less relatable for me (and that will ultimately cause me to take liberties with his motivations). But yeah, I'd like that. It's interesting and surprising that you ask, because Pharma's personality type is not a classically popular one unless it's offset by another, viewed from the outside looking in (by a neutral or opposing party), or used as a device -- and that's a shame. There's plenty to celebrate there, it's just tricky to sell it without filing down the edges.

[snarkeater]

The perfect song

While with a captive, Tarn feels bitterly towards what he’s sure is his unseen audience.

Kaon loves to listen.

Tarn doesn’t need to see him to know he’s there, standing or sitting just outside the interrogation room door, absently tugging on his digits one at a time, helm angled downwards – pouring all of his focus on Tarn’s voice.  Not on the sound of it, but on the feel of it, specifically; after traveling through a solid medium, it loses its effectiveness and the neutered (as it were) experience – he was mystified to learn the first time he caught Kaon at it – is an exquisite delight to take in.

Apparently.

From Tarn’s perspective, it’s definitely a peculiar juxtaposition – watching his mark’s face contort with fear and alarm as he works out just the right tone to tweak the unfortunate fellow’s spark, all the while knowing that, barely five meters away, that same sound is tugging at another mech’s spark in an entirely different manner.  Coming at it from that angle, one could argue it almost doubles the task at hand, really…

Curious, Tarn spares a glance past his ‘guest’ and towards the door.  It’s a futile gesture; there are no windows, of course, and the door is firmly shut, so there’s nothing to see beyond – but still.  The sight of it – of Kaon, lurking out there – is such a familiar one that even through steel Tarn is convinced he can see it even now.

Hidden beneath his mask, a rueful smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.  It’s in Tarn’s nature to judge, and so, despite being able to see the irony in it, he does just that:

Filthy little habit, Tarn judges.  It can’t be helped.

Placed somewhere in the nether realm between morbid and charming – like so much, Tarn muses, of what characterizes the attitude his team seems to have around their work – he can however only condemn Kaon’s behavior to a limited degree.  After all, it’s not disruptive or damaging in any way, and it’s discreet for the most part, it’s just that it’s…let’s say…

Unique.

At the root of his discomfort with it, Tarn’s privately postulated on the few occasions when he’s taken the time to think on it, is how indirect it is – how secretive.  Even after it’s been called out.  And something about that rubs Tarn the wrong way.

Because nothing, you see, nothing about Tarn – in his estimation, anyway – is indirect.

Tarn’s motives, his tastes, his views, his actions – none of those things are hidden.  As a leader, transparency is key in establishing and maintaining trust between he and his team, and as secretive behaviors – no matter how small, how personal, or how inconsequential overall – directly undermine that goal, there’s simply no room for them.  As grim a burden as that might appear to be, it’s not a bad thing by any means – it keeps Tarn honest, gives him clear direction, and forces him to critically inspect his choices.

Something, Tarn would prefer to think, that any self-respecting mech – whether in a position of authority or not – should want for himself.

And yet, frustratingly, as he resumes his work and wonders if Kaon really is listening outside, it isn’t contempt Tarn feels, or pride in himself.  No; while there is a sizeable amount of genuine disdain mixed into it that’s confusing the whole of the sentiment, the thing Tarn feels keenest of all is the sting of jealousy.

Unlike him, Kaon has the luxury of secrecy; like any of the others on the team save for Tarn, Kaon can show of himself however much or however little he pleases.  He can have faults.  Provided they’re not egregious he can even make mistakes, or have esoteric opinions. No one is looking to him for anything save for what he’s been hired to do.

Everything else is a footnote.

Even the…stranger things.

Does Kaon know, Tarn wonders bitterly, singing his dire song into his mark’s audials and letting the most salient tones linger longer than necessary, that he’s perturbed?  Does he know that there are things about him that are disgusting, and that he’s put in plain sight for all to see?  Does he think about any of those things – about any of those flaws – when he’s alone?  Do they bother him at all?

Holding the bound mech down even though it’s unnecessary – the chair he’s in has restraints and they’ve been fastened tightly for over twenty minutes – Tarn unwittingly leans in, digging his claws into his prisoner’s shoulder and chest plating.  The metal yields, bending and tearing, and the mech makes a sound, but Tarn doesn’t hear it.

He’s concentrating – on his voice, and…

If Kaon wants so badly to hear him sing, Tarn entertains darkly, the bite of jealousy briefly setting him off on an angry flight of fancy, why hide?  Why not come in, and take part?  Why does he choose to skulk about like a coward and get partial satisfaction when being in the live audience can get him the full experience…?

Kaon’s assisted a number of these sessions before, but always in his alt mode; something about that configuration’s prevented any harm from coming to him in those instances, and they’ve agreed between them that it’s prudent for him to stay outside when untransformed.  But, if Kaon ever chose to be up-front about it and come in for once instead of hanging around outside the entire time, Tarn’s sure that – if he really tried – he could come up with something to make it worth Kaon’s while…

It would probably hurt – or more, who knows – but it would definitely teach him a lesson.

The venomous thought boils black inside him, and into the roiling pit Tarn desperately hurls the jealousy and anything else he can find that isn’t pride, willing it all to be consumed in that fantasy and gone from him.

Wouldn’t that be grand?

A song – flawed and insidious and yet such a delight…

The perfect song for Kaon.

In his fervor, Tarn’s voice goes a place it shouldn’t, and the errant note pushes his mishandled prisoner just over the edge.  The mech’s spark winks out and, still chasing the glowing embers of a rapidly-dwindling flame, Tarn has only the faintest notion that it’s happened.

The perfect song, Tarn’s mind echoes as the flash storm slowly clears, leaving a thick fog of awkward confusion and vague guilt behind.  In its wake, Tarn is faced with the reality that he’s let his personal feelings – his struggles – come between he and his work once again: slumped in the interrogation chair before him, his mark is dead.  A useless husk.

A waste.

Feeling unnaturally drained, Tarn stares down at the mech’s empty optics for a few klicks, his claws still embedded in its chest and shoulder.  It’s done – he won’t get anything out of this one any more.  In retrospect, there wasn’t much of a margin for error…

He should’ve been more careful.

A wave of something nameless and uncomfortable rises up inside him and, instantly, Tarn lifts a hand to turn the dead bot’s face – and its empty, accusatory optics – away.

He doesn’t want those right now.

Feeling ill, Tarn hauls himself up, draws away from the chair, and promptly takes his leave.

Outside in the cool hall, Tarn is strangely relieved to find Kaon nowhere in sight.

[snarkeater]

Something wicked

Something...off...causes Nickel to suffer a spot of indigestion.

"Have you ever had someone, Kaon?"  Nickel asks him.

Around them, the streets are alive, buzzing with people and vehicles heading in all directions; it's unreasonably noisy, and trying to have a conversation in it would be a complete nightmare if they weren't sitting a foot apart.  As it stands, it's hard enough for Kaon to focus singularly on Nickel's voice; it's not the case for her, but for him, the layers upon layers of ambient noise flow through multiple processing streams simultaneously in order to provide him with audio as well as visual information, and the effort – while entirely passive – is taxing.

But conversation with Nickel, Kaon has always sincerely believed, is well worth the bother.

"Mmm..." Kaon replies, leaning forward to rest his forearms across his knees and linking his digits together between them; giving the impression that he actually has to think about the question, he stares across the busy roadway at a tight group of aerial bots exiting the custom paint place there.  Their chatter is loud.  Very loud.  Taken as a unit, it's louder even than some of the massive transport trucks that blow by every few minutes.  One of them, Kaon is idly able to pick out, is unhappy with the results of whatever it is he just got done.

Smirking to himself, Kaon shakes his helm.  Custom paint jobs...  Truly a thing fit for mechs with far richer fuel flowing through them than he.  If Kaon ever lost his mind and got something like that done – a real paint job, base to sheen, not just a touch-up – and it didn't turn out the way he expected it to, he'd just deal with it.  It's not…

It’s simply not in him to complain is all.

To his left, Nickel's legs swing back and forth, hanging off the edge of the bench; in her lap is the lunch she just bought – a small container of softened energon, half-eaten already.  Without turning, Kaon reaches across to dip a digit in the stuff and then sticks the coated finger in his mouth.

Miraculously, Nickel doesn't react adversely to the otherwise serious affront.

"No."  Kaon finally answers, the word coming out muffled; he waits until he's finished cleaning the energon off his finger and out of where it oozed into a joint before speaking again.  "I haven't.  Why?"  He snorts. "Looking for some pointers?" He goes for another scoop, but Nickel smacks his hand before it can further devastate what remains of her food.

"Ha! No."  Nickel chortles, shooing away the intrusive servo. "I've got it all figured out, thanks."

With more patience – by a margin – at his private disposal than the entire Division has combined, Kaon placidly watches the minibot grab a heaping spoonful of energon.  "Nice – that makes one of us.  Why'd you ask, then?"  He counters. As soon as the delicately-balanced spoon lifts away from the container – its attendant sufficiently distracted – he immediately goes in for his second serving.

Nickel's far less permissive this time; the clever act of thievery awards Kaon a miffed – but brilliantly impotent – growl.

Grinning, Kaon swiftly drags the goopy digit into his mouth, spilling only a single errant drop onto his knee during the hasty transfer.

Success never tasted so good.

Luckily for the rest of Kaon's afternoon, the crime wasn’t a severe one, as Nickel's mood is unmarred in its wake.  Lips smacking, she carries on, pondering out loud the way she typically does when they go out for meals – well, 'meal' is more accurate, as Kaon seldom buys his own – on the run like this:

"Just curious, more than anything..."

More smacking.  This time Kaon's own smacking joins hers in a disgusting duet – after all, there's no reason for the bit on his knee to go to waste...

"I was thinking about it the other day,” Nickel continues, “and it seems like you'd have to put a lot more into knowing a person – as in all the parts that other people can just see and immediately internalize, I mean – and that if you lost that person, it'd be...  I don't know...”  She lets the sentence hang and shovels another spoonful into her mouth, then talks through it.  “It'd be harder somehow.  It’s tough to explain.  D’you know what I mean?"

Baffled, Kaon stays silent for a moment and lets the comment soak.  In the intervening klicks, a couple mechs walk by on the sidewalk, inches away from his face; once they’ve passed, he follows them without needing to turn and look in their direction.  Two speedsters; talking about work, and money.  Between them, they’re hanging on to each other by a finger.

It looks very casual. On the outside.

It’s not wrong, what Nickel’s saying, but it’s not right either; when Kaon thinks about it, he does have to work hard to get to know people, he’s just not convinced it’s necessarily any harder than anyone else does. It’s just different.  Whether the individuals involved can see each other or not, there’s always a whole mess of noise – of one description or another – in the way regardless.  And if he’s honest with himself, sometimes it’s an outright boon to not know which way someone’s optics are focused when you’re speaking to them, or to not have to see subtle shifts in facial expression during difficult conversations.

It definitely makes some things easier...

But, admittedly, it does make a whole slew of other things that much harder.  It requires more trust on his part, above all else, and more time – so, so much more time.  And being as the former isn't something he's in the business of widely handing out and the latter isn't something people as a rule seem particularly eager to give nowadays, the whole situation leaves Kaon sitting firmly between a rock and hard place.

Fortunately, his predicament's forced him, over the years, to develop other means by which to overcome those challenges – to exercise other muscles that not only serve him in his work, but that also help him seek out the connections he craves in his personal life:

Observation – ironically – and what he likes to think is a sound and surely by now well-practiced ability to judge a mech's character by their words and actions.

Time is still an issue with that approach, but the overall results are much better.  

Usually, that is...

When he's right.  And when he's wrong, well...

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you can or can't see, inside or out – some people hide things deep. It might be Kaon's job to dig those things out, but even specialists get the gift of failure every now again.

"I've never experienced loss," Kaon eventually responds, long after the speedster couple's melted back into the crowd, "not like that, anyway.  So I can't say if it's harder or not."  He leans back and turns his helm in Nickel's direction; not unlike his own pet might watch him under similar circumstances, he watches her finish all but the last spoonful of energon from her lunch.  Fixating on it, he motions to the nearly-empty container in her lap.  "You gonna eat that?"  He asks, hopeful.

Behind him and along the sidewalk, from the same spot whereabouts the speedsters disappeared only moments ago, a familiar figure materializes from the roiling masses:

Tarn.

Unbeknownst to Kaon who believes Nickel's turned to face him, the minibot's gaze sails right over his head, focusing instead on the approaching mech.  An odd gap ensues that almost prompts Kaon to repeat himself—

And then whatever it is Nickel sees causes her to silently offer up the rest of her meal.

"Oh, I'll be sure to let you know if it happens, though," Kaon muses blithely, snatching up the container at once, "but if I were you..."  He swipes a finger along the bottom and then brings the laden digit to his mouth.  "I wouldn't hold my breath."

[snarkeater]

Greener pastures

Escapism is normal, and, like most people, Nickel indulges in it from time to time.

It’s a question she’d like to think every bot’s asked themselves at least once in their life – whether seriously or not – and as she hazards a curious look at the digital display set on the wall just to the right of the main administration desk, Nickel asks herself the question now:

What would she be – who would she be if things had gone differently for her?  If she’d made different decisions?

The medical facility is bustling this morning, and she’s forced to weave her way through a throng of people both entering and exiting the hospital in roughly equal states of confusion in order to reach the job board.  The thing is set high up, frustratingly unsuitable for a mech of her small stature; arms loaded down with the requisitioned supplies she came here to pick up, Nickel stands close enough to the wall that the ends of her pedes nearly touch it and stares straight up at the bright lettering.  Directly behind her, the masses continue to churn.

There aren’t many opportunities – a total of three, and she’s not qualified for any of them save perhaps one, if she felt like bending the truth a bit during the interview.  It’s no surprise, but at the same time it’s also disappointing in a sort of removed way; Nickel doesn’t make it out here often, but in spite of that she’s come to know some of the staff by name, they recognize her, and it’s a nice enough facility – so she’d had…

She’d had thoughts, you could say.

The hallway she’s standing at the mouth of is narrow; every third person that passes behind her clips her on their way by, and only a third of that number bother to apologize. Instead of setting her off, however, as it typically would were she in a different state of mind, the second shoulder-bump incident only causes her to shift her position further inward and the curses remain safely stowed.

Optics still focused on the display above, Nickel’s mind travels through space and time, to a parallel dimension in which she works here, at this place.  In this version of reality, she’s the head nurse – with tenure – and she walks these halls day in, day out.  The mechs pouring in and out of the facility aren’t just rude, nameless faces any longer – no, they’re people she knows: neighbors, friends, people whose lives she doesn’t know the details of but that she’s seen around town.

Because in this dimension, she lives here, too.  Her world doesn’t consist of emergency-lit corridors, synthetic life support, effectively three rooms and the constant accompaniment of an engine’s hum; she’s got a whole city to stretch her legs out in, a varied backdrop to help scramble her processor when it starts to do that thing, and a nice apartment.  She knows just the one – it’s not far from here at all, she could walk to work – and today, for the first time ever, it’s up for sale: a quaint and stylish pad with a small front yard complete with modern holo-tree, all for less than she makes in a year.

It’s a damn fine reality, that one, but it’s distant.

Over there, somewhere.  Out of reach.

And strangely blurry.

Turning away from the job board, Nickel joins the mech soup and follows its currents out into the lobby. She feels disaffected – like trying to connect with this place and these people cost her something, even though it was just a passing fantasy – and it’s not until she finds her way out of the maze of legs and rusted afts and finds herself back outside, out in the open, that she feels better.

Across the road, Tarn is seated on a bench, waiting.  Helm turned, he’s watching the people walking down the sidewalk he’s sitting along.  He hasn’t spotted her yet.

At the sight of him, any pieces of her earlier fantasy still lingering slip from Nickel’s mental grasp, the associated images going from blurry to black before disappearing entirely. The crowd disperses around her, revealing her tiny frame, and as though on cue Tarn turns to face her.

Although it’s the symbol of her Cause – the cause she was willfully contracted to serve – that stares back at her across the pavement, instead of pinning her step and immediately filling her with intense guilt for having dared to stray in spirit, the mask clears away all remaining doubt and replaces it with a sense of freedom.

Because behind that mask is the face of a friend.  And awaiting her return not too far from here, she knows, are the faces of four more.

So it’s easy for Nickel to let the fantasy dissipate, like the crowd did as soon as she walked outside; it’s easy to let the fancy job go (it’d be nice to have a title, but frankly, she’d make significantly less credits and something tells her the headaches would be a lot worse), and the swanky living arrangements (she can walk to work now, honestly, but that holo-tree is a handsome thing regardless), and even all the acquaintances.

Nickel can relinquish all of that – and does it now, effortlessly – because none of those things are as important to her as what she has with her boys.  That’s what’s real.  That’s what’s worth all of the things that make her stand at the job board every now and again for a quick water-cooler flirt with what might’ve been; and should the day ever come when the Cause is not enough for her, that bond is ultimately what’s going to keep her doing what she needs to do.

Across the way, Tarn taps a finger over his wrist and raises a hand, palm up.  Between him and Nickel, people pass by in an incessant stream, intermittently blocking the view.

Nickel doesn’t need to see Tarn’s face to know there’s a smirk there.

Smiling, she re-arranges the items in her arms and lifts a servo, presenting Tarn with a single-digit salute.

It goes without saying that different decisions would’ve led her down a different path, but this one, Nickel is convinced, for all its inconveniences, definitely has its perks.

[snarkeater]

Balancing act

Nickel just needs a little levity in her life.

"Do you think..." Nickel muses, chewing on whatever it is like it's something potentially insightful, but keeping her voice down like it's definitely not.  "Do you think, if you kissed him, he’d give you, like...a little zap?"

Sitting on the medical berth at her side, Tarn nearly chokes on the cleaner fluid he's been instructed to imbibe, immediately pulling the cup away from his face before any more of its contents can join the cloud of pretty cyan flecks sprayed across his chest plate.  Awkwardly holding out the half-emptied cup, he gives his helm a swift shake, optics turned downward to survey the mess he just made across his front. "Inappropriate."  He warns, taking a cue from Nickel to keep their conversation private.

"You're not even a little curious...?"  Nickel presses from out of view.

The minibot's seemingly disembodied hand comes down by Tarn's side to brace against the edge of the berth, while her other hand yanks with some effort at one of his treads. Wincing – the thing is stuck, very stuck, and what's happening with it back there right now is not what anyone would describe as pleasant – Tarn chances a look across medbay.

Occupying one of the bright red chairs lined up in a neat row by the wall next to the exit, Kaon patiently waits his turn for a routine inspection.  Despite having been asked repeatedly to not bring the Pet into medbay, the thing is with him now.  Mercifully, Kaon's attention is wholly focused on the animal; bent double in his seat and with the digits of one hand crammed deep into the thing's maw – in search of lost treasure, Tarn guesses, for all he knows...or cares – he's hopefully too preoccupied by whatever he's doing to overhear any inanities from Tarn's end of the room.

Hopefully.

Nickel may've asked Kaon a hundred times to leave his fox in his quarters when he comes in for a checkup, but Tarn's probably asked Nickel ten times that amount to keep things professional when he comes in.

It's pretty evident now, Tarn settles internally as he drops his gaze back down and starts loosely wiping flecks of cyan off the crest over his spark, that they both listen about as well as a couple welding torches.  Maybe, he postulates, they share a common dysfunction of some kind that's causing the problem...

Something to do with a past trauma, or a basic problem with authority, or possibly a bad reaction to the energon they consume day-to-day, or...

Or idiocy, Tarn concludes. That one works too.

"I'm not biting, Nickel."  Tarn rumbles, making a face and clenching his dentae as the tiny medic repositions herself behind him to get more leverage; the next yank on the same tread as before is significantly less pleasant than the last.  The pull is surprisingly strong given Nickel's diminutive size; under the force of it, Tarn feels himself tip backwards a bit and the liquid in the cup clutched in his upheld hand sloshes around dangerously.  At this rate, he's not going to be able to drink the rest of that – and somehow he'll be at fault.

"Ugh!  I'm just teasing you..."  Nickel groans with some difficulty.  The yanking stops and behind his shoulder, Tarn can feel tiny digits lifting and then digging in under a tread.  It feels odd, but for the next few moments at least, Nickel is busy – and quiet.

Tarn takes the opportunity to down – as fast as he's able to – the remainder of the cleaning fluid and then simply sits there, placid and feeling disproportionately accomplished, with the empty cup cradled between his hands like a trophy.

With Nickel's strangely soothing spelunking going on over his shoulder, he returns his attention to Kaon across the way.  The mech is still holding his pet's mouth open and appears to be fishing little pieces of...Tarn's not quite sure what...out from between its teeth.  As Tarn looks on, Kaon deposits each of these little ‘treasures’ on the edge of the chair to his right.  The disgusting spectacle is entrancing, however, and Tarn – frowning now – finds himself unable to look away.

Nickel should just kick him out – he'd back her up on that without hesitation, too – but she won't.

Because for all that bark, when it comes down to brass tacks, Nickel has a pretty weak bite.

Interestingly, it's always been something of a private disappointment to Tarn that Nickel's ferocious tongue doesn't ever seem to translate into an equal ratio of pounds per inch of force applied to her bite.  He's familiar enough with people who are all talk and no action, but for some reason, he never got the sense off Nickel that she was one of those people – on the contrary, actually: from the moment he met her, even broken as she was, he could see the fire in her.  And since then, he's harbored a secret, fervent desire to see that fire rage.

And he's stoked it – oh, he's stoked it good – but, astonishingly, Nickel's managed to keep a cap on it and deny him that sweet victory over her.

Grimacing now and overcome, in the moment, by a bout of acute second-hand embarrassment, Tarn watches Kaon flick small chunks of whatever-it-is off the ends of his digits and onto the pristine floor.  Tarn can't understand it – it's like Kaon has no idea he's in public.  He opens his mouth to say something, but instead of calling out to the mech being disgraceful across the room, all that comes out is a clipped exclamation as Nickel's busy digits pluck at something exceptionally painful.

"Sorry." Nickel responds.  The speed of the response satisfies the basic requirements for proper bedside manner, but the flat and dry tone heavily outweigh the token effort.

The juxtaposition catches Tarn's funny bone and he smiles.

"No, you're not." Tarn retorts, amused.  "Don't apologize if you don't mean it."

This nets him another pluck at the painful bit.

"You first."

Another flat response.

Smile fading, Tarn lowers the cup in his hands into his lap; looking away from Kaon, he turns his helm to the side, just enough to see the very top of Nickel's bowed head over his shoulder.  He eyes her for a few klicks, silently assessing.

"Do you ever envy organics?"  Nickel asks him, out of the blue.  Her voice is smaller now, quieter.

Caught off-guard by the question, Tarn abruptly reels his train of thought back in from whatever twisted tunnel it was going through.  "What?  No." He cranes his neck further to try to get a better look at her face, to get a clue as to where this might be coming from, but the angle makes it impossible to get any useful data.  He's completely marooned.  "Why?"

The extended gap between his question and Nickel's response sets off a couple vague warning flags in Tarn's mind:

"They're temporary."

Seeking to clear the flags and feeling about as inadequate at it as he typically does when he tries it, Tarn quickly sifts through all of the things he could say that immediately spring to mind and selects, instead, something further down the line. "Are you unhappy?"  He counters.  He's not trained for this sort of thing, and when Nickel gets into one of her...moods...it's stressful for him – it's especially stressful because she seems to gravitate to him more often than not when it happens, and he has no way of knowing if he's helping or making things worse.  His responsibility towards her – on paper – is as her employer, but if he's honest with himself, it's become more than that. Over the years, he's taken her on as a personal responsibility.

And sometimes, such as when he feels the special brand of helplessness-fueled panic he's feeling right now, for instance, it's tough not to question the wisdom of that decision.

Nickel huffs, her frame slumping slightly as she continues to work.  "No, no – that was maybe over-dramatic.  It's just, sometimes..."  She lets the sentence hang for a few klicks, struggling with it, and then abandons it entirely and tries again.  "We don't make balloon animals for a living is what I'm trying to say. You know?"

Tarn stares at the top of Nickel's head for what feels like millennia.  He...

He doesn't know.  At least, he doesn't think he knows—

Tarn shutters his optics, mental gears grinding.

The work.  Their work – the Division's work – he's guessing, is what she's referring to.  It's grim business, to be sure, but it's what she signed on for and it's not going to stop any time soon; he can understand how that might become an emotional burden for her every now and again – after all, she's not like the rest of his crew, she doesn't have their background or their conditioning, but regardless.  She made a choice, and while it might frustrate Tarn to see her trip like this, he's convinced she has the inner strength to make good on that choice and carry on.  In his opinion, Tarn's given her the best chance possible at a fulfilling life – doubtless, she'd be lost without him.  Without the Division.  And she knows that.

So what's the problem, Tarn wonders?

Optics reigniting, Tarn turns to look out at Kaon once again.  There's now a veritable pile of dusky-colored garbage on the chair next to him and sprinkled over the floor at his feet, and – having apparently finished grooming his pet's teeth – he's now leaning back in his seat and staring off at something out the medbay exit and down the hall.  Tucked between his knees, the Pet's long head is turned to look in the same direction as its master.

The image clicks something into place for Tarn.

While it's true that Nickel didn't benefit from the specialized training the rest of the team did and hasn't developed the same defenses, it's just as true that, even with training, everyone on board the Tyranny still needs a little something extra to keep them going.  The thing in question is different for everyone, but it all serves the same purpose: it keeps each of them level.  It's never anything complicated, either – it's usually quite simple, something that's just there and does its thing without any deliberate thought put behind it. Like a pet, like music, like a hobby...

Like joking around.

Pursing his lips, Tarn realizes now what's bent Nickel out of shape.  It might seem like her reaction was extreme, but it would be the same, Tarn's sure, for any one of them if that thing that makes each of them tick was taken away from them.  It also puts into stark perspective just how steep a psychological precipice they're all standing on.

So Tarn does the only thing someone in his position reasonably can – and gives the shiny thing back.

Turning away from the waiting area, Tarn peers over his shoulder.  Nickel's looking up now, one servo raised and tugging experimentally at Tarn's tread, its mobility fully restored.  He catches her eye.

"I'd be disappointed if I didn’t get a little zap, Nikki."  He tells her, very, very quietly.

It takes a klick, but Nickel smirks, renewing Tarn's faith in his decision to take her under his wing.

"Oh, same." She replies, just as quietly.

For @mako-doodles, because Nickel’s not the only one who could use a little levity.

[snarkeater]

Stretch goals

Tarn compares himself to Soundwave and finds himself lacking.

Alone in the tiny transport, Tarn sits forward, digits linked between his knees and optics staring straight ahead, like a good boy.  He was asked to take a seat and secure himself, but he hasn't bothered with the latter yet – mostly because, after giving him those directions, his escort left the vessel to go have a lengthy phone conversation on the tarmac a few hundred meters away.

It was fine when Tarn was waiting for a minute or two, but it's stretched to significantly longer than that and Tarn's patience is wearing thin.  It's definitely rude now, and it takes all the goodwill Tarn can muster not to take it as a personal slight.

Which, given the uncomfortable history there is between he and his escort, is not entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Impatient, Tarn turns in his seat and looks out the back of the ship; through the open hatch, off in the distance and to the right, Soundwave's slight frame stands bolt still on the sprawling landing pad, his back turned.  From Tarn's angle, the composition of the image is almost artistic – and if he hadn't been sitting on his aft for what feels like an hour now, uselessly burning fuel, maybe the part of his brain that's able to appreciate the finer things in life wouldn't already be completely consumed by the cruder part of it that just wants this colossal waste of time to end—

Still in view, Soundwave casts a glance over his shoulder.  The motion catches the midday sun, and it reflects off his visor in a bright flash.

A coincidence, Tarn wonders, or...?

Erring on the side of caution, Tarn immediately reins in his enthusiasm and turns back around, optics narrowed.

There isn't – he'd freely admit to just about anyone if asked – a mech alive that unsettles him more than the one he's waiting on right now.  No one – absolutely no one, including the greatest among them – can peel away as many layers as Soundwave does with his presence alone and leave him feeling as critically exposed. And it's not just the simple (but deeply upsetting) fact that the mech can hear thoughts and, somehow, also emotions – no, it goes beyond that.  Far beyond.  There are additional, more complex factors in the mix that make Soundwave as emotionally corrosive as he is.

Old scabs that, as he sits and stares petulantly at the vacant pilot's seat in front of him, Tarn can't help but pick at.  It's always possible that his escort will hear, but he doesn't know for sure – he doesn't know how it works.  He can't know.  And it doesn't matter, anyway – it's not anything, Tarn figures with grim certainty, Soundwave doesn't already know.

The transport's engines have been running since Soundwave landed; on the consoles along the front, all the instruments show ready states, prepped for departure.  Tarn briefly eyes the compact navigation display, hoping to get a sense of where he's being taken – where, should Soundwave ever get off the phone, he'll be meeting Megatron.  Unsurprisingly, however, the small unit indicates a classified, pre-configured heading; at the sight of it, Tarn feels a sharp stab of irritation right between the eyes.

Of course.  Of course he can't know where he's headed – if he could know, his master would've just sent along his coordinates and instructed that Tarn meet him there.  Like he's done a thousand times before.  But this is different; Megatron doesn't owe Tarn anything with respect to his comings and goings, so what was Tarn expecting?

Looking away from the nav computer, Tarn contorts himself in his seat and turns, again, to direct ill will out the back hatch.

The earlier image remains the exact same: out on the tarmac, Soundwave hasn’t moved.

He's talking to him, Tarn's sure – to Megatron, their shared employer.  Nothing else makes sense.  He can't hear any of it and nor does he necessarily want or need to, but the longer it goes on the harder it gets for Tarn to resist the compulsion to fill in the gap with all manner of damning scenarios and fearful thoughts.  It's unnerving to not know, and to know that others – others who have power over you, even for a passing moment – know that you don't know.  It's awful to be the odd mech out—

And it's worse yet to know that no matter what you do to change it, that’s what you'll always be.

Looking at Soundwave now – a brittle, breakable thing a fraction of Tarn's size and appearing even smaller under the diminishing illusion cast upon him by perspective – Tarn is visited by the vivid memory of their first encounter.  Aware of Soundwave’s reputation but thinking them equals in their master's service, he assumed too much – and was promptly put in his place within a matter of klicks:

'You are a means to an end', Tarn remembers Soundwave telling him, cutting him off midway through a sentence that, in retrospect, probably shouldn't have come out of his mouth in the first place.

This was long ago; Tarn was admittedly less wise then.  And impudent. Granted, he could’ve comported himself better than he did that day, but even then…

Soundwave's words – how quickly and precisely they lanced the boil that Tarn hadn’t even, at the time, fully realized he’d developed in the dark recesses of his mind – stayed with him. Countless hours were spent in the years that followed fruitlessly trying to find fault in them, trying to uncover hidden motivations that might invalidate them or skew their meaning.

But painful as they were to hear, they weren’t technically wrong…

And so, try as he might to dismiss them or to take them in a different direction, Tarn’s never been successful at any of it – even now, in this very moment, as he desperately tries to hate Soundwave for any valid reason that might present itself, he can’t justify it.  None of it sticks.  All of his reasons, when he inspects them, are personal reasons at their root – ‘you problems’, Nickel would call them if he ever spoke to her about them, which he won’t – and everything else…

Well.  Everything else is whatever Soundwave chooses to give him:

Veiled facts.

Raw, lightly contextualized, deliberately selected, carefully articulated, and always consistently impossible to fully confirm or deny.

It’s absolutely maddening and – whether done with intent or not – it’s never once failed to put Tarn off-balance.  He and Soundwave are just…not the same kind of people, and he’s not sure they’ll – he’ll – ever be able to bridge the gap; but, all of that aside, the only thing that truly matters between them is the shared loyalty they hold in their sparks – and on that front, they see eye to eye.

Or, at least, Tarn thinks so.

Even if they sometimes use different words when expressing that loyalty: the Cause, freedom, peace, Megatron…

To Tarn, all of those things are synonymous—  

And surely, he assumes, Soundwave must feel the same.

So why can’t that be enough?

As if on cue, off in the distance, Soundwave finally lowers his arm and turns to face the ship, through with his call at last.

Relieved and anxious to get moving, Tarn whirls back around and begins securing himself as was earlier requested of him.  It only takes a couple seconds, and in the time it takes for Soundwave to reach the boarding ramp, a stray thought occurs to Tarn amidst those surrounding his upcoming meeting with Megatron; the notion is almost lost in the current, but, curious, Tarn fishes it up before it gets swept away:

Should he and Soundwave’s shared loyalty be enough for him?

Could he do better – more?

Optics focusing once more on the navigational computer and the classified destination marked there, Tarn feels the sharp stab between his eyes again.  A pointed jab reminding him of his place, and why it might be that he doesn’t know where he’ll be heading in a few moments and why it won’t be him occupying the pilot seat.

It’s because, clearly, loyalty wasn’t enough for their master.

Thank you to @distractables for sparking this.

[snarkeater]

Handout

Megatron subtly teaches Tarn that second place doesn't get a prize.

It's late – very late; the album Tarn put on when he invited Kaon here after the team get-together is almost finished playing through, and although it would be responsible of him to take that as a clean cut-off point for the evening and start considering getting some rest, he's got half a mind to play it through a second time.  It's a beautiful, timeless collection, after all – it easily deserves any extra appreciation it can get.

Rather like the evening.

On the other end of the couch, aft slid forward, arm up along the back rest and helm resting on his own shoulder, Kaon is in sleep mode.  He slipped into the state sometime during the latter half of the last track, apparently unable to handle the increasing intervals in their protracted conversation.  Much as he'd rather the mech have better fortitude, Tarn can't blame him for shutting down; it's been a long day – on many levels – and, really, it's Tarn's fault for choosing music that, given the circumstances and the advanced hour, could probably have been a bit more stimulating.

Glancing over, Tarn eyes Kaon's face.  He looks dead – like he's been posed, voided optics dark, barely able to sit up, arranged in a semblance of life like someone's idea of a morbid joke.  Someone with a peculiar sense of humor.  Like Vos, for instance.

Chuckling quietly, Tarn crosses an ankle over a knee and slouches a bit himself, getting comfortable; reaching just to his left, he scoops his phone up off the nearby end table and turns it on.  When the display comes to life – painfully bright in the low light – the lock screen is disappointingly clear of notifications; he's missed no calls, no messages since he and his team's triumphant return to the ship.  The device is always with him so this doesn't really come as a surprise, but regardless, the bare lock screen still manages to dampen Tarn's otherwise high spirits – same as it has every time he's compulsively checked it so far.

Tonguing the scarred split in his lip, Tarn dismisses the lock screen, hoping, only to have the desktop view confirm what he already knew to be the case:

He's received no acknowledgement from Megatron with regards to today's success.

Not yet, anyway.

Staring blankly at the small screen, Tarn swipes a claw across the glowing display and reconfirms – yet again – the transmission time on the voicemail he left.  It's there, right at top of the activity log listing: he called as soon as he and his team finished boarding.  In other words, they hadn't even taken off yet and Tarn was already delivering the good news!  Another piece of trash off the list.  One less thing for Megatron – and everyone else under his guidance – to worry about.

That's worth something, isn't it?  It usually is...

Immediately feeling the onset of a keen and swiftly mounting frustration, Tarn does what he's done each time this has happened and shuts off his phone, tosses it back on the table beside him, and promptly tries to forget it exists.  Shuttering his optics, he leans his helm back and forcibly focuses, instead, on the background music filling the room.

The dulcet tones, however, fail to smooth out the few stubborn wrinkles marring his overall pleasant disposition and his mind keeps veering back to that virgin lock screen.

There might not be any notifications there, but there is a message.

And the more Tarn thinks about it, the louder and clearer it gets.

He got the first hint straight away, but it didn't register as anything necessarily special in the moment. His lord is a busy mech – the contract between them explicitly stipulates that Tarn has to be at Megatron's ready disposal, but understandably not the reverse.  The contract also stipulates that Tarn must follow up – without delay but within reason – after each successful hit, and under those constraints, voicemail has previously been an acceptable vehicle for the delivery of that message.

As such, failing to pick up the hint, Tarn proceeded – on a near-sighted high – to indulge in celebration with his team.

Tipping his helm to the right, Tarn reignites his optics; inches away from his nose, the ends of Kaon's limp digits hang off the back of the couch.  He stares past them, following the line of the still mech's outstretched arm to his partially-obscured face.

It didn't occur to him – not even after whatever it was, a niggling guilt perhaps, that caused him to start checking his phone shortly thereafter – that they didn't deserve to celebrate.  No one can deny it, he reasoned – what they did today was no small feat; the amount of skill required to execute as perfectly as they did isn't something one can find off the market from any merc, regardless of price or pedigree. Tarn would comfortably bet on that. And successes, he's always firmly believed, are as important to highlight as failures are to address.  As a leader, both are part of Tarn's intrinsic duty to his team—

A duty he takes seriously. So, wholly ready as he was, initially, to deliver punishment for a botched job, so too was he ready – and relieved – to do the exact opposite when the team ultimately got results.  It had been so long since the last time they crossed a name off the list, and it felt great – right, even – to have everyone, himself included, energized and in such good cheer...

Raising his chin, Tarn lightly bumps the end of one of Kaon's fingers with the bridge of his nose, lifting it; the digit falls, sliding down and to the side, over the rough crag dividing his cheek.  The slumbering mech, however, doesn't react.  Disproportionately offended, Tarn angles himself away, brusquely, as though burned.

It was a cowardly thing to do and he doesn’t know what exactly he expected from it, but regardless – he doesn't need any more subtle hints tonight.  Any more non-responses.

Helm turned the other way and optics now staring directly down at his phone on the side table, Tarn grits his dentae.

He understands, he thinks, the message Megatron is sending him.  It took a while, but he gets it now.

It's hard for him to acclimatize to it, especially in retrospect, but he's beginning to accept now that he acted in error this evening.  That what he viewed as a success wasn't one, in reality, and that the positive outcome of the day's efforts did not, in fact, warrant a change to the original plans he had for the evening, no matter what his personal feelings about the day were.  Megatron was right to not return his call.  He was right to not acknowledge him—

And Tarn should count himself lucky he didn't.

Because today wasn't a success, it was the end of a lengthy embarrassment.  It's ridiculous and utterly laughable that it’s taken them as long as it has to achieve what they did today – that even with all of that vaunted skill, this particular target managed to give them enough trouble over time to make today feel like a success.  Tarn can see that now, and it's rapidly torpedoing the last scraps of his good mood but it's definitely the way his employer saw it.

It's also the reason why Tarn's lock screen is still clear and will undoubtedly remain that way for the foreseeable future.

They shouldn't have celebrated – they should've buckled down and sought repentance for their inadequacies through examination and focused training.  Megatron saw the truth of the situation and through some mysterious act of mercy chose the path of restraint in messaging it to Tarn; he might not know the reasons behind that choice and certainly doesn't care to add insult to injury through conjecture, but what Tarn does know is that he won't be accused of wasting an opportunity granted him.

Even if that opportunity comes off a bit – or quite precisely, he realizes, judgment falling over him like a heavy blanket woven of bitterness and self-loathing – like a handout.  

A disgusting, shameful handout.

On impulse, Tarn sends his phone clattering to the floor with a sharp sweep of his arm.

The album has finished playing, but Tarn's completely lost the desire to queue it up for a second round. Beside him, Kaon stirs awake, possibly startled by the sound of the phone hitting the ground, possibly finally bottoming out on charge and triggering an emergency state; Tarn can feel him shift in his seat, but he doesn't turn to face him.  He's done for tonight.  They've had enough fun.

"Leave." Tarn commands.  The word comes out clear and crisp in the ambient silence.

Kaon doesn't ask why, doesn't say anything at all – he just gets up and leaves.  It's arguably unfair but it's best, Tarn thinks to himself as he listens to the other mech's retreating footfalls until they exit his quarters and once beyond that threshold, disappear from range.  It's best his team forget this foolish, frivolous version of him as soon as possible.

Because unfortunately, come morning, Tarn fully intends to set things right.

Note: This was a loose follow-up to this.

[snarkeater]

Misuse of the question

Tarn uses Kaon’s unwavering faith in him as a security blanket.

It's windy, dry, and hot in a way that Tarn doesn't remember from the last time they came to this world to track down a target.  Standing in overwatch on a rooftop a couple blocks from the heart of the action, he waits patiently for the last part of their plan to fall into place.  It shouldn't be long – any minute now, he expects, he'll get the call from Vos and they'll be ready to spring the trap.

It's taken them all morning to set this up, but it'll be worth it if – no, when – they manage to pull it off.  They've been on this particular list member’s tail for unacceptably long – long enough that Tarn’s been asked about it, twice, and not in a nice way – and, as such, Tarn made it crystal clear to everyone before they set out today: failure is not an option this time, and there will be repercussions for anyone who makes things more difficult for the team.

So far, fortunately for them, it doesn't look like Tarn will have to come down on anyone after this. Everyone's done their part and everything's in place; the only thing remaining is Vos' piece – a nasty, pivotal little infiltration and demolitions job that he was quick to put his hand up for. It's the sort of thing that's well within his wheelhouse and that Tarn would have expected him to volunteer for, but...

Sometimes...

Sometimes.

Optics narrowed, tension mounting rapidly, Tarn stares at the building, blocks away, that he knows Vos is in right now and wishes with all of his being that he could see through walls.  Logically, he knows Vos is already in there, and that chances are he's doing his job – quickly, efficiently, and with precision.  Exactly the way Tarn wants it done.

Unfortunately, under pressure as they are at this very moment, it's not an entirely rational reaction Tarn's having.

It's silly – he's given Vos key taskings before and the mech's never disappointed him, so there's no hard reason whatsoever for Tarn to cast any doubt on him.  And yet, every now and again, he gets this feeling...  A tightness at his center that makes him question his decisions and compulsively review the plan as a whole, and Vos' part in it specifically – just in case.  It can't be helped; he has to protect himself.  He has to protect the team.

Because although this Vos has never disappointed him, the one who came before...

Peeling his gaze from the building in the distance, Tarn glances down and to his left; sitting back on its haunches, tail swishing eagerly back and forth, the Pet is staring in the same direction Tarn was a klick ago.  Standing on the other side of it, Kaon stares off as well, but distractedly and in a different direction entirely.  Focusing on the Pet, Tarn uses it to still his mind:

Vos, he reassures himself, leaning heavily on the power of positive thinking, will do his part and history won't repeat itself.  How can it? Lessons were learned by all involved and Vos...  Well, there's absolutely no reason to believe that this Vos is a traitor.

The Pet continues to stare off, unaware of the crimson optics above boring a hole through its skull, and Tarn—

Tarn still doesn't feel any better.  The tightness at his core remains, and the invisible fist encasing his spark applies more force to it for every klick that goes by without that final call from Vos. With a sharp ex-vent, he redirects his attention from where it's being wasted on the Pet to the surrounding area – where it should be.

This is autobot territory. This would be a very convenient, very bad place for something to go down...

The digits of his right hand squeeze at the phone he's clutching, and he only stops when he feels the weak casing begin to crush.

"He'll call soon.  Be patient."

Kaon's voice – calm and sure.

Tarn looks over; the mech's hand is on the Pet's head and his helm is turned away, towards Helex and Tesarus' position to the east.  For a moment, Tarn simply examines his profile and funnels the remainder of his processing power into fighting the urge to continue to crush his phone.  The cynical part of him sees a possible traitor there too and the mere thought causes the fist around his spark to clench violently, but another part of him – a decidedly weaker, but arguably the more reasonable part of the two – just wants to hear the certainty in Kaon's voice again.

So he gives into a compulsion that he doesn't realize is one until the words have left him:

"Do you trust me?" Tarn prompts.

It’s a crutch.  It's also a question Megatron asked him, long enough ago that the details of the encounter have since faded from memory.  Alone to stand the test of time, however, is how Tarn recalls feeling that day, in that moment – and that's what he’s seeking from Kaon now.

And oh, by some sweet providence, Kaon does not disappoint.

The other mech's helm whips back around at once, his brow creased in a deep frown as he turns to face Tarn. A whirlwind of emotions sweep over his screwed up features, and in them Tarn can pick out all the individual things he was hoping to see – all the familiar things he remembers feeling, himself, when he was asked the same question: confusion, curiosity, pride, defensiveness, a hint of fear...

And most prominent of all, bald fervor.

"Absolutely." Kaon replies, flummoxed – like he's just been asked which way is up.  He leans in.  "What do you need?"

The question's raw stopping power is positively thrilling, rivaled only by the speed – and genuine enthusiasm – of the response it garnered.  Confidence renewing, Tarn takes another moment to look upon his lieutenant, as, safely hidden away under several layers of thick plating, the creeping paranoia gripping at his spark slowly loosens away.

That, Tarn responds, although silently.  That's what I needed.

To close off with Kaon, however, he simply shakes his helm, dismissing the topic without a word.

Kaon is still visibly piqued, but the possibility of any further discussion is denied by the quiet ring of Tarn's phone.  At the sound of it, Kaon's demeanor returns to normal; he points at the item in question peeking out of Tarn's right hand and smiles:

"See?  Told you."

Smirking under his mask, Tarn takes the call.

It's Vos, and the job – Tarn is elegantly informed by the immediate transmission of a ticking explosives timer with just over a minute remaining – is done to order.  Vos himself is on his way to them now.

When he terminates the call, Tarn is awash with relief – of both the professional and personal kind in equal measure – and all remaining negative sentiment is instantly stowed, smashed down, locked up and forcibly drowned.

Gone – as it should be.

At long last, the stage is set; there's only one final movement left in this performance, and the talent – his talent, his team, together – are ready.  

Energized and spark blazing, Tarn returns his attention to the city scape beyond.

There's work ahead of them yet, but things, he decides, are definitely looking up...

Tonight, it would seem, may not be about punishment after all.

As the timer on his phone's display nears the zero mark, Tarn hooks an arm around Kaon and yanks, pulling him in to shield his audials with his frame; klicks later, two blocks in the distance, the engineered blast goes off and the targeted building crumbles.  Standing tall, Tarn looks on, the maestro proudly drinking in the sight and visceral sound of Vos' expert handiwork – a masterpiece put on display for all in the surrounding area to see.

All the exits are now officially sealed; as soon as the smoke clears, it’ll be show time.

[snarkeater]

Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome, He’ll eat your soul, Turn your spark to stone, Nickel, iron, cobalt, chrome, Run, little robot, run away home.

Gift for @snarkeater

Based on our mutual interest in entomology. That and I mentioned the gigantic rainforest conservatory we have in AZ, housing 3000 butterflies of various types :D