A Decepticon goes in for a job interview, and nobody is telling the truth. But who doesn't tell a few white lies now and then?


Title: White Lies

Warning: Yet another AU where the Decepticons didn't win the war. There were no last stands. There were no martyrs or hidden rebel cells. There was only defeat and trying to live in the aftermath. Possible dubcon situations. Obviously, the D.J.D. reveal in MTMTE futzed everything in this fic up, so as of 9/14/16 I'm taking down the parts to edit and rewrite to align with canon. Also in the hopes of continuing past where the divergence stopped me.

Rating: PG-13

Continuity: More Than Meets The Eye AU, G1 influence.

Characters: Decepticon Justice Division, Jazz, Swerve, Pharma.

Disclaimer: The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

Motivation (Prompt):

There was a beautiful picture by FelixFellow, and then I had an idea. It mutated.

TwistyRocks got me to write the first two parts, just to see what happened. Vintage-Mechanics got the third and fourth part!

Due to the need to write poverty-level Cybertron, I had to make up monetary amounts less than a shanix.

Shanix
hanix (half a shanix)
quanix (quarter shanix)
einix (eighth of a shanix)
nix (eight to an einix, sixteen to a quanix, 32 to a hanix, 64 to a shanix)


[* * * * *]

Pt. 4: The more things change, the more things stay the same.

[* * * * *]


It amazed him how money could humble a mech.

The money itself wasn't humiliating. It was a richness. A blessing. A tiny one, a handful of loose change, but Tarn clutched it tight as cables deep in his gut trembled in relief. The cliff of poverty he balanced on retreated a miniscule amount. A step back from the edge felt like the first full breath after fixing a faulty ventilation system. He'd been gasping, and now he could breathe again. Maybe not easily, and the air smelled foul, but anything was an improvement after suffocation, so to speak.

The money didn't shame him. The pure, unadulterated torrent of relief turning his insides to jelly was the humiliation. A pittance thrown his way wrung him out and left him feeling curiously empty. Money had reduced a proud mech to shuddering gratitude, and Tarn hated that his fans hitched and skipped this way.

He'd led an elite Decepticon unit. He'd run a prisoner-of-war death camp. He'd had Lord Megatron's trust. He'd bussed tables tonight, head and shoulders down to look as harmless and far from recent history as he could, and he'd hoped the entire time that he looked servile enough.

Fiery threads of embarrassment had run hot under his plating while the club stared and whispered around him, but it'd been worth it. Cleaning up sticky spills and collecting trays of glasses to bring back to the bar had familiarized him with the layout of the club, exposed the patrons to his presence, and served to introduce him to the few brave hosts who dared greet him. He would have done it just for that, but the money, oh the money. The money made everything worth it.

Fifteen nix had found their way to his hands for his work tonight.

Fifteen nix was nearly a quarter-shanix. A quanix was a double shift of strut-breaking labor in the recycling plant for Helex and Tesarus, or a full day begging up-level if Kaon milked a particularly soft-sparked area today for hand-outs and recyclables. Decepticons on the industrial shifts exhausted themselves earning half of what Tarn held in his hand right now, yet all he'd done to earn it was keep his mouth shut for a mere eight hours. He'd lifted nothing heavier than a tray of glasses.

The first two hours as the club filled, he'd stayed out of the way at the shadowed end of the bar. The set-up Jazz had described to him made much more sense in practice. He'd watched, fascinated, as money burned. Smiles and optics had gleamed bright amidst wisps of smoke, and there was indeed something seductively hypnotic about the effect. A drugged sense of relaxation seemed to overtake those who'd come through the door, as if worries disappeared the moment they walked in. Tarn understood why the longer he watched the club in action.

Nothing would happen here the customers didn't expect, and they could pay for the night to go exactly as they wished. The hosts were entertainment in various frametypes, interesting and attractive company lavishing their attention on their buying customers alone. There was no subtle competition for an entertainer, no rivalry over who had the next dance. There was nothing to distract from enjoyment, here. Patrons filled the club, shelling out money to purchase the hosts' time, and in return, the hosts made their customers the center of their world.

An hour in, Swerve had urged the bar's two waiters to inch over and introduce themselves in quavering voices barely audible over the music. A couple of hosts risked following their example. Tarn had been courteous, although it took effort to rein in his loathing for their opulent, stupidly excessive lives. He knew it wasn't fair to judge them based on their jobs, or even on the personalities they showed him. He knew too well how people donned a different set of personality traits to get a job. For all he knew, his fellow hosts were as destitute as the D.J.D. or richer than any customer here. Outside the walls of this club lay the ugly reality of Cybertron, and he had no idea what the people in here were like out there. He'd done his best to keep that in mind. Even if none of the other hosts bore the Decepticon insignia, they might still pass each other on the lower sublevel streets. Blaming them for working here would mean condemning his fellow Decepticons for doing what they had to make ends meet.

Tarn couldn't trust anything he saw. The club was fiction, a thin surface layer displaying what customers wanted to see. Everyone here was being deceived. They wanted to be deceived. As Jazz had told him: people came here to live a fantasy. The club was an elaborate lie, and the hosts were part and parcel of it.

Knowing that didn't make playing nice any easier. He'd stayed as unobtrusive as his massive frametype let him. Warbuilds had become slightly more common up-level, but he'd easily been the largest mech in the club tonight. Uneasy optics had strayed his direction constantly. The hosts had pretended he didn't exist, for the most part. The customers had outright gawked.

Instead of waiting for the nervous tittering to stop, he'd just waited for the club to get busy. Once the hosts were engaged and the waiters busy lighting sticks and fetching drink orders, no one objected to him picking up a tray. He'd started cleaning tables.

Gossip had hissed around him wherever he moved, but that was inevitable. He was going to stand out here. They'd probably never stop talking about him, because a tankformer in an upscale club was a spectacle. What he'd wanted was the right kind of gossip.

Look at the tame Decepticon. Look at him balance a tray of glasses in one hand while wiping down a table for the next customer. How funny. How strange. Off Track had acquired an oddity: a strange, funny, and safe new employee. Not a threat. Not someone to be afraid of. Unique, not frightening. Where else could people go and see a Decepticon bussing tables?

Swerve had put it crudely, but Tarn wasn't above exploiting his difference to create interest. He wasn't going to go out of his way to advertise himself as some sort of domesticated killer, but there was a certain attraction to flirting with danger. Just not too dangerous, or he'd scare patrons away. He had to walk the fine line between intimidating and submissive, dignified but approachable, hardworking without being menial labor.

So he bussed tables. Service drones were more common than waitstaff these days. A real live waiter was a personalized symbol of luxury, a servant of sorts, and it was hard to feel threatened by a visible sign of good service. Tarn whisked away empty glasses before they cluttered tables, pushed in chairs to tidy the floor, and mopped up spills almost the second engex sloshed.

That's where the money had come from. A nix here and there under an empty glass; half a dozen scattered on the floor between the tables; one or two even flipped to him in passing from customers drunk or daredevil enough to tempt fate. Tarn had fumbled for the credits as they were tossed at him, or peeled them off the floor as subtly as he could when he spotted them. The ones on the tables he'd palmed while shuffling glasses onto his tray.

Demeaning as janitorial work was, applicants from the sublevels would line up for any job that paid fifteen nix per night. Tarn couldn't risk assuming he'd earned anything tonight, however. Steeling himself, he poured the tiny pile of change onto the bar after the club closed.

"I don't know what the rules are for found money," he said to the surprised minibot behind the counter. "And I know I'm not officially on the job as of yet."

His tanks had a split second to knot up before Swerve shoved the pile back across the bar at him. "No, hey, that's yours! Keep it, keep it, it's - ew, gross." Congealed engex had smeared across the bar from the credits. "Were those on the floor or something? Yuck."

Swerve attacked the smear with a polishing cloth. Tarn stood there looking down at him, fist clenched around the money and words falling apart in his mouth. The Autobot was allowing him keep what he'd salvaged out of garbage and spilled drinks. He did and didn't want to thank Swerve for that. He hadn't earned this money, but he was being permitted to keep it. That deserved his thanks. He knew it did.

His vox box clicked in his throat. Humiliation stole his voice. Money could humble a poor mech to thanking his oppressors, but it couldn't take away the sting of bending his neck.

The talkative bartender paused in tidying up the counter to give him a look. Tarn wouldn't have thought anything of it if the small Autobot didn't muse out loud, "Huh, Jazz was right. You're really scraping the dregs."

What? They - these two Autobot meddlers had talked about him?!

Of course they had, and he should be glad they did. It'd gotten him the job, and the packet of sticks he couldn't afford on his own, and fifteen nix, and a free cube of energon, and - and he should be glad they meddled. He should.

Regardless of what he should feel, shame snapped his treads taut. That was as close to recoiling as Tarn would get.

Swerve seemed to realize how tactless he'd been a second later. "Oh. Uh, I didn't mean that in a bad way. I just mean you don't have a shanix to your city. Name. City-name." The mortified, sucking pull at the back of Tarn's spark chamber worsened, but the Autobot couldn't seem to stop himself once he got going. "No wonder you look so bad. Empty tanks and, well." He looked at how Tarn held what, for anybody else in this club, was probably petty cash. One or two nix was loose change. "Yeeeah. So I was gonna shell out something for your help tonight, but Jazz said you might want it out of the distillery instead. That okay?"

Forget money. Survival could knock a mech to his knees every time. Pride was the privilege of the rich. Beggars couldn't refuse charity. Tarn would accept his good fortune and etch another mark in the invisible scoreboard hung on his spark. Each mark ached like a wound, open gashes to remind him what he owed Jazz. And this minibot. He owed Swerve.

Tarn swallowed a last, bitter chunk of dignity and forced himself to nod. The slurry of gratitude and hatred sitting heavy on his vox box thickened his voice. "You are too kind. I…I hesitate to impose on your generosity, but yes, I would very much appreciate my earnings in fuel, if at all possible." He wasn't even going to ask how much he'd earned tonight. If he asked, they'd be obliged to go through the polite social ritual protesting being given too much for such easy work. The plating on his back crawled at the thought of going through the motions to preserve face. He had no self-respect left to preserve. At this point, pretending to protest the hand-out would only grind him lower. He couldn't take any more talking about his abject poverty.

Swerve had already given him more than he deserved. The minibot's kindness left him raw and exposed. The whole night had been a prolonged torture, and Tarn was broken enough to do something he'd never have considered at the beginning of the night.

Resisting the urge to cringe inside his armor, he held out his handful of scavenged money. "May I use this as well? I, ah, the...people I, ahem," roomed with, was responsible for, had worked with, held authority over, "live with won't be paid until the end of the week. We need anything I can buy."

There. A hint he needed more without actually begging for it. Not quite, not technically, even though the subtext practically crawled on the floor: please, sir, he had a unit to support.

Swerve cocked his head, curiosity splayed across his face. "Yeah?"

Tarn's tanks churned at voluntarily offering personal information to anyone, much less an employer or of all things an Autobot, but the quizzical look on his new boss's face pressured him to answer. He owed Swerve. His boss wanted to know why he should give an employee anything for fifteen nix, and while Tarn, the employee in question, didn't have to explain, the debt heaped on his back couldn't be denied.

Swerve was loathsomely kind. He didn't demand Tarn open up about his private life. He probably wouldn't even be angry with a vague excuse that money was tight this week.

Swerve was giving him so slagging much.

Tarn lowered his optics. "Two of my…friends are unemployed at the moment. One is taking time to study for a teaching exam, and the other is between jobs. They're both looking for work," he felt compelled to add. The upper levels seemed to think the sublevel population lazed about living off government welfare.

Swerve flashed a wide smile Tarn wanted to destroy on sight. "I know how that goes. You live with a teacher, huh? Good for him." He looked down at the nix in Tarn's hand. "Y'know what? Keep it. Get a good polish for tomorrow night, and we'll call it even." Hot embarrassment poured through the Decepticon's wires as an obvious once-over reemphasized that his plating was in a state of shabby even the chemist working in the kitchen didn't sport. "You can come in early tomorrow and help set things up for the night, if you want. Some sweeping and moving stuff around, nothing too hard." The smile quirked toward concern, still good-humored but worried nonetheless. "There's some supplies up in one of the rooms meant for polishing sessions. Customers can buy a buffing from anybody who's open to that. Dunno if you're any good at that, but, um." Tarn's left optic ticked. Swerve's smile stretched somehow wider. "You can use some of it if you need to. Just off the clock, though. Okay? Don't want everyone to know I'm giving away what they gotta pay for."

Tarn certainly didn't want that, but he didn't believe there was a chance in the Pit it wouldn't happen. The Autobot had to recharge in order to power his overactive mouth, so it would take at least two days for word to spread planetwide about Swerve's new charity case. This wasn't public humiliation so much as it was publicly announced humiliation.

Now Tarn knew what the phrase 'killing with kindness' meant. Swerve was slowly drowning him to death in small mercies and good intentions.

"I understand," he said in a level voice. His fingers curled into a fist around the money while Swerve bustled into the kitchen, and Tarn dimmed his optics. It took tremendous effort to shore up his flagging resolution to accept and be grateful. Keeping his temper in check drained his reserves. The frustrating part was that he had no reason to get angry. The social and economic structure crushing him couldn't be blamed on one blasted minibot. Swerve was only trying to help, obnoxious as his kindness was. Tarn's anger at the unfair system soured the minibot's generosity.

In the back of his mind, there was a box holding the dark urges a powerless mech couldn't indulge in. Tarn balled up his anger and shoved it hissing and spitting into that black box. It was the only way to endure what he must. The Decepticons had lost the war. He needed this job. Simple, implacable truths to live by.

Also, the shadow of an assassin lurked at the corner of his vision, as it had all night. That was extra motivation to mind his manners. Jazz had been one of the loudest, happiest, most active hosts of the night, and his stage show had brought the whole club to the dance floor. He hadn't, Tarn had noticed, left the main floor. From what the Autobot had said about his popularity, staying downstairs was unusual. It seemed Jazz didn't trust the former leader of the Justice Division to behave without someone keeping close tabs on him.

Spite straightened Tarn's shoulders. He drew a deep, measured breath, cycling his fans up and slowly throttling them back down. By the time Swerve returned with a bag - an actual bag - Tarn was calm. He was prepared for what he had to do.

He didn't even look in the bag. Corners strained the thin bag material from how many cubes were stuffed inside, but it didn't matter how much fuel was in the bag. One cube or ten, he already owed Swerve so much it physically hurt where his power generator hooked up. This kind, frustrating, generous, and utterly dense Autobot had hired him against all reason not to. He was providing for him despite every rule of street and profit. Warnings had to be popping up in the minibot's HUD, yet he smiled gamely up at Tarn.

Who took the bag and braced himself. "Thank you," Tarn said, blunt and humble. "I don't know what else to say. I'm grateful for your help and will repay you as soon as I'm able. I can promise that." A promise made more to himself than anyone else, but saturated with perfect sincerity.

Swerve laughed nervously, waving the thanks away. Maybe he'd caught the threat seething behind the gratitude. "It's not a big deal! Sure, it's kind of a lot and I dunno if you're even coming back tomorrow, but it's not that much. It'll look bad at the end of the week if you're not earning for the club or take off when the weekend crowd hits, sure, that's, uh, okay so it's more than I should hand out in that light, but hey! Nothing risked, nothing gained. It's fine, it's fine. Jazz said you needed it, and I can see your paint peeling from here. Guess I've got to give to the poor at some point, right? Might as well be now. Better you than some addict on the street. Keep you clean, maybe. Hey, hey, not sayin' you're boosting or anything, but everybody knows things happen when a mech gets down that low. You're - it's kind of there how little you've got. But it's fine! It's fine, take it!" He started absentmindedly polishing the bartop. "You need it, I can tell."

Both hands clenched on the bag, Tarn held it in front of himself like a shield. His throat worked as he tried to process the barrage of words. A distressed whine came from his motor, but Swerve just kept talking.

"Always wanted to make a Decepticon friend after the war. I was kind of hoping it'd start on more equal footing, but I guess that's what I get for putting out an advertisement in the sublevels. Haven't seen many 'Cons above the midlevels, come to think of it. Poverty line's drawn by that thing on your face, these days. Sorry, sorry. That came out wrong, didn't it? That came out wrong. But you get what I mean, right? I'm not saying you 'Cons are made for manual labor, but I'm saying I haven't seen any of you working anything else lately. Gives mechs ideas, is what I'm saying." His optics and tone dropped, serious despite the too-bright, pell-mell expression stuck on his face as he chattered. "Somebody's got to make an opportunity for something else. Somebody's got to offer a second chance. We've got too many enemies and not enough friends. Somebody's got to show it's possible where it's allowed. Just don't let me down, okay? Taking a risk on you, tank'Con. Taking a risk. I'm not sure what kind of return I expect, but I don't want to throw fuel down a pothole."

"Yo bossbot, we good for the night?"

Never had an interruption been more welcome. Jazz slid between the Decepticon and the bar, and Tarn could have hugged the sneaky glitch. He took a hasty step back to give the black-and-white mech room.

Jazz set down a bunch of empty shot glasses as if they were the reason he'd interrupted. "I want to nab Tarn here for his headshot if I can steal him away for a sec."

Targeting systems spun up and bounced off the suppression chip before Tarn remembered that 'headshot' referred to the picture, not the casualty. Oh. Right. He was supposed to get his picture taken for the host catalog at the front desk. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, and he definitely didn't know what he should submit for the profile paragraph to accompany it.

On the other hand, he knew for certain that he'd far prefer a photo shoot over listening to Swerve talk.

Swerve seemed willing to release him to Jazz's tender care. "I almost forgot about that. Yeah, sure, that's great. Get it done for tomorrow's opening."

"That's the idea. C'mon, Tarn."

If Tarn had any pride left, it baled in favor of an undignified escape from the one-sided conversation. Jazz guided him away from the bar by the elbow, and he was positively happy for the escort. He didn't care what it looked like. He only cared that he was free.

"Looked like you needed a rescue," Jazz said as soon as they were out of audio range.

"You have no idea," Tarn said before he could stop himself. "How does he - does he even think about what he's - ah." Right, no bad-mouthing the new boss. He paused and chose his words more carefully. "He has a way of touching on uncomfortable subjects."

Any of the many embarrassments of the night were open to laughter at his expense. Jazz could have rubbed his face in his status as charity case, or how the former leader of a prestigious military unit was reduced to this. He could have laughed at Tarn's relief at escaping Swerve's tactlessness. Tarn knew it, almost expected a response putting him in his place, but the Autobot at his side refrained from comment. He merely nodded and guided the tankformer toward the discreet door tucked in the shadow of the staircase.

Another spoonful of grudging gratitude ladled into the vile mix marinating Tarn's spark.

The silence was a favor, the kind meant to be held over his head as a reminder. Fine. He could handle being under Jazz's wheels. The mech had a sadistic, poisonous charm that put him in mind of Starscream. He hadn't liked the Air Commander, but the chain of command had required respect. Anytime Tarn had thought otherwise, Starscream's twisted, conniving treachery had somehow trapped him into giving it anyway.

In that light, he could respect Jazz, too. Everything the Autobot did cemented his control over the situation. It was a familiar transaction of hidden threat and silent acknowledgement. Swerve's generosity had no strings, which was what put Tarn off balance. He floundered for the proper response to real kindness. With Jazz's mindgames, he knew what to do: stay out of trouble, do his job, and be very aware that his behavior determined whether or not his unit stayed under the radar.

Jazz glanced down at the bag. "That going to be enough?"

Oh no, he was not giving this mech anything else to stack his debt higher. "It's more than enough," Tarn said, ducking his head as they passed through the Employees Only door. Tall as he was, his helm skimmed the lintel. "In case I haven't yet, by the way, I'd like to thank you for everything."

"No problem," the Autobot tossed over his shoulder.

Part of him wanted to end it there, but he made himself go on. "It is a problem. I'm well aware that you could have turned me away at the door. You…likely know how badly I need this job." A job, any job, but a job that could support his entire unit. "So thank you. I appreciate what you've done for me tonight, and I will repay you."

An amused blue visor peered back at him. "Yeah, you do that."

Tarn huffed quietly. The Autobot could at least pretend to believe him. Decepticons didn't lie all the time.

Or maybe Jazz just wasn't an optimist. Tarn could admit that his determination to stay calm was severely tested by the photo shoot. If he hadn't already surrendered to debt and necessity tonight, the next hour would have ended in murder charges and a destroyed club. Anyone with a scrap of pride left would have lashed out. He didn't know who this 'Ligier' was, but he knew he wanted to rip the mech's head off five minutes into the conversation.

Although it couldn't really be called a conversation by any stretch of the term. The photo shoot turned into an extended series of complaints about how poorly he suited the position, pricking his temper with a hundred sniping comments that weren't quite insulting, some thoroughly insulting comments tossed in for variety.

"These are weld-scars. Why hasn't he had them treated?" Slim, elegant fingers probed where clasps had once secured the mask to Tarn's face. Welding them shut prevented people exactly like this pretentious fop from unmasking him.

The question, of course, hadn't been directed at him. Tarn had attempted to defend himself several times now, only to be talked over as if he didn't exist. In the mind of Ligier, he didn't. He was an object to appraise, not a person.

Jazz leaned against the table nearby, supervising. Tarn wouldn't admit it even under interrogation, but he was glad the saboteur had stayed. His presence was a reminder to keep cool, keep calm, and not smash this preening waste of space into spare parts.

Unfortunately for Tarn's peace of mind, Jazz's presence didn't deter Ligier from pouring a stream of abuse out in bored, put-upon sighs. He'd bet all the shanix he didn't have that the irritating cogsucker was a noblemech slumming as a working mech. Nobody else would say slag like this right in front of the person they were insulting. It was like being an empurata victim standing at Senator Shockwave's side all over again. The other Senators had taken vindictive pleasure in making snide comments about his missing head and hands while simultaneously ignoring his presence.

"A pity he didn't sand them down before infection bubbled the metal. I've seen plague survivors with smoother plating." Ligier seized Tarn's chin to turn him this way and that. "The color's terrible. He can't tamper with the brand, so we're stuck with that shade. Ugh." A critical forefinger pinged off his mask. "He might have had a rugged profile if a closer look didn't make him look like a reject from the smelterworks. What is he, a vehicle?" A prod to his shoulder treads earned a smudge of grit, and Ligier looked offended. "A hauler of some kind, reformatted into a tank? He's not made for indoor work, I can tell you that. A warbuild at an art gallery would look less out of place than he does here." Tarn refused to flinch away from the hands wandering down to push and pull at the cannons attached to his forearm. "What? Truly, this is in bad taste. Honestly, what does it say about the state of the world that Decepticons go around wearing their altmode weaponry ready to fire?"

Yes, because in a magic world where everyone could afford post-war overhauls, Tarn could pay the medical fee for detachment. As it was, if he took his cannons off, his arm went numb in an hour and his weapons system ate precious fuel running readiness checks the second he reattached them. He'd settled for stripping them down as much as he could, but that didn't meet Ligier's standards. He got the feeling that not a lot did. Ligier reeked of old money. He'd probably never gone a day of his life without immediate access to health care for the tiniest nick and ding.

Tarn muted his vox box yet again. Patience, patience. His optics went to Jazz. Be good. Be patient. Or else.

Ligier tsked and straightened up, optics sliding away from Tarn's mask with the practiced ease of someone who could look clear through anything he didn't want to see. Definitely a Towers mech. If it was an ugly piece of reality, then polite society went out of its way to ignore it. Refusing to acknowledge that the trials and tribulations of the sublevels existed had worked out well for the rich upper classes.

It…actually was a good reminder, one that Tarn needed. Ligier might look like a dainty speedster flitting down to the sublevels on a lark, but the risk of being recognized as Damus or Glitch was real. Surviving Senators might remember Shockwave's students. Zeta and Sentinel Prime's courtiers might recognize him as well. Tarn would have to tread lightly around Ligier and people like him.

Besides which, noblemechs' ethereal appearances belied their ruthlessness. Their 'civilized' mannerisms meant they channeled their cruelty and power through politics, law, and order. The surviving Towers mechs had made their resentment of the Decepticons plain during the Senate's first session, fighting for the maximum penalties on the defeated faction, and a noblemech had the clout to make a powerless Decepticon's life absolutely miserable if he didn't kowtow sufficiently. What Senate Enforcers did in the lower sublevels was only sanctioned crime, from Tarn's experience, and police were easily bribed.

He sat very still and quiet under Ligier's hands.

After wiping his contaminated fingertips free of Decepticon filth, Ligier turned his attention to Jazz, who'd evidently asked him to do the photos as a favor. "Nothing I can do will make him more suitable, but I believe some of the rough edges of this," he waved at all of Tarn, mouth a thin line of distaste, "might be minimized in the proper lighting. Fetch a lamp we can use to cast light upward, about this tall," he held his hand down, "and a filter of some kind. Pale blue, preferably. Yellow, if you have to. I doubt it something even I can pull off, but anything to make these dreadful colors warmer." He gave another disdainful sniff, looking down his nose at the Decepticon. "He couldn't possibly appear more barbaric, but perhaps if he tried for some element of culture, we might use him. If nothing else, his presence could give a positive spin to Trailbreaker's rather uncouth nature. Whatever made someone like you think you could work here?"

Ah, a direct question at last. Such an opening hadn't been seen since Iacon's defenses fell. Tarn was well aware he was being tested, Jazz's visor ever-watchful, but he picked his words like the weapons they were. "Evidence suggested that Swerve would hire anyone."

For a second, the honeyed tone slipped past Ligier. The blue-and-white noblemech started to nod, satisfied that the subject of his mockery was cowed enough to agree with his superior viewpoint, but then he stopped short. A lifetime of trading barbs among his social equals must have kicked him in the back of the cortex.

The mask diminished the effect, but Tarn gave him his most earnest look of innocence. What? A dullard Decepticon from the sublevels wouldn't imply anything. That required the intelligence to understand the snubbing, backbiting comments Ligier had been spouting, and Tarn was only a nobody mech slated for manual labor.

Yellow optics narrowed into suspicious slits. Tarn blinked up at them. He had no doubt Ligier could prove a bolt in his side if riled, but a mech had to earn respect from his coworkers sooner rather than later. Calling him out this way could make an enemy of Ligier - or an ally. Tarn sorely needed the latter.

Jazz plonked a lamp into the middle of the stare-down. "Will this work?"

Ligier glanced down at the lamp, then at the Decepticon. Tarn met his gaze. Steady, deliberate, and no longer pretending innocence, the tankformer inclined his head to him. One of Ligier's optic ridges went up. That was either a challenge or a gesture of respect to an equal, and Tarn wasn't going to tell him which.

"This will do," Ligier murmured, studying the bigger mech.

Jazz looked at Tarn. He looked at Ligier. He wisely chose to get out of the way.

Venturing a stab of his own into the fray turned the photo shoot into a tiresome exercise in verbal banter barely this side of open warfare. It was like attending one of the Senate social events all over again. Ligier kept his distant, bored aura, but he brought out the sharpest of his well-honed, exquisitely sugared tones to use in slicing Tarn apart. Fencing with the noblemech took as much effort as a real fight, and Tarn emerged from the back room exhausted, worn down to the treads by the peculiar mental gymnastics required of polite Towers society. He'd learned of noble culture from Shockwave, how to turn it to his own means when cornered by Senators, but he hadn't had much practical experience.

Using what he'd learned made him feel like an ill-equipped peasant. He'd fended off some of the noblemech's chilly repartees, but overall, Tarn had missed more than he'd deflected in the conversation. He'd lost the battle. The light smirk resting on Ligier's lips had informed him of that, and after the photos were taken, the noblemech had flicked his fingers in contemptuous dismissal of the attempt to keep up.

"I'll do what I can with this," he'd said to Jazz. "Don't expect much."

It was vastly frustrating in an oddly familiar way. Tarn had wanted to punch the mech's face in every time the smug gearstick artfully paused to let him know he'd missed something important, but he'd felt the same way around Starscream. Shockwave had been worse. Shockwave had belonged to the upper classes. The former Senator could have slid the ground right out from under the noble's tires. He'd known what to do and how to act. Tarn's attempts to better himself, to be educated and learn the cultured mannerisms of high society, just couldn't compare.

The scum floating on the backs of Cybertron's working class could still effortlessly put him in his place, and Ligier had seemed to savor doing precisely that.

Being put down made him more determined to rise up. Tarn squared his shoulders against the exhaustion. Next time. Next time, Ligier wouldn't win so easily.

"I think he likes you." Jazz beamed up at him, irrepressibly amused. Tarn glowered down at him. "As much as he likes any Decepticon, but don't take it personally. Most of us can't get more than a daily greeting outta him. You've gotta be a paying customer to open his mouth." The innuendo leered, but Jazz was just needling him. He had to be. Ligier wouldn't really - no. That mech was so top-shelf ladders were needed to reach speaking distance.

Tarn squinted one optic at the annoying Autobot escorting him to the exit. "He seemed to have no problem speaking with you," he said, accusation as much as observation.

Jazz shrugged as he unlocked the door so Tarn could leave. "Yeah, well, he makes an exception for me. I recruited him an' all."

Ice shot down his backstruts. Jazz could have meant recruitment for this job, but a show of hands for the number of mechs who believed that? None?

No wonder Tarn hadn't recognized Ligier by name. If he still had access to that kind of information, he'd bet the fuel in his tanks that the blue-and-white noblemech went by a different name when he wasn't slumming as a host. It might not even be slumming. It could be an undercover assignment from his former, or not so former, commander.

Tarn had walked into an Autobot Special Operations nest.

Jazz flashed his dazzling smile. "See y' tomorrow, Tarn."

In the last second before the door closed, all that remained visible against the dark of the club's interior was that smile, lit by the neon street signs. Then that, too, vanished, and Tarn stood alone out on the street, back where he'd started the day.


[* * * * *]

[ A/N: Thank you, Vintage-Mechanics. Until the curtains rises next time, m'dears.]