Work Text:
The stage is empty, the curtain raised, not a spark in the seats. Damus walks to the center, optics dimmed, murmuring words to himself.
Why is he here? To practice, or so he told the doormech. This is a quiet favor, a chance to have the stage to himself so late in the night that no one will bother him. It's a common enough request; the doormech had gossiped, sharing names both real and unlikely. Past stars who couldn't possibly have been here, stood where Damus stands now.
He's not here to practice a role. He curls his fingers open and closed, venting in and out, tasting the air. Polish and wax. Nothing like his dreams; no oil, no energon, no cordite.
No. He is here to exorcise a nightmare, a ghost that haunts him in and out of recharge. Drink hasn't done it, speaking to a confidant hasn't done it, and as always he turns to the stage to solve his problems.
This dream - this vision - is a character. A role. He is an actor and singer, and there is no better way to understand a character than to put them on as you would new plating.
"Tonight," he says to empty seats, "I stand before you no longer Damus of Vos." A lie, but one he has worked so hard to claim. "I am Commandant Tarn of the Justice Division."
He's had to improvise. What Justice Division? There are Enforcers and there is justice, and order. There should be another word, whispers the dream, but he does not have it.
Perhaps he's misunderstood the role, to give it the title of Commandant instead of Commander. But Damus won't understand the role until he wears it. As it is, he guesses: this Tarn is some form of administrator, a teacher, some kind of soldier. The best combination he could find for the roles was that one word, even if it's not quite right: Commandants are teachers, heads of military schools.
But the words have left his vocalizer. He straightens his struts into posture appropriate for a soldier who is an example to others; a teacher.
Damus approaches the audience. He imagines his frame as it would be in the dream: heavier, larger. The audience should lean back, intimidated by his presence. They should listen to him, recognizing his rank, authority, and power.
Now what would Tarn say, to the audience? Who would he lecture? If this was a true performance it would be terrible, with so many gaps as the actor stood in silence, struggling to remember his lines.
But it isn't real. Damus has to wipe the smile off his face as it leaks out; one of his flaws as an actor, he's too expressive. He has to adopt a role totally, or else he'll let his internal commentary run amok.
Tarn. Commandant Tarn, here to give a lesson - yes, a lesson, to - who? A student? But why would he give a single student attention when he's the Commandant of an entire facility?
Ah, of course. Punishment.
The idea comes too easily, it must come from the dream. Damus can think of alternatives: he's talking to a teacher, to a prized student, to military commanders.
But no: punishment. It's right. He can feel it in his spark.
"I stand before you regretful of the sequence of events that brought us together," he says, his voice hitting a deeper register, one he uses for older, serious characters. "You could have made different choices," here he skips over a name. Tarn would know the criminal's name. Criminal? He would know their crime.
Damus flounders, the dream broken temporarily. A student with failing marks wouldn't merit the Commandant's attention. This has to be serious. What would - ah! Yes.
"Why," he begins again, properly. "Did you find it appropriate to destroy school property?" He can see it now, not quite right but a close fit: a student who destroyed a training simulator, some piece of equipment that's difficult to replace.
Tarn paces. "Frustration is hardly an excuse or a reason. Do not deceive me. No worthy student would ever lose their temper to the point of not just attacking the simulator itself, but opening electrical panels to cut the cables inside. This was sabotage!" He turns to face the crowd, voice raised.
Yes, he can feel it now. Anger, proper outraged anger, that someone would think to sabotage a school, a place of learning. Damus easily picks up the threads to put the story together.
"You chose to destroy one of our precious simulators, knowing that it will take resources we do not have to replace it. A preliminary sentence: you are no longer one of us, fit to carry our brand or call us your comrades." Here he reaches out to the imagined criminal, drawing what would be claws across a mark, scratching it.
A deep invent, a feeling of unimaginable power. He could end it now. Tarn could - does have the rank - to execute this traitor. A military school, every mech knows better than to upset a military, regardless of their city. The training that teaches a mech to use weaponry includes training that lets them fight their fellows, and perhaps Damus has spent too much time fixated on a culture he escaped. He is not some rough duty-obsessed Tarnian, devoted on security and unity above all else. He doesn't think Cybertron is under constant threat, and that they need to stand ready to support the war effort. Damus of Vos is not a soldier, and never will be; except to act.
In this role, and he better understands now that it's coming from the deepest parts of his psyche, how did Froid put it? He is, and will forever be influenced by his creation.
Tarn, then, is the embodiment of all of his repressed emotions. Everything he rejected in the name of passion. He wants to sing, to act!
Tarn is a soldier, with duty guiding every step. And this saboteur is an enemy, a criminal.
Abruptly Damus wants to stop. He lets his hand drop.
But the nagging sense of unfinished business draws him back. He dims his optics and lets the role overtake him.
"Why would you do this?" He asks the criminal. "You know as well as I do that we fight for Cybertron itself. The fate of its weakest lies in our hands. If our methods are harsh our enemies demand it, for they capitalize on even the faintest hesitation. To end suffering we must inflict it with the greatest possible force. Have you not listened to the speeches? To our teachings? ... No. You have not. You chose, and I do not care for your personal reasons, as they are meaningless now, you chose to kill your fellows."
Only a simulator, the stakes can't be so high.
"Every soldier counts," Tarn says, softer now. "Every beating spark counts. We must reach them all."
There is a terrifying, shaking conviction in his words. Damus wants more and more to stop, because he knows what's coming. What must come.
But if he doesn't act it out, he will see it over and over.
"You are not worthy to be an example," he says, softer still. "For some petty, personal reason you chose to stand against Cybertron. You will be given no special attention, no great glory. You deserve what our enemies deserve and nothing more."
He bends down, face to face with this criminal.
Pain crawls up Damus' spark as he speaks quiet words, and he jerks, staggering back across the stage, away from Tarn's ghost. He pushes at him with his hands, willing it to end, for the pain to go away. He can feel the pain pulsing, a burst of unwanted power - he never meant to lose control!
But it's too late. As Tarn's voice lowers Damus' voice raises in an unhappy cry of pain as he destroys all of the mechanisms in the stage. No raising platforms, no lifts, no automatic curtain raising or lowering. He's broken it all.
He's sabotaged what he loves most, and all for some damn dream!
Damus stares at his hands, at the empty seats. The doormech will know it was him.
Panic overtakes him as he runs backstage, his life ruined by Tarn, again.
But - reason breaks through - he is Vosian. He is Damus of Vos. He is Damus of Vos, an actor. Not a Tarnian glitch who can break things by thinking about it.
No. He takes a deep invent and puts on a role, that of the confident, satisfied actor who is ready for his next role.
He leaves the theatre, smiling and thanking the doormech, absolutely, perfectly, convincingly innocent.