Merry Christmas everybody! In case you don't know already, this is connected with my longer story I Lost A World! and Aria is my energetic, somewhat brash, original character who watches over the Autobot younglings on a regular basis. Now I hope you're ready for the slew of youngling/Aria/seasonal madness that's about to come your way, cause the younglings are about to find out what Christmas is! And the ensuring shrieking makes Aria wonder if maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. ;)
Just so you know, I'm writing these chapters as quick as I can and then posting them without too much proofreading so I can get them up faster. So if anything is grammatically majorly wrong (like whatever it was I just said) then I'm sorry and feel free to point out the mistakes so I can fix them when I have more breathing room.
Also, that Christmas Tree I use as the cover of this story. I made it. n_n; Yay me! Okay, bragging time over. ;3
And with that I leave you to hopefully enjoy the little bots to come. And I ask that you please leave me some reviews! I mean, it is Christmas after all! ;3
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Feels Like Christmas
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1 - Feels Like Christmas - 1
^..^
"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Toys in ev'ry store.
But the prettiest sight to see is the holly that will be
on your own front door."
^..^
It seemed to Aria – current human population of one on the war-torn planet of Cybertron – that living with the Autobots was pretty much long stretches of horror and pain punctuated by times of extreme silliness. Usually the silliness only lasted a little while, maybe an hour, and you had to be in the right place at the right time to see it. But generally Aria was sure she missed it. The bits of silly were just too rare and too small for everyone to share.
So if the silly wouldn't come to everybody, then Aria would make sure that everyone came to investigate the silly. Or at least get sucked into it by her sheer stubborn willpower.
Right now, she was walking down one of the many halls in the Autobot base, singing as loud, and as well, as she possibly could to get everyone's attention. Which even then, made some bots cringe as she and the little troupe of younglings following her passed by.
"It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!" She shouted somewhat musically out as she walked. "Eeeeverywheeeere you gooooo!"
Behind her, Bumblebee blinked as he and the rest of the Autobot younglings followed their organic care taker through the base, an odd load of shiny things in her arms.
"But…that's because you've been putting it everywhere Jie Mei." The little yellow bot pointed out, sounding rather confused by her song.
They were all just the little bit confused to be honest. But then, this was Jie Mei they were following. Confusion followed her around even more then they did, especially when she felt like she had to have another of her human holidays again.
But that was okay. The younglings actually liked their adoptive sister's celebrations. They were lots of fun, even though they didn't always make a lot of sense. And with the war against the Decepticons still going on, there wasn't a lot of fun for the little bots to have anyway. Jie Mei could make them smile when no one, and nothing else, could.
Even if she was – and they all thought this extremely lovingly – a bit…cracked.
"Sooo…" Arcee, the only femme out of the group, drawled curiously as she and the others followed Aria into the rec room, "what're you doing again Jie Mei?"
Aria finished humming the next line of her strange, organic tune as she plonked all of the stuff she was carrying on a counter that was low enough for her and the younglings to reach.
"I'm getting ready for Christmas!" Aria answered the pink femmeling brightly. Then without further explanation, she picked up one of the frayed wires she had taken out of Wheeljack's 'This Didn't Work Out Right' box and began to tack them up on the wall.
The younglings were all very confused by this.
"Why'd you even take that Jie Mei?" The biggest of the younglings, Val, asked as he cocked his head to watch.
"Cuz' it's shiny." Aria told him, jumping a little to get the makeshift decoration up higher so that the grown up bots would be able to see it.
Val and the others didn't look any less confused.
"But," Cloudraker, one of the Seeker mechlings, put in now, "the rubber coating's all gone, and the wires are all untwisted and hanging down funny."
Aria just smiled and jumped again, sticking the tip of her tongue out in effort. "I know!" She giggled between jumps. "Ain't it great?"
The seven younglings all looked at each other. In the end, Mudflap said what they were all thinking.
"You're weird Jie Mei."
Far from offended, Aria giggled. "Because that's what makes life more fun!" She told them with a wide smile. "Now how bout one of you give me a lift so everyone else can see this too?" She asked.
Even though they had no idea what she was doing, the younglings weren't about to miss out on whatever pandemonium she was about to spread. "I've got it Jie Mei!" Fastlane, Cloudraker's brother, volunteered with a loud shout. Like his brother, he'd just started learning how to fly. Well, he wasn't really flying yet, only hovering a few feet off the ground, but try telling him that.
Before Aria could say anything, Fastlane leapt forward and grabbed her before jumping as high as he could. Aria gave a startled squeak when he did, but Fastlane was too excited to notice.
Some of that excitement evaporated, however, when gravity reclaimed him, and he and Aria landed without incident back on the ground.
Frowning in confusion, Fastlane jumped up and down again.
"Why. Won't. It. Work?" He asked, adding a new word each time he jumped.
Aria was starting to feel just a little bit sick. "Ugh-gh-gh-gh!" She groaned as the eager Seeker kept trying to fly up off the ground with each jump.
Somewhere over the sound of Fastlane's jumping and to her left Aria heard Cloudraker sigh dramatically. "You forgot to use your plane-starter." He told his brother, meaning the special engine that the different flying Cybertronians had that let them get in the air.
Fastlane stopped jumping long enough to blink.
"Oh," he mumbled a moment later, "right."
Still held in Fastlane's hands, Aria, held her head in her hands and groaned somewhat pitifully.
"That's enough sugar for you…" She groaned in a feeble imitation of some Disney movie or another.
The twins glanced at each other and then cocked their heads at Aria. "What's sugar?" They asked. It sounded promising.
But then the high pitched whine of a small, little used engine started up, cutting off any further explanation. Aria looked down and watched with a small gasp as her feet slowly left the floor.
Aria glanced up to see how the mechling was doing. Distantly she wondered if she should tell him to stop since she was pretty sure Smokerunner didn't want Fastlane hovering by himself yet.
The mechling in question had his face screwed up tight as he used all his little might to get off the floor with his hands wrapped around Aria, who was only a few inches shorter them him now.
The other younglings watched with the kind of awe that was usually reserved for movies or fireworks. And when Fastlane finally got his feet up on the counter that so far neither he, Aria, or the rest of the tiny bots had been able to reach, they all gave a little cheer.
Aria smiled, thinking they were as proud of Fastlane as she was.
But then she heard one of the twins whisper loudly, "Wow! We can get up on counters now!"
"We can finally see what the grown-ups keep up there!"
Aria made a face. She knew exactly what they kept up there. And she also knew that all of the good stuff was about to mysteriously migrate to higher shelves and cabinets with youngling-proof locks on them.
Despite his cooling systems working harder then before, Fastlane drew himself up proudly. "Ta-da!" He crowed, making Aria laugh. "I did it!"
"Hey!" Cloudraker suddenly whined down on the floor, only just now realizing that his brother was disobeying their guardians' rules, again. "Smokerunner and Cloudcover told us not to do that Fastlane!"
Fastlane just twitched his little wings, making the bright red speed lines painted on them flash triumphantly. "You're just jealous cuz I can do it without their help and you can't." He gloated.
Cloudraker chirped something angrily before giving his brother a metallic sounding raspberry. Fastlane returned the favor before Aria had a chance to remind them to behave.
Down below her a sweet little voice suddenly asked, "What's 'crismess' Jie Mei?"
Aria looked down, momentarily distracted from the boys, to find Arcee staring up at her. Unlike the organic femme, Arcee had much more practice at ignoring the mechlings, mainly because she refused to pay them any attention when they were doing something stupid, like now.
"And why's it shiny?" Bumblebee asked, optics glowing a little brighter.
"It sounds messy." Skids said, wrinkling his nose up in distaste, making Aria laugh behind her hand some more.
"Yeah, I don't like holidays that make you clean up." His twin brother Mudflap added.
All of the youngling's gave their own various, "Yuck!" at that, even Cloudraker and Fastlane. Awhile ago, Aria had tried explaining the idea of spring cleaning to them one orbit when their playroom was particularly trashed. She had tried to play it off as a holiday game to get them to help her. A sort of 'whistle while you work' kind of atmosphere.
It hadn't worked.
In fact the words 'epic fail' might be a better description.
Aria shook her head to put aside the stunning failure that had been 'cleaning day'. "No!" She told the younglings with a laugh. "This is a strictly no whistle-working holiday."
The younglings immediately relaxed.
"Whew!" Fastlane said dramatically.
"Well what is it then?" Val asked.
"Is this the one where we got to paint Sunny green again?" Arcee asked excitedly.
Cloudraker giggled sneakily. "I like that one." He proclaimed with a grin.
The rest of the younglings giggled in agreement. Aria bit her lip, making her smile lopsided. "I know," she told them, "Best. Holiday. Ever."
Arcee gripped the edge of the counter above her head and jumped to try and see Aria better. "So it's that one?" She asked with a wide grin.
Aria looked off to the side. "Oh, um, no. It's not that one. Sorry guys."
Arcee stopped jumping. "Man…" she whined, "that's one of my favorites."
Bumblebee however, looked back up at Aria, still curious about this whole 'crissmess' thing. "So what is crissmess Jie Mei?" He asked, leaning up on his tip toes to try and see her over the counter top.
"Yeah, is it fun?" Fastlane asked next to her. Somewhere during the talk about painitng Sunny, the little Seeker mech had sat down on the edge of the counter. Now he was leaning back on his hands and kicking his short legs over the side of the counter as he looked at his organic caretaker.
Aria nodded. "Oh yeah, it's one of the biggest holidays ever where I live. It's the last one before the year changes so it's usually really cold," she rubbed at her arms and shivered dramatically for the youngbots. Some of them laughed a little at her silly antics.
"What's it for?" Arcee asked, quite innocently.
Aria suddenly found herself searching for a way to explain something as complex as religion to a bot that was the around the equivalent of a five or six year old.
Aria sighed. It was just so nice to know that even halfway across the galaxy explaining religion made her feel…awkward, no matter what she thought or believed herself.
"Well," Aria said, determined not to disappoint the bright blue optics that were watching her or herself, "it started off as a purely religious celebration." She started.
"What's 'reelig-juice'?" Mudflap asked.
"Is it tasty?" Skids piped up.
Aria's eyebrows drew together. How did someone answer that?
"Uh, no, it's not something you eat. It means it's part of a…a belief. OH!" Aria suddenly shouted, making the younglings jump when she abruptly thought of a better word. "It has to do with faith!" She told them, extremely proud of herself.
The younglings exchanged glances. They sorta knew what she meant.
"Anyway," Aria went on when the younglings didn't say anything more, "a long, long, time ago a very special baby was born-"
"What's a baby?" Val asked curiously.
"An organic sparkling." Aria put in smoother then before. She'd been expecting that one. "So this little sparkling was born and at first no one but his creators and a bunch of sheep and cows saw him-"
"What's a cow?" Fastlane interrupted with a grin.
Aria's mouth puckered in annoyance. They were just doing it on purpose now. She looked around her little group with flat eyes. They were all grinning and trying to hide it from their frustrated sister. Occasionally a giggle slipped through though.
Aria just sighed. "You know what, I'll explain it when you're older. And have a bigger vocabulary…" she mumbled.
The younglings just giggled at her some more.
"Does that mean we don't get to have crissmess now?" Bumblebee asked.
Aria blinked, annoyance evaporating quite suddenly as her sudden desire for holiday cheer abruptly sprang up again. "Well, no, Christmas has sort of…grown, I guess you could say-"
Cloudraker's optics grew very round. "You mean crissmess is alive?" He asked in a hushed whisper.
"Yes and no," Aria said quickly moving on so as not to get mired in another question game, "what I meant was there are a lot of different things that make up Christmas now. Like trees and lights and snow and-"
Aria suddenly realized she was quickly losing their attention. Without anything to compare Christmas too, her words meant nothing to the younger bots.
Eager to share the delight and joy she always felt around December, Aria leaned forward, her secretive actions immediately drawing the younglings' attention back to her.
"But I think the part you'll want to hear about most…" she said with a mischievous grin as she lowered her voice, "is about Santa Claus."
Aria saw their optics widen infinitesimally in uncertain excitement. She bit back her triumphant grin, glad she had finally found something to they could get excited about when their recharge every night was interrupted by bombs and missiles exploding only a few miles from their heads…
…and then realized that it wasn't excitement in the younglings' optics at all, but borderline anxiety.
"Santa…claws?" Skids asked nervously, leaning closer to his brother just to be safe.
Aria's face suddenly fell. "No," she said raising what she hoped was a calming hand, "no, no. Not 'claws' like scary sharp things," she promised, "'Claus' like…like…"
Her eyebrows furrowed when she realized she actually had no idea what the Claus in Santa Claus stood for.
"It's…part of his name."
Bumblebee cocked his head. "Like the 'Ultra' in Ultra Magnus?" He asked.
Aria jumped on the idea. "Yes." She told him.
Some of the anxiety faded from the little bots' optics, but they were still regarding her somewhat uncertainly. They had thought this organic 'crissmess' thing would be fun, but what with the claws and the still unexplained cows, they weren't so sure…
"Santa is not a scary man." Aria started with, hoping to reassure them further. "He's this big guy dressed in red and fur and black boots that laughs a lot because he's very jolly and people leave him cookies when he comes down the chimney-"
"Isn't a chimney part of a human house?" Skids asked.
"Yes-" Aria started with an excited smile.
"You mean," Bumblebee said slowly, an uncertain look on his face, "he…comes into your house?"
Aria's eyes suddenly grew twice as wide. The realization that Bumblebee and the other younglings had grown up in war-time and only knew that strangers coming into their houses led to horrible things like murder and kidnapping, came and bodily slapped Aria upside the head.
"Uh-oh…" She mentally groaned as she guiltily looked at each of the young bots watching her with large, trusting optics. "Maybe…this wasn't such a good idea after all…" Aria thought to herself.
"No!" Aria shouted, holding her hands out in front of her to stave off any more anxiety that might be floating in the air just waiting to latch onto her little bots. "Well, I mean, yes, he does come into the house-"
Fastlane's optics grew even wider. "While you're all sleeping?" He asked in an uncharacteristically high voice. Aria could practically hear the words 'and vulnerable' tacked onto the end of that question.
"Do you even know this Santa Jie Mei?" Bumblebee asked in a rare show of suspicion.
Aria quickly looked to the side. "Well, yeah, sort of…"
"So," Arcee said slowly, watching her organic sister with narrowed optics that reminded Aria strongly of a certain weapons specialist, "you've met him then?" She asked hopefully.
Aria's eye flicked upward. "Well, no, not technically-" she started.
"So he's a stranger." Arcee finished for her.
"No." Aria said and then immediately changed her answer to, "Yes! But-"
"And you let him into your house?" Fastlane demanded, voice even squeakier then before.
Aria blew out a quick breath, trying to think of a way to somehow salvage this entirely strange conversation. "Look, guys, no one has actually seen the real Santa-" Aria tried. Although how that was supposed to help she could never remember later.
Cloudraker gasped. "He's a spook!"
The younglings all gasped together.
"Santa-Spook!" The twins yelled as one.
Then all seven of them shrieked at once.
"Wait!" Aria shouted through the shrieks that were equal parts fright and over-energetic younglings.
The little bots all obligingly stopped and blinked at her.
Aria refused to move for a split-second, afraid that any sudden movement might start them off again.
"Santa." She said very, very slowly. "Does not. Hurt people."
The young bots' optics clearly said they were not sure about that.
"I don't know Jie Mei," Cloudraker was the first to find the nerve to speak, "he sounds awfully scary…"
"Yeah," Val said in a lowered voice, "he sounds like a Decepticon."
Aria facepalmed herself.
"Santa is not a Decepticon." She told them clearly.
"This is getting us nowhere." She thought to herself. But that thought was quickly overridden by a wondering, "I wonder if I just branded my forehead with a red handprint."
"Look guys," Aria suddenly said a little tensely, "Santa gives younglings presents alright? That's what he does. That's the only thing he ever does. He doesn't hurt people unless they're gingerbread men."
The younglings started to lean away from her.
"They're cookies guys." She told them quickly.
Arcee pouted. "Not in that story you told us." She reminded her.
"Yeah but he was a jerk." Aria defended herself.
The only reason the younglings didn't call her on that was because they were still under the impression that their older sister knew everything.
Fastlane's head snapped up as he suddenly realized something. "Wait, did you say presents?"
Six other heads pricked up at the desirable word. "Presents?" She heard them mumble eagerly.
Aria propped her hands on her hips. "Yeah, I figured that'd get your attention," she mumbled to herself before talking to her brood again, "Yes, Santa brings presents, but only," she said loudly holding up a finger, "to good little mechs and femmes." She told them.
Val snickered. "I guess that means you guys won't be getting anything!" He teased, giving Skids a shove that sent him colliding into his brother.
The twins managed to get in enough insults to satisfy their boyish pride before Aria stepped in. Then after a mandatory no shoving reminder to Val, Aria told them more about the now dubbed Santa-Spook.
"One night out of the human year," she told them, "Santa Claus gets in his bright red, er…" she barely avoided the potentially panic-inducing word 'sleigh' before she hurriedly thought of a new one, "ship that's, um, powered by Santa's nine flying reindeer."
"What's a reindeer?" Val asked, actually wanting to know this time.
Before Aria could answer Arcee rolled her optics and laughed, giving Val a playful shove. "They're his ship's navigators of course Val. They're probably Santa's symbiotes." She told him.
Aria thought about contesting this, and decided not to. Especially since she the only thing she knew about symbiotes were that there weren't that many, and it seemed like Soundwave had most of that population in his chest.
An unnerved shiver ran down Aria's spine and she quickly tried to shake it away. If it meant not learning anything more about Soundwave's internals, Aria could deal with staying ignorant of symbiotes forever.
"Right…" the human settled for, "I guess…that might be it. So Santa and his reindeer travel around the whole world, in one night, and deliver presents to all the good children."
"Why's he do it while they're sleeping?" Fastlane asked. Clearly he was still worried about why some stranger would want to sneak into your house while you were sleeping, giving you presents or not!
"Well he doesn't want anyone to see him." Aria told him gently.
Finding this suspicious, Fastlane narrowed his optics at her and asked, "Why?"
"Well," Aria stuttered, "because he…doesn't want kids to try and catch him."
Fastlane chirped his uncertainty.
"Well," Aria said again, thinking quickly, "if everyone knew what Santa really looked like, they would want to hold him hostage until he gave them everything they wanted."
She nodded, pleased with her on the fly answer, so she didn't see the spark of an idea that appeared in Val's optics.
"And since he doesn't want that to happen," Aria continued, "he makes sure to only enter a house when he's sure the children are safely asleep."
The younglings thought about this.
"Ooo…" Arcee said slowly, as she finished mulling all this new information over. "Then what're all the shiny things for?" She asked, picking up a piece of metal that had vaguely been fashioned into the shape of star and showing it to Aria.
The girl just grinned. "Well what's a the fun of having a holiday if you can't make things look pretty right?" She asked them.
Arcee grinned back at her. Out of everything she and the others had heard in the past half hour, this made the absolute most sense. Everybody knew Jie Mei liked pretty things.
And even though she would never, ever, say this in front of the mechlings, so did Arcee.
There was a string attached to the shiny star-like thing Arcee was holding and she slipped a finger through it, letting the shiny spin in little circles.
"What're you going to do with all this stuff Jie Mei?" Arcee asked as she watched the shiny thing spin.
She looked up though when she felt something catch on her helm. With an annoyed squeak she turned sharply and saw Bumblebee standing next to her, one hand raised after he put the whatever-it-was he'd put on her head.
The whatever-it-was suddenly swung into view before quickly swinging away. Arcee blinked, annoyance clearing away. It was a shiny, like the one she'd picked up.
Bumblebee chirped happily at her. "It looks pretty." He told her simply.
Arcee blinked at him, and then did the only thing that would make the squirmy feeling in her middle go away; she gave the yellow mechling a shove.
Bumblebee stumbled a step or two away before he regained his balance. He frowned at her and warbled something sharply.
Arcee pointedly ignored him, although she didn't bother to take the shiny he'd stuck on her off.
"So what are these things Aria?" Arcee asked, not noticing that Aria had never answered her first question.
Aria had been to busy watching the younglings to answer the pink femmeling and even now she had to bite back her own giggles. "They're ornaments." She managed to tell her sister. "Generally we hand them on Christmas trees with little lights and other shiny, pretty things, but since we don't have any trees I thought we could find something else to put them on."
As the human girl watched, Arcee picked up a couple more of the lopsided ornaments and walked over to where 'Bee was currently sulking, arms cross over his chest in a pout as he stared at the floor.
Before he could notice her, Arcee quickly dropped the bits of shiny on Bumblebee, letting the strings catch on the little seams between pieces of brightly colored armor.
Bee looked up just as one of the oddly shaped ornaments caught on the top of his head and ended up dangling right between his optics.
Arcee gave a satisfied click that ended in little laugh. "I think Bee should be our new tree." She announced cheerily.
The other young mechs laughed at the idea, but Bee was quiet as he watched the one ornament sway back and forth between each optic. From up on the grownup-sized counter with Fastlane, Aria watched uncertainly as her Bumblebee watched the shiny, thinking over something that Aria couldl't quite tell what it was.
And then quite suddenly, he smiled and started laughing with the rest of them.
"Nuh-uh, nuh-uh!" He said loudly as he got up, ornaments jangling against his armor. "You get to be the tree Arcee! You had the ornament on first!" He laughed at her before grabbing another one and trying to hang it next to the one already on Arcee's head.
"No way!" Arcee told him as she dodged the shiny. "If you won't be the tree then Val should."
"What? Why me?" Val asked loudly from where he thought he'd been standing on the sidelines.
"Because you're green!"
From there the argument quickly dissolved into a game of chase as the young bots all began to run after each other laughing, two or three ornaments held in each hand.
Aria laughed as she watched them try and hang the shiny things she'd found lying around Ratchet and Wheeljack's perspective spaces on each other.
"So who wants to help me find stuff to hang this on?" She called out once all the ornaments had found new homes on the little bots.
Seven hands immediately shot in the air to a sudden chorus of ornamental jangling.
"I do!" They all shouted.
Aria grinned before sliding off the adult counter to the human/youngling sized one before hopping down to the floor.
"Well let's go them," she told them before grinning playfully, "you guys got the ornaments right?"
The younglings all giggled. "Yes!" They answered before following Aria in a giggling, tinkering line out the door.