Okay, the timing is a little off, but hey, it's never too late for a little Christmas spirit, right? This is deffinatly my favorite chapter so far and I promise you all many more to come. Hope you like it. :-)
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'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house, all the creatures were stirring, even the mouse. The family had come over, over to stay. All were preparing, for tomorrow's holiday. Christmas music was playing, while children ate gingerbread. Picking cadies off the cookies, before going to bed.
It was Christmas Eve in the home of Lucy Wilder. Lights flashed in the front yard as well as all around the inside of the house. Christmas music filled the air along with the scent of fresh baked sugar cookies. A large bulletin board of Christmas cards was hung on a wall of the living room. The main picture in the middle was of her and her boys. She had taken them to get it taken just three weeks back. It was Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, in holoforms of course, dressed in elf costumes in Lucy's lap, who was dressed as Santa Claus, and they were all under a Christmas tree. The twins, who were now eight months old, had hit many milestones so far. They had started crawling and were on solid foods.
Audrey, Daniel, Rose, Michael and Emily had come over to stay the night to prepare for the following day. Audrey and Daniel had helped her clean up a bit and do some food preparation while Rose kept the kids occupied by making Christmas sugar cookies. While Emily and Michael decorated them with frosting and candies, Sunny and Sides were more than content sitting in their highchairs nibbling on some cookies that Rose had allowed them to have, successfully doing her job as a Grandma and spoiling her grandkids. All these people made the house feel less like a house and more like a home, and more people would be over tomorrow. Rose's sister, Olivia, her husband James, their twin daughters, Avery and Chloe, Chloe's husband Ryan, and their eleven year old son, Ethan, would arrive around midday tomorrow so that they could spend time with every one before dinner and presents. By somewhat of a miracle, Lucy had even managed to get Optimus, Ironhide, Jazz, Ratchet, and Prowl to come as well. Passing them as her friends, Orion, Ian, Justin, Richard, and Paul, who were in the military. After eight months of visits, their education on human customs and etiquette had come far and Lucy didn't have any worries at all. She had helped them in shopping for the children's presents, and even gave them all Santa hats to wear.
Presents may be a hassle for many during the holidays but not for Lucy. It was her favorite part. She had gotten her mother a topaz heart necklace on a silver chain, Olivia and James got a coffee maker, as they needed a new one, Avery and Chloe got bracelets, Dan and Ryan got cufflinks, and Audrey got the ugliest Christmas sweater Lucy could find. The contest they came up with when they were seventeen to see who could buy the other the uglier sweater, had become a tradition. The last year, Audrey won. She had gotten Lucy a patchwork sweater of teddy bears putting up a Christmas, and it lit up. Ethan got the new video game he wanted, Mike got a remote control helicopter, Emily got a new baby doll, Sunstreaker and sideswipe both got vehicle themed baby toys. They were all wrapped in boxes covered in wrapping paper and ribbon, under the tree, waiting to be opened the next day. Lucy was just finishing up putting Sideswipe to bed. He was always harder to put down than his brother was and all of the sugar he had consumed was not helping. After he finally fell asleep and Lucy stepped out to get ready for bed herself, she heard her sister and her husband having just as much trouble getting their sugar high children to bed. She walked into their room and up to her sister.
"Can I try something?" she asked Audrey.
She nodded, desperate to try anything after forty five minutes of failure.
"Alright, who wants to hear a story?" Lucy announced.
The kids stopped dead in their tracks and ran into one of the beds. Lucy chuckled slightly and grabbed a book off of the shelf. She sat down on the bed and began to read.
"Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas would be there…."
By the time the story ended, both children were fast asleep. Their parents thanked her and she left. She then got in her own bed and fell asleep.
The next morning, Lucy was woken by the shouting of children.
"It's Christmas! It's Christmas! Wake up mommy! Wake up daddy! C'mon grandma! It's Christmas."
Then Michael and Emily burst into her room, both dressed in their Christmas clothes. Emily wore a red and green plaid dress and black with a matching bow in her hair and black stockings. Michael had on black pants and a red and green plaid button up shirt that matched his sister's dress. What surprised her was that they were each holding one of her boys. Somehow, they had managed to dress them in their matching Christmas outfits, red pants and a green shirt that had an elf teddy bear on it and said "Baby's First Christmas", without any help from anyone
"C'mon Aunt Lucy! It's Christmas! Let's go see what Santa brought!" the children shouted.
Typically, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe hated screaming, but Lucy saw how her niece and nephew got her boys to cooperate. In the hands of each of the twins, was a candy cane and there was traces of red and white all over their mouths. Lucy rolled out of bed and put on her red dress. It was a long sleeved dress with a V-neck neckline and it went down a little below her knees. She went out to the living room where she heard "Joy to The World" sung by Nat King Cole played and found her mother in a Mrs. Claus dress. Audrey had on a black sweater dress with a red and green plaid belt that matched her children's clothes and Daniel wore the same thing Michael wore but with a black jacket and tie as well. Her niece and nephew were at the base of the tree and her boys in the lap of her mother. The opening of presents was how it always was. The kids waited their turn in opening them one at a time so that the adults could take pictures of everything. Paper was thrown into a large garbage bag so that neither of the twins would put it in their mouth. In the end, Michael got a train set and a Superman action figure, Emily got a Barbie doll and a little girl makeup set, Sideswipe got alphabet blocks and Sunstreaker got special finger paints that only showed up on special paper. As a joint present for them, they got a Radio Flyer 5 in 1 Family Wagon. The rest of the morning consisted of Christmas brunch complete with chocolate chip pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. The real fun however, came when Olivia, James, Avery, Chloe, Ryan, and Ethan arrived at noon. Michael was glad to see another boy old enough to play with and they grabbed their fathers to go and build Michael's train set, Emily played beauty salon with her Aunt Chloe, and Avery was glad to pull Sunstreaker and Sideswipe around in the wagon around the house. Audrey, Rose, and Olivia helped out Lucy in the kitchen and everything was peaceful, sort of. However, in the middle of the wagon ride, Sunstreaker decided he did not like the fast pace at which his mother's cousin was pulling them and started to cry. Avery stopped the wagon and picked him up.
"What's the matter Sammy?" she cooed.
"Bring him over here, Avery." Said James.
She handed Sunstreaker over to her father and he began bouncing the baby on his knee. He almost immediately stopped crying and smiled at the person holding him.
"You go play with Scotty. He's probably waiting for you." James said with a chuckle that could only belong to a grandfather. "I'll hang around here with Sammy boy."
The two played together with the toy given to them by Emily. It was a little play piano and Sunstreaker was testing out all of the keys and buttons, laughing and squealing in delight as James mimicked the sounds it made.
At around two in the afternoon, the kids took a break and had a snack of pretzels and apple juice while the adults talked about grown up stuff. After the snack was done, the kitchen was a bit of a mess. Lucy had just finished cleaning up pretzel crumbs and spilled apple juice when the door bell rang. Everyone wanted to see who it was ran to the door, except Olivia and Rose who were doing something in the kitchen they couldn't step away from. She opened it, and outside waiting where five men wearing Santa hats.
"Hi! C'mon inside guys." Lucy greeted. "Guys, these are the friends I told you would be joining us tonight."
After seeing their holoforms on multiple visits, she knew what they all looked like, but she also knew Ratchet and the holoform clothes and silently thanked him for the lack of "odd" attire like the clown suit he sent Ironhide in one time. She gestured to Optimus, who looked to be around thirty-five years old with dark brown hair. He was wearing tan slacks and a dark greed button down dress shirt. "This is General Orion Paxton"
Moving to Ironhide, who looked to be a man of about forty years old who had buzz cut black hair and wore a red button up and black pants, she introduced him as well.
"This is Ian Harris. He's one of the best in the field of weaponry and arms."
The introductions went on until Ratchet/Dr. Richard Miller, Prowl/ Colonel Paul Johnson, and Jazz/Major Justin Martin where introduced and they dispersed to talk to the family.
Ironhide, or Ian, was talking to James about being in the military, as James was a military man himself back in the day. Optimus/Orion, and Ratchet/Richard talked with Dan and Ryan about the one human customs that had become popular in the Cybertronian ranks: football. Jazz/Justin ended up with Avery in playing with the twins and Paul/Prowl helped out in the kitchen.
Dinner went surprisingly well. Nothing out of the ordinary in gifts either. After presents, the children stayed off to the side, playing with their new toys and some of the adults had taken to dancing to the Christmas music. James and Olive, Chloe and Ryan, Dan and Audrey were dancing together, enjoying the company of their spouse. Avery had pulled Jazz out with her and they were shamelessly flirting with each other. Somehow, if by a miracle, Rose had managed to get Ratchet to dance with her. Though both around fifty, it seemed that they both still had it in them. They had fun, but defiantly flirt like Avery and Jazz were. Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys played and just as it ended, Lucy had asked Prowl, who was sitting off to the side with Ironhide, Optimus and the twins, to dance. It was quite amusing to see two supposedly war hardened soldiers with two babies playing with a toy phone and plastic keys. Prowl handed Sideswipe, who was sitting in his lap, over to Ironhide and they made their way over to the "dance floor", aka the carpet. The music slowed as Dean Martin's and Martina McBride's voices filled the air.
"I really can't stay. But baby it's cold outside….."
The song played and they were engulfed in a feeling of comfortable awkwardness. When it ended, Lucy saw everyone looking at them. Audrey was pointing up so that's where she looked.
"Uh oh" she thought to herself. Above the two of them was a green leafy plant with three perfectly red berries. Prowl was just as red and embarrassed as she was, having researched the custom before arriving.
"What about Justin and Avery," she asked. They were right next to them, so technically, they were under it too. "They're under it too. Why don't they…have….to….." she trailed off as she saw her cousin deep in a kiss with a disguised, sentient, robotic based alien from space. Facing what was the inevitable, with her family anyway, she closed her eyes and took Prowl by surprise, catching his lips in hers.
There are no rules to mistletoe. No minimum or maximum time the kiss has to be. It could have lasted just a second. Only, it didn't. Neither of them pulled back. They could have, but they didn't. Their arms were wrapped around each other and they were content in their own little world. That was, until they were ripped out of it by cat calls and wolf whistles from both the disguised bots and Lucy's family. Then the immediately pulled back and stood awkwardly next to each other.
Apparently, next on the list of Christmas activities was movies. Elf and How The Grinch Stole Christmas, to be exact. Everyone was there on the couch or on the floor. Well, almost everyone. Lucy was missing, and Prowl took notice of this and excused himself. Eventually, he found her on the front porch swinging on the porch swing and looking off into the distance. Despite the fact it was snowing lightly, she wore only the red dress she had all day and a light coat.
"Can I join you?" he asked her.
This got her attention and she smiled at him, but Prowl new this smile. He had adorned it at many meetings with officials and mandatory officer parties. It wasn't genuine. Only used either when something was bothering you and you didn't want to bother anyone with it, or you were supposed to be happy, but really weren't. Prowl could detect a mix of both on this one. He sat down on the swing next to her and asked "Aren't you cold?"
"No, I'm fine" she answered briskly.
"What's bothering you?" he asked, getting straight to the point.
"I think you know the answer to that question."
"I think I do too."
"Then you know what I'm thinking right now."
"It's probable. I've calculated an 89.7% chance that we are indeed thinking of the same thing."
This drew a genuine smile from her.
"Precise, aren't we?" she teased.
This got a rare genuine Prowl smile. Whoever said Prowl doesn't have a sense of humor, nor does he understand sarcasm, was oh so very wrong.
"Always" he said, playing along.
"Mr. Perfectionist?"
"If not, who would I be?"
"Always fixated on work?"
"An unhealthy obsession."
"Ladies man?"
"Can't you tell?"
At this point in the conversation, the two of them are laughing as though they were drunkards.
"I can't remember the last time I did this." Prowl said once things settled down.
"What? Sit in the cold talking to a possibly deranged woman?" Lucy asked jokingly.
"No," Prowl replied, "laughed."
"Then we need to hang out more often. Once every week isn't enough, why don't you move in?" she again joked.
They laughed again, but then things got serious.
"So," Lucy began, no longer laughing or even smiling. "Does this,…you know…change things?"
Prowl thought for a while before responding. "No, not unless we want it to."
"What do you mean?"
"The relationship being questioned is yours and mine. No one else's. We dictate what effects it and what doesn't. As long as we decide that if means nothing, nothing changes."
She stared at him for a moment before playfully smacking his shoulder. "Why do you have to be so,…you?"
"I don't understand." He replied.
"You know,….you. Smart, philosophical, sweet, intuitive, caring, kind, sarcastic, funny,….."
She didn't get to finish because the both found themselves in another kiss. Again with their arms around each other, smooth lips pressed together. Lucy licked his lips, asking for entrance, and she was given it. Their tongues explored the inside of each other's mouths. Once the kiss was broken, they were still wrapped in each other's arms.
"Doesn't mean a thing?" asked Lucy.
"Not a thing." Prowl said.
"Good" she said.
Then they went in for another kiss. This went on for about five minutes. They would kiss for one, then break to make sure it meant nothing.
After kissing for a seventh time, they decided it was time to go back inside. For the rest of the night until the bots had to leave and the kids had to go to bed, they stayed close to each other. Sitting next to each other as they watched Buddy the elf get drunk in the mailroom of the Empire State Building, and even holding hand under the blanket they shared after they had been passed around. Before, the bots left, Prowl helped Lucy in putting the boys to bed. They went down rather easily, tired from all the excitement of their very first Christmas. Though they both agreed they would put it in the past and pretend like the kiss/kisses never happened, there was no way they were ever going to forget it. But hey, it all meant nothing, right?
What'd you think? Like it? Hate it? Love it? Despise it? Anyone surprised? Share your thoughts in reviews, they're majical you know. "See" you next update! -RA88, signing off with a smile :-)
