:D Yay! Another chapter, which I am rather proud of because I wrote it beginning to end within 24 hourse! :D Actually...this one wasn't planned at all. I only wrote it because I felt the younglings' Christmas tree search needed a bit more resolution. And that in turn led to me and my sister giving a classic Christmas carol three new verses. ^,,^ That's also why this chapter's shorter too. It's spontaneous! :D

n_n; You'll see two of the parodies here, however Red's verse I think will come up later... xP I hope you all know the tune to O Christmas Tree, cuz you're going to need it. ;)

Thank you to Birgitte LP, DeathbyLackofMusic, and Pyroth Tenka for your reviews! XD They made me very happy! Did you know that you all started your reviews with various forms of 'Aww!' ;3 It was cute, so thank all of you! I'm glad you thought the younglings were so cute. n_n I have such fun writing them because, well, the are cute. Adorable even. ::heart!::

And yes Pyroth Tenka, there will be more... ;) And reviews will help me write them! I mean, I have a pretty good chapter outline written out, but that (and personal motivation I suppose) go a lot farther when you know that other people are interested in what's going on. :)

So read, review, and enjoy Sunny and Sides' spontaneous singing! And thank you bunches! ;3

...

Feels Like Christmas

2 – O Cyber Tree, O Cyber Tree! – 2

"O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
You are the tree most loved!
How often you give us delight
In brightly shining Christmas light!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
You are the tree most loved!"

The search for a suitable Christmas tree ended up leading Aria and the younglings to the most unexpected place.

"Clamp?"

"Clamp."

Clank.

Zizz zizz.

Whir.

"Welding torch?"

"Welding torch."

Sideswipe slapped the hand sized welding torch into his brother's waiting hand. Under the halo of the room's single lit lamp, Sunstreaker didn't look away from the skeletal structure now lying on his and his brother's desks, which they had pushed together after agreeing to take the job offered to them by a bunch of squirming younglings and their organic caretaker.

Down at the floor, Aria crossed her arms and watched with a healthy amount of skepticism as the gold colored twin bent over what he claimed would be a Christmas tree by the end of this. His optics were narrowed in a rare form of concentration as sparks flew up from the different, larger welding torch he was using to connect the mini one to what used to be a gun rack before he'd gotten his hands on it. Even the fidgeting younglings gathered in his room couldn't make him look up from his work.

"You look like Ratchet." Aria observed.

The sparks abruptly disappeared, throwing more shadows into the small room, as Sunny stopped working and looked up just enough to glare at the offending organic femme.

"You say that again and I'll turn this crisscross thing into an organic-sized gyro-hamster tube for you to run around in." He threatened in a flat voice.

Aria opened her mouth to retaliate, but a worried whine behind her made her snap her mouth shut. She looked over her shoulder to see seven pairs of baby blue optics switching between looking at her and looking at the curious thing Sunstreaker was making for them.

Aria sighed and decided to keep her mouth shut. She and the younglings had looked all morning for a suitable tree-replacement before the twins had agreed to do it (for reasons of their own Aria was sure) and she didn't want to spend all afternoon searching too, especially now that the little bots were so excited to see their tree as soon as possible.

Besides, despite his pain-in-the-butt-superior-then-thou attitude, Sunstreaker knew his way around a welder. And while Aria would never say this in his audio-shot, he wasn't a bad artist either.

So she settled for just glowering up at the twins instead. "How did I even end up here in the first place?" She grumbled at herself. "You two are the last bots anybody should ever take favors from."

Sideswipe grinned and Sunny huffed in annoyance, but neither one disputed the fact exactly.

"Aren't you a grateful one?" Sideswipe asked with a lopsided grin as he leaned an elbow against the edge of his brother's makeshift art table. At least, he leaned on it until Sunny reached out and smartly whacked his brother's shoulder, not even looking up from his renewed welding.

Aria blinked and looked over at Bumblebee standing next to her in the dim light to see he had the same look on his face. He really was acting like Ratchet now.

"If you didn't want our help then you should have kept your gremlins out of our room." Sunstreaker said, finally setting the torch down and straightening up to scrutinize his work so far.

Aria glared. "They're not gremlins!" She shouted just as Cloudraker piped, "Are you done yet Sunny?"

Sunstreaker ignored Aria completely. "No." He told the mini Seeker. "But I got all the torches on there and hooked together so they'll turn on with one switch. The rest will go faster now."

In the background, Fastlane, Val, and the twins groaned. "Man!" Val whined. "This is taking forever."

Aria saw Sunny roll his optics as he vented a frustrated sigh. Identifying the warning signs of an immanent meltdown (from one side or the other really) she quickly stepped in before the clock struck zero.

"How about you guys go find some more ornaments for the tree then?" She suggested. "That way we can decorate it as soon as Sunny's done."

An almost silent mumble of relief swept over the little group as the younglings got to their feet and headed out the door of the dark room, but only after making sure the coast was clear. The only reason the twins had agreed to make them their tree in the first place was if they swore up and down that they would never, ever, tell anyone that they had been the ones to make it in the first place. The little bots figured that that also include not letting mechs like Prowl see Sunny working too.

"Aren't you coming Aria?" Bumblebee asked from the door.

Aria turned to look at him from where she was still standing near the twin's impromptu work surface, careful to avoid any stray sparks. "In a little bit 'Bee. I want to talk to the twins a little first."

Not thinking much of it, Bumblebee nodded. "Alright then. See you later Jie Mei."

Aria waved as the door closed behind her littlest bot. When it had, Aria turned back towards the twins, but didn't say anything. Clearly she just wanted to watch them as they worked on the younglings' Christmas tree.

"What? Don't you trust us Aria?" Sideswipe asked when he saw what was going on.

Aria stared at him. "No." She told him simply.

Sunny vented a snort of laughter. "You're smarter then I thought." He mumbled.

Aria re-crossed her arms in annoyance as she glowered up at the twins. When they didn't say anything else, she said somewhat pointedly, "Rather out of character for you guys to do something out of charity."

The twins were not fooled when she tried to sound like she was only thinking out loud. "I like a challenge." Sunny mumbled as he continued to work, adjusting a different miniature sized welding torch that was on the other side of the tree.

Aria frowned. "Yeah right." She mumbled to herself.

A nano klik later, understanding came along and smacked her upside the head.

"Hey wait a minute!" She exclaimed, spinning around to face the twins again. "You're not doing this for the younglings. You're just trying to get rid of your extra contraband stuff before Prowl finds it!"

The gold and silver mechs stared at Aria as if this was the most obvious revelation in the world.

"Well duh." Sideswipe said.

Aria spent the next few seconds speaking in nonsensical noises.

When Sunstreaker had gotten tired of hearing the various, "Why you!'s", he straightened up and leaned his hands on the table in front of him, all the better to stare down at Aria.

"Look," he said slowly, "do you want your tree or not?"

Aria's mouth dropped open. She stared in silence a cycle before remembering to snap it closed.

"Dangit!" She hissed.

Sunny interpreted her answer as a roundabout 'yes' and got back to work.

Pouting slightly at being maneuvered into a corner like that, (Where else was she going to find a Christmas tree after all?) Aria turned away from the twins, arms settled defensively over her chest as she glared hotly at the wall.

The twins ignored her in return. Sunny was too busy focused on his creation and Sides, well, Aria was pretty sure Sides was just doing it to annoy her.

Stubbornly refusing to let the silver mech win at this game, Aria began singing softly to herself. "O cyber tree, o cyber tree, how lovely are thy wrenches. O cyber tree! O cyber tree! You leave no room for, er," she verbally stumbled before finishing on a warbly note, "fences!"

Sideswipe snickered above her, losing at his own game. "Nice save." He told her.

Aria ignored him, and then a moment later laughed as more words jumped into her brain. "I am from Earth, I use green trees! To satisfy, my Christmas needs!"

By now both the twins were staring at her. They shared a look, privately asking if this was an organic sign of mental stress and/or a possible psychiatric breakdown on Aria's part.

Unaware of their staring, or the fact that she was now singing fairly loud, Aria finished with a laugh, "O cyber tree! O cyber tree! You are an alien fineryyyyyy!"

She only became aware of her audience when one of them abruptly cackled behind her.

Aria spun around, face turning red as Sideswipe continued to laugh. She thought he wanted to say something about her impromptu lyrics (not that he knew the originals…) but he was too busy laughing to get the words out.

Aria felt her face heat up as an embarrassed red color overtook her face. She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a startled squeak, not unlike what the younglings made when someone snuck up on them.

Sideswipe was now laughing so hard that the only reason he was still standing was because of the desk he was leaning on. Even Sunny had cracked a smile at her.

In the face of such overwhelming mortification, Aria snapped her mouth shut (again) and jerked a thumb at the door behind her.

"I'm-" she stuttered, "I'm just gonna-"

The twins just stared at her, grinning like idiots.

Aria quickly cleared her throat. "I'm gonna go."

And then she ducked her head and quickly scurried out the door.

The twins continued to snicker even after the door had shut.

"That was great." Sideswipe said through his laughter.

"And we didn't even have to do anything." Sunstreaker pointed out.

Then they stood there in sudden silence and pinned their optics on the door.

Nothing.

Sunstreaker suddenly elbowed his brother and jerked his head at a perfectly normal-looking wall panel. "Quick, get the rest of the stuff before they come back!"

With a lopsided grin, Sideswipe went over and, after dramatically twisting his fingers around to loosen them up, shoved the wall panel they made sure always looked as normal as possible, for Prowl's benefit of course.

A well oiled, near silent, transformation started when the panel had sunk back slightly into the wall. Not-as-normal-looking wall panels slid and flipped, receding to either side as a large, hollowed out section opened up in the middle of their wall.

The twins waited almost a full cycle for the transformation to finish. When the hushed movement of the wall had finally ceased, the twins' secret stash was fully revealed.

The hidey-hole nearly took up the whole side wall, and despite appearances it was fairly deep. However right now it was so crammed full of illegal objects that it looked about half of its actual size.

"It's a good thing Aria came along when she did," Sideswipe said as he began pulling various wrenches out of the whole (most of which had been thrown at their heads by Ratchet at one point or another), "we were almost out of room."

Sunny snorted as he started planning where to put each of the confiscated tools. "Almost?" He asked sarcastically.

Sideswipe just shrugged. "And here we were wondering how to get rid of all this stuff without Prowl catching us."

"He's still going to know it came from us." Sunny pointed out.

Sides' grinned wider. "Yeah, but even Prowl wouldn't dare to confiscate the younglings' weird tree…thing." He looked down at the stick-like structure his brother was using as a foundation for the younglings' organic decoration.

"Or at the very least I don't think Prime and the others will let him." Sideswipe added.

Sunstreaker nodded. "True enough. Now hand me Prowl's old datapad. I need to gut it for this 'tree topper' thing."

Sideswipe grabbed said datapad – nearly starting an avalanche of industrial glue they had confiscated from Wheeljack in the process since it had been one of the very first things they had ever, eh, absconded with – with his usual grin. "Working out some frustrations there Sunny?"

His brother just snorted at him. "Just hand me the dang thing bro."

Sideswipe slapped the datapad into his brother's hand before he continued his earlier loitering around the work table.

With a practiced movement, Sunstreaker cracked open the datapad, separating the outward covers at the seam that ran around the edge. Discarding the back cover – its only purpose was to protect the internals of the datapad so it wouldn't serve any point on the 'tree' – Sunny began to sort through the datapad's wiring. He had just found the component he wanted when he noticed Sideswipe fidgeting out of the corner of his optic.

He sighed. Sideswipe fidgeting was never a good omen.

"Don't even think about it." He told his brother when he realized why he was fidgeting in the first place.

"It's a little late for that bro." Sideswipe said as he continued to dance in place, hoping physical motion would help him resist the sudden impulse.

"Don't do it." Sunstreaker ordered, not looking up from where he was now welding a rusty old wrench in place to act as an oddly shaped tree branch.

Sideswipe fidgeted even more. "I got to. I can't help it. Otherwise it's just going to be stuck in my processor for the rest of the orn."

Sunstreaker leaned his head back and sighed in resignation. If it was stuck in Sideswipe's processor then it wouldn't be long till it was stuck in his.

"Dang twin bond." He grumbled to himself. Sideswipe grinned, knowing what Sunny had thought.

"Alright fine!" Sunny groaned. "Just don't get it stuck in my processor while you're at it!"

Sideswipe just grinned at his brother. And then gave into the urge to burst into song.

"O cyber tree! O cyber tree! How perfect is your silhouette!" He sang out loudly.

Sunstreaker's sudden grin was no less mischievous then his brother's. "O cyber tree! O cyber tree! Sunny made you so be proud of that!"

"He made you frooooom the stuff we hoard!" Sides called, somewhere between singing and shouting in tune.

"That we claaaaaimed when we got bored!" Sunny returned with a cackle.

Suddenly both twins wrapped an arm around the other's shoulder and swayed together as they finished grandly. "O cyber tree! O cyber tree! You are the cure for our piraaacyyyy!"

Song over, both mech's snickered. And then the silence returned. Sideswipe had stopped fidgeting now, letting Sunstreaker work in peace.

At least until he started humming.

Sideswipe grinned widely at the musical hum coming from his brother.

"Song stuck in your head now ain't it bro?" He asked.

Sunny threw a frustrated glance at his brother.

"Ah, shaddup." He grumbled before getting back to work on the younglings' Christmas tree.