Transformers movie-verse: "A Christmas Carol"
A little break so I could make sure i got this chapter (al)right.
Fandom: Transformers (movies)
Characters: Sam Witwicky, Leo Spitz(-Simmons), Miles Lancaster, OCs as necessary, Ghost of Christmas Present
Title: A (Transformers) Christmas Carol
Author: me!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A retelling of the classic novel, using the Transformers movie-verse as the setting, rather than Industrial-Revolution era England.
Warnings: Dark!Crack? A swear here and there.
Disclaimer: I'm only borrowing everything. If I actually owned either Transformers or A Christmas Carol, I'd be so rich I wouldn't know what to do with myself.
Sam was in a pensive mood the next day, and it took a great deal of effort to wrench his concentration to the work at hand.
He had gone to his office, as his apartment suddenly seemed stuffy and dismal, even though the windows were large and let in what watery sunlight there was.
He sat back in his chair, which squeaked gently on its hinge, the fabric conforming to his back and rested his interlaced fingers on the desk before him, eyes unseeing as he attempted to read the e-mails that still appeared in his inbox.
It appeared he wasn't the only one who was alone on Christmas Eve. Either that, or there were those who were even worse workaholics than he.
The day passed at a dreary, dragging pace, and Sam was less productive than he would have liked. If only his memories didn't keep on popping up and barraging his consciousness, he would have been able to get much more work done.
As it was, he remained in his office until 10PM, making his way home slowly. All stores were closed, save for maybe 24-hour gas stations. The windows in each shop were dark, but Christmas decorations hung brightly around the entryways and displays. He encountered very few people as he meandered down almost-empty streets, lost in his own world, greetings from those he did meet falling flat on his ears, but what did they matter? Christmas was painful for him, and he still didn't like the occasion much.
As he walked, he thought-if he remembered correctly, he was due for a visit from the ghost of Christmas Present this evening.
At least this ghost is supposed to be a friendly one, he thought with the smallest of wry smiles. Maybe it won't be so sadistic as the ghost of christmas past.
Sam reached his apartment, steps weary from walking so far, and made his meagre Christmas Eve dinner (which was like every other meal he took-nutritionally correct, nothing special; why bother wasting money on frivolities?), and sat down in front of his television to watch something appropriately mind-numbing. He settled in his bed and turned on the TV; however, the only thing that seemed to be playing were Christmas specials of one sort or another, from A Wonderful Life to any number of permutations of what he was now living.
I wonder who they will be, Sam thought idly. My ghosts of present and future.
Sam was so lost in his musings and the vacuous flickering of the television screen that he didn't notice the passage of time. Eventually, the digital clock in his room flipped to one in the morning-not that Sam noticed the event. It took him a number of minutes to register the music that was coming from his living room. He frowned, slid off his bed, and walked over, opening the door to reveal the room, wondering what possibly could be happening.
Sam's jaw dropped when he was picked up by the being that was somehow able to fit in the room, placed on eye-level with familiar optics.
“Bumblebee?” he asked, astonished.
“Celebrate good times, c'mon!” he chirped.
“Bee? A ghost?” Sam asked skeptically.
“I am who you would best respond to,” the spirit replied, echoing the sentiment of the ghost of christmas past. “C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, everybody, everyone.”
Sam suddenly found himself on street level, Bee's door swinging open for him, the ghost suddenly and inexplicably in Bee's Camaro form. Sam hesitated for a second before stepping in, crossing his arms as he sat. A seat-belt slithered over him and buckled him in, making Sam distinctly nervous. “Where are we going?”
“You'll find us anywhere and everywhere” came the reply through the speakers.
“What?” Sam squawked before Bee took off like a shot. Sam could have sworn that they were speeding along so fast that the colors of the outside blurred into one long color-stream. Eventually, they skidded to a halt, Sam going tumbling out of the passenger-seat door. Sam climbed to his feet and looked up at the quaint house.
“What're we doing here?” he asked crossly.
“Ch-ch-check it out,” Bee said as he transformed, somehow shrinking to become human-height, giving Sam a happy sound.
“God, I forgot how pleasant you could be,” Sam muttered. He stumbled up the stairs when Bee shoved him, and tripped over the last step, falling through the doorway, just barely catching himself on his hands. He looked up sharply when he heard a laugh, about to rebuke whomever it was who was laughing at him, but there was no-one but he in the hallway, which meant it had nothing to do with him. Frowning, he walked to where there was the brightest source of light.
He turned into a room that was festooned with all the colors and trappings of the season, and there was a veritable riot of presents underneath a tree that took up almost half of the room. The tree was strung with so many lights Sam was astonished it didn't catch on fire, and the boughs were groaning under the weight of all the ornaments hung on its branches. There was a semi-circle of children around it, brightly-wrapped packages discarded at random across the room.
“What day is it?” Sam asked as Bee stood next to him.
“Christmas, Christmas time is here.”
“Mm,” Sam murmured and watched the kids play for a long moment.
Bee motioned with his head for Sam to approach the kids. “The moon man tells me they won't bite.”
Sam muttered darkly, but approached, kneeling in the midst of the gaggle.
Nothing that they were playing with was state-of-the-art. Everything was low-tech and inexpensive, but the kids were acting like they were handling the most coveted toys of the season. It completely baffled Sam.
What made matters more confusing was that the tree was fake, even though all the decorations were real enough. The tree was sprayed to smell like pine, but it most definitely wasn't the real thing.
“Who-” Sam's voice died in his throat as he saw a child rocking himself in a corner, playing with his own things and ignoring everything else. A frown formed on his features as he walked carelessly through the other kids over to him. “What's wrong with this one?”
“And I think he's lost, I think he's lost,” Bee answered.
“Lost?” Sam repeated, but his eyes widened when he saw the adults walked in.
Leo, along with his grown children, wandered into the living room.
“I'm at Leo's place?”
“It's Christmas here, too, y'know,” Bee said, using a soundclip from one Christmas Carol or another. (“Muppet Christmas carol”)
Sam frowned and walked over to Leo, wanting to eavesdrop on his conversation, since he looked so pleased, yet with an undercurrent of sadness.
“It's nice to have everyone in one place,” Leo said happilt.
“True that,” came a reply from Leo's youngest, a young man with stunningly good looks (who was obviously unrelated to either Seymour or Leo). “It's great to see everyone, and you're the only one with a place big enough. Doesn't it get lonely here?”
“Not as lonely as you'd think,” Leo answered lightly. “Certainly less lonely that one person I know.”
“Oh, c'mon. He's a Scrooge and you know it. He begrudges every moment you take off, pays you less than you should have after working in the government for so long, is hardly ever pleasant...” one of his daughters began, obviously winding up to a rant.
Leo held up his hand and she fell quiet, still simmering. “Dear, it's Christmas. Even if he hates it, that doesn't make it any less important to me. I love being with you all.”
Sam was torn between gagging from the sentimentality and smiling wistfully. Either emotion annoyed him.
Leo's eyes eventually fell on the lone child in the corner and he looked over to his other daughter. “How's Timothy doing?”
“It's getting worse every day,” she said morosely. “But the procedure is far too expensive for even our combined resources.”
Leo's shoulders slumped. “And to think of how bright and cheerful he used to be...”
“It's a shame, but all we can do is make his life as comfortable as possible,” she murmured before walking over to her son.
Sam watched as she brought him back to the group, and when he caught sight of the boy's eyes, Sam's eyebrows snapped up. “He has the Blight?” he half-exclaimed.
Bee nodded, a sad, forlorn sound emitting from him.
Sam followed the family as they rounded up the children and brought them all into the dining room, where a feast-or, what could theoretically pass as one-was laid out on the table before them.
Once every had sat down, Leo held out his hands for his children to take, and the gesture worked its way down the line, the Blighted boy's mother holding his hand tightly. As Leo spoke a general prayer, the Blighted child's eyes (Timothy?) focused on Sam, and Sam froze, pinned by the unearthly-glowing eyes.
“Samuel Witwicky,” he said in a voice that was hoarse either from disuse, or, perhaps, screaming from the pain of the transformation that was eating away at his body.
“I suppose it would be good of us to mention him at this time,” Leo murmured, amused and confused. “To Sam, that he might find some comfort.”
There was a general muttering of discontent, but a straggle of “Amen”s were eventually said.
Sam quickly turned away, although he could feel the eyes on his back all the way out of the house, where he found Bee waiting for him. Sam looked back at the house, hesitated, then asked, “The kid. Is he going to die?”
“What does it matter if he dies? There's a population crisis on this planet, afterall,” Bee said in Sam's own voice.
Sam winced as his words were thrown back in his face.
Bee grew and folded into his alt-form again, the door opening. “We aren't done yet, we just got started.”
Sam dejectedly slid into the seat, his arms crossing to keep the chill of the Blighted's gaze away. He knew that the child shouldn't've been able to see him, but knew just as surely that he had.
Bee pulled up to another house, and Sam stepped out without prompting this time. “Who is it this time?” Sam groused, but the tone was all bravado. He entered the house through the door-literally. He found himself standing in a living room, and on a cluster of couches and chairs, he found a group of people sitting and laughing.
“Miles?” he asked aloud, walking over. “What're they playing?”
When he reached the family of four (and an aunt and uncle and a number of cousins, not all of whom were playing), his mouth twisted in a slight smile. “Apples to Apples, huh? God, how long has it been since I played a game-any game?”
“It happened many years ago, when summer slipped away.”
Sam flinched. “Ah. I see.”
The group burst into uproarious laughter, and Miles was slid the adjective card. “God, I feel like such a bad person for putting that down...” he chuckled as he added the card to his growing collection.
“That's okay,” Miles' wife, Clara, said as she wiped tears away from her eyes. “You're a wonderful man otherwise,” she told him and kissed his cheek, making the man smile.
Sam rolled his eyes, but the smallest of smiles formed on his face.
Sam found himself becoming absorbed in the game, even going so far as to sit down next to Miles, looking at his cards and arguing over the choices the other players made in favor of what he would have put down using Miles' nouns. He barely noticed the passing of time at all.
“It's your turn, honey,” Clara said and put down a adjective card, and Sam frowned at the blank spot where the adjective should be.
“Hmm...create your own adjective?” Miles murmured, causing everyone around him to groan as Sam's eyebrows rose.
“You need a dictionary to find out what your words mean!”
Miles laughed. “This one shouldn't be too outside your vocabulary-magnanimous.”
There was a brief moment as someone looked it up the definition on their phone. “Merriam-Webster says that magnanimous means showing or suggesting nobility of feeling and generosity of mind.”
There was a pause of a minute or so, most of those gathered looking exasperated while one looked rather smug. Once all the cards were in the pile, Miles mixed them before setting them out.
“Magnanimous car horns. Magnanimous a dozen red roses. Magnanimous national enquirer. Magnanimous Salvador Dali. Magnanimous science fair projects. Dude, guys, these suck. But what's the choose-a-noun?”
One of the assembled-the one who had been rather smug-grinned and said, “Samuel Witwicky.”
At that, the entire assembly broke out laughing, which made Sam frown. “What's so funny?” he asked, before the chatter of the group sent his spirit sinking towards his heels.
Apparently, his association with the adjective was an antonym.
He took little comfort in the wistful smile that graced Miles' face before he stood and walked away from the game, not noticing that Miles didn't choose his name as the winner. He looked up at Bee, whose expression was one of pity.
“It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet,” the spirit said gently.
Sam followed him with slumped shoulders, and when he sat in the car, there was absolute silence up until they pulled up in front of a rather downtrodden neighborhood.
“Who would I know here?” Sam asked tiredly.
“No-one. But that's not the point,” Bee said in his own voice and led Sam to a room inside a run-down apartment complex.
At the table sat a small, obviously desperately poor family, but their spirits seemed rather uplifted for their dismal surroundings. It baffled Sam, and as Bee ushered him around DC, and perhaps even outside it, Sam saw all kinds of permutations of Christmas-from first Christmases alone to first Christmases together. He saw all tiers of society, every race and sex and age represented. It seemed as if, while Christmas itself had become commercialized, the spirit still flourished all across boundaries.
Sam's head was spinning so badly after all he had seen that he didn't notice that he was standing in the middle of a deserted intersection, the lights all on red. He looked around, baffled and alarmed.
“Bee?” he asked nervously.
“My time with you is done,” he heard the spirit answer from behind him, and Sam turned to face him, surprised at the spirit's condition. All over him were patches of rust that had eaten away at his armor, exposing wiring that was sparking with breaks and age. His optics were dull, as if blinded, and cracks riddled his body. Everything suggested a far advanced age-or, perhaps, simply being close to death.
“A spirit gets old?” Sam asked nervously.
“My kind do,” Bee answered wryly. “Now, I leave you with the ghost of Christmas yet-to-come.”
“Wait, wait, no! This is the scary part!” Sam half-pleaded, but when he touched Bee's form, the shell collapsed into a pile of rusting metal, making Sam take a few quick steps back, coughing from the debris thrown up. He swallowed hard, stomach sinking.
“Okay, Sam. You'll be okay. It's just a spirit, right?”
A chill shadow fell over him and he turned quickly on his heel, a gasp escaping him as his eyes tracked upwards along the shrouded, dark form. Sam's stomach sunk as all that was clearly visible to him was a pair of viciously clawed hands.
“You can't be serious-for me, the ghost of christmas yet-to-come is a Decepticon?”
--~~--
Songs in the order they appear:
Note: I wanted certain phrases, so I typed in " stuff " lyrics in google and it spit songs back at me. This means that I do not recommend looking these songs up because I cannot vouch for how good they actually are.
“Celebrate”, Earth, Wind, and Fire
“C'mon, c'mon”, Def Leppard
“Youth Anthem”, The Take-Off
“Ch-Check it out”, Beastie Boys
“The Chipmunk song”, The Chipmunks (<--I'm totally not a dork)
“Catfish Bates”, Don Williams
“Lost”, Donna Hughes
“Give Me More”, Apartment 26
“Life Got Cold”, Girls Aloud
“It's Not Over Yet”, Klaxons
--
Mmm...yeah. This one took some time to write.
Fandom: Transformers (movies)
Characters: Sam Witwicky, Leo Spitz(-Simmons), Miles Lancaster, OCs as necessary, Ghost of Christmas Present
Title: A (Transformers) Christmas Carol
Author: me!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A retelling of the classic novel, using the Transformers movie-verse as the setting, rather than Industrial-Revolution era England.
Warnings: Dark!Crack? A swear here and there.
Disclaimer: I'm only borrowing everything. If I actually owned either Transformers or A Christmas Carol, I'd be so rich I wouldn't know what to do with myself.
Sam was in a pensive mood the next day, and it took a great deal of effort to wrench his concentration to the work at hand.
He had gone to his office, as his apartment suddenly seemed stuffy and dismal, even though the windows were large and let in what watery sunlight there was.
He sat back in his chair, which squeaked gently on its hinge, the fabric conforming to his back and rested his interlaced fingers on the desk before him, eyes unseeing as he attempted to read the e-mails that still appeared in his inbox.
It appeared he wasn't the only one who was alone on Christmas Eve. Either that, or there were those who were even worse workaholics than he.
The day passed at a dreary, dragging pace, and Sam was less productive than he would have liked. If only his memories didn't keep on popping up and barraging his consciousness, he would have been able to get much more work done.
As it was, he remained in his office until 10PM, making his way home slowly. All stores were closed, save for maybe 24-hour gas stations. The windows in each shop were dark, but Christmas decorations hung brightly around the entryways and displays. He encountered very few people as he meandered down almost-empty streets, lost in his own world, greetings from those he did meet falling flat on his ears, but what did they matter? Christmas was painful for him, and he still didn't like the occasion much.
As he walked, he thought-if he remembered correctly, he was due for a visit from the ghost of Christmas Present this evening.
At least this ghost is supposed to be a friendly one, he thought with the smallest of wry smiles. Maybe it won't be so sadistic as the ghost of christmas past.
Sam reached his apartment, steps weary from walking so far, and made his meagre Christmas Eve dinner (which was like every other meal he took-nutritionally correct, nothing special; why bother wasting money on frivolities?), and sat down in front of his television to watch something appropriately mind-numbing. He settled in his bed and turned on the TV; however, the only thing that seemed to be playing were Christmas specials of one sort or another, from A Wonderful Life to any number of permutations of what he was now living.
I wonder who they will be, Sam thought idly. My ghosts of present and future.
Sam was so lost in his musings and the vacuous flickering of the television screen that he didn't notice the passage of time. Eventually, the digital clock in his room flipped to one in the morning-not that Sam noticed the event. It took him a number of minutes to register the music that was coming from his living room. He frowned, slid off his bed, and walked over, opening the door to reveal the room, wondering what possibly could be happening.
Sam's jaw dropped when he was picked up by the being that was somehow able to fit in the room, placed on eye-level with familiar optics.
“Bumblebee?” he asked, astonished.
“Celebrate good times, c'mon!” he chirped.
“Bee? A ghost?” Sam asked skeptically.
“I am who you would best respond to,” the spirit replied, echoing the sentiment of the ghost of christmas past. “C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, everybody, everyone.”
Sam suddenly found himself on street level, Bee's door swinging open for him, the ghost suddenly and inexplicably in Bee's Camaro form. Sam hesitated for a second before stepping in, crossing his arms as he sat. A seat-belt slithered over him and buckled him in, making Sam distinctly nervous. “Where are we going?”
“You'll find us anywhere and everywhere” came the reply through the speakers.
“What?” Sam squawked before Bee took off like a shot. Sam could have sworn that they were speeding along so fast that the colors of the outside blurred into one long color-stream. Eventually, they skidded to a halt, Sam going tumbling out of the passenger-seat door. Sam climbed to his feet and looked up at the quaint house.
“What're we doing here?” he asked crossly.
“Ch-ch-check it out,” Bee said as he transformed, somehow shrinking to become human-height, giving Sam a happy sound.
“God, I forgot how pleasant you could be,” Sam muttered. He stumbled up the stairs when Bee shoved him, and tripped over the last step, falling through the doorway, just barely catching himself on his hands. He looked up sharply when he heard a laugh, about to rebuke whomever it was who was laughing at him, but there was no-one but he in the hallway, which meant it had nothing to do with him. Frowning, he walked to where there was the brightest source of light.
He turned into a room that was festooned with all the colors and trappings of the season, and there was a veritable riot of presents underneath a tree that took up almost half of the room. The tree was strung with so many lights Sam was astonished it didn't catch on fire, and the boughs were groaning under the weight of all the ornaments hung on its branches. There was a semi-circle of children around it, brightly-wrapped packages discarded at random across the room.
“What day is it?” Sam asked as Bee stood next to him.
“Christmas, Christmas time is here.”
“Mm,” Sam murmured and watched the kids play for a long moment.
Bee motioned with his head for Sam to approach the kids. “The moon man tells me they won't bite.”
Sam muttered darkly, but approached, kneeling in the midst of the gaggle.
Nothing that they were playing with was state-of-the-art. Everything was low-tech and inexpensive, but the kids were acting like they were handling the most coveted toys of the season. It completely baffled Sam.
What made matters more confusing was that the tree was fake, even though all the decorations were real enough. The tree was sprayed to smell like pine, but it most definitely wasn't the real thing.
“Who-” Sam's voice died in his throat as he saw a child rocking himself in a corner, playing with his own things and ignoring everything else. A frown formed on his features as he walked carelessly through the other kids over to him. “What's wrong with this one?”
“And I think he's lost, I think he's lost,” Bee answered.
“Lost?” Sam repeated, but his eyes widened when he saw the adults walked in.
Leo, along with his grown children, wandered into the living room.
“I'm at Leo's place?”
“It's Christmas here, too, y'know,” Bee said, using a soundclip from one Christmas Carol or another. (“Muppet Christmas carol”)
Sam frowned and walked over to Leo, wanting to eavesdrop on his conversation, since he looked so pleased, yet with an undercurrent of sadness.
“It's nice to have everyone in one place,” Leo said happilt.
“True that,” came a reply from Leo's youngest, a young man with stunningly good looks (who was obviously unrelated to either Seymour or Leo). “It's great to see everyone, and you're the only one with a place big enough. Doesn't it get lonely here?”
“Not as lonely as you'd think,” Leo answered lightly. “Certainly less lonely that one person I know.”
“Oh, c'mon. He's a Scrooge and you know it. He begrudges every moment you take off, pays you less than you should have after working in the government for so long, is hardly ever pleasant...” one of his daughters began, obviously winding up to a rant.
Leo held up his hand and she fell quiet, still simmering. “Dear, it's Christmas. Even if he hates it, that doesn't make it any less important to me. I love being with you all.”
Sam was torn between gagging from the sentimentality and smiling wistfully. Either emotion annoyed him.
Leo's eyes eventually fell on the lone child in the corner and he looked over to his other daughter. “How's Timothy doing?”
“It's getting worse every day,” she said morosely. “But the procedure is far too expensive for even our combined resources.”
Leo's shoulders slumped. “And to think of how bright and cheerful he used to be...”
“It's a shame, but all we can do is make his life as comfortable as possible,” she murmured before walking over to her son.
Sam watched as she brought him back to the group, and when he caught sight of the boy's eyes, Sam's eyebrows snapped up. “He has the Blight?” he half-exclaimed.
Bee nodded, a sad, forlorn sound emitting from him.
Sam followed the family as they rounded up the children and brought them all into the dining room, where a feast-or, what could theoretically pass as one-was laid out on the table before them.
Once every had sat down, Leo held out his hands for his children to take, and the gesture worked its way down the line, the Blighted boy's mother holding his hand tightly. As Leo spoke a general prayer, the Blighted child's eyes (Timothy?) focused on Sam, and Sam froze, pinned by the unearthly-glowing eyes.
“Samuel Witwicky,” he said in a voice that was hoarse either from disuse, or, perhaps, screaming from the pain of the transformation that was eating away at his body.
“I suppose it would be good of us to mention him at this time,” Leo murmured, amused and confused. “To Sam, that he might find some comfort.”
There was a general muttering of discontent, but a straggle of “Amen”s were eventually said.
Sam quickly turned away, although he could feel the eyes on his back all the way out of the house, where he found Bee waiting for him. Sam looked back at the house, hesitated, then asked, “The kid. Is he going to die?”
“What does it matter if he dies? There's a population crisis on this planet, afterall,” Bee said in Sam's own voice.
Sam winced as his words were thrown back in his face.
Bee grew and folded into his alt-form again, the door opening. “We aren't done yet, we just got started.”
Sam dejectedly slid into the seat, his arms crossing to keep the chill of the Blighted's gaze away. He knew that the child shouldn't've been able to see him, but knew just as surely that he had.
Bee pulled up to another house, and Sam stepped out without prompting this time. “Who is it this time?” Sam groused, but the tone was all bravado. He entered the house through the door-literally. He found himself standing in a living room, and on a cluster of couches and chairs, he found a group of people sitting and laughing.
“Miles?” he asked aloud, walking over. “What're they playing?”
When he reached the family of four (and an aunt and uncle and a number of cousins, not all of whom were playing), his mouth twisted in a slight smile. “Apples to Apples, huh? God, how long has it been since I played a game-any game?”
“It happened many years ago, when summer slipped away.”
Sam flinched. “Ah. I see.”
The group burst into uproarious laughter, and Miles was slid the adjective card. “God, I feel like such a bad person for putting that down...” he chuckled as he added the card to his growing collection.
“That's okay,” Miles' wife, Clara, said as she wiped tears away from her eyes. “You're a wonderful man otherwise,” she told him and kissed his cheek, making the man smile.
Sam rolled his eyes, but the smallest of smiles formed on his face.
Sam found himself becoming absorbed in the game, even going so far as to sit down next to Miles, looking at his cards and arguing over the choices the other players made in favor of what he would have put down using Miles' nouns. He barely noticed the passing of time at all.
“It's your turn, honey,” Clara said and put down a adjective card, and Sam frowned at the blank spot where the adjective should be.
“Hmm...create your own adjective?” Miles murmured, causing everyone around him to groan as Sam's eyebrows rose.
“You need a dictionary to find out what your words mean!”
Miles laughed. “This one shouldn't be too outside your vocabulary-magnanimous.”
There was a brief moment as someone looked it up the definition on their phone. “Merriam-Webster says that magnanimous means showing or suggesting nobility of feeling and generosity of mind.”
There was a pause of a minute or so, most of those gathered looking exasperated while one looked rather smug. Once all the cards were in the pile, Miles mixed them before setting them out.
“Magnanimous car horns. Magnanimous a dozen red roses. Magnanimous national enquirer. Magnanimous Salvador Dali. Magnanimous science fair projects. Dude, guys, these suck. But what's the choose-a-noun?”
One of the assembled-the one who had been rather smug-grinned and said, “Samuel Witwicky.”
At that, the entire assembly broke out laughing, which made Sam frown. “What's so funny?” he asked, before the chatter of the group sent his spirit sinking towards his heels.
Apparently, his association with the adjective was an antonym.
He took little comfort in the wistful smile that graced Miles' face before he stood and walked away from the game, not noticing that Miles didn't choose his name as the winner. He looked up at Bee, whose expression was one of pity.
“It's not over, not over, not over, not over yet,” the spirit said gently.
Sam followed him with slumped shoulders, and when he sat in the car, there was absolute silence up until they pulled up in front of a rather downtrodden neighborhood.
“Who would I know here?” Sam asked tiredly.
“No-one. But that's not the point,” Bee said in his own voice and led Sam to a room inside a run-down apartment complex.
At the table sat a small, obviously desperately poor family, but their spirits seemed rather uplifted for their dismal surroundings. It baffled Sam, and as Bee ushered him around DC, and perhaps even outside it, Sam saw all kinds of permutations of Christmas-from first Christmases alone to first Christmases together. He saw all tiers of society, every race and sex and age represented. It seemed as if, while Christmas itself had become commercialized, the spirit still flourished all across boundaries.
Sam's head was spinning so badly after all he had seen that he didn't notice that he was standing in the middle of a deserted intersection, the lights all on red. He looked around, baffled and alarmed.
“Bee?” he asked nervously.
“My time with you is done,” he heard the spirit answer from behind him, and Sam turned to face him, surprised at the spirit's condition. All over him were patches of rust that had eaten away at his armor, exposing wiring that was sparking with breaks and age. His optics were dull, as if blinded, and cracks riddled his body. Everything suggested a far advanced age-or, perhaps, simply being close to death.
“A spirit gets old?” Sam asked nervously.
“My kind do,” Bee answered wryly. “Now, I leave you with the ghost of Christmas yet-to-come.”
“Wait, wait, no! This is the scary part!” Sam half-pleaded, but when he touched Bee's form, the shell collapsed into a pile of rusting metal, making Sam take a few quick steps back, coughing from the debris thrown up. He swallowed hard, stomach sinking.
“Okay, Sam. You'll be okay. It's just a spirit, right?”
A chill shadow fell over him and he turned quickly on his heel, a gasp escaping him as his eyes tracked upwards along the shrouded, dark form. Sam's stomach sunk as all that was clearly visible to him was a pair of viciously clawed hands.
“You can't be serious-for me, the ghost of christmas yet-to-come is a Decepticon?”
--~~--
Songs in the order they appear:
Note: I wanted certain phrases, so I typed in " stuff " lyrics in google and it spit songs back at me. This means that I do not recommend looking these songs up because I cannot vouch for how good they actually are.
“Celebrate”, Earth, Wind, and Fire
“C'mon, c'mon”, Def Leppard
“Youth Anthem”, The Take-Off
“Ch-Check it out”, Beastie Boys
“The Chipmunk song”, The Chipmunks (<--I'm totally not a dork)
“Catfish Bates”, Don Williams
“Lost”, Donna Hughes
“Give Me More”, Apartment 26
“Life Got Cold”, Girls Aloud
“It's Not Over Yet”, Klaxons
--
Mmm...yeah. This one took some time to write.