Gifts of the Magi
Author’s note : This is a slightly AU spin-off from Crash Course, the fic that anon_decepticon and I are writing together. Everything is the same except that the story takes place in winter, a few days before December 25th…
Gifts of the Magi
“You want to do what?” Breakdown said. He didn’t even try to repeat the words Wildrider had just used, because his pronunciation was shaky at the best of times, let alone when he was taken aback.
“Celebrate Christmas,” Wildrider said. He sprawled chest-down on the bed in Breakdown’s room and looked up at him hopefully, hands clasped under his chin.
“Why?”
“Everyone else is doing it!” Wildrider rolled off the bed in a single smooth movement and gestured with a thumb at the window. “Haven’t you seen all the stores and houses outside?”
Breakdown was fairly sure that none of those stores and houses contained a Decepticon combiner team turned human by accident, so he dismissed them. “Wildrider, you’ll need a better reason than that before Motormaster will let you, uh…”
“Deck the hall with boughs of holly?” Wildrider supplied.
“Yeah. You know he hates it when anyone gets interested in human customs. If he’s in a good mood, he’ll tell you to repaint the ceiling if you want to spruce the place up. And if he’s not, he’ll just hit you.”
“We don’t need to decorate the whole place,” Wildrider said, shrugging. “Just my room. If we keep it quiet, he’ll never find out.”
The idea had to mean a lot to Wildrider if he was actually proposing silence, but Breakdown still felt dubious. Even if Motormaster never learned of Wildrider’s latest foray into madness, how much would it cost them? Motormaster took all the money they brought home, hoarding it to pay for the computer that would allow them to contact the base; they never had any spare cash of their own. Even Drag Strip had gotten into the habit of handing over all his earnings. Stripping to the skin was one thing when he did it for a living and for applause, but quite another when Motormaster did it to him to make sure he wasn’t concealing any money.
“What exactly do you want to do in your room?” he said. He’d seen some of the lengths humans went to in decorating for Christmas, and if Wildrider wanted miles of colored lights or inflatable snowmen, he was going to be speedily disappointed. Anything more than a dollar or two will break our budgie.
“Just a tree,” Wildrider said. The hopeful look was back in his eyes.
And Breakdown couldn’t help softening towards him, because Wildrider rarely ever asked for anything for himself. When he did want something, it was invariably important to him, even if no one else could see why.
“Okay, I guess we can manage a tree.” He supposed that in the four days between then and Christmas he could come up with some idea on how to get one.
“And decorations,” Wildrider said. When Breakdown looked at him, he turned up both hands. “C’mon, you gotta have decorations! The tree’ll look really bare without them.”
“Anything else?” Breakdown reached for a piece of paper and a pencil. “Might as well make a list while we’re at it.”
“Nope, just a tree and some decorations,” Wildrider said. “Thanks, Breaks!”
He strolled out of the room to fix dinner, while Breakdown reluctantly made a trip to a local department store to see what kinds of tree and decorations he could afford for the $1.87 he was able to scrounge up. He hated going out and being among humans, but there was no one else who could be trusted with the job. When Drag Strip had once found a five-dollar bill on the pavement, he had spent it on himself, and Dead End was in one of his bleak moods again.
But he came home empty-handed and had to call a hasty and unofficial conference in his room after they had eaten. The price tags in the store had been more disturbing than a hundred humans staring at him, and for once Breakdown found himself stymied. Whether the rest of his teammates were with him or not, he needed their help.
“Just steal one,” was Drag Strip’s suggestion.
“Steal an entire tree?” Dead End said. “Complete with decorations?”
“You got a better idea?” Drag Strip had been enthusiastic about the Christmas project until he had realized he wouldn’t be getting presents from anyone.
Wildrider perked up suddenly. “Hey, what about this?” he said. “There’s a place nearby that sells Christmas trees, and they must be real busy this time of year. What if I offered to work for them the next three days for free, and they give me a tree that was left over?”
Breakdown was so startled to hear a sensible suggestion from Wildrider that he just gaped, and Drag Strip reached out, putting a thumb under his chin to close his mouth again. “Yeah, that could work,” he said finally. Wildrider never had any difficulty getting hired; it was remaining employed that seemed to be the issue. But since he would only be working for three days, perhaps even he might avoid getting fired for once. “Maybe they can help you bring the tree back here too.”
“If you’re going to work, you should get paid,” Drag Strip grumbled. “We need money more than a tree. Slag, we don’t need a tree at all.”
“’But it’s our first Christmas as humans,” Wildrider said.
“And likely to be our last, in any shape or form,” Dead End replied. “However, that doesn’t actually address the point.”
Wildrider’s face scrunched up, a sign of heavy thinking in progress. “I dunno,” he said finally. “Guess it’s ‘cause we don’t have a real home or our true forms yet… we don’t have much of anything. But we can have a Christmas tree, when I get one. And you guys can get the decorations.”
Breakdown’s fuel pump seemed a little heavier in his chest, because he wasn’t sure how they would do that. But he nodded, hoping Wildrider wouldn’t see his misgivings.
He went to two more stores the next day, but everything in them was just as expensive, and he couldn’t work up the nerve to steal anything from the large, glittering trees displayed there. What if the security cameras captured him doing that? He shoved his hands into his pockets and began to walk home, when it occurred to him that he had another option.
Ten minutes later he was rummaging through the dumpster behind one of the stores. But the only thing the dumpster contained in the way of decorations was a pack of cracked plastic balls, and although they were colorful enough on the uncracked side, Breakdown didn’t like them. He kept searching, and found some small used candles that might have once topped a birthday cake.
At the bottom of the dumpster, though, he hit an unexpected jackpot. A phonograph lay on its side beside some Christmas records still in their original sleeves. Delighted, Breakdown clambered out, clutching everything to his chest. Wildrider loved music, so he was sure to appreciate that windfall.
Breakdown discovered why the phonograph had been thrown away when he arrived home. Dead End tried to move the device’s stylus, which promptly fell off. Even after they both worked to fix that, the phonograph played records so slowly that the sound was distorted past recognition. As for Wildrider, he was too tired from a long day of hauling trees around to listen to any music, normal or otherwise. He went to sleep at once, while Drag Strip shook the pine needles out of his clothes.
He was just as exhausted on the second day, but reported happily that his supervisor had promised to set aside a tree for him. Breakdown felt even more useless. Maybe I should dress up in a red and white outfit and ring a bell… people might give me money then. The only thing that deterred him was the lack of both outfit and bell. Even if he mugged a human for them, he’d have to dispose of the body somehow.
On the day before Christmas, Wildrider arrived home in the afternoon. Breakdown had cleaned their rooms, deciding that at least the place would be orderly and spotless even if they didn’t have decorations. It didn’t take long, since they had hardly anything in the way of furniture, and he was rinsing the rags at the sink when Wildrider came in.
“Hey,” Wildrider said without enthusiasm. “Got the tree.”
“I’ll help you bring it in,” Breakdown said, and followed him outside.
He stopped in his tracks. The tree was just over three feet tall and seemed even shorter, since it was tilting over to one side. He guessed the coarse sack tied around its roots didn’t provide much in the way of support. Wildrider looked down at it with an unreadable expression.
“It’s a nice tree,” Breakdown said lamely.
“Yeah. Great.”
Breakdown didn’t know what else to say. He picked up the tree and carried it into Wildrider’s room. Somehow he had never noticed the drabness of their quarters before, but now he thought of the bright cheery department stores with their lavish, glowing trees. The paint was peeling on the walls of Wildrider’s room, and the ceiling was water-spotted. The small tree listed to one side, bare of any ornaments.
Wildrider sat down heavily on the bed and Breakdown wondered what to do next. Dead End and Drag Strip had both gone out earlier, without telling him when they would be back, and the silence stretched out. It was broken only when Breakdown heard heavy footsteps outside. A key turned in the lock and the front door opened.
“At least we got it inside before he saw it,” he said, but Wildrider didn’t seem to hear. With a final worried look at him, Breakdown went outside to see if Motormaster had brought the mail up.
He had, and was leafing through it, tossing anything unwanted into the trash bin. Something flashed as it flew out of his hand, and struck the wall just behind the bin. Breakdown went to pick it up and paused. It was a holiday magazine with a stiff silvery cover.
Suddenly inspired, he took the magazine and his switchblade knife into Wildrider’s room. “Christmas trees have stars, don’t they?” he said. “I can cut some from this.”
Wildrider looked up at that. “Make a big one to put on top, Breaks,” he said, perking noticably. “And I’ll get some thread so we can hang the little ones from the branches. I just wish the tree wasn’t tilty.”
Relieved, Breakdown cut out the stars, not even looking up when he heard Drag Strip come in. Only Wildrider’s delighted exclamation distracted him. He finished the last star and glanced at what Drag Strip held proudly - a large clay pot with a wavy rim and a pattern etched on its sides.
“Where’d you get that?” he said, astonished.
“Saw it on the step of some townhouse.” Drag Strip set the pot down and brushed an imaginary fleck of dirt from the sleeve of his blazer. “So I jumped the fence, emptied the plant out and brought it home. Perfect for our tree, isn’t it?” He gave them both an I-always-deliver-the-goods smile.
“There you go,” Wildrider said to the tree as he transferred it. Once it was repotted and watered it didn’t seem to have any difficulty standing up straight, and Breakdown carefully applied the stars. He wondered where Dead End was.
“Hey, Breaks?” Wildrider held up the handful of used birthday candles Breakdown had found in the dumpster. “Christmas trees have candles on them, don’t they? Why don’t we use these? They’re striped red and white, just like candy canes.”
“Sure,” Breakdown said. The candles would have looked disproportionately tiny on one of the trees in the department stores, but they were just right for the smaller tree. “But don’t light them yet. Let’s wait for Dead End.”
“Wonder what he’s bringing,” Drag Strip said as he took off his boots and made himself comfortable on the bed. Motormaster had allowed them to buy blankets as the weather had grown colder, and even though the blankets were from the thrift store, they were better than nothing. “It’ll have to be something amazing to beat my pot.”
We’re going to be hearing about that pot for a long time, Breakdown thought in resignation, though he supposed it was worth it to see Wildrider happy. When they heard the front door open again, Drag Strip sat up and folded his arms in expectant challenge while Wildrider turned the pot slightly to display the tree from its best angle. Breakdown heard soft footsteps cross the distance to Wildrider’s room, and a moment later Dead End came in.
From the look on his face, Breakdown knew what he was going to say before he spoke. “I don’t know why I bothered looking for decorations, because there weren’t any to be found. None that I could afford anyway.”
“Hah!” Drag Strip said, pleased.
Dead End looked at him in mild bemusement before glancing back at Wildrider. “And that’s an organic tree, so I suppose it’s all a moot point. The tree will decay soon enough.”
“But it’ll be fun while it lasts,” Wildrider said. “Let’s light the candles.”
“And set off the smoke detector,” Dead End muttered, leaning against the wall in the poorest-lighted part of the room. Breakdown looked at him. He could always tell when Dead End genuinely believed his predictions of doom, and when he was just saying them to cover up how he really felt. And at that moment, he knew that Dead End, for all his affectations of indifference, had very much wanted to contribute something to the tree.
Wildrider was too caught up in lighting the candles to notice, though. The little flames reflected off the silver stars, and even Drag Strip commented that it wasn’t bad. “But I think the other side of it looked better,” he said.
“Wait a moment.” Dead End straightened up suddenly, then went over to the phonograph lying in a corner. He carried it over to the tree, plugged the phonograph in and lifted the tree. Then he placed the pot carefully in the center of the record and switched the phonograph on.
The record turned slowly and the tree turned with it, as if on a graceful carousel. The silver stars fluttered, sparkling, and the room filled with the scent of pine needles. In the center of it all, their tree glowed warm and bright, and Wildrider lay down beside it, smiling.
“Merry Christmas, guys,” he said.
Thanks to anon_decepticon for beta-reading. May you all have a wonderful festive season, and all the best in the New Year!
Gifts of the Magi
“You want to do what?” Breakdown said. He didn’t even try to repeat the words Wildrider had just used, because his pronunciation was shaky at the best of times, let alone when he was taken aback.
“Celebrate Christmas,” Wildrider said. He sprawled chest-down on the bed in Breakdown’s room and looked up at him hopefully, hands clasped under his chin.
“Why?”
“Everyone else is doing it!” Wildrider rolled off the bed in a single smooth movement and gestured with a thumb at the window. “Haven’t you seen all the stores and houses outside?”
Breakdown was fairly sure that none of those stores and houses contained a Decepticon combiner team turned human by accident, so he dismissed them. “Wildrider, you’ll need a better reason than that before Motormaster will let you, uh…”
“Deck the hall with boughs of holly?” Wildrider supplied.
“Yeah. You know he hates it when anyone gets interested in human customs. If he’s in a good mood, he’ll tell you to repaint the ceiling if you want to spruce the place up. And if he’s not, he’ll just hit you.”
“We don’t need to decorate the whole place,” Wildrider said, shrugging. “Just my room. If we keep it quiet, he’ll never find out.”
The idea had to mean a lot to Wildrider if he was actually proposing silence, but Breakdown still felt dubious. Even if Motormaster never learned of Wildrider’s latest foray into madness, how much would it cost them? Motormaster took all the money they brought home, hoarding it to pay for the computer that would allow them to contact the base; they never had any spare cash of their own. Even Drag Strip had gotten into the habit of handing over all his earnings. Stripping to the skin was one thing when he did it for a living and for applause, but quite another when Motormaster did it to him to make sure he wasn’t concealing any money.
“What exactly do you want to do in your room?” he said. He’d seen some of the lengths humans went to in decorating for Christmas, and if Wildrider wanted miles of colored lights or inflatable snowmen, he was going to be speedily disappointed. Anything more than a dollar or two will break our budgie.
“Just a tree,” Wildrider said. The hopeful look was back in his eyes.
And Breakdown couldn’t help softening towards him, because Wildrider rarely ever asked for anything for himself. When he did want something, it was invariably important to him, even if no one else could see why.
“Okay, I guess we can manage a tree.” He supposed that in the four days between then and Christmas he could come up with some idea on how to get one.
“And decorations,” Wildrider said. When Breakdown looked at him, he turned up both hands. “C’mon, you gotta have decorations! The tree’ll look really bare without them.”
“Anything else?” Breakdown reached for a piece of paper and a pencil. “Might as well make a list while we’re at it.”
“Nope, just a tree and some decorations,” Wildrider said. “Thanks, Breaks!”
He strolled out of the room to fix dinner, while Breakdown reluctantly made a trip to a local department store to see what kinds of tree and decorations he could afford for the $1.87 he was able to scrounge up. He hated going out and being among humans, but there was no one else who could be trusted with the job. When Drag Strip had once found a five-dollar bill on the pavement, he had spent it on himself, and Dead End was in one of his bleak moods again.
But he came home empty-handed and had to call a hasty and unofficial conference in his room after they had eaten. The price tags in the store had been more disturbing than a hundred humans staring at him, and for once Breakdown found himself stymied. Whether the rest of his teammates were with him or not, he needed their help.
“Just steal one,” was Drag Strip’s suggestion.
“Steal an entire tree?” Dead End said. “Complete with decorations?”
“You got a better idea?” Drag Strip had been enthusiastic about the Christmas project until he had realized he wouldn’t be getting presents from anyone.
Wildrider perked up suddenly. “Hey, what about this?” he said. “There’s a place nearby that sells Christmas trees, and they must be real busy this time of year. What if I offered to work for them the next three days for free, and they give me a tree that was left over?”
Breakdown was so startled to hear a sensible suggestion from Wildrider that he just gaped, and Drag Strip reached out, putting a thumb under his chin to close his mouth again. “Yeah, that could work,” he said finally. Wildrider never had any difficulty getting hired; it was remaining employed that seemed to be the issue. But since he would only be working for three days, perhaps even he might avoid getting fired for once. “Maybe they can help you bring the tree back here too.”
“If you’re going to work, you should get paid,” Drag Strip grumbled. “We need money more than a tree. Slag, we don’t need a tree at all.”
“’But it’s our first Christmas as humans,” Wildrider said.
“And likely to be our last, in any shape or form,” Dead End replied. “However, that doesn’t actually address the point.”
Wildrider’s face scrunched up, a sign of heavy thinking in progress. “I dunno,” he said finally. “Guess it’s ‘cause we don’t have a real home or our true forms yet… we don’t have much of anything. But we can have a Christmas tree, when I get one. And you guys can get the decorations.”
Breakdown’s fuel pump seemed a little heavier in his chest, because he wasn’t sure how they would do that. But he nodded, hoping Wildrider wouldn’t see his misgivings.
He went to two more stores the next day, but everything in them was just as expensive, and he couldn’t work up the nerve to steal anything from the large, glittering trees displayed there. What if the security cameras captured him doing that? He shoved his hands into his pockets and began to walk home, when it occurred to him that he had another option.
Ten minutes later he was rummaging through the dumpster behind one of the stores. But the only thing the dumpster contained in the way of decorations was a pack of cracked plastic balls, and although they were colorful enough on the uncracked side, Breakdown didn’t like them. He kept searching, and found some small used candles that might have once topped a birthday cake.
At the bottom of the dumpster, though, he hit an unexpected jackpot. A phonograph lay on its side beside some Christmas records still in their original sleeves. Delighted, Breakdown clambered out, clutching everything to his chest. Wildrider loved music, so he was sure to appreciate that windfall.
Breakdown discovered why the phonograph had been thrown away when he arrived home. Dead End tried to move the device’s stylus, which promptly fell off. Even after they both worked to fix that, the phonograph played records so slowly that the sound was distorted past recognition. As for Wildrider, he was too tired from a long day of hauling trees around to listen to any music, normal or otherwise. He went to sleep at once, while Drag Strip shook the pine needles out of his clothes.
He was just as exhausted on the second day, but reported happily that his supervisor had promised to set aside a tree for him. Breakdown felt even more useless. Maybe I should dress up in a red and white outfit and ring a bell… people might give me money then. The only thing that deterred him was the lack of both outfit and bell. Even if he mugged a human for them, he’d have to dispose of the body somehow.
On the day before Christmas, Wildrider arrived home in the afternoon. Breakdown had cleaned their rooms, deciding that at least the place would be orderly and spotless even if they didn’t have decorations. It didn’t take long, since they had hardly anything in the way of furniture, and he was rinsing the rags at the sink when Wildrider came in.
“Hey,” Wildrider said without enthusiasm. “Got the tree.”
“I’ll help you bring it in,” Breakdown said, and followed him outside.
He stopped in his tracks. The tree was just over three feet tall and seemed even shorter, since it was tilting over to one side. He guessed the coarse sack tied around its roots didn’t provide much in the way of support. Wildrider looked down at it with an unreadable expression.
“It’s a nice tree,” Breakdown said lamely.
“Yeah. Great.”
Breakdown didn’t know what else to say. He picked up the tree and carried it into Wildrider’s room. Somehow he had never noticed the drabness of their quarters before, but now he thought of the bright cheery department stores with their lavish, glowing trees. The paint was peeling on the walls of Wildrider’s room, and the ceiling was water-spotted. The small tree listed to one side, bare of any ornaments.
Wildrider sat down heavily on the bed and Breakdown wondered what to do next. Dead End and Drag Strip had both gone out earlier, without telling him when they would be back, and the silence stretched out. It was broken only when Breakdown heard heavy footsteps outside. A key turned in the lock and the front door opened.
“At least we got it inside before he saw it,” he said, but Wildrider didn’t seem to hear. With a final worried look at him, Breakdown went outside to see if Motormaster had brought the mail up.
He had, and was leafing through it, tossing anything unwanted into the trash bin. Something flashed as it flew out of his hand, and struck the wall just behind the bin. Breakdown went to pick it up and paused. It was a holiday magazine with a stiff silvery cover.
Suddenly inspired, he took the magazine and his switchblade knife into Wildrider’s room. “Christmas trees have stars, don’t they?” he said. “I can cut some from this.”
Wildrider looked up at that. “Make a big one to put on top, Breaks,” he said, perking noticably. “And I’ll get some thread so we can hang the little ones from the branches. I just wish the tree wasn’t tilty.”
Relieved, Breakdown cut out the stars, not even looking up when he heard Drag Strip come in. Only Wildrider’s delighted exclamation distracted him. He finished the last star and glanced at what Drag Strip held proudly - a large clay pot with a wavy rim and a pattern etched on its sides.
“Where’d you get that?” he said, astonished.
“Saw it on the step of some townhouse.” Drag Strip set the pot down and brushed an imaginary fleck of dirt from the sleeve of his blazer. “So I jumped the fence, emptied the plant out and brought it home. Perfect for our tree, isn’t it?” He gave them both an I-always-deliver-the-goods smile.
“There you go,” Wildrider said to the tree as he transferred it. Once it was repotted and watered it didn’t seem to have any difficulty standing up straight, and Breakdown carefully applied the stars. He wondered where Dead End was.
“Hey, Breaks?” Wildrider held up the handful of used birthday candles Breakdown had found in the dumpster. “Christmas trees have candles on them, don’t they? Why don’t we use these? They’re striped red and white, just like candy canes.”
“Sure,” Breakdown said. The candles would have looked disproportionately tiny on one of the trees in the department stores, but they were just right for the smaller tree. “But don’t light them yet. Let’s wait for Dead End.”
“Wonder what he’s bringing,” Drag Strip said as he took off his boots and made himself comfortable on the bed. Motormaster had allowed them to buy blankets as the weather had grown colder, and even though the blankets were from the thrift store, they were better than nothing. “It’ll have to be something amazing to beat my pot.”
We’re going to be hearing about that pot for a long time, Breakdown thought in resignation, though he supposed it was worth it to see Wildrider happy. When they heard the front door open again, Drag Strip sat up and folded his arms in expectant challenge while Wildrider turned the pot slightly to display the tree from its best angle. Breakdown heard soft footsteps cross the distance to Wildrider’s room, and a moment later Dead End came in.
From the look on his face, Breakdown knew what he was going to say before he spoke. “I don’t know why I bothered looking for decorations, because there weren’t any to be found. None that I could afford anyway.”
“Hah!” Drag Strip said, pleased.
Dead End looked at him in mild bemusement before glancing back at Wildrider. “And that’s an organic tree, so I suppose it’s all a moot point. The tree will decay soon enough.”
“But it’ll be fun while it lasts,” Wildrider said. “Let’s light the candles.”
“And set off the smoke detector,” Dead End muttered, leaning against the wall in the poorest-lighted part of the room. Breakdown looked at him. He could always tell when Dead End genuinely believed his predictions of doom, and when he was just saying them to cover up how he really felt. And at that moment, he knew that Dead End, for all his affectations of indifference, had very much wanted to contribute something to the tree.
Wildrider was too caught up in lighting the candles to notice, though. The little flames reflected off the silver stars, and even Drag Strip commented that it wasn’t bad. “But I think the other side of it looked better,” he said.
“Wait a moment.” Dead End straightened up suddenly, then went over to the phonograph lying in a corner. He carried it over to the tree, plugged the phonograph in and lifted the tree. Then he placed the pot carefully in the center of the record and switched the phonograph on.
The record turned slowly and the tree turned with it, as if on a graceful carousel. The silver stars fluttered, sparkling, and the room filled with the scent of pine needles. In the center of it all, their tree glowed warm and bright, and Wildrider lay down beside it, smiling.
“Merry Christmas, guys,” he said.
Thanks to anon_decepticon for beta-reading. May you all have a wonderful festive season, and all the best in the New Year!