Ryden Oneshots

Purple Is Not A Christmas Color

kid!fic
-this is adorable and i love it so much :')-

Brendon has always loved story time.

For a few minutes out of the day he has the chance to be anyone and anything he wants to be without having to be limited by reality. In real life, Brendon can only make his space ship so big out of the foam building blocks over in the play area. But in his imagination, that funny little thing that makes pictures in his head when he closes his eyes and listens, everything seems so much more realistic, like his space ship, which just so happens to be purple.

Once this funny looking kid named Brent told Brendon that purple was a girl color. After that, Brendon encounters aliens that look strangely like similar to Brent.

But right now, Brendon’s not off on a space mission to defend planet Earth. No, he’s sitting criss-cross applesauce on the squishy purple puzzle piece (he likes purple, so what?) that pieces together with a bunch of other colored outlines that make up a comfortable floor mat his class sits on during story time.

Ryan, he’s always loved story time, too.

Only he likes to watch Brendon during stories cause Brendon makes funny faces while Miss Anna reads. Ryan never used to notice the way Brendon would scrunch up his face or the way his big brown eyes would get even bigger as Miss Anna’s voice got lower, more ominous.

But on the second day of class, Brendon pulled Ryan down next to him and said, “You sit here, okay?” and ever since then, Ryan has set next to Brendon, on the yellow puzzle piece that connects to his. Ryan likes how his and Brendon’s pieces fit together, almost as much as he likes Brendon’s silly faces.

On the opposite side of Ryan is a little boy by the name of Spencer and Spencer and Ryan share a locker. Miss Anna told them on the first day that it was because their last names were so close together, but Spencer likes to think it’s because they’re bestest friends and they’ve always shared everything together -- even their darkest secrets, like how Ryan misses his mom and how Spencer is afraid of losing his favorite lunchbox -- so they figure they’re good enough friends to share a locker, too.

In front of Spencer, who happens to be sitting on a red puzzle piece, a short, scrappy kid that goes by Jon sits with his knees tucked up to his chin on the surface of a blue piece and watches Miss Anna in adoration. Out of all of them, Spencer likes Jon the best. Well, besides Ryan, of course; Brendon can be a bit too much sometimes, especially around nap time when all Spencer wants to do is curl up and sleep. But he guesses he likes Brendon, too. Just not as much as he likes Jon, because Jon has a cute laugh.

“And so you see, class,” Miss Anna says, closing the picture book with a quiet snap. “If you’re not good little boys and girls, Santa will bring you a lump of coal for Christmas, instead of the things you asked for.”

“You mean,” begins Gabe, a rambunctious but sweet boy with a purple jacket he and Brendon once fought over.

(Brendon mistook it for his own purple jacket and snatched it away from Gabe during recess. Gabe cried until Spencer explained to Brendon that Gabe’s jacket was purple and that Brendon’s was lavender and that Brendon had just left his own jacket in his cubby hole.

Brendon gave it back and apologized to a sniffling Gabe and said, “Spencer says my jacket is lavender. I don’t know what that means, but Spencer is always right. Here’s your jacket back, Gabe. I’m sorry. ”

And Gabe had taken back his beloved purple coat and said, “It’s okay. Purple es a bonito color, si?”

Brendon, not knowing Spanish, had simply stared at Gabe as if he were Brent -- an alien in one of his many space adventures -- and walked away because, hey. Who wants to argue with an alien? They’re scary.)