Archive of Our Own ^beta

Christmas is a time for music and dancing and hot chocolate and presents and magic.

Purpled used to believe in that aspect. He used to dance around living rooms and watch the NORAD tracker to see where Santa was and he used to watch all of the movies and wake up extra early to see all of the presents under the tree.

He used to excitedly open presents as his parents watched with warm smiles and then he would go play in the snow with his dad and thank his mom a million times for presents.

Then the magic got yanked away from him with three brisk knocks at the door.

“Daniel and Melissa Bedborne you are under arrest.”

The words ring through their home. Purpled sits next to the tree, a present in his hand and a fading smile.

“Dad?”

His dad hushes him, whispering soft reassurances as he does.

“It’ll be okay, bud.”

Purpled thinks he might be lying, but he won’t ever tell them that.

His mom opens the door. There are two men standing there, they have police uniforms and Purpled thinks they look very scary.

He cowers behind the red wrapping paper that is taped onto whatever toy his parents had bought for him.

“If you come peacefully it will be easier for all of us.”

His mom sighs and Purpled thinks he doesn’t quite like that sound.

“Dad?”

“Shhh. It’ll all be okay Purp. Your mom and I just have to go on a little trip.”

His smile is sad, but Purpled doesn’t see the sorrow that fills his smile lines or the longing that rests in his eyes.

“Okay.”

His dad stands up, the pitiful smile falling slowly as he goes to stand next to his mom.

They both look very sad, and Purpled doesn’t like that.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to the presence of an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for you.”

His mom nods, “What about him?”

Her head tilts back towards Purpled, the boy is still in his pajamas and he is quite scared because his dad didn’t say that he would be joining them on their trip.

One of the officers peek over her shoulder, a frown falling onto his mouth as he catches sight of Purpled.

“You brought a kid into this?”

His mom frowns, “We did it for the kid.”

The man shakes his head and Purpled shrivels up a bit at the action.

“He’ll be placed in an emergency shelter until further notice.”

His mom nods and his dad stands stoic as ever and then they leave and Purpled is beckoned to follow.

He trails behind them, meek footsteps crunching the icy snow beneath his feet as follows the policemen into one of the two cars. They don’t put him in the same car as his parents and he doesn’t like that he is alone, but he is a brave boy.

“What is happening to my mom and dad?”

His voice is quiet and the police dude driving the car doesn’t answer him for a moment. Purpled almost wonders if the man didn’t hear him.

“They did some bad things, so they have to take a trip somewhere so they can learn.”

Purpled nods, “So like timeout?”

The officer smiles a little, “Yeah, just like timeout.”

–

Purpled later learns that they got arrested for drug dealing. He wants to say he resents them for doing that, but in all honesty he resents them for getting caught.

He wishes they were smarter, he wishes he got to open that stupid box, he wishes the officers had waited just one more day.

That could have at least let him have something more, something special, one last moment with them.

Yet, the winter wind and the crunchy snow built a wall that day and it led to Purpled being on one side and his parents on the other. It has been years now and nothing has thawed the ice that holds him in place, nothing has reunited him with his parents.

He has lost hope that it will happen. He still remembers that first Christmas after the one he has dubbed “The Disaster.” 

He waited the whole day, in some random foster home, watching the door. All he wanted for Christmas that year was his parents, but Santa didn’t bring him that.

Purpled thinks that that was the first year when the magic dulled and Purpled realized there was never any magic to begin with.

So, Christmas lost its excitement, its sparkle, and Purpled lost hope.

Even as he met new people and made friends and grew up and eventually aged out of the system, the hope he once held as a kid never came back.

When Purpled met Tommy, the boy with starlight in his eyes and hair that shines like gold in the light of a warm fire, he found that maybe there is some hope left in the world. Tommy is bright and he melted some of the frost that made up Purpled, but he would never truly understand him.

Purpled stuck with him though, because Tommy might not relate to the trauma of foster care and watching your parents get arrested on Christmas day, but he knows how to bring out the child that never got to live within Purpled.

He steals smiles and cracks stupid jokes and he lives like the world is something too beautiful to take for granted. He laughs and blasts Christmas music in his car even during the summer and he feels like a home Purpled was never allowed to enter.

Maybe that is how Purpled finds himself trucking through the snow towards a cabin in the woods. His dinky old truck couldn’t make it the whole way, but Purpled was already too close to call it quits now.

His feet sink into the plush snow and the trees tower around him as the setting sun paints them in an angelic kind of light. The snow looks inviting and the trees don’t seem as scary as they ought to be and the cabin looks like something that you would see on the set of a Hallmark movie.

It’s gorgeous in a way that Purpled didn’t know was possible and he resents Tommy for that. He hates that he has a platter of cheese in his hands and that he is walking through a foot of snow all for a Christmas family dinner with a family that isn’t even his.

Yet, he also finds that he isn’t truly feeling resentful, but he is rather feeling longing. Longing is a feeling that Purpled is far too familiar with and a feeling that he wishes to never feel again. Longing is a friend that is too clingy and longing is a feeling that grasps him by the shoulders and doesn’t let him walk away too quickly.

Longing is the way Purpled claims he hates Christmas, but secretly he hates that he doesn’t have a family for it. Longing is the way Purpled searches for parents that have yet to be seen for years. Longing is the way he walks towards a cabin filled with memories that will never be his and people he will never call his own.

Longing is the way he hesitates before knocking on the wooden door that separates him from Tommy and everything that made Tommy him.

He knocks and then he waits and longing is the way he aches for his parents to be the ones who open the door.

Sadly, there are no dull grey eyes and warm embraces that await him. Instead, there is Tommy.

Tommy swings the door open and bursts through it like the home is on fire and this is his only hope of surviving. He hugs Purpled and Purpled just kind of awkwardly stands there with the store bought cheese platter.

“My man! I didn’t think you were going to come!”

Tommy beckons him inside and Purpled follows.

“I wasn’t planning on coming.”

That isn’t a lie either. He had no intent to be here, but as the day settled down and Purpled sat around in an empty apartment, he realized he didn’t want to spend another Christmas alone. He didn’t want to hate a holiday or to mope around during the season of joy and all things merry and bright. He didn’t want that, and so he got in his truck and he bought a cheese platter and he drove down to a hidden cabin in the woods.

“I’m glad you changed your plans then.”

And the way Tommy smiles is enough to convince Purpled that this wasn’t a mistake.

They walk further into the cabin and Tommy gives a really bad tour of the place as he talks about the knicks in the walls from his fights with his brothers and the pictures on the walls from that one year when they all bought gag gifts for their dad and he ended up keeping them all.

The place smells nice. There are candles lit and the food smells better than anything Purpled has even been in the presence of in a very long time.

Phil, Tommy’s dad, is standing next to the stove with a wooden spoon in his hand and a stupid apron on and it is so utterly domestic. Purpled hates that he is here. He feels like an intruder as he watches Tommy slip behind the island and smack his dad as a welcome and he feels like a misfit as his brothers come tumbling down the stairs and as Tommy joins them.

He feels alone. 

He knows he isn’t alone realistically, considering there are four other people in the room because Tommy’s mom has yet to make an appearance, but he is alone.

None of them understand him, they are all family, he isn’t one of them. He has stumbled his way into their home and he is the odd man out, him and his stupid cheese platter.

“Purpled,” Tommy shoves his way to the top of the mass that has collected at the bottom of the stairs.

“This one,” and he points aggressively at the brunette, “is Wilbur.”

“And this one,” he shoves the other guy, “is Techno.”

Purpled nods, he feels so so so out of place. It almost pains him, he almost leaves, makes some poor excuse about why he has to exit the premises. Except, he doesn’t leave and instead Tommy’s mom enters the room which means Purpled can’t leave now.

The whole family has gathered and he can’t just dip when they have all met him.

Tommy scrambles up as his mom goes to kiss his dad on the cheek, “Mom! I brought my friend!”

She smiles at him, “Hey Tommy’s friend.”

“The name’s Purpled.”

“Well then hello Purpled, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Kristin.”

Her smile is so warm and so kind and so just motherly. Purpled despises it, he hates that it isn’t his own mother smiling at him on Christmas, he hates the way she is just so kind and the way the smile lines warp around her face and seem so permanent.

He can’t stand it, because she isn’t his because he doesn’t have a family. His one Christmas wish has never been granted and instead he met Tommy and now he is standing in their winter cabin’s living room and invading their traditions and he isn’t their family.

Tommy grabs Purpled by the arm, rushing upstairs to continue the tour and Purpled just lets himself be dragged. He isn’t quite sure if he can stay downstairs without either storming out or bursting into tears. They just have everything he never got and it hurts like an icicle to the heart. He wants it so bad, but it's something he will never have and that is the worst part about dreams: some of them are impossible.

“This is my room from when we used to actually live here and–”

Purpled kind of tunes Tommy out, not because he doesn’t appreciate his rambles, but because he can’t bring himself to hear more stories of Tommy’s childhood when he barely even had one of his own. He hates this train of thought too, because he is supposed to be happy. He is supposed to smile at Tommy’s stories and be excited to get to know his best friend’s family and be happy because it’s Christmas, and isn’t Christmas supposed to be happy?

He wishes he was happy, he wishes he had what Tommy does, but he is also aware that wishes are useless and that if he wants something he has to either make it happen or forget about the wish in the first place.

So, he smiles and he laughs when he should and he asks questions and he learns all about the pet fish that Tommy killed by leaving his window open one winter and Purpled smiles. It is fake, but he smiles and he pretends and somewhere along the line the smile will slowly become less fake as he lets the longing slip into enjoyment.

Phil finishes up the food and Wilbur and Techno set the table and Kristin turns on some Christmas music and Tommy drags Purpled over to sit in a chair. The food looks delicious and Purpled has to stop himself from practically drooling at the sight.

He missed this, the Christmas dinners, or just the family dinners in general. He was too young to ever really remember them or to appreciate them to their full extent, and he misses that thing he never really got.

Tommy’s family doesn’t pray before the meal and Purpled sighs a breath of relief as they all just kind of dig in. He modestly grabbed food, attempting to not seem greedy to them. He catches the odd glance sent his way from Tommy, but he ignores it in favor of savoring the food.

The conversation swells around him like a symphony that has reached its peak. They all chatter about what they’ve been up to and Tommy talks about work and Wilbur talks about his music and Techno talks about the latest book he has read and Purpled just listens.

He doesn’t have anything to say, not really. He works, but it isn’t anything special and that is really all he does. 

“How’s your family Purpled?”

The question is innocent and it’s so kind and unknowing coming from Kristin, yet Purpled cannot contain the flinch.

Tommy luckily inserts himself, not knowing the full extent of Purpled’s past but knowing enough to know it is a sore subject.

“Mom.”

The tone of the single word coming from Tommy’s mouth sends the message, as if Purpled invading their family’s dinner didn’t already spell out the fact that he doesn’t have one.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Purpled says meekly, pushing his chair out as he stands to leave the table. Tommy frowns at him, but Purpled pushes past him and walks into the small half bath that they had passed during the tour.

He looks at the mirror, hands gripping the porcelain sink and tired eyes scanning his reflection. Purpled quickly glances away, he can’t stand to stare at what is shining back at him. It feels too personal, like if he looks for too long the whole truth will come to light.

He listens as the conversation continues at the table and he rests on the toilet as he just thinks. 

Purpled shouldn’t be here, he knows that. He is an unwelcome intruder and he should have never come and–

A knock cuts off his thoughts.

“Hey Purp,” Tommy’s voice is soft as he speaks through the locked door. “Sorry about her, none of them know and I didn’t tell them or anything, but I should have warned them that family was a sore subject.”

Purpled doesn’t respond, just letting Tommy’s words soak into his skin and sink into his heart.

“And if you want to stay in there we understand, but I would like it if you came out and I’m sure everyone else would too and I promise they won’t ask anymore questions. I just want you to have a good Christmas and please just come on out.”

Purpled listens and he stands and he unlocks the door to see Tommy’s face staring back at him. A smile falls gently onto his face and it is so soft and special and it convinces Purpled that this wasn’t a mistake as he steps out of the bathroom and back into the domestic atmosphere that encapsulates the family.

They walk back over to the dining area and Purpled finishes their meal and nobody asks him about his family and they continue like normal and Purpled smiles a bit because they don’t even question him.

And when the dinner is over, Purpled offers to help clean up and Kristin smiles at him and sends him away and Tommy throws on Home Alone and everyone ends up cozied up in the living room as the movie plays.

It is exactly the thing Purpled never got and if he was a weaker man he would cry about it, he would sob and mourn and scream for a life that never was, but instead he leans further into the couch and he watches Tommy’s family celebrate a holiday with a sparkle that he had lost faith in.

He watches them smile and laugh and live and he finds that no matter how much he wants to hate them for having this special day, he finds that the longer he tries to push down the longing the more he feels it.

He longs to have this, to be a part of this, to love people as wholly as they do. He longs for a life that isn’t covered by shadows of his past, he longs to let go and to move on and to find the hope in the world that he lost so long ago.

He longs to do a lot, and as he watches Tommy laugh with Wilbur and Kristin snuggle with Phil and Techno read a book while pretending not to be interested in the movie, he begins to think that maybe he isn’t longing for something impossible.

They have proved that there is magic in the world, they have proved that Christmas isn’t about what you’ve lost, but about what you have.

They have shown Purpled kindness, they have let him in, and they have taught him that longing is only all encompassing if you never chase the ambitions it sets for you.

So, he smiles a smile that is real and raw and he laughs at Tommy and joins their antics and he finds comfort in a family that will never be his, because they showed him the hope for a better life and they showed him kindness in a world that has never been kind.

“Thank you guys.”

His words are soft as they echo into the room, barely carrying into their ears as he watches the movie credits roll.

Nobody responds, but he knows that he doesn’t really need them to. He just needed them to know that his appreciation for this night is more than they’ll ever know.

And if he asks Tommy to come hangout later that week as he leaves and if Phil invites him back for another dinner sometime and if Tommy’s brothers smile at him as he walks out the door, then Purpled doesn’t push them away, instead he embraces them in a way he has longed to for ages.

Snow falls around him as he walks away from the cabin that taught him that family is more than he thought, yet he doesn't feel the bitter cold that bites at his skin. He only feels the warmth that comes from a full stomach and a comforting realization that he can find love and family and hope.

His footprints track through the snow and his heart is warm and Purpled leaves that night thinking that maybe Christmas never lost its magic, Purpled just got lost trying to find it. He thinks that now he sees that he never hated Christmas, he just hated that he didn’t have anyone to share it with.