Hello everyone! Here's just a fun Kid!Auslly AU one-shot I shook up. I'll probably be incorporating it into my Good Girl Bad Boy series, but I thought I'd post it anyways. Hope you enjoy!
It was a funny thing, the crayon box.
It was nearly impossible to keep folded perfectly - it easily got squished between books and things, and if the scissors got near it, it was almost always a near disaster. If not kept in a proper environment, the wax from the crayons would melt, giving the box a sticky texture that managed to dye littlehands multi-colours, and rainbow-ize white t-shirts. And yet, despite the predicaments it presented, every child loved their crayon box.
This was especially true of Austin Moon.
At six years of age, and heir to the wealthy Mike and Mimi Moon, Austin could've had anything he wanted. A real wooden rocking horse, a giant stuffed bear. The latest video games, or even an actual pony if he so desired. His parents often presented him with grand gifts that were in the dreams of every six year old boy.
And yet his most treasured posession was his crayon box.
He loved the way that with his crayon box handy, he could bring life to even the dullest of objects. That he could turn just plain water into a malovent, twisting mirage of indigos and aquamarines. Change the aspect of the sun rays to liquid gold, and colour apples with a brilliant red. It fascinated him. Everyone was a colour. He himself was a red. And Austin could make them more vibrant with his crayon box.
His box was always kept in pristine condition, put away neatly on the top shelf of his arts and crafts closet - right underneath the air conditioning fan to keep it nice and cool. It was one of those marvelous forty-eight colour packets, that contained eight shades of red, and seven shades of blue. Austin's maid had handglued every single wrapper too, so that the paper never came off in his hands when he was colouring.
Most importantly, all were equivalent in size.
Austin prided himself in his colouring abilities - he always pressed with just enough force to evenly spread the colour, rather than to have dark slashes across his page. It resulted in beautiful pictures, even when he chose to colour outside of the lines. And even more so, it also meant that Austin Moon had never broken a crayon in his life.
A record, really, if you think about it.
No, every crayon down to the forty-eigth one was exactly how it was when he first recieved the package. Solid, and in one piece. When one first opened the box, they would see the little digits lined up perfectly like soldiers, each precisly colour co-ordinated. It almost looked like a brand new box, minus the fact the the edges of the crayons were all slightly dull. And that the apple red was slightly more dull than the rest.
But that was only because it was Austin's favourite colour.
And so, it is only ever practical to know that on his first day of school, when other children his age were carrying their favourite stuffed toy, or perhaps a superhero lunch box, Austin clutched tightly in his hands his crayon box. (But not so tightly as to crease the cardboard, of course).
After his maid tousled his blonde locks one more time before leaving, Austin stepped hesitantly into his new classroom. The bell hadn't rung quite yet, and most of the children were running around and laughing. Slightly intimidated, Austin scanned the room quickly. There were lots of green and yellows and oranges.
And that's when he saw the little girl in the back corner.
Her brown hair curled around her face as she leaned over the table, writing in something. And even though her dress was as bright as petunias on a fresh summer day, and there was a bow in her long curls that competed with the stars at night, her colour was unmistakable.
She was a stormy blue.
Austin frowned.
It wasn't that he hadn't seen blue before - lot's of adults were at least tinged by blue. But not children. Never children.
Austin sat down beside the girl.
As soon as his backpack thumped onto the table beside her, she jumped. Austin found it almost comical the way her eyes widened, and her big rimmed glasses threatened to fall off of her nose. Her hands jerked sharply from the book she was colouring in, sending a splash of grass into the blue sky. Austin grinned sheepishly at her.
"Sorry to scare you. I'm Austin," He held his available hand out to her, as he had seen his parents do when they met new people. The girl merely wrinkled her nose at the action though, so Austin withdrew his hand to his side again as he sat down.
"I wasn't scared," She retorted defiantly, although there was the slightest edge of hysteria to her voice. She used her finger to push her glasses back up the bridge of her nose, and her cheeks flamed as she realized her outburst. "I'm Ally," She tacked on meekly as an after thought.
"What were you drawing?" Austin asked nosily as all little boys do, reaching for her book before she could protest.
"A garden," Ally replied demurely, before politely snatching her book back from Austin. He frowned as he reflected what he had seen.
"Why are there no red flowers?"
Ally sighed sadly as she cast a glance at her own crayon box which was lying on the table beside her. Austin saw that there were two crayon slots missing, even though Ally only had one crayon in her hand. "I lost my red crayon," She said simply.
At that moment, their first day of grade one started. The teacher strolled into the classroom as the bell finished ringing.
Right away, Austin decided he didn't like school. The teacher was nice enough, and they didn't even really do any real work. But having to sit still for so long nearly killed him, and he thought he would've gone insane had Ally not been there to talk with him.
He liked her, he decided. None of the other kids would even look at her, but in Austin's mind, that was better. It meant that no one could interrupt them.
At one point during the day, she surprised him immensly. The teacher handed out large construction paper hearts and told them to draw what they loved in them. Austin got down to it right away, using his red crayon the most. But Ally merely stood up, ripped the heart in two, tossed it into the trashed, and continued drawing in her notebook.
She didn't notice Austin fish the two pieces out of the trash at break.
Like all good things, however, the day had to end. And while Ally was still blue, Austin couldn't help but notice that she was a lighter shade of blue, like cotton candy, or wisps of wind. He gave her a hug, and promised to see her at school the next day.
But he didn't.
Austin never saw Ally again. When Mike and Mimi Moon had found out that their maid had enrolled Austin into a public school, they were enraged. After discharging her, they immediately rectified the mistake by enrolling Austin into a posh boarding school where he had to wear a uniform everyday, and while people went in with various colours, they all came out in shades of gray.
He soon forgot about the colours, and the importance of his crayon box.
But Ally never forgot.
Because even though she came to an empty desk the next day of school, with the teachers in a hustle because one of their students had just transferred, there was something waiting for her still. And it changed her colour again.
For in front of her place where she had sat the previous day, was none other than the construction paper heart she had ripped up the day before. Someone had taped it back together again. But that wasn't what had caught her attention. No, what surprised her was what rested on top of the fixed heart.
A red crayon.
Or half of one, to say the least.