Work Text:
Ms Davis had been a teenager's mother for quite some time now. Over the last 4 years, her home life had been a constant of telling her son to turn down the volume, to go to bed close to midnight, and not to accept anything from strangers at the Friday-night house parties he now attended. Her friends would complain constantly about just how lucky she was to have such unproblematic kids, and how hard it normally was for single moms to deal with. Although she felt sorry for them — no one deserved to go through this kind of situation, after all — she also couldn't help the prideful feeling that would grow inside her chest whenever they reminded her of that. Davis had done a goddamn miraculous job raising both of her babies by herself, and she 100% agreed that she deserved her good children and mostly peaceful home environment, thank you very much.
So, that is to say, despite all the signals Andy had been giving off lately, she was absolutely not expecting it to happen so soon, especially with that boy.
"Phillips!?"
"Hey..." Their old neighbour greeted her shyly, making the woman even more confused.
He had a skull black shirt, a mullet and a single earring piercing, all of which, when crossed with everything Ms Davis has heard of him, form a complete, stereotypical image of your average troublesome punk teen. At the same time, however, the boy would also blush, scratch the back of his neck and avoid her gaze like the plague in a too-obvious demonstration of nervousness. It was very difficult to get the two impressions she was having of him together; at the same time, she was having a mental breakdown with the situation.
"Oh, you remember Sid?" Andy asked, truly surprised. Even he had taken some time to notice that Sid Phillips from elementary school and Sid Phillips from high school were the very same person, with how much the other boy had changed his behaviour. "I was wondering if he could have dinner with us tonight. He drove me here, and we still have something to discuss..."
Ms Davis couldn't help but stare at them, agape. More precisely, she couldn't help staring at their body language, at their exchange of secretive glances, and at their very much joined hands.
"O-of course..." She answered anxiously, going back to her task of laying the table. 'Her son was 16 and he was bringing boys back home, and not any boy but the infamous horror of the neighbourhood 17-years-old-Sid-Phillips, and Andy was somehow making him look like a helpless flustered mess and she just remembered she had yet to have the talk with him, how could she be so negligent, how much time has she been sleeping not to have seen this coming-?' "We must have enough for four as well. I'll call you when dinner is ready, then."
Unbeknownst to his mother's inner turmoil, Andy got a smile from ear to ear at the approval. "Thanks, Mom. We'll be in my room."
As the two of them passed by her and went directly upstairs, they could hear her voice now in full desperation mode coming from the living room.
"Andrew, keep your door open, okay!?"
"M-mon!" He shouted back, embarrassed, before opening the door for a very uncomfortable boyfriend (?) to get in. Andy followed, almost closing the door behind him again by reflex. "Geez, sorry for that. I can't even remember the last time she called me by my name..."
Andy stopped mid-sentence when he saw Sid looking around, becoming suddenly very self-aware of how childlike his bedroom seemed. Although there were some new additions, like the drawing material, the posters and the sports equipment, most of the space was occupied by games or his toy box; even his wall had that old pattern of clouds and stars! Maybe it really hadn't been a good idea to invite Sid in when this thing between them was so new, but the way he had looked when the scent of his mom's lasagna hit them, and his arms felt so warm around Andy when he boldly hugged him as a goodbye (they'd be the talk of the neighbourhood for the next weeks, that's for certain), and how he looked as anxious as him about all of it - Andy just had to insist on it, not even realising that he had basically arranged a 'meeting the family' sort of thing when they had barely started dating and Sid had actually accepted his invitation, oh my God-!
"I'd never thought Andy Davis would be the athletic type."
Andy blinked, as his brain tried to make sense of the other's words. Sid never looked twice at the childish decoration all around the room, for Andy's luck. Well, maybe that was expected since they met at their school's fundraising event, where Sid had a stall dedicated to fixing old toys to get money for his class. Maybe Andy was just too much like his mom, getting all anxious over nothing. He hadn't noticed how much he was craving his date's approval until then.
Getting it didn't make him any less flustered, though.
"Oh, this is from some years ago, don't mind that." But of course, Sid had to grin at that statement, bringing up an urge to explain further. "My mom thought I was too much in my room and tried to encourage me to do some sports. It was a total disaster, no surprise."
"With this body of yours? I doubt it." He laughed when Andy's cheeks got even redder, approaching him once again. "Maybe you just didn't find the right sport. I could teach you some skating, if you want, that is."
Time outside the school with him? Why wouldn't Andy want it? However, if his mom's reaction to Sid Phillips was anything to go by, she'd have an aneurysm as soon as she knew her son was getting into that kind of thing, as stereotypical as that sounded.
"Yeah, sure." He said anyway, trying his hardest not to sound too eager about it, as Sid grabbed his hand and stared at their joined fingers for quite some time before locking his eyes on Andy's once again.
'Maybe', he thought, more thrilled than he was willing to admit. 'he is as excited as I am about us.'
"But it really wasn't a total disaster now that I'm thinking about it..."
"Is that so?" Sid squeezed his hand at the same time his grin grew, spreading across his face. "What's it that changed your opinion so fast?"
Andy gulped. They were pretty close already.
"Well, it at least got Molly interested in soccer. She's at practice right now. So... We've got upstairs just for us for a while, you see?"
He hadn't noticed that Sid had his cheeks red before as well, but when they darkened, it was impossible not to see it. Andy smiled at that, happy that he also had such an effect on the older boy. His eyes roamed the entirety of his face until they stopped at his lips; both of them heating up as they leaned closer to each other.
"Andy! Come here!"
The sudden shout from Ms Davis made the boys separate in a hurry as if she were just behind them and not on the other side of the house. Quickly, Andy told her he was going as they fixed their own clothes and hair, not daring to look at each other for the moment. When he walked towards the door, though, Sid followed behind, only to be stopped by the boy he had had in his arms seconds before.
"Sorry. Whatever it is, I think it'd be better if I went alone." Andy said apologetically, lips still full from their too-short kissing session. Usually, Sid would have told him about that, only to see his reaction and joke about it. Now, however, with his mom in the other room, he didn't have the heart to point it out. "You can wait here. Make yourself at home, okay?"
The last sentence was marked by a beat of silence, which Andy used to get a last peck on the other's lips before heading downstairs to see what his mom wanted, also in hopes of starting to change her views on his first date.
(Little did he know he was going to receive the talk right then and there)
And that's how Sid found himself standing in the middle of his boyfriend's childhood bedroom, all alone.
Well, at least he thought he was all alone.
"Now!"
"Ahh", Sid's scream was muffled as he suddenly fell on the floor face-first. He could feel his front teeth hurting as he tried to process what was happening.
"Well, well, usually I would say 'reach for the sky', but I guess you won't be reaching for anything."
Had Sid not experienced one of the weirdest traumas anybody could ever go through, he would have had a harder time understanding what was going on. However, as things stood, the boy had war flashbacks as he slowly managed to make sense of what had happened to his legs: a dog toy used its stretchy slinky to make him fall and tie him down. As for his back, he couldn't see, but he felt the weight of something he could only assume were more toys pressing down on him so that he couldn't move his arms. Just beside him, though, is where he found the most horrifying vision of all: the very same cowboy figure responsible for his first therapy sessions in childhood.
Sid might have grown a lot in height and maturity since that fateful day, but he never really outgrew the fear that the cowboy instilled in him. Just the sight of a toy barely his upper arm's size was enough to make him pale like a dead body. It had to be just his luck that the boy he started going out with somehow had the exact same doll he tortured so much it had sprung to life and incited a revolution among his old toys.
Slowly, however, another figure approached the cursed cowboy, and Sid saw it was a Buzz Lightyear doll, much like the one he got alongside the cowboy toy at the Pizza Planet claw machine so many years before. 'Oh, shit', He thought. Somehow, the toys that traumatised him as a child came to be in his current boyfriend's possession. Of course they had to. When Andy tried to convince Sid to go over by asking him what the worst thing that could happen was, this was probably the least probable scenario, that not even his deranged mind could come up with.
"What do we do, Woody?"
"We make him pay, of course!" This time, a cowgirl toy approached from behind the astronaut, with what Sid could only describe as a wicked grin on her face, "For all the years Andy hasn't played with us!"
An agreement chorus echoed on Sid's back, going louder as he tried harder to get free.
"Please, no! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I don't know what you're talking about! I have nothing to do with this!"
It must have been such a pathetic scene he was making, but Sid didn't care. None of that made any sense! Toys don't move or talk. They are inanimate objects kids see as alive as a way to pour they overimagination. It was the way his mind found to deal with the neglect of his parents, a final scream begging for their attention. Sid was over it. He was supposed to be over it. Why is it all happening again???
"You know very well what we are talking about, kid" For a piece of plastic and cotton just a little bigger than his hand, the cowboy sounded very menacing. Maybe the threats made in his childhood were helping to form this impression. 'Play nice' were definitely two words in his voice that plagued his occasional nightmare. "You are poisoning Andy so that he will abandon us as you did with your toys, and we can't have that, can we?"
"What!? No, I'm not!"
Another round of shouts sounded behind Sid, and he could feel little feet jumping up and down on him, which made him feel like throwing up.
"Liar!"
"Monster!"
"Murderer!"
Sid's face quickly got as wet as it was red with all the tears and pressing down on him. It was like being a child all over again. The mantra of 'this is not happening, this is not happening, this is not happening' was becoming weaker and weaker. Yet, he couldn't hear what was happening around him. He could barely feel anything anymore.
This is ridiculous. Still, he was giving up. He couldn't pretend that this traumatic event in his childhood didn't happen.
"No! Stop! Sid is innocent!"
For a brief moment, all the noise ceased. Slowly, Sid opened one of his eyes, and he saw one of the ripped dolls and the scratched toy car he was carrying in his backpack in the room with them, with some of the other toys from the school community centre also watching them, partially hidden in the pack, with as much of a scared expression as a toy can make.
"He's destroying more toys!"
"And brainwashing them!"
The revolution restarted quickly, the plastic pieces of the toys picking on his skin forcefully made more tears go down his face as a low squeak left his mouth. Was there any way to make his life worse? What would Andy think if he came back right now? What would Andy's family think?
"What do you think you are doing!?"
Once more, the fuzz stopped, and this time the room was engulfed in deadly silence. Afraid of what he would find this time, Sid slowly looked up again. Now the porcelain doll with a broken arm and the broken voice penguin toy he also got from the community centre were out of the backpack, facing Andy's toys with expressions that ranged from melancholy and confusion to anger.
"Bo Beep...? Wheeze...?"
"Hello, guys... cough cough", The penguin, with much difficulty, greeted Sid's captors. "Kids now call us Betsy and... cough cough... Squeaky. We are living in the elementary school community centre."
"Since Andy's mom donated us." The doll that apparently was named Bo Beep and now is called Betsy finished the sentence for the struggling penguin.
"The school centre...? So that's where she took the box all those years ago."
Betsy nodded. "Yes. Most of us are still there." "It is very cool there." Squeaky said before his voice vanished. "Kids play every day. Treat us very well."
"Oh, I can see how well you are treated." A raspy voice came from behind him as he could feel a little piece of plastic slapping his arm, or at least that's what Sid supposed it was. "Last time I saw you, you had all limbs and a new recorder."
"You two forgot the torture sessions this boy did right under our window!?" Another voice said behind him, louder for the toys in the back.
"Yeah, that's right, he broke every toy he touched, and he's breaking you too."
"Oh, for the love of... We are toys, Potato Head! Kids play with us, and we break from use, that's normal!" The doll looked straight at the cowboy, who was standing still, facing the other way from Sid the whole time. "Sid grew up. He fixes us for the school, then gives us back."
The toys straining Sid were now shouting. The toys from the school were shouting back. The cowboy and the blonde doll were silent, staring each other down. Sid was afraid of muttering any sound as if his life was indeed in line because of a bunch of pieces of plastic and stuffed cloth.
"Woody... He's making other kids happy now. We are fine. He's learned his lesson. Andy is just growing up, too. You knew it was going to happen."
A few moments passed until Woody slowly raised his hand, making the room go silent again.
"Andy is coming back soon. We need to return to our places."
While the toys from school were turning around reluctantly, Andy's toys seemed to still have much to complain about, but after some time insisting, alongside the noises approaching from outside the bedroom, they let go and retreated. Sid was barely feeling his limbs at that point, trembling as he moved to stand up, but he was stopped by the cowboy, who was now looking straight back at him again.
"If you come back, we won't be so nice, partner."
The toy waited for Sid to nod nervously, staring intently at him for some more time before following his friends back to the chest. He shared a last longing look with the blonde doll before the two of them were hidden from view, leaving Sid lying on the floor and forever aware that he was indeed always being watched.
"Sid, sorry for all that, my mom..." Andy stopped midsentence as he took in the position his (hopefully) boyfriend had on the floor. "Ah... I have a chair and a bed, you know."
Sid was breathing in and out heavily, not doing anything to stand up as he stared at the boy, which made him blush as he repeated the words in his head and second-guessed everything he had ever said and done in life.
"I mean... I didn't mean anything by that! I just... I was just saying you could sit on the bed if you were tired." Andy looked behind him to the aisle. "Thank god mom stayed downstairs... I'm so sorry for her, she means well, she just..."
"That's alright." Sid said, finally standing up. "I can assure you this is nothing close to what I have seen today."
Neither is it close to what Sid will be seeing for the foreseeable future, as he was thinking of how to convince the Davis to donate the old toys to the school centre, as they apparently already did previously.