Work Text:
Andy’s room doesn’t feel the same when he comes home for fall break during his first semester at college. The blue wallpaper with yellow stars is unobscured by the posters and signs he’d collected through his teenage years. The walls look like when he was a little kid and his only posters were of Buzz Lightyear.
It doesn’t feel like his childhood room, though, because Buzz and Woody and all the other toys are gone. Andy doesn’t really regret giving them to Bonnie- after all, she’s playing with them, and they would have just been sitting in the attic. But occasionally in his dorm, he finds himself thinking of where he would’ve put Woody, if he hadn’t ended up in that box with all his other toys.
Molly and Mom are still asleep, and Andy usually sleeps until noon when he doesn’t have class in the morning, but he’s awake, and feeling out of place even in his childhood bedroom.
He slips downstairs, slips on his shoes, and goes for a run.
He’s not the first one up in the neighborhood. He passes a mother pushing a jogging stroller and he distinctly hears a garbage truck.
Andy’s feet end up taking him towards the truck, where a lanky guy with a goatee is slinging bags into the back, shaking his head along with the music.
Despite the chilly fall air, the garbage man is wearing a skull t-shirt under his work vest, like he’s refusing to concede that summer’s ended.
Andy watches him pick up something- a doll with overalls, red yarn hair and one black button eye. The doll had been laying discarded by a garbage bag, with stuffing poking out where the missing eye had been.
Andy wonders if it was thrown out due to the damage, or if it reminded someone too much of Chucky. Andy always liked to imagine Woody and the others coming alive and going on adventures, like that year he ripped Woody’s arm and didn’t take him to Cowboy Camp, but apparently living toys strike a lot of people as creepy.
It seems an odd time to throw this doll out, with Halloween right around the corner.
“Wait-” Andy says, reaching out, and the garbage man looks up, raising a brow. He takes off his headphones, but Andy can hear heavy metal blasting from them as they hang around his neck.
“Don’t throw him out.” Andy says, lamely. “I can, uh, fix him up.”
He doesn’t mention sewing up Woody’s arm, though he’d been inordinately proud of it at the time.
“I wasn’t going to throw him out.” the garbage man says. Andy’s almost pathetically relieved, and surprised that the guy isn’t teasing him about referring to the doll as ‘him’ instead of ‘it’. Even more surprising is this guy calls the doll ‘him’ too.
“I don’t throw out toys.” The garbage man’s tone is sharp, as if warning Andy not to, either.
“That’s good.” Andy nods. “I don’t either. I just gave my remaining childhood toys to the daughter of a family friend.”
“Too many people just throw them out,” the garbage man holds the doll with surprising care, a stark contrast to his head-banging and flinging bags of garbage. “This is a simple fix. It’d take five minutes, tops.”
“They probably threw him out because he looks like Chucky.” Andy notes, though he honestly thinks the doll is cute. But there was that book about button eyes that gave Molly nightmares. And that story about a haunted Raggedy Ann doll.
“My sister loved rag dolls like this,” the garbage man says. “I used to cook ‘em on the grill, or rip their heads off and put other heads on. Don’t worry,” he says, but he’s addressing the doll now, not Andy. “I’m gonna fix you up.”
Andy finds himself surprisingly charmed. This guy may look like a brooding bad boy, and apparently was a terror as a kid, but he’s clearly got a good heart, and the same respect for toys that Andy had to hide as he got older.
The garbage man looks up and eyes Andy with the same scrutiny he’d given the doll, as if there’s something to appreciate. Andy fights back a blush. The whole gruff with a heart of gold thing this guy has going is definitely his type.
“You know, every surgeon needs an assistant,” green eyes bore into Andy with a hint of mischief. “My shift’s over in an hour. Wanna meet me in the operating room?”
Andy nods stupidly, and the garbage man scrawls his address onto a slip of paper. Andy does a double take when he realizes it’s on his old street.
An hour later, Andy finds himself staring at his old house. Half of him wants to glance up at his old room, but the thought of glimpsing a wallpaper other than the clouds keeps his eyes away.
Besides, he’s staring at the house next door. He should’ve made the connection with the skull shirt, and the anecdote about burning toys.
Sid opens the door, clearly freshly showered, but wearing an identical skull shirt. Is that his whole wardrobe?
Andy follows Sid into the house he would’ve never dared venture in as a kid, even though he occasionally played with Hannah. She’d told horror stories of Sid that scared Andy more than any movie about murderous dolls could.
He remembers being terrified of their bull terrier, fearful that he’d come to chew up Woody.
Andy had been terrified of Sid, too, but now eagerly follows him up the stairs.
“We have a sick patient here, nurse.” Sid smirks at Andy as he goes into his bedroom, which is dark until he lets a window shade roll up. The wood-panel walls are covered in heavy metal posters, and the green carpet is extremely outdated. “Prepare the OR, stat!”
Andy snorts as Sid slips on a surgeon’s mask and holds another out to Andy, dangling on its string. He’s kind of a mega dork, like one poster says, and Andy loves it.
“Needle,” Sid holds out an expectant hand, and Andy realizes he’s really casting Andy into the nurse role. Sid’s desk is cluttered, but Andy locates a needle. Sid already has a button picked out, but tells Andy to hand him the thread.
Sid narrows his eyes as he threads the needle, and Andy finds it adorable.
With sure, steady hands, Sid sews a black button onto the doll’s face, stitching the hole closed at the same time. Andy finds himself fascinated by Sid’s hands, by Sid.
“Scissors,” Sid holds out a hand again, and Andy passes him the scissors so he can trim the leftover thread.
“Doctor, you’ve done it!” Andy plays along gladly. He could picture Sid playing mad scientist too, so he picks up the doll and has him brandish the scissors like a knife. “He’s alive! He’s alive!”
Sid’s gaze is as sharp as the scissors and needle he’d just used to operate, and Andy lowers it. Geez, what had come over him? Sure, Sid seems like the horror movie type going on his posters, but-
“I had a dream that my toys attacked me like Chucky once.” Sid laughs sardonically. “They were getting revenge for everything I did to ‘em. So I switched to fixing toys. Come on,”
Sid takes the doll, drops the scissors on his desk, and strides into the hallway, pushing open another door. This room has pink walls and an unoccupied bed. Andy spots a few stuffed animals and dolls sitting around.
Sid sits the rag doll on the pillow, and Andy wonders if this is some kind of prank. Sid must catch his look, because he says “I used to scare Hannah with my creations, but I’m a better brother now. And she got her revenge by scaring me with her dolls after my nightmare.”
Sure, Andy and Molly fight, but nothing like Sid and Hannah used to. Andy can’t really reconcile the Sid who burned toys in the backyard with Sid as he is now. And he really likes this Sid.
“Get some bed rest.” Sid tells the doll, switching back to doctor mode before tugging Andy back to his bedroom. He kicks the door closed and pulls off his surgeon mask, and Andy finds the sight of Sid’s lips to be a very welcome sight.
Sid smirks, and then presses his lips into Andy’s. He pauses, as if giving Andy time to object, but Andy eagerly returns the kiss.
They make out for a bit, and Sid pulls away with a grin. “I might prescribe you bed rest, too.”