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It was Friday. Bonnie was visiting daycare for the day, and given a choice had taken Mr. Pricklepants with her this week. That made for a day off, and once the door closed there was a collective sigh of relief as the toys pulled themselves to sitting or standing positions and flexed sore joints.
"I am not entirely certain about these decorations," said Buzz. Clutched in his plastic hand were some daisies from the garden, slightly wilted with the heat.
"I don't know Buzz, they sort of suit you," replied Woody.
"Says the man with a buttercup necklace."
Jessie looked over at the pair of them and gave a peal of laughter. "Ain't you a pair! C'mon, Buzz," she clapped the spaceman on the shoulder as he extricated a couple of petals from the crevices of his armour. "Let's go stretch those legs, huh?"
He placed the flowers down on the floor, trying to keep them all toggether, and got to his feet. "Well, it certainly is interesting having a female owner," he added. Jessie just laughed, looped her arm around his, and started dragging him towards the door. Had Buzz been human, he probably would have been blushing already as the cowgirl hauled him off with a wave of her hat, rather than just stammering something incoherent as he disappeared out of the door, and trying to ignore the chuckles that followed him.
They made their way down the stairs, flicking themselves up onto the bannister and sliding down to save the effort of walking. That had been Jessie's idea as well. Then it was a simple walk through to the back door, up onto the kitchen counter, and through the window that Bonnie's mother always forgot to close and left ajar.
The garden was pretty in late spring, grass long and filled with plants that were one step from being weeds but looked good anyway. Bonnie called it her jungle. Her parents called it a wild garden, or maybe just feral. In some places the dandelions drooped over their heads, one dusting Buzz with pollen on the way past.
"You know, Jessie," said Buzz finally, brushing specks of bright yellow pollen from his screen, then putting it down altogether and looking up towards the sun. "I think the others find it somewhat amusing the way that you manhandle me."
She glanced round, uncertainty in her eyes for just a second. "You don't mind it, do you?"
"Oh, no. No, no, no," he said quickly. Coughed. Tried to find a different subject. "I... was simply making an observation."
Jessie gave a tug on his arm that was difficult to interpret; Buzz made no comment. They continued on through the grass for a while, Jessie pausing every now and then as if to breathe in the scent of spring around them.
"You know..." she said after a while, teasingly, as they reached the back of the garden and the pond there. "You say the darnedest things sometimes when you're asleep, Buzz."
"I do?" He looked round, slight concern on his features now, as Jessie leant out over the pond. The surface was almost glass-smooth, and she adjusted her hat by her reflection.
Jessie looked up, grinned, then seemed to suppress it. "Yeah, you do. Like... about not fitting through some gap?"
"Oh-- oh." Buzz cleared his throat, glancing aside for a moment, this time rather relieved that he wasn't human though his body language probably told just as well his embarrassment. "I do recall that dream. There was a space fortress, and I was unable to fit through one of the doorways and... why are you laughing."
At his question, Jessie fell from strangled sniggering through to a full-blown whoop, slapping her thigh between her peals of laughter. Buzz looked at her in bemusement for a good fifteen or twenty seconds.
"You find humour in the difference between the gracility of your form and the robust nature of mine?"
Jessie stopped laughing to look at him, raising one eyebrow. Buzz had drawn his arms in to his sides, expression difficult to read; she chucked him lightly under the chin with her fist. "What's got you worrying, space ranger?"
"Well, I, well," Buzz struggled to put together the sentance for the moment, only soundbites making it out, then Jessie's expression softened slightly, eyes green as the grass around them, and Buzz sighed. "My size compared to the other toys. I am considerably more... fat."
There had been other words on the tip of his tongue, kinder words perhaps, but he could not escape that first one, that first assessment of his own appearance. He had been closer in shape to the Potato Heads than to Woody, or to Jessie; they at least had the reason of being potatoes. He was just... well, indeed.
But Jessie was just looking astonished. "Buzz..." she said softly, then her voice raised until he winced slightly and hoped that the windows were not open. "What the heck's got you thinking like that?"
He almost went to answer, tell her about seeing his own form for the first time shortly before meeting her, and then being made acutely aware as she joined Andy's group that it wasn't just Barbie and Ken who were made slim and light, but Woody and Jessie and indeed most of the other human-looking toys. But he gritted his jaw, shook his head. "I should not have said anything. Do not concern yourself with the matter. Perhaps we should return to the house."
About to turn on his heel, he was stopped as a gentle hand wrapped around his shoulder, needing no force to keep him in place. Buzz's eyes moved from Jessie's booted feet, up her body, to meet her eyes once more. She stroked his cheek with her other hand, smile small and wry and soft.
"I hope that you haven't been thinking I'll think you fat, Buzz," she said. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. "You know I don't care how you're made, right?"
"Well, I," he coughed, and she swooped one arm around his shoulders and kissed him on the lips to shut him up again.
"We can't be helping how we're made, Buzz, can we?" Her fingers tip-toed up over his armour, lightly flicking each button in turn without pressing them too hard. "And did you never consider that maybe I like it?"
"You like--"
She laughed. "I like you however you are, Buzz." This time it was a playful push on his chest that sent him back a step and made him vaguely relieved that he was not standing right in front of the pond as she did so. "Gee, you never struck me as one to worry about what you looked like."
"It's not, well, it's not about looks. I'm just not built like you are."
Jessie rolled her eyes. "Maybe you should have asked, hmm?" A poke in the chest, still playful but a little more pointed than before. "Rather than worrying to yourself."
"Oh, right." There was a silence, Jessie's eyes boring into him. Buzz swallowed. "Er, so, what do you think of the, well, way that I'm built?"
Arms were flung round him and he was squeezed until he gave a gulping sound. "I love it! I love having enough of you to throw my arms around properly -- and you don't fall over!"
"I... suppose that I don't."
Again, that was uncommon for the human toys. Jessie's hair got in his face, but he let it stay there, rather than pushing it out of the way. "I love you being firm and rounded and solid. You hear me, Space Ranger?"
Finally, he smiled. "Affirmative, cowgirl."
"Good," said Jessie. "Good."