Toy Fly (A Firefly/Toy Story Crossover Fic)
And yet.
And yet there was always that nagging at the back of his mind that this would be the year Andy received a toy that he liked better. He tried pushing the insecurity to the back of his mind, but it was hard. Even with the experience of dealing with Buzz Lightyear - toy wonder and his kidnapping he still worried about Andy growing up and leaving him. He couldn’t be left behind. He loved being Andy’s best friend, it gave him purpose and meaning and…
“Ow!”
Rex and one of Molly’s dolls were playing ball with the bouncy ball from Andy’s jacks set. They had, once again, been playing too close to the window and had hit Woody squarely in the head, knocking off his hat and stopping his thought pattern.
Rex looked up sheepishly. “Sorry Woody…” he began.
“Rex! How many times have I….”
“Down, down, down! Subject is returning, I repeat Andy is returning to the room.”
Woody never got to finish his admonishing lecture, not that it would have done much good Rex had the attention span of a three year old. This was easily demonstrated by the fact that during Woody’s last lecture Jessie had distracted Rex by making funny faces behind Woody’s back.
Woody blinked. Toys were scrambling to find their places - everyone had to be back before Andy came in. He watched and directed for a couple short minutes before scrambling back up on the bed next to Buzz. He looked around the room before going limp - everyone was where they should be.
Andy tramped up the stairs and flung back the door with excitement. Behind him was his friend Jeremy, who had been coming over more frequently during the long winter months. Winter was a good time to be a toy. Andy was indoors more often and bored frequently. The games he played became more imaginative, especially around Christmas which seemed to spark creativity.
“I knew he was in here!” Andy proclaimed fishing Rex out of the toy box with glee. Woody smiled inwardly at the thought of Andy playing with Rex. It had been a very long time since Andy had and Woody was starting to worry that Andy thought he was too old for Rex.
“Yay!” Jeremy exclaimed. “Now we have both dinos!” With that pronouncement they ran back downstairs. As they tramped down the stairs Woody heard Andy say, “we will call it this land.”
Sitting up as soon as the sound of footsteps ended Woody cleared his throat and said, “All clear everybody!”
Toys across the room sprang back to life, many of them gathering beside Andy’s bed and looking up at Woody. “Hey Woody!” Hamm said. “How many more days is it?”
He didn’t have to say what “it” was. All the toys felt the Christmas festivities in the air. This was the second most important day in any toy’s life. The first day, of course, being Andy’s birthday. “It’s soon, Mr. Spell?”
Mr. Spell tottered over. “Christmas. Is. In. Two. Point. Five. Days.”
General pandemonium broke out among the toys. “Two point five days?!” Mr. Potato Head said, grabbing his black bowler hat. “That’s not nearly enough time to prepare.”
“Prepare? We should be figuring out how to hide so we don’t get dumped into the next ‘donations to the animal doctors!’” This statement was from one of the new Lego Men who sat on the dresser. Woody gave him a quizzical stare. “The animal doctors? What animal doctors?”
“You know those big boxes that are say Vietnam Vets I don’t wanna go to Vietnam, I wanna stay here!”
A chorus of agreeing voices soon filled Woody’s ears. “Stop!” He held up his hands. “We go through this every birthday and Christmas, no one is going to Vietnam or the garage sale or the trash.”
The group of toys gasped all at once at the mention of trash.
“Well I’ll be darned.” Slinky Dog said slowly. “Woody said a dirty word.”
“Did not.”
“Uh-huh.” He drawled the word out slowly with almost a smile.
“Look, whatever. The fact is that Andy loves all of us, he’s even playing with Rex for the first time in weeks!”
The toys all smiled at that. It’s true they all loved the time they got to spend with Andy, but they were glad that the loveable Rex got some time too.
Time flew quickly and before the toys knew it the dreaded Christmas day came. Once again the army men did recon, once again the toys listened over the baby monitor and once again they were confronted with the reality that Andy had, indeed, gotten new toys. Yet none of them were quite prepared for what happened next.
******
“Huh? What?” Mal’s eyes blinked open, Kaylee was standing over him, peering at him with a concerned look in her eyes. “Was I knocked out again?”
“Don’t rightly know Cap’n, just woke up my own self.”
Mal sat up, gazing around. Blinding blue walls with… was that clouds printed on them met his gaze. “What did you do with my ship?”
Kaylee looked about ready to cry. “I don’t know Cap’n, I don’t know where she’s at, I don’t know where we are, I looked around, but we seem…” She paused, looking for the right word. “We seem smaller.”
Jayne came over, he looked obviously disgusted and slightly afraid. “I have no rutting idea where we are captain, but she’s right, we’re definitely smaller.”
“Smaller? What in the blue blazes are you two going on about? We don’t get smaller.” Mal stood now and started to walk, paying more attention to his words at Kaylee and Jayne then where he was going. Suddenly his footing seem to give way and he had to lurch back to keep steady. “Oh… my…” Mal stood, staring over the edge of the dresser than sat in Andy’s room.
Suddenly Rex popped out of nowhere, “Roaaarrrrr!”
“BWAAA!” Mal exclaimed, jumping back from the dinosaur, shielding Kaylee in the same movement.
“Oh, sorry, I’ve never scared anyone before, I am a dinosaur and I’m supposed to scare people.. but I didn’t mean to scare you… I am, really really sorry.”
Mal looked at him incredulously. “You didn’t scare me, I was just…” he trailed off turning his face up to the dinosaur, “Did you say you were a dinosaur?”
Kaylee suddenly remembered Wash. “Wash? Wash? Where’s Wash? And Zoe, and Simon, and River…”
There was a slight moan in response and the three scurried over to another part of the dresser, Rex following closely behind them. There, rubbing his head, was Wash. Bleary eyed he looked up at Mal and said, “did we win?” This his gaze focused and he saw Rex, looking concerned, standing behind Mal.
“Mal, I don’t mean to alarm you, but one of my toys is standing behind you and I think it’s bigger than you.”
Mal wasn’t quite sure what to say or do for that matter. On the deck of his ship he felt sure, but here… here was confusing to say the least.
“Hello, hi, howdy.” Woody said, climbing up the side of the cabinet to see the newcomers.
Howdy? Buzz thought, close behind Woody. Great, here we go with the western thing again, scaring the new toys who have no idea where the heck a word like “howdy” comes from…
Buzz’ thoughts were cut off by Mal. “Howdy.” Mal eyed the seemingly giant man with a bit of a perturbed glare. “Are you the law in these here parts?”
Woody groaned inwardly. Here we go again. “Let me explain this slowly for you friend. You. Are. A. Toy.”
“A what?”
Buzz jumped up on the cabinet surface. “A toy, a child’s plaything…”
“Son of a….”