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Jimmy steps out of the Saloon he slept in last night with a sigh. Everything feels so much worse lately. Maybe Joel’s bullying is finally getting to him, or maybe he should just spend a bit less time in the sun. He tugs at his fingerless gloves and makes sure they're covering everything he wants them to and looks up, holding his hat so it doesn’t fall off. He stops in his tracks with confusion.
What? What is this?
The entirety of the town is surrounded by a massive blue… wall? He looks around with furrowed brows and an uncomfortable feeling in his chest.
“What? What’s happened?” He murmurs to himself with a laugh. What is this supposed to mean?
He walks forward, spinning around in the middle. The walls have clouds on them. Is that some sort of camouflage? Why would anyone do this? He looks around once more, the muscles in his neck twitching, like they were trying to stop him. He blinks at the hole in one of the walls.
A doorframe, he realizes.
“Wh- No.”
It’s Andy’s room.
He stares at it with shock, unmoving, his “limbs” heavy.
“Joel.” He whispers. A laugh comes out of him. “Joel, you dirty-” He locks his mouth with a smile trying to keep the frustration inside. He can’t swear. He promised himself he wouldn’t. “- bloody sausage. I hate you so much.”
Joel’s taunts always hit him worse than anyone’s, but this one? It's just like the other ones, maybe a bit different but… What was it? Was it the build up tension he had? Why does this make him react this badly? It’s just walls. Gosh, Joel was probably more annoyed wasting his time on building this than he feels now. It’s fine. He just needs-
Revenge.
He just needs a break! Yeah, that’s it. Just a second to breathe, a moment to relax.
He breathes out and closes his eyes.
He spend so long watching all the Toy Story movies again and again, trying to understand what he can change, what little thing he can make about himself different to that stupid toy. It’s still not enough. He still doesn’t know how Joel figured out his secret. He never talks about it, (Not counting Miss Senat and her husband, of course. He can’t quite make prosthetics himself, but they do a wonderful job at keeping secrets. There’s no way that the “God” could know about his… situation.) so how?
He opens his eyes and looks at the ground. Jimmy shakes his head and retreats to his house. Maybe a couple of minutes with Norman will help him feel better. They always do.
“THE FESTIVAL
show your talent!
eat great food!
-BRING DIAMONDS-”
Jimmy stares at the sign. A festival, huh? Perhaps that could be his outlet of anger. He hopes that for once Joel will go easy on him with the taunts. He feels... bad. He’s sweating, which is normal given that he lives in the Mesa, but it’s pissing him off. Everything makes him angry lately. The way he can’t feel Norman’s fur when he’s petting him, the need to dry out his prosthetics after being in the water rather than letting the sun take care of it. While both his arm and hand are made out of plastic, his left leg is almost purely made out of clay. He should probably commission a new one made out of plastic, but he’s used to it by now. It’s comfortable.
He walks to the chest where he keeps his diamonds to count them, taking pleasure in the soreness of the muscles in his upper-arms. The pain telling him he’s alive, that he’s not all gone.
After taking some out of the bank, he has a total of 51 diamonds. Quite impressive in his opinion. He makes a couple of signs with his hands, trying to calm himself down and make sure everything is working and takes off to find out where the festival is taking place. It’s all going to go fine.
The festival is certainly something. He’s pretty sure he’s been scammed two times already, but False and he are approaching the booth he made, so he has the optimism. The booth may or may not be something he built with an intent to heal himself a bit. A place to ask for help, say something nice or just write “I was here”. He wishes he had something like that, but it’s okay because he’s making a place like that now! He turns around from False and her worried gaze, letting her write without him watching over.
“Oh.” He says as Joel blocks his path. No break and happy times for him then.
“Oh my, what are you doing in here?” Murmurs the man under his breath with something like disregard in his tone.
“Oh, what are you doing here?” Jimmy repeats the question with an awkward smile trying his best to ignore the sword in Joel’s hand. “Got invited to a festival?”
“By the way, these aren’t from me, but someone handed me those at the entrance.” The God shoves pieces of paper into his hands and he prays Joel didn’t feel the hardness of the plastic through the gloves. “Thought you should check it out.”
He smiles and moves a step back.
“What? What are those?” Jimmy looks at the scribbles on the paper.
“Jimmy is in fact a toy”
Oh. His hands are not shaking, because they physically can’t, but he knows they would if he had them. His breathing stopped and he just reads it over and over again.
“Jimmy is in fact a Toy”
He’s not though. He’s not a toy. Him having prosthetic or Joel just making a stupid joke doesn’t mean he’s not a living human.
Right?
"Jimmy is in fact a Toy"
Jimmy is in f-
“Oh no!” Sausage breaks his train of thoughts and he lifts his head up to see two phantoms flying right at them. He says something else after that but the only thing Jimmy’s focused on at the moment is slashing the monster with his own sword.
After the phantom disappears in a black smoke he turns to Joel with a sour face.
“Oh yeah, they’re obviously going for him.” He rolls his eyes for good measure. "Because he’s such an absolute fool!”
Joel just smiles at him. “What’ya mean?”
“I think you misplaced these pieces of paper.” Jimmy’s full of hate but he still smiles forcefully. “Take them back, please.”
He throws the papers on the floor, looking around to see more people standing around and observing the scene.
“This one says “Jimmy is in fact a Toy”?” Shubble says, reading her own paper.
“Wha-” He walks up to her, trying his hardest to stay calm. “Put them on the floor.”
People around are reading the pieces of papers and Joel is grinning. They lock eyes for a moment and Jimmy feels helpless. What can he even do?
“No. Put those all on the floor! I’m burning those.”
He takes out his flint and steel and burns some of the papers already laying in the dirt. He hears Shelby say something about not being in trouble but he doesn’t care. He needs those stupid papers gone.
Shubble, Pix, Joel, False, Fwhip and Sausage are standing around and he can feel the tears in his eyes forming. This was supposed to be a nice day, god damnit!
Everyone stands around laughing and talking while False stares at him. He looks her in the eyes, about to tell her off and notices her staring at his hand. He looks down. You can see his prosthetic clear as day, the glove somehow burned and revealing. He hides it behind his leg and quickly takes out an identical glove from his inventory. Jimmy switches them as fast as he can without being noticed. False is still staring, this time with a questioning and worried look in her eyes straight at him. He holds back a curse and looks right back at her with narrowed eyes, a clear message of “this never happened”.
She breaks the eye contact first and they all go look at his booth, following Sausage.
So much for a good day. He’s going to need to talk to her now, hopefully banter her into staying silent. And well, if that doesn’t work, he still has a cell in Tumble Town. He'd hate to use it on a innocent person, but he learned his lesson long ago. If someone is dangerous, you don't think, you do. Kill them, capture them, whatever works. Joel isn't dangerous, just an... annoyance to him. False... is dangerous. He can't risk it.