…This is what happens when I write while sleep deprived.
I like Chatter. I think he's got the best voice in the series.
Toy Story © Pixar/Disney, Chatter Telephone © Fisher-Price
silence without
The ones that share the Caterpillar Room cringe back when they see him pass by. They're sickened, repulsed by what they've just seen done, but they don't look away.
(The echo of laughter prompts screams, or would if prisoners could speak.)
The monsters that aren't yet children and the toys that lost themselves to rage and power that aren't toys anymore—their sounds of glee sound nothing alike but spawn similar terror all the same.
(Blue eyes are glazed with more than plastic; if he was human, it would be shock. But there's no numbing this.)
Chatter Telephone knows his dial is broken, and his wheels burn with every trembling sound that they make. But he can't stop, he can't, or they'll twist it and pull it and crack it again, and they'll drag the words out by tearing off his mouth.
Oh wait, they did that already.
Laughter bubbles up inside him, half insane. The lump of plastic that let him warn and betray the cowboy is still on his back, keeping it at bay. He couldn't force it off even if he wanted to.
He can't see anything; his eyes keep falling closed, though the wheels don't stop turning.
The rhythm would be soothing if not for the agony.
Lotso's heavy voice tells them to start 'dragging it' now, and Chatter doesn't know what that means until Sparks' pincers grab and crush his cord. He feels the floor underneath him change to concrete outside. He cracks open his eyes and realizes that they're headed to the garbage chute.
The guilt hits him like a punch, increasing the sick realization of what will happen next.
Those toys are going to go through this, too. He's seen plenty get broken, held out through plenty of losses, but this…
That cowboy had been a miracle. He escaped and came back and would've escaped again if Chatter hadn't—hadn't—
(Someone once told him that 'Chatter' is a synonym for 'tattle'. How hideously ironic.)
"Where are they?"
(it hurts it hurts it)
"What's their plan? Where are they?"
(no please no no no stop)
"It won't get any better. Just tell is. Just say it, and I'll tell 'em to stop." Gentle and kind. Fake. But—
(it hurts it hurts it hurts)
"They'll stop. Just do as I say, Chatter."
"Th-they-they went—"
"Go on."
The twisting and crack of plastic breaking will be embedded ever into his memory.
"—to…to the garbage chute—just please, please stop—"
Laughing, whooping, words swarm over him.
"Idiots."
"They'll be easy to trap."
"Ambush 'em! Ambush—"
And Lotso walks up to him, puts the mallet between his eyes and says cheerfully, "Thank you, Chatter. Now, lets go show them when they do things like—" he pushes down hard, then pulls it back like nothing happened "—this, they'll be punished. Then we'll all go back on schedule, folks."
(it hurts)
He shouldn't have told the cowboy in the first place.
He shouldn't have talked. Keep your heads down, he said, and he didn't.
But no—Chatter isn't one to blame others for his mistakes. It all rests on him and him alone.
("They'll never break me." Never is forever.)
I'm not going to survive the night, he realizes. It's not as terrifying as it would've been only a few hours ago.
He fades in and out as they drag him up the wall, and the next thing he knows he's being shoved to the edge, feeling his receiver knocked off by Twitch's staff.
He sees their angry, haggard faces turn to horror when they see him.
He feels a surge of self-hatred (he's useless now—)
"I'm sorry, cowboy…"
(they don't need him anymore.)
"…they broke me."