.

Toy Story: Mister Spaceman

Chapter 3: A Bug's Life

Flick's was a bar that most students ended up visiting at least once during their time at Luxo.

Maybe it was the food, maybe it was the wine, maybe it was because that ant holding the wine bottle on its logo looked so damn adorable, as he was chased down by a grasshopper.

Why a grasshopper wanted wine, or how the ant was able to carry a bottle of it, Andy didn't know. He wasn't a scientist, nor a drinker of alcoholic beverages.

Still, he was tempted to try, as he and Hannah walked up to the counter – if you weren't drinking hard liquor on a date, you were a hard sell, or so Nick had claimed at some point. Then again, neither Nick nor Dwyer had had any luck in courting members of the opposite sex, so he instead went with the advice his mum had given him back in middle school – "be yourself."

"Lemon, lime, and bitters."

He'd have ordered lemonade, but there was only so much of his self that he was willing to be right now.

"Right," said the bartender, giving Andy a look that said "loser," before glancing at Hannah. "And you?"

"Lemonade."

Son of a…

"Lemonade, and bitters," the bartender said. "Sure. Whatever."

She turned around, the skull tattoo on her right arm saying the rest.

"Guess we're both staying sober," Andy murmured.

"I guess," Hannah murmured, as she looked at the waitress. Her eyes on the tattoo, her lips curled as if repulsed by it.

An awkward silence lingered between them. Succumbing to the urge to break it, Andy let his mouth do its job, as his brain pulled the levers.

"Not into wine or beer?"

"No." She put a note on the counter as the drinks arrived. "I've seen what alcohol does to people."

Andy had a thought to say something else, but a second, more rational thought kept the first in check. So instead, he paid for the bitters, tried to ignore the pitying look from Skull Tattoo Girl, and went to join Hannah at the table. Wondering if he should have been a gentleman and offered to pay for her drink in addition to his own.

But then, he had student debt. And this wasn't actually a date, he reminded himself. He'd just run into his old neighbour that he barely even knew, and hadn't seen for over a decade. Drinks cost money, and dates cost time, and he had a rat gnawing his PC's RAM, screaming at him to come up with something better than attempted raticide. Not to mention a collection of other assignments.

Still, as they sat, he looked at Hannah. Finding himself reminded not of rats, but mice.

Mousy, would be the word to describe her. At the computer lab, he would have gone with plain, but it was more than that, he realized. It wasn't just her plain face, and her plain hair, and her plain everything else, but the way she held herself, glanced around the room…it was as if she feared to stand out. Not much chance in a place like this, since Flick's attracted all kinds of students, but the unease was there. On display in her pale-green eyes. Averting contact with his own. Engaged in a far-away look.

"Hannah?"

As if remembering.

"Hannah, you there?"

Remembering something unpleasant, he suspected. Nevertheless, she looked back at him. Returning to the here and now.

"I'm fine," she said, clearly lying. "Just thinking about…" She shook her head, and held up her glass. "Cheers?"

The unease wasn't just in her eyes, Andy noticed, but her voice as well. Hannah Phillips was more timid at twenty than Molly had been at two.

"Cheers," Andy murmured, clinking his glass against hers.

The pair sipped their beverages. The bitters were bitter in more ways than one, and Hannah's lemonade wasn't sweetening anything up. In an ideal world, there'd be a natural segway into conversation bar the quality of their drinks, but-

"You don't drink alcohol either?" she asked.

…but he had to make do. "No," he said. "Truth is, I just don't like the taste."

"You never developed a taste for wine?"

"No. Weird, huh?" He took another sip. "What about you? You said something about seeing what alcohol did to-"

"So how's your new place?"

"Um, my dorm?" He was aware that Hannah had changed the subject, but he decided to roll with it. "It's…fine?"

"No, I mean your house. The one you moved to."

"Oh." He took another sip of his bitters, not sure where this was going. "It's…fine, also?"

"Fine," Hannah repeated.

"Really, it's just like my old house. Only difference was that my sister got a room of her own. That's one of the main reasons we left."

"And the other?"

Andy remained silent. He'd spoken with Hannah more over the last six minutes than he had in the six years he'd lived on Stuart Street. And that wasn't nearly enough time to get close enough to divulge that level of personal detail. That Molly needed her own room was indeed a reason why they'd left. But the other reason, the one he'd come to realize years down the line, before his mother had spelt it out…

"It's a long story," he murmured. "So what about yours?"

If Hannah was the proverbial mouse in this conversation, right now, she seemed ready to slide back into her hole. Nevertheless, she took a sip of her lemonade and began to speak.

"Well, you left, and life went on," she murmured. "Jerk brother, deadbeat father, useless mother."

Andy frowned. "Least you had a father."

She grunted, and took another sip.

"Your brother…Sam, was it?"

"Sid."

"Ah. Sid. I remember."

It was a half-truth. He'd caught sight of his next-door neighbour a few times in his childhood, and they'd barely interacted. But…he took another sip of his bitters, recollecting. Maybe it was the braces, maybe it was the skull T-shirt, maybe it was just the way he carried himself, but there'd been something about Sid Phillips that had made Andy give him a wide berth. Not a bully per se (or at least, he hadn't seen Sid do any bullying), but a kid you treated with caution regardless.

And Sid, for his part, had obliged. Sometimes Andy would see him in his yard (a yard that he heard an explosion from every other week), sometimes he'd see him skateboarding down the street, but the truth was, their paths had never crossed.

Which was the same for Hannah as well, come to think of it. He'd seen her even less – maybe the odd hello, if either of them happened to be on the street at the same time – but from what he recalled…well, little had changed. Back then, she'd been quiet, rarely speaking, usually holding a doll that was in some state of disrepair. Clutching it against her chest as if it were a lifeline. Right now, she looked the same, sans the doll.

And was remaining about as quiet as one.

"How's Sid doing anyway?"

"Oh, fine," Hannah said, not meeting Andy's eyes. "He ended up working in garbage."

"That's…nice?"

"Oh, it is. He was a piece of garbage as a kid, a piece of garbage as a teen, and now he gets to work with garbage."

Andy frowned. "Bit harsh, don't you think?"

Hannah laughed bitterly, as she took a sip of her lemonade. "You wouldn't say that if you knew him."

Andy, having not known Sid all that well, supposed he couldn't disagree.

"It was weird, though," she murmured, as she glanced aside. As if talking to herself as much as Andy. "Round about the time you left, he changed. Less crazy, more…I dunno, crazy in another way?"

"Pardon?"

"He'd used to wreck my toys, but after you left, he started being…different? Less a wrecking ball, more a…" She trailed off. "It doesn't matter."

Andy hoped not. He had a terrible feeling that this was leading to something. Some kind of accusation that he'd left, and that was the catalyst for a revenge plan over a decade in the making or something. Ergo, he spoke up.

"Molly sometimes drove me nuts as well."

"Molly?"

"My sister. She'd sometimes hide my stuff in every nook and cranny, I-"

"It wasn't like that."

Andy shut up. He sat there, waiting for Hannah to say something. Which might have been a mistake, because he soon realized, if not soon enough, that she was waiting for him to say something.

Girls were weird, he reflected. Especially ones who popped out of nowhere from over ten years in the past. He took a sip of his bitters, thinking of that ant on display. Doomed to live a short, but far more simple life. Live for the queen, die for the queen, evade the angry grasshopper, and do with the wine…whatever ants did with their liquor. Probably drunk it, made more ants, and eventually more queens.

"Anyway," said Hannah eventually. 'I should go."

"Yeah." Andy blinked. "I mean, you don't have to. I-"

"No, really. Arrived late for class, so I have catching up to do."

A half-truth at best, Andy could tell. But you didn't get through life without lying some of the time.

"Well evening," he said.

"Evening." She got up, before looking at Andy, then at the entrance, then back at Andy. "Um…"

"Um?"

"Listen, I know it's weird, but here's my number." Hannah said suddenly. She took out a pen and notepad, wrote down the digits, and gave the paper to Andy. "I mean, if you want to hang out again…"

"Um, sure?"

Another lie? He wasn't sure. Full lies, half-lies, white lies…he really wished he could say something profound on that, or really, anything at all, but instead, he kept his mouth shut. Watched Hannah give him a faint smile before leaving. Heading out of Flick's, out into the wide world beyond the proverbial anthill. Leaving Andy Davis alone with a bitters that, for whatever reason, now tasted like it needed more sugar.

"You let her go?" He looked at Skull Tattoo, as she took Hannah's empty glass. "Blew it, kid. That one was a keeper."

"Really?"

"Hell no." She grinned, giving Andy a small punch. "Good looking boy like you can do much better than that."

Andy frowned. Even if that were true, that wasn't the kind of thing you were meant to say. Right?

He didn't know.

He just sat there. Drinking the bitters.

Looking at the number.

Trying not to think about ants.