Bruce and Danny Chapter 12: Before the Trip

By: Ash Cinder

            Time was soon approaching for me to take a trip to the Capital to try and fight this piece of legislation. But before I went, I wanted to spend a day with my son, since I’d been so busy and been away from him for so long. Plus, I needed to tell him about me being out of town for a few days, and I figured it’d be easier to do that when he was happy.

            I got my keys and walked over to his room, opening the door to see him playing his GameBoy. He looked up from it when he noticed me open the door.

            “Hey dad,” He greeted.

            “Hey Danny, I finally had some free time after all the work I’ve been wrapped up in and I was wondering if you wanted to go to the park or something?”

            He’d turned off his game and jumped off the bed within 3 seconds of me finishing my question.

            “I guess that’s a yes?” I snarked, rubbing the top of his head. “Go ahead and get your shoes on, I’ll go downstairs and get my wallet.”

            “Alright!”

            I went down stairs and told Emma I’d be taking Danny out to the park and to get some ice cream after.

            “I’m glad you’re finally able to play with him after all this time.”

            “Me too,” I said,” I just hope he isn’t too disappointed when I tell him about me leaving for a few days.”

            “He knows how busy you are, besides we can all go for a little weekend together after you get back.”

            “That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “Don’t know where we’d go, but we’ll figure it out.”

            “Dad, I’m ready!” I heard Danny call.

            “Sound’s like it’s time for you guys to take off,” Emma said, giving me a kiss. “You two have fun!”

            “Thanks, love you!” I said, grabbing my keys and heading to the front door where Danny was waiting.

            I was happy dad decided to spend the day with me, after working all that time. I had really been missing him. Hanging out with mom, and my friends from school was fun, but it was always fun having a big grizzly as a dad to wrestle around with when you were a little human kid.

            It had been a while since dad had taken me to the park, after school started and I started hanging out more with my new friends at their houses, I didn’t get to go to the park much. But it always held a nice nostalgic place in my heart.

            Dad parked outside the park and let me out of the car. I immediately ran over to the swings and waited for him to get behind me and push me on the swing like he used to do. I didn’t have to wait too long, feeling his large paws grab my shoulders and give me a little push, sending me high into the air.

            “Woo!” I cheered as he pushed me higher.

            “I have to admit, I missed this,” Dad said.

            “Me too.”

            I kicked my feet as my dad continued to push me. I always liked playing on the swings. Feeling the wind blowing through my hair, kicking my feet in the air each time I swung forward.

            While dad kept pushing me higher and higher on the swing, I looked over to the other part of the playground, where the jungle gym was, remembering the time dad stood up for me.

            “Remember that time you yelled at that kid for picking on me?” I asked, looking back at dad.

            “Heh, you remember that?” He asked.

            “Yeah,” I said, “It was pretty cool.”

            “Well, I wasn’t just gonna let some brat hurt my cub, was I?”

            I giggled.

            “Nope.”

            “A good dad’s gotta protect his cub at all costs.”

            He rubbed the top of my head.

            “I wonder whatever happened to that kid, I think you scared him away from the park after that day.”

            “Probably,” Dad said, “Heh, I just hope he learned a lesson not to behave that way again.”

            “Yeah I hope so.”

            “Still can’t believe you’re going to start first grade in August,” Dad said. “Pretty soon you’ll be moving on from elementary to middle school.”

            “Pretty soon, I’ll be a grown up, like you,” I said, grinning back at him.

            “You sure will,” Dad said, ruffling my brown hair.

            “You think I’ll ever be as big as you are?” I asked.

            “Hm, I don’t know, I’m a pretty big bear,” He said. “Maybe if you eat your vegetables.” He gave me a playful wink.

            I giggled and jumped off the swing once it got the highest I thought it would go.

            “Nice form,” Dad clapped.

            I did a playful bow.

            “Wanna go play on the jungle gym for a while?” He asked.

            “Nah, you can’t play on it with me,” I said, walking back over and hugging his arm. “I want to keep doing things we can do together.”

            “Well alright, how about we go for some ice cream then?” Dad asked.

            “Sure!” I said excitedly.

            Dad got me in the car, and we drove over to Marble Slab that was just a few miles away from the park.

            I got some chocolate ice cream with cookie dough and hot fudge mixed in and dad got cookies and cream with Butterfinger bits and marshmallows.

            “So, how’s Josh been doing?”

            “Good,” I said, “he and the others have been getting along great.”

            “That’s good, I’m glad he’s not as nervous around anthros as he was at first.”

            “Yeah, he said he was just nervous seeing you cause there aren’t a lot of anthros in his neighborhood, but now he’s been wanting to hangout with Angie, Tyson, and Owen all summer.”

            “I understand, I know I can be a bit… intimidating, like I said earlier, I’m a pretty big bear. I’m glad you were still able to make friends at school. Has anyone still been picking on you?”

            “Just Mark,” I said, continuing to eat my ice cream.

            “He the brat that almost peed himself when he saw me behind him?” Dad asked with a smirk.

            “Yup, that’s Mark,” I said, giggling at remembering the look on his face when he realized dad was behind him.

            “You keep standing up for yourself when I’m not there, right?”

            “Yeah, I don’t just let him talk to me like that,” I said.

            “Good,” Dad said.

            After a while I noticed dad looked like he was thinking about something. He seemed to realize that I’d noticed, because he told me what he’d been building up to this whole day.

“So, I’m glad we got to hang out more today…” Dad said. “Cause, I need to tell you that I’m going to be going on a little trip for a while.”

            “Trip?” I asked.

            “Yeah, a little business trip for work for one weekend, so I’m going to be away from you and mom for a little bit.”

            I couldn’t help but look disappointed, right when it seemed like Dad was going to have time to play with me more, he has to leave for a while. Dad of course noticed my expression.

            “Hey,” He said, putting one of his fingers under my chin and lifting it up, “I know you’ve been missing me a lot, and I’ve been missing you too, but I’m doing something really important that might make life a bit better for us.”

            “Yeah?”

            “Mmhmm, I can’t talk about it right now, but I promise I’ll tell you more when the time is right, and once I’m done maybe you, me and your mom can take a little vacation together someplace? I’ll definitely have more time for that once I get back.”

            “That would be fun.”

            “Right?” He rubbed the top of my head with his large paw. “Then I can make up for all the time I’ve been too busy.”

            I laughed. Yeah, I was a little sad that dad would have to go away for a while, but I knew it’d be all the sweeter when he came back from it.

            “Alright,” I said. “What’ll we do when you get back?”

            “Not sure, maybe you and mom can talk about it while I’m gone? Summer’s still got a month and a half left, so we have some time.”

            “Okay, when are you leaving?”

            “Next weekend,” He said. “But like I said, it’s just one weekend, and then I’ll be back.”

            “Yeah, that’s not too long.”

            I smiled a bit.

            “There you go. Well, it looks like we’re both done with our ice cream. What do you say we both head home and do some more stuff together?”

            “Sure! How about I teach you how to play Crash Team Racing?” I asked excitedly.

            “Sounds like a plan,” He said as we got up and headed back to the car.

            After I took Danny back home, Danny took me up to his room and booted up his PlayStation so he could show me how to play that racing game he liked so much. He handed me the controller, kind of clunky in my large paws.

            “So, which of these characters is Crash?” I asked. “I wanna be him.”

            “That one,” Danny said, pointing to the orange character.

            “What? That fox?”

            “No, he’s a Bandicoot.”

            “Oh, guess that explains why he doesn’t have a fluffy tail then.”

            “I’ll be Tiny Tiger,” Danny said, selecting a big buff looking character.

            “That is not a tiger!” I protested.

            “Oh my gosh, dad, it’s just his name.” Danny said, acting annoyed.

            “Well I don’t care, Crash is still a bandicoot even though he looks like a fox!”

            “You’re such a dork.” Danny said, as we started the race.

            I gave him a playful push and he giggled, speeding ahead of me.

            “Hey, go easy on me!” I complained. “This is my first time playing, remember?”

            “Fine,” He said, going a little slower so I could catch up.

            The game was a lot more intense than I was expecting. I was just expecting a cute little racing game, I didn’t realize it had rockets and TNT to blast at your opponents and run them off the tracks.

            Even with Danny taking it easy on me, I just wasn’t very good at this, but I still had fun playing with him, and he sure seemed to enjoy kicking my butt at it.

            Once we finished the game and had dinner, Danny crashed pretty hard afterward. I couldn’t blame him, we’d had quite a full day. After I put him to bed, I chatted with Emma about the day we had.

            “It was great getting to spend time with Danny again,” I told her. “I know I’ll be able to do it more after I go to the Capital. Once that’s done I’m going to be a bit less involved so that I can focus more on you two.”

            “When are you supposed to go?” She asked.

            “In 2 weeks, I’m excited, but also a little nervous,” I said.

            “You’ll do fine, someone has to take a stand against this.”

            “It’s like I told Danny earlier today, ‘a good dad’s gotta protect his cub at all costs’.”

            “And you are a good dad,” Emma said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

            “Thanks, and you’re an amazing mom. Without your judgement we never would have chosen him.”

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Michael E. Dunlop

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