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(This chapter was inspired by a short series of posts from an old Bluey thread on 4chan's /co/ board.
Also, this chapter takes place after Chapter 2 of 'Chilli Dog'.)
Also on AO3", "writing": " “Alright. Yeah, yeah. That’s fine. Okay. I’ll… I’ll be there soon. Okay. Bye.”\n\n Chilli sighed in disappointment as she hung up the phone. “Fuckin’ [i]Madge[/i], it’s always [i]Madge[/i]…” She huffed under her breath as she grabbed the car keys on the kitchen counter.\n “What goin’ on?” Bandit asked as he entered the kitchen wearing his nicest tie, noticing that Chilli seemed upset about something. \n “Looks like we’re gonna have to call off our reservation.” The red heeler said with a roll in her eyes as she gathered her work bag in frustration. \n “Aw, [i]what[/i]? Why?” Her husband asked in equal dismay; this was going to be their first real date night in a while, and now it had to be [i]cancelled[/i]?\n “Who else but Madge? She was a no-call-no-show, [i]again[/i], so now my boss wants me to fill in for her. They said they’ll pay me extra for coming in on short-notice, but… still. I know it might sound terrible of me to say, but I swear, that woman is going senile. But management won’t fire her because she’s ‘too valuable’.” She said the last two words in a mocking tone as she gestured air-quotes with her fingers. “I honestly just wish she would retire already, she’s driving me [i]nuts[/i]. She doesn’t even really [i]do[/i] anything!” Her cheeks were red with anger the more she thought about that pain-in-the-neck co-worker.\n “Try to relax Babe, we can just reschedule. No big deal.” Bandit held her shoulders comfortingly and pulled her into a hug, and Chilli hugged him back weakly. \n “But they’re probably gonna charge us a cancellation fee, and…” Chilli couldn’t help but have a negative outlook at she felt like their entire evening plans had been completely ruined by Madge’s poor work-ethic. \n “Can [i]I[/i] go?”\n Chilli and Bandit both turned to face the familiar voice coming from the kitchen entrance, seeing Bluey standing in the doorway. \n “How long have you been standing there?” Bandit asked as Bluey walked up to them, sitting up on her usual chair at the counter. \n “Pretty much the whole time. So can I? I mean, if it’s okay with Mum.” Her tail wagged expectantly as she gave Chilli a hint of her ‘Please’ face, but Bandit spoke first.\n “I dunno kid, this was supposed to be just me and your Mum tonight, we shouldn’t-”\n “No, no, it’s okay.” Chilli interrupted. “I [i]really[/i] don’t want to waste any money by cancelling it, so you two should go.” Suddenly, she turned to Bluey with a more serious look on her face and her hands on her hips. “But this is a very [i]fancy[/i] restaurant, okay Bluey? So you need to act like a proper young lady the [i]whole[/i] time. That means [i]no[/i] loud random singing, [i]no[/i] picky eating, and [i]no silly games[/i]. Can you handle that?” She gave Bluey an extra-deep glare to let her know how serious she was about this. She wanted the Heelers to be seen as a respectable family, after all. \n “Okay, Mum. I promise.” Bluey put her serious face on as well, already getting into ‘character’ as a proper young lady. \n “Hold on,” Bandit interjected as he remembered something they were forgetting. “We already got Brandy to babysit for the night, and the reservation is only for two, so Bingo might feel left-out...”\n “That’s okay, I wanna spend the night with Auntie Brandy!” The three of them turned to see Bingo now standing in the kitchen doorway. \n“How long have you been standing there?” Chilli asked, as all three were surprised by just how quiet she had been. \n “Pretty much the whole time!” Bingo exclaimed proudly; she liked pretending to be invisible. \n “Well, if you’re sure you’re fine with that Bingo, that I guess that settles that then. I have to get going and I’m going to need to take the car, so you’ll have to get a rideshare to [i]Bone Appétit[/i]. Be good, you lot.” Chilli gave Bandit and Bluey a look in particular as she said those words before giving her husband a kiss goodbye and heading out the door. \n\n Just as Chilli was heading to the car, Brandy pulled up in her own. \n “Wait, you’re heading out already? Alone? What about Bandit?” Brandy asked in confusion as she got out of her car and began walking to the door. \n “Oh, it’s a long story, work wants me to come in. Plans haven’t changed, we still need you to babysit tonight, but Bandit’s taking Bluey out instead so we don’t waste the reservation so it’ll just be you and Bingo. They’re all still inside, but I’m already running late so I really have to be going, but thank you again Brandy! We’ll catch up again later!” Chilli concluded the conversation hurriedly as she got into the car and left the driveway, disappearing down the sloped road. \n As Brandy waved goodbye before going inside to greet Bandit and the kids in Chilli’s rear-view mirror, an ingenious idea popped into Chilli’s head. “[i]Brandy…[/i]” She smirked to herself with degenerate thoughts of her sister and Bandit together soon filling her head as she continued her drive to the airport. \n\n Fifteen minutes later, Bandit and Bluey were sitting side-by-side in the back of the black rideshare car that had picked them up and was now taking them to [i]Bone Appétit[/i].\n “Wow, it feels like we’re in a [i]limo[/i], doesn’t it, Dad?!” Bluey looked out the window excitedly as she had never been in a rideshare car before. Without thinking, she placed her hand on Bandit’s, causing his face to feel slightly warm. There was nothing inherently weird about a daughter holding her father’s hand, but in the context of their forbidden secret, something about being affectionate with his daughter in a public setting suddenly felt like walking on eggshells. To be honest, it kind of excited him a bit. \n The big blue heeler began to daydream, his mind wandering willingly into dirty thoughts of himself discretely fingering his precious daughter’s wet little cookie in the backseat. He imagined the adorable whimpers she would make as she would try to hide her pleasure from the driver. Just as he started getting immersed in the daydream, he began to notice a stirring between his legs, snapping himself out of it so as not to become visibly aroused in public; [i]especially[/i] not around his own young daughter. \n It wasn’t much longer before they finally arrived. Bandit got out first, going around the back end of the car and opening Bluey’s door for her before helping her with her seatbelt, for which she was just barely now big enough not to need a booster seat anymore. Bluey jumped out of the car giddily at first, but as she looked up at the extremely ornate décor of the fancy French restaurant she remembered the promise she made to her mum. Like the flip of a switch, Bluey suddenly became a proper young lady fit to dine at a luxurious establishment such as this. \n As Bandit walked up beside her, she put on a haughty expression as she held onto her dad’s arm and walked with a stiff posture as she imagined someone fancy like the Queen might do. As they approached the short-statured Papillon dog reservationist behind the podium at the front door, he squinted at them slightly with a suspicious look. Not because he suspected anything inappropriate between the obviously-related two blue heelers approaching them, but because one of them was a young child. And in his personal experience, young children tended to be… disruptive. \n “Name?” He asked Bandit in a monotone voice, giving Bluey a few side-glances. \n “Heeler.” Bandit replied with confidence, knowing their reservation was still being honored. They wouldn’t have to pay the cancellation fee after all. \n “Hmm, I see your name here, but…” Bandit’s heart began to sank at the word ‘but’. “We highly discourage [i]children[/i] here at [i]Bone Appétit[/i]. This is a [i]fine[/i] dining establishment, and we will not tolerate any… [i]rambunctiousness[/i] or silliness of any kind. For the sake of our paying patrons, you understand. Perhaps you two would be better off at… [i]Carl E. Colby’s[/i]?” \n Bandit felt his blood suddenly boil at the rudeness of this pretentious little prick for insulting his daughter that way; she deserved to be here just as much as anyone else. His fists tightened for a moment as the hair on the back of his neck slightly raised, and for the [i]briefest[/i] second, he wanted to punch this little yip-dog’s lights out. One punch is all it would only take for a dog of his size. But he needed to set a good example for Bluey. Not to mention, Chilli definitely wouldn’t appreciate her and her family being banned from [i]Bone Appétit[/i] for life. Relaxing his fists, Bandit held Bluey close to his side and spoke calmly and professionally.\n “Sir, my daughter is [i]more[/i] than deserving of dining here. She was wonderful manners, she’s perfectly-behaved in public, and she’s my pride and joy.” He looked down at Bluey and she looked back up at him, her eyes starting to feel glossy with water as he stood up for her with such confidence. \n “Well… very well, but if we receive [i]any[/i] complaints, we’ll have no choice but to escort you from the premises.”\n “I’ll take those chances. Come on, Bluey.” Bandit grabbed his daughter’s hand as he led her inside with more power in his stride than usual. Bluey felt her chest pumping and her face get hot as she couldn’t help but feel more than a little turned on by her dad’s aura of confidence when he told the rude reservationist off in such a dignified manner. However, she couldn’t let her true feelings for him show and she quickly returned back to her ‘proper young lady’ persona. \nOnce they were inside, Bandit played along with her character and pulled her chair out for her like a gentleman. \n “Thank you, [i]darling[/i].” Bluey said in a posh accent that sounded suspiciously like an impression of their neighbor Wendy. As Bandit sat in his seat across from his daughter, a white male poodle waiter approached them. \n “Good evening, welcome to [i]Bone Appetit[/i], I’m Jacques, your waiter for this evening. Can I start you two off with anything to drink?”\n “Uh…” Bandit thought for a moment. Normally, he and Chilli would share a wine bottle, but Bluey obviously couldn’t drink. And he didn’t want to drink in front of her either, to set a good example. He didn’t want her to see him even the slightest-bit drunk. However, it felt wrong to go to a fancy restaurant like this and [i]not[/i] order wine. “We’ll both just get some grape juice, but… can we get them in the wine glasses?” He felt a bit embarrassed to ask, but thankfully this waiter was much more relaxed and understanding than the reservationist. \n “Of course sir, we’ll have that out here for you shortly. Please take a look at the menus and I will return in a moment with your drinks.” He hands Bandit a regular menu, and a kids’ menu for Bluey. \n [i]‘So they serve kids here after all. That fuckin’ jackass…’[/i] Bandit felt his teeth clench as he thought about that Papillon dog again. As Bluey looked at the kid’s menu, her expression turned into a scowl. \n “I think I want to order from [i]that[/i] menu instead.” She pointed to the full menu in Bandit’s hands with the wider variety of fancier food, rather than just the usual chicken strips and mac & cheese – the things that [i]most[/i] kids would only ever eat. But she wasn’t [i]like[/i] most kids. She wanted to feel like a proper young lady. She wanted this to feel like a real [i]date[/i]. “Can I?” \n “Uh, sure Bluey. I already know what I want anyway.” He handed her the menu, and she looked through the pages as she tried to read the fancy cursive writing. \n “What’s this word?” She asked as she pointed to a word on the page. \n “[i]Escargot.[/i] That’s snails, and trust me, you’re not gonna like it. [i]No one[/i] likes it.”\n “Snails?” Bluey wanted to gag at the thought of eating a snail, but she stopped herself to save-face and simply continued looking through the menu. \n “What about this one?” She pointed at another item on the menu.\n “[i]Magret de canard sauce cerises[/i]. That’s duck breast with cherry sauce.” He translated for her as he leaned over to read the spot she was pointing at.\n “Ooh, I kinda want to try that one. Is that okay?” Bluey asked politely, knowing that her dad would be the one paying for it all and not wanting him to overspend just because of her. \n “Yeah, of course kiddo. Whatever you want.” He smiled as he reached forward and held her hand without thinking much of it; as he felt her fingers gently brush his hand while they looked at each other, Bandit felt his heart skip a beat and he pulled back, noticing that the waiter had returned with their grape juice in wine glasses, just as Bandit had requested. \n “Here you are, and I’ll just leave the bottle here for you.” The waiter placed a partially-emptied plastic bottle of grape juice on the table, just as they would have done with a wine bottle for anyone else. “Have we decided on what to order?”\n “Yeah, I’ll have the [i]filet de boeuf aux morilles[/i], and she’ll have the [i]magret de canard sauce cerises[/i].” Bandit spoke in near-perfect French with complete phonetic accuracy, impressing the waiter. \n “Very good sir, we’ll get started on those right away.” Jacques took the menus and returned to the kitchen, leaving Bandit and his daughter alone at the table. \n “[i]What[/i] was it you got?” Bluey asked, unsure what ‘feelay da buff a Marie’ was. \n “Oh, it’s filet mignon in morel mushroom sauce. It’s like fancy steak.” Bandit swirled the grape juice in his wine glass, pretending it was really wine before taking a drink. \n“Ohh, okay.” As Bluey looked at her glass with the thin round bowl and the frail-looking handle, she became a little – no, a [i]lot[/i] nervous as she imagined accidentally spilling the juice on herself or the table – or even worse, dropping it and accidentally breaking the glass on the floor. She desperately didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her dad and get them banned from the restaurant for life, not after he had stood up for her the way he did. More than being banned, her dad’s disappointment in her would be the worst feeling of all. She carefully grabbed the handle with both hands, being cautious not to grip it too tightly; even the slightest grip might snap it in half, she thought. She gulped nervously as she looked down at the swirling purple liquid in front of her.\n “Bluey, you okay?” Bandit asked as he looked at her intensely staring down her glass of ‘wine’. As if she were strategically diffusing a bomb, Bluey slowly brought the lip of the glass to her lips and tilted it downwards, taking several drinks of the juice before tilting it upwards again and setting it down on the table. Centimeters at a time, she slowly let go of the glass with both hands. With an exasperated sigh of relief, she had done it – she had avoided breaking or spilling the glass and potentially ruining their special date night. \n “Nice one, Bluey. But if it’s stressing you out too much, I can ask the waiter to bring a regular cup if you want to drink out of that instead.” Bandit gave her a smile of reassurance, having picked up on why she was drinking so incredibly slowly.\n “Yeah, I think I’d like that.” Although she gained a little confidence that she was able to successfully drink out of a grown-up glass, Bluey did [i]not[/i] want to go through that again. Not here, at least. Maybe she would try again when she was a little older. \n\n The food finally arrived, and as they ate their meal together, Bluey swallowed her first bite of the delicious duck meat with cherry sauce before asking her dad a question.\t\n “Oh! Dad, how did you learn to speak French so well?” She took a drink of grape juice from her more normally-shaped glass that the waiter had given her upon Bandit’s request. \n “I took a class back in college. And some of my digs have been in France, so it helps to keep in practice with it.” Bandit replied casually before he took another bite of his delicious filet mignon. \n “Ooh, can you teach me later?” Bluey’s tail wagged with a slight blush on her cheeks as she imagined her dad whispering fluent French into her ear; it was such a [i]romantic[/i] language, after all.\n “Sure, if you like.” Her dad replied with an innocent smile before taking another drink of his juice from his wine glass. \n “Hooray!” Bluey celebrated quickly and with her inside-voice with her arms out slightly before taking another bite of her cherry-glazed duck. She was so glad she had decided to try something new, as this was surprisingly delicious. Much more so than the escargot probably was. \n\n The rest of their dinner went off without a single hitch, and after paying for the meal and leaving the kind waiter a generous tip, the father and daughter exited outside for some fresh air as the sun began to set over the horizon. Thankfully, the Papillon dog’s shift had ended and a new dog was standing in his place, otherwise Bandit would have been tempted to give him an earful about his personal bias against his daughter. \n “It’s still pretty light out, you wanna go for a walk?” Bandit asked as he held Bluey’s hand in his, noticing a peaceful-looking park just down the block. \n “Yeah!” Bluey shouted as she dropped her proper young lady act now that the dinner was over, her tail instinctively wagging furiously at the mere word ‘walk’. \n\n With the sun slowly setting lower and lower over the horizon, Bluey and Bandit were each licking some ice-creams they had gotten from a nearby stand for dessert; their hearts beat in-sync as they felt each other’s hand in their own. To everyone who saw them, they looked like nothing more than a simple father and daughter on a walk. But to them, they felt more like a couple as they walked in the peaceful relative silence of each other’s company. \n After they finished their ice-creams, Bluey let go of Bandit’s hand for a few moments to grab a few dandelions sticking out of the sidewalk nearby and returning to his side, reaching over to hand them to him. Bandit took the dandelions from her and brought them to his nose, inhaling slightly. As they reached the end of the sidewalk and the sun set in front of them, Bandit felt tears suddenly welling in his eyes as he had a thought once again come to mind. \n This love likely wouldn’t last forever. \n His little Bluey was growing up, and before long she would move on with her life. She needed to. She couldn’t – [i]shouldn’t[/i] - be with her own dad forever, and as much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t always be able to be there for her once he got old and inevitably passed away someday. \n “Someday… you’ll have a [i]real[/i] husband who will take you on [i]real[/i] dates. Or maybe, you’ll have a [i]wife[/i] who will do this for you, who knows.” Bandit looked around for anyone else who might be within earshot of this conversation as he tried to discretely wipe the tears from his eyes with a sniffle, but Bluey wasn’t fooled. “Someone who’s [i]right[/i] for you. You’ll meet them someday. Either way, I’ll support you no matter what. I know you’ll have to move on from me eventually, and that’s okay. I just want you to know… I’ll understand. And I’ll always love you.” The blue heeler felt a tickle in his throat as he felt his daughter suddenly hugging his waist. \n “But Dad, this date [i]was[/i] real. It was the realest [i]ever[/i].” She looked up at Bandit with tears starting to well up in her eyes as well, her heart still full of pure love only for him. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she leaned up slightly and spoke in a hushed voice with a smile. “And you [i]are[/i] my husband, remember?” \n Bandit smiled back sadly; how could he forget the best dream he’d ever had? He knelt down and gave her a hug with the dandelions she had given him still in his hand, their tails wagging back and forth in unison as the orange light of the sun finally disappeared over the skyline. He still knew what he said was an unavoidable truth, but as he felt Bluey in his arms he figured it would be best to simply [i]enjoy[/i] this time with her while he had it instead of dwelling so much on the future. \n\t\n As the two heelers rode home in another rideshare, Bandit noticed a [i]Carl E. Colby[/i]’s pizza-place and arcade. With a smile to himself as he got an idea, the blue heeler spoke up to the driver. “Hey mate, can you actually drop us off up here instead?” He reached up and pointed at the general area of the [i]Carl E. Colby[/i]’s. \n “Sure, no problem. Have a good night!” The driver pulled up to the curb, and the father and daughter got out of the car before he drove off. \n “What are we doing here, Dad?” Bluey asked in confusion as she noticed they obviously weren’t anywhere near home yet. \n “Well the night is still young, whaddya think about going there to play some games for a bit?” Bandit pointed at the kids’ arcade with a smile, knowing that Bluey wouldn’t be able to resist.\n “[i]Really[/i]?! For [i]real life[/i]?!” Bluey looked more excited than he could remember having seen her be for a while, looking she was about to explode with joy. Going to [i]Carl E. Colby[/i]’s was a once-in-a-blue-moon outing for the Heelers, and after spending the entire evening so far having to contain her overabundance of youthful energy, this was exactly what she needed to let loose a little. \n “For real life.” Bandit smiled and held her hand as the went inside together. \n\n Admittedly, Bandit had splurged a little and gotten two swipe-cards for him and Bluey with the highest-option amount of “tokens” on each. Even if they didn’t use them all tonight, they would still be good for the next time they came here. Once they had their swipe-cards in hand, the two went around to each game at least once – even the more boring-looking ones. Bandit was a little overly-competitive as always with the two-player games against Bluey, but after a few wins he had learned over time to let her win a few. Thankfully, there were a few games where he couldn’t win against Bluey, no matter how hard he tried. The piano game was her specialty; she hit each giant key flawlessly, while Bandit struggled to keep up after only a few notes. \n The main event, however, was when Bandit played skee-ball. Bluey watched in awe and a crowd of random onlookers even began to gather around Bandit as the blue heeler played game after game of skee-ball with the skill of a professional, rolling ball after ball into the top-left 100-point hole. After ten straight games, the multicolored lights flashed brightly with a celebratory alarm on the skee-ball game’s board as Bandit won the jackpot ticket prize. Bandit cheered with pride while the massive number of virtual tickets he had won kept going up on the display, and did the group of dogs gathered around his game cheered along with him as Bluey gave her dad’s waist an excited hug from the side. \n After a round of high-fives with the onlookers, Bandit took his daughter to the ‘Prize Corner’ and they looked around at all the stuff they could trade in the tickets they had won for. Eventually, a prize on the top wall caught Bluey’s eye.\n “Ooh, Dad, what about [i]that[/i] one?!” She pointed up at it with a faint sparkle in her eyes, as it was what she really wanted more than [i]anything[/i] else. It was a gigantic plush of a cartoonish-looking fruit bat with bright neon-blue fur markings and large round glittery eyes as it had a big smile on its adorable face. Bandit winced as he saw the ticket price, but after a moment to think, pulled out both cards with a smile. \n “Well, let’s just see how much we’ve got.”\n\n “Sorry sir, that’s still not enough tickets for the fruit bat.”\n Bandit and Bluey both felt downhearted as the teenage beagle cashier finished tallying up the tickets. Bandit covered the side of his mouth with one hand as he leaned in and spoke in a hushed tone to the dog on the other side of the counter.\n “Look mate, can’t I just[i] buy[/i] the fruit bat off you? My daughter [i]really[/i] wants it.” Though it felt a little childish to attempt on another grown adult, Bandit gave the best ‘Please Face’ he could muster in public. \n “Sorry sir, that’s not how that works here. The prizes have to be bought with tickets won at the games.” The cashier felt a little awkward to reject the two blue heelers, but rules were rules. \n “Dang, okay then… sorry Bluey. Maybe it’ll still be here next time we come.” Bandit gently patted Bluey’s back, hoping she would take it well. “We can get something [i]else[/i] instead, if you like.”\nAlthough she looked a bit disappointed at first, she tried to shrug it off and accept the situation. Sometimes life would just have little disappointments from time to time. \n “That’s okay, maybe you’re right, Dad. Let’s save the tickets, just in case.” She held Bandit’s hand as her eyes somberly drifted down to the colorful carpet at her feet, still feeling the slight sting of rejection. \n “Alright, if you’re sure… well, thanks anyway mate.” Bandit looked back at the cashier as he softly rubbed the back of Bluey’s hand with his thumb before looking back down at his daughter. “We’d better be heading home anyway, huh kiddo? It’s startin’ to get a bit late.”\n\n The two heelers entered the front door of their home together after the rideshare driver dropped them off; with Bingo having been tucked into bed and fallen asleep over an hour ago, Bandit relieved Brandy of her babysitting duties and she headed home. \n Bandit let out a sigh of exhaustion from a long and eventful evening as he sat back on the couch before turning on the tv to watch the rugby game, with Bluey taking a seat on the couch next to him. It was already in the fourth quarter, but Bandit didn’t mind not seeing the start of the game. Neither of these teams were really his favorite, anyway.\n “Wait, why is there a rugby game going on so late at night?” She asked, confused why the players were playing in seemingly broad daylight. \n “Oh, this game’s in a different time-zone. It’s not night yet for them.” Bandit let out a quiet yawn. “You probably don’t wanna watch this, huh?”\n “Um… no that’s okay, I’ll watch the game with you.” She inched closer to her dad on the couch. “It’s the least I can do after everything you did for me tonight…” She thought back on their first real date together with a tired smile as she watched the players running around on the tv, though she was still feeling a bit let-down that she didn’t get to take home the fruit bat plush.\n “Thanks, Bluey, that really means a lot that you’d watch this with me. I’m glad you had a good time.” With a stretch of his arms, he laid down on his side on the couch. \n After a few minutes of watching the game together in silence, he suddenly felt his daughter squeezing into the empty space on the couch in front of him, shimmying her back against his chest as she snuggled up to him while laying on her side as well. Without thinking much of it, Bandit rested his arm around Bluey from behind and exhaled a comforted sigh from his nose as the two snuggled on the couch. \n “Did [i]you[/i] have a good time?” Bluey asked quietly. \n “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Bandit responded back, equally quiet.\n “Good…” He could feel her tail start to wag gently as he held her in his arms. With his nose so close to the top of her head, he could easily smell the natural scent of her body as he held it against his own. In that moment, this exact position reminded him of their very first moment of intimacy together in their dreams. \n As the pale light from the television shone on their faces, Bluey turned her head and looked back at her dad, and Bandit’s head tilted up slightly as he looked back down at his daughter. Without a single word, they looked into each other’s eyes. \n They looked, and looked. Silently. \n Only mere seconds had passed by, but to the two heelers, it felt more like [i]hours[/i] as they kept looking at each other. \n\n Spontaneously, their faces suddenly met in the middle as they shared a deep incestuous kiss between a father and his daughter. \n For real life. \n Bandit’s hand tightly clung to Bluey’s chest from behind as he pulled her into the kiss, and she melted in his embrace with a light whine into his mouth as their tongues greeted each other in the first [i]real[/i] kiss the two had ever shared. As Bandit swirled his tongue around his daughter’s, there was something about her immaculate taste that felt even more intense and flavorful than he had [i]ever[/i] been able to experience in their lucid dreams together. With their tails both wagging faster in unison, Bandit felt himself start to become stiff as his peeking tip eagerly pressed against the back of Bluey’s wagging tail. \n As much as he didn’t [i]want[/i] to, Bandit knew this meant it was time to stop before things went too far. He had made a promise to Chilli to make sure that what she saw [i]never[/i] happened between him and Bluey in real life ever again. Only in their dreams on the weekends, that was the rule she had set. \n With a heavy exhale from them both as he broke the kiss, Bandit caught his breath for a moment to calm himself down before he finally spoke. \n “We need to stop…” He whispered, though his lips were still [i]achingly[/i] close to hers as he desperately wanted to continue. \n “Yeah… yeah…” Bluey whispered back sweetly as she slowly came down from her high, eventually finding to strength to resist her father and turning back around to face the tv. \n\n The rugby game finally ended, and with that, the big blue heeler got up and carried his tired little blue daughter upstairs before tucking her into bed. They looked at each other again for a moment as Bandit knelt at Bluey’s bedside with the soft orange glow of ‘Lampy’ the salt-rock lamp illuminating her face, and for a brief moment he was tempted with the strong urge to kiss her soft and delicious muzzle yet again. His face inched closer to hers, feeling his pulse quickening as he gulped. \n Somehow, he managed to resist, opting instead to gently rub his wet dog nose back and forth against hers affectionately. With a soft hum, she rubbed hers against his in kind. \n “Good night, Bluey. I love you.” He rubbed the top of her head with his hand before heading toward the door. \n “I love you too, Dad.” She yawned as she smiled, turning around in the covers and facing the window as Bandit looked back at her with a smile of his own. \n\n As he lay alone in his own bed, Bandit tossed and turned back and forth. Something didn’t sit right with him about tonight. Although he was still tired, his eyes shot open as he looked at the ceiling before getting back out of bed. There was something he needed to correct. \n\n The blue heeler rubbed his eye tiredly before tossing another ball down the skee-ball lane, his blurry vision causing his aim to not be nearly as perfect as it was earlier that evening. \n “We’ll be closing in a few minutes, just letting you know.” The bulldog janitor spoke to him as he sprayed the tables down nearby, as the place was nearly emptied. \n “Just one more shot…” Bandit muttered before rolling another ball. With this last game, he had used all of the remaining tokens on both cards racking up tickets on the skee-ball game. He focused his vision. His aim needed to be perfect. He rolled the ball. \n 100 points.\n\n “Alright, can I afford the fruit bat [i]now[/i]?” Bandit asked the same cashier as before, slapping his two game-cards down on the table with a yawn. The beagle swiped them into the machine. \n “…Sorry, you’re just barely short by two hundred tickets.” The cashier gave a look of pity, handing the cards back to Bandit.\n “Damn… alright…” Bandit opened his wallet with a sigh, putting the two cards back in. Suddenly, he noticed something familiar sticking out of one of the extra card slots in his wallet that he never really used. “Hang on…”\n It was a third [i]Carl E. Colby[/i]’s game-card, the one they had previously used from the last time his family had come here.\n “HOW MANY TICKETS ARE ON THIS?!” Bandit frantically whipped it out like a madman and slapped it down on the counter. \n\n Later that night, Bluey smiled in her sleep as she felt the soft and fluffy warmth of a certain giant fruit bat plush tucked gently into her arms. \n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "            “Alright. Yeah, yeah. That’s fine. Okay. I’ll… I’ll be there soon. Okay. Bye.”

            Chilli sighed in disappointment as she hung up the phone. “Fuckin’ Madge, it’s always Madge…” She huffed under her breath as she grabbed the car keys on the kitchen counter.
            “What goin’ on?” Bandit asked as he entered the kitchen wearing his nicest tie, noticing that Chilli seemed upset about something.
            “Looks like we’re gonna have to call off our reservation.” The red heeler said with a roll in her eyes as she gathered her work bag in frustration.
            “Aw, what? Why?” Her husband asked in equal dismay; this was going to be their first real date night in a while, and now it had to be cancelled?
            “Who else but Madge? She was a no-call-no-show, again, so now my boss wants me to fill in for her. They said they’ll pay me extra for coming in on short-notice, but… still. I know it might sound terrible of me to say, but I swear, that woman is going senile. But management won’t fire her because she’s ‘too valuable’.” She said the last two words in a mocking tone as she gestured air-quotes with her fingers. “I honestly just wish she would retire already, she’s driving me nuts. She doesn’t even really do anything!” Her cheeks were red with anger the more she thought about that pain-in-the-neck co-worker.
            “Try to relax Babe, we can just reschedule. No big deal.” Bandit held her shoulders comfortingly and pulled her into a hug, and Chilli hugged him back weakly.
            “But they’re probably gonna charge us a cancellation fee, and…” Chilli couldn’t help but have a negative outlook at she felt like their entire evening plans had been completely ruined by Madge’s poor work-ethic.
            “Can I go?”
            Chilli and Bandit both turned to face the familiar voice coming from the kitchen entrance, seeing Bluey standing in the doorway.
            “How long have you been standing there?” Bandit asked as Bluey walked up to them, sitting up on her usual chair at the counter.
            “Pretty much the whole time. So can I? I mean, if it’s okay with Mum.” Her tail wagged expectantly as she gave Chilli a hint of her ‘Please’ face, but Bandit spoke first.
            “I dunno kid, this was supposed to be just me and your Mum tonight, we shouldn’t-”
            “No, no, it’s okay.” Chilli interrupted. “I really don’t want to waste any money by cancelling it, so you two should go.” Suddenly, she turned to Bluey with a more serious look on her face and her hands on her hips. “But this is a very fancy restaurant, okay Bluey? So you need to act like a proper young lady the whole time. That means no loud random singing, no picky eating, and no silly games. Can you handle that?” She gave Bluey an extra-deep glare to let her know how serious she was about this. She wanted the Heelers to be seen as a respectable family, after all.
            “Okay, Mum. I promise.” Bluey put her serious face on as well, already getting into ‘character’ as a proper young lady.
            “Hold on,” Bandit interjected as he remembered something they were forgetting. “We already got Brandy to babysit for the night, and the reservation is only for two, so Bingo might feel left-out...”
            “That’s okay, I wanna spend the night with Auntie Brandy!” The three of them turned to see Bingo now standing in the kitchen doorway.
“How long have you been standing there?” Chilli asked, as all three were surprised by just how quiet she had been.
            “Pretty much the whole time!” Bingo exclaimed proudly; she liked pretending to be invisible.
            “Well, if you’re sure you’re fine with that Bingo, that I guess that settles that then. I have to get going and I’m going to need to take the car, so you’ll have to get a rideshare to Bone Appétit. Be good, you lot.” Chilli gave Bandit and Bluey a look in particular as she said those words before giving her husband a kiss goodbye and heading out the door.

            Just as Chilli was heading to the car, Brandy pulled up in her own.
            “Wait, you’re heading out already? Alone? What about Bandit?” Brandy asked in confusion as she got out of her car and began walking to the door.
            “Oh, it’s a long story, work wants me to come in. Plans haven’t changed, we still need you to babysit tonight, but Bandit’s taking Bluey out instead so we don’t waste the reservation so it’ll just be you and Bingo. They’re all still inside, but I’m already running late so I really have to be going, but thank you again Brandy! We’ll catch up again later!” Chilli concluded the conversation hurriedly as she got into the car and left the driveway, disappearing down the sloped road.
            As Brandy waved goodbye before going inside to greet Bandit and the kids in Chilli’s rear-view mirror, an ingenious idea popped into Chilli’s head. “Brandy…” She smirked to herself with degenerate thoughts of her sister and Bandit together soon filling her head as she continued her drive to the airport.

            Fifteen minutes later, Bandit and Bluey were sitting side-by-side in the back of the black rideshare car that had picked them up and was now taking them to Bone Appétit.
            “Wow, it feels like we’re in a limo, doesn’t it, Dad?!” Bluey looked out the window excitedly as she had never been in a rideshare car before. Without thinking, she placed her hand on Bandit’s, causing his face to feel slightly warm. There was nothing inherently weird about a daughter holding her father’s hand, but in the context of their forbidden secret, something about being affectionate with his daughter in a public setting suddenly felt like walking on eggshells. To be honest, it kind of excited him a bit.
            The big blue heeler began to daydream, his mind wandering willingly into dirty thoughts of himself discretely fingering his precious daughter’s wet little cookie in the backseat. He imagined the adorable whimpers she would make as she would try to hide her pleasure from the driver. Just as he started getting immersed in the daydream, he began to notice a stirring between his legs, snapping himself out of it so as not to become visibly aroused in public; especially not around his own young daughter.
            It wasn’t much longer before they finally arrived. Bandit got out first, going around the back end of the car and opening Bluey’s door for her before helping her with her seatbelt, for which she was just barely now big enough not to need a booster seat anymore. Bluey jumped out of the car giddily at first, but as she looked up at the extremely ornate décor of the fancy French restaurant she remembered the promise she made to her mum. Like the flip of a switch, Bluey suddenly became a proper young lady fit to dine at a luxurious establishment such as this.
            As Bandit walked up beside her, she put on a haughty expression as she held onto her dad’s arm and walked with a stiff posture as she imagined someone fancy like the Queen might do. As they approached the short-statured Papillon dog reservationist behind the podium at the front door, he squinted at them slightly with a suspicious look. Not because he suspected anything inappropriate between the obviously-related two blue heelers approaching them, but because one of them was a young child. And in his personal experience, young children tended to be… disruptive.
            “Name?” He asked Bandit in a monotone voice, giving Bluey a few side-glances.
            “Heeler.” Bandit replied with confidence, knowing their reservation was still being honored. They wouldn’t have to pay the cancellation fee after all.
            “Hmm, I see your name here, but…” Bandit’s heart began to sank at the word ‘but’. “We highly discourage children here at Bone Appétit. This is a fine dining establishment, and we will not tolerate any… rambunctiousness or silliness of any kind. For the sake of our paying patrons, you understand. Perhaps you two would be better off at… Carl E. Colby’s?”
            Bandit felt his blood suddenly boil at the rudeness of this pretentious little prick for insulting his daughter that way; she deserved to be here just as much as anyone else. His fists tightened for a moment as the hair on the back of his neck slightly raised, and for the briefest second, he wanted to punch this little yip-dog’s lights out. One punch is all it would only take for a dog of his size. But he needed to set a good example for Bluey. Not to mention, Chilli definitely wouldn’t appreciate her and her family being banned from Bone Appétit for life. Relaxing his fists, Bandit held Bluey close to his side and spoke calmly and professionally.
            “Sir, my daughter is more than deserving of dining here. She was wonderful manners, she’s perfectly-behaved in public, and she’s my pride and joy.” He looked down at Bluey and she looked back up at him, her eyes starting to feel glossy with water as he stood up for her with such confidence.
            “Well… very well, but if we receive any complaints, we’ll have no choice but to escort you from the premises.”
            “I’ll take those chances. Come on, Bluey.” Bandit grabbed his daughter’s hand as he led her inside with more power in his stride than usual. Bluey felt her chest pumping and her face get hot as she couldn’t help but feel more than a little turned on by her dad’s aura of confidence when he told the rude reservationist off in such a dignified manner. However, she couldn’t let her true feelings for him show and she quickly returned back to her ‘proper young lady’ persona.
Once they were inside, Bandit played along with her character and pulled her chair out for her like a gentleman.
            “Thank you, darling.” Bluey said in a posh accent that sounded suspiciously like an impression of their neighbor Wendy. As Bandit sat in his seat across from his daughter, a white male poodle waiter approached them.
            “Good evening, welcome to Bone Appetit, I’m Jacques, your waiter for this evening. Can I start you two off with anything to drink?”
            “Uh…” Bandit thought for a moment. Normally, he and Chilli would share a wine bottle, but Bluey obviously couldn’t drink. And he didn’t want to drink in front of her either, to set a good example. He didn’t want her to see him even the slightest-bit drunk. However, it felt wrong to go to a fancy restaurant like this and not order wine. “We’ll both just get some grape juice, but… can we get them in the wine glasses?” He felt a bit embarrassed to ask, but thankfully this waiter was much more relaxed and understanding than the reservationist.
            “Of course sir, we’ll have that out here for you shortly. Please take a look at the menus and I will return in a moment with your drinks.” He hands Bandit a regular menu, and a kids’ menu for Bluey.
            ‘So they serve kids here after all. That fuckin’ jackass…’ Bandit felt his teeth clench as he thought about that Papillon dog again. As Bluey looked at the kid’s menu, her expression turned into a scowl.
            “I think I want to order from that menu instead.” She pointed to the full menu in Bandit’s hands with the wider variety of fancier food, rather than just the usual chicken strips and mac & cheese – the things that most kids would only ever eat. But she wasn’t like most kids. She wanted to feel like a proper young lady. She wanted this to feel like a real date. “Can I?”
            “Uh, sure Bluey. I already know what I want anyway.” He handed her the menu, and she looked through the pages as she tried to read the fancy cursive writing.
            “What’s this word?” She asked as she pointed to a word on the page.
            “Escargot. That’s snails, and trust me, you’re not gonna like it. No one likes it.”
            “Snails?” Bluey wanted to gag at the thought of eating a snail, but she stopped herself to save-face and simply continued looking through the menu.
            “What about this one?” She pointed at another item on the menu.
            “Magret de canard sauce cerises. That’s duck breast with cherry sauce.” He translated for her as he leaned over to read the spot she was pointing at.
            “Ooh, I kinda want to try that one. Is that okay?” Bluey asked politely, knowing that her dad would be the one paying for it all and not wanting him to overspend just because of her.
            “Yeah, of course kiddo. Whatever you want.” He smiled as he reached forward and held her hand without thinking much of it; as he felt her fingers gently brush his hand while they looked at each other, Bandit felt his heart skip a beat and he pulled back, noticing that the waiter had returned with their grape juice in wine glasses, just as Bandit had requested.
            “Here you are, and I’ll just leave the bottle here for you.” The waiter placed a partially-emptied plastic bottle of grape juice on the table, just as they would have done with a wine bottle for anyone else. “Have we decided on what to order?”
            “Yeah, I’ll have the filet de boeuf aux morilles, and she’ll have the magret de canard sauce cerises.” Bandit spoke in near-perfect French with complete phonetic accuracy, impressing the waiter.
            “Very good sir, we’ll get started on those right away.” Jacques took the menus and returned to the kitchen, leaving Bandit and his daughter alone at the table.
            “What was it you got?” Bluey asked, unsure what ‘feelay da buff a Marie’ was.
            “Oh, it’s filet mignon in morel mushroom sauce. It’s like fancy steak.” Bandit swirled the grape juice in his wine glass, pretending it was really wine before taking a drink.
“Ohh, okay.” As Bluey looked at her glass with the thin round bowl and the frail-looking handle, she became a little – no, a lot nervous as she imagined accidentally spilling the juice on herself or the table – or even worse, dropping it and accidentally breaking the glass on the floor. She desperately didn’t want to do anything to embarrass her dad and get them banned from the restaurant for life, not after he had stood up for her the way he did. More than being banned, her dad’s disappointment in her would be the worst feeling of all. She carefully grabbed the handle with both hands, being cautious not to grip it too tightly; even the slightest grip might snap it in half, she thought. She gulped nervously as she looked down at the swirling purple liquid in front of her.
            “Bluey, you okay?” Bandit asked as he looked at her intensely staring down her glass of ‘wine’. As if she were strategically diffusing a bomb, Bluey slowly brought the lip of the glass to her lips and tilted it downwards, taking several drinks of the juice before tilting it upwards again and setting it down on the table. Centimeters at a time, she slowly let go of the glass with both hands. With an exasperated sigh of relief, she had done it – she had avoided breaking or spilling the glass and potentially ruining their special date night.
            “Nice one, Bluey. But if it’s stressing you out too much, I can ask the waiter to bring a regular cup if you want to drink out of that instead.” Bandit gave her a smile of reassurance, having picked up on why she was drinking so incredibly slowly.
            “Yeah, I think I’d like that.” Although she gained a little confidence that she was able to successfully drink out of a grown-up glass, Bluey did not want to go through that again. Not here, at least. Maybe she would try again when she was a little older.

            The food finally arrived, and as they ate their meal together, Bluey swallowed her first bite of the delicious duck meat with cherry sauce before asking her dad a question.\t
            “Oh! Dad, how did you learn to speak French so well?” She took a drink of grape juice from her more normally-shaped glass that the waiter had given her upon Bandit’s request.  
            “I took a class back in college. And some of my digs have been in France, so it helps to keep in practice with it.” Bandit replied casually before he took another bite of his delicious filet mignon.
            “Ooh, can you teach me later?” Bluey’s tail wagged with a slight blush on her cheeks as she imagined her dad whispering fluent French into her ear; it was such a romantic language, after all.
            “Sure, if you like.” Her dad replied with an innocent smile before taking another drink of his juice from his wine glass.
            “Hooray!” Bluey celebrated quickly and with her inside-voice with her arms out slightly before taking another bite of her cherry-glazed duck. She was so glad she had decided to try something new, as this was surprisingly delicious. Much more so than the escargot probably was.

            The rest of their dinner went off without a single hitch, and after paying for the meal and leaving the kind waiter a generous tip, the father and daughter exited outside for some fresh air as the sun began to set over the horizon. Thankfully, the Papillon dog’s shift had ended and a new dog was standing in his place, otherwise Bandit would have been tempted to give him an earful about his personal bias against his daughter.  
            “It’s still pretty light out, you wanna go for a walk?” Bandit asked as he held Bluey’s hand in his, noticing a peaceful-looking park just down the block.
            “Yeah!” Bluey shouted as she dropped her proper young lady act now that the dinner was over, her tail instinctively wagging furiously at the mere word ‘walk’.

            With the sun slowly setting lower and lower over the horizon, Bluey and Bandit were each licking some ice-creams they had gotten from a nearby stand for dessert; their hearts beat in-sync as they felt each other’s hand in their own. To everyone who saw them, they looked like nothing more than a simple father and daughter on a walk. But to them, they felt more like a couple as they walked in the peaceful relative silence of each other’s company.
            After they finished their ice-creams, Bluey let go of Bandit’s hand for a few moments to grab a few dandelions sticking out of the sidewalk nearby and returning to his side, reaching over to hand them to him. Bandit took the dandelions from her and brought them to his nose, inhaling slightly. As they reached the end of the sidewalk and the sun set in front of them, Bandit felt tears suddenly welling in his eyes as he had a thought once again come to mind.
            This love likely wouldn’t last forever.
            His little Bluey was growing up, and before long she would move on with her life. She needed to. She couldn’t – shouldn’t - be with her own dad forever, and as much as he wanted to, he wouldn’t always be able to be there for her once he got old and inevitably passed away someday.
            “Someday… you’ll have a real husband who will take you on real dates. Or maybe, you’ll have a wife who will do this for you, who knows.” Bandit looked around for anyone else who might be within earshot of this conversation as he tried to discretely wipe the tears from his eyes with a sniffle, but Bluey wasn’t fooled. “Someone who’s right for you. You’ll meet them someday. Either way, I’ll support you no matter what. I know you’ll have to move on from me eventually, and that’s okay. I just want you to know… I’ll understand.  And I’ll always love you.” The blue heeler felt a tickle in his throat as he felt his daughter suddenly hugging his waist.
            “But Dad, this date was real. It was the realest ever.” She looked up at Bandit with tears starting to well up in her eyes as well, her heart still full of pure love only for him. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she leaned up slightly and spoke in a hushed voice with a smile. “And you are my husband, remember?”  
            Bandit smiled back sadly; how could he forget the best dream he’d ever had? He knelt down and gave her a hug with the dandelions she had given him still in his hand, their tails wagging back and forth in unison as the orange light of the sun finally disappeared over the skyline. He still knew what he said was an unavoidable truth, but as he felt Bluey in his arms he figured it would be best to simply enjoy this time with her while he had it instead of dwelling so much on the future.
\t
            As the two heelers rode home in another rideshare, Bandit noticed a Carl E. Colby’s pizza-place and arcade. With a smile to himself as he got an idea, the blue heeler spoke up to the driver.  “Hey mate, can you actually drop us off up here instead?” He reached up and pointed at the general area of the Carl E. Colby’s.  
            “Sure, no problem. Have a good night!” The driver pulled up to the curb, and the father and daughter got out of the car before he drove off.  
            “What are we doing here, Dad?” Bluey asked in confusion as she noticed they obviously weren’t anywhere near home yet.  
            “Well the night is still young, whaddya think about going there to play some games for a bit?” Bandit pointed at the kids’ arcade with a smile, knowing that Bluey wouldn’t be able to resist.
            “Really?! For real life?!” Bluey looked more excited than he could remember having seen her be for a while, looking she was about to explode with joy. Going to Carl E. Colby’s was a once-in-a-blue-moon outing for the Heelers, and after spending the entire evening so far having to contain her overabundance of youthful energy, this was exactly what she needed to let loose a little.
            “For real life.” Bandit smiled and held her hand as the went inside together.  

            Admittedly, Bandit had splurged a little and gotten two swipe-cards for him and Bluey with the highest-option amount of “tokens” on each. Even if they didn’t use them all tonight, they would still be good for the next time they came here. Once they had their swipe-cards in hand, the two went around to each game at least once – even the more boring-looking ones. Bandit was a little overly-competitive as always with the two-player games against Bluey, but after a few wins he had learned over time to let her win a few. Thankfully, there were a few games where he couldn’t win against Bluey, no matter how hard he tried. The piano game was her specialty; she hit each giant key flawlessly, while Bandit struggled to keep up after only a few notes.  
            The main event, however, was when Bandit played skee-ball. Bluey watched in awe and a crowd of random onlookers even began to gather around Bandit as the blue heeler played game after game of skee-ball with the skill of a professional, rolling ball after ball into the top-left 100-point hole. After ten straight games, the multicolored lights flashed brightly with a celebratory alarm on the skee-ball game’s board as Bandit won the jackpot ticket prize. Bandit cheered with pride while the massive number of virtual tickets he had won kept going up on the display, and did the group of dogs gathered around his game cheered along with him as Bluey gave her dad’s waist an excited hug from the side.
            After a round of high-fives with the onlookers, Bandit took his daughter to the ‘Prize Corner’ and they looked around at all the stuff they could trade in the tickets they had won for. Eventually, a prize on the top wall caught Bluey’s eye.
            “Ooh, Dad, what about that one?!” She pointed up at it with a faint sparkle in her eyes, as it was what she really wanted more than anything else. It was a gigantic plush of a cartoonish-looking fruit bat with bright neon-blue fur markings and large round glittery eyes as it had a big smile on its adorable face. Bandit winced as he saw the ticket price, but after a moment to think, pulled out both cards with a smile.
            “Well, let’s just see how much we’ve got.”

            “Sorry sir, that’s still not enough tickets for the fruit bat.”
            Bandit and Bluey both felt downhearted as the teenage beagle cashier finished tallying up the tickets. Bandit covered the side of his mouth with one hand as he leaned in and spoke in a hushed tone to the dog on the other side of the counter.
            “Look mate, can’t I just buy the fruit bat off you? My daughter really wants it.” Though it felt a little childish to attempt on another grown adult, Bandit gave the best ‘Please Face’ he could muster in public.
            “Sorry sir, that’s not how that works here. The prizes have to be bought with tickets won at the games.” The cashier felt a little awkward to reject the two blue heelers, but rules were rules.
            “Dang, okay then… sorry Bluey. Maybe it’ll still be here next time we come.” Bandit gently patted Bluey’s back, hoping she would take it well. “We can get something else instead, if you like.”
Although she looked a bit disappointed at first, she tried to shrug it off and accept the situation. Sometimes life would just have little disappointments from time to time.
            “That’s okay, maybe you’re right, Dad. Let’s save the tickets, just in case.” She held Bandit’s hand as her eyes somberly drifted down to the colorful carpet at her feet, still feeling the slight sting of rejection.
            “Alright, if you’re sure… well, thanks anyway mate.” Bandit looked back at the cashier as he softly rubbed the back of Bluey’s hand with his thumb before looking back down at his daughter. “We’d better be heading home anyway, huh kiddo? It’s startin’ to get a bit late.”

            The two heelers entered the front door of their home together after the rideshare driver dropped them off; with Bingo having been tucked into bed and fallen asleep over an hour ago, Bandit relieved Brandy of her babysitting duties and she headed home.
            Bandit let out a sigh of exhaustion from a long and eventful evening as he sat back on the couch before turning on the tv to watch the rugby game, with Bluey taking a seat on the couch next to him. It was already in the fourth quarter, but Bandit didn’t mind not seeing the start of the game. Neither of these teams were really his favorite, anyway.
            “Wait, why is there a rugby game going on so late at night?” She asked, confused why the players were playing in seemingly broad daylight.
            “Oh, this game’s in a different time-zone. It’s not night yet for them.” Bandit let out a quiet yawn. “You probably don’t wanna watch this, huh?”
            “Um… no that’s okay, I’ll watch the game with you.” She inched closer to her dad on the couch. “It’s the least I can do after everything you did for me tonight…” She thought back on their first real date together with a tired smile as she watched the players running around on the tv, though she was still feeling a bit let-down that she didn’t get to take home the fruit bat plush.
            “Thanks, Bluey, that really means a lot that you’d watch this with me. I’m glad you had a good time.” With a stretch of his arms, he laid down on his side on the couch.
            After a few minutes of watching the game together in silence, he suddenly felt his daughter squeezing into the empty space on the couch in front of him, shimmying her back against his chest as she snuggled up to him while laying on her side as well. Without thinking much of it, Bandit rested his arm around Bluey from behind and exhaled a comforted sigh from his nose as the two snuggled on the couch.
            “Did you have a good time?” Bluey asked quietly.
            “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” Bandit responded back, equally quiet.
            “Good…” He could feel her tail start to wag gently as he held her in his arms. With his nose so close to the top of her head, he could easily smell the natural scent of her body as he held it against his own. In that moment, this exact position reminded him of their very first moment of intimacy together in their dreams.
            As the pale light from the television shone on their faces, Bluey turned her head and looked back at her dad, and Bandit’s head tilted up slightly as he looked back down at his daughter. Without a single word, they looked into each other’s eyes.
            They looked, and looked. Silently.
            Only mere seconds had passed by, but to the two heelers, it felt more like hours as they kept looking at each other.

            Spontaneously, their faces suddenly met in the middle as they shared a deep incestuous kiss between a father and his daughter.
            For real life.
            Bandit’s hand tightly clung to Bluey’s chest from behind as he pulled her into the kiss, and she melted in his embrace with a light whine into his mouth as their tongues greeted each other in the first real kiss the two had ever shared. As Bandit swirled his tongue around his daughter’s, there was something about her immaculate taste that felt even more intense and flavorful than he had ever been able to experience in their lucid dreams together. With their tails both wagging faster in unison, Bandit felt himself start to become stiff as his peeking tip eagerly pressed against the back of Bluey’s wagging tail.
            As much as he didn’t want to, Bandit knew this meant it was time to stop before things went too far. He had made a promise to Chilli to make sure that what she saw never happened between him and Bluey in real life ever again. Only in their dreams on the weekends, that was the rule she had set.
            With a heavy exhale from them both as he broke the kiss, Bandit caught his breath for a moment to calm himself down before he finally spoke.
            “We need to stop…” He whispered, though his lips were still achingly close to hers as he desperately wanted to continue.
            “Yeah… yeah…” Bluey whispered back sweetly as she slowly came down from her high, eventually finding to strength to resist her father and turning back around to face the tv.

            The rugby game finally ended, and with that, the big blue heeler got up and carried his tired little blue daughter upstairs before tucking her into bed. They looked at each other again for a moment as Bandit knelt at Bluey’s bedside with the soft orange glow of ‘Lampy’ the salt-rock lamp illuminating her face, and for a brief moment he was tempted with the strong urge to kiss her soft and delicious muzzle yet again. His face inched closer to hers, feeling his pulse quickening as he gulped.
            Somehow, he managed to resist, opting instead to gently rub his wet dog nose back and forth against hers affectionately. With a soft hum, she rubbed hers against his in kind.
            “Good night, Bluey. I love you.” He rubbed the top of her head with his hand before heading toward the door.
            “I love you too, Dad.” She yawned as she smiled, turning around in the covers and facing the window as Bandit looked back at her with a smile of his own.

            As he lay alone in his own bed, Bandit tossed and turned back and forth. Something didn’t sit right with him about tonight. Although he was still tired, his eyes shot open as he looked at the ceiling before getting back out of bed. There was something he needed to correct.

            The blue heeler rubbed his eye tiredly before tossing another ball down the skee-ball lane, his blurry vision causing his aim to not be nearly as perfect as it was earlier that evening.
            “We’ll be closing in a few minutes, just letting you know.” The bulldog janitor spoke to him as he sprayed the tables down nearby, as the place was nearly emptied.
            “Just one more shot…” Bandit muttered before rolling another ball. With this last game, he had used all of the remaining tokens on both cards racking up tickets on the skee-ball game. He focused his vision. His aim needed to be perfect. He rolled the ball.
            100 points.

            “Alright, can I afford the fruit bat now?” Bandit asked the same cashier as before, slapping his two game-cards down on the table with a yawn. The beagle swiped them into the machine.
            “…Sorry, you’re just barely short by two hundred tickets.” The cashier gave a look of pity, handing the cards back to Bandit.
            “Damn… alright…” Bandit opened his wallet with a sigh, putting the two cards back in. Suddenly, he noticed something familiar sticking out of one of the extra card slots in his wallet that he never really used. “Hang on…”
            It was a third Carl E. Colby’s game-card, the one they had previously used from the last time his family had come here.
            “HOW MANY TICKETS ARE ON THIS?!” Bandit frantically whipped it out like a madman and slapped it down on the counter.

            Later that night, Bluey smiled in her sleep as she felt the soft and fluffy warmth of a certain giant fruit bat plush tucked gently into her arms.  
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