Page 45 of A Little Campfire Blues

Now that I had always been able to do.

Closing my eyes, I gave myself over to the rolling timber and the rise and rumbling fall of the notes. The best part was that pressed against him, I could feel the melody along my skin. It made the hair on my arms stand up, and prickles surge up my spine like rolling spirals of electricity, until it curled up the back of my neck and made me shiver. Someday, I’d try and put this feeling to music, the tidal wave of endorphins whiting out everything else whirling around in my head. Flattening all thought, it let me dial in on Daddy’s voice.

Daddy wanted to play with me.

And Daddy’s Little Firefly wanted to play with him and my friends. Slowly, I let the song help me tuck my big boy problems away. We both knew they weren’t gone, but I needed to let them go for now; put them on the shelf with all the stress and worry.

Like picking up toys. The time for big boy things was over.

“Can I be the Winter Soldier?” I asked, slowly drawing back from Daddy to see him smile at me.

“I think so; I’m almost certain I saw one in the crate when I packed it,” Mack said as he smoothed the hair back from my face. “Let’s go see if we can find it.”

“Thank you, Daddy!”

It felt amazing to see the smile that word put on his face, and my little butt wiggled as I crawled away from him to search through the toys on the floor. He caught up to me and pulled my hood up, the two coffin-shaped ears at the top bobbing as I continued my search.

“Here he is!” I declared, holding him over my head and waving him so Ezzy and Ro could see too.

“Winter Soldier!” Ezzy cried. “I’m gonna be Captain America!”

He wiggled past me to search for the action figure while Ro pounced me and pinned me to one of the couch cushions we’d spread around.

“Woof, woof!” He barked, rubbing noses with me and nuzzling.

I rubbed his ears and scratched behind them until he finally let me up, only to whirl around and smack me in the face with his tail as he snatched up an action figure before bounding away to claim a pillow.

It took us a while to all get settled. By then, Thor was already wrecking trees and people with his hammer, so Daddy made his Thor fly through the air and knock over a stack of Jenga blocks still piled up from our last game. Ezzy squealed and clapped while I giggled, and Daddy had Thor fly high above the mess.

“I’ve vanquished thee, foul pile of wood!” Daddy growled in his best Thor voice, waving his hammer over them like he was daring one of them to move.

“Ruff! Rurrrrrrrr! Ruff! Ruff!” Ro cried, with Deadpool’s dog Peggy clutched in his paw.

He bounced her over to the fallen Jenga pieces and pressed her face to them like she was gnawing on a chunk. Ezzy crawled over with Captain America, and we hunted for the Red Skull figure. Once we had him, Ezzy sat Captain America on top of him, pinning him down, while I crawled around, looking for something to tie him up with. Daddy’s shoelace was in his boot, but I tugged it free and dragged it back so the Winter Soldier could tie him up while Captain America kept him pinned.

Villain vanquished, we looked for more wrongs to make right and spotted Daddy tickling Ro, who was squirmy and wiggling around on his back, four paws waving as Daddy tickled his belly.

“Evil tickle monster!” I declared.

“Save Ro!” Ezzy cried as we crawled as fast as we could with our action figures to tackle Daddy.

We tickled him for tickling Ro and discovered Daddy had ticklish spots. His belly, behind his knees, and the inside of his elbows. Roman got in on the tickling too, the three of us pinning Daddy to the floor as our laughter filled the cabin.

“I give, I give, Thor has been vanquished,” Daddy cried. “By the halls of Valhalla, stop this infernal tickling!”

Ro and I tickled more, while Ezzy flew Captain America high over Daddy’s squirming body.

“Do you yield to the shield of Captain America!” Ezzy asked.

We paused to see how Daddy answered, only when I looked up, I could only cock my head and study the toy they held, ‘cause something was missing.

“Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!” Ro barked, tail wagging as he batted his paw at the shield Ezzy had dropped on one of the blankets.

Ezzy’s face grew pink as they scooped it up and snapped it back over Captain America’s arm. “Now are you ready to yield to the shield, Daddy!” Ezzy announced, while Daddy snickered and slapped a hand over his eyes.

“I yield,” Daddy muttered. “But I really wish I had a video of that, Sparkle Butt. I bet it would get a million laughs and smiley faces.”

“It just did get all the laughs,” Ezzy declared. “Yours are the only ones that matter.”

---