Nick was sitting in his living room relaxing in his La-Z-Cub. The room was dimly lit by a sole table lamp that was opposite of the couch to him, to his direct side. There was a coffee table right in front of him with a large porcelain cup filled to the brim with his interpretation of black gold. Soft tan carpeting filled out the floor of the living room and the walls were painted with a light beige color. The television was on but muted as he held a newspaper up to his face.
Pff. Newspapers. Who still reads those? Nick mused at both the thought and the hypocrisy of the thought as he sat there reading it anyway.
"Nick!" Judy swatted his feet off of the coffee table before preceding to scold him. "Get your feet off the table. You have a recliner for a reason. Use it! I spent the day cleaning this house, including that table, and I'd like it to stay clean. Ashleigh's date will be here any moment and I will not be embarrassed!"
Judy finished hissing as she walked out of the living room and up the stairs in the hallway to help her daughter prepare for the night.
Judy knew Nick was not very fond of their daughter's boyfriend. So he tried his best to stay out of the way this evening and made himself look preoccupied with the paper.
He never understood why Stu was so protective of his daughters until the day his own was born. They still cannot thank the surrogate mother enough for allowing Nick to have a biological daughter.
It took Stu a while, but he came around, and now he loves him like he would his own sons. Though one could only take high school romance with a pinch of salt. If Ashleigh stayed with him throughout school and college and their relationship became more serious, he himself have to deal with coming around.
He flipped to the next page. Ads and coupons, he thought. Just about all the paper is good for these days.
He scanned down the flashy colors and slashed prices until his eyes halted at an advertisement for a sporting good's store sale. The box on the paper contained price cuts for various products aimed at cleaning and maintaining firearms. Next to that were instant rebates for a selection of long guns.
It made him think back to the first time he and Judy drove out to visit her family with him as her boyfriend for the first time, and the not so unique talk with Stu that he saw coming from miles away.
A devilish grin slowly crept its way onto his face. A grin that could rival that of the Grinch's. A plan had formed in his head. One that would instill the fear of his authority into the boy's mind. One that would ease Nick's own mind in knowing that the boy will do no wrong to his baby girl out of fear of his wrath.
He left the comfort of his chair to walk out into the dining room. He unfolded and separated the pages of the paper so that they were laid out onto the dining room table. The next step in his preparations led him to walk into the closet of the master bedroom to retrieve his cleaning kit and an empty casing that did not have a primer and then back out into the dining room to set it up on the table.
He stood there for a moment as he stared down at the table; thinking about his plan. If his girls were anything like other women, then he will have a lot of time alone with this date of hers.
Just then the doorbell chimed.
"I'll get it!" Nick hollered up the stairs, grinning as he did. "You two just take your time!"
He mozied over to the front door and peered through the peep-hole.
Nick had never met this boyfriend before, but he was sure that this nervous looking teen tod on the other side of that door was him. He was sharply dressed in black slacks and sports coat with a small corsage pinned to the lapel.
His grin sharpened and his tail began to wag as he watched the teen use breath spray. He was going to have fun with this.
There was a shotgun located on a bracket above the door. Nick would prefer the gun to sit in the corner to where it would be behind the door when the door would open. This would allow Judy easier access to it. Though having another, much younger, child running around the house, that was not an option.
He reached up for the gun and opened the action to clear it of any possible round that might be in there, then unloaded the long gun's magazine of cartridges. Lastly, he slipped the phony one into the chamber.
With his hand wrapped around the receiver and the barrel pointed down, he recomposed himself and opened the door with his other hand making sure to brandish the rifle towards the teen.
"Can I help you?" The older fox asked.
The teenage tod let out a long drawn out "uh" as he shifted his gaze dropped to the item in Nick's hand.
"This is Ashleigh Wilde's house, right?" He stuttered badly and looked like he was going to break out into a sweat.
"As a matter of fact, it is," Nick answered. "And I presume you're her date to homecoming?" He nodded. "Come on in, boy. It might be a while before she's ready."
The older tod opened the door fully and the younger hesitantly walked it. Eyes still locked on the gun.
"Ever held one before?" Nick asked.
"Sir?"
"You want to hold it?"
The teen looked uncertain.
"There's no bullets in it, here I'll show you," Nick said before he opened the action. When he did, the dummy shell ejected and flew past the young fox who looked like he was about to take flight.
"Whoops," Nick chuckled. "Glad I checked it again. Wouldn't want you shooting my tail off, now would I. Here." He shoved it towards his daughter's date.
He took it and lofted it a little. "A little heavier than I thought it'd be."
Nick let out an amused snort.
"You know the sheriff's office has a youth program. I can talk to them and take you out and teach you how to shoot it."
"Yeah, sure," the kid mumbled.
The teen tod then stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do next before motioning for Nick to take it back.
"And we have friendly competitions with them. Even the state troopers get in on the action. See who's department is better at shooting. Though I've carried the ZPD that last two years with my deadly precise skeet shooting," As Nick said this he pretended to aim at make believe clay pigeons before giving the younger tod a wicked grin.
"I don't think I've caught your name, son."
"It's Kyle, sir." He responded quickly.
"Well, Kyle, why don't you come with me and sit down."
He followed Nick into the dining room where the older fox laid the gun down on the table and sat down in front of it. Kyle chose to sit down directly opposite of him.
Nick began to work on the gun. He spent a moment to twist the cap off of the end of the magazine and pushed a pin, that sat behind the action, out. This allowed him to pull the trigger assembly out of the receiver and expose other various mechanisms.
"So you like my daughter, do you now?" Nick finally asked.
"I, uh, do like her a lot sir. We met in middle school and have been dating since the beginning of freshman year, and I guess I hope things continue like this."
"You guess?" Nick cocked an eyebrow.
"I mean, I sure hope so, uh, sir."
"Is that right?" Nick asked rhetorically as he stripped the receiver of its ejector rod, action, bolt, and other mechanisms. He dabbed a wipe with some cleaning fluid and began to clean the parts.
"So what are your plans tonight?"
"Well, sir, I just plan on taking her to the dance, have some fun, and bring her straight back of course." Kyle still had this nervous stutter in his voice. As much as Nick was enjoying the intimidation he was giving this boy, he felt like he got the message across to him.
"I like those plans." Nick did not need to look up at him, could smell the nervousness and fear radiating from Kyle. "Relax son, I'm not going to bite your head off," Nick said when he lifted his head up to look at Kyle and give him a toothy grin. He knew baring his teeth would not have as much of an effect on a predator as it would prey, but he pretty much had the dickens scared out of the poor young fox.
Kyle nodded in response but showed no signs of lightening up.
Nick sat down the part that he was wiping clean and let out a sigh.
"Look, Kyle. This is just all for show. Nobody's going to get hurt." He said with a calm voice. "It's just a daddy thing. But hell, it works."
Nick gave Kyle a slight grin. At this, the boy seemed to visibly relax a little in his chair. Nick gave a quick glance in the direction of the stairs.
"Back before her mother and I were married, she took me out to introduce me to her parents as her boyfriend. The rabbit who I now call my father-in-law did the same exact thing that I'm doing to you. Told me he did it to every one of his daughter's boyfriends, though I think he tried exceptionally hard with me. I was convinced he'd have my tail above his mantle by the time the visit was over."
They both laughed as the tension melted away.
"And it won't be the last time I do this either. I got a younger daughter too. I'll do it to all her boyfriends when she gets to that age. Considering that my she's a rabbit, I can only imagine all of the ways I'm going to enjoy scaring her future bunny boyfriends."
Just then, they heard the rattle of a doorknob from upstairs and Nick spelled the familiar scents of his bunny and baby girl. Signaling that they were coming down.
"Well, I think she's ready," Nick says.
They both scoot their chairs out from the dining room table and stood up as the girls came walking down.
Ashleigh was wearing a blue dress. One that Nick so insistently helped pick. One that would not show very much cleavage. The insistence annoyed the two girls, but they eventually settled on one their daughtered liked. One that dress was a much matching corsage that was bigger than the one Kyle was wearing.
"Dad!" Ashleigh screams. "What are you doing!" Her ears flushed in embarrassment.
Nick smirks, "Well, I thought I needed to lay down the law with junior here. He needs to understand what will happen if he hurts my ba-"
Judy interrupted him when she reached up and smacked the back of his head and hissed, "Hush you." She turned her attention back to the two. "Now you kids run along and have some fun. Wait around any longer and you'll be late."
As Ashleigh and Kyle walked out of the front door nick said one more thing. "Just remember that little agenda of yours, Kyle. I don't want to have to clean that thing twice in one –ooph."
Nick was cut off once again as Judy jabbed her elbow into his side, signaling that she's had enough of his antics for the night.
They watched as the two hopped into Kyle's, obviously borrowed, minivan and pulled out of the driveway before closing the door.
"You know, I was really worried you were going to drive Ash's date away." Judy got up onto her toes and wrapped her arms around Nick's neck and pulled him down for a kiss.
"So you heard everything with those big bunny ears of yours," Nick said as he brought his hands up to caress them.
"Mhmm." Judy melted into the touch.
"As long as he knows who her father is and keeps up that 'sir' business, then I think we're going to get along just fine," Nick said.
"You are too much like my father for your own good."
"Now," Judy began with a sultry tone. "I don't know if I should reward you for behaving yourself so well, or punish you for making a mess of my dining room and nearly scaring Kyle off."
"You can punish me however you like," Nick said with a small growl in his throat.
"In that case, how about you square away my dining room and go lay down in bed." She kissed him again. "Because you're not getting anything tonight. One of us has to stay up and wait for her to get home, and I'm not going to risk you turning her date into Swiss cheese."
At that, his ears splayed back and a dejected look formed on his face as she gave him one last kiss and went into the kitchen.
"Alright," He pouted. He then stuffed his hands into his pockets, lowered his head and slunk towards the dining room.
If you enjoyed this story, please take a moment to glance at my other Zootopia stories. They are all in the same respective timeline, but they can all be read as stand-alone, and they are all based on one country song or another.