This chapter was becoming way to long, but I was getting into it. Also I got a new character to lighten the mood and to be just plain annoying yet takes a special role later in the series. *All rights to original owners.

Chapter 28

Crashing on the bed in his hotel room, Benson couldn't help but feel better. The whole France incident left a heavy mark and being around the two kind of felt good. But that didn't stop him from thinking about it. Or about Coach.

He flipped onto his back and looked up at the ceiling. He pondered why he felt better with them. Was it because they were gumball machines too? He didn't know. They were nice people, but it was odd to be near them. Especially since the only others of his kind he'd ever spent time with was Veronica and his ex-family.

His ex-family...

He hadn't thought of them since he was kicked out of the band. Sitting up and looking around the empty room his eyes fall to the dresser mirror. He runs his hand trough his long brown hair thinking about what his mother would have thought about his hair if he ran into them now. What would his sister say about his ripped up clothes from the hippy days? What would his dad think about his life at this point?

"Why the hell does it matter now?" he shook his head. He reaches over and turns off the light. He sat in the dark with his knees pulled into his arms. One last glance at the mirror, he sighs and lays his head on them in thought.

He realized he'd fallen asleep when he woke up in a daze. Outside the sun was shining through his curtains. He sighed and laid back on his bed, his head hitting the pillow and fell asleep again till he heard something banging on his door.

He gets up and looks through the peephole in the door. He couldn't see anyone out there and just thought someone was pranking him. Almost turned again he hears the door being banged on again. He opens it this time, still no one. Then he looks down and sees a little rabbit-woman tapping her foot.

"You the one making the noise?" the manager asks.

"What noise?" Benson asks. Then a room a few doors down's door blew off its hinges and splintered against the wall. The rabbit-woman hops over and Benson goes too. They both had their mouths agape at the wrecked inside. Then under some of the ceiling a coyote-man pops out and spots the two staring at him. The rabbit was angry.

"Damn it! Why does my hotel always get the crazies? Why can't I ever get a normal customer? Or at least some famous weirdo?" She walks to a phone at the end of the hall and punches in a number. "Phillip! Get a broom! You got a bedroom to clean floor 2, bedroom number 258! We had another boom stick handler."

She slams the phone and goes downstairs. Benson goes into the exploded room cautiously and helps the coyote into the hall. "Are you okay?" he asks him.

"What?! What'd you say?!" the guy shouts.

"I asked if you were ok!" yelled Benson.

"Am I gay?! I would think not kind fellow!"

"NO! ARE YOU OK?!"

"Yes! Rather fine. You don't have to speak so loudly!" Benson's face turned a little red, but it passed quickly when the man held out a hand. "The name's Baxter. Sorry about my fireworks old chap."

Benson shook it. "Why were you setting off fireworks in your room?"

"Excellent question. I wasn't! I was playing around with my lighter like so," he takes out a small lighter and ignites it. "Then I became too enhanced into the beauty of the one little flame and suddenly dropped it near my fireworks and one by one they...went...off~"

The coyotes eyes went huge as he stared at the little fire like in a trance. Benson waved a hand in front of him then tried snapping his fingers. He then flips the lid to the lighter closing it. Baxter immediately comes back to reality confused. "Sorry about that! I've just always been tempted by the simplest spark of the magnificent red glow of the most destructive and renewing flower. The death and rebirth nest of the mighty phoenix."

"O. k~?" Benson questions. "Uh, if your fine then I'm going to go."

"Oh, right, right, right. Quite right! I am terribly sorry that I woke you. Pleasant dreams my friend!" Benson nodded awkwardly then went back to his room and fell on the bed. Then a knock was at his door. He growled, got up and opened the door revealing the coyote-man scratching his head and rubbing his foot side to side into the rug hallway.

Without a word Benson drags him in and throws him on the bed and takes one of the pillows. He throws it on the floor and lays on the floor face planted in the pillow. "You want a blanket too, old bean?" The gumball machine pulls a blanket off the bed and just lets it pile on him.

Baxter heard Benson curse something under his breath. "Sorry about this, but I suppose it'd take a while for my room to be repaired. And I'd doubt the manager would allow me a chance at a new room."

"Whatever," Benson grumbled, "Just be quiet for a while." He falls asleep.

A split second later...

"Terrible sorry about this, but may I ask your name, please?" Baxter asks.

"BENSON! NOW SHUT UP!" he shouted in his pillow and through the blanket.

"Alright then, jolly name for a crank. Good marrow." The coyote turns over in the bed and is quickly asleep. Benson huffs and falls back asleep too.


Something delicious smelling went by Benson's nose as he wakes up again. He sits up and looks at the clock reading 9am. He yawns and closes his eyes while sitting to try getting a little more awake. His eyes open slightly when he feels someone shake his shoulder. Baxter was holding out a plate of French toast and a mug of coffee.

"Just my way of saying thanks." Benson takes the plate and mug and thanks the coyote. Satisfied with the gumball machine's accepting, he goes to the small kitchen Benson had in his hotel room and started making breakfast for himself.

Benson took a sip of coffee then looked at the toast. He was a bit hesitant to eat it being still sore from the whole France issue. But he saw the coyote-man coming back with a plate of his own and quickly took a couple bites to be nice. He gave the man a happy smile which then turned into a sick grin as he tried to keep the awful food in his mouth. Then he got up and ran into the kitchen with the plate and threw up in the sink.

"Oh right, I guess that was my bad. No wonder Marlene, god bless her soul, always said my cooking was terrible because of the ingredients I chose. But I can't help being a scavenger, can I?" Benson studied the French toast thoroughly and found eggshell pieces and a few tiny bird feet and beaks and what looked like a live ant-oh good god. He throws up in the sink again.

Baxter looked at him concerned. "You alright, old boy?"

"I-I'm fine," Benson says shakily, "Just don't mention eggs or birds to me for awhile." He walks back over and flops down onto his pillow again and grunts. "I dare say," Baxter starts, "Something of interest just hit me." The gumball machine waited for him to say it. "Both our names start with a 'b' and there are six letters in them. Astounding."

He takes a bite of his toast making Benson make a sort of hissing gag at the sight. He gets up and grabs his key and guitar just like yesterday. He heads out the door and closes it behind him. The coyote stares after him for a sec then it dawned on him and he quickly cleaned his plate and ran after him.

He easily caught up to his new roommate and followed him outside the hotel. "So where to?" Benson asks him. The coyote looks at him till he realized he was asking where he in particular was going to be since Benson has the only room key.

"Oh, I was just going to walk around, run a few errands, you know. How about you?" he asked.

"I'm going to a friend's house."

"Alright then! We'll meet back here about, shall we say, noon?"

"Whatever," Benson mumbles, then leaves. He makes it over to Dave's house within half an hour and Mrs. Hillary (Dave's mom) answers the door. "Hello Mr. Benson." She hugs him and shows him inside to the couch. "Do you want something for a late breakfast?" "Not eggs or toast," Benson came close to screaming as he sunk in the sofa.

"How about some cereal and a glass of orange juice?"

"If you don't mind ma'am."

"I do not. I was just about to make little Davery's." They heard Dave go "awe mom" as he came down the stairs. Benson couldn't help laughing at the kid's bed head. It was obvious the kid wasn't a morning person. His mom tutted at him and pinched his cheek. Then she headed into the kitchen.

Dave hopped on the couch next to him. "My mom is so embarrassing. Is your mom like that?"

Benson shrugged. "In some ways, I guess, but mostly ignoring." He was about to ask the older man what he meant by that then dropped it when his mom came and set their bowls on the coffee table.

Both of them slipped to the floor so they could reach their cereal and Mrs. Hillary comes back in with her own bowl and glasses of orange juice. Benson had taken a few bites of cereal then stirred it around a bit as he thought of the times his ex-family sat down for dinner. Where as they would be arguing at one another, these two seemed to joke and kid with one another. It felt nice to be with these two nice people.

After breakfast, Dave immediately asks Benson what he wanted to do. He shrugged and said whatever game the kid thought of he'd play it. A long period of thought (about 5 minutes) became of him till he found out an idea.

They took him downstairs to the basement and opened a door to a room. Benson presumed it was like some sort of man-cave because of the decoration of sports on the wall and games everywhere.

"So, what should we play first?" Dave asks. Benson glances around then points at the pool table. They played Pool, Cut Throat, and Nine ball. Then Hillary challenged Benson to darts. She was a good shot, but so was he. Dave tried to play too, but couldn't even throw one after his mother pestered him about how pointy the tips were. They played tons more till noon where Benson said he had to go.

"What? Can't you play longer?" Dave whined.

"Sorry, I gotta meet a forced upon me roommate 'cause I got the only key to the hotel room."

"Which hotel?" asked Hillary.

"The, uh, Leafy Green Bunny." Dave then looks at his mom with big excited eyes.

"Mr. Benson," his mom starts, "how 'bout we tag along to the hotel and meet with your friend. Then we can all head to this arcade me and my son do love so much. It's literally just five minutes from your hotel."

The word arcade reminded him off Oggy and the others, but agreed none the less. They locked up the house then met up with Baxter. The group walked to the arcade and bought free game passes and loads of tokens.

Benson was impressed by the arcade size wise. It was huge and had a few rides inside like bumper cars, tea cups, a small rollercoaster and more.

They tried out a few rides first. Benson and Dave got super dizzy from the tea cups. Baxter wailed on all of them on the bumper cars and got a good talking to from Hillary afterwards. Benson schooled quite a few video games and got lots of tickets which he stacked with the other's.

He didn't care about the prizes and so stayed out of the way while the others picked out some. He soon regretted it when he saw what they had gotten for him. They got him a bobble-head, sunglasses, and a hair tie. "Gee, thanks," he said sarcastically.

They sat at a table and waited for their order of pizza. Dave played with the sunglasses then put them on Benson. "You look so cool with them on," he tells him. Hillary smiles when Benson pats the kid's head.

"You'd look, how you say, 'cooler' if you wore the hair tie," grumped Baxter. Benson places it on his head and asks if that was better. Dave giggled at the face Baxter made. He takes the tie off his head and wraps it on his wrist for the time being.

"So what game now?" Dave asks. His mom and Baxter sigh tiredly. He looks at Benson who was staring over at a game. "Do you still want to play?"

Benson nods out of thought and agrees to play some more with him. "How about we try that game right there?" He pointed to a game that made him remember his time with Coach and Danny. The day they met Oggy.

"Stick Hockey?" Dave asks. "That game's a bit dull don't you think?"

"Come on. It'll be so much fun."

Wow, did that last line foreshadow or what? Anyway, Woot! Not long now. Maybe at least two-three chapters left, then an epilogue. Let's wrap this up! Review. P.S. I was kind of thinking of Wile E. Coyote when I was thinking of Baxter's personality. Only Baxter is a bit, well, as you know, obnoxious.

MG: Kind of like Buzz Killington?

Me: Aaahhh...Yes.