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Judy had nuzzled her way into Nick’s side while they were just lounging about in his apartment. It had been a long day at work. Nothing bad or upsetting had happened, not exactly. It had just been one of those days that everything they did seemed so meaningless. A call to talk down a drunk person in an apartment building, who had blacked out by the time they got to the scene. A call to break up a fight between a positively incandescent couple of ocelots, which interrupted their lunch. A call to deal with a bunch of teenagers doing graffiti on an abandoned yard, which turned out to be a legitimate commission. An hour worth of paperwork afterwards.
They hadn’t just sat down here for no reason, of course. They had been watching a movie. It had been a live action comedy about an unusually coloured panther, who got into all sorts of trouble, mostly through no fault of his own. The movie, though, was long over. Both of them had just sat in silence huddled together for five minutes without bothering to move to change the DVD. It was just that sort of a day.
Nick knew Judy too well to think that was going to last, however. He could practically hear the gears in her head turning. She’d gotten more and more anxious at his side, occasionally tensing up suddenly before relaxing. Nick knew exactly what this meant. She wanted to ask something from him and it was embarrassing to her, the possibilities making her cringe. As a younger tod he had similar tells, but he’d meticulously eliminated his one by one. Too dangerous to have a tell when hustling.
True enough she looked up, and when seeing that he was looking at her she averted her gaze. Nick smirked. Honestly, he knew this bunny too well for his own good. She twitched again and looked back up, looking a bit uncomfortable.
“E-Nîk…?”, she called his name. Nick found it cute how she changed to use Foxish when she wanted to talk with him personally. To her it was about respect and a level of intimacy, and he could appreciate that.
“Kah, e-Qaratim?”, Nick asked back.
Judy began stuttering out an incoherent ramble: “Ka… ka… ka ot elerat kan… ku… ik vannat ot-… Ah, forget it.”
Nick smiled. Whatever she wanted him to do must’ve been personal to her. This made him feel warm inside. It was nice to be trusted. Still, he felt the need to reassure her.
“E-Qaratim. Ek vannetalat ov kat šan. Always.” He meant it too. No more secrets.
He felt Judy prop herself so that she was no longer huddled in his side. She looked at the floor and then at him.
“I know. I trust y-.” She began, catching herself. “Et kimdanom.”
“Ketem, ov šaî.” Nick encouraged her. He wanted to hear her request already.
She pulled her ears to cover her eyes. Damn that was criminally adorable.
“Om…”, she started, “om vannanom ik et ot… ev vannam veredran… Oh sweet cheese and crackers! Ka vudat ot… uŧnan?” She basically squeaked the last word, having caught how much she’d worked herself up. Her obvious cuteness was not the main issue though. Nick’s ears flicked a few times in confusion. Could he even have heard her right?
“Uŧnan? You want me to–? Carrots, uŧnaîk means to–.“
“I know what it means! Just – it’s been such a long day and I – it’s, it’s a bunny thing, you don’t ha–“
Nick silenced Judy by booping her twitching nose before she worked herself up to a full ramble.
“E-Qaratim. Il vannanot, et kam uŧnan.” Why wouldn’t he have done that for her?
”Really!? Ka arat alas ik…”, she paused, clearly embarrassed, ”tumdad inanom.”
Nick scoffed at her. As if it would have been the weirdest thing for them to have done together. For some mammals their habit of having movie nights was probably off limits. So, okay, maybe it wasn’t normal, exactly, but to think her weird for it…?
He dismissed it immediately: “Lem vannat ik eŧ tokân? Ram.”
Judy gasped suddenly and opened her mouth a few times as if in outrage.
“Ar– e-Nîk, aram vannan ik ot “tokân”, vannanom ik ET… ok… toka… not.”
Judy blushed and looked like she had caught on to what she was saying, for the umpteenth time within the last few minutes. She wanted HIM, especially, to touch her? Nick couldn’t help but to smile broadly at that. Judy seemed to get the wrong idea from this though.
“ARREKÎ!! ASSINARŠANOM!” Nick was barraged with a flurry of quick, but luckily light, punches.
“Âk! Âk! E-Qaratim. Âk!” He tried to interject. “Âk! Vîrvu– âk!– vannanot ik uŧnanom?”
”Ka?” Judy blurted out, stopping mid-punch.
”I thought you spoke Foxish, Carrots. I asked you where do you want me to groom you.” he said, teasing her.
“Dumb fox. Âmmm… Tâlvu ok ohal.” Judy looked a bit uncertain for a second and offered her head for him.
Nick swallowed his own nervousness and went to action. He tentatively licked the top of Judy’s head. He could recognize the tastes as mostly the same ones as he could pick up on her scent, but there were a few he didn’t expect. The subtle taste of coffee that he suspected had come from the coffee she had spilled when their radio had suddenly flared to life when they had tried to go for lunch. She must’ve brushed a drop or two there by accident. There was also a salty hint of soap she had used this morning. The scent had faded, but he’d picked it up this morning.
It had been ages since Nick had groomed anyone. In the modern times of showers and readily available cleaning products grooming had become less a necessity and more of a social thing. For many species it was actually quite an intimate act, though not really sexual in nature or anything like that. Parents groomed their kits at times after all. For adult foxes it required a lot of trust and he felt quite honored that Judy would allow – no, want – him to do it. Maybe it didn’t quite mean the same to her, bunnies being quite clingy little things, but he could tell from Judy’s behavior it wasn’t exactly a handshake either. He hoped he could do a good job.
Nick licked again and nibbled at the fur with his teeth. He felt the soap come off at least. He felt Judy slightly stir as his teeth gnashed on her fur, but she didn’t object, so he continued. Did bunnies even use teeth? Oh well. He worked his way to the back of Judy’s ear and could feel Judy relax and lean into his teeth a bit. So that solved that mystery.
The backs of Judy’s ear actually had more small traces of dirt since she had a habit of brushing her ears with her paws. Nick found traces of shampoo, a bit more of coffee, even what must’ve been a crumb of muffin. This meant he worked at the ear a bit more.
Nick jumped a bit as Judy suddenly breathed out a sigh of pure contentment.
“E-Karma, uŧnetat ralninom,” she breathed out.
Nick raised an eyebrow, not that Judy would’ve noticed. Her eyes were closed and she was basically humming. He nibbled on the base of the ear a bit more and finished with a few licks. He decided that his curiosity deserved to be fulfilled.
“So… what brought this on?”
“Uŧnaî, e-fokše.”
Nick did as ordered and resumed licking the base of her ear and started moving along the top of her head to the other side. To be honest he was probably just making a mess of her fur, but there was something satisfying in the process all the same. He did clean some of the dirt away as well, which he could count as a plus.
Judy hummed for a while and then finally began her explanation. She asked if he remembered the plushies in her room. Nick hummed in agreement and bit on a bit of slightly tangled fur behind Judy’s right ear. It opened satisfactorily.
Judy explained that those were ultimately there to compensate for the lack of company. She had always been a bit of a loner, but that didn’t mean she didn’t take part in the grooming and the other stuff. Nick whined inquisitively as he licked the base of her ear. He could taste something bitter, which he suspected was ink from her pen.
“Atdanot, kamre- laretal, â... uninall… Â… š! Foxish has no vocab for this!” she admitted in frustration.
“Our tongue is tricky like that,” Nick said, licking the edge of her ear for effect, and made Judy jump at the sensation.
“Oh, shush you. We called it piling. We just take naps together in piles, groom each other and take comfort from each other’s presence and body heat. It’s a bunny thing. I know it is. That’s why I didn’t want to, you know…”, she said waving her hand in the air.
Nick licked the base of her right ear and suggested: “You didn’t want to intrude on a fox, since we appreciate a much larger personal space?”
Judy nodded and Nick continued: “You’re never going to frighten me away again, Judy. We’re pretty solitary but when we make friends – really make friends – there’s no going back from that.”
He licked the back of her head a few times, finding it pretty clean, though he could practically taste the seat of the cruiser. He thought that was a good place to finish. Judy was looking forward but he could tell that she was smiling.
“Yŧinanom,” she whispered.
“Atdanom,” he answered.
Nothing more needed to be said for the night.