Chapter Text
“Please, don’t do this,” Nick’s paw curled around his forehead, a migraine starting to work its way up, and his resigned huff fell on deaf ears. An ironic case considering his partner was a rabbit.
“And why shouldn’t I?” She pulled the key out of her back pocket and slipped it in to the keyhole. Her brow was set in a finely neat fold, highlighting her determination, and despite the sensibility, she wouldn’t let go easily.
The door opened with a slight creak, “Because we’re sneaking into our daughter’s bedroom. It’s like Parent Code Violation 101.”
“You mean How to Parent: 101,” the air was cool, touched in cherry blossoms and honey, and was cluttered, not so much cluttered as most rooms in the house, but Judy was sure she reminded her to return that library book a month ago, “our daughter is obviously having a crisis, and she won’t tell us anything!”
Nick stepped over discarded paper balls, saw chewed pencils in the waste bin, “I get she’s having a crisis, but going through her room-her things, Carrots what are you doing?”
A purple marble notebook was in her paws, and she flipped hurriedly through the pages, the desk light giving color to the familiar shades of magenta, neon green, and golden blue.
Nick sniffed near her bed. The quilt had aged over the years, and stains of fur dye, sodas, and other identified substances gave the quilt incidental colors that wasn’t in Bonnie’s original design. He raised his head at his mate’s flurry, and his ears lowered in alarm, “What are you doing?”
“Not so loud,” Judy hissed, and tossed the marble notebook back into the corner where she found it, “there’s nothing but old homework in that one. She has to have something around here. Check under the bed.”
“The bed!” Before her could grab her arm, she had gone under the bed, searching among the likes of lost socks, dust bunnies, crippled folders, and other instruments that parents should never discover in their children’s possession.
Shaking his head, Nick turned around and went to her desk. Of all the items in her room, the desk was the inevitably neat one. Books were aligned alphabetically, and the wood was smooth, continuously polished. Its slick hide shined in the dim light, and it was under that dim light Nick saw it. Wedged between the Faulkner and Hemingway was a tall, thin pamphlet.
He reached for it, stopped, questioned what he was doing-why he was doing it, shrugged, and extracted it from its tightly bound space.
In great, bold letters the title said all that it needed to say, and something sunk in his stomach, surely and quickly, that made him taste bile on his fangs.
“Uh…Carrots, Carrots,” he looked down and only saw a set of long feet scrambling on the carpeted floor, “Judy, come on, get outta there, I got something.”
With the pamphlet still in his paw, he dragged Judy out, wiping her dusty clothes and the dust bunnies stuck on her ears.
“So…so,” she coughed, “oh my god, she is going to clean this out when she gets home. It is filthy.”
“Lets discuss this, okay, first, and I promise you, we’ll get into her about her unsavory cleaning habits,” his casual tone didn’t ease her, and she narrowed her eyes at the slight tremor, the uneasy bit that made it tight and hard.
“Nick, what’s that?”
“Just-just look at it…”
Her fingers folded around the pamphlet, and she made out the lines as her ears started to droop. She looked at her mate, not in dread, but in a very firm knot of sadness she didn’t like feeling on a Sunday afternoon.
“What are you doing?” Judy shoved the pamphlet and key into her pocket, and they raised their heads sharply at the intruder, owner of the room, whose expression was confused and annoyed.
Nick looked between them, and saw the water spilling over, “Your mother and I we were looking for you to…”
“…To–to ask you about your National Mammal Day!”
Lynn pulled back, “National Mammal Day? It isn’t for another week.”
“But schools are already celebrating.”
“Zootopia High is making preparations for the parade, but…you know what,” mind on other matters, she shook her head and dropped her booksack on the floor, crossing her arms as the distance closed between them, "sorry 'bout the mess. Been a busy week with all...the uh-preparations, so if you don't mind..."
“Sure!”
“Absolutely!”
"Shit, that was close, think she suspects anything?" They returned downstairs casually where their uniforms waited for them.
Pressed against the skeleton key, the paper ruffled and crackled in her back pocket, "I'm sure she does, but...she might, I don't know. We'll think of something later."
“Later?”
“Later.” Retreat was, usually, a last resort, and not necessarily a bad thing. It allowed regrouping and plan exploration, and she walked with her arms crossed, a small pout forming on her lips while her nose twitched agitatedly.
He pinched her side, “Don’t over think it, Carrots. Everything’s going to be okay. We’ll…we’ll work it out, somehow. Tryers and all.”
Judy chuckled, pushing into him, leaning into his side embrace, “Family motto, we are going to have to talk about this,” she pinched his side back, letting her fingers linger longer than usual.
Her fur was soft under his muzzle, and he closed his eyes, breathing in her earthly scent, “I know, I know,” as casual as he sounded, as cool and composed, the slight tremor of his voice betrayed his worries and fears taking root and branching in every direction.
Their scents intermingled and walked hand in hand, and their bodies fell in motion to careful steps, recreating a path they started to build a decade ago. Comfort was found in one another, his and her presence binding them close, and the reassuring touches and pinches made them push the crumbled paper in Judy's back pocket to the middle of their forefront, to be addressed later on.