Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bunny Burrow wasn't really a place that Nick Wilde frequented by any means. Foxes and rabbits weren't known for getting along, and no matter how much time had changed them, tolerance was an age old mystery that no one had even begun to crack. History was a subject that surpassed time, and it was nearly impossible to find someone who hadn't at least picked up the book.

It bothered him. But he did his best not to show it.

Which was exceedingly difficult when a certain rabbit approached him at his desk where he'd been filling out paperwork (or playing phone games, but really, what was the difference) and spun him about in his wheely chair before declaring, "You're coming home with me."

He blinked at her, once, twice, green eyes wide and questioning. He swallows back a lump in his throat that always seems to appear when she's this close and manages a meager, "… What…?"

"You," she pointed at him before pointing towards herself, "are coming home with me."

"Oh am I?" It didn't take him long to gather his wits, and soon enough his grin is back. He wonders if it shows in his eyes. "And why's that?"

"Because my moms birthday is next week and my entire family is showing up. And if I go alone they're going to ask me about marriage and kids and why I'm not seeing another rabbit."

"Isn't that supposed to happen."

"Yes," she replied loftily. "But I don't want it to."

"… because…"

"Because, dumb fox," she slugged him on the arm, "I'm with you. And based on our agreement of the romantic kind, you're meant to be suffering with me."

He actually lets out a guffaw at that one, snickering when her nose crinkles. "I don't think I signed anything like that, Carrots. And I don't suffer for people. I make them suffer. That's the conman's creed."

"Actually, you did. As soon as you were dumb enough to ask me out."

"I never asked you out," he tells her in a matter of fact way. A wolf at the desk a little ways off turns his ear at that, listening in. Nick doesn't bother lowering his voice. If they want a scoop, they can have one. "You asked me out."

"No. I didn't."

"Yes. You did. Now leave. I have very important paperwork to get back to."

"We both know that's not true."

"I can't hear you over my responsibilities!" Nick sings back, twisting in his chair to go back to what he was doing before. He clicks a few buttons on his phone. Level 53 is unlocked with a chime.

He knows that she'll ask again. And watching her glare from the corner of his eye when he hands his reports into Clawhauser, he knows its just a matter of time. Judy's never done things by halves, and she never lets a dead thing lie. He's always liked that about her.

"I remember what happened," she tells him the next day when she gets into the car. He's leaning onto the middle console, his elbow digging into a cupholder, her ice coffee offered out in his hand. She takes it, reaching for the straw until it's folded in her teeth. Takes a sip. Grimaces. "There's not enough-" Like a card trick, he's flicking his fingers and a packet of sugar is a willing sacrifice. "Thanks."

"No problem. Now, what were you saying?"

"What was I saying, what?" She uses her straw to stir, concentrating on the ice clattering about inside. The sugar floats aimlessly to the bottom before being disrupted again like the most caffeinated of snow globes.

"You remember what happened."

"Oh. Right. I do." She takes another sip, and though she's doing her best to look angry at him he can see the way her jaw twitches in something that wants to be a smile. "I kissed you. I got drunk and I kissed you."

"You did," he says. "And then you threw up on my feet."

"To be fair, you deserved it." One of her ears had fallen to her shoulder and she flipped it off with a twist of her head. "By the way, I told my mom you were coming. She said she'll make you a blueberry pie."

"I'm not going, Carrots."

"You are," she says, finally breaking out a smile, and he could have sworn that if the sun hadn't been hiding behind the buildings, it'd have been jealous of the competition. "And you know you are."

"You're challenging a hustler to his own game, sweetheart. You're gonna lose." He leans the rest of the way over to flick her nose. She sneezes. Glares again.

"No I won't. Jerk." She splashes a bit of condensation at him from where its collected on her paw from the plastic cup. "Now drive. We'll be late for work."

She was right, of course. He ends up going to the party. Then again, they both knew he would.

They leave a little later than they'd meant to (he'd slept in, her shower hadn't been running hot, and then she'd forgotten the wine for her mother which prompted a very interesting trip to a liquor store where drunken escapades were remembered fondly and he'd dragged her into a corner behind a stack of chardonnay boxes for a brief but glorious make out session to instill "nostalgia"). The trains were finicky on weekends, and so they'd driven in. Which might have also been a mistake, because Zootopia traffic was apparently a friendly, complimentary preparation for apocalyptic futures that the men on corners were always going on about.

They get stuck in a sinful amount of traffic and only fight three times. The first two for stupid reasons she couldn't even remember. The second one she remembered very clearly when upon receiving a few remarks by a nearby prejudice driver with opinions about rabbits and foxes and their relations, Nick had decided to retaliate by making direct eye contact before leaning over and giving her ear a bite. She really hoped that it had been worth the amount of yelling she'd done at him afterwords, which had been enough to send him into a temporary pouting silence.

She'd never thought to bring snacks, so they end up rummaging through his glove compartment before finding a stash of stale granola bars and spent the rest of the time gnawing through them while singing along to pop songs the radio felt the need to repeat. He had a horrible voice and hers is worse, and it isn't long before the cars next to them roll down their windows to either shout or beg them to stop.

They just sang louder.

All in all, it had been a standard trip.

They make it at high noon when the sun is positioned strategically enough to not hurt his sensitive eyes and the sunglasses he'd brought just in case hang unneeded on a noose near the soldiers rank of buttons of one of his less gaudy Hawaiian shirts. He has his bag in one hand, a paper one with three wine bottles in the other.

"I'm glad you came, by the way," Judy reaches up to fix the knot of his tie, tightening it into place. "I mean, not that I thought you wouldn't. I'm just glad."

"You'd miss me too much. Admit it."

She doesn't have time to craft an answer. Not when there's the sound of a knob being turned. "Oh Judy you're home!" Bonnie is the one to open the door wearing a yellow apron and a grin. Music and laughter pours out into the space beyond and Nick's ears tuck back at the noise. "We're so happy you could come, sweetheart."

"I wouldn't miss it, mom. Who's here?"

"Well, your brothers and sisters are just about dying to see you. And a few of your cousins. Uncles. Aunts."

"So… half of the city?" Judy elbows Nick for that one. Her mother ignores it.

"Uncle Terry's been asking, by the way. Your father told me to warn you that he's got a few… questions."

"Oh god." she pinches the bridge of her nose. "Is he trying to set me up again. I told him last time that I already have someone."

"Aw," Nick coos. "Carrots! You absolute Hallmark, you!"

"Don't push your luck, Wilde."

"Not just Terry, hon. All of them are." Bonnie turns her eyes to the figure behind her daughter and the edges of her eyes crinkle into cellophane. Nick has to hold down a breath because he's still growing accustomed to warmth, and no matter how many times he sees the fire he's sure that the fear of getting burned will never really leave. She moves forward, arms already out, and he bends as much at the waist as much as the bags allow, making it easier for her. She pulls him down farther anyway. He used to find nuzzling a hilarious circumstance of being a rabbit. Now he's fairly sure he knows why they do it. "Nick, dear, so good to see you again."

"Likewise, ma'am. And happy birthday!"

"You're too sweet. Thank you. We're so happy you're here. Stu and I, I mean. Oh and the children have been ecstatic. You might have to brace yourself when you come through."

Nick's smile is nearly cavity inducing. His first visit to the Burrows had been a strange one. Filled with awkward tension from parents not sure how to react and kids who hadn't ever been close enough to their predator to see every strand of fur in its fluffy tail.

A fluffy tail they'd soon attacked with a curious enthusiasm. Everything had run fairly smoothly once the parents had realized, around the fourth time he'd "accidentally" dropped his tail on a shrieking bunnies head, that he wasn't out to eat them and that, all in all, he was a decent fellow.

The kids, after giving his tail another few tugs before dragging him off for blueberry picking, had agreed.

"Anyway," Bonnie continued, leaning away from the fox enough to look up at him, still holding onto his arms, "It really is good you're here. Poor Judy's been practically gutted at every family meeting. Might be good to have a little proof at her side." She moves back, releasing him. He misses the warmth for just a moment, but the Hopps family never seems to let anyone be without for long. Maybe its a bunny thing. Or maybe he just got lucky and fell into the right hearth. Judy's paw is in his, slipping their fingers together without much thought at all, and he gives it a squeeze.

"They're gonna try to get me to give random rabbits my number," she grumbles, leaning against Nick's side. "Remember last time? I was getting poetry and guitar solos on my voicemail for weeks."

"Just humor them, carrot-cake." Bonnie wipes her hands on her apron, beating out some spare flour. "You have your Nick here."

"He's not my Nick." Nick reaches over and tweaks her nose.

"You're my Judy."

"Oh be quiet."

"You know you love me!"

"Depends. How willing would you be to bite off some of my relatives hands if they start asking stupid questions?"

"Not gonna happen, darlin'."

"Then no. I don't know."

"Yes you do."

Bonnie just watches their exchange with a roll of her eyes, staring at a particularly glorious patch of sky with a sigh lingering at the corner of her lips. "Thank you for your restraint, Nick dear. It's appreciated. Now both of you, come in. And please try to keep my daughter from doing anything to her family. We can't have a repeat of Thanksgiving '08."

"What happened Thanksgiving of '08?" He tilts his head to the rabbit at his side, his ears drooping with gravity.

She shrugs, looking at anything but him before giving a small pebble by her foot a vengeful kick. "It was their own fault."

"Of course it was, sweetheart. Nick-?"

"I'll keep her on a short leash, Ma'am."

"… Jerk," he hears Judy mumble, and he leans over to kiss one of her velvety ears.

They end up staying together through the entire thing. And she had been right. The questions ranged from personal to down their throat. His tail might have become permanently bristled from the amount of distrustful looks they sent his way, and he was sure the muscles around his ears were beginning to tire from being pinned back for so long, but she was adamant about who she was with and made it clear that no amount of passive aggressive comments spoken around carrot martinis were going to change the way she felt anytime soon.

Nick had to admit, for a bunny who hardly knew how to handle herself around anyone, she'd grown into someone who was suddenly more than subpar at it.

"So," one of her many uncles glares at Nick, feet twitching on the floor as if he was getting ready to run from danger, "this is the fox."

"Yup." Judy swirls her glass around, watching the legs of wine drip down. "This is him. The fox."

"I go by Nick most of the time, though," Nick, the fox, chimes in.

Uncle Whats-His-Face looks like he'd rather just call him any other demeaning name (as if Nick hadn't heard them all) and huffs, puffing out already puffy cheeks. "So, all the eligible bunnies in the city weren't enough? Or are there none."

Nick's never been much for emotion, and they both know it. Never let them see that they get to you. So when he does his best to smile between a quick and smooth "she's just got great taste in animals, that's all," they both know he's not fairing too well beneath.

Uncle Who's'it doesn't notice. Or, more likely, doesn't care. "Did you do something to threaten her? Or is this some sort of a bet with your friends. Go for the easy prey, huh?" It's not an uncommon question. They've heard it before. But the family aspect of it stings. And from behind her, the rabbit could just see Nick's ears flickering back, his attention going into his own wine glass, sharp teeth clamping down on his tongue.

He might have agreed not to bite off hands, and Judy's leash is still a short one, but she has wiggle room and she uses it.

And it's moments in those pockets of wiggle room that Nick remembers just why he fell in love with Judy.

Moments where she gives his hand a squeeze, offers up a smile more powerful than a tranq gun and chirps, with enough artificial sugar to induce a coma, "Nope! I work a really high stress job. Needed an outlet. And it just so happens that Nick here's the best for a roll in the sheets."

The Uncle turns on his heel with a choke and Nick's laughing so hard he has to drag her outside just to lean against the side of the house through his tears before kissing her senseless.

"I can't believe you said that," he murmured between pecks and nips at her neck, voice almost lost in her fur.

She just gave his large ear a pinch. "He was annoying me. It got him to leave."

"Do you really think I'm the best? Because I really think our practice has been paying off lately."

When she laughs it matches the wind chimes that hang from outside their porch. He's always loved her laugh. Large and bright and unfiltered. "You're the best," she promised. "Might have used it to exorcise evil relatives, but I meant it."

She gets an extra nip at the shoulder for that one.

Nick had always liked the Hopps'. They were forward thinkers. Not about just new farming techniques and updated pluming methods, but about him as well. He'd seen too many movies where protective fathers and mothers had protested vehemently about long term boyfriends being close to their baby girls and he had expected them to be the same.

It never really was.

"If you need more covers, just let us know," Bonnie told Judy and Nick over her hand of cards before they'd headed upstairs. The party was over and all the kids (and the plus one) had helped clean up. The house smelled vaguely like carrots and alcohol and the warmth from the oven still lingered.

Stu called out go fish before slapping a few cards on the table. "Oh, an' Nick, the sink in Judes' room works, but the hot water is a finicky thing. Just give it a minute."

"Appreciated, sir. And happy birthday again, ma'am."

"Night mom! Night dad!"

They talk for some time, do their best to entertain siblings who pop in and out to jump on the bed and ask Nick question after awkward question (so when I'm an aunt will there be funnies or boxes!). He throws a few of them over his shoulder (it's easy to play the persona of the big bad hungry fox, and he abuses this right- not that Judy ever cares to tell him how much she loves to watch) and totes them off to their own rooms.

By the time everything is settled, so is everyone in the house.

He's in the bathroom, washing the taste of wine from his mouth, when he hears her snoring. She's asleep before he even gets to bed. Not that he does get there. And an hour later, after a spare floorboard squeaks somewhere far off, she wakes up alone. The house is dark and she has trouble seeing. But he wouldn't have, and when she does find him, standing by a window in the kitchen over the sink, it's in the pitch. Moonlight is flooding in through the slats in the curtains and gives the entire place the feel of a prisoner behind bars that follow along like smog.

Her arms have always been short, and he's always been larger than her, but she still manages to wrap them around his waist, pressing the side of her head against the rivulets of his spine.

"You weren't in bed."

"Sorry…" he doesn't sound sorry. Just far off and distant. She gives him a squeeze.

"S'okay. Are you?"

"Am I what."

"Okay." He nods. "I don't believe you. But that's fine." She moves away, grabbing a cup from where it's drying on the rack, filling it with water. It's pressed into his palm. "The family really messed with you, huh?"

He doesn't drink it, but he moves the mug in circles, passing it back and forth slowly from paw to paw. "They don't trust me."

"You're right."

"They think I'm out to hurt you, or something."

"They do."

"Two of them had fox repellent."

"Four, actually. Five if you count my great aunt. But she can't move that much. Wouldn't have done her anything." He hums. Jaw twitching. She smiles before taking the glass from his hand before replacing it with her own. "Come on."

"Where'we going?"

"Just come on."

She brings him to the middle of their blueberry field. The land smells like the coffee mulch, sweet crushed flowers and new wind. They find a patch that isn't too badly covered in crushed berries, sitting down back to back. Her head leans to look up and the top of her crown bumps his spine. He looks up too. The stars are out. And without light pollution the place reeks of constellations and nebula's.

"You know, I left this place to go to a city. But… I kind of miss it sometimes. I mean, it took me a while to figure out that they're both terrible in some ways. Great in others. Really the same. But… I miss it."

"I can see why. You have a midnight snack out your back door." He popped a few of the fruit into his open maw.

She wants to tell him about what else there is to like. The sweeping forests. The brooks a mile past the hills. The expanses of rocky land where the fireflies flock two months out of the year. "I'm really glad you came," she says instead.

"You keep saying that, Carrots."

"And I'll keep meaning it."

"Huh. Whod'a'thunk I'd be having a sentimental discussion with Officer Toot-Toot. I mean… I wouldn't have a while ago."

"Well, I hadn't thought I'd be toting around your fuzzy tail either, but here we are."

He laughs before reaching behind him to clasp her hands in his. "I love you," he says honestly.

She presses her heels into the ground, pushing herself back to sidle closer. His tail flickers back, forth, back, forth, back and forth before winding around her in the chilly evening. Above them the stars glimmer, watching over with a curious eye ready to catch gossip in lightning bug jars.

"I love you, too." She says. And then, "There's an old elm a few yards away. You wanna go make out behind it?"

He's up in a flash, dragging her behind him, their laughter catching on the breeze and echoing out loud enough for even the great city, just visible above the line of apple orchards, to hear.

Chapter Text

Judy realizes, about a year into her time in the large city that she's reluctantly (and some days less so) called home, that she was born into a family that educated their children based on the principles of facts and fairy tales.

"Don't eat too many blueberries or you'll feel sick." Fact.

"The tooth fairy only comes for your buck teeth, or else poor ma and pa would be out of house and home!" Fairy Tale.

"Carrots grow best under a moderate climate with plenty of sun and a good hand." Fact.

"Always settle and you're bound to never fail." Fairy Tale.

"We have enough love for all our children." Fact.

"Foxes are dangerous, carnivorous creatures and they'll spare no chance in ripping you apart."

…Fact?

No.

Fairy Tale...?

Judy also realized after a time that it had become harder and harder to tell the difference.

She'd test out a few theories. Too much blueberry pie, eaten strait out of the tin after a long night of work with a fork and a new show on had in fact given her the worst of stomach upsets and it took her a good time before she was able to even look at the stuff again. Carrots did, from experience, grow better under a moderate climate and a steady hand. And her parents did love them all equally (or so she hoped- there were days where she knew favorites were taken and she'd been on that lovely pedestal less times than she'd have liked).

The fairy tales stayed as they were: Her parents had drudged themselves from their where they'd settled and she'd found that fighting left her with a sense of fulfillment. The tooth fairy wasn't real, Santa Claws didn't drop in through their chimney and she was fairly certain that monsters didn't live under her bed.

The Fox thing though…

That had taken some time to debunk.

But she'd had time. And forty-eight hours of it had stretched and clumped and twisted and molded her opinion of it all beyond recognition. Until standing at a podium, sitting in a squad car, handing coffee over a kitchen table, paws lingering for a moment longer over the newspaper delivered to her (their) apartment door, she decided that it was more of an urban legend.

Something that wasn't true. But still scared her. Sometimes.

"Carrots?" he'd reached out one day, running sharpened nails down the back of her head in a way that she was so used to, but wasn't quite sure of all at once. He tugged on her ear after a moment when she'd failed to respond, flicking it aside. "Hey. You okay?"

"Fine." They were sitting side by side at a small booth in the back of a diner. The tables were dirty and smeared with coffee grounds and the bottom scrapings of a butter container. She'd been picking at her napkin for the last seven minutes, and little white flakes stuck against the jelly and marmalade splotches that mapped themselves to and fro in a sea of sticky fingerprints. "Just… thinking."

"Wanna tell me what? Or is it one of those things I wont understand."

I'm not sure if I'm afraid of you didn't sound like the opening line to a productive and happy morning.

It was only instinct, she convinced herself. That quick, bunny way of thinking that had her brain constantly on the accelerator, watching out for danger behind corners on a strait road.

Teeth too close to her face, maybe. Claws that wound round her wrist, made gentle paths down her neck and throat. A dangerous glint in his eyes that spoke worlds of distrust and thievery.

He'd ordered a BLT, and though she had learned to cope with the smell of burning fat and cooked animal it still turned her stomach. The crumbs were all that were left. She'd had a salad. Between them a plate of fries sat half empty, the spiderweb cracks on the bottom filled with a spackle of grease and salt. The smell of bacon had turned her away after she'd gotten a text from her neighbor regarding a question about the law (can I sue my roommate for touching my food?) and she had remembered the man to be a pig.

That had her wondering if he'd ever eaten rabbit.

That had her wondering if he'd ever seen her as a meal.

That had her questioning fairy tales.

"I'm fine," she said again, calling over a waitress to get them a check. He looked at her, tilting his head.

"We usually get desert!" He smirked, nudging her chin with his nose. "Waffles and ice cream, Hopps!" Leaning his muzzle on the top of her head she can feel his throat bob when he speaks. "We can get strawberry! Your favorite."

She just shakes her head before pulling it away. There are teeth above her, and she needs to breathe. "Not today…"

He doesn't question her. But he does watch her when, on the way out, he tries to grab her hand and she almost flinches away.

But she was a rabbit of reason and logic, and so she'd done her very best to test each and every fear until it gained purchase and stuck as a legitimate worry. It wouldn't happen before he'd declared much of anything. And certainly not before she'd done anything of the sort. The entire thing hadn't been unnatural though. Tensions had always been high around them, and when a stray paw, a quick glance, a throaty whisper, was thrown just right there was no halting the way that the two had fallen against and for.

But there would always be moments of instinct too. And there are times when even she can't stop them.

When she tip toes off to find a glass of water one night, turning round, she found herself staring back at a pair of opalescent pearls. And her body screamed hunter and her mind screamed run, and the glass shattered before she'd taken a step back on it.

He'd sat next to her on the hospital bed, ears pinned down, quiet and guilty while an attendant picked every tiny shard from the bottom of her soft foot.

When she has a nightmare there are always teeth on her neck and some mornings he wakes up alone and finds her fast asleep on the couch.

Judy Hopps had done her best to debunk fairy tale from fact, and one thing she always believed in, despite every odd, was that even if fairy tales weren't fact, happily ever after could be. And if it wasn't happily ever after, then at least it was happy for as long as it could be.

Her mother had always told her though that happiness came with a spoken word. And she was right. If they were getting through anything, they were getting through it talking.

"I'm not afraid of you." She says it out loud to the ceiling one night while they lie side by side in bed. She can hear him shift, the sheets tugging and pulling and sliding, and feels the moment his tail flickered and touches the bottom of her foot. In the darkness the green pearls blink.

"What?"

"You think I'm afraid of you." She says again. "I'm not."

He's silent a long moment after that. Which is odd and disconcerting. Nicholas P. Wilde, for as long as she's known him (and she's pleased to say that it's been quite a while) is rarely silent. But he is. Marinating on her words and sinking into them. And then he turns to face her. She mirrors him, shifting onto her side.

"It's okay if you are." If she had expected to hear one thing, its not that. And it stings. She flinches. "Seriously, Carrots. It is."

"It's not." She shakes her head and her ears flop against the pillow. "I shouldn't- I mean I'm not afraid of you. I can't be."

"It makes sense if you are."

"How?"

"Because," and he moves closer to her. There's barely space between them now, their noses almost touching. "Because I could hurt you."

Judy sucks in a breath, holds it, and then lets it go slowly. Her heart beats in time with some muffled techno music that's playing far too loud in an apartment a few floors above hers, strobing and thrumming. "You wouldn't."

"I wouldn't," he confirms. "But… I could." His ears fall back, and she recalls thinking that this isn't the time for him to be the guilty one. "I have, Carrots."

"Those were accidents, Nick-"

"Yeah, well, how many couples can say that their partner accidentally took a chunk out of their neck."

"You didn't take a chunk out of my neck!"

"You've still got scars!"

"I've got scars from worse things then a love bite!"

Which was true enough. She had slipped over gardening tools and fallen under bridges and skidded across gravel and once she'd been thrown through a window by a perp which hadn't been the worst thing that day, but it had landed her in the emergency room with a sprained shoulder.

But a passionate night, giggly with quite a few glasses of something bubbly and pink flowing through her, had her and Nick pulling one another through their small apartment, tripping over their own feet, mouths everywhere at once. She'd kissed him, grabbing his tie. He kissed her, tugging at her shirt.

It had taken one moment. His teeth closing just a little too hard around a mouthful of skin that was delicate (far more delicate than that of a Foxes) and she'd yelped back in pain, her paw going to slap against an open wound. It hadn't bled that much (though the moment her hand had pulled away red had been more of a terror for him than it had for her). It had just itched something awful while it was healing. But he hadn't touched her for days after and it had taken convincing just to share the bed again.

"But you still have scars."

"You're not the first fox to scar me, Nick."

"Did you have to bring that up now!"

"Yes," she sniffed. "But the difference is that his were out of animosity." She smiled a lecherous smile that she knew he could see through the pitch. "Yours weren't."

"They weren't." He smiled, a flicker, but it dropped quickly. "It's not just that. It's…" he struggles. "It's those little things too. You know? When… when you think I'm not looking."

"I know you can see it."

"You flinch."

"I do."

"From the teeth."

"And the claws," she adds, tucking her own beneath the covers to grab said claws and pull them up. Under the moonlight they glimmer and she inspects them easily, pressing against the pointed ends with a finger. Not hard enough to draw blood. But enough to know that they could. "Sometimes it's neither."

"You're afraid of me."

"I'm not afraid of you, Nick. It's just… instinct."

"Instinct?" He sounds skeptical. Snarky, even. Then again, that's just Nick's default. She nods anyway.

"Yeah. Sometimes… I mean, it's not easy. It's not like I'm afraid of you. It's like a million wires in my brain are learning to work again and they're all just begging to get back to the factory mode where I'm supposed to run away from you. Like the dioramas in that museum, you know? I'm just the person who's re-routing the system. Like our IT team."

"The IT team at the ZPD is lousy, Judes."

"Yeah, well I'm pretty lousy at it too." He actually smiles then and pulls her closer. He sleeps shirtless, and so its easier for her to press her face into the scruff right below his chin. Through it his heart beats strong and slow, and she knows that her own against him must feel like a a train wreck with how fast it vibrates naturally against its cage. They're different. They always will be.

His claws find her spine and run a melody against every notch. Her dulled nails clutch at the blankets and pull them up higher. It's Spring, but despite that its still cool.

"You can be afraid of me," he tells her, "if you wanted to be. If you needed to be." He doesn't tell her that it would hurt for her to say yes. And he doesn't tell her that maybe, just maybe, he's afraid of her.

But she doesn't say yes. She just pulls herself closer until there's nothing left but them.

"I don't want to be. And I'm not." He kisses her brow at that (thankful, grateful) and she feels a brush of fang- tells her stuttering chest to stop its message of run, run, run. There isn't danger. She's not running. There might be predator and prey with no space between them, but in the darkness of their apartment they're just Nick and Judy.

She pulls herself closet until they're a single entity in the middle of their creaky mattress and burrows away against his side. It's not easy. And sometimes its hard to tell everything apart when your relationship is a direct protest of history books and your dreams are more reflective of fairy tales. But at least in stories the hero always fights. And Judy Hopps had always been a fighter. And if this was just a fairy tale then at least she could prove that the dragon in the cave was something to protect. "Dumb Fox," she says.

"I love you, too," he says back.

And out of it all, she knows that to be a fact.

Chapter Text

It's early in their partnership that Nick decides, against all fraction of a doubt, that he likes Judy Hopps.

She's not his type, Finnick would have told him. Had told him. Confident, intelligent, somewhat of an adrenaline junkie, a lover of all things justice with a cherry on top. Someone who's out of his league by more than he can account for. "She's better than you are," Finnick tells him one night over a game of poker-

-chips on the table, faces set, game face on-

and Nick had slapped down a losing hand and had told him to go to hell.

It was just another way to say that he agreed. Because he did. Completely and horribly and wholeheartedly.

Judy Hopps was far out of his spectrum when it came to choice of mate, and choosing her, against whatever logic his mind could grab onto, hadn't been something that he'd had much say in. His mother had always told him that instinct would win. Instinct always won-

-had the winning hand-

and no matter what, Nick would lose to it.

Nick never really lost anything. He'd failed. But he hadn't lost. The cards were just not dealt much in his favor, and he picked what hands he could and for the most part he left either royally screwed or with a few coins in his pocket.

He never had the winning hand, though. Not ever.

This was the one time he wished he could have.

It's a few months later when he discovers that not only does he like her. But he really likes her. The kind of like that settles deep into his bones and makes his mouth want to form into another word with just as many syllables but with twice the meaning and he has to set his face into something of a stone for as long as he can.

Which is hard.

Because the chief had decided for some godforsaken reason that they should stakeout an old warehouse together.

Outside the Spring is new, but the heat isn't and their little car swelters through closed windows and a dark alleyway. His tongue almost lolls out, but he keeps it back. She swipes a hand across her forehead and swishes her head. Her ears move.

In the dim light he can smell her.

She's all adrenaline and prey and laundry soap and he inhales that clean, Judy scent. His claws almost pop the faux leather on the seat below him with how hard he presses.

"Of all nights," her voice surprises him, and he blinks over at her, "why did someone have to go and hide away now. Why not in winter."

"Because it'd be cold in winter."

"I'd rather be cold." She wipes her brow again. He smiles.

"What? You wanna curl up with me already? Why Hopps, you shouldn't have!"

She smirks back, and her smile is tart. "Always looking for an excuse, aren't we, Wilde."

-chips down, face set, losing hand-

Nick swallows and smiles back. It's sweet, but the sugar's all artificial. "You're a riot, Carrots," he tells her. In the abandoned warehouse, a light flickers on. Nick is glad for the distraction and wonders briefly if it'd be at all professional of him to thank a criminal for saving him from social ruin.

He decides it isn't.

Shame.

"Shall we go, Officer Wilde?"

"We shall, Hopps."

"Judy Hopps, why haven't you called us?" Her parents are looming on her small screen, and Nick is afraid if he steps forward he'll get caught in their huge presence. So he stays in the kitchen, a plate in one hand, a rag in the other. Suds run down his wrist.

"Jude the Dude! It's been a while!"

"Hey mom, hey dad! Sorry, yeah, it's been… busy…" She touches the back of her neck. It's a little move she does when she feels guilty. Nick is amazed to find that he knows that.

He's memorized them all.

Guilty. Sad. Happy. Furious.

They're all distinct.

They're all Judy.

Her poker-face is shit. But he never really took her for a gambler anyway. That was always his job. He's the half that chances. She's the tryer. It works.

"When are you coming back home, sweetie? We miss you."

"And so do all your siblings!"

"Tell them hi for me! And I'll be home as soon as we get a break. Chief has us on overtime, so it's been weird."

"We? Oh!" There's recognition without recognition. A sort of bittersweet realism to her mothers voice. "Oh you mean Nick."

"Yeah! Me and- oh gosh, you haven't met Nick yet!"

No, no, please, no-

It's too late, and she's already jumping over the back of the couch to rush over to him. He almost skids on the tile floor of her dingy kitchen and barely has a moment to breath before the camera is on him and they're both in the frame. He swallows. Doesn't know how to speak suddenly. Forgets words in the presence of her parents.

He was right. They did loom.

"Um…" He holds the dish up and gives it a wiggle. "Hi- Mr. and Mrs. Hopps. I'm- I mean, I'm-"

"He's Nick." Judy answers for him, giving him a nudge.

"Yeah. Nick. That's- I'm Nick."

There's a beat. And in it he can feel a depression seeping through. He wonders if he could drown himself in the sink now. Or at least find a way to duck beneath the camera and get out the door. She can tell him what they thought later. He can already guess though.

Gamblers are good like that.

They can watch a game three steps ahead. And right now, he can feel those steps moving back.

"Judy…" her father says.

"Oh. Sweetheart." her mother says.

He waits for it. Waits for the words to come out that he knows are coming.

"You didn't tell me he was so handsome!"

"You're taking care of our spitfire, right Nick! Oh Bon, lookit those teeth! She's in good hands."

Nick has to swallow back a hysterical laugh.

"And please," her mother is saying, waving her hand back and forth easily, "none of this Mr. and Mrs. stuff. We don't do any of that over here."

"Just Stu and Bonnie'll do just fine, Mr. Nick!"

Nick takes the phone after that, smiling, showing off all his teeth -oh Stu you're right! Our daughters plenty safe with those nearby! At one point he has to hold her back while he and the 'rents trade embarrassing stories. He has an album. They have troves.

Just stands in the background red-faced but pleased.

"We'll send some extra blueberries next time, Mr. Nick," her mother promises.

"Just Nick. And thanks M- Bonnie. I'd really appreciate it."

"Anything for family!" Stu calls out from the background where he's wrangling up a few of the smaller ones who had seen a fox on the screen and had taken an interest, tiny hands pointing, feet jumping about. "You just tell us next time you come up to visit with Judes and you'll get all the fruit you want!"

He thanks them. Feels his chest swell. Wonders how it's possible for a single person to feel this loved and suddenly realizes why Judy's the way she is. Why he's fallen for her.

Why she's gonna be impossible to let go.

"They mean that, you know," Judy tells him later while they sit on the front steps of her apartment building. A herd walks by, slurping after yoga wheatgrass smoothies, their brows donned in sweatbands of every color. "They want you to visit."

"Do you want me to visit?"

"Of course I do." She hugs him tight, leaning on his shoulder. "Like they said. Family. You'd come because you're family."

"I'm not your family, Hopps."

"You are. Even if you don't know it, you are."

"Oh really."

"Mmhm." She nods. "That's the danger of being with me, Wilde."

He won't cry. He can't cry. It'd be dumb if he cried right then, right?

Right.

He just nods instead. "Danger." he says. "Yeah."

He wonders if she knows that her poker-face is terrible. He wonders if she can see through his.

He hopes that she can.

"I need backup!" She's limp against him. Too light. Too small. Huddled in his arms as he ducks beneath passing, screaming civilians who had wanted to get a peek at the commotion. Flashing his badge and snarling at anyone who gets near. His radio crackles. He holds her closer. "Clawhauser! Officer down! I'm in the Rain Forest District!"

"Dispatch is on the way. Location-"

"Khan and Bagheera Way! We're past the loading dock!"

"Affirmative. Wait where you are! Ambulances are arriving shortly."

Her head is lolling on his shoulder, her ears dripping down her back. She looks more like the clock from that famous Salvador Doggí painting he saw once in a museum, and when he lays her down on the ground, realizing that he can't run anymore, he has to laugh at the thought.

So he does.

He laughs.

Hysterically and manically and without hesitation. Because that's all he can do.

-losing hand, poker-face, chips are down-

His hands fall to her side, and the red works its way into his fur, clotting it and making it warm, sticky.

The world smells like fear and copper and laundry soap.

"Stay with me, Hopps." There's another laugh bubbling in his chest. He holds it back. "Stay with me." Clawhauser is on the radio shouting something. There are sirens far off. He wonders if those are theirs or for something else. He can't tell.

It had all been routine. And then it hadn't been. A riot under the loading dock. A panther had been in the middle of a scuffle over something. Something stupid. Something replaceable.

She'd gotten into the fray to break it up.

stupid

irreplaceable

A swipe had been all it had taken. He forgot sometimes how small she was. It was easy to forget when all he thought about was her.

Blood bubbles and pulses. He pushes down. His fur mats.

"Judy? Can you talk to me, Judy. Come on, dummy, talk to me."

Her eyes are open, but they're far off. She blinks at the sky. Looks at everything but him. "Feel funny…" she whispers. Rasps. "Did we win…?"

"No. You won. And then you lost. Because you're an idiot."

She grimaces when he pushes down again, but he doesn't apologize. He's not sorry. "What were you thinking! Don't you get it? Don't you get it?"

"Mmmhm…" Her eyes are closing. "T'red…"

"You can sleep when you're dead, Judes. And you're not sleeping today."

"G'way."

"No."

"Wanna… sleep…"

"No."

"Jerk…"

It's small. But it's something. It's Judy.

He keeps her insulting him until paramedics arrive and load her onto a stretcher made for someone Fangmires size. It's the smallest they have, and on it she looks impossibly weak. Someone presses a sterile rag to her side. Another person straps an oxygen mask to her face.

She sleeps.

He yells at her not to sleep. Not to dare close her eyes.

She does anyway. But damn her, she'd always been about pushing his buttons. He's not about to let her have the last laugh, though. That's for him to take.

They don't let him ride with her, so he has to follow behind. He blares the sirens and speeds, not caring who or what sees him while he goes along. If they had, they would've seen a Fox laughing hysterically over the steering wheel, mouth moving a million miles an hour murmuring the same thing over and over.

you don't get it

It's not until he parks, sitting in the car, listening to the silence and the rush from his own ears, that he realizes he's not laughing anymore. Adrenaline is gone. It's replaced with something heavy and real.

He doesn't leave the car until all his tears are spent. Napkins from all their late night fast food runs come in handy and now they're all balled up next to him on the empty seat she usually occupies. He stares at that space and its napkins for a while. "You don't get it," he tells imaginary Judy.

He doesn't tell her what she doesn't get though.

He's not sure if he gets it either.

He's there when she wakes up.

She's drowsy and loopy and a real riot to talk to when she can't string three of her words together right. But she's still his Judy. And he leans over, pressing his wet nose against her soft ears, breathing in the prey and laundry soap that still manage to make their way through the sterile sort of scent that all hospitals carry.

He swipes a paw across her head a few times, marking her with his own musk. Getting rid of everything else. Mingling them together.

She doesn't notice.

Or maybe she does.

"Thanks for helping me," she tells him at the end of visiting hours.

"Of course." He swallows. "You scared me though, dumb bunny."

"Sorry."

"You should be. Don't do that again."

"No promises."

"Idiot rabbit."

"Stubborn fox."

A nurse comes by to tell him he needs to leave. That he can come back tomorrow. He will. Maybe with flowers. Not roses though. She hated roses. They're cliche, she'd always told him, and he has to agree. Not because of the roses. But because she, Judy Hopps, is anything but a cliche.

Daisies maybe.

He's floral reveries are paused when she takes his paw. "Hey," she says, looking all small and large and Judy all at once. Her purple eyes sing through the drugs and he wonders if they'd always done that. "Hey," she says again. "I get it."

That night he doesn't sleep.

It takes Nick another four months to be able to say the word to himself.

"I'm in love," he tells Nicholas in the mirror, watching himself work through the phrase without a stutter. "I'm in love with Judy Hopps."

The mirror stares back silently. All it shows is a scraggly fox with bad bedhead and a terrible sense of what he wants.

His hand is a losing one.

"You've been avoiding me."

He has been. For a week now. But he can't any longer, because she's at his apartment and he's pretty sure she chipped the paint on the door with how hard she knocked.

The lights from the hall are dim, but they still manage to frame her. She stands under them, imposing and flickering.

"Sorry," he says. "I didn't meant to be."

"But you have." She crosses her arms. "What's going on with you?"

"Nothing."

She glares. Points. "Yes. There is. Don't lie to me, Nick. I know when you're lying."

"I have a fantastic poker face," he tells her honestly, leaning against his doorstop. "You wouldn't know if I was."

"But I can. You're not as good as you think."

"I am as good, actually."

"Not to me, you're not." The space between them is sparse. Nick swallows. Thinks for a moment that its awfully ironic: The one person who always could take him down will be the end of him. She's got a pattern to her, at least.

"Look… I just… I just needed some-"

"Some what?"

"Time."

Her hands throw themselves into the air, eyes rolling back. "Time! For what? To work through things?"

"Yeah, actually."

"Worth through what?"

"Work out… this."

"This?"

He gestures at the space between them. "Yeah. This."

"Nick, what the hell are-"

"I'm in love with you."

He hadn't really thought it would be this way.

His mother had always been a fan of romance books and movies. And Nick, younger, more optimistic, winning hand Nick, had always pictured himself meeting a nice vixen and confessing his love to her at the bottom of a moonlit balcony. There'd be doves or roses or some shit like that, and they'd live as happily as happily ever after could dictate.

Apparently fate was a cruel mistress. There's no moon. And there's no doves. And there's no vixens tossing themselves at him.

Instead, he's blurting out confessions into a dirty hallway to his partner. Who's a rabbit.

For a long moment the two of them do nothing. Just stare at each other through the space. It's heavy and the air smells like mold and mildew from the dampness of old rain seeping into the cheap wallpaper.

"Oh…" Says Judy, finally. "Oh."

His face flickers, turns away. "I- uh-" He swallows. "Can we forget this ever happened? Maybe? God I just-" he scrubs a hand over his face. "Just forget it, okay? Forget I said anything. It was stupid and I- God. Sorry. I didn't mean…"

can't say it

did mean it

"Judes, let's just forget about this. Forever. And just go back to normal tomorrow or some shit like that and maybe-"

"Are you scared?"

The question takes him by surprise. At least it keeps him from closing the door on her face. Which is… something. But it's a question that he has to think about, and he does. For a long moment. Looking into the dim hallway and its flickering lights and moldy paper. "I don't-" A beat. "I don't know."

"Well, I am." She doesn't step back. Doesn't move. Just stands there, looking flushed and bothered and terrified. His nose picks up on fear beneath laundry soap. "I'm scared, Nick."

"You're-"

"I'm scared. I love you. And I'm scared."

"You-!" He lets go of the door. It almost drops back and he catches it before it can shut. "You-"

"I didn't think you did. So I didn't…"

"You're in love-"

"Nick."

"Say it again."

She smiles. Small. Shaken. "I love you." She says, clear as day and sharp as night. Perfect and whole and oh god is he allowed to feel this complete? Her poker face is apparently better than he thought because he hadn't known. Would have never-

"Say it again!" He says, louder, smiling.

"Oh come on! That's not fair! You need to-"

"No," he breathes. "No. You."

"Nick-"

"I have… I have been waiting eons to hear you say this, Judy." He steps forward, reaches out, grabs her arm. Pulls her towards him. "I have been waiting so long. So…. so I just… I need you to say it. Okay? Do you get it?"

"I love you."

She gets it.

"Again."

"I love you."

"Ag-"

Her lips find his, and he finds he can't ask any more questions. "Nicholas Piberius Wilde," she murmurs, shutting the door with her foot. It clicks softly behind her. "I love you."

He throws all the chips onto the table after that.

They're a bundle of fur and sheets lying strewn across his bed. The air smells like something musky and clean -predator and prey- all at once, and he has to admit that it trumps mildew any damn day. "You're awful, you know that." Outside cars pass by and their headlights beat a rhythm onto his ceiling through the slats of his blinds. "I've been waiting so long for you to say that. Honestly thought I'd just wallow in my semi-dispair forever."

"Semi-dispair?"

"You were my best friend, Carrots. I really couldn't have asked for more."

"Greedy," she points out. He nips at her ear. "You know, we're still best friends, Wilde. Just with more-"

"Benefits."

"I was gonna say potential, but sure."

"Dumb Bunny," he says, kissing the top of her head. His claws trace marks down her arm, parting fur and creating trenches. "You know I love you, right?"

"Do I know that?"

She doesn't have to answer the rest. Not when he's holding her close and squeezing her tight.

In the darkness she reaches over and takes his hand.

For once, it's a winning one.

Chapter Text

He falls in love with Judy in the morning.

Which is ironic, because he’s not a morning person.

She’s pounding on his door at six in the morning, the smell of coffee falling in from the hallway, her voice at that annoyingly cheery pitch that she seems to save just for him, and he thinks he might just kill her.

But he still falls in love with her.

“Nick!” He tugs the covers up over his head. “Nick!”

“Go’way…”

“We’re gonna be late for work, Nick!”

“Don’care…”

“I brought blueberry donuts!”

She did. She brought three of them. And she presented them once he’d unchained the latch and had stood before her in nothing but a grimace and boxers.

“I like them,” she said with a smirk, pointing at the lucky clover pattern.
“Now come on. Get dressed. We gotta move if we wanna get to work on time.”

“We’re always twenty minutes early.”

“You know what they always say! In the professional world, fifteen minutes early is right on schedule!”

“Yeah, but we’re twenty minutes early.”

She rolls her eyes and shoves past him, moving into the kitchen and dropping a donut into the toaster. Opening his fridge, searching for creamer. “I’ll get breakfast ready,” she says, “you get showered and dressed.”

It doesn’t occur to him that it’s all so mundane and domestic until he’s letting her loop his tie over his neck in the sepia light that always collected by the stove.

“I’m going back to hustling,” he tells the Rabbit before him, who’s screwed up her face in concentration in a way that makes his insides twist in just the right way. “I’m gonna call Finnick today and only wear my stylish clothes and my best ties and I’m gonna make enough money to buy myself an island off the coast of Tundratown.”

“You hate water, Nick. Why would you get an island?”

“Because you can’t be rich without your own island, Carrots.” He taps her nose. “That’s just the way the world turns.”

She snorts, letting his finished tie drop before making her way to the front door. He grabs their donuts and coffee, and she rustles through the little table he keeps to the side, his keys and pictures (two of him and his mother, one of him and Judy) and knickknacks littered atop it. Come on.” She takes out his badge from the top drawer. “Let’s go.”

“You’re the boss.”

On the way out, halfway through a yawn, she gives his tail a tug. He snarls, and she skillfully ignores it. “Wake up,” she says again, dragging the door closed behind them. “I can’t do this without you.”

He falls in love with her again at night. Watching her settling at their shared desk, dozing off on top of a stack of papers.

“Judy!”

“No…”

“Come on, Judes.”

“No,” she says again, hiding her face against his side in that way that makes his stomach knot and his head go light and his paws grapple for anything that isn’t her. He chooses the edge of the wheely chair they’re sitting on. His claws grip the cushion.

“We have to go, Carrots. You know night patrol starts soon.”

“Night patrol sucks. Paper work sucks.”

“I agree.”

“Bogo’s making us double shift cause he hates me.”

“Naw. You’re his favorite.”

“It’s dark and cold and stupid outside.”

“All true.” He tugs her ear. She just nuzzles closer. He breathes in, sharp and deep, and trains his smile tight. “Come on, Carrots. No falling back asleep. Get your game face on.”

“Five more minutes.”

He’s about to protest, but the red blinking lights under the computer monitor tell him otherwise. They have forty five minutes left. Which might be cutting it close, but they’ve never done anything but since the two of them started working together. And technically they should be using that time for paperwork…

But…

He looks down at her, adjusting herself against him, chinning his arm with a sleepy sort of love that only Judy Hopps could bestow.

“Alright,” he agrees, tilting his body to rest his head on top of hers. “Five minutes.”

“Mmmm.”

“And then you have to wake up.”

“Mmmm.”

“Because I can’t do this without you.”

“Mmmm.”

“Also it’s your turn to buy coffee.”

There’s a fist shaped bruise on his arm, but he thinks it was well worth it as he takes another sip of coffee and sits back.

He falls in love with her again when she’s not quite Judy, and she’s sitting behind bars glaring at the world like it owed her a favor and never payed in full.

She’s suspended a week with pay for something that wasn’t her fault. At all. A a meter maid job that was meant to be calm (as most were) but was anything but (though really, Nick conceded, when was anything Judy Hopps did calm) and she’d spent an hour in a screaming match with a lion who’d double parked in a handicapped spot about a justified fine that she was handing out. The ordeal ended when both had to be lead back to the precinct in cuffs.

She walked through looking like the Queen of the Wold from the way her head was held high and her eyes shone under the static halogens just so. From behind her, a paw at her back, Wolford rolled his eyes.

“You got some balls going against a Lion, Hopps.”

“He had it coming.”

“He could have torn you up!” He unlocks her cuffs, ushering her through to one of the prisoner waiting rooms, and she climbs onto the bench, settling back against the brick walls. “You’re crazy.”

“But,” she pointed out as he closed the bars, “I’m awesome.”

“Aw fuck yeah,” said the Wolf, nodding his head. “Everywhere here already knew that.” The cell closes with a chirk. The Wolf taps the bars with the empty cuffs, and casts a worried grin her way. “No more attacking lions though. We need you around.”

“No promises.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought you’d say.”

Nick would join her moments later after he’d gotten a call that his partner had been arrested, and he’d spend the next five minutes laughing at her from behind the bars. “It’s a good look for you, Hopps.”

“Thanks Nick.”

“Ooh! If I do something now we can go on the lamb together. On the lamb? Is that offensive to say?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we’ll still do it! We’ll be the Bonnie and Clyde of the new world!”

“As long as I get to rob the first bank.”

“You’re on.”

They don’t rob banks. And there were no lambs to hear his joke. But she decides that going against Bogo is most likely a worse fate than either options could have turned out to be. The Chief hands her her ass on a platter, and all that keeps her going the rest of the day, through the red film of rage (”But sir! I was justified!” - “Save it! Parking duty! Three months!”) was that Nick was there at the end of it all.

“Come on,” he said, after she’d told him that there’d be a one week unpaid suspension involved and a mark on her record, “you look like you could use ice cream.”

“Something stronger.”

The go back to his place and he falls in love with her twice over that day after he’s dolled out scoops of cookie dough and then drenches both in vodka that he’d stashed behind a bag of stale chips, and she’s eating with the vigor of a mammal getting progressively more wasted with all the confidence Judy Hopps can bring.

It was a good night. As good as a night after a suspension can be. And by her second bowl, she was near ready to slump over onto the couch.

“Aw no. Not now, Judes. Need you awake, my little fugitive.”

“Why….”

“Because I have to get you into bed and I can’t have you falling asleep in your bowl. You’ll drown.” He pauses, thinking. “That, or you’ll just pickle. Mmm. Pickled rabbit.”  

“Ass.”

“I think you mean Fox.” He nudges her and takes away her bowl. “Come on, Carrots. I know jail time is exhausting, but I can’t carry you every time. Vixens are starting to notice my muscles. Which, I mean… not complaining here. But I can’t just tell them that I get these from toting around Bunny’s all day.” She snored. He scoffed. “Wake up. Can’t do this without you.”

She doesn’t.

So he carries her. A little extra workout could do him some good.

Judy was never one to sit still, and the week drags.

It’s on the second day that she gives up staying alone in her matchbox apartment and instead calls her mother. Who all too eagerly suggests a vacation in the burrows. Which, for once, Judy thinks might not be such a bad idea.

The air is fresh and the blueberries are wild and the family is close.

But it leaves her antsy and depressed and wanting of something to do.

“Come on, bun bun,” her mother says, handing her a plate to dry. In the background her brothers and sisters yell and scream about one thing or the other. “Cheer up! You’ll be back in no time!”

“I got arrested, ma. They’ll remember that forever.”

“What I heard from Mrs. Peters was that you were just placed in holding. For assaulting a Lion.”

“I never assaulted him. I just screamed at him to move his damn car.”

Her mother hummed and handed her another dish. “Like it or not, you’re here for a week then. So do try to make the most of it.”

“Yes ma.”

“And please don’t get arrested here. Sheriff Flopsy is old and he really doesn’t need anything from you.“

“Ma.”

She’s depressed. So obviously distraught. Her mother is worried, her father is worried, her family is worried. They watch her like she’s a field mine, and if they step too close she might just detonate.

Their Jude was never fragile. But they’re not quite sure how to deal with this Jude.

So they talk to the only person who might.

He falls in love with her when he falls in love with her family. When he’s getting a call from an unknown number but answering it anyway only to be greeted by a voice he’d only heard over muzzletime chats and voicemail’s that had left Judy teary eyed and nostalgic. He’s polite and smooth, working Bonnie like a violin.

Unfortunately, her daughters second tier position had been filled after Mrs. Hopps had taken to the first chair, and there was nothing that could get past the woman who chirped at him over the other line:

“Mr. Wilde, it’s so good to hear your voice.” and then follows that up with a maneuver that would have left even the most practiced of Hopps’ clutching the wall, “How would you like to take a quick trip?”

He’s not sure how or when he decided to get on the train.

But he knows one thing for sure-

Mrs. Hopps was not a force to be dealt with.

And (his) Judy needs him.

He’s in love with Judy and her family and her odd, quirky, reflective life when her mother (”Mrs. Hopps, thanks for letting me come down.” - “Nicholas, please, It’s Bonnie.” - “It’s Nick.” - “Alright Nicholas.”) shows him to her bedroom and he’s making his way quietly in, watching her droop, melting across her bed, face pressed into the floral duvet.

It smells like her. The entire place reeks of her. Laundry soap and grass and the musk of prey, rabbit,

(sweet)

(gamey)

and he rubs his hand over his nose to wash it away. And then regrets it just a moment later.

Clears his throat.

“So… this is the fresh air you’re always going on about. Gotta tell ya. I don’t like it.”

Her ears are the first to rise, and they spring up almost comically before ther est of her follows:

and just about falls out of bed trying to wrap her arms around his middle, burying her face into his stomach, taking him in. He smells like the city- all burnt edges and hot dogs and cigarette smoke- and something so quintessentially Wilde (cologne, musk, fried crickets, predator), and there isn’t enough of it there to fill her.

He’s laughing so hard it hurts, and when he scritches the back of her head she makes a noise in the back of her throat-

he’ll tease her later for purring, but at that moment he buries her nose behind one of those strange ears and just breathes

- and he’s so in love it’s stupid.

“You came,” she says into his stomach, her voice a smudge. “You came.”

“Course I did, Carrots! Buffalo-Butt just about threw me out the door after I made one too many wisecracks, and you were the only person left I could annoy.”

“Charming.”

“Just for you.” He gives her ears a tug before scratching through her shirt with his claws. “Plus…” he adds after a moment, “your… uh… your parents called me.”

“Did they?”

“… yeah.”

He fidgeted in the way only Nick could when he was forced to bear his emotions. “They were -are- worried about you. And… and so am I… so… yeah… so I came down here.”

Tears pricked her eyes. And she was sure that he could feel them through his shirt. Hot and pearled. “Stupid, caring Fox,” Judy said through a sniffle.

“Dumb, emotional Bunny,” he said back.

She hugged him again and dragged him down with her.

“Are we gonna stay here all day?” he asks her ten minutes later, yawning through a wide maw, teeth flashing close to her neck. “Because I have no problem with impromptu naps, but I think your mother promised pie.”

“She always promises pie, Nick. There’ll be more pie.”

“I like your mother.”

“Most people do.”

“I like you too.”

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

He’s not, he knows. And he wont be the last person to fall in love with Judy Hopps. He wont even try to be the last. Loving Judy Hopps is one thing. Deserving her:

That’s another.

And really, he’s just one Fox in a big world made of people who are worthy of those violet eyes and the spunk they bring with them. So he holds her tight then, and tries his best to count every heartbeat in her chest (sixteen times faster than his, and he has to wonder how she hasn’t run herself out yet) and find a reason to be completely lost in her.

It isn’t hard.

She returns to applause.

He leaves the burrows a day early and apparently told the entire precinct that their namesake Bunny was droopy eared after being cuffed and printed.

And when she walked through Tuesday morning she was greeted with a standing ovation from mammals of all sizes in the cubicles.

“Our prison break is back!” Nick had his arms wide open, tugging her close, ignoring when she pinches his side with blunt claws that still hurt thank you very much.

“Thanks, Slick.”

“No problem. Now come on, Clawhauser brought donuts and I told him to arrange them in the shape of the stain on your record.”

She punches him for that one.

He deserved it.

Everyone goes around while they munch on jelly filled and double chocolate and crullers and talk about their worst incidents that had them striking calendar days, waiting for suspensions to end. Francine stepped on a crucial piece of evidence. Wolford shot an ice cream truck.

Fangmire apparently scratched another wolf in a scuffle bad enough to end the other with three stitches and him with a law suit. Of course that wolf had tried to attack a Coyote and her child so it was justified and, as Fangmire proudly announced, the suit was lost with only community hours to serve.

So really, in comparison, hers is nothing. And Nick tells her without reserve that she’ll have worse in her future.

She’s smiling. And that’s all he wanted.

He needs  to say more, as they file out and grab walkies, nodding at the Chief who smirks back at the formerly arrested Bunny in the hall.

But he wont.

“Come on, Judes. Stay sharp. And no felonies today. I can’t do this without you.”

He’s in love with Judy. With her smile. With her laugh. With her questionable adoration of justice. With every breath she takes.

And he won’t stop loving her.

Even when she stops breathing.

“Don’t you dare!” The fire in the background is flickering, and the smoke burns his nose and leaves his chest feeling tight and full and aching, until he’s sure his ribs are going to burst open like a birdcage. Something collapses in the building. He’s beating her chest

(breathe breathe breathe)

watching her body rock with every solid thump

(breathe breathe breathe)

barely listening to anyone else around him, waiting for her to finally open her eyes and lift those stupid long ears and listen.

As if she can hear him.

There’s a small voice in the back of his head that wasn’t banished with badges that screams reality through a rusted cone- she’s gone she’s gone she’s gone. pack it up and crack a beer and mourn the way you always have by forgetting in the morning and remembering when the lights are off.

That voice is very much a part of him.

But so is Judy.

So he keeps trying.

Tries so hard that when he’s wrenched away, he barely even registers she’s gone until someone catches his still pumping hands in their own and squeezes. Says something. He thinks it might be a reprimand, but he doesn’t care, watching as she’s taken on a funeral pier towards flashing, rotating lights.

The siren starts up.

He holds her paw to his forehead and watches them press a mask to her, filling her with air, and every breath they force through her is another part of him missing, and he feels himself being drained like a clogged sink.

The ambulance hits a bump and she keens through a gasp. He squeezes her hand.

“Careful.” The EMT’s almost back away from the snarl.

They are what they are-

Prey.

Predator.

-but right then they just need to be there and one of the Zebra’s reaches out and adjusts the shock blanket.

“I’m sorry,” Nick will say later to them in a rare show of humbleness and a not so rare show of regret, but right then he’s not Slick Nick with the perfect smile and the dulcet voice, he’s Nick who has a partner who’s lying on a gurney not breathing, and that Nick snaps and snarls and does his best to ignore the burning behind his eyes.

He runs beside them, holding her hand, giving her lies in the form of sweet promises

(you’re alright)

(you’re gonna be fine)

(i’ll be right here waiting)

(i’ll always be here waiting)

and she blinks at the speckled ceiling through violet eyes turned dull. She turns and looks at him, shifting her head, frowning against the halogens. He squeezes her hand, pressing lips to knuckles. (i love you)

“Don’t you dare fucking leave.” (i love you.)

“You hear me, Judith?” She blinks again. Turns down her little mouth. “Don’t you fucking dare.” (i love you)

He’s taken away when they reach the end of the hall. And he holds on as tight as he can (please don’t leave) when he’s tugged away. Her hand falls slack without his in it (i can’t do this alone) and those dull violets turn towards the ceiling.

                                                                                                         They blink.

                                                    They shudder.

           They close.

The worst part is telling her parents.

Her mother and father cry on the phone. But, then again, so does he, and the three of them are a mess to behold.

“I tried,” he says, wringing his paws against his trousers. They’re stiff with blood, her blood, and it flakes onto the floor like bad rust and crumbled promises.

“I tried,” he says again.

Her mother isn’t done crying yet, but she’s also stronger than he’ll ever pretend to be. “We know you did.”

He feels like he’s nine again. Slumps back into the old hospital waiting chair. Wipes the back of his hand across his eyes, matting the fur.

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done, honey.”

“I… I wish-”

“Nick?”

“I just-”

“Nick.”

“There was… there was-”

“Nick.” His jaw shuts with a clip. “There was nothing you could’ve done.” She says it again. “You understand me?”

He doesn’t. But he nods anyway. Hums through another surge of tears.

“I need to hear that you understand.”

“Yes,” he chokes.

“Say you understand, Nicholas.”

“I…” he swallows, “I understand.”

The blood is going wet again, and it smears against his face when he wipes at fresh tracks.

“You’re a good friend, Nick,” says Mrs. Hopps, in a voice that reminds him too much of his own mother. “A perfect friend. And you protected her. And I’m so, so proud of you.”

“I love her.” Like cut glass and gravel, eyes burning hot and terrible. He doesn’t mean to say it. But he does. To her mother. Who is crying. Over the phone.

He wonders if it’s too early to find himself a roll of gauze to strangle himself with.

“I’m sorry…” he says again (for new reasons- and he’s getting awfully tired of apologizing for things he can’t control

saving her

keeping her

loving her)

He presses his paws to his eyes until he sees spots and listens to the silence on the other side. “Mrs. Hopps…” he prompts the silence, pushing it through a voice that’s ragged with lost hope.

“Nicholas,” the silence says. He swallows. “You love her.”

“Yes.”

“You chose a good one to love.”

Nick’s break had happened on asphalt, but he’s sure that beneath halogens is just as good to snap all over again.

“Go. Tell us how she is when she wakes up. I know that girl. And she can’t do it without you.”

She has a scar the shape of a firework on her chest, and he despises it.

“You’ve got to wake up,” he tells the scar, tugging on her ear. “I can’t do this without you, Carrots. So you’ve got to wake up.”

And, two days, six hours, three minutes, and seventeen seconds

(he counts them all with bleary eyed impatience)

she does.

“You shouldn’t go back to sleep. They’re bringing pudding cups in an hour, and it’s chocolate day.”

She laughs into his shoulder, flipping through a page of the case file he snuck through to her. There are get well cards all over and flowers that he’s allergic to and make him wiggle his nose to keep from sneezing, but he doesn’t complain. Much. His own card, a folded piece of notebook paper (Get Well Soon, You Lazy Idiot <3 The Best PoliceFox ever, Nicholas), sits in a place of honor next to her bed.  “Can’t stop myself, Nick. Those drugs are powerful things.”

“They often are.”

“So don’t worry your fluffy tail about me, and go do your thing. I know you’re busy today.”

“You’re going to stay awake,” he says. “Because you’ve been asleep for too long, and I’m not eating pudding alone. That’s depressing.”

“You ate pudding alone all the time before me.”

“Judith, you make me sound like a friendless old hag.”

“You said it first.”

He flicks her nose. Drags her closer to him. Presses a kiss to her head. “Thirty more minutes, alright, Carrots?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty five.” He kisses her again, breathing her in. She smelled sterile. Rust and something like rubbing alcohol. He rubs his muzzle against her side, leaving bits of him where he can.

mine mine mine

“Twenty two.”

“Twenty three,” he reasons. “And I’ll steal us both early pudding cups.” She opens her mouth to protest. “You’ve been asleep for a while, Carrots. Give me this.”

He doesn’t tell her that’s he’s afraid she’ll stop breathing. Or that she’s all he has. Or that he has their entire future planned out in his head, and that in that future they most likely have a house and a kit and six tubs of vodka icecream in the freezer at a time.

“You’ll miss me if I sleep?” she teases.

“Yes.” Truth.

“Sappy.”

“Caring.”

They sit on the bed for exactly twenty one minutes before her spoon slips out of her hand and she slumps forward.

“Stubborn Rabbit.” He scoops the rest of the chocolate from the bottom of the cup, licking his finger clean.

“… d’mb f’x…” she mumbles.

“Says the pot to the kettle.”

“MMmmkay jerk…”

“Well said as always.” He kisses her knuckles.

By the time the orderly comes to kick him out he’s finished both pudding cups and pulled the covers up to her chin and held her hand until his claws had left little imprints in her skin that would stay there until the next morning when he’d return with twelve daisies he’d stolen from the window box of the biased old armadillo who lived next door.

“I love you,” he tells her as the orderly watches the clock on the wall. “Okay? Is it okay if I love you?”

She doesn’t answer.

He sighs. Collects the pudding cups. “Wake up soon. Can’t do this without you.”

And then he leaves.

His alarm hasn’t even gotten him up before he’s being roused from his slumber with a pinch to his ear.

“Wake up.” Nick rolls over. “Wake up.” He hides his head under the pillow. The pinch moves to his arm and he growls. “Wake up now, Nicholas.”

She’s there.

When he turns around, there she is.

Well. Not so much there anymore. Not in a few moments when she’s instead being suffocated in a hug, maneuvered under covers with him, until the two of them are tightly knit and her space beside the bed stands abandoned for her newest post on it.

And then:

she kisses him.

It’s not a great kiss. Not a passionate or wild kiss that has his toes curling and his tail bristling. But it’s a Judy kiss. Soft and quick and shy, watching him for a reaction.

He opens his eyes. Licks his lips to try and find the taste of her. Sighs. “This wasn’t how I pictured it going.”

“… sorry…”

“There were more music bands involved.”

“Were there now?”

“I was pronouncing my love. And there were a few doves involved. Or maybe pigeons. Doves are stupid.” He squinted. “And there were more people than this.”

“Attention hog.” She kisses him again. “You love me?”

“I love you.”

He’s so lost in all this I love you and you love me that he forgets what day it is. And when he remembers he’s not sure if he’s mad or scared or a bit of both. “Hold on. You weren’t supposed to be out until Wednesday! Did you leave the hospital!”

“I called for an early removal.”

“You can’t do that! Come on, I’ll take you back.”

“I’m not going back there, Nick. They didn’t even have vanilla pudding.”

“You like vanilla pudding?”

“It’s my favorite.”

He scoffed and leaned back. “Too early to take back the love stuff?”

“Too late.” She flicked her ears behind her, smiling through bucked tooth bliss. “Besides, this was a perfectly legal escape. You know I’m Bogo’s favorite.”

“Second favorite,” he chides. “You were gone four days, Hopps. I think Fangmire might have stepped up his game.”

“Damn it.”

He falls in love with Judy Hopps when she breaks into his apartment and admits that she’s in love with him. In fact, he’d never been more in love. He’ll tell her that later, though. For now he’s happy to stay with her until his alarm tells them both to move.

And when it does:

“We have to go.” He reaches out instead and tugs at her shirt. Her firework scar flashes bright and silent. “Nick.”

“We could always just stay in bed.”

“World isn’t less dangerous without me in it.” She kisses his nose again. “Come on. Wake up. I can’t do this without you.”

Chapter Text

There was a Fox at her favorite table.

It wasn't her table. She knew that. Judy Hopps was not one for claiming things (though in a household of so many, you had to ready your vocal chords more often then not to shout the infamous mine as loud as it could carry), but it was her table.

Positioned at the edge of the cafe, it looked out on the park. At the fountain. Her fountain.

Okay. So she may have been too accustomed to claiming.

The Fox looked over and green met violet. She looked away, quick.

"Ma'am?" the hippo behind the counter tapped her pen on the cash register. "Were you ordering?"

"Oh? Oh. Yeah." She orders, takes her drink from the lion who'd leaned over to hand it to the bunny (winking at her for her troubles) and she walked out. Her spot was taken. She had no place there.

A week later, parking duty finished for the week, she's glad enough to find that the Fox is gone.

Until he's not.

She's nursing a cup of something warm that's an unholly color of orange (pumpkin surprise, they'd written in chalk over the back board) and in the middle of her newest romance novel, when his shadow falls over her. Less falls: skulks.

"So, this is your spot, then?"

"It's a cafe. Anyone can sit here."

He smiles, and it's sharp. "But you sit here. Every day."

"You're following me?"

He throws his head over at another table, now taken over by a group of hyenas and two sloths. "My spot," says the Fox.

And she sort of gets it.

He gestures at the seat across from her. "Can I? I just need to work on a paper-"

"About."

That smile is back, and it reflects off the orange monstrosity in her corporate stamped cardboard cup. "Nosy?"

Judy sniffs. "Fine. If you don't want to tell me, don't. I don't much care anyway." And she buries herself back into her romance novel and does her best not to look at him as he takes out a stack of white pages pigeon scratched red and settles in on his own.

He buys a drink. Writes something. And then, when the sun's still overhead he puts everything away and says; "it was a true honor to share your spot, Carrots."

Her drink is the same name as the name he's bestowed her, and just like the sobriquet she despises it. It makes her mouth burn, and when she dumps it into the bushes, she wishes away the syllables that taste like ash.

He's back next Tuesday. Except he's saved her a seat. It's hers. Her side. Her table. Her view.

Hers. (mine)

"Thought you'd want something," he says, pointing his red pen at the cup on the other side. It's filled orange. She wrinkles her nose.

"I hated it."

He laughs, "I know."

"So-"

"So I decided to save your seat, and the drink you hated seemed a decent placeholder."

Judy sits and sips and watches him.

He's not terrible looking, she thinks. Though her father might have had words if he'd known she'd imagined that. Imagined the Fox before her in his terrible green turtleneck and his douchey poets scarf was anything other than sly. Other than cruel. Other than -

Gideon.

Which isn't fair. Because he's not Gideon. He's:

"Nick." He holds out his hand, taking her silence as punctuation. "Nick Wilde."

"Judy." She reaches over the cup to shake his paw, her paw cutting the orange steam. "Hopps."

"Mind if I call you Carrots?"

"Yes."

"Carrots it is."

And then he goes back to editing.

It turns out he works a payed internship at a community college in the more run down part of town where he lives. Helping other kids, other Predators, who got about the same chance he did. "I was always good with words," he'd tell her one day. "So it turns out, I'm pretty good at telling other people what words to use."

So every Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes Fridays, he went and reviewed papers. Resumes. Took his red pen and took to it. It had started off as a punishment. A job gone wrong had landed him in front of a merciful judge who'd taken pity on a young Fox and he'd been sentenced fifty hours community service -

which had evolved as he'd done the same.

"It's all I can claim," he says, holding aloft his red pen. "I can put my mark on something."

"Hence the red pen."

He nods. "Hence the red pen."

Which makes sense to her. Because her life is full of red pens. Her job. Her fountain. Her table -

Their table.

Nick had favorite kids now. Favorite papers. Favorite stories of love and hope and dreams that hadn't worked out. Had recalled them to her over the sticky coffee table between them, arching his red pen over the air as he explained the complexities of simplicity. Of encouragement. Of watching. Watching them.

And she finds, he's remarkable.

He is also infuriating.

Endlessly awful. A snark and a trickster, and his default mode is sarcastic with a splash of french vanilla that sweetens him just enough to say yes when he hands her his number on a piece of paper. It's in red pen.

"You," she observes from over her table -

(thought now it's really their table by all accounts, since he's always there and he always feels it necessary to buy her the most interesting range of colored drinks)

- "are the oddest Fox I've ever met."

"You've met Foxes before, then?"

"You're editing me, Mr. Wilde." She crossed her arms. "I am not to be red penned."

"Oh, of course not." He tugs at his poets scarf that she hates (and has told him so on too many occasions) and looks out their window. At the park. At the fountain that she's still refused to share. "You're too good for that, Carrots."

He holds the red pen.

But it's Judy that edits him.

It starts with the towels that appear in his apartment. The pictures added to his wall. The encouragements to call his mother more (which he does on some occasions, and then has to explain why he's calling more which then results in him having to tell her about Judy and her technicolor coffee which then results in his mother full on sobbing about it, which is awful and embarrassing).

Her stuff moves in, sneakily, accidentally almost. And one morning when he wakes up and finds her in his living room doing crunches on the floor (one hundred one, one hundred two-) he hadn't even thought to question.

He made coffee. She got the mugs, taking her favorite (mine), her sweetener (mine), her side of the couch (mine), and pressed a fast kiss to his lips.

(mine)

(because he was)

(hers)

(her Fox)

Their table stays theirs though.

And Judy Hopps finds that she does, rather, like to claim things.