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"Are you serious?" Nick demands, and there's a note of hysteria to his voice that he'll be embarrassed about later.
Right now he's just horrified by the words that came out of Coach Bogo's mouth. Coach Bogo, for his part, is staring back at Nick with no sign of emotion. That's why he hates this stupid office, with the First Aid certifications on the wall and the cape buffalo behind the desk. It's like walking into a void where he hears shit he doesn't want to hear and has to deal with it.
"You pulled your knee, Wilde. You can't just jump back into playing. It's going to take careful preparation and recovery."
Logically, Nick knows this is true. Emotionally, Nick can't stand the idea of a personal trainer. Someone telling him how to train. He's done it on his own his entire life, and look where he is! Captain of Zootopia University's hockey team, which during his tenure has come out on top in every tournament they've played so far. Yeah, a strained MCL might be a little beyond his expertise, but he's a modern fox in the age of the internet. He can follow a EweTube stretching routine.
"Come on, Coach. I can handle a little recovery training. I know I fucked--" Bogo ahems pointedly, and Nick fights to keep his eyes from rolling, partly so he doesn't have to look at the trophies of teams past which are mounted on the wall. Bogo takes great delight in reminding his team that they are not his first or his best collegiate hockey team. "Sorry. I know I messed up my knee, and I'm not trying to make it worse. Just, please, don't make me work with some stupid yoga dude that thinks essential oils can cure cancer."
"I won't," says Bogo, and Nick sighs in relief. "It's a yoga chick." Bogo bites out the word like it's burning him, which makes Nick wonder why he used it at all, and he can't even dwell on that because he has to go do PT with a girl.
"Why do you hate me?" Nick wonders rhetorically.The coach snorts.
"Oh, Wilde," says Bogo, "I don't know where I'd even begin. Now get out of my office."
Nick does, and he most certainly does not wince as he places his weight on his left leg. Bogo mutters something from behind him that sounds like it was disrespectful so Nick steels himself and hobbles out of the office, seething.
*
"That's rough, dude."
Finnick's expression is more sympathetic than Nick would have expected. His friend, though beloved, tends toward the gruff and unreadable, except when he's busy mocking Nick for something. Here at Nick's first practice since his injury, though, Finn is acting like a normal person that doesn't feel like making fun of Nick for having feelings. It's weird. Nick doesn't know if he likes it.
"Yeah," Nick sighs. He watches enviously as Finnick slides his skates on. Most of the team is already in the rink warming up, and the swish of their skates on the ice is filling Nick with a wistful nostalgia that is uncomfortably like the
*
It turns out that the physical therapy situation is worse than Nick thought. Not only does Nick have to train with a girl that has a yoga mat in her gym bag and kombucha as her after-workout treat, he has to train with a girl that is also a rabbit.
"Okay!" says the bunny cheerfully, shutting the door to the main gym and muffling the Taylor Snift song. (She told him her name when they met, but he's already forgotten. Started with a "J," he's pretty sure. Jaeden? Julia?) "Do you want to start with upper body, or do you want to--"
"Listen." Nick doesn't bother keeping the vitriol out of his voice, and J-name blinks at him, nose twitching in consternation. He is viciously gratified by that. "I'm not here to make friends. I'm here because Bogo is forcing me. So just tell me what to do, okay? The sooner I get out of here, the better."
"Oh!" says the rabbit, looking taken aback and maybe even hurt. Nick can't help feeling a little bit smug. Yeah, that's right. We're not here for fun. This isn't the carrot farm. "Okay! Well, then, lets warm up with some lunges."
J-bunny puts Nick through some grueling paces, quickly teaching him that he should have bothered being nicer. By the time she's through with him, he's shaking with pain and exertion and sweat is pooling under his fur.
"You--ow--you're a monster," he groans, legs buckling on his final glute bridge raise. She smiles, uncapping her kombucha and taking a sip as he lets his butt fall to the ground with a relieved pant.
"You wanna get back to being good at sliding around on the ice, you gotta go through me," she says. "I know more than just yoga, Slick."
Nick is suddenly and unfortunately slammed with delight by her using his title. She's cute, he realizes suddenly, all big purple eyes and soft grey fur. He watches her ear twitch toward a thud from out in the main gym (probably someone dropping the barbell) and wonders if it would be silky if he rubbed it between his fingerpads. They're going to be spending a lot of time together, he thinks. She recaps her kombucha and wipes her mouth, which has him looking at her lips and thinking, maybe it's time to change the angle.
"I'm realizing that," he says, offering her the smarmy grin that has never failed to net him a companion for the night. "Maybe you could tell me more about what you know over a drink."
She shakes her kombucha at him, greenish liquid frothing in the glass bottle.
"Already got a drink."
She doesn't bother keeping the knowing disdain from her face, and he doesn’t have the wherewithal to keep the chagrin off of his. The rabbit laughs openly at him and Nick scowls at her, stung by the rejection. It's a feeling he hates, and she's packing up her stuff and walking away without even telling him goodbye, and he really wishes he'd been nicer at the beginning of the session.
*
The little room off the main gym where they meet for training is rapidly starting to feel like a prison cell where he goes to cry.
After their first meeting, where Nick made it clear he wasn't there to make friends, Judy has acted accordingly. (Oh, yeah. Her name is Judy. She made that clear when he tried to call her "Carrots," thinking it was a cute reference to the sticker on her water bottle. That exchange did not go well.) Their sessions are professional and stiff, with basically no small talk and even less smiling. He goes in, grits his teeth and does his exercises, and leaves. Problem is, he doesn't want to.
Carrot girl has layers, he's realizing. She's a student therapist, working on her kinesiology degree, and she teaches yoga and she lives off campus. She hates messiness, which he learned when he left his towel on the floor instead of draping it on the rack, and she loves Gazelle, which he learned when she opened the door to the main gym for a dance break. He made fun of her the whole time, but it was only because if he didn't he'd probably have just watched in awe as she radiated joy, and that's a bad look for the badass hockey captain.
He wants to ask her about her kinesiology degree, why she chose to do her placement at a school. He wants to figure out which jokes make her laugh. He wants to tell her that he saw her at a party and she was dancing and this time he did watch in awe until Finnick dragged him away to play beer pong. He wants to tell her he wishes they'd met under different circumstances so he could hit on her.
Okay, well, maybe that last one is a little bit ridiculous, but then again all of those wants are ridiculous because with him she is painfully polite and absolutely nothing more. He sees her on campus sometimes, and she's always laughing, talking, waving her arms around, bouncing up and down, demonstrating a walkover. She's a bright blur of energy with everyone except him.
Nick is uncomfortable with silence and uses humour as a shield which means that her stiffness doesn't stop him from making quips, but he never gets so much as an upturn of her lip. She just stares at him and makes him do another squat. It's a blow to his ego, which is used to exaggerated laughter from girls that want to get in his pants, and it's also a blow to morale.
*
Finnick and Nick meet every Thursday at the library, because neither of them can afford to lose their scholarship. ZU is expensive and kids from their part of town don't have tuition money. This week they're focusing on Algebra II, which Nick took because Finnick is taking it. (Nick has no idea what he wants to do for a career. It's a whole thing, and a longstanding argument every time he goes home. He's marked himself down as a business major but that's mostly because he likes the idea of running a theme park and also because his mom would never forgive him if he didn't just pick something.)
Finnick is regaling Nick with tales of what's going on with the team, the hijinks that Wolford is getting up to and the absolute disgrace that Weaselton is becoming without Nick to whip him into shape, and Nick isn't really listening. He's chewing on his pencil and wondering what Judy's going to make him do in their session today. He's coming to the uncomfortable realization that he'll do just about anything if it's going to get Judy to give him a begrudging "not bad" when something smacks into his forehead.
"Ow!" He rubs at the place where Finn's eraser hurtled into his face and glares at his friend. Finnick glares back.
"What's going on with you, man?"
Nick takes the pencil out of his mouth and shrugs, uncomfortably aware of the fact that he is minutes away from being found out. Not that there's anything to find out, of course. And Finn is waiting for his answer and Nick swallows.
"FOMO. Tired of waiting on the sidelines, I guess."
"I thought PT was going well," Finnick says suspiciously, eyes narrowing. Nick is so screwed. He sighs, rubbing at his forehead again, trying to stall for time. Finn is too used to his bullshit, though, and Nick gets whacked in the ear this time.
"Ow! It is! If you're judging from a, like, healing and strengthening standpoint."
Finnick's eyebrows raise. He looks intrigued as well as suspicious now, which doesn't bode well.
"What other standpoint is there?"
"Like... interpersonal dynamics."
Finn crosses his arms and leans them on the table.
"Oh. You don't like your guy?"
"She's not a guy," Nick says before he can think better of it, and Finnick stares at him like he's won the lottery. Dammit.
"You got a girl trainer?" Finnick asks, kicking his feet under the table in delight. Nick can't see it but he knows it's happening and it's humiliating and the back of his neck is starting to heat up. He sticks his pencil back in his mouth. Finn fully pushes himself to his feet on his chair, pointing triumphantly at Nick. "You're into her."
"I am not--" Nick begins, but Finnick shakes his head, all but dancing in place like the little fucker he is.
"You're into her, and she's not into you, and you're pissed about it. Oh, that's good."
His friend laughs harder at the expression on Nick's face, which probably tipped Finn off to the fact that he was right, and Nick isn't sure who he's more irritated with; Finn or himself. He glowers, plotting about all the hell he's going to put Finnick through in practice once he gets back. Once Finnick has calmed down, Nick takes the pencil out of his mouth again, sighing.
"Yeah, she's cute, but she can't stand me. Not a big deal."
Finn's eyebrows are practically at his hairline. He's gaping at Nick like Christmas came early and he got everything on his wishlist. Nick lets himself slide down the back of his chair until his nose is barely peeking over the edge of the table. It feels appropriately shameful.
"Like hell it isn't a big deal," Finnick says. "You can't even pay attention to a story."
"I told you," Nick says, and irritation is making his tone sharp, "it's not a big deal. I can get any girl I want."
"Except for this one."
"And I don't really want her anyway!" Nick lies huffily, ignoring the twist in his chest at the words. He does want Judy. He really wants her. Shit.
"Jeez," Finnick mutters. "Fine. So get over it, dude."
Nick doesn't know how to tell Finnick that Judy isn't the kind of mammal you can just "get over." He doesn't know how to say that when she narrows her eyes at him it makes him want to kiss her more than he's ever wanted to kiss anyone. He doesn't know how to use words to describe the warm glowing feeling he gets when she forgets to be strict with him and her mouth blooms into a smile.
So he doesn't. He just ducks his head and shuts up and focuses on his math homework because he doesn't know what else to do, how else to live his life. Ignore the feelings, don't let her see that she gets to you. It's not like he has another option, anyway.
*
"I think you're going to be able to get back on the ice soon," Judy tells him at the end of their next session. He's still shaking like an emasculated leaf from his final posterior leg extension, and he gapes at her, brain not fully processing the words.
"What?" he says, but he can already feel himself breaking into a smile. Not very "cool guy hockey captain," but this is the reason he's been going through hell every week. Well. That and the chance to see Judy.
"You're doing great," Judy says, and she's not smiling but the corners of her eyes are crinkling. "You've been working your ass off and it's showing."
"You've been looking at my ass?" Nick teases instinctively. She glowers at him, ears twitching, arms crossing protectively in front of herself. Worth it.
"As a professional," she snaps pointedly, "it is my opinion that you are ready to start playing again, as long as you prioritize your home care."
"Thank God," Nick gasps, dropping into the bench that lines the wall and scrubbing at his face with a towel. When he looks up, there's an expression on her face that he can't quite decipher. "Not that I don't enjoy our time together, Carrots, but--"
"Don't call me Carrots," she snaps reflexively, and rolls her eyes. "And don't lie. It's okay to be glad you don't have to come to physical therapy anymore, Nick."
He realizes as she says his name that he's never heard it come out of her mouth before, and also that he wants to hear it more. Often. All the time. He also notices a shuttered caution in her demeanor that he's never picked up from her before. He wonders if what she means is, I'm glad you don't have to come to physical therapy anymore. (There is another more private part of him that wonders if she's not glad that their sessions are over, if her heart rate picks up as he steps in the room like his does when he catches sight of her. He is uncomfortably aware of how badly he wants that to be true.)
Silence stretches thick between them and Nick realizes he should say something. Anything at all, really, to break the silence. He can't think of anything, though, too busy thinking about the way she said Nick. He wonders how she'd say it if he was kissing down her body, if his lips and tongue--
And that's enough of that, and he coughs awkwardly, rubbing his paws along his aching thighs.
"Uh, thanks," he says, stumbling over the words in a way that he never would have before he met this maddening yoga-loving bunny. "I--couldn't have done it without you."
"It's always helpful to have a therapist to give you exercises," Judy says primly. Nick wants to grab her and shake her and also make out with her. It's overwhelming.
"Pretty sure it helps when the therapist knows her shit," Nick offers. The insides of her ears turn red and Nick watches in delighted fascination. It's not that Judy is proud or that it seems like she's harbouring delusions of grandeur about her own skills. It's just that she's confident, radiating delight in her work. He likes that she's flustered when he compliments her on her quality of care.
"Whatever," she mutters. "Have a good day."
"Don't--" He doesn't know what he's protesting, exactly, just that the thought of walking out the door and not seeing Judy again is filling his head up with panic that fizzes like a seltzer. "Are we okay?"
She raises her eyebrows and he feels stupid. She's made it so clear that she's not interested in connecting with him, so he doesn't know why he keeps trying to get her to soften up, crack a smile.
"Why wouldn't we be?" she asks, sliding her water bottle into her backpack. "I thought you'd be happy to be done with this."
"Oh, I am," he assures her, trying not to smile in a way that's going to hurt her feelings. "Just..."
I don't want to be done with you.
"Okay, great," she says. She shoulders her backpack with an expression he still can't read, which is kind of freaking him out. Her expressions are usually about as hard to decipher as movie dialogue with subtitles. "It was nice working with you, Captain."
She taps her foot absent-mindedly, letting him know that she's waiting for him to walk out before her so she can lock up. Nick swallows an emotion that is disconcertingly close to disappointment and complies, scooping up his gym bag and stepping past her. He hovers as she locks the door, watching Wolford doing pushups in the corner and trying to think of some way to keep her talking to him.
He fails to come up with a conversation starter, and when he glances away from Wolford, who needs to work on his form, she's finished locking the door and is looking at him with a mixture of expectancy and what he thinks is annoyance.
"Can I help you?" she demands, and he resigns himself to letting the girl that he's maybe fallen for walk away from him.
"Nah," he says. "Just savouring my newfound freedom."
"Right."
Her eyebrows are raised and she edges away from him like he's a bomb that might go off if she makes a wrong move. And, to be fair, he does feel a bit explosive. There are things building up in him, things like attraction and maybe even longing, which are just embarrassing and which he's also not good at holding back because he's never experienced them before.
"So. See ya."
"Catch you later."
She rolls her eyes and strolls out of the gym without looking back once. Nick watches her go, leaning against a nearby mirrored wall because he is still shaky, and wishes he weren't such a colossal idiot.
"Tough luck, Wilde."
Wolford claps a hand on his shoulder and Nick shrugs it off.
"Finn needs to stop telling everybody my business," he mutters, and Wolford looks surprised.
"What business? It just looked like you struck out with that bunny?"
At Nick's resulting groan of frustration Wolford holds up his hands and backs away.
*
Nick hesitates outside of Room 302, staring at the peeling yellow paint on the doorway, wavering in his resolve to do what he came here to do.
He knows, from a couple of the girls on the volleyball team that sometimes train with him and Finnick in the gym, that Judy stays after her advanced treatments class to study. Of course she does, he'd said, failing to keep the fond smile from playing on his lips. Finn, mercifully, had held his tongue, but Sharla, one of the players and incidentally one of Judy's best friends, shot him a keen look that had a lot more awareness in it than Nick cares to dwell on.
Anyway, he's been thinking since his third or fourth session with Judy that it might be a nice gesture to offer her a ticket to his first game back on the ice. Self-important, maybe, but he knows that he always enjoys it when his mom wears the hats and mittens he knit her one year when he was sixteen and broke his leg. Maybe Judy would like to see that all her patience and determination has paid off in a mostly healthy and functional hockey player. Also, he wants her to come the same way he wanted his mom at his games in grade school. Or--no, that's weird. Don't compare her to your mom. What the fuck?
It's too cringe to give her a ticket, right? But he can't afford not to, because he wants to show her a gesture of goodwill and also he does want her there for more selfish reasons. He has a vague hope that maybe if she saw him outside of their training room she'd think he was cute? Or something? Less of an asshole, anyway. And maybe worth dating.
He spends too long wrestling with his inner monologue by the classroom door, because before he's decided whether to go in or not it swings open and Judy emerges, a lavender backpack swung over her shoulder. She actually stumbles a little when she sees him, eyes wider than he thought possible.
"Wha--Nick?"
She looks up and down the hall, as if he might be pranking her. Which, ouch.
"Hey, Carrots."
She doesn't admonish him about the nickname this time, just brings her hands up to grip the straps of her backpack.
"What are you doing here?" she asks. She's clearly rattled and it makes him feel guilty and also the slightest bit optimistic.
"Do you like hockey?" he asks instead of answering her question. "I can't remember if you ever told me."
She didn't. She never told him anything except to straighten his back or lift his leg higher. Neither of them acknowledge that, though. She just raises her eyebrows at him.
"Why?"
"Heard there's gonna be a pretty good game on Saturday," Nick says, and he retrieves the ticket from his pocket. His paw is shaking slightly, which is so embarrassing. He props it on the wall to steady it. "Thought you might wanna go."
He offers her the ticket, hand only slightly shaking. He's an idiot. This is so stupid. What was he thinking? Of course she's not going to want to go to his hockey game. She can't stand him, and it's not a bad call on her part, and--
"You want me to come to your game?"
Her face is as soft as her fur and she's smiling, just a little. She lets go of her backpack to reach out and take the ticket. Their paws brush and Nick has the cliche tingles up his arm.
"Only if you want," he says, every doubt he's had about this plan surging through him. "It's not--It wouldn't be happening without you, so. Only seemed fair to have you there."
"I--that's so sweet," Judy says genuinely. Nick shrugs, trying to pretend his face isn't burning.
"Don't tell anybody," he says. "I gotta reputation to maintain."
She rolls her eyes.
"Right," she says. "I'll keep my mouth shut."
"I appreciate your discretion," he says, and then lingers. There's no reason to. He just... He just wants to be near her. He missed her voice, he's realizing. He missed the way she refuses to laugh at any of his jokes even if her nose twitches and her mouth does, too. He missed the smell of cloves and peppermint that floats around her. He even missed the genuine annoyance on her face as she waits for him to say something.
(She's waiting even though she's not being paid to, even though it's not her job. Does that mean something? Could it?)
"Is there anything else I can help you with?" she asks, when it becomes clear that he's not going to say anything else. He shakes his head mutely, and then clears his throat.
"No. Just... it's good to see you. You're, uh, looking well."
She actually does laugh at that, and then covers her mouth as if the sound surprised her. It surprised Nick, too, but in the kind of way that he'd be surprised if all his classes were cancelled but he got his diploma anyway. It's all bright and magic, like the idealized versions of Christmas he'd watch on the made-for-TV movies while his mom pulled doubles for the holiday pay.
He smiles at Judy, forgetting to try to be palatable, and she shakes her head at him.
"We're not 80, Nicholas. And there is literally nothing stopping you from talking to me if you want to."
Nick hates being called Nicholas generally. When Judy says it, he suddenly hears what his mom might have seen in the name when she picked it out for him.
"Yeah?" he asks, managing through some miracle of science to keep his voice light and teasing and normal. "There's no armed bodyguards waiting to take me down if I approach you?"
"There never were," she says quietly, instead of rising to the bait, and something twists in him, something regretful. He doesn't say sorry like he wants to, because he doesn't live in the past. He lives in the present.
"Noted," he says. "Prepare to be sick of me, Carrots."
"Oh, great," she groans, but she's not scowling. As a matter of fact, she looks almost happy.
That, in turn, makes him happy, too. When he leaves the building twenty minutes later, after goading Judy into complaining about her professor and then being struck squarely in the solar plexus and left wheezing, his chest is bright with bliss.
*
He doesn't actually get the chance to say hi to her in the days that follow. His Spanish professor announces a quiz happening on Monday, which means he has to hunker down in his dorm, furiously conjugating verbs, so he can focus on the game on Saturday and not worry about waking up to study on Sunday. Also, the team is weirdly skittish about the game, like having Nick back is going to totally change the vibe and jinx them. Nick would think it was ridiculous if he weren't so busy being bone-chillingly nervous.
In the end, he needn't have worried. The ZU Shooters win 3-0, and as they step off the ice Nick feels almost euphoric. He and Finnick howl, which makes Wolford howl, which is always good for a laugh. Wolford is so pleased with their win that he doesn't even bully them about it; he just flings his sweaty undershirt at them once they're changing in the locker room.
In the shower, the team makes plans to head to Dolan's Pub for celebratory beers, and Nick demonstrates the glorious lack of crunch in his knee. Everyone gets dressed in a haze of relieved satisfaction, and Nick leaves the locker room ready to dump his stuff at his dorm and head straight to the bar--
When he runs smack-dab into Judy, who is leaning against the wall opposite the locker room door scrolling through her phone.
He stumbles to a stop, the way he always does when he's around her. It's like his higher cognitive functions shut down, which is unfamiliar and unpleasant. She's wearing jeans and a crop top and the unfettered sight of the denim hugging her hips has his brain stuttering.
She looks up as he lets the door fall shut behind him and slides her phone into her pocket.
"Good game," she says. "Congrats on the win."
"Thanks," he says automatically. He's been congratulated on the outcome of hockey games since he was a kit. This he can do. "Couldn't have done it without you."
" You didn't come talk to me," she says. Nick, who was expecting a little bit of back and forth about the nature of recovery and just how responsible Judy can be held for his performance, chokes on the air.
"Uh..."
"I get it," she says. "You're busy."
"No!" he says, and then reconsiders. "I mean, yes, I am, and I'm exhausted from trying to figure out how Spanish verbs work--but it's not... It's not that I didn't want to say hi. It's not that I won't say hi, later."
"Right," she says. She doesn't sound convinced, and her paws are crossed protectively at her middle. She looks small, smaller than he's ever felt she looked. "I'm not... I don't want to be stupid, okay, but I'm also not interested in wasting my time. So if you don't want--"
"I want," Nick says, and he's too focused on making sure that Judy never looks that small again to worry about how desperate he sounds. "I really want. Judy, I--"
"Nick," she says, and she's clenching her fists now. Nick's stomach is performing an aerial routine, flipping and spinning at a frankly impressive speed. "Would you like to go on a date with me?"
"Yes," Nick breathes. "Yes, I would, Carrots."
"Okay," she says. "Great."
"Yeah," he says, smiling at her like an idiot. He forgets to cover his teeth with his lips to avoid flashing his fangs at her, but when he remembers belatedly that he might frighten her she doesn't seem intimidated at all. It makes him want to kiss her, but that's for later. And it's a possibility for later, his heart sings.
"Well," she says, "I'm sure you're heading out to celebrate, so--"
"Come with us," says Nick, emboldened by the events of the evening. He's still riding the adrenaline of the win, honestly, and Judy just added a romantic overture to the mix, and he blurts the words before he can think about how demanding they are. "I mean, if you want to. I'm not trying to tell you what to do. You probably have studying to do for a class that you're averaging a hundred percent in. Wouldn't want to interfere with that."
"I'm actually all caught up on my studying," says Judy, and she's smiling for real now, big and bright like a punchy ray of sunshine. "I'd love to come."
"Okay," Nick sighs, muscles exhausted from the game and heart leaping like a gymnast. "Okay. Just give me a minute. I have to remind myself that this is real life."
He closes his eyes and takes a performative deep breath, but it's interrupted by small paws on the back of his neck and his head being pulled down to Judy's level, and as his eyes pop open in surprise she presses her lips to his. Just a brush of a kiss, just a gentle touch, but it sends electric shivers all through his body, from the nape of his neck down to his toes. She lets him go and smiles shyly at his expression.
"Believe it, Slick," she tells him. And, funnily enough, it's an easy command to obey.