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“I may have just a not-so-very-tiny aversion to reptiles.”
Judy Hopps has already heard enough of Nick’s jokes to figure out they were a type of defense mechanism to prevent himself having to be emotionally honest. She may have not caught on right away, but the clues only became clearer and clearer the hours they spent working together, which eventually became days, then weeks. And it became crystal clear when he told Chief Bogo about it in the hopes of their commander not to pound both of their faces in for the morning mishap. So, in her mind, they were official ZPD partners for one week.
But! But, they’ve been working together for far longer than that, before Nick has officially signed up to be a cop. So Judy would really like to say they were quite the hearty duo for a few months, at least. She can undoubtedly claim that if she fully trusted anyone with her life and personal baggage, it’d be none other than that sly fox. Though if maybe he toned down on his sarcastic jabs that ruined her good moods, she might trust him just a tiny bit more than she already does.
…Which is, really, not much. She likes to think he knows her better than her family. Or, hell, even her worry-wart parents, but no way is she going to say that out loud. She loves them, of course. And her two-hundred-and-seventy-five siblings.
So when Judy’s ears pick up the one fact about Nick Wilde that she definitely did not know, or have any clue, about him at all, she’d be lying if she said it didn’t freak her out a little. Because all this time, Judy couldn’t view Nick, the fox who talked her into walking into cement, as someone who’d be afraid of anything aside from the feeling of having his ego deflated. Or being arrested by the police, which was their current predicament they’re trying to avoid.
There was a moment of silence, and Judy hated silence because it made everything feel so damn awkward, and when she felt awkward she couldn't stop herself from rambling. The bunny-cop kept her eyes fixed on the back of Nibbles’ head, resisting herself from sighing out loud. “Funny how you crack that joke now, when we’re about to go meet an entire dock-load of reptiles.” She settled with, hoping the sound of her teeth grating was a good enough signal for can you actually try taking this serious for once.
“Aww, is this how you treat your partner who’s exposing his vulnerabilities to you?” Nick replies mockingly, and Judy can almost see that stupid grin of his without having to turn her head. “What a shame. Guess we gotta go back to that couples counseling!”
“Har har har, I’m dying of laughter over here.” Judy mutters. Finally, she swerves her head around to glare at Nick, whose faint smile never left. “Nicholas Wilde, we spent the past one hour and thirty minutes running from a family of lynxes who’ll likely kill us if we’re caught, and we’re being chased by our own co-workers carrying hand-cuffs the perfect shape of both of our wrists. And then a snake will be wrongly accused for the rest of his life. So unless you want to become cat food, go to jail for being framed, or become the reason an innocent reptile gets killed for no reason, please stop making jokes at our expense.”
Time seems to stop, but Judy feels the tilted boat shift a little and tightens her grip on the railing. She raises her eyes to meet Nick again, expecting to find him still smirking, and the thought of that just makes her want to jump-kick his face. But when she glances up at him, she finds that the sly expression is gone and replaced by a shocked, awkward frown. Judy’s nose twitches, automatically detecting a…fear scent? Not exactly fear, but something hesitant. She makes not of the way his ears are slightly lowered, and a pang of guilt hits her that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t another one of his harmless jokes.
The fox blinks and averts his attention away from the bunny in front of him. While keeping his paws on the railing, he mutters, a hint of joking but not so much anymore, something quiet that Judy has to perk her ears so she can hear him.
“Weird I don’t feel like dying of laughter, too,” Nick mumbles, clearing his throat. “I. um. I’m not joking, Carrots. I actually have an aversion to reptiles.”
At first, it didn't hit her. But then she thinks back to everything that has happened before, everything that had led to this moment of them being stuck under a boat and kneading to find someone who knows literally any reptile around. Him insisting that they should lay low, let all of this blow over, book it and get out of town, and the face he was making when Judy finally got him to agree to accept Nibbles’ help. She hates to say it, but that was the most miserable she had seen him since he became a cop.
And now, as she gathers all of this and compiles it into one of her own evidence files labeled Nick’s proof of aversion to reptiles, it dawns on her that maybe he was being honest about this one thing, which she had no clue about until now. Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde, dream team. Yet she doesn’t know everything about her partner yet, and they’re already stuck in this case together, which she doesn’t want to admit is gradually feeling like too much for her to handle.
Judy isn’t sure how long she stays quiet, but the fear-scent radiating off of Nick is beginning to smell, and she makes note to herself for later: learn to tell when Nick is being sarcastic or he’s being serious.
“Ah.” The small response that manages to dislodge from her voicebox, and it’s neither comforting nor grounding. Judy clears her throat again, trying to grasp the situation. “S-So. We’re about to enter a den of reptiles, and now you’re telling me you have a fear of them. That is not so tiny.”
Nick says nothing but nods slowly, his bushy tail flicking anxiously behind him. Judy’s violet-irises lands on the moving appendix, and then to his paws, where he’s reflexively clenching and unclenching the railing. That’s enough to let her know that this is not one of his careless jokes.
It hits her, like a train moving at the speed of light. Usually, she’d tug at her ears whenever she felt stressed or frustrated, but she was busy trying to not slip down the boat. “You’re deciding to tell me this now and not before we agreed to go find a bunch of reptiles!?”
“I would’ve told you if you had just listened,” Nick argued, though he was more-or-less trying to compose himself before having to face a thousand of those disgusting, scaly creatures than actually being mad at Judy. “But you were so insistent on finding this snake.”
“All you kept telling me was that we should lay low, not because you had a reptile phobia!” Judy whispered angrily, hoping to not attract Nibbles’ attention. “You should’ve told me that instead of repeating ‘oh, why don’t we lay low and let this all blow over.’ And we’re literally about to meet a bunch of reptiles right now, plus we can’t exactly turn around ‘cause we’re inside a freaking boat–”
“I know!”
She felt his breath as he yelled into her face. Though it was a whisper-yell, Judy could still feel the force behind it, making her shut up. Instinctively, her ears flatten against her head, despite not wanting to show any fear. The fox already had enough animals fearing him in the past as it was, and she did not want to be added to those numbers. Instead, she focuses on the present, and the fox in front of her. Right now.
She sees his chest rising and falling, the area where the knot of his tie is, and she knows this feeling. What she felt when Gideon Grey was still a jerk and when he scratched her cheek. It’s the kind of breathing when someone is trying very hard to keep themselves together, all neat and composed. She focuses on that, and then on his face, because she wants to be a good partner and she wants to listen to him.
Nick clears his throat, his underpaws sweating. “I know we can’t…go back. I’m just…”
“...scared.” Judy whispers. She waits, and the fox before her nods. It’s a simple, honest motion, one she rarely sees of him.
Judy, who believed she could do anything if she just believed, felt stuck once again, like how she felt when she first started training for the ZPD. It was hard for her to wrap her head around. Nick Wilde–the fox who evaded arrest with nothing more than a popsicle stick in his mouth, who faced Mr. Big without so much as making a fool of himself, who could crack jokes in front of a fuming Chief Bogo–was standing in front of her, admitting his fears to her, and she mistook it for another one of his attempts at humor.
But he wasn’t all that flawless in the past. She knew. Judy has seen him worried before. Him angry, playful, even hurt. It all happened during their showdown with Mayor Bellwether and the Night Howlers. The bunny has been close to him during all of these spirals of emotions, and yet, she has never known him to fear a specific thing. She wants to know more, to ask why, to be there and know what to do, but she’s just one bunny, after all.
Maybe she really is just a dumb bunny.
No. No no no no no. She can’t start wallowing in self-pity now, not when her partner is here, stuck, and she’s the one he is turning to. Judy stares at her own paws on the railing, loosening her grip slightly. She hates moments like these, all cheesy and weird and fuzzy, but they were in the middle of a mission. And, to be honest, Judy would never forgive herself if she ignored Nick’s feelings. He rarely opened up to her like this, and she wasn’t going to throw it in the trash.
She clears her throat. It still feels dry, and she does it again. “You…can hold my hand,” Judy mumbles, not looking at him. “If that helps.”
The words hang in the air like mist. Judy keeps her gaze locked onto the side of the boat, too embarrassed to look at Nick anymore. If he doesn't accept the offer, then too bad, he’ll just have to take it like a man. She half expects him to not do it, to not admit to needing this, and her heart is hammering in her chest and she just needs him to hurry up and make up his damn mind.
Finally, she feels a paw move over her own, warm and slightly shaky. She prepares herself for it, but she is still uncomfortable with how tightly he’s gripping her paw. Wordlessly, she continues moving through the boat. Nibbles had already reached the bottom and was patiently waiting for them, though chewing on a stick of wood.
The bunny is still shocked when the fox behind her doesn’t attempt any snarky phrases, and she wonders if she really knows everything about him at all.
(In the end, she’ll ask him about it to cure her curiosity. When all of this blows over and they can finally lay low.)