Chapter Text
A crash.
A pair of ZPD officers—a ram and a goat—appeared through an explosion of splinters and dust. Two darts of tranquilizers whistled through the space between Nick and Judy and the two separated—more from shock rather than to avoid them.
Nick lost his balance and he hit the floorboards. The impact pressed the air out of his lungs and he could only watch as their pursuers went after his partner.
Judy jumped down from the table with all the files and pamphlets in time to avoid being flipped along with it. The ram barreled for her but she dodged and he ended up smashing against a wooden column.
The fox regained his footing. His immediate thought was to get to Judy. It doesn't matter if he gets hurt in the process but just as long as he was by her side.
I think...maybe we are different.
What she said hurt—a fissure in his heart like the one snaking along the column. But losing her would have tore open a hole in his chest. It wouldn't even hurt. It would leave him a husk and he would be too numb to register it as pain.
His ears twitched from the pops and cracks around them. He seemed to be the only one unoccupied enough to notice. He raised his head, dread settling deep in the pit of his stomach.
The roof split into a rain of dust. A sculpture from above toppled through the crack and crashed through the floorboards. He saw Judy's eyes widen a fraction as she came to realize what he had already knew: the lodge wasn't going to last much longer. And they were still inside.
The floor fractured to a yawning mouth, splintered floorboards its jagged teeth.
Two parts of the lodge tilted in opposite directions, each one carrying away the fox and bunny duo.
Nick dodged the ram that attempted to tackle him.
He didn't think.
He pounced.
Time slowed to a crawl. Dust motes suspended in the shaft of sunlight. Floorboards groaned under the stress. For one heart stopping moment, it didn't seem like he was going to make it.
He did.
He slammed onto the floor. He scrambled to his feet. He fought against gravity. He reached for his partner.
"Judy, please—" he begged. "I know you're angry with me but please—we need to get out. Together."
"Nick—"
She reached for him, too. Words can't describe the relief he felt when he saw. That meant they weren't entirely hopeless. They can still get through this together. Nick's throat was thick from drinking down turbid rivulets of desperation, his mind searching for any sign that there was still hope for their relationship.
His paws closed around empty air.
Judy kicked and flailed as the goat lifted her by the scruff of her neck. He threw her over to his waiting partner on the other side, cuffs glinting in his hooves. Just as he caught the bunny, the floor under them gave way and they fell to the floor below.
"No no no," Nick panicked. He would've jumped again if his instincts didn't scream that, this time, he wouldn't be so lucky. The distance was now too far apart, the building on its last legs.
He backed away as the goat towered over him. The larger mammal launched himself forward.
He never reached him.
When Nick opened his eyes, the officer's horns were lodged through a piece of what used to be a door. Disoriented, he stumbled back, lost his footing in the opening, and fell victim to gravity.
"Woah. I think I just took down a cop." A vaguely familiar lynx popped out of the wall and shouted after the officer, "I'm sorry, sir!"
"Lynxley?" Nick murmured. He had only just placed the face on the awkward mammal who interacted with Judy back at the gala when another familiar face joined him.
"See," the snake told the feline, "I told you she was—wait, where's the bunny?"
Nick didn't have the chance to answer. The building—what was left of it—jolted and he was thrown off his original position. He managed to catch himself on an exposed beam, arms scrabbling for purchase as the rest of him dangled, but it was slowly detaching itself from the rest of the foundation.
The snake wrapped his tail around a part of the wood, keeping it from straying but it was clear how much effort it took even with the lynx's help. "Come with us!"
From somewhere on the other side of the wreckage, a voice shouted, "We have the bunny!"
Nick's heart dropped upon hearing that. He adjusted his position at his own peril to confirm with his own eyes. He had to know that she was unharmed. He had to know that their last interaction wasn't going to be the fight they just had and that there was still a chance—
"Please," the snake pleaded. Nick was compelled by the urgency of his tone to turn around. "We need your help. They already have Judy. They can't get you, too."
Their gazes met. For a second, his guard wavered. He was never in it for the case but he wasn't completely heartless. It was just that he never was as noble or kind or optimistic as his partner. A character like hers required strength and courage—things he didn't have.
"Nick!"
His head whipped around so hard it creaked. His breath left him. Judy was there. She was on the floor below, unharmed.
Between continuing the case without her and facing the consequences of their insubordination but with her by his side, it was a no-brainer. It wasn't even a choice. It was always going to be Judy.
He prepared himself for a leap of faith. Forget caution. For once in his life, it's time to be brave.
Then a green feathered dart found itself on his arm.
"You have to be kidding me," he slurred before his body went limp and a fog settled over his brain like a blanket.
He had the vague sense of falling then something tight wrapping around his torso. His arm was slung across somebody's shoulders and they were walking away.
That wasn't right. Where was Judy?
In his search for her, he saw her standing at a distance. Two, much larger shadows loomed behind her. He opened his mouth to warn her. All he could produce was a weak croak.
Then his eyelids grew too heavy and, like curtains drawing close on a performance, everything went dark.
~~~
When next he woke, he was greeted by a lavender sky and the golden light of the sunset caressing his face. Miles worth of sand dunes rolled past. Not a building in sight.
There was a stinging on the crook of his arm and he raised it to see two bandages with silly snake illustrations making an X over the spot.
He groaned when he tried to adjust himself and his vision was abruptly filled by a certain reptilian face.
"You're not dead!" the snake exclaimed.
Nick started, his body instinctively putting distance between him and the reptile but found that he was in a side car strapped to a motorcycle so there wasn't much space to do this.
"He's not dead!" The reptile started shaking the silver furred driver.
"Hey, so, I don't think we've properly met," the lynx shouted over the whipping wind. He momentarily turned to give Nick a small smile.
The fox subconsciously adapted his carefree persona among the two strangers. What else can he do? It was a coping mechanism. "Hey, buster, watch the road—The road!" Nick braced himself on the sidecar.
The mortorcycle jolted and Lynxley fought the handlebars to keep it steady.
"Whoops! Sorry." He nervously laughed. "Just got my mortorcycle license. The name's Pawbert, by the way."
"And I'm Gary the snake!" the other added.
Nick did not like him—Pawbert not Gary. Maybe because his first impression of the guy was that he was a spoiled, wet-wipe with daddy issues. Doesn't take a detective to see that even when his first look at him was at a distance. And he was laughing with Judy when he used Nick's own joke.
The thought of his partner sent him back on a violent flashback of the past events that it left him breathless. His laidback facade broke.
"And Judy?" he rasped.
Both Gary and Pawbert looked away.
The lynx was the one to answer. "They, uh, they got her."
His heart dropped.
"Let me off," he whispered.
The pair turned to look at him with the same degree of shock.
"What?" Gary's expressive eyes were a mix of both dissapointment and denial. "You can't. You're one of the only ones who could—"
"I said let me off!" He tried jumping out of the moving vehicle but he was trapped by the seatbelt. He struggled to unstrap himself, panic and the recent dose of tranquilizer leaving his paws clumsy. "I need to get back—I need to get to Judy."
Scenarios flitted in his head. What were they going to do with her? He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts because otherwise he would be leaning over the side, puking up the yummy worm he was forced to have for lunch.
"Hold on. Let's think about this rationally," Pawbert said. "We're currently miles away from the lodge and you can't just walk all the way back."
He can and he will but the lynx kept talking.
"The ZPD got her. I doubt they would do anything to hurt her since she's lowkey still a celebrity. And if you did get to her—what then? My family would throw the both of you in prison."
Nick was about to tell him where he can shove his family and rationality but Gary once again gave him a look that made him second-guess himself. His temper simmered down enough to hear the reptile out.
"I really admire how much you care for your partner," he softly said, "but we're quickly running out of time. I don't know how much she told you but we're not the villains here. We're the good guys."
Normally, when someone said that, Nick would be inclined to believe the opposite about them. But there was something to the snake—an innocence that was so rare yet so needed in a world like theirs—that it broke through his walls and made him reconsider.
He remembered Judy attempting to tell him something the snake was trying to prove but he dismissed them. How could he? Because she was neck-deep in trouble and was getting tunnel-visioned to the point that she was putting herself in serious danger. He couldn't handle it anymore but maybe if he weren't so jaded, so aloof when it came to listening to her and more open to communicate earlier, they wouldn't have had that conversation in the first place.
If he turned tail now and returned to her, what would she think of him?
"Okay," he relented. "Tell me what you guys found."