Chapter Text
The night air in Reptile Ravine was usually cool, a stark contrast to the humidity pumped into the district during the day. Inside the De’Snake household, the architecture—built with scale-patterned rooftops and doorways designed for slithering residents—felt uniquely safe. It was a sanctuary far removed from the cold, sterile expectations of the Lynxley estate.
In the bedroom, which had effectively become their room, the moonlight filtered through the diamond-shaped window, casting pale beams across the bed.
Pawbert Lynxley lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He wasn't cold; it was impossible to be cold when you were a Canada lynx and wrapped in thirty-three feet (ten meters) of affectionate muscle.
Gary lay coiled loosely around him, his long, cerulean-blue body serving as a living weighted blanket. The viper’s coils found easy purchase against Pawbert’s broad shoulders and the comfortable softness of his midsection—a ‘happy weight’ he’d gained from De’Snake’s cooking and a life no longer strangled by the Lynxley family’s expectations. He felt solid now, his frame carrying a healthy bulk earned from a year of acting as Gary’s guardian and finally learning to enjoy his meals. The pit viper settled his head on the pillow beside Pawbert’s, his slow, rhythmic breathing forming a quiet, steady lullaby.
Pawbert was grateful for this. He was grateful for now. The warmth, the safety, the fact that he was no longer just the ‘family disappointment’ but a partner to someone incredible.
But his mind, traitorous as ever, wouldn't shut down. It kept wandering back to the before.
A low, sleepy hiss broke the silence. Gary opened one yellow eye, the vertical slit dilating as he sensed the shift in Pawbert’s heart rate.
"Something eating at you, Partner?" Gary murmured, his voice a low vibration against Pawbert’s side.
Pawbert sighed, his whiskers twitching nervously. "Just thinking. My brain won't turn off." He paused, looking down at where Gary’s blue scales overlapped his own gray fur. "I just... I think my life would have been so much easier if the Lynxley family hadn't spent generations conspiring against reptiles."
Gary lifted his head slightly, tilting it with a confused innocence. "Oh?"
"Yeah," Pawbert continued, his voice quiet. "Imagine if things were different. Our families could have been business partners. Or friends. For more than a century. We wouldn't have had to go through all that fear."
Gary hummed thoughtfully, his tongue flicking out to taste the air. "Hmm. That sounds nice. Hard to picture it, though. A De’Snake and a Lynxley having tea back in the old days?"
"Maybe milk tea," Pawbert let out a dry, nervous chuckle. "But... at the very least, I wish my dad wasn't like that. Ruthless. Power-hungry. Abusive." Pawbert flinched slightly at the word, the memory of his father’s cold stare still sharp enough to cut.
The coils around Pawbert tightened—not enough to squeeze, just enough to ground him. A tactical cuddle.
"There, there," Gary soothed. He maneuvered his head closer, resting his chin gently on Pawbert’s shoulder, lacking the arms to offer a traditional hug but compensating with his entire being. "Still, he’s your papa, right? I wouldn’t ask you to forgive him. He did terrible things."
Gary paused, his tone shifting to that earnest, De’Snake wisdom that always managed to surprise Pawbert. "But... it’s a De’Snake principle to look at what animals can be, not just what they were. He failed at that. But for your own health? It would be better to drop the hate. It’s heavy, Pawb. You don't need to carry his luggage anymore."
Pawbert stared at the ceiling, eyes glistening slightly. "What he can be, huh?"
"Exactly." Gary shifted, bringing his face level with Pawbert’s. The snake offered a soft, lopsided smile, his optimism cutting through the gloom. "Besides, look at the bright side. If history hadn't happened exactly the way it did... if things were 'easier' back then... we might never have met."
Gary slithered and pressed his snout against Pawbert’s chest, feeling the steady thrum of a heart shielded by muscle and fur, before sliding upward to graze a cheek in a silent, affectionate nudge. "All that chaos led us here. It made us Partners. And I think that’s pretty cool. No point regretting the past when the present has this in it."
Pawbert felt a lump in his throat. Gary was right. He always found the sunbeam in the storm. "Yeah... Partners."
Gary let out a contented yawn, displaying his fangs before settling back down onto the pillow. He closed his eyes, his body relaxing completely against the lynx.
"Sweet dreams, Pawb."
"Night, Gary," Pawbert whispered.
Within minutes, Gary’s breathing deepened into sleep. But Pawbert remained wide awake.
He lay there, feeling the steady rise and fall of the snake’s body, yet his mind refused to accept the comfort. Gary’s words about "no point regretting the past" echoed in his ears, but they clashed violently with a darker memory.
The weather walls.
The image flashed in his mind—the moment he had been too weak, too desperate for his father’s approval. The moment he had betrayed his friends. He remembered the look on their faces. He remembered the sheer stupidity of his choices.
If I hadn't been so stupid, Pawbert thought, his amber eyes tracing the shadows on the ceiling. I betrayed my friends. I betrayed my partner. I wouldn't have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life if I had just been stronger.
Gary’s love was a balm, but the guilt was a chronic ache deep in Pawbert's bones. He looked at Gary, sleeping so peacefully, so trusting. Pawbert felt unworthy of that trust.
His eyelids finally began to grow heavy, pulled down by emotional exhaustion. As the edges of his consciousness began to blur, a single, powerful thought dominated his mind. It wasn't a prayer, exactly. It was a desperate plea to the universe.
I wish I could fix it, he thought, the regret swelling in his chest. I wish I had a redo.
With that silent wish hanging in the air, Pawbert drifted into a restless sleep next to the partner he would do anything to save—even from himself.
There was no fading sunrise or gradual waking. One moment, Pawbert was enveloped in the safe, rhythmic warmth of his partner in their bed; the next, a blast of icy air slammed into his face, shocking his lungs.
Pawbert’s amber eyes snapped open, expecting the familiar ceiling of the De’Snake household.
Instead, he was staring into the wide, violet eyes of Judy Hopps.
She wasn't standing on the ground; she was elevated on a swivel chair, balancing precariously. And Pawbert wasn't holding his pillow. His left paw was gripped tight around a cold, cylindrical device.
Time seemed to freeze. Pawbert looked at the device in horror. It wasn't his usual tranquilizer injector he had used to protect Reptile Ravine. It was the venom injector. The twin syringes at the top, mimicking a snake’s bite, were buried deep in the rabbit’s neck.
"W-what?" Pawbert stammered, his voice cracking.
He yanked his paw back as if burned. The injector clattered to the metal grating of the floor.
Judy let out a small, confused gasp. Her pupils oscillated as the neurotoxin began its lightning-fast work. Her knees buckled.
"Whoa!" Pawbert’s instincts—honed by years of anxiety and a newfound guardian spirit—kicked in faster than his confusion.
He lunged forward, catching the small rabbit just as she tipped off the chair. She was light, but her deadweight threatened to pull them both down. He scooped her up, preventing her head from striking the hard industrial floor.
"Judy! Stay with me!" Pawbert cried out, cradling her. Panic, cold and sharp. I didn't mean to... I was sleeping... why am I holding that?
"No!"
The shout tore through the air, raw and desperate.
Pawbert’s ears swiveled. He knew that voice. He knew it better than his own. He whipped his head around just in time to see a flash of blue scales launching through the air.
Gary.
The viper propelled himself off the floor, mouth open, aiming a strike directly at the lynx. But something was wrong. Gary wasn't moving with the playful, fluid grace Pawbert was used to; this was a lethal lunge.
"Gary, wait!"
Pawbert dropped to one knee, shifting Judy to his left arm and throwing his right hand up—not to strike, but to seize. He intercepted the viper mid-air, his right paw clamping firmly around the sleek, muscular neck before Gary could land the bite. He was careful to keep his claws retracted, ensuring his pads gripped tight without the sharp talons breaking the snake's scales.
"Let her go!" Gary hissed, thrashing in Pawbert’s grip, his tail whipping violently against the lynx’s side.
"Hold on! Stop! What’s going on!?" Pawbert pleaded, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked down at the snake struggling in his grasp and froze.
Gary’s mouth was agape, his hiss rattling in his throat. But inside that mouth...
"Your fang..." Pawbert whispered, the adrenaline briefly giving way to sheer bewilderment. "What happened to your left fang?"
Just last night—or what felt like moments ago—Gary had a perfect set of fangs. The left one had grown back months ago after the Zootennial Gala incident. Now, there was only the right one, solitary and sharp.
Gary stopped thrashing for a split second, a flicker of something unreadable passing through his vertical pupils. Confusion? Recognition? But before the snake could answer, a violent tremor rippled through his long body.
The air in the room was sub-zero. The heavy blast door leading to Tundratown was wide open, churning snow and freezing wind into the control room.
"Gary! You’re shivering!" Pawbert realized with a jolt.
Reptiles and Tundratown weather were a fatal combination. Without thinking, Pawbert pulled the snake against his chest, burying Gary’s head and upper coils into the thick fur of his neck—right next to where he was holding Judy, who was pale and shivering from the venom. She was dangerously weak, her breath coming in shallow hitches, but she was still clinging to consciousness, her eyes fixed on him with a glazed intensity.
"I’ve got you, Partner. I’ve got you," Pawbert murmured frantically, instinctively trying to share his body heat.
For a moment, Gary stiffened, the end of his tail twitching aggressively. But as the warmth of the lynx’s fur seeped into his freezing scales, the viper slumped against him, the fight draining out as the cold sapped his energy.
"Gate..." Pawbert muttered to himself. "Right. The cold."
He needed to seal the room. Pawbert gently set Gary and Judy down on the floor, huddled together near the base of the console where the wind was less direct.
"Stay here. Don't move."
Pawbert turned and sprinted toward the open blast door. The wind howled, pushing against him with physical force. He grabbed the lever handle, planted his feet, and pulled.
Grrr-chunk.
The heavy steel door budged an inch, then stopped.
Pawbert gritted his teeth, heaving with all his might. "Come... on!"
His paws slipped. His muscles burned with an immediate, sharp fatigue. He gasped, staring at his arms. They felt... flimsy. He knew he wasn't the strongest predator in Zootopia, but he had hardened himself over the past year through training and working out. His time serving as a guardian, protecting Reptile Ravine from mammal thugs, had contributed to some genuine bulk. Or at least, it was supposed to have.
Now, he felt weaker. Scrawnier.
He looked down at himself. He wasn't wearing his usual plain and functional store-bought clothes—the simple attire. He was wearing his old, dark green sweater, the tailored silk of his past. He hadn’t touched it once since his release from Prederal Prison; it was a garment that still felt like it was woven from fear and failure.
He looked back at the control panel. The lights blinked ominously. The venom injector lay on the grate where he’d dropped it. The open door to the freezing Tundratown loomed over him.
The memories crashed into him like a tidal wave.
This was the Control Room. This was the Weather Walls. This was the day he had chosen his father over his friends.
Am I actually here? Pawbert thought, his breath hitching in his throat as the realization buckled his knees.
He stared at his trembling paws, then back at the shivering snake and the weakened rabbit huddled on the floor, her eyes still open as she struggled against the poison.
"Is this..." Pawbert whispered into the howling wind, his voice trembling with a mix of terror and hope. "Is this my second chance?"