Work Text:
The city of Zootopia was celebrating. The streets of every District were filled with music, laughter, and joyful solidarity, but no festivity could surpass that of the perpetual party being thrown by the predators of Happytown. After more than two decades of crushing restraint and forced compliance, a monstrous web of corruption had been unveiled, with TAME collars inextricably linked to every facet. With the city leadership now virtually nonexistent, the public outcry against the collars had reached an overwhelming, fevered pitch; with no one to tell them no, the police force had taken it upon themselves to distribute collar master keys and set up checkpoints in every part of the city to remove every collar, no questions asked. With every newly-freed predator, the revelry grew.
Nicholas Wilde watched it all from the relative peace of his office on the top floor of his defunct amusement park, Wilde Times. Though it was muted, the sounds of the impromptu festival reached even to the secluded warehouse, tucked away as it was by the water. His amber eyes shimmered like gold with the lights of the faraway commotion as he drank in the end of an era.
A knock at the door pulled him from his musings. “It’s open.”
Judy Hopps, newly-reinstated ZPD Lieutenant stepped through the door, a soft smile spreading across her face as she caught a glimpse of the vulpine standing on his comically oversized couch, outlined in distant city lights and offered a greeting. “Hey, you.”
“Hey yourself, Lieutenant,” he started, then stopped short and scratched his snout thoughtfully. “It, uh, is Lieutenant again, right?”
Judy leaned against his desk. “Well, the title is still up in the air. A recent termination at the ZPD exposing a twenty-year conspiracy is bad for the public image, apparently.”
“You didn’t just sign right back on, though.”
“Hell no,” she chuckled. “I nailed them to the wall. They were begging me to come back.”
Nick smiled a wide, toothy grin that made his eyes scrunch up, and reached over to flick on a lamp for his guest before flopping down onto the cushion. “Ahhh. That’s my girl. C’mon in, make yourself at home.”
Judy started in surprise and rushed forward, jumping clear from the floor to join him. “Nick, why is this still here?” she questioned, raising a paw to touch the heavy-duty collar virtually bolted around his neck. Double-reinforced, a spiteful final farewell for the fox that had proven so adept at wriggling out of the standard model. “Nick, you could have gone to any of the checkpoints, I’m sure they could’ve taken this off.”
“Probably,” he admitted. “I dunno. Call me a sap, but it just felt...I don’t know, it just seemed right for you to be the one to take it off.”
Wasting no time, the rabbit reached into a pocket and slipped a key into the collar. It made several ticking noises as it verified and re-verified the key’s authenticity, before finally making the most begrudging beep Nick had ever heard and unlocking with a loud k-chunk. As Judy pulled it away, Nick ran his fingers through his fur with a sigh of contentment. The heavy duty device made a dull thud as it was carelessly cast aside, and in short order he felt a second pair of paws brush gently through his fur, dull claws gently scratching at his neck. His fur was thinner than it should have been; a symptom of a lifelong relationship with the TAME collar, but his most recent accessory surely hadn’t done him any favors.
Their eyes met, his tired, hers not quite watery. They both slid forward, Judy’s arms slipping around his neck, his coming to a rest on her back. “It’s gone, Nick,” she whispered. “Forever.”
“Forever, huh,” he mumbled. “Don’t think that’s ever been a good thing before.”
Judy clutched him tighter, and for a time, they were quiet. Their breaths filled the silence, and their heartbeats against the other’s chest lulled them both into a sense of fragile calm. It was Nick who moved first, to gently brush his chin against the top of her head.
“A cop again, huh.” There was a subtle hesitance to Nick’s question that had one of the rabbit’s ears twitching.
Judy had to dig herself out of his fur to respond. “Yeah. A cop again.”
When he swallowed, she felt it. “Even after…?” After everything went unsaid.
“...Yeah,” she started. “It’s not gonna be perfect. Not right away. Probably not for a while. It’s gonna be tough, and--and someone needs to help show them the way.”
“That sounds just like you,” Nick said as he leaned back against the armrest, which was so big it was more akin to a backrest. The light of the lamp behind him cast odd shadows on his face and made his eyes shine.
Judy placed a paw on his chest. “What about you? Are you going to re-open Wilde Times?”
“The park was able to exist because the collars do--did, so…” Nick’s head fell back onto the armrest and he let out a long sigh. “No. No, I don’t think so.”
“What do you want to do?”
Nick opened his mouth, but thought better of it and remained silent for several long moments. He took a breath through his nose, as if to fortify himself. “I want to leave Zootopia.”
The paw on his chest clenched suddenly, tight and painful. “Leave? But, Nick, after everything we did--everything we’ve been through--”
“Things are gonna get worse,” Nick cut in, stopping Judy’s objections cold. “You know it. I know it. After all this partying, mammals are gonna realize they still hate each other. Prey have thought predators were subanimal for ages, Judy, and we’ve basically been slaves for twenty years. Now we can do something about it, and it’s probably gonna get ugly.”
Judy didn’t say anything, her gaze falling low as her mouth spread out into a thin line, her heavy swallow clearly audible.
“Shit,” Nick swore as he saw her retreating. “Judy, I don’t--I’m not saying this to be cruel, or, or to cheapen what we did. What we did was amazing--and it’s going to make things better. Someday. I just need you to understand, this place--this city. It’s not happy, for me. It hasn’t been for a really long time, and I need to get out.”
“But…” Judy’s voice came out as a whisper at first. “But what will you do? Where will you go? ”
“I don’t really know,” he admitted. “I’ve got some experience in a lot of stuff. Some mechanics. Some first aid. Some business. Some cooking, even. So maybe a job I could put most of that to use somehow. Somewhere--I dunno. Somewhere open, where I can run. Put these big, scary pred muscles to good use for once in my life.”
Judy chuckled, a little watery. “That’s a pretty tall order, Wilde.”
Nick hummed in agreement and gently brushed some of the water out of the smaller mammal’s eyes. “Yeah, sorta. Something out in the country, possibly--I was thinking maybe I could snag some work on a farm somewhere.”
Judy laughed at that, too, a sound somewhere between amused and miserable. “You, out in the sun and the bugs, doing some backbreaking manual labor? I’d honestly pay money just to see a city fox working the fields on--on a…” she trailed off in realization. “A farm?”
“Well, see, there’s this family kinda out near the sticks that likes me and might help me out, but they’ve got this real tough daughter and I figured I should run it by her first, just in case.” Glimmering gold met crystalline blue. “Whaddaya say?”
Judy’s smile then, to Nick, was like the sunrise; it spread slowly, brightening bit by bit, and the bigger it got the warmer the fox felt. “It could be convenient, I guess,” she said, trying to sound casual. She’s not very good at it. “Having a big, strong fox around. We’d be the talk of the town, I’m sure. I’ll see what I can do.”
Nick’s smile wasn’t half as radiant as Judy’s, but he tried. “Think you could handle that? Seeing me every day?”
“Every day, he says. In a rabbit burrow, Nick, you’d probably have to hunt me down if you wanted to see me more than once a week.”
“Foxes are pretty good at hunting rabbits, or so I hear.”
Judy smacked him lightly in the chest. “That is exactly the wrong thing to say to rabbits.”
“Well it’s a good thing we’re in Happytown right now, then, isn’t it? Nothing but preds for miles.” The small officer let out a shrieking laugh as Nick pulled her tightly into his chest in a playful mockery of capture. Judy pretended to struggle, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it and instead used it as a chance to maneuver into a more comfortable position in the fox’s lap, her ears folded back and her head resting in the thick fur of his neck. Her paw blindly sought out Nick’s larger one, which immediately curled gently around it.
Words were suddenly unnecessary. Nick’s arm wrapped around the rabbit, and his thumb brushed gently across the top of her paw. The muffled sounds of celebration were louder, now, though it wasn’t clear whether it was just noisier or if it had moved closer. It was the sound of the end of an era, and the new one smelled remarkably like rabbit.
“Forever” had never been a word that had ever brought Nick any sort of hope or comfort; it had always been a grindstone, a sentence, a cruel joke. Somehow, though, when Judy was around, it seemed to mean so much more.