Hello all! This is my first Zootopia fanfic though not my first fanfic story. But I recently saw Zootopia and loved it so much, that I have developed a rather unhealthy obsession with it. And though I have too many fics on the go right now and I swore to myself I was not going to start any new stories until my other fics had been completed, I am breaking that vow because I have a plot bunny (pardon the pun) running around in my head that would not let me rest until I had written it.
And soooo, here it is. Please be gentle.
I have rated this fic M because my brain strays to the gutter too often and just to be safe. Also, if you are looking for instant gratification or pure smut this is probably not the fic for you as this is going to be a slow burn kind of love story, but with lots of Judy/Nick moments to tide you over until the end.
If you are still reading or are totally okay with this and haven't clicked the back arrow at this point, please enjoy!
A/N I don't own Zootopia and yeah, not making any money at all off of this.
Also I would like to give a shout out to my beta Marie Allen for reading over this chapter and giving some amazing suggestions, so thank you! XD
Chapter 1
Nick Wilde, the first fox ever hired by the ZPD -and still the only fox- snarled low in his throat as he ran down the darkened street; his peppy, exuberant, optimistic bunny partner well ahead of him and in pursuit of a suspect through the most dangerous, derelict and deadly neighbourhood in all Zootopia, and now he was trying desperately to catch up.
Ignoring the pain that was throbbing up his leg, he stamped down on the inexplicable panic that was beginning to rise within him, threatening to crush the breath from his heaving lungs as a feeling of dread and portent settled over him like a heavy shroud.
He and Judy Hopps, hero of Zootopia and Nick's best friend, had been partners for well over six months now, and finding trouble was not something that was new for them. They had encountered their fair share of danger walking their beat on the streets of Zootopia, but nothing that had compared to the peril of the Night Howler incident; and he wasn't complaining about this fact.
The whole Night Howler mess had resulted in more than a few strands of grey fur popping up here and there and he didn't want or need any more; he was a red fox, not a silver one.
Though with having a partner like Judy Hopps, he seriously doubted he would be so lucky.
Slipping in something that he hoped was slime from an unusually large, possibly mutant slug (although he couldn't quite convince himself of that because it was probably something invariably worse), he cursed his decision to get out of bed this morning.
What had started out as a bad day had become a terrible one and he had the very distinct feeling -as the day was not technically over yet- that there was the very strong possibility that it was going become exponentially worse.
The previous evening had given no indication that the following morning would be one he would want to skip entirely.
After their shift, at least once a week, usually more, they had fallen into the routine of unwinding by having a movie night at the hole in the wall that was Judy's apartment and last night had been no different.
They went to Judy's apartment because he had refused to let her come to the dump he called home; the dilapidated structure housed more than a few unsavoury characters and its general location was not what could be deemed safe or respectable.
He knew he needed to move, but the old run-down apartment had been his home for so long and because of all of the changes to his life over the past few months, he felt the overwhelming need to stupidly cling to this small, crappy piece of his past and the fox he used to be.
Judy had been tossing around the idea of moving as well. The quarters were quite cramped, especially when he was over, but she had been too busy to even start looking for a new apartment, so they made do.
As there was no room in Judy's apartment for any other furniture but her bed, they usually curled up upon the uncomfortable surface to watch a movie on Judy's laptop and last night had been no different.
Judy had let him lazily play with her ears as they lay back and watched the detective noir film, The Maltese Tiger.
It was a good movie and he enjoyed the characters, but Nick had been exhausted and had felt his eyes slip closed, not waking up until sometime during the credits, the last remnants of whatever pleasant dream he had been having slipping from his mind.
Reorienting himself and gaining his bearings, he had found himself plastered against Judy's back, his muzzle buried in her throat, basically spooning the poor rabbit who he had apparently decided to use like a stuffed toy, his arms wrapped securely around her small, lithe body.
Sudden panic filled him as he wondered if he had, during his apparent fitful sleep, crushed the poor doe.
His partner quickly dispelled this fear when she gave out a small snore and mumbled something in her sleep, her back leg twitching, and the fox felt a large grin spread across his face in anticipation of being able to tease his friend of her propensity to snore. He would, of course, embellish the story to the greatest degree possible and he would enjoy the blush of embarrassment that would suffuse her cheeks when he did so.
Slipping from the bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping bunny, he stealthily exited the apartment and made his way back to his crummy, depressing home, feeling strangely out of sorts.
It had been a feeling that had slowly began to settle over him for a few months now, like a fine layer of dust he was unable to wash away, but he had been able to successfully ignore the creeping gloom rather successfully up until now.
However, as he had made his way slowly down the lamp-lit sidewalk, his hands shoved deeply in his pockets as beautiful, well-kept buildings slowly transformed into more run-down, less reputable establishments, he couldn't seem to shake the grating sensation.
Pace slowing, he had wondered if his current state of megrim had something to do with his dream. Not that he could actually really remember it, but he was able to recall that it had begun with him sitting in an office, his name written upon the glass of the door indicating he was a private eye for hire. The room had smelled of old cigarette smoke and cheap rum and he had watched as the door opened revealing a bunny in a tight, slinky red dress, one long ear draped provocatively over one eye to trail back over her shoulder.
That this stunning female bared a very strong, if not exact resemblance to Judy did not really seem to register in his sleep-induced mind, like it did in his conscious one, but after this, the dream became nothing more than wispy impressions that involved the beautiful doe, but nothing concrete enough to bring a clearer picture to his mind.
After he had arrived home, he had slid into his cold, lumpy mattress and fell into a nightmare filled slumber, waking up before his alarm, with his fur standing up on end, his breath coming out in shaking gasps of terror and the image of his partner lying in a pool of her own blood seared into his mind, his paws stained crimson.
He reasoned with himself, giving his head a shake to dislodge the horrifying dream from his mind, that whatever had happened to Judy, it hadn't been his claws that had caused her harm.
She was his best friend and even though she was a rabbit –his ancestor's natural prey- and he a predator, he was so much more than the instinct that had been purged from his DNA millennia ago.
This didn't mean that he wasn't still subject to the occasional nightmare that involved the Night Howler serum that teased his unconscious mind with the question of 'What if?'
What if they hadn't switched the Night Howler serum for blueberries?
It was a question he wasn't able to ask in his waking moments, but his unconscious mind was unafraid to answer it in the most graphic and horrifying way possible.
He had taken a deep, steadying breath, rolled over, and covered his head with his flattened pillow, hoping to grab a few more minutes of sleep before he had to start his shift.
Whether he had or hadn't he wasn't sure, because what felt like a moment later his alarm had gone off and he had pried his eyes open, feeling groggy and un-rested.
Sensing that he should just roll over and go back to bed, he had resisted the urge, believing at that moment that the day would get better.
He had been wrong.
The tiny instances of misfortune had begun harmlessly enough. First he had discovered that there had been no hot water, which meant that his shower had been a freezing cold stream of water that had forced him into a state of wakefulness he had been unready to experience. After leaving this small bit of horrid water torture, he had been unable to find his tie after he had tossed it off onto the floor the night before.
Finally giving up on the tie, he had reasoned that he had a backup stashed away in his locker at work and if he left immediately, he would at least have time to soothe his traumatized system by stopping at a Snarlbucks on the way and picking up the darkest, blackest, strongest coffee he could get his paws on and purge the bitter taste with more sugar than was probably healthy.
Walking from the coffee shop in a better mood than he had entered it, he hadn't even managed to take a sip before a young wolf on a longboard buzzed by him, hitting his arm and causing him to spill the burning hot coffee all down the front of his uniform.
Giving a shout, both in anger and pain, he glared after the rapidly moving teen that didn't even slow down as he rounded a corner and disappeared from Nick's furious sight.
With no caffeine in his system and now in serious danger of being late, Nick had made his way to Precinct 1, arriving ten minutes late due to a public transportation traffic snarl courtesy of road construction.
A bad mood of epic proportions had descended so strongly upon him, that even Judy's beaming smile and bright exuberance for the day was unable to pull him out of it.
Stomping into the locker room, he had quickly changed and arrived in the bullpen just as Chief Bogo was finishing up giving assignments for the day.
With a sharp word of command, the Chief had ordered Nick to follow him into his office.
Nick had trudged, ears back, shoulders slumped, into the Chief's office to have his fur raked the wrong way for his tardiness and his spare uniform's sub-par appearance due to the fact that he had balled it up and thrown it into his locker rather than hanging it up after its last use.
Exiting the office, his foul mood had not been improved by the fact that all of the donuts in the breakroom had already been consumed and the coffee maker, that served a biting, horrible brew that could barely be classified as coffee, was broken.
At this point, Nick had felt like he needed to hit the reset button on the day. Given this temporal impossibility, he had reasoned that he should have at least read the signs and concluded that today was a good day to call in sick and stay in bed.
However, due to the stupid amount of self-pride and commitment that had been instilled into him by his perky partner, he was unable and unwilling to let her down, especially by playing hooky for the day.
After all, who would keep the small rabbit out of trouble if he wasn't there to protect her?
That, and if he didn't show up, Judy would most likely be put on meter duty, which she would be loath to forgive him for when she found out he hadn't been sick when she showed up at his dingy apartment after work, a bowl of carrot soup in one hand and a bag of medicine, hot water bottle, and a movie in the other, ready and determined to nurse him back to health.
He knew this because he had done it once and he swore he would never do it again.
The rage that had lit her eyes as she threw the steaming bowl of soup at his head had caused him to crawl into work on more than a few occasions even when he had actually been ill.
Though to be honest, Judy in a rage was a spectacle to behold and Nick would admit to occasionally pushing a button or two just to see the flush spread across her face as her violet eyes threw deadly sparks at him.
It was cute. Not that he would ever tell her that.
Catching sight of his partner as she conversed with Clawhauser who was at his usual post at his desk, Nick lips, of their own volition, slid into a smile.
Her mood was jubilant, which meant that whatever assignment they had been given was obviously not a horrible one, and considering the fact that he hadn't even showed up on time proved how important Chief Bogo thought both he and Judy were to the precinct.
Just last week they had managed to arrest a gang of bank thieves, catching them red-handed as they attempted to rob the Lemming Brothers' bank.
Chief Bogo had no choice but to allow himself to be impressed by their arrest record.
It was true that having underground associations had come in useful on more than one occasion and when Nick found he could be useful to Judy by supplying some needed connection or informant, he could almost feel better about how he had lived his life right up until the point Judy had conned her way into it.
Though, she would probably use the term 'hustle'.
It was a word he had freely thrown around more than a few times, but now he found he only wanted to hear it when Judy said it in that sweet, smooth voice of hers as she smiled devilishly at whoever it was who had fallen for her sly tricks.
She was no dumb bunny and he was proud to say that he was rubbing off on her.
Judy, as if sensing his presence, had turned and looked at him over her shoulder, wide violet eyes looking at him with a mixture of excitement, concern and joy. This look caused something inside his chest to give a suffocating little twist.
Chalking the feeling up to hunger, he felt his ears perk up as he strode over to Clawhauser's desk.
"You got any donuts or food behind that desk, Ben?" he asked hopefully as Judy vibrated beside him, her nose twitching anxiously.
"Oh!" Clawhauser said as he looked around behind his desk. "I saved you one," he said handing Nick a doughnut with pink icing and multi-coloured sprinkles.
Taking a slow bite, he let his partner stew for a few moments before relieving her curiosity and her concern. "Don't worry, Carrots," he said as he slid a smirk her way, "I didn't get put on desk duty or anything. You're still stuck with me." He winked at her as he took another bite of his doughnut.
Judy had watched him as he devoured his confection and although still sans caffeine, he knew the brown folder Judy had clutched in her paw meant they had a case, which meant that they could pop by a Snarlbucks on the way to wherever they were going and he could grab another, which caused his mood to improve substantially.
Licking his lips free of any stray icing, Judy had watched him with a transfixed kind of gaze before she shook her head and, meeting his smiling eyes, turned her head away.
Nick was able to detect a faint blush beneath her silver fur and he felt a satisfied grin pulling at his lips.
He guessed that her bunny upbringing had instilled her with manners about staring, but he had no problem with returning the favour.
Although he knew that Judy had grown up with a least one fox, a former bully known as Gideon Gray (a fox he would admit to wanting to meet and not in a friendly kind of way) and that his partner trusted him with her life and was not afraid of him, he sensed that she was still getting used to being such good friends with a predator.
His teeth and claws, at times, seemed to fascinate her, and he would catch her staring every now and then.
It didn't bother him, as long as she didn't mind him having a fascination with watching how much her nose twitched depending upon what emotion she was feeling and every now and then, let him play with her ears.
His silver furred companion was truthfully the best thing that had ever happened to him. They spent much of their time together, both at work and off-duty, and though he and Finnik had always been close, Nick and Judy had formed a special bond.
Perhaps it was the fact that they had managed to survive several life or death situations together or maybe it was their shared experience of having to go through more than their fair share of prejudice and being looked down upon, maybe it was both, but whatever the case, Judy Hopps, a bunny of all animals, had become a very important and integral part of his life.
Negligently leaning against Clawhauser's desk, he had crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Judy stare at Clawhauser in fascination as the cheetah seemingly pulled another doughnut from thin air and shoved it into his mouth. Nick smiled, suspecting that there were more than a few hidden in little hidey holes behind the cheetah's workspace.
Judy had turned her attention back to him. "What happened this morning?" she asked him worriedly. "You're never late."
Not wanting to explain his terrifying nightmare or his persistent bad luck, he had smiled teasingly. "Well, some bunny kept me awake with her snoring last night, so I had to go home to try to catch a few zees before shift, and I obviously didn't get enough."
"What!?" Judy squealed in embarrassment as the blush that had been retreating from her cheeks deepened and spread down her neck and up to the very tips of her ears. "I do not snore!" she hissed at him.
"Oh, I hate to break it to you, Carrots, but you do," he stated with a smug grin. "Loudly."
"Oh, yeah," Judy shot back, "well you drool in your sleep."
Feeling sudden embarrassment stain his cheeks, he knew he couldn't let his partner get the upper hand and instead smoothly replied with a toothy smile that he knew flashed his canines, "Only because you smell so delicious."
Judy's eyes widened in shock and Nick realized that not only had he completely forgotten Clawhauser's presence when he had begun to tease her, but that the words he had just uttered should not have been.
They had sounded witty in his head, and he had of course meant them in a predator/ prey situation, which even he had to admit was in bad taste, but out loud and in the context they had been placed in, he realized that they could be construed as sexual; a realization that was confirmed when Clawhauser looked back and forth between them, a startled, vaguely horrified, yet curious look on his face as he leaned forward, and in a voice that was barely audible asked, "You…you two aren't together, are you?" The word 'together' had been said as if it was a dirty word.
Nick felt his eyes go wide and his jaw fall open in shock.
"Of course not," Judy gasped before Nick was able to get over his astonishment and reply.
Finally able to speak, Nick snorted and shook his head back and forth. "A fox and a bunny?" he chuckled. "We just hang out and sometimes Carrots here is tired after a long day slogging it out here at the precinct."
"Me?!" Judy protested, her little body vibrating with indignation, her cheeks still heated. "You're the lazy one who always naps during our lunch break," Judy snapped back.
"I'm not lazy," he defended. "I'm nocturnal. It's hard staying awake all day," he said his words not completely untrue.
Judy glared at him, not even deigning to give him a reply.
"Fine," Nick said with a roll of his eyes. "I sleep during lunch because I'm being polite," Nick informed her with a placating smile.
"Polite? How is sleeping while we are on duty being polite?" she asked him with exasperation.
"Because I'm not rejecting the horrible stuff that you claim is food that you always try to make me eat," he said with an exaggerated shudder.
Judy paled, her ears fell and Nick cursed himself for hurting her feelings, even if it was the truth.
She seemed to think that because he never brought lunch that he was starving to death when the reality was that as a predator, he didn't have to eat as much as she did.
A sugary pastry for breakfast and a hot coffee and he was good until a protein-filled meal in the evening. His ancestors had been nocturnal and though time had broken them of many of their instinctive behaviours and adaptations they had used to survive, remnants of these behaviours still survived.
It was true that he would occasionally snack and drink enough coffee to keep him awake for most of the day, but unless Judy offered him something with blueberries, the healthier salads and vegetarian wraps she offered him did not appeal to his appetite.
Violet eyes filled with hurt and anger and Judy shoved a brown folder at him. "I'll catch you up on our assignment in the car," she growled as she stormed off, the anger in her voice not quite able to conceal the waver of hurt.
Nick sighed. "Yup, I should have stayed in bed," he grumbled under his breath as he opened up the folder and noted a picture of a dry cleaning store attached to a report he didn't have time to read.
Closing the file he turned to follow his fuming partner. "See ya, Clawhauser," he said with a wave as he began to walk away from the cheetah.
"Uh, Nick?" Clawhauser asked.
"Yeah, buddy?" he wondered as he turned but continued to walk backwards.
"Sorry about, you know…" Nick lifted an eye ridge in question, "saying you and Judy were…" his voice trailed off.
Nick gave a smirk. "Don't worry about it. Could you imagine?" he asked wryly. "Zootopia would freak out. It's barely recovered from the whole Night Howler thing. There are still little pockets of unrest popping up here and there, where some of the citizens actually agree with ex-mayor Bellwether. And now some of the predators are fighting back and saying that we shouldn't bury our instincts and that prey should fear us." Nick shook his head sadly as Clawhauser's face fell at his words.
Hating to see the cheetah so upset, Nick pasted a bright smile upon his face and assured the cheetah, "Don't worry, I'm sure things will return to normal soon."
Clawhauser gave a slight smile and nodded.
The fox turned away, that persistent feeling of soul-crushing gloom descending upon him as he trudged out to the patrol car where his angry partner would be waiting impatiently for him to get his tail out there.
Ears drooping, tail dragging on the ground, he had exited the precinct and found their patrol car empty.
Confused and wondering what was going on, he mentally added pissing off and hurting his partner's feelings to the growing list of misfortunes that seemed to be plaguing him today.
An old car so rusted out, Nick was surprised the damn thing still ran, idled up beside him. Looking at the driver in surprise, he saw Judy sitting behind the wheel.
Opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat, Judy looked at him coldly. "I hope you brought food with you, Officer Wilde, we're going on a stakeout."
Piling disaster upon misfortune, Nick groaned. Going on a stakeout was bad enough. Going out on a stakeout with a partner who would give him the icy silent treatment the entire time was even worse.
Playing with his sunglasses, he looked over at Judy, whose icy anger had melted into wounded hurt.
"Why didn't you just say something?" she asked him softly.
Nick sighed. "Because you're the best friend I have and I didn't want you looking at me the way you are right now," he replied. "I'm sorry. I should have just told you. But…I'm still a predator, albeit a reformed one with a sweet tooth and a slight addiction to blueberries."
She glanced over at him and gave him a smile that he would term as watery before she chuckled. "Dumb fox," she said with a shake of her head.
"Smart bunny," he replied earnestly.
Silence settled between them as they continued to stare at each other, the confining space suddenly feeling much smaller than it should have as tension seemed to crackle between them.
Suddenly uncomfortable, Judy gave a cough and Nick looked down at the case file in his paws.
"Sooo…" he began awkwardly. "Stakeout," he said as he quickly opened the folder and began skimming the meager contents of the file.
Judy seemed to shake herself and straightened in her seat. "Yeah." She reached into the back seat and zipped open a duffle bag. Pulling out a small dark hoodie, she slipped it on over her uniform and placed a ball cap on top of her head.
"Because that doesn't look conspicuous at all," he snorted as she threw him his own hoodie and ball cap.
Closing the file he slipped on the clothing before buckling up.
"So the dry cleaning place?" he asked, figuring it would be faster for her just to tell him what their assignment was.
"We got an anonymous tip saying that Howlett's Dry Cleaner's is a front for a money laundering operation."
"Well, imagine that," Nick mused. "A one stop shop for laundering your dirty clothes AND your dirty money," he joked.
Judy gave a little chuckle and Nick smiled, glad that whatever tension that had previously permeated the air between them seemed to have dissipated.
"So, why don't we just skip the whole stakeout thing and just pop in to see Mr. Big?" Nick had wondered as Judy pulled out of the precinct's parking lot and headed in the direction of Sahara Square.
"Just because Mr. Big is the biggest mobster out there, doesn't mean he's the only one," Judy said as she gave him a smile, excitement for their first ever stakeout beginning to bubble in her eyes.
"Carrots, stakeouts aren't like in the movies you know. I've spotted enough cops sitting around in ghost cars to know that it's painfully boring. Besides, do you even know what we are looking for?" he asked as she was about to protest that it wouldn't be boring.
"Any suspicious activity," she answered readily.
Nick had sighed in resignation. "The only suspicious activity will be us, sitting in this piece of junk all day."
With this pronouncement, Nick had discovered that he had only been half right.
Surprisingly, they had not garnered any attention as Judy had parked them a distance away in line with a row of cars that looked to be in about the same condition as theirs. Handing him a set of binoculars she brimmed with excitement that had not even begun to wane several hours later when nothing more suspicious than a weasel looking very respectable in an expensive suit dropped off his dry cleaning.
He had been right about the boredom.
Judy had been oddly quiet, only answering in monosyllables and Nick had been unable to pry from her any satisfactory answers leading him to believe that perhaps she was not quite over their little spat.
The only other possibility he could think of for her strange mood was that she had been disgusted and disturbed by Clawhauser's questioning of the kind of relationship they had and though tempted to ask her about this, he found he was strangely reluctant to hear how repulsed she was at the idea of them being in a romantic relationship.
Feeling oddly melancholy, he gave up trying to make small talk and instead settled in for a nap, knowing that Judy would wake him up if she spotted anything out of the ordinary.
"You weren't lying, were you?" Judy asked him just as he closed his eyes.
"About you snoring?" he wondered as he tried to lighten the mood slightly.
"No! Not-…" she let out a huff as he looked at her through his tinted lenses. "About being nocturnal."
Nick shifted in his seat and took off his sunglasses. "You get used to it," he said with a shrug. "Being awake during the day that is," he added. "I spent a lot of time in the Nocturnal District, not a big fan. Sahara Square is a good place to be at night, but the best cons were to be had during the daylight hours in Savannah Central," he said with a slight smile. "And these," he said as he slipped his sunglasses on, "aren't just because I make them look good."
Judy chuckled before growing serious. "I'm sorry, Nick," she apologized. "I didn't know."
He had given her a reassuring smile before he became serious. "Hey Carrots?" he asked.
"Hmm?"
"Soooo….we're good, right?" he asked sliding his aviators down so he could look her in the eyes.
Judy gave him a wide smile. "Of course we are!"
Slipping his sunglasses back in place he returned the smile before curling back into his seat to take a nap.
"Oh, and, Carrots," he paused dramatically, but was unable to keep the mischievous grin from spreading across his face, "you really do snore," he grinned.
She blushed but gave him a wry smile. "And you really do drool."
Snorting in appreciation, he had closed his eyes and fallen asleep.
A finger pressing into his shoulder hours later roused him.
Looking at Judy's downtrodden, disappointed expression, he stretched and observed, "Told you, waste of time." Judy remained silent and he straightened in his seat, searching around for the cricket sandwich he had bought earlier in the day.
Judy sighed and looked at his sandwich in disgust. "Five more minutes and the shop will be closed."
"Here's a thought," Nick said between bites, "Maybe the bad guys do their illegal activities during the night, you know, when it's dark and easier to get away with things," he told her sarcastically.
She glared at him. "They've tried staking this place out during the evening. There's never anyone there."
"Well, maybe the anonymous tip was a prank or wrong. Wouldn't be the first time we've gotten bad info," he said with a shrug, Judy's whole demeanour drooping. "Or maybe the criminals are taking a day off," Nick said in an attempt to cheer his partner up as they watched an underdressed ocelot enter the establishment, his hands overfull with suits too large to be his own.
"Did you?" Judy wondered as she looked over at him.
"Nope," he admitted thoughtfully.
"You really never took a day off?" she asked him with surprise.
"Hey," he said as he slid a sly smile her way, "don't be feeling sorry for me, Carrots. It isn't like I ever worked for more than a few hours a day and then I got to laze around for the rest of it. Usually I slept"
"That explains so much," she mumbled under her breath.
"I did hear that you know," he said as he offered the final bit of his sandwich to her.
"Ew, no," she said wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Don't knock it 'till you try it, sweetheart, you might just like it," he said with a wink and a charming smile, still offering her the sandwich.
She stared at the sandwich with greater intensity than was warranted until she reached out and surprised him by taking it from his hand.
"Carrots, you don't… I was just-"
She took a bite and he held his breath, eyes wide in disbelief as she slowly chewed before swallowing.
Handing the sandwich back he waited, the bunny oddly quiet.
She slid a look his way and gave a brilliant smile. "That is the most horrible thing I have ever tasted," she said with a giggle before she reached for her bottle of water and tried to wash the taste down.
He found himself laughing, suddenly finding the situation much funnier than it actually was and when Judy joined in, he knew he had been completely forgiven.
"Thanks, Carrots," he said, stupidly touched that she had actually tried it and had, by all accounts, given it a fair chance.
Wiping a few tears from her vivid violet eyes, Judy had given him a shy smile that made his stomach do a strange kind of flip-flop. "I figured I kinda owed you after trying to feed you all of that-"
"Rabbit food," he inserted teasingly.
She blushed and glanced away. "Yeah."
"It's okay, I forgive you," he said as he popped the remaining bit of the sandwich into his mouth.
She rolled her eyes and she glanced at the clock. "Well, I guess that's it,' she said as Nick observed that the dry cleaner's had closed ten minutes ago.
"Guess so," he said with a shrug before frowning in thought, his eyes narrowing in speculation at the darkened shop. "Did you see the ocelot leave?" he wondered.
Her nose twitching with excitement, she shook her head. "No, I didn't."
"We could have missed him," Nick demurred.
"Nick," she hissed in protest.
Snickering, he opened the door and quietly slid out of the car, closing it behind him.
Judy followed suit. "I'll take the front, you go around back," she told him as Nick nodded in agreement.
Secretly relieved that Judy had taken the front, he suspected that if the ocelot was going to make a run for it, he would dart out the back.
Slipping down the alley, he cursed under his breath as he was confronted by a back door which was blocked by a dumpster.
"Pretty sure that's against fire code," he grumbled before hearing Judy's shout to 'Stop!' coming from the front of the shop.
Cursing under his breath he ran back down the alley in time to see Judy's foot round a corner.
Letting out a huff of irritation, he pursued his partner, hoping that it was the ocelot and not the owner, a large wolverine, whom she was running after.
Not that the ocelot was much better, after all, the small cat had large fangs and claws powerful enough to seriously injure or kill a rabbit, but wolverines, when cornered, were by far the more dangerous and unpredictable animal.
Nick had managed to gain some ground and was able to see that it was indeed the ocelot, carrying all of the suits he had gone into the shop with, being pursued by his partner.
Pushing his straining muscles to the limit and, promising himself that he would cut back on the doughnuts, he slowly closed the distance between himself and Judy.
Running down back alleys and across darkened roadways, Nick noticed that most of the light in the lamp posts had been broken, more than a few cars were up on blocks, and shadowy figures huddled around burning barrels for warmth.
"No, no, no," he whispered under his breath, managing to catch up to Judy. "We gotta call this in, Carrots," he panted.
"I'm sure we can handle the ocelot," she said as she turned down an alley filled with refuse, animals huddled against brick walls and the strong scent of urine in the air.
"That's not the problem," he said his eyes darting around as his better night vision revealed things to his eyes that were better left unseen. "We're heading into Happytown."
"Happytown?" she questioned, apparently not quite grasping the painful irony of this particular district which was pretty much its own entity; a place where the police didn't tread unless it was to do something shady or downright illegal. "It can't be that bad."
"You're right, it's worse," Nick replied, a note of fear and hatred leaking into his voice that caused his partner to break eye contact with their fleeing suspect and stare at him.
"You're explaining that when we catch this guy."
"If we catch this guy," he replied darkly, knowing that there were more hidey-holes and dark, hidden places than you could shake a stick at, and he knew this because Happytown had been his home after his mom had died when he had been ten years old.
Passed from foster home to foster home, each seemingly worse than the last, he had finally run away and ended up on the streets.
The residents of many of the districts he had tried living in hadn't taken too kindly to having a homeless fox in their midst and had been chased from the more respectable areas until he had ended up in the slum.
It was a time in his life he didn't like to think about, but he had persevered and he had used his smarts and had been resourceful enough to finally perfect his cons well enough to finally get out of the filth of Happytown before its hold on him had become too strong to escape.
Happytown was a place where the criminal element thrived, those who didn't want to be found hid, and where those who were unwanted or too poor to live anywhere else ended up.
The residents who lived there only managed to eke out a meagre, miserable existence, unable to escape the hard life, the criminals and the gangs that had a stranglehold upon its inhabitants.
Swallowing roughly and banishing the vivid memories of his past, he grabbed his partner by the wrist as he veered off course. "This way, it's a short cut," he explained, gathering from the ocelot's direction that he was headed just past the squalor of the private residences, if you could call the corrugated metal and scraps of wood that made up the construction of the homes as 'residences' and towards the industrial area, where more than a few of the less savory, and most of the illegal business that was transacted, took place.
Judy didn't protest and instead followed him as he ducked beneath a frayed blanket that was used as a doorway.
"Nick, we can't-" Judy hissed until she realized that the blanket hid a market, closed for the night, empty stalls and rotting food scattered around, a few vendors sleeping beneath their carts, iridescent nocturnal eyes, both large and small glowing in the dim light.
Reluctantly, he had let go of Judy's wrist and ushered her forward, thankful of the disguise that Judy had furnished them with earlier. He shuddered at the thought of what would happen to them if they were revealed to be police officers.
Even Judy's influence and standing with Mr. Big would not save them from the brutal, violent gangs that roamed these vicious streets.
Slinking out from the beneath a broken door, Nick had scanned the eerily quiet street, only catching a flash of yellow fur as the ocelot hopped a fence on the other side of the street.
Darting out from their position, Nick had run ahead of his partner who seemed to be having problems navigating where she was going.
Nick hadn't realized just how dark it truly was, this area having no streetlights that worked whatsoever.
Trying to squash the inner voice screaming at him that a money laundering bust was so not worth their lives, he swore as the ocelot caught sight of him.
The ocelot slowed, and Nick pushed his legs to run faster, to get to the ocelot before Judy did, not trusting the cat's sudden appearance of fatigue.
Lunging forward, the ocelot kicked out a barrel, a tower of wooden pallets that had been leaning precariously against the side of a building suddenly pitching over.
Leaping out of the way, Nick had been unable to avoid all of the pallets, the wood crashing into him, knocking him to the ground, forcing the air from his lungs and crushing him into the broken pavement.
"Nick!" Judy cried out in worry.
"I'm okay," he had managed to grind out, knowing that he had been lucky, the pallets falling in such a way that he had been spared the broken boards that had attempted to impale him as they fell.
"Okay," she said as she darted off, taking his affirmation that he was unhurt as permission to go and continue the pursuit of their suspect.
Panic had filled him at the thought of his partner and friend going after any animal that called Happytown home and he struggled to move aside the wooden boards and slid out, releasing his leg, which had been trapped.
This brought him back to the present, where he was nursing a badly bruised ankle and chasing after Judy as if his very life depended on in.
Catching sight of his bunny running into a dilapidated, squat, one-storey warehouse that had been boarded up long ago, various gang tags decorating the white stucco exterior that had long ago faded to a muddy brown, Nick followed.
Throwing open the door, the fox's senses were alert. The building's interior was almost pitch black, but he could see that it opened up into what had once been a front office area, the rug long ago deteriorating into moulding fibers that were crushed beneath his paws.
The sound of a door slamming shut caused his head to turn towards an entrance hidden around the corner, light peaking through the cracks in the doorjamb.
Nick ran towards the door, his partner only a few seconds in front of him-
His world suddenly exploded into a thousand pieces of pinpoint brightness as the door was torn from its hinges and hurtled towards him, a ball of heat followed by the roar of angry flames all striking him at once as he fell into black oblivion.
Phew, I know, this was a super long chapter (but don't expect all of them to be this long lol) and a cliff-hanger, which I am very bad for leaving my chapters on.
Anyway if you enjoyed, please feel free to leave a review and let me know what you thought!