There was something about the smell of a crowd after a concert, something as distinctive as the smell of rain. There was sweat and musk, as to be expected, but there was this unmistakable scent of endorphins. Maybe she was biased; she and Nick had finally unraveled Bellweather's plot, and it seemed Zootopia's predators and preys reunited stronger than before, of course she felt like mammals were happy. Judging by the smell of Gazelle fans exiting the arena, life in Zootopia was better than ever. To top it all off, she and Nick were the best team in the entire department, she was finally taken seriously, and she really felt as though she made a difference... It made her ears perpetually perky and left her smile unfaltering. Judy wondered how strong this joyful smell would be for a predator, since they somehow always could smell a little more in an animal than a prey was able to do. Navigating the menagerie that was the crowd, she leaned in towards Nick to ask.
"What does the crowd smell like to you?" Judy tried to holler over the noise, but found herself competing with the ill-timed trumpeting of a VERY wobbly elephant.
"What?" Nick leaned back toward her, shouting right into her ears, and dodging the drunk pachyderm's enormous feet. "It's like 'Pink Elephants on Parade' here!"
"Ouch!" Judy staggered back. Those perky ears weren't always such a good thing. His voice was like a mallet on her ear drums.
"Are you okay?" This time Judy couldn't hear him, but read his snout just fine. She flashed the "okay" signal with her paw.
They were reaching the exit gates, and the crowd began to disperse into the stadium lot. Clawhauser was taking selfies with a Gazelle cut-out just ahead beside a curb. He waved them over ecstatically. "Judy! Nick! Wasn't that just incredible?" He spun with joy. "The lights! The dancing! And O. M. Goodness- have you ever seen anyone look so beautiful?"
Nick chuckled with one paw on his hip and the other on the back of his head, "yeah, I have." He then stood very straight, very wide-eyed, and very quiet. Judy noticed curiously, but Clawhauser was still absorbed in all things Gazelle. "She made me feel like I really CAN try everything." He gazed off into what Judy assumed was a Gazelle-themed fantasy until Chief Bogo pulled up to the gate in a large, black vehicle. "Clawhauser!"
"Oh!" Clawhauser piped, took a last selfie with the cardboard Gazelle, and scurried to the car's passenger door. "Bye Judy, Bye Nick! Enjoy the rest of your night!" Chief Bogo leaned toward the unrolled window and said "Evening, officers. Don't have too late of a night, we have that cheese smuggling case and I'm going to need you both mentally present. Those rats aren't going to catch themselves. Understood?"
"Yessir," Nick and Judy replied, Judy slightly more enthusiastically than her partner. Judy looked past the vehicle to see the very drunk elephant clamber into an enormous car of her own. "Uh, Chief? You might want to keep an eye on that car there. Drunk elephant in the driver's seat." Chief Bogo nodded curtly and sped off.
"So, since he said ''mentally present,' do you think that means we can be physically absent? I've never done a work from home job, and I like the idea of staying in my pajamas 'til bedtime," Nick grinned.
Judy laughed. "I bet you wear the little footy-pajamas, don't you?"
"Ha, ah contraire, Carrots. Remember that naturalist club? Think more along those lines." His grin spread further when her ears flattened with embarrassment.
She shushed him with two flailing paws and a "oh, stop it, gross!" and an "I need to order our Züber." She pulled out her phone and got to work, unaware that Nick was watching, appreciating the way the phone lit her purple eyes. "Done," she declared in her Judy way, nodding her head once as if it were a punctuation mark. "What?" she asked him suspiciously.
Nick shook himself as if he was trying to shake water out of his fur. "Nothing, nothing at all." He grinned again, and a loud herd of ungulates passed by. "What were you asking me back there, Hopps?"
"When?" She was confused. "Oh! You mean right before you blew out my eardrums?"
"It's a concert, sweetheart. If you don't have minor ear damage when it's over, you're doing it wrong. But yes."
"Well- and don't think this is speciesist," her eyes peeked up for a moment at his, sheepish and unsure. "I was just wondering if you noticed the way the crowd smelled in there. So alive! So happy! It's a great smell...I imagine it must have a lot more depth to a predator. I wanted to know what you smelled."
Nick laughed. "Well, I could smell that camel's pits from about five rows back, if that's what you mean-"
Judy crinkled her nose. "No! I meant the hormonal scent- I can smell the usual ones, you know, fear, excitement, horni-" she stopped there, totally embarrassed. She cleared her throat. "I meant, courtship scents. Musk. All that. But predators can smell a lot more, can't they?"
Nick chuckled again. "You can't smell 'courtship', first off. Secondly, I don't think you want me to answer this question, Carrots." He took a sip of his collector's Gazelle soft drink cup, shook it so to hear any last drops of liquid, then kicked it like a hacky sack into a garbage can nearby. It bounced twice on the rim and sank into the garbage. "And the crowd goes wild for Wilde! Nick wins the game!"
She put her paws on her hips, puzzled. "Why not?"
"I gave you the perfect opportunity to back out of this conversation, Hopps, but you are one persistent bunny." He shrugged. "Because, Judy," he looked at her dead in the eye, trying to conceal the plot that was rapidly forming in his brain, "who was I standing beside the entire concert? What mammal's emotional scent cues would have been firing off the whole evening? And I don't mean Mr. Camel."
Her eyes were like dinner plates, until she scoffed. "Me?"
"Yes, Judy. Are you sure you want me to tell you all the scent cues my predator nose detected? All of them?" His about was very close to her, and his grin so large and smug he felt like the Cheshire Cat.
Beep beep! The Züber pulled up, a large bison at the wheel. "Evening, folks. Just one destination tonight?"
Nick opened the door for Judy, then slid into the backseat after her. He said, "well, if we're going off of scent cues alone, I'd say yes."
"Nick!" She would be beet red under that fur. She elbowed him hard.
"What? You asked!" Nick noticed she didn't give another address to the driver.
"Can you just answer seriously?" She implored.
"Okay, okay, fine. Yes. I could smell a lot of happy pheromones. Especially from you. You seemed gleeful, and relaxed, and some other things, too." He paused for a moment. "It was better than flowers."
Her mouth was tiny, her eyes huge. "What other things?" Nick cocked his head at her.
"Er, well...you give off this very, uh, happy scent. It's your Nick scent, I call it. You don't do it all the time, but you do it when I make you, you know, happy. And sometimes you just do it when you see me in the morning. Sometimes it even happens and I have no idea why." He shrugged and spread his arms out along the top of the backseat.
"Ha! That's just my happy scent. You know, you're not the ONLY animal in Zootopia who makes me feel happy." She grinned now too. She knew how to handle Nick's ego.
"I know." He responded confidently. He paused again. "But you didn't used to smell that way when you were happy, before we were friends and you were forcing me to help you. And it's not the way you smell when you're happy with other mammals. And, sometimes you even do it when you're angry. So..." he shrugged insouciantly, "you explain it, Officer."
She opened her mouth and closed it again. Nick continued at full speed. "Oh? Nothing to say? Well then, let's conduct a little experiment. Mr. Züber Bison? Would you be so kind as to compliment this young bunny? Help us settle a conflict we're having?"
The bison glanced back in the rear view, clearly uncomfortable. "Uh, okay...she has, uh...she has purple eyes. They're nice and...purple." He stammered, and the car lurched to the left. He corrected hastily.
"Nice and purple, couldn't have said it better myself." Nick put an arm around Judy and inhaled. "Nope, you just smell a little scared."
He let go of her, stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles. "My turn."
Before he could speak, however, the car took a sharp turn at much too high a speed, and the two back seat passengers found themselves pressed together with the force of it.
He knew this was his chance.
Nick leaned forward, slipping a hand behind her head, until their noses were millimeters apart. Then, he sniffed.
"Yup! There's that Nick Scent again! And it's definitely not fear, because it smells completely different from before. Until..," He sniffed. "Ah, there it is. A whiff of discomfort. You're not uncomfortable with me, are you Carrots?" Nick pulled back, letting Judy's head hit the car seat again. He smirked like he'd just laid out a royal flush to Judy's pair of twos.
The brakes screeched, and the passengers lurched. They had arrived in front of Nick's building, and most of the tenant's lights were off. It was getting late.
"Okay, we're here. Thanks, guys. Have a fun night!" The bison waved amicably.
Judy found her voice again as she unbuckled and hopped out. "A fun night? What exactly is that supposed to mean? And I'll have you know, speeding is a crime, and if I were on duty right now I'd-"
Nick was behind her, and ushered her up his building's stoop. "Come on, Sparky, let's go. Thanks again, pal." Nick waved off the bison, and opened the door to his building. Judy wasn't really aware of what she was doing or where she was going until she sat down on Nick's living room sofa. She was too preoccupied with what the bison meant when he said "have fun" to focus. Nick loosened his tie, tossed it down, and sat beside her. He put his arm around her again.
"There's that smell again." He leaned in toward her cheek and let his nose graze it so gently it might not have touched her at all. Her spine tingled.
"You're- you're making that up." She wouldn't look at him.
"I wish I was, sweetheart."
He didn't mean it rudely, but her eyes were wounded. "Oh, Nick." She huffed, and Nick realized with a panic that she sounded hurt. He straightened back up.
"What's wrong, Judy?" He hadn't meant to upset her.
"If you thought I felt like this way, not saying I DO, but...why wouldn't you say something sooner? Are you trying to humiliate me?You could've let me down gently!"Her voice grew stronger and angrier with each word.
"But you just said you don't have feelings for me." He stated, unmoved.
"Of course I do, dumb fox!" She stomped her feet against nothing, as her feet didn't hit the floor on his couch. "You've smelled it on me for months and said nothing!"
"Woah, woah, woah! You're mind's going faster than Flash drives. Who said anything about letting you down, anyway?" She glared at him, and his heart began to beat a little too wildly even for Mr. Wilde himself. He started to stammer. "I didn't get a chance to compliment you in the Züber, but hey, better late than never."
Nick glanced around the room, gulped, then shut his eyes to steel himself. When he opened them, and saw the most beautiful mammal he'd ever know, gazing back with a look of confusion, frustration, and longing on her face. Her nose twitched. It was like a gunshot before a race- he had to speak.
"Judy, you're the smartest mammal I know. You're tougher than the burliest bear, but no one would ever guess it, given that you are small and adorable and have eyes that are both nice AND purple, just ask that bison. You're also the sweetest mammal, and you make me feel like you could fix every problem in this city just through the magnitude of the love you have for it. You make me feel like you could fix ME, too. And, oh, you're beautiful, too. Gazelle was right there in front of us, the Sexiest Mammal Alive for six years running, dancing in a bathing suit, and meanwhile I couldn't take my eyes off of you. You run laps around her. You're a dream."
Judy said nothing, she just stared at him, too stunned to speak. He added, "And I meant it when I said your happy smell is better than flowers. I could sniff you all the time." Ooh, weird, backtrack! "I mean that in a non-weird creep way. I just mean-"
Judy laughed out loud. "You might want to quit while you're ahead, Officer. Anything you say can and WILL be used against you, after all."
Nick wore his most sheepish smile yet, slipped an arm around her waist. "I'll quit talking if you start kissing."
She nodded eagerly, and he pulled her in for a kiss. She melted around him. Neither wanted the kiss to end, but she had to know-
"When did you first notice my Nick scent? When did you know for sure that I had feelings for you?" She looked up with such beautiful, lavender eyes, he just had to laugh.
"Oh, sweet, naïve Judy," he stroked the spot between her ears. "No nose in the world can smell THAT."
She sat up. "What!?"
"I can smell any smell you can, just a tad more acutely." He smirked. "But I can't read your MIND, for god's sake. You've been reading too many romance novels."
She spluttered with fury. "So all of it, all of it was fake? You didn't smell that I have a huge crush on you?" She was livid.
"Oh," Nick sounded delighted. "A HUGE crush, did you say?"
"I'm gonna kill you, Wilde!" She leapt onto him. They wrestled for a moment before he had her pinned to all fours.
"Hang on a sec!" He straddled her belly. "It's not all a lie, but before I get there, let me just say this." They were nose-to-nose, now. "We know animals cannot smell *love*, and be glad they can't! If they could, Carrots, you couldn't stand in a room next to me without passing out from a lack of oxygen. I took a gamble tonight to try to figure you out, because I couldn't bear the thought of running you off and losing you. I hope you can forgive me for it."
In an instant, she had slipped out from under him, flipped him on his back, and straddled his belly right back. Instant karma, but she doubted he would complain. She kissed him. "You're a sly fox, Nick."
"And that's why you love me."
She moved to kiss him again, but stopped. "One last question, Wilde; what kind of bunny do you think I am? Giving the Züber driver JUST your address, and not mine!"
Their eyes were locked, noses inches apart. Nick inhaled deeply. "There's that smell again."
She lightly smacked his chest. "Stop it, I know that's not real anymore."
Nick brought his elbows up and rested them so his upper back was off the floor. "Do you remember the scents you listed to me? Fear? Happiness? Horniness?"
"I said 'courtship'!" She interjected.
"Ah, yes. Well, we both know that's just a nice way of saying 'horniness'. You asked me when I knew you liked me. The closest I can get is that moment in the pit when I had to bite your neck. I didn't know if you liked me, but I knew you wanted to have me."
She laughed nervously. "What? No. That didn't happen. That couldn't have happened, because I didn't- I mean, I don't-"
"Don't you?" Nick put his paw over her mouth, gently, just to quiet her. He took it away. "At first I wondered; does she just get off on victory? Saving the day? Pulling off a hustle? It couldn't have been because of charming old Nick, right?" He dug his snout into her fluffy shoulder and nuzzled it. "But then, it happened more. It happened when we'd say hello. It happened when we'd share a chair. Officer Wolfowitz used to wink at me every time."
"No." Judy was trapped. "This is a trick. Predators don't just KNOW, they can't-"
"Sure we can. How else do you think Clawhauser figured out that the Emotionally-Impenetrable Bogo had a thing for him?"
"Wait, Bogo and Clawhauser are together?" Judy was getting shocked left and right.
"Yeah, Junior Detective, and I'd ask how you didn't notice before, but I think it's clear that you were pretty distracted yourself." He looked at her again, tentatively licked her neck, just ever so slightly, and gloried in the fact her body went slightly limp and her eyes rolled back for a moment.
"Oh, Nick..." she moaned.
"Oh, Judy..." he mocked, but gently.
She snapped out of it. "I know I'm a bunny, but I'm not easy."
Nick didn't miss a beat. "I know that. If you were, you would've made a move much sooner. It's been months, months of torture, months of needing you...you're not easy. Nothing about this is easy." He sobered up a little bit. "I want you, Judy, and not just because of your Nick Scent. I want to be together. We'd probably be the first Fox/Bunny couple, well, ever. But I don't want to start if you're going to be too uncomfortable to bring me home or tell mammals who I am. I can't be anything other than a fox."
It was her turn to put a paw over his mouth. "Believe me, I wouldn't have you any other way, you sly fox." She kissed him, and he kissed back, and soon they were completely entangled. Then, she detached. She walked toward his bedroom with a mesmerizing sway of her hip.
"Nick?" She called over her shoulder. His mouth was open, tongue out like he'd gone savage, panting quietly, rapt with attention.
"Yes?"
"I want to you show me those pajamas you mentioned earlier..."
-•••
About a half hour later, they lay together in Nick's bed, sheets draped over them. His torso curled around her much smaller back. They both panted.
"That. Was. Amazing." She stated. "To be honest, I wasn't sure how it would work...you know, physically."
"Who knew bunnies could stretch to accommodate so much, right?" Nick joked, eyes half-lidded and lusty. Nick never felt ashamed of his size, he was certain he was probably average for a fox. But compared to her, he was sort of a monster. She seemed to love it. He nipped her shoulder. She groaned.
"I'm sure you've heard the stereotypes about bunnies and mating..." she began.
"I know, stereotypes are bad. I have no expectations, Judy."
"No, this one's actually true, Nick. When do you think you'll be ready for round two? I'm ready when you are." She looked beautifully serious. "By the way," her eyes were a lusty as his, "I love your pajamas..." Her paw slid along his inner thigh, teasing a spot just beyond where the tip of his member.
His eyes were big. He exhaled.
"Alright. Let's go!" He grinned and they sunk back into bed.