He's drowsing still when she bursts in the door already well into her tirade, all sound and fury.
"Heh. Sound and furry," he jokes under his breath. A rather shallow breath, because inhaling to even a fraction of his lung capacity right now sets his entire left side aching. More to the point, at some insistently recent time, a sudden sneeze may or may not have caused him to literally pass out from the pain. Nick's a little hazy on the details. The last couple of hours — okay, probably more like minutes, but they felt like hours — have involved a lot of drifting in between various degrees of consciousness.
Has she gone quiet? She has. That's odd. Maybe her visit home wasn't the most pleasant. His partner, excitable and earnest, usually returns from Bunnyburrow in the highest of spirits and with the yummiest of blueberry pies. Nick frowns and blinks up at her nebulous outline. If not for his superior night vision ("Face it, Carrots, foxes rule at night!" "Could foxes please also not faceplant while in pursuit at night?") and frankly astounding empathy he might have missed the distressed twitching of her nose. So, no good mood is present, and no fruit pastry either. Something must be amiss. Alarmed now, he attempts to lever himself up into a sitting position. As numerous incidents have proven by this point, he can be dazed by blood loss, whiplash or even concussion and still become instantly lucid when he's worried about her.
Judy's paw, warm and firm, is at his neck pushing him back down before he gets far. "Are you crazy or dumb?" she chides, patting at his fur then tugging up his sheets. She barely seems aware that she's fussing. What's up with that? She must be preoccupied. It's worse than he thought. Judy might bound around with more energy in her fluffy white tail than is contained in his entire body, but she's always present, in the moment, whatever situation she's in.
"Why not both," Nick deadpans, then grimaces at a sudden flare-up of pain. He grits his teeth through it and manages to sound almost casual. "You seem distracted, Hopps. Something happen back home?"
A look of amazement comes over her face and her paws go still. "Yes, Wilde, something did happen back home," she answers, tone wavering between sarcastic and something softer, something he associates with the weightlessness of a sky-tram slipping through the pink and yellow sunrise, and a secret he parted with far too willingly for how brief their acquaintance was.
Wow, has he taken too many painkillers? They must have him on the good stuff.
But she's talking still and he has to focus on what she's saying, right! Focus through the mild fog of pain on her strangely vehement tone. "I got a call," Judy begins, quickly lapsing into a rant, "telling me you'd been found lying in some alley with two fractured ribs plus extensive contusions on the face and limbs. That's something. In fact I'd say that's a pretty big something."
Oh crud. He's the something amiss. Him, with his ridiculous injuries he was banking on her never finding out the origin of, although it was a foregone conclusion that his partner would notice his wincing eventually. Despite it sort of being his default colour he can feel himself flushing red. "In my defence, there were six of them," he mutters.
Her reaction makes him think maybe it wasn't an appropriate thing to say after all. Huh. "How is that the point?!" she demands to know, voice reaching a higher pitch than he's ever heard from her. Which is saying something, because he's accompanied her to several Gazelle concerts (strobe lights and sultry vocals, and her warm grip around his wrist tugging him into a dance).
He flinches at the mere memory of some particularly stratospheric squeals, and maybe that's what makes her soften her voice, or maybe her diurnal eyes have finally adjusted enough to the dim lighting that she can make out the full extent of his injuries. Yup, he is not looking quite so — heh — foxy as usual, right now.
"You scared me," she admits, and those three words take the air out of him more effectively than a punch to the gut — literally; he should know.
On a slow patrol one morning, they shared a slice of Gideon Grey's classic peach cobbler, and when he reached over to brush some stray crumble off her face, she went rigid for a split second before permitting him to lean across her. And that was how Judy Hopps told him about the last time a fox had touched a paw to her left cheek. Her thick, fluffy fur generally hid the three faint white scars. He swore he never wanted to be the one to unsettle and shake her like that again, but he never figured on her worrying about him.
"I'm sorry," he says, and pats the mattress beside him. Raising an eyebrow at him, she obliges his invitation by — heh — hopping on, careful to avoid jostling him. There's not much room but Judy's tiny and can fold her little bunny limbs in compactly.
…he fervently hopes she never finds out that such thoughts have crossed his mind. Again, he blames the painkillers. Has he perhaps taken his prescribed dosage several times over without remembering it? Hm. Thoughts like that are probably the reason she has, apparently, cut short her visit home to check in on him.
(How has she gotten into his apartment anyway? He considers the problem briefly before setting it aside. In all likelihood, for the sake of his sanity, he doesn't want to know.)
Not too long ago the mere suggestion that he should need to be dependent on someone else for any kind of help would have offended him to the core. But he supposes there's nothing quite so humbling as owing your life to a tiny little bunny whose iron grip and will are the only things standing between you and a thousand-foot fall.
"You should have heard it from me. I would've called," he says with an air of apology. Hopefully she'll chalk his belated response up to his semi-lucid state. And when did this happen, when did she become someone he needs to be accountable to?
Then it finally occurs to him to ask — "Actually, who did you hear it from?"
"The hospital. I'm your emergency contact," Judy supplies matter-of-factly. He goggles and she starts looking downright shifty. "Remember when you were suspicious about me wanting to help with your application paperwork? Particularly for proof of vaccination before beginning active service."
Her eyes meet his, looking for... what? Approval? Forgiveness? He feels his face go blank, a mask he'll forcibly contort into an appropriate expression once he actually fixes on one. "I may or may not have put down my name on that form. Is — is that okay? I mean, I figured if Finnick wasn't already listed…"
Instead of answering her question he dances around it. "No, we didn't want to leave anything in the papertrail to suggest we were anything else than business partners."
"But your old, um, associates knew, didn't they?" Judy ventures, and it's not even accusatory, just stymied and thoughtful. Without seeming to realise what she's doing, she wriggles a little closer to him, her warm fur pressing up against him in a way he shouldn't find as comforting as he does. "Going for the face, despite the hard skull and in your case a thick head—"
"—it's evolutionary—"
"—that's classic for a personal attack." She's far too good at realising when he's trying to deflect her line of thinking. She presses on, "They beat you up, didn't they? For 'defecting'?"
She was bound to figure it out eventually (because she's so smart, she's the smartest animal he knows), but he's been counting on that only happening after he's back to his normal self, back at work, with all his defences and distance back in place. He closes his eyes. "For refusing to close one eye to a big hustle they had planned," he confirms.
As an afterthought, with a levity that is only slightly forced, he tacks on, "And maybe a little bit for sassing them about not being a leopard." He creaks one eye open like a reverse wink at her. "A leopard can't change its spots," he explains, citing the proverbial saying, "but I'm no leopard."
Judy rolls her eyes at him but there's a strange softness in her features still, almost a fondness. The painkillers must be making his brain inarticulate mush.
"I guess that decides things," she tells him firmly. With an air of proclamation and her arms akimbo: "I just can't leave you unsupervised, can I, partner?"
(The way she says partner really shouldn't give him butterflies. No stomach is an appropriate place for butterflies anyway. They should petition for some limitations on cosmopolitan butterfly residences.)
Nick splutters. "You can't just never go home again!"
"I never said that." She raises a languid eyebrow at him. "You'll just have to come with me."
"To Bunnyburrow," he states in disbelief, his shock flattening out the questioning lilt.
She nods fervently. "There'll be blueberries! And, and two hundred seventy-five relatives taking turns for the bathroom in the morning! It's great."
When they first met in that elephant ice-cream shop it took him less than two seconds to notice the little canister of fox repellant hanging on her belt. It became extra hypocritical as she stood outside and moralised about backward-thinking animals, but he was at peace with its presence. He looked at her bright eyes and though his jadedness immediately consigned her to eventual disappointment, she's since defied his expectations and won him over.
Because here's the thing: she gets to him, like nothing has for a long time. She plants her feet and she's tiny but so spirited: No one tells me what I can or can't be. Especially not some jerk who never had the guts to try to be anything more than a pawpsicle hustler. She makes him want to be better, do better, and now he wants to preserve her idealism, never have to watch her hand over her badge or her optimism. Now he lets her get to him.
He wants to protect her, and once upon a time she felt like she needed protecting from his kind. Some days he thinks of her old fox repellant and all he wants is to hide his teeth and sheath his claws. But still she's astounding him, inviting him to share her home like she knows he's not had one in years.
"You can't just keep dropping bombs like that, I'm already having trouble breathing," he manages to joke at last. He flicks his eyes over to hers. When they tackled him to the ground slick with grime, he experienced a brief moment of recognition, his police academy instructor's voice warning the recruits to never let a mob start kicking you. Somehow a kick is more impersonal than a punch, and one kick is never enough. But he didn't move to defend himself, and he wonders if she knows that, too.
Judy isn't at all perturbed by the intensity of his gaze. "Is that your way of saying thank you?"
"Yes. Yes it is."
She does something she's never done before: she reaches over and scritches at the spot right behind his ears. It's a surprisingly pleasant feeling. He may or may not close his eyes in complete bliss. "You're welcome," she intones.
After a moment she pauses. "I don't know whether to hit you for making me worry, or hug you for being okay," she muses.
He opens his eyes, mildly alarmed. "Has anyone ever told you you're terrifying?"
"You would be the person who says that most frequently," she responds despite it being a rhetorical question, then checks the time on her phone and with one bound is halfway to the door again. "I have to head in. When I get back, you'd better be watching bad daytime television or sleeping. Your only assignment is to get better, understood?"
"You're the boss," he answers smoothly, then stumbles over his next few words. "Uh, speaking of assignment," he starts to say, but loses his nerve halfway through. He doesn't need to complete the question, though. She takes one look at him and seems to read his mind.
"Chief Bogo thinks you're down with flu." Of course she knew he would rather keep this under wraps and has already thought to cover up for him at work. What would he do without her?
Her disapproving look stops that train of thought. "You've got some leeway to figure out what kind of flu gives someone a black eye."
"I'll tell him," Nick promises softly. As she turns away he notices, for the first time in a long time, the pointed lack of fox repellant at her belt. She stopped carrying it the first day back at work after the Nighthowler case.
"Partner," he stops her, and she turns with a helpful-trooper smile that almost takes the poison of self-hate out of him. Almost. He hesitates. "Maybe you should bring the fox repellant for patrol today. It'll work on other animals my size. You might be a target too."
There's only a brief flicker of concern on her face. "Then hurry up and get well so you can be my backup," she replies smoothly.
"Right," he says, a second too slow. "You got it, Carrots."
She grins and shuts the door behind her.
"You got me," he tells the empty room, then smiles wryly and goes back to sleep.
Title from "Pluto" by Sleeping At Last.
I keep telling myself I only ship it as an allegory for interracial relationships.
m.e.