Story Notes:

James here, so this is my version of the short story about Nick's bandanna from the ranger scouts. After this go and check out Nicole's version of the story that will be put up some time today I think.

Pick-Me-Up Bandanna:

It had been a rough week to say the least for both Nick and Judy, They were assigned a series of residential break-ins to a neighborhood in Savannah Central. There had been several reports of houses being broken into late at night while the people living there were out in the city. The local neighborhood watch had gotten reports of suspicious mammals luring around but after going through the list and checking with their alibis Judy and Nick couldn't hold them any longer. However yesterday during another undercover stakeout the duo finally managed to catch their robbers, a crew of six assorted mammals all with prior records.

While both the rabbit and the fox were proud to serve and help anyone in Zootopia, spending a week in the blistering sandstorms of Savannah Central was painful to say the least. Nick's fur provided him a little comfort from the stinging dust, Judy's short rabbit fur provided no protection at all, but unfortunately both of them took all the overnight steak outs hard and were in need of some down time.

However tonight was movie night for the friends and it was Nick's turn to host, so that meant he had to clean up his and Finnick's apartment a little before his partner arrived. The two foxes had agreed that while they had worked for years together they seemed to make a pretty good team, at first Finnick was angry about being left by his partner to be a cop, but he came around to the idea of Nick doing what he wanted. They stayed out of each other's work lives trying their best not to cross paths in public, but off shift they were just two friends hanging out and having a good time.

It was still a few minutes before Finnick would be home and Judy would be over when he finally finished cleaning the livingroom and kitchen area up enough to be presentable. However with all the extra work he had to do Nick was near dead tired and was in great need of a 'pick-me-up'. After looking poking his head out of the door not hearing or seeing his friends coming he closed and locked it behind him as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out his personal 'pick-me-up'.

He looked down at his brown padded paw to find an old red handkerchief. The same one he wore when he attended his ranger scouts initiation meeting, while that was a bad memory for him the bandana itself was part of the uniform his mom had bought and thus was very dear to him. But a year ago the cloth found new meaning to him, that is when he used it to bandage Judy's leg during the final chase in the Night Howler case, and because of that it was soaked in blood. The red liquid had hardened and crusted over long ago and a little would flake off when ever he moved it around. But what he loved about the cloth now was not only the sentiments from his mom, it was also the scent Judy had left on it.

Nick first found out that her scent soaked into the bandanna when paramedics tore it off to put on real bandages throwing the make-shift to the floor. He was originally planning on washing it back to its previous red color, but when the smell filled his sensitive nose and a tingle buzzed through his skin and fur he had second thoughts. While he didn't understand why he loved the smell so much, in fact the smell of blood they come across at work is horrendous, and while he loved Judy's day to day scent mixed with her soaps, he never got close enough to enjoy it the way the he enjoyed her scent on the handkerchief.

With one final glance at the door his grin widened as he brought the cloth up to his snout and took in a deep breath. The tingle he sought came quickly traveling through his fur like electricity and he sighed in relief of his personal drug. But in his bliss he failed to hear the footsteps coming down the hall, and as he took another breath from the bandanna the handle jiggled startling him into a frenzy as he quickly shoved the incriminating cloth back into his pocket.

"Hey open up Nick! I told you I forgot my keys!" Finnick's voice muffled through the door as he jiggled the knob harder.

Nick opened the door revealing his slightly irritated roommate carrying bags of snacks eyeing him suspiciously, "Hold up!" called a familiar voice from down the hall. The red fox stepped out letting the other in as he looked down the hall to see Judy walking towards the room carrying a box of sodas in each arm. In a few more moments Nick had helped her set the sodas on the counter next to the bags of chips Finnick brought. "Thanks for hold the door open, Nick." She said in playful anger to Finnick.

"Didn't you say you are independent?" he smirked knowing it was because he didn't hold the front door to the apartment building open for her when she called from the parking lot. After all, she was a police officer and he was still a con at heart, of course he had to poke fun at her every now and then. As the smaller fox looked to Nick he noticed something, "What's wrong with you?"

Nick standing there slightly nervous still from being startled out of his trance while enjoying the scent of his bandanna. His red fur somewhat prickled and his eyes and paws partly fidgety as he stood to the side, he quickly looked over his arms trying to brush down his fur. "Oh uh it's nothing, I was dozing off when you banged on the door." He lied. He lied to a con artist and a police officer, a lie that was easily seen through. "alright let's get this movie night going." He exclaimed as he took some of the snacks and drinks over to the table in the living room.

As he walked away with his back turned the smaller mammals shared a look with one another, purple eyes met brown and they both knew something was up with their green eyed friend before they arrived. They each grabbed a snack bag or drink box and carried them over to the living room table and sat down on opposite sides of Nick in the small three seat couch they had. Both of them giving the middle fox a quick look over hoping to catch something, unfortunately with the light off Judy couldn't see anything other than an outline and for Finnick nothing seemed any different than normal.

Three bags of chips, one box of sodas, and two hours later the action comedy was finally over. Despite his exhaustion Nick had managed to stay up through the movie munching on chips and sipping down sodas, personally he loved most of the movie seeing as it was filled with outrageous rumor. "That was a great choice now wasn't it?" he said with a smirk as he went and flipped the lights on seeing both Finnick and Judy fast asleep leaning over their own armrests. He knew Judy must have been far more tired than he was and Finnick's 'job' choice didn't exactly mean he ever had any easy days at the office.

Not being one to miss out on an opportunity the red fox reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone snapping a picture or two of his dozed off friends, with a smirk on his face he put the phone back into his pocket but dropping it to the floor. While picking it up he had noticed he dropped something else, his bandanna which fell out when he took his phone out. He slid his phone back into his pocket as he picked up the red cloth looking it over slowly before glancing back at the sleeping figures of his friends. With his nerves still buzzing about this being a bad idea, he brought the old bandanna up to his snout taking in a deep breath to feel the satisfying tingle of the scent once again.

Unnoticed by green eyes after the phone had been dropped both the small fox and bunny had stirred awake from their short nap, only for both to hear a deep breath followed by a content sigh. Finnicks eyes darted to where Nick should have been only to find that Judy had done the same, both of their eyes caught each other's attention as they reflected the light above, thoughts raced through their imagination of what Nick could have been doing, but both too shocked to look over. Until they heard another breath followed by a muffled moan come from Nick. Their heads snapped up facing the red fox at the sound seeing his back turned to them as he stood by the light switch. "NICK! WHATCHU DOING!?" Finnick yelled out of shock startling the red fox enough to make him jump in the air.

Nick fell over as he scrambled to turn around and face his roommate. "It's nothing!" he yelled trying to shove the cloth into his back pocket as the other two got off the couch and came over to him.

"What are you hiding? Is it a special picture? It better not be one of mine!" Finnick asked before coming to the final point as he tried to get behind Nick.

"Nick what are you hiding?" Judy asked as her and Finnick corned Nick against the wall.

Nick was caught, he knew it, but he just had to try and find a way out of it. "Come on guys, you know I'm not hiding anything." He chuckled nervously. He saw their eyes look away from him for a brief second and choose that moment to try to escape. Unfortunately for him, Judy's police reflexes and Finnick being agile himself; they had him pinned before he could make it into the hallway to flee to his room.

"Finnick check his pockets!" Judy yelled as she struggled to keep the larger fox pinned

The older fox went rifling through Nick's pockets as best he could against the mammals struggling and flailing. He had pulled out a phone and a police badge from the front pockets and reached into the back pocket feeling something wrapped in cloth. "Got it!" he yelled as he pulled it out before seeing it crusted over with blood dropping it quickly. "Nick what the hell!?" he asked as he wiped his paws off on his shirt.

The moment Nick felt the cloth being pulled out he knew it was over, and stopped his struggling giving in with a defeated sigh. Judy got off of him and stepped over to the bandanna picking up by the corner and looking it over. She looked back at Nick who had sat up with his head down, then looked back to the cloth in her paw seeing the black flakes. "Nick, is this blood?" she asked realizing she knew what this was from their line of work. Both Finnick and her watched him waiting for a response getting none. "Who's blood is this Nick?" she asked while she opened it up seeing it was fully encrusted in it, missing patches here and there but stains remained on the whole thing.

"It's yours." He admitted with his head still bowed. Both Finnick and Judy looked at him shocked.

Judy was confused trying to think of when her blood could have gotten on the handkerchief, in their year of working together she had never seen Nick with it, "When-"

"It's from the Night Howler case." He said cutting her off. "When you cut your leg at the museum." It was finally out. Now she finally knew about his pick-me-up, even though he always carried it with him he was careful to never let anyone know about it; before today.

The rabbit brushed her paw against her leg feeling the scar through her fur remembering when he wrapped it with the handkerchief spilling blueberries everywhere. It was their first case together unofficially but was the foundation of their trust. Then she remembered as she was being carted off on the stretcher she had seen Nick pick it up off the floor and bringing it to his muzzle even back then. She came back to the room they were in now looking it over curiously and then to Finnick and Nick seeing him watching her, knowing that she figured it out by now.

But to both the foxes surprise, Judy brought it up to her nose giving it a deep breath. The faint coppery scent burned her nose slightly but it felt strange, she didn't feel anything different than when their crime scene had the same smell. "It's my pick-me-up." They heard the red fox say, "It smell helps that the edge off when we had a rough day. I don't get the same feeling from the blood at work, that smells horrible actually. But with that, I just feel my fur tingle." He explained with a look on his face somewhere between a frown and smile.

"Let me see." Finnick said snatching it from Judy's grey paw looking it over carefully before smelling it himself. It was common knowledge that rabbits didn't have near as good sense of smell as foxes, so when Finnick took in the scent of the copper it burned his nose slightly but he felt nothing like the tingle Nick mentioned. "You've always been different for a fox Nick." He smirked as he tossed it back to its owner who quickly caught it wrapping his brown paws around it.

Judy looked between Nick and his cloth curiously, she was thinking about what it meant for Nick, what it meant for her, what she meant to Nick, and what he meant to her. She took a step towards Nick and then another. "Let me have another smell." She said to him as she knelt down next to him.

Both foxes were confused by the request, and both equally as thrown off by its strangeness. But with that same confused look Nick held out the cloth to the rabbit. Only instead she clung onto him and buried her face in his neck. "Judy wha-" he froze when he heard and felt the rabbit pressed against his fur taking in a deep breath. His skin burned hot as he began blushing under his fur as she still lingered against him.

Judy's fur bristled at the contact of Nick's fur over her face tickling her skin underneath her own grey fur, and the scent the red fox carried with him sent a tingle through her fur. She had never felt so alive before. "I think I know the tingle." She mumbled into his fur grinning ear to ear.

Author's Notes:

Okay how did you guys like it? The goods and bads, give your feedback in the reviews. Thanks for reading along and hope to see you guys again soon!-