Boilerplate Disclaimer: The various characters from the movie Zootopia are all owned by Disney the great and powerful. Any and all registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.
Title is taken from Ruddigore, dreadfully out-of-context I will admit:
Till the welcome knell of the midnight bell rings forth its jolliest tune,
And ushers in our next high holiday – the dead of the night's high-noon!
The Dead of the Night's High-Noon
"I thought it was the party that was important to you?" Nick asked the bunny, snuggled against him in his bed.
"It is. This is just frosting on the party."
"I don't see any connection. Let's review, exactly why is the party so important?"
"How can you even ask the question?"
"I'm just trying to clarify what is important in your mind."
"Well, solstice is the biggest holiday on the calendar."
"I'm not disagreeing."
"It will be our first solstice as a couple. Whenever we do something for the first time it's special. And isn't it a fox tradition that the one you're kissing as the new year begins is the person you'll be kissing at the end of the year?"
"Nah. Maybe some other canid tradition. Fox tradition is the first person you kiss in the new year is the person who'll disappoint you most in the coming year."
"Really?"
"No," he assured her and gave her a fast kiss, "just teasing you."
"Sometimes I wonder why I fell in love with you."
"I often wonder the same thing. And there is no dress code for kissing in the new year."
"This is important because it will be the first party we host as a couple."
"Poker night at my place didn't count?"
"You hosted a party for your friends. I was just there as kitchen help."
"By that logic this is really you hosting a party for your friends and I'm just there being pleasant. Maybe we have to have our friends before we can both be hosts."
Judy shrugged, "I think your friends are becoming my friends too. And so it's all the more important for all my team members to meet you."
"I'm pretty sure I've been introduced already."
"You've been introduced, but you don't know them. A party is a chance to talk and get to know them so they'll be our friends. Who knows, maybe a couple of them have boxes of seventy-eights up the attic from their grandparents. And how we dress will reinforce the fact we're a couple."
"Back to that," he sighed. "No," Nick told Judy emphatically. "A thousand times no. No way, no how."
"Please?" the bunny whispered in his ear, her warm body pressed against him.
"I have my pride."
"Lylah says it would be a blow against stereotyping."
"You're telling that panther your plans before you even share them with me?"
"It was her idea."
"Lylah hates me. She just came up with the idea to humiliate me."
"She doesn't hate you. She's jealous of you."
"Because I have you in my bed and she doesn't?"
"No, Silly," Judy laughed and gave him a playful nudge to the ribs. "Because you made detective so fast."
"I didn't deserve it," he reminded her. "She worked hard to make detective. You made it for solving the Night Howler case–"
"We deserved it."
"Probably neither of us deserved it. Mayor wanted good publicity for himself. One of these days we have epic fail and everyone will talk about how we shouldn't have been made detectives."
"Know what we need to do?"
"What?"
"Never have an epic fail. In the meanwhile, we need to strike a blow against stereotyping."
"This is about gender stereotyping. Did it occur to you that I might like the stereotype that males are smarter and more capable than females?"
Judy raised an eyebrow, "You want to tell that to Lylah?"
"I'm not stupid. She'd rip my heart out."
"I thought you gave your heart to me."
"Fine, she'd rip out yours. You gave yours to me."
"See? And she likes me. So, go ahead, tell her you think males are more capable. But a blow against stereotyping individuals is a blow against stereotyping by species."
"Buying an ugly sweater I'll only wear once is a waste of money."
"We'd wear them again."
"You'd make me wear that more than once?"
"I won't make you wear it at all. I said it would be nice for the solstice party, to remind everyone on my football team we're a couple."
"Everyone on your team already knows we're a couple."
"There's nothing wrong with showing them how much we love each other. And there may be parties other years where everyone doesn't know we're a couple."
"Is this the point where you remind me that I don't show as much affection to you as you do to me?"
"No," she sighed. "But you spent way too much time single. However, you're right; it's an ugly sweater that you'll hardly ever wear, and everyone on the team knows we're a couple."
"I'm right?"
"You're right You don't need to wear the sweater."
He smiled, "Good. I'll wear it. But you have to count it as a mad, spontaneous sign of affection."
"You will?" she asked in surprise, hugging him tightly. "Oh, Nick! I'll... I'll do anything for you!"
"Not now, Carrots. Right now you take first shower and I start breakfast. And remember to use your body wash. Alces gave us Hell last week when you used mine."
The pair took a late lunch after finishing gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses for a convenience store robbery. Judy looked across the table at Nick as she nibbled at her watercress croissant, "Looking at the mug books is going to be be a waste of time, isn't it?"
He swallowed a bite of his King Fish Sandwich before answering, "Yeah. Anyone that nervous and inept was pulling his first robbery. He looked like a teen in that surveillance footage. But we have to look at all the mug shots of wolves. Surveillance footage will be on television tonight, seven different wolves will be identified as the crook, a large unit will be assigned the leads, and it will be the fourth suspect. I sometimes wonder why they bother with the first three leads. They ought to just start with the last lead. The crook is always the last lead you check out."
"Change of subject," the rabbit announced. "Eric and Truckie have their own families. You really should invite Mirage and Finnick to the solstice party at my place."
"They don't know anyone on your team."
"It doesn't matter. You should invite them anyway. Is Ernie in town or did he go back to Bunnyburrow?"
"I believe he's in town."
"Then we should invite him too. Oh... You really need to invite him! And let me know if he can come."
"Why the excitement?"
"Well, there's a weasel who just started at Zoo U. She's come out to play a couple times – a really good midfielder. The team needs her. She was invited to the party, but... I'm not old, am I?"
"What's that about?" the puzzled fox asked.
"Well, she was going to pass on the party because most of us are in our twenties and thirties."
"You're not old."
"So, anyway, I was thinking, if Ernie comes – a weasel her age. Maybe she'll come to the party."
"She's not going home for semester break?"
"She has a job here."
"Forgive the question," Nick asked, "but are you trying to set Ernie up with her, her up with Ernie, encourage Ernie to stop drooling over Suze, or get a good midfielder for your team?"
"You make it sound so cynical. Wouldn't all of those be good deeds?"
"A good deed for whom?"
"A good deed can't be self-serving? She leaned over and kissed him on the nose. "You are far too cynical. I just want to spread joy and happiness to the world. Everyone deserves a party invitation for solstice."
"Speaking of which, did I mention my sister called yesterday to invite me to their solstice party?"
"No, you didn't... Do you want to go? I mean, I want you at mine, but family? It would be okay if you went there."
"I never got invites before. I don't blame her, he hasn't liked me since Eric and Truckie and I gave him trouble in high school. Anyway, I figure that Sis reminded him I'm now respectable. I'll have more fun with you."
She gave him a wink, "I'll make sure you do."
"After the party," he reminded her. "Very bad form for the hostess to disappear into the bedroom mid-party."
"You're doing rabbit stereotyping."
"Sorry. I'll ask them. I'll let you know if Ernie can come. Not sure if Finnick or Mirage will attend."
"Umm... You probably told me before, but refresh my memory. What exactly is a cat?"
"You remember mutt and mongrel, right?"
"Derogatory terms for a canid crossbreed. Sam, at your poker parties. What were his mom and dad for him to have hair like that?"
"I'm not sure. You can ask him if you want. Cat is a term for a crossbreed in the feline family. It's not as derogatory as mongrel."
"What were her mother and father?"
"She doesn't know. She was abandoned as a kitten."
"That's terrible!"
Nick shrugged, "It happens. Adopted by lynxes."
In the afternoon the prediction that nothing would be found in the collection of mug shots proved correct. After work they stopped at the department store Lylah Nyte had mentioned to Judy in order to pick up sweaters for the solstice party.
"I think we'll be adorable," Judy whispered as they waited in line to pay.
"I think I'll look like an idiot," he grumbled.
"I'll give you one more chance to back out."
"No, I love you."
A minute later an opossum coughed softly to get their attention, "Uh, the line is moving." They stopped kissing and moved forward.
"Do you have to embarrass me in public like that?" whispered Nick.
"You got a better way to embarrass you? You didn't seem to mind."
"That's because you're so tempting."
"Must you always blame me?"
"Sure. It's blame you or blame me."
Nick arrived early, and parked a block away to save spaces nearer Judy's place for her friends. He let himself in and the rabbit looked disappointed. "You aren't wearing the sweater?"
"Not until I have to. Besides, it makes no sense out of context."
"True," she admitted and hugged him. "I think everything's ready. Look around and tell me if I missed anything."
"I trust you. I made up a playlist for the party, mostly classic jazz with some holiday standards. You do realize that MP3 format on your cheap speakers doesn't give the full effect."
"It's background music for the party, not a concert. You'll probably be the only person who even notices the difference in sound quality."
Finnick was the first to arrive, although the fennec did not consider himself a guest at the party. Nick slipped him sixty credits. Judy told him, "Thanks for agreeing to handle the drinks. I appreciate it – don't want anyone on my team in an accident." Nick had given her a list of things she was not to say. She was not to congratulate him and extol the virtues of an honest job. She was not supposed to try and comfort him with the fact that loan sharks would not be threatening to break his legs. Finnick looked forward to paying off his debts and resuming his normal life. With most of his salary going to debt repayment Finnick needed to raise a few extra credits here and there, such as tending bar for Judy's party, for little luxuries like small stakes poker with his friends.
With the party nearly ready to start Nick and Judy put on their sweaters.
Finnick looked at the ugly solstice sweaters, which were identical except for the difference in the message knitted in. Judy's read 'I'm with the CUTE ONE' while Nick's proclaimed, 'I'm with the SMART ONE'. "You want to know what the two of you look like in those?"
"I know what we look–" Nicked started to say.
"We look adorable," interrupted Judy.
"She's really got you whipped," chuckled the fennec.
Nick assured him, "No whips were needed."
"He's wearing it because he loves me. And I love him."
"You can tell a male in love," Finnick muttered. "But he won't listen."
Hye and Tom arrived about fifteen minutes early. Hye had prepared a seven-layer bean dip and asked if there was anything she could do to help get things ready.
Tom had a large sack of... Judy gave him a questioning stare.
"Games," he explained.
"I told him it was an adult party," Hye assured Judy.
"These are adult games," argued Tom.
"Adult games?" Nick asked.
"Sure. Trivial Pursuit, Clue, Pictionary... Everyone loves Pictionary!"
"Clue is an adult game?"
Tom pointed out, "You've never been to one of their team parties, have you? In two, three hours you'll see."
Nick shrugged, "Under the circumstances I'll give him the benefit of the doubt," he told Judy and Hye.
Ernie also arrived slightly early, asking if there was anything he could do to help. He looked around the apartment and Judy wasn't sure if he was eyeing the preparations or hoping Susan had decided to stay in Zootopia and come to the gathering. Judy had not told him a college age female might be coming, since Iris had not said whether or not she would attend. The rabbit hoped the midfielder came by after work. In addition the team needed males and Ernie himself was supposed to be a decent left back, but he was too busy trying to survive the academy to have time to play.
As other team members appeared with their significant others there was more food for the buffet table and more bottles of wine and cider.
Nick felt like odd man out for much of the party. Judy tried to include him in conversations, but too many of them were centered on football. He did some circulating and entered into brief conversations and talked with Finnick often enough to interfere with the fennec's attempts to manage the beverages.
The fox was almost wondering when Tom would suggest a game to provide him with a diversion when Mirage showed up, breezing in looking happy and prosperous. She worked the crowd briefly promoting pool, then ended up near the makeshift bar, slowly sipping a perry and chatting with Nick.
Iris was the last animal to arrive, wondering if there would really be another weasel her age there, or if Judy had invited her in order to get her to commit to playing more. Not that she had anything else to do tonight. The dorm was largely empty and she couldn't afford to go to a decent club. Maybe she could get drunk, at least it would be a story to tell her dorm mate when she got back from semester break. Iris discovered Judy hadn't lied about there being a weasel her age at the party. Ernie was, like, from hicksville and so excruciatingly polite she worried being around him might cause cavities. He was exactly the sort of male that, were she to take him to meet her parents, her parents would be overjoyed to meet and would call him son. What self-respecting female wanted to hang around with a drag like that? On the other paw, he asked about her classes, listened attentively – like he really cared, and laughed at her jokes. If only he'd grab a cider for himself and not look so disapproving as she drank one, he might have been decent company. But he was still a weasel her age and they were the youngest animals at the party, so she stayed near him. Since Ernie really knew no one there, except Nick and Judy, he was grateful for the company.
A television tuned to a news channel, with volume turned off, showed scenes of parties around the city and suburbs – with headlines scrolling across the bottom of the picture for those interested in disasters and celebrity divorces. "Big fight downtown!" someone called.
"What?"
"Lions and tigers going at it."
"How'd it start?"
"How should I know?"
Everyone crowded around the set, and the volume was turned up allowing them to hear that the news anchors were equally clueless on the origin of the conflict. Not that it stopped the news anchors, or the party goers, from making their own guesses.
The riot squad attempted to separate the sides, and Nick and Judy recognized a number of the officers even with their equipment. Nick hoped they wouldn't be called in.
"We should go down to the station," Judy told him.
"We haven't been paged."
"They may be a little busy at the moment."
"There is no way we can stop lions or tigers."
"Other things need to be done, and the large officers are all trying to stop the fight." Judy turned to her friend Hye, "You're in charge. Nick and I are heading for our station."
"I'm not sure–"
"We'll be back as fast as we can."
Tom offered advice, "If worse comes to worse, know how to stop a tiger from charging?"
"I don't know."
"Take away her credit cards."
Judy groaned and looked at her friend Hye. "Why do you stay with him."
"I took him down to the used male lot for a different model," the raccoon confessed. "And even though he's got low mileage they told me he had, like, no trade-in value."
"You could just leave him by the side of the road or something."
"And get arrested for littering?"
Tom looked over at Nick, "A little support would be appreciated."
"After that joke? I might suffer collateral damage if I offered any support." He looked at Judy, "I say they'd page us if they needed us. But let's roll."
Judy had trouble getting in to the station's phone system. Calls about the riot had all the lines tied up. Nick turned on the radio as Judy waited on the phone queue. Even as they drove the news came out that the fight had ended. The mayor himself had gone to the scene and appealed for calm. The fighting had ended almost immediately in response to the mayor's pleas. In response to the mayor's pleas and the hoses the fire department had turned on the combatants. Tigers were less adverse to water than lions, but being hit with a high pressure hose that could knock any animals except elephants and rhinos off their feet still provided a serious disincentive to brawling. The current theory for the fight's origin, as voiced by the announcer on the radio and certain to be discarded the next day, was that a group of lions had gone into a bar which tigers had planned for their own party.
"Give the mayor credit for trying," Nick commented.
"True. He may have his limitations, but he always–" "Hello, Detectives Wilde and Hopps. We saw the news on the television and are heading to the station. Is there anything we can do?"
She listened a minute. "Okay. Glad to hear it." She looked over at Nick. "Told us not to come in."
"I told you we should have waited."
"And if there had been an emergency?"
"There was an emergency! But it didn't mean we were needed."
"But if they had needed us... At least we'll be back at the party for midnight."
Flashing lights atop two cars of the Ottertown sheriff's department were outside the apartment building when they arrived at Judy's place.
The rabbit panicked slightly. "Let me out!"
"No, let me park. We'll go in together."
Three of the other lodgers in the old apartment house were out in the hallway, with two sheriff deputies and Mrs. Riverbank. "There's Judy," the elderly otter told a deputy.
"I'm Judy Hopps," the rabbit quickly said. "What happened?"
"You left a party going in your apartment."
"Nick–, my partner and I, we– The news was on television about– What happened?"
"Missus Riverbank, told us you're in the ZPD. They called you?"
"No," Nick admitted, Judy seemed too upset to take charge. "Detective Hopps thought we should report in, in case the riot downtown created a shortage of officers for other emergencies. She was hosting a party for her football team and–"
"You on the team?" a sheriff's deputy asked with a snicker. "Nice uniform for the two of you."
"Told you the sweaters were trouble," the fox sighed. "No, Judy and I are a couple."
"A fox and a rabbit?"
"That is beside the point, youngster," Mrs. Riverbank told the officer, "and entirely their affair." She turned to Judy. "You must have left before it started, some sort of noisy argument. It upset poor Mister Huggins dreadfully. He knocked on the door to request quiet and when he was told you weren't there he called the sheriff."
"I'm so sorry! The party wasn't noisy when we left."
The deputy asked Mrs. Riverbank, "You knew your tenant was holding a large party?"
"I already told the sheriff that. Yes I did, and Judy had been asked to keep the volume down."
The sheriff emerged from Judy's apartment, "Does Mister Huggins want to file a complaint?"
"I think he'd settle for the noise level being reduced," Estelle told him. "This is Judy Hopps, it was her apartment."
"Judy Hopps? Pleased to meet you," the sheriff said, shaking paws with her. "Why did you leave your own party?"
"We thought we might be needed downtown. What happened here?"
"I'll let your friends explain."
"Why aren't you with your daughter?" Judy asked the landlady before going in to assess any damage.
"I didn't want to be out too late. And some of the drivers after the parties are over?"
"Well, come in and celebrate the new year with us," Nick invited, took the widow by the arm and escorted her in.
"All right," Judy asked on entering, "what happened."
"And this is Judy's landlord, who can throw Judy out on the street if it gets noisy again," threatened Nick.
"I wouldn't–"
"Shhhsh."
"Well," Tom began, "we were playing Trivial Pursuit and–"
"And answers on the science and nature cards are wrong!" argued a dingo. "It asked who discovered the circulation of blood, and gave a wrong answer! I looked at other cards. Half the answers are wrong!"
"But it was the answer on the card!"
"It's still wrong! Is the stupid game supposed to be guess the random wrong answer?"
"You're raising your voices," Judy pointed out.
"Pictionary, anyone?" asked Nick.
"Why'd you give the weasel a third cider?" Nick whispered to Finnick. "She's underage."
"I didn't. She lied, claimed she was going to give it to that guy she's with. It's solstice. I figure at eighteen or nineteen they can handle cider or two."
"He doesn't drink, so watch her. She's probably not drunk, but she's impaired."
Nick moved toward the weasels, and gestured for Ernie to come over and talk with him. He gave his car keys to the youth and gave quiet directions, "After the party, take a right when you go outside, left at the end of the block – you'll see my car. Get her back to her dorm safe, okay?"
"Yes, Sir, Mister Nick, Sir. And then I'll bring your car right back here for you."
"Uh, don't worry about it. Use it to get back to the police academy. Return it tomorrow."
"But how will you... Oh."
As Nick and Ernie held their quiet conversation Iris leaned back in the couch and stared at the pair, or stared at Ernie at least. Her head felt a little funny, and she wondered if she was drunk. Based on the party behavior of some of the animals in the dorm she suspected she wasn't, and the way her head felt at the moment stopping might be a good idea. Another idea was the realization this was her first solstice party as an adult away from home. In fifteen minutes it would be the new year. Under the circumstances she felt it incumbent upon her to kiss someone, and Ernie appeared the most suitable candidate for the position. However, he appeared too shy and polite to initiate his role in the ancient tradition. At the first stroke of the midnight bell she'd just have to grab him and take the situation into her own lips. A female's work is never done.
At 11:52 Nick took Judy's paw, and slapped a pawcuff on her wrist, then attached the other end to his wrist. "Can't risk you getting away before our solstice kiss," he explained.
"Like I'd ever try and get away from you... This may be the most romantical thing you've ever done. Romantical or kinky. Maybe both."
"Romantical," he assured her.
She raised herself on tiptoes to give him a kiss, but he intervened with his free paw. "Hold that kiss until the welcome knell of the midnight bell."
Judy pouted, "That isn't until almost next year!"
"Self-control is the foundation of civilization. Is a kiss worth the destruction of the social fabric?"
"Love makes the world go 'round. If the world stops going around it plunges into the sun or something. Do you want to risk the destruction of the world?"
"Well... I wouldn't want to risk destroying the world, but this is just for practice. Is that clear, just practice? We don't mean it until midnight."
"Yes, Dear. I promise not to enjoy kissing you."
To the amusement of other party-goers Hye played some sort of game of hide-and-go-seek with Tom, disappearing from beside him and forcing him to run around the apartment looking frantically for her. No one doubted that she would reappear at midnight.
The stereo was turned off and the room went quiet as someone turned up the television as the announcer began his countdown to the bell ringing in the new year. The camera focused on the tower clock by city hall as the minute hand assumed the vertical position and the heavy iron bell inside the tower struck the first *bong* of the twelve to signal the start of the new year. Parties across the city and countryside fell silent as animals found other things to do with their lips rather than talk.
In Judy's apartment a tanuki who had arrived alone gave Mrs. Riverbank a chaste kiss on the cheek to usher in the new year for the elderly widow. In the kitchen Mirage and Finnick, the only two animals without someone there to kiss watched the others.
The cat yawned, "Crazy."
"Don't even think about it."
"I wasn't. You brought it up. You were thinking about it."
"You? No way."
"You were the one who said something, I didn't."
"Did not... Oh, happy new year, Mirage."
"Same to you."
–The End–