"Wow, you've even got the original Sabre Genesis! How old are you anyway?" Poppy laughed, a playfully smirk resting on her lips.

"Hey! You better watch your mouth Flopsy! That system is a classic!" Finnick shouted back, throwing his keys onto the counter while the red rabbit marvelled over his games system.

"You do know classic is just another way of saying ancient," Poppy shot back. "Pretty much like you anyway? How old were you when you got this by the way? Sixty-four? Sixty-five?"

"Shut up," Finnick muttered before flinging himself on the sofa, the soft leather almost completely absorbing his tiny frame. "We playing something or what?"

"Aww, you look so cute when you're made Finni," Poppy said sweetly, hopping onto the sofa and quickly pulling Finnick into a hug. "My angry little munchkin."

"Don't call me cute! I ain't cute!" Finnick snarled, pushing Poppy away. "Anyway, I thought you bunnies hated that word."

"Oh, don't be such a drama fox! Besides, I'm a bunny. I can use it! And no matter what you say, you'll always be my cute fennec."

"Choose a bloody game already," Finnick tried to growl back as his checks began to sear with a red hot blush.

"Alright, suit yourself my fluster fox," Poppy said with a laugh, before diving into his sizable retro games collection.

As the New Zealand rabbit busied herself with picking a games, Finnick allowed himself a rare moment to sit and smile.

Finnick remembered the day that Poppy and he had met as if was preserved in pristine HD. Nick had managed to wrangle him into going to Bunnyburrow to go to some stupid festival to do with carrots or pumpkins or some orange vegetables. But, after so long in the city, especially with his hustling chances decreasing as he got older and his baby act got harder to pull off, Finnick accepted that maybe it was time for a change of scenery was needed. Even if it was with a bunch of over-excitable bunnies.

Everything had been playing out as he expected, the bunnies were as hyper as usual, the events were cute to the point of absurdity, and Nick and Judy were fawning over each other to the point of it being almost offensive. So, as the Hopps clan made their way round the festival, Finnick managed to peel himself away from the overly touchy Hopps children and headed to the nearest tent with an ample supply of beer.

"Give me the most alcoholic thing you have," Finnick had said, slamming down a fifty buck note on the table as the bewildered bunny bartender poured him a double Carrot Rum and set it down in front of the diminutive fox.

He was midway downing the dregs of his third straight drink, the noises of the fair becoming duller as he drank, when his barstool was suddenly knocked, nearly sending Finnick to the floor.

"Oh hell, sorry about that," the feminine voice said before Finnick felt a paw grabbing at his shoulder.

"Get the hell offa me!" Finnick yelled. Standing up, the fennec's furious eyes locked onto her. The curvy, red furred rabbit stood a good head and a half over him, not even counting her long ears. She was dressed in an sleeveless white shirt that cut low to her ample chest and formfitting black jeans that accentuated her hips. Her eyes were a mesmerising sea green eyes, which even at the time, Finnick thought was weird to have in bunnies.

"Alright, sorry Mr. Tough Guy. Just making sure you didn't hurt yourself is all."

"I was fine before your fat ass got over here and knocked me off my seat." Finnick snarled, his paws balled into fists, sure that the bunny would back down and leave him be."

"Oh, my fat ass?!" She replied, putting her drink of the counter as she stared him down. "Maybe you wouldn't be so wobbly in your booster chair if you could hold the baby juice you were drinking!"

"The hell?" Finnick though, taken aback for a moment by the bunny's forthrightness before doubling down.

"Baby Juice! Bitch, you don't even know how much I can drink! I'll drink you under this table and drink this fucking bar dry!"

"Is that a fact, short stack?!"

"Damn right, Gigantor!"

"Alright, lets fucking go then! BARTENDER!" She yelled, getting even more attention from the bunny filled bar. "Get me your strongest moonshine! We'll see who's on the floor by the end of the night then, or will it be past your bedtime tiny?"

"Woman, you are so going down!"

After innumerable shots downed, spirits drank and enough beer to fill each mammal to beyond the tips of their ears, they both left laughing arm in arm, wobbling towards Poppy's motel room.

They passed out as soon as they got through the door, collapsing on the bed beside each other fully clothed. It wasn't until mid-afternoon that Finnick's phone finally awoke with Poppy curling around him like a protective ball. It felt nice. It had never felt this nice before.

After finally getting Poppy to accept a pillow as a substitute Fennec, Finnick was ready to leave, paw on the door. But in that moment he stopped at looked back at the slumbering red rabbit. Her slightly twitching nose, the slight kick of her powerful legs, her silly grin. And then she hugged the pillow and smiled more.

It wasn't the best of starts but, though the alocohol clouded his momeory slightly, he remembered having fun with her. A hell of a lot more fun than he'd had in a while. Certainly more with any vixen he'd had, and they'd only passed out together. She was fun. She was different. She was… something.

Grabbing a motel branded paper and pencil, he quickly scribbled a message and left, wondering whether she would actually call him or just trash it when she woke up. Only time would tell.

"IN. YOUR. FACE, BI-YATCH!" Poppy cried, throwing her controller in the air as she celebrated her Marten Kombat. "I whooped your scrawy ass!"

"Knock it off you idiot!" Finnick moaned, still sore after his embarrassing defeat.

"Aww, is my wittle fennec all mad," Poppy said in a baby voice. "D'you want me to make it better?"

"Poppy, I swear if you don-" Finnick started to say, before Poppy pressed her lips to his. Shocked, her let his eyes droop and deepened the kiss.

"C'mon," Poppy said, after finally taking her lips away. "I got another game I can whoop you at."

"Fighting game?"

"Sort of," Poppy said, her lips curling into a coy smile, as she lead him by the paw to his bedroom. "It's multiplayer. And we can both be winners."