ZPD Break Room, Thursday, 4:50pm
"Let's go camping?" Nick asked Judy incredulously, repeating the offer back to her.
"Yeah, camping: you know that thing where you go out in the woods and have fun?" Judy replied enthusiastically.
"There're two things in the woods: bears and bugs; I'm not fond of either," Nick replied sourly.
"C'mon, Nick, it'll be fun! When's the last time you even went outside for more than just a walk to your car?" Judy asked.
"If God had wanted me to be outside," Nick huffed, "He wouldn't have created roofs. I'm not going, and that's final."
"Officer Wilde," Chief Bogo said as he walked into the break room, "I need someone to work parking duty over the three-day weekend."
"Oh, darn, it just so happens I'm going camping with Officer Hopps this weekend. In fact, I was on my way home to, uhhhhhh . . . inventory my equipment. So sorry! Toodles!" Nick said with a little wave of his fingers, then beat a hasty retreat out of the break room before Bogo could raise an objection.
Once the fox had exited, Judy turned to Bogo and smiled.
"I owe you one, Sir," she said.
"Try not to get him too lost," Bogo said.
Nick, of course, had no equipment to inventory. But he knew the one place that could set him right: Rodentia Equipment Inc. or REI for short. The running joke about the place was that REI also stood for Removes Excess Income. Nick hadn't heard that one.
"Ok, just going to buy a few things," he told himself as he walked through the doors, "A backpack, a tent, and some bear spray."
"Welcome to REI," a green-vested saleswolf greeted Nick as the he walked into the store. "You look like a fox that wants to go . . . rock climbing?" the wolf ventured.
"No," Nick replied.
"Kayaking?" The wolf asked, sounding more sure of himself.
"Nope," Nick replied again.
"Off-road biking?" the wolf tried.
"Nuh-uh," Nick said, shaking his head.
"Camping?" the wolf finally said.
"Bingo."
"A good weekend for it! And what equipment do you already own?" the wolf asked.
"Nothing but a sleeping bag. Me and the outdoors don't exactly get along," Nick said.
"So you'll need . . . everything?" the wolf asked with a huge grin, rubbing his paws together.
"I don't need anything fancy; just the basics, ok? And I don't want to spend a lot of money," Nick explained.
"Oh, most -certainly-, Sir, right this way!" the wolf cackled.
Three hours later, Nick was pushing his over-laden cart to the cashier when he remembered something.
"Do you have any bear spray?" Nick asked the wolf.
The wolf shot Nick a shameful look.
"Sir, would we carry FOX spray?" he asked. "Bears are peaceful, lethargic omnivores who, on the whole, avoid contact with other animals and generally run away when confronted."
"And when they don't?" Nick asked.
"You climb a tree and wait for the bear to go away," the wolf answered impatiently.
"Do you have bear repellant, instead?" Nick asked hopefully. The wolf frowned and shook his head.
"How about a bear taser?" Nick asked, a lot less hopefully. Again, the wolf shook his head and gave Nick the stink-eye on top of it.
"A pointed stick?" Nick asked sarcastically.
"You have a 36-inch, telescoping, twin-tined hotdog fork. Perhaps that'll provide you with some sense of security?" the wolf replied smarmily.
"Do they make wolf spray?" Nick asked snarkily.
"Now you're just being catty - register's over there," the wolf replied.
Nick trudged forward, pushing his cart in front of him like the world's best-outfitted homeless animal.
"That's quite a haul you have there, officer," the mare behind the counter said as she started ringing up Nick's items.
Nick watched with interest, then with alarm, as the prices flashed by on the screen.
"I'm sorry: was that fork $35?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yes, Sir: it's made from titanium! So much lighter than aluminum!" the mare replied brightly, then rang up a $50 cup. Nick raised a finger to object, but the mare simply said, "Titanium - so much lighter than aluminum. You'll appreciate the difference when it's on your back."
More items flashed by and the total continued to climb to figures Nick hadn't seen since his last over-due rent check.
"Twelve-hundred thirty-eight twenty-three," the equine finally said, "You saved 50 cents on the spoon, 'tho!"
Nick was sure he could hear the saleswolf laughing in the back of the store.
"And how much was the spoon normally?" he asked with morbid curiosity.
"Thirty dollars, fifty cents, Sir," the mare said cheerfully.
"Let me guess: titanium?" Nick asked as shock and resignation fought with each other in his mind.
"Yes, Sir. So much lighter -" the mare started.
"- than aluminum," Nick finished. Resignation had won. Nick flipped the mare his credit card and watched as his hoped-for retirement slipped back a couple of years.
Nick's apartment, Friday, 4:00am
In his dream, for completely dream-logical reasons, Nick was trying to talk a dolphin about a missing-mammal case, only Judy kept interrupting.
"Hi, Nick!" she said cheerfully as Nick quizzed the cetacean on the particulars of the case.
He ignored her and attempted to continue his conversation with the dolphin.
"Hi, Nick!" Judy interrupted again.
Nick scowled.
"Hi, Nick!" she continued.
"Hi, Nick!"
"Hi, Nick!"
That's when he woke up and realized that Judy had changed the ringtone on his phone - again.
Nick grabbed the phone off the bed stand and fumbled with it sleepily, trying to swipe his finger in the right direction on the screen. Success was rewarded with Judy's cheerful face.
"Hi, Nick! You ready to go?" she asked energetically.
He groaned and looked at the time.
"Carrots, it's four in the morning: only insane animals are awake at this hour." he replied wearily.
"We gotta go, Sleepyhead, the trailhead is two hours out of town and it's a five-hour hike after that!" Judy said, her voice brimming with enthusiasm.
That got Nick's attention. He sat up quickly.
"Um, FIVE hours?" he asked, looking over at the immense pile of REI-branded stuff in the corner. "I thought it was just a little hike?"
"Oh, don't worry," Judy replied, "it's a pretty flat trail. C'mon, let's go, let's go! Time's wasting!"
He began to wonder if the parking duty slot was still open.
"And how much coffee have we had this morning?" he asked suspiciously.
"Three Americanos, but they were doubles, so I'm all ready! Let's go!" Judy replied eagerly.
"No half-measures for you, eh, Fluff?" he asked. Even at 4:00am, Judy's go-get-'em drive was unstoppable.
"Nope!" the hyper rabbit replied.
Nick got up and opened his front door; Judy bounded in with a single hop.
"Morning, Sleepyhead!" she said. "Y'ready to go?"
He looked at his partner in dismay. She was dressed, minimally, in a pair of short bunny shorts that hugged her behind with intimate familiarity and a half-shirt that left her grey tummy exposed.
"Uh, Judy, did you forget the rest of your clothes?" he asked uncertainly - and tried not to stare.
"Silly! No sense in wearing too much and getting overheated," she answered.
"Eee-yeah, no sense in getting overheated . . ." Nick muttered to himself, looking for anything to focus on that wasn't a scantily-clad Judy.
"Is that all your stuff?" Judy asked, looking at the pile of equipment. "It looks like it weighs a ton!"
"Well, you know me," he said, "I like to be prepared."
"I'm glad all that's not going on MY back," she replied.
"Oh, not to worry," he said, "it's mostly titanium. So much lighter than aluminum, you know."
"You went to REI last night, didn't you?" Judy asked, giggling.
Nick began to cram items into his backpack and quickly discovered he had more stuff than space.
"I just picked up a few items," he said, trying to sound casual while he shuffled things around in his backpack to make more room; for some reason, he ended up with only half the amount of space he'd started with.
"How much did they get you for?" Judy asked, watching Nick trying to smoosh his sleeping bag into the pack. "I'm betting at least $700. And you strap that in on the bottom
He grumbled, "On the bottom, yes . . . and it's not nice asking people how much they spent on something."
Nick looked at the pile of stuff still needing to go in his pack when he spotted the receipt. So did Judy. Her paw was on it a split second before Nick could grab it away.
"Twelve-hundred bucks! Wow, they really saw you coming, Slick!" Judy giggled.
He snatched the receipt back and asked, "Are you going to be like this all day?"
"Like how?" she asked, her nose twitching curiously.
"Bouncy," he replied, no longer caring what went where in the pack, as long as it got in.
Judy looked at him and explained, "But I'm a bunny, we're supposed to be bouncy."
He stopped packing for a moment and looked over at his partner, keeping his eyes above her neckline. "There's bunny-bouncy, then there's over-caffeinated-Judy-bouncy. Sort of like how there's regular bombs, then there's atomic bombs."
Judy giggled and playfully flicked Nick's right ear.
"Boom!" she said.
TWO HOURS LATER.
Judy turned the key and her old grey farm truck rumbled and backfired to life, then idled uneasily. The stink of burning oil wafted into the cab.
Nick wrinkled his muzzle and asked, "Carrots, when's the last time you drove this thing?"
"When did we bust Bellwether?" Judy asked, putting the truck in gear and puttering out onto the road.
He sighed and shook his head. "Trucks require maintenance, you know."
"I put gas in it this morning, does that count?" she asked in her best dumb-bunny voice.
Nick smirked at Judy, and then turned his attention to landscape scrolling slowly by. Other cars flashed their lights behind the truck, and then sped past.
"How fast are we going?" he asked curiously.
"50 - it's all she'll do," Judy replied.
He looked over at the speedometer and sure enough, the needle pointed straight up at the 50 mph mark. Higher numbers suggested speeds the truck would never visit again short of being pushed off a cliff.
"And how far do we have to go?" he asked.
"About 150 miles," Judy replied.
"That's THREE hours," Nick noted, correcting Judy's earlier estimate. "I thought you bunnies were good at multiplication?"
"That's division," Judy smartly pointed out, and then she shot Nick a sarcastic grin.
The flummoxed fox slapped his forehead.
"Plus coffee-stops," Judy added.
"No coffee-stops: you're hyper enough already," Nick grumbled.
Judy reached down and picked up a green-labeled Snarlbuck's cup off the floor, and then she took a big sip while looking at the fox.
Nick's jaw dropped.
"Give," he said simply, holding his paw out.
"Mine," Judy said, holding the cup protectively against her chest.
"Formerly yours," he said as he grabbed the cup from her paw with one hand and rolled down the window with his other.
"HEY!" she complained, then said in alarm, "Nick, wait - DON'T DO THAT!"
"Or what?" Nick asked before he tossed the cup out the window. He had enough time to blinks and stammer, "Oh, no . . ." before his hubris caught up with him. Having thrown the cup into the slipstream of the truck, it now blew back through the window and smacked him in the nose.
"GAAAAH!" he yelped as lukewarm coffee splashed over his face and the upper half of his green button-up shirt.
"Nick!" Judy cried out, "are you ok?!"
"Just fine, Fluff," he replied.
A moment of silence passed before Judy spoke.
"Can I say it?" she asked with a toothy, bunny grin.
Nick grumbled and took off his shirt, and then pulled a rag out of the glovebox; he dabbed his formerly snowy-white chest ruff, now stained mocha brown.
"You most certainly may not," he replied.
"Please?" Judy asked, unable to contain her conceited grin.
"No," Nick said, frowning at the mess his chestfur had become.
"But I never get to say it!" she said, grinning from ear-to-ear.
"Ok, this ONE time you can say it . . ." Nick conceded.
"I TOLD YOU SO!" Judy exclaimed joyously.
"Ha ha," Nick replied sourly, "is that out of your system now?"
"Nope! I SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO told you so!" Judy continued, giggling.
He shook his head and asked, "How much longer until we get there?"
"Two hours, thirty minutes," Judy replied.
"What more could possibly happen in two and a half hours?" he asked and then settled himself against the uncomfortably hard backrest of the bench seat.
HALF-HOUR LATER.
With Zootopia well behind them and the forest ahead, Nick finally relaxed.
Judy was focused on driving.
"Whatcha have for breakfast, Fluff?" he asked.
"Granola and coffee," Judy replied quickly. She seemed VERY focused on driving.
"Oh, beats the nothingburger I had," he said, hoping Judy would recommend a stopping point for a snack.
"Uh-huh," Judy said, her voice slightly strained.
"Because, you know, I didn't have breakfast, unlike some mammals . . ." Nick continued.
"Let's, um, listen to the radio a little," Judy said with sudden urgency.
Reaching over with her right paw, she turned the old radio on and cranked the volume knob up high. Static issued from the single speaker on Nick's side of the dashboard. Frantically, Judy started stabbing the pre-set buttons until the cab filled with the melodious sounds of Prey Rap.
"I'm gonna catch a fox / and stuff it in a box / throw it off the bridge / and down onto the rocks!" Li'l Weasel the Rapper rapped.
Nick scowled at the radio.
"This is nice, right?" Judy asked nervously over the deafening din.
"Um, wonderful, but could we turn it down a little? Or a lot?" he replied, looking at the tense rabbit and flattening his ears to his head.
A second later, he felt a distinct rumbling through the bench seat and then another. Judy continued to stare straight ahead, but looked slightly less tense - even if the insides of her ears were turning bright pink.
"Did you just -" Nick started to ask.
"IT'S THE RADIO!" Judy interrupted quickly, "It's a Philco: they make odd noises!" She turned to Nick, wearing a nervous bunny grimace.
"You realize there's no padding on this seat and . . . SWEET CHEESE AND CRACKERS! Open a window!" he yelped frantically.
"The radio smells kinda funny when it's warming up!" Judy desperately tried to explain.
Nick grabbed the window crank a little too hard: it came off in his hand.
"Oh, no!" he yelped as he tried to cram the crank back on, only to have it fall on the floor and bounce under the seat.
"YO YO YO! WHAZZUP, ZOOOOOOOO-TOPIA?! K-RAP here delivering the hottest Hip-Hop, Rap and Beats in the cit-AY! That was Li'l Weasel's latest hit, "Foxes Are Complete Bastards" and a shout-out goes to tiny scamperers in Little Rodentia who 100-percent agree!" the radio blared.
Nick grabbed his ears and whimpered, "I have very sensitive hearing - and sense of smell!"
"Well, a gentlefox would have pretended not to notice!" Judy plaintively complained.
"And a lady would have said 'excuse me' and rolled down the window, not tried to blame it on the radio," Nick retorted.
"Speaking of complete bastards, let's see what the fascists at the ZPD are up to today! Remember: say NO NO to the PO-PO!" K-RAP continued before Nick suddenly slammed his foot through the speaker, then crossed his arms over his coffee-soaked chest and glared out the window.
"Are you going to be like this all day?" Judy asked.
"Like -what- all day?" Nick asked.
"Grumpy," Judy said.
"I've been up since 4, I haven't had breakfast and I'm trapped in a slow-moving truck with a gassy rabbit. I believe you'd be grumpy, too," Nick grumbled. Nothing outside the window seemed overly glare-worthy, so he instead stared straight ahead.
"C'mon, Nick, we're having fun! We're on the road, not at work, and have a whole weekend of camping ahead of us!" Judy said buoyantly. She turned and smiled warmly at the grumpy fox. Nick pretended not to notice at first, but eventually the corners of his mouth curled upwards.
"Ok, Fluff, if you say so," Nick finally relented and smiled back at her.
"Hey, Slick . . ." she said with a mischievous grin.
"Yes, Fluff," he replied.
Judy extended her right paw. "Pull my finger!" she said, and then laughed giddily.
Nick closed his eyes and groaned in exasperation, then said, "If you need me, I'll be in the back."
"Aww! It's funny when my dad does it," she said.
"You're not your dad," Nick explained patiently, "and it's not funny unless you're 12."
"'It's not funny unless you're 12,'" Judy playfully mocked, then added, "Nick the Stick."
"Nick the STICK?" he asked, confused.
"As in 'stick up the tail'!" Judy replied teasingly.
"Oh, is that so, Ms. Judy-on-DUTY?" Nick shot back.
"Nick-the-Stick!" she replied, laughing.
"Judy-on-Duty!" Nick smirked.
"Nick-the-Stick!"
"Judy-on-Duty!"
"Nick-the -"
"PULL OVER!" came the amplified command from the Highway Patrol motorcycle that'd slipped up behind the truck unobserved.
"Busted Bunny," Nick said.
" - stick!" Judy finished, and then stuck her tongue out. "I'll handle this. Just watch how it's done!"
After guiding the sputtering truck over to the side of the road, Judy sat and awaited her fate. Nick just sat there and wondered what else could possibly go wrong.
A grey wolf in CHP beige walked up to Judy's side of the truck and asked, "Do know how fast you were going?"
"50 miles per hour?" she ventured, giving the lupine officer a shy smile as he looked in.
"Closer to 30," the officer corrected, "There's a line of cars five miles long behind you. Are you aware of the traffic jam you've caused?"
"Oh, no, officer!" Judy said, giving her best innocent-bunny performance. It was obvious from the look he gave her he wasn't buying it.
"Step out of the car, please, Ma'am," the wolf requested.
Judy opened the door and hopped out, standing in front of the officer in her short-shorts and half-top.
"License and registration?" the wolf asked, looking down at her.
Nick looked over and realized the wolf was looking at Judy with something less than professional detachment.
"Oh, it's in the glove compartment, officer," Judy said, "I'll get it." She hopped up on all fours onto the seat and crawled toward Nick.
Nick's eyes opened wide in alarm as he looked at Judy crawling towards him and the wolf leering behind her.
"I'll get it!" Nick said and quickly opened the glove compartment. He fished Judy's registration out and handed it to her.
"Oh, HERE it is, officer!" Judy said, crawling backward.
Nick gritted his teeth when the officer grinned lewdly in his direction.
Judy hopped back out of the truck and presented her license. The wolf looked at it and his jaw dropped.
"THE Miss Judy Hopps?" he asked in awe.
"The very same!" Judy replied with her winning smile. She stood up on the balls of her feet for a second.
"Miss Hopps, if I may say so, you're cuter in person than you are on TV. You must be the cutest bunny I've ever seen!"
Nick casually looked over at Judy and watched her try not to seethe. When she stole a glance back at him, he just grinned toothily at her.
"Heh-heh" Judy performed her most forced laugh, "Cute - heh - well thank you, Officer."
"Everything seems in order here, Miss Hopps. You have a good day and keep your eye on that rearview mirror," the officer said, then strolled back over to his motorcycle.
Judy hopped back in the truck and lifted a finger to cut Nick off before he could say anything. That wasn't stopping Nick, however.
"Aren't you just the CUTEST little bunny?" he asked smarmily
"Hey, I didn't get a ticket!" Judy said triumphantly. "Just a warning to watch the rearview. I told you I'd handle it!"
"And speaking of rear-views: do you think you gave the officer a nice enough one?" Nick asked crossly.
"Well Nick Wilde," Judy replied in her knowing voice, "I know someone else with green eyes?"
Nick closed his eyes and asked patiently, "Who?"
"Jealousy," Judy said.