I DO NOT OWN ANY OF ZOOTOPIA CHARACTERS; I MADE THIS WORK ONLY TO ENTERTAIN AND NOT TO PROFIT.

Hi everyone! This is my first publishing, and since I am not very good inventing, I decided to present you a translation of a series originally written in Spanish, Someone to lean on, I read this story not long ago, and I liked it so much that I really wanted to translate it, since I am an expert in English (well, not), so here it is.

I want to apologize beforehand, for any possible mistake of conjugation, use of words, etc. I tried very hard not to screw it, but I am human so I could have made some mistakes, so please, be merciful and tell me if I did something wrong; in addition, I want to say this is not a ONE HUNDRED PERCENT faithful translation, sometimes I had to change some things because I didn't know how to translate them, and other times I added some details to make the reading a bit easier, but no need to worry, the story was not modified at all.

Finally, I want to know if you liked this first chapter, it took me several days to translate it, and I want to know if it is worth to complete the rest of the series, so please, if you liked it, tell me.

I have nothing else to say, enjoy the reading!

Link to the cover image: art/Zootopia-El-regalo-600466540

Link to the original work: s/11850299/1/Someone-to-lean-on

SOMEONE TO LEAN ON

WRITTEN BY: Nefertari Queen

TRANSLATED BY: JuanLMejiaG

COVER IMAGE BY: Angelus19

CHAPTER 1: The Tigerwild case

Judy Hoops woke up early that morning, thrilled and ready for a new day as police officer. She hurried up, put on her sport clothes and went out to jog by the streets; she liked to start the day exercising.

She jogged and listened music as she thought of how fast her life changed so much. She had been living in Zootopia for three years and she had turned into a respected police officer.

¡She had fulfilled her dream! And if that were not good enough, she had a fox as her best friend. If somebody told her that some years ago, she would not have believed it.

Since Nick became a cop, they both were inseparable partners, as much in the work as in their free time, despite teasing each other often and having their differences, they trusted each other and appreciated each other because of that.

After years of friendship, Judy could assure that she completely trusted in her fox friend (her parent did not resign to that friendship for years, tough) and could say sincerely that Nick was a very important part on her life, perhaps the most important below her job and family.

¿And how could he not be, if she hung out with him every time she could? Since they were best friends, they used to go together to cinemas, restaurants, or malls, just to pass the time.

Judy even had a copy of Nick's apartment key and some clothes in there, because she used to go to visit him, and sometimes she spent the night there (and vice versa, Nick had a copy of Judy´s apartment key).

Their coworkers regarded them as a matchless duo, and they both liked that. For years, both of them were alone, with nothing but their disappointment and dreams, until they met, and found on the other the strength and confidence they always needed.

Returning to her apartment, Judy thought of Nick, recalling that his birthday was coming up, in two week to be more specific, and reminded herself to buy a gift, Nick used to give her beautiful gifts on her birthday, and she felt the urgent need of surpassing him.

She reached her apartment's door, tired yet happy, and saw there was a newspaper on the floor at the entrance, she picked it up and read the header:

—"Andrew Liunferth gives a speech against marital reform"— It said; just reading that caused all Judy's good mood to vanish, she threw the newspaper over the desk without reading the rest of the new, hastily she took a bath and put on her uniform, trying not to think of that Andrew guy as she did.

Zootopia was a city that swelled with pride for its motto, which claimed that there, anyone could do and be anything, but that phrase was not precisely true, at least, not at all.

Societies change as years pass, but those changes are gradual, and sometimes, too slow compared to how fast life goes on.

Judy Hoops realized that when she broke stigma by becoming an efficient and respected cop, despite being a little bunny.

Only large strong animals performed the police tasks for years, indirectly disparaging the small species. Judy was not only the first small animal in being a cop, and she proved with her actions how effective she could be, encouraging thousands of tiny mammals to enroll themselves in the police academy.

That change was relatively fast, even though some animals still showed reserved about it, Judy's kindness and enthusiasm infused confidence, making the transition a bit easier.

Nevertheless, there were many other issues which were not going that good, which were disputed by specialists, arousing heat discussions.

The most polemical and resent case was a marital reform, which intended to allow the marriage between animals of different species and of the same gender.

Those couples had been years demanding to be recognized, causing the disgust of conservatives mammals who regarded these relationships as anti natural. After decades of pushing, the congress was finally appraising the option of modifying the law and recognize them, through a series of of debates that seemed to last an eternity.

The citizens were split in two: those who supported the reform, and those who rejected it; meanwhile, the congress met every day in order to discuss the viability of the project.

Judy kept one eye on the congress debates with genuine concern. If all the species were able to live together in peace and harmony, ¿why couldn't they love each other too? She had been living in Zootopia for three years and many of her friends were couple with animals of other species, she understood they might be a bit stunning at first sight, but they were kind and loved each other as much as the intraspecific couples did.

She was concerned since the citizens seemed to be showing too homophobic and racist, the same way they did toward predators three years ago, just because of unjustified prejudices that hurt many noble mammals.

However, to be honest, she could not do nothing about it but keep aware of the congress' decisions; the reform was not something affecting her anyway.

She walked to the police station as she plunged in her earbuds in order to listen the radio; it was transmitting the specialists' opinions about the polemical reform.

—"¿How can two animals of different species be a couple? That's just not natural, that can't simply get along nor understand each other at all, plus, ¿what about the raising issue? The reform is appraising the possibility of allowing inter-species to adopt, just try to imagine the great harm it would be for those innocent children to have such an insane parents? ¡There got to be limits, sir!"— It was just another speech from Andrew Liunferth, one of the most passionate reform opponents.

Judy rolled her eyes at those offensive comments, then shifted stations until she found up one that was running Gazelle's songs, so kept listening them until arrive at the police station.

She entered the quarters, greeting everyone there until she reached the room where they would be assigned the today's missions, for Judy's surprise, Nick was sitting right there, with the both of his arms crossed behind his head.

—"What a miracle! Why are you in time today?"— She asked as sat down beside him, her fox partner used to be late.

—"It won't hurt me to rise early once in a while"— He replied in his usual relaxed way—"Plus, if I'm late one more time I might be reduced my salary"

Judy rolled her eyes; money was the only thing able to put Nick on the straight path.

Then, chief Bogo got into the room huffing, causing everyone there to keep silence at the buffalo evident bad mood.

Bogo threw some dossiers onto his desk and took a deep breath, calming down. He started assigning all the officers simple cases and patrolled zones, they all left the room one by one until there were just Nick and Judy left there.

—"You two, come here!"— His voice sounded serious, the fox and the bunny walked to his desk cautiously.

—"Did Nick blew it up again?"— Judy thought to herself, thinking of her partner's pranks, which made the chief so mad that he had already reprimanded him a few times.

Bogo handled them the remaining dossier onto his desk, it was little, and Judy had just started reading it when the chief spoke again in a heavy and angry tone.

—"Quite important case, the major's gonna kill me if it's not solved soon."— He said, a threatening deed in his words—"I expect to have good results in forty-eighth hours, burn up all the resources you need, just put that goddamn tiger in the jail! Understood?"

—"Yes sir!"—they both said as spread open the document in order to find out what it was about.

—"Tigerwild case"— Judy started reading aloud so Nick can follow—"In the Sahara square, a female young tiger and a males young jaguar were found dead in an average apartment, it seemed to be a premeditated murder, the evidences indicate they were a couple, and put the female tiger's brother as the main murder suspect"

They both stayed quite and silent, until Judy spoke:

—"This is pretty bad, with all the mess about the reform, this might be an inconvenient"

—"Let's go then"—Nick closed together the documents and picked out the keys to the police cruiser—"We gotta hurry up if we want to catch the murderer"

Despite being a significantly big city, Zootopia rarely had such a severe cases, and Nick and Judy were always assigned the most important cases, since they were appreciated and respected by the citizens for never leaving any case unsolved.

—"Do you think it may be a case of homophobia?"—Judy asked as Nick drove to the crime scene.

—"It's very probable"—Nick seemed to be tense, Judy knew very well that cases like that, related with intolerance and abuse, touched deeply inside her partner, despite he tried hard not to show it.

—"We must to be careful, if it's raised up by media, the case might be manipulated and turn into an inconvenient to the reform"—it was a perfect header to a sensationalist article, which could be used to either benefit or to prejudice the marital reform.

—"That's surely why the major's pushing the chief so hard to settle it, he doesn't want this to get out of control"— Nick was driving faster than usual, he was obviously furious—"There's no clear information in the dossiers, but if it was her brother who…"

—"It's a tragedy, I know, but there's nothing to do but get the culprit"

Nick did not say anything.

The case was tiring on so many levels. The apartment was filled with evidences, the corpses were taken to the morgue where forensic scientists would study on them, it was evident that they were murdered though, there were very deep claw marks covering their bodies.

The apartment belonged a zebra, and it was rented by twin eighteen years old Bengal tigers: Lori and Michael Tigerwild. The neighbors said the two siblings did not get along, and apparently, the jaguar guy used to visit the apartment, especially when Michael was gone.

The couple of cops continued with the investigation by identifying the male jaguar, whose name was Tobias Wilkes, a twenty years old university student, he and the twin tigers went together to the same university, and presumably, they met there.

They continued with the investigation by looking for the tigers' relatives and friends and inquired them about the case, everything indicated that Tobias was friend of Michael, but he had a romantic relationship with Lori he tried to hide.

One Lori's friend confirmed it, and told Nick and Judy that the couple kept their relationship as a secret because Tigerwild family was extremely homophobic, dogmatic conservatives who firmly rejected the marital liberalism. Lori feared her parents could force her away from Tobias, with Michael's help, with whom she never get along despite being siblings.

Not long after they finished the Lori's friend interrogation, Nick received the autopsy report, tiger claws made the wounds covering the corpses, and they contained Michal Tigerwild's DNA.

With all the new evidence, the case was solved up and Bogo received the results in just thirty-six hours. Michael had found the lovers together in the apartment and in moment of homophobic fury, he killed them. For both Judy and Nick's horror, Michael was being hidden by his parents, who even fended him from the officers.

Michael was arrested under murder charges, but he and his parents manifested not to regret anything.

—"Lori's better dead than with that jaguar, even if she did still alive, I would still say my daughter's dead, at least with her death we were delivered from dishonor of her grotesque and anti-natural actions"— Her father stated, the officers tried to hold It off, but his words reached the media, and the hell was unleashed.

—"I just don't get it!"— Judy said, she was sitting in front of Nick in a rather empty restaurant, once the exhausting case was ended up, they both went off to dine, they needed a rest—"How can a father talk about his daughter that way!"

—"Some creatures don't deserve to have a family"— Nick was calmer than his partner was, the case made him feel indignant and powerless, but at least they had done their job, and thanks to him and Hoops, the murderer was going to spend a long season in the jail.

—"I can't believe it; I think I'll never be able to overcome this. I never heard such a heartless words in my three years as a cop"

—"Calm down, Carrots, these things are beyond any rational explanation"—He said as he tried to convince himself of that.

Judy noticed Nick was calmer than before and felt envy of him for that, he was able to disconnect himself from affairs around; on the other hand, whenever Judy dealt with shocking cases, it took her several days to recover the control over her emotions.

—"And we didn't even stop the story from reaching the media, I can imagine what kind of thing will be broadcasted tomorrow"— Judy said finally.

—"That was not our fault, a case like this couldn't have been hidden easily"— Nick replied.

—"The congress said they were going to release the verdict in two weeks, but I´m sure it'll be delayed because of this plight"

—"It may be, but that's none of our business. We are cops, not policies"

—"Yeah, it´s just that I'm sick of hearing about that stupid debate everywhere, and listen to those stupid conservatives´ racist theories"

—"You're giving excessive importance to people who aren't worth"—Nick slurped his smoothie, forcing himself to keep calm, he agreed with Judy, but didn´t want worry about things he could not control.

—"Maybe you're right, but it still makes me sick"

—"If it does, then you just don't listen the radio, why don't you bunnies make it easy?"

—"Perhaps, because we are not so cynical as foxes are"—Judy knew that Nick joked like that when he wanted to switch the conversation to another topic, and despite she remained firm in her opinion, but it had been a hard tiring day, so she decided to let it go.

—"Nor so sly, nor so intelligent"— Nick said.

—"But we are faster than you are"

—"Hey, foxes aren't perfect, well, not all of them, as you know, I'm an exception"

—"Dream on, you dumb fox"— Judy said, caressing Nick's shoulder in a playful sign of condolence, and they smiled at each other with sympathy, they stayed like that for a while, enjoying the other´s company.

When they finished their dinner, the couple made the way home, Judy's house was close to Nick's one, so they walked along together until he turned the corner to the right and headed off to his apartment; Judy stared at him as he carelessly walked away with his paws in the pockets, and vanished into the darkness, a warm smile widened on her face for no apparent reason.

Judy arrived to the apartment, which was large thanks to her raises and bonuses, it consisted of a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom with its own bathroom included, she took a long shower before lying down into the bed, but she couldn´t sleep soon. Staring at the ceiling, with her ears up in signal if vigil, she thought of the Tigerwild case and indignation came back abruptly to her mind.

Why did it make her blood boil so much? She certainly hated violence and supported equality, but lately she felt like the debates about the marital reform were affecting her more than they should.

The most of animals were neutral, and did not express neither approval nor disapproval; they seemed indifferent about it. A few stubborn conservatives alleged stormily against the reform, and the interspecies couples fended themselves and pleaded for being recognized.

Somehow, Judy, who was part of none of those factions, pried into the political debate as if she was a couple with an animal of other species, but she was single and far from falling in love.

Then, why did this issue affect her that much?

Her cellphone rang announcing a new message; she picked it up and read it with half-closed eyes.

—"You gotta sleep"

It was from Nick; she chuckled, half flattered and half touched that her partner knew her enough to reckon she was still awake.

—"I'm still thinking of the case" —Judy tapped the send button; the reply arrived in less than ten seconds.

—"Go to sleep, Carrots, your work's done"— It was true, but, how to explain him how offended she felt, like if it was her the one whose brother killed, like if that heartless father´s words were intended to her? Did that make any sense?

—"I'll try, thanks Nick"

—"You're welcome, good night"

Judy placed her cell phone onto the mattress and snuggled. She thought that it was ridiculous to feel offended for something she had nothing to do with, but her mind, exhausted for the long tiring case, finally gave up and she fell asleep; her last thought was Nick, smiling and telling her to calm down.

—"The Tigerwild case has shocked the whole city, being differently interpreted by the diversity of factions debating about the marital reform, which still being appraised by the congress. Conservatives like Andrew Liunferth reiterates on how anti-natural interspecies relationships are, emphasizing how they are able to shatter families apart, leading to feud and, in extreme cases, to murder, just like this pitiful case. On the other hand, activists like Mary Topperwerth allege that this sort of actions are the ones that aren't natural, and affirm the importance of raising awareness about boundless homophobia, which impede the animal's individual development. A spokesman from the congress declared…"

Chief Bogo turned off the TV of the cafeteria, for everyone's relief, nobody wanted to pay much attention to the situation. Judy pulled her ears down, evidently disappointed, she had been expecting those sensationalist broadcasts since the last day, but things were going worse than she imagined.

Nick, who was sitting at the same table Judy was, seemed not to be interested, causing her to be both stunned and angry.

There weren't exciting cases that day, so it was actually calm, fulfilling some paperwork and avoiding television and radios. There were twenty minutes to the leaving time, and Nick and Judy were just writing and sending the last reports of the day, silent and alone.

Judy was barely able to stand the silence, but she was still a bit angry with Nick for his apathy, so she just plunged in her earbuds and listened music. Everything nice until a transmission came up, announcing that the congress delayed the verdict for another six weeks, rather than two.

Judy headed a sigh, and brusquely saved the archives and dossiers into her desk drawers, displaying a furious expression.

—"If you keep nosing into it, you'll get ill, Carrots"

¡Just what she needed! The inappropriate and imprudent comments from the stupid and lucky fox… However, that day she wasn't going to stand them.

—"I know you care anyone but yourself, but I do care about those animals who have spent years fighting for the rights they're being denied"

—"Wow"— Nick said, placing a pile of papers onto his desk, and turning to face the enraged bunny—"Where did that come from? This is not my fault"

—"No, but your indifference drives me mad, can't you pretend you care about anything once in a while?"

—"Wait! My indifference drives you mad? How should I act then? It's not like that reform had something to do with me, nor with you, or perhaps you've got an otter boyfriend I haven't met yet?"

—"No, but…"

—"No buts! Why should we get stressed for something that doesn't affect us?"

—"Perhaps it does?"

—"How exactly?"— Nick said crossing his arms and raising one eyebrow.

—"It affects many animals!"— Judy said, louder than she expected, she was furious.

—"But not us"

—"Not me, but what about you?"

—"Me? Why would that affect me?"

—"Because… Because… Well… Because you shouldn't be so insensitive!"— Judy yelled at him.

—"Do you want me to be sensitive? Okay, I will tell you what I think; I think that all those stupid conservatives have never felt love, because if they had really felt it, they would know that when you love someone everything supposed to drive you away, bring you closer, differences may be annoying but love can turn them into virtues, when you love someone, it doesn't matter if she's an unbearable, restless, grumpy creature worrying about all around her, you still desiring to see her every day and you find it funny when she gets angry, because it's then when she looks the most adorable despite she wants to look menacing; you want to protect her, cheer her up, and keep her away from any danger. When you love someone, nothing matters but see that person happy, what is the freaking matter with being of different species or the same gender? Those conservatives are bitter people, who want to embitter other ones, and you're allowing them to do it to you, and that, Judy, really drives me mad"

When Nick finished his speech, his expression tensed up, he had revealed many of his deepest feelings and feared he had screwed it up. Judy was amazed, her ears tensed up, in an attempt to process all her partner and best friend had just said.

Although he sounded a bit anxious, his words resembled a love confession. Nick started hyperventilating, he was aware there was no turning back, and nothing would be the same between them after that. He took off his police hat, angry with himself, and hastily walked out the office, muttering:

—"See you later"

The bunny was dazed, how to interpret those words? At the end, she felt like she needed explanations from Nick himself, before jumping to wrong conclusions. She used her super hearing sense and heard that Nick was still in the police station, so she rushed to get him, thanking that she was faster than him.

—"Nick, wait!"— She shouted, Nick was about to reach the door and he was clearly ignoring her—"Nick!"

He walked out through the door and Judy lunged after him, she was about to intercept him, it was then when a wall of microphones closed around them, blinding lights aimed to the couple and a sea of voices rang into their ears. There was no way out, the mob of journalists desirous of news about the Tigerwild case, had been waiting for them some minutes ago.

Bewildered and cornered, Nick and Judy could not neither move at that harassment, nor clear what happened just some minutes ago.

TO BE CONTINUED