"Nick."

"Yes, Carrots?"

"This fox doesn't even look like you."

Judy had faced lot of disappointment in her life. As a child asking her parents for approval, she was crushed to find that they would never believe in her dream of becoming a police officer. As a teenager going to the school dance, her heart broke to hear that pretty boy Fiver was taking Rosianna (who, in her envy, Judy likened to a fat slut) instead of her. However, nothing had prepared her for the moment she stepped inside Nick's 'mechanical penthouse.' What she had failed to realise was that the term stemmed from slang the repairmen gave it to openly mock the amount of time they had to spend inside of it. In truth, it was just little more than a glorified boiler room that Nick had embellished with some appliances and furniture. The building that housed it was seated at the very edge of the city between the suburban areas near the Rainforest District and the actual city itself, an offering that Nick referred to as "the perfect blend between survivable environment and cheap housing." Judy couldn't help but feel the fox was being a bit generous with the term "survivable" (Judy found herself being forced to duck under large piping to even get through the door), but when considering his continued effectiveness on patrol, she eventually opted to let it go. Still, she felt guilty that Nick was living in such squalor. Even The Grand Pangolin Arms offered a complimentary de-lousing once a month and a location close to work. Reflecting on all the times Judy had criticised her partner's inability to arrive to work on time, she had begun to feel the slightest tinge of regret.

The regret did not last long, however, for as soon as Nick brought her to his "Nick-elodeon," the feeling was replaced with envy. That, and an intense desire to hurt him for such a terrible pun. Despite the run-down appearance of the actual 'apartment,' Nick lavished attention upon the furniture choices when sprucing it up. The pair were currently stretched out on opposite ends of a luxury sofa, watching Arrestud Antelopement* on a 50 inch Lion Goldstein television. "$200 a day, fluff," Nick reminded her, furthering her confusion about the so-called suite in which he resided. Moving past that, they settled on spending the time cracking jokes at the characters' expenses. It had started out innocently enough: Judy would complain about the plot, Nick would set up a joke, Judy would miss the opportunity to deliver the punchline, and then Nick would chastise her for her absolute lack of wit.

Needless to say, the night was going perfectly.

That was, until Judy's criticisms changed from the characters and instead began to bear down upon the actors and screenwriters. On the screen, the fox protagonist, Mick, was in a heated debate with his horse brother, Cob. They were chasing each other around a courtyard in a personal squabble over the love of Cob's spanish ibex girlfriend. It was here that Judy decided to reveal her doubts about Nick's claim that he was in fact the famed fox on the screen.

"I guess that just goes to show you how good of a job the prosthetic makeup department did," came Nick's easy reply.

"You never seriously expected me to believe that, right? His head isn't even the same shape as yours, Nick. In fact, I'll list the similarities: you sound like him and that's it. That's the only similarity. It's less believable than a horse and a fox being brothers fighting over a relationship with a goat."

Nick, slightly hurt by both Judy's rejection of the fact that he was the actor for Mick and for her discrepancies with interspecies relationships even to this day, decided to make a joke about it. "Aww, come off it, Carrots; jealousy is unbecoming."

"Among the differences between you and Mick," retorted Judy, "perhaps the most major is his selfless attitude and kind nature."

"Ooh, that stings," Nick admitted in a mocking manner, "I take pride in my generosity, and to hear those words coming from you causes me great pain.

"Speaking of generosity-" Nick got up to go to his refrigerator on the other side of the the floor, deliberately walking in front of Judy just as the ibex in the show started yelling at the brothers for fighting. Ignoring Judy's look of annoyance at the interruption, he entered his sorry excuse for a kitchen before calling out: "-Hopps, did want anything from the fridge?"

"Yes; I want you to put on an actually good show" Judy teasingly responded.

She barely had time to react as a water bottle came careening dangerously close to her ears. It bounced harmlessly off a nearby industrial heat vent, but Judy gave a small chuckle at the gesture. That's odd, thought Judy, the use of light physical violence as a form of affection is usually my thing.

Nick unceremoniously plopped down on the couch next to her with another two bottles, offering one up to her as a token of piece.

"There, Carrots. Don't let me ever hear you slant my good nature ever again."

Judy pretended to gasp. "Good nature? Heaven help us, what have you done with the real Nick?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, there must be some confusion. You see, I'm clearly not this 'Nick' you keep referencing; I'm the actor for Mick in Arrestud Antelopement. I didn't realise that you were confusing Nick and I for the same mammal this whole time."

Judy raise an eyebrow at him and, smirking, went back to watching the show. Together, they let the conversation drop for a little while, silently agreeing to watch the show with just each others' company. Eventually, the episode was over, and the clock was nearing a time at which busy officers needed their rest. Nick was getting ready to turn off the television when Judy finally broke the silence.

"Nick, why do you live like this?"

Nick was slightly taken aback, but responded quickly: "Well, Rabbit, it's because the place is so very peaceful that it makes it rather difficult to be frustrated while in the comfort of my own home. Isn't it you that loves to complain about their crazy neighbors that keep them up all night? Maybe bunnies work differently, but we foxes like to get our beauty sleep every once and a while."

"Oh, harr harr," responded Judy, sardonically. "But that's just the thing, Nick; when my neighbors are yelling at each other, it's much easier for me to focus my frustration towards them than think about all the things that I failed to do that day. Sometimes it's nice that you have something to vent about to your friends without having to truly open up about your fears and self-doubts to do so."

A beat passed before Nick realised he was still staring at her. During this time, the still running Nutflix had switched to the next episode in the season.

"Wow, Fluff," He started.

"How uncharacteristically poignant."

This time, it was Judy's turn to hurl something at the source of her displeasure. Fortunately for Nick, she had already drained her water bottle of contents and it lost all momentum by the time it made impact. Nick braved a response:

"Wow, you should be glad I'm not a perp or I would have just laughed at you. As it is, I'll let you off with a waning that hopes you never attempt to catch anyone that isn't Weasleton." Nick looked back at the television for a brief moment before re-opened his mouth to speak.

"You know, you sounded so much like BoJack there."

Judy's confusion must have been evident on her face, because Nick gestured at the horse on the screen before continuing. "Cob's actor. There was something in the way you said that just reminded me of the weird things he used to say when we were alone together." Nick laughed softly to himself. "It's funny: you don't realise how much you miss someone until you start thinking about them."

Judy gave him a once over before saying anything. "Nick, you know I'll never believe that you were ever, in any life, the actor 'Jason Batemammal', right?"

Nick let out a soft exhalation out of his nose and smirked at her. "Oh, don't believe me? I'll get us all out to a fancy dinner sometime; you BoJack and I; and we'll all catch up on what we've been up to since we last saw each other. Who knows, maybe we'll even see if that old coot ever decided to settle down with someone nice. Probably not, though, that ol' scoundrel."

"Promise you won't just revert back to life of crime as soon as you two see each other again? If he was friends with you ten years ago, should I need worry about his criminal record?" Judy asked, with her eyebrow raised. "That aside; how does February sound? That's a slow month for crime, and we could always use the vacation."

"Sure thing, Rabbit, I promise to stay to the straight and narrow while with BoJack. As for next February; it's a date!"

Nick cringed internally at his phrasing, but outwardly made no change to his demeanor. Instead, he coolly moved to turn off the television when Judy interrupted him once again:

"Say, it's pretty late, and cold, and dark. You don't suppose..." She hesitated, the implications of her suggestion suddenly clear to her. Still, she pressed on, "This sofa is pretty large, right? I could feasibly just, you know. Stay the night? Would that be okay, Nick?"

Watching Judy stew in her own embarrassment was too great an opportunity to pass up, so Nick made sure to draw out his response for as long as possible. "Wellll, if I could approve of it, I would have to charge you 500 bucks per hour that you spend wasting space on it. There are warranty violations to consider, of course; they say rabbits tend to destroy expensive burgundy furniture faster than any other animal in Zootopia, so I will definitely have to cover the risks that come with your proposal. After all, it was because of you that I lost opportunity in the business that originally paid for this couch." Nick said, continuing to fuel his flopwop's fluster. Any mammal do the same- just look at her face!- but he realised that too much teasing might cause her to explode. For the sake of the work it would take to clean up such a fuzzy mess, Nick eased up on the poor bunny: "Buuut, as a friend, I suppose I can give you the first night free of charge. "

Judy contemplated his words. "And what if I decide to ever come here again?"

"Well," said Nick, "You had better bring a checkbook."

And so, Judy and Nick fell asleep together on a couch watching a corny sitcom.

Platonically.

*Author's note: I still hate that I can't come up with a better pun than "Arrestud Antelopement"

So, only ~4,000 words into this fanfic and I'm already procrastinating. This should have been finished Thursday, but I decided, "Nah, let me rewatch the entirety of the actual Arrested Development series and also put off other work because I hate responsibility."

Thank you for reading it so far, and I'm sorry that anything interesting has yet to happen. I only hope I can fulfill that void in the up and coming one-page-length 'chapters'!

Another thing to note: I changed the genre from "Humor/Angst" to "Romance/Angst" because I'm a massive WildeHopps fag who just remembered they can't tell a funny joke to save their life.