Hey everyone! This is only the second chapter and I'm already feeling the love! I'm just so overjoyed that what I'm writing is actually entertaining people!
All of your reviews were very helpful and I even got some good advice. I know that there is definitely room to improve and I plan on spending a lot longer on the next story making sure that my characters are uniquely developed.
Anyway, I just thought I'd let you know that this chapter is not going to pick up from the end of the last one. This installment isn't long after the events of the last chapter though, maybe like 2 days later or something. IDK. Time is hard.
It was a quiet morning. Outside the sun had just barely risen and was covered by wispy gray clouds. A light rain fell from the sky and dampened the ground and water dripped slowly from lampposts lining the near empty street.
A police cruiser rolled up and parked in the driveway of an averagely sized, rather cozy looking home and inside that home a fox lay fast asleep. Or at least he did until…
"HONK!" "HONK!" "HONK!" The sound of the police cruiser's shrill horn beeping in rapid succession cut through the silence of the morning and the fox sat straight up in his bed, eyes wide, and mouth hanging open in surprise.
Oh no…, Nick thought to himself as he recognized the sound of the dreaded car horn to which he had woken up to many times, not again!" Nick jumped up out of bed, clad only in his boxers and scampered over to the window.
Outside he saw the car that Judy picked him up in every morning for work and inside it he saw a very annoyed bunny dressed in her police uniform.
Late again!? Nick berated himself. He quickly opened the window before Judy could honk again and wake up the whole street.
The cool morning air gripped him as he waved to his partner from his bedroom window. "JUDY!" Nick yelled down to the car and he saw her look up towards him. "GIMME FIVE MINUTES!"
Judy honked the car horn quickly in response and Nick mentally went over what he had to do in five minutes. There's no time for breakfast or a shower, I just gotta brush my teeth and my fur and get dressed. Nick nodded to himself confidently. Easy!
Judy sat in the car, her foot tapping rapidly as she nervously eyed the time on her phone. Having seen Nick's morning routine Judy was very doubtful that he could make it out here in five minutes. That fox could spend an hour and a half simply getting his fur matted down the way he liked it.
Judy thought about using the horn again, because she really loved the horn, but decided against it even though Nick's five minutes were almost up.
Judy slouched back in the seat and sighed, already dreading the look they would get from Bogofor being late again. The strict police chief called tardiness a "criminal offense." But just as Judy started to lose hope she heard Nick's front door open and sat up to see Nick rushing out to the car!
Or at least something resembling Nick. Judy's eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the sight.
The thing that ran out of Nick's house was not the well dressed fox Judy was used to but instead what Judy imagined a homeless fox would look like. His fur was sticking up in different directions and his tail was sagging and appeared to be soaking wet. His police officer's uniform was on but the badge was upside down and as he opened the car door she was hit with an overwhelming smell of cologne that was almost unbearable.
Nick hurriedly hopped in and looked at her as she gaped at him, "Come on Carrots we gotta go! I didn't get ready this fast for nothing!" Judy quickly snapped out of it, pulled out of the driveway, and sped off on their way to the station.
Judy looked at the time and realized that they probably could make it to work on time thanks to Nick. She looked over slightly to see Nick staring down at his feet in silence.
They drove like this for quite some time and then Nick finally sighed pitifully, "OK. You can ask what happened."
Judy thought about saying that it didn't matter but she really was quite curious. "First off what happened to your fur?" she asked.
Nick grumbled, "I thought I'd use some gel to flatten it down quickly but then I accidentally squeezed some of the gel onto the floor…and I stepped on it…and fell." Nick shuddered at the memory and although Judy felt sorry for the downtrodden fox, she had to stifle a laugh as she pictured what that must have looked like.
"Are you OK?" Judy asked, concerned for her partner.
Nick replied sarcastically, "Oh yeah! Never been better! In fact I think falling onto the cold, hard floor really woke me up!"
Judy remained silent for a while. "How did your tail get soaked?" she finally asked.
Nick sighed deeply and Judy thought she saw him blush a little. "Um well…you know…I was cleaning up the gel and you know… the toilet was open, and…my tail kinda…" Judy quickly interrupted Nick as he embarrassedly recounted the event.
"You know, on second thought I don't really wanna hear about the tail!" Judy said quickly with a nervous chuckle.
"Your loss, Carrots" Nick replied, although he was truly glad that he didn't have to explain the rest of what had happened.
The two sat in silence for just a little longer as Judy neared the police station.
"Alright, one more question." Judy said.
"Go for it" Nick replied.
"Why the heck do you smell like you dropped a whole bottle of cologne on yourself?!" she asked as she rolled down a window to let in some fresh air.
Nick chuckled, "Because I did."
Judy shook her head slowly and smiled wryly, "What am I gonna do with you?"
Nick simply shrugged and smirked at her as Judy pulled into the parking lot of the station. Nick looked at the clock and saw that they were just in time. The parking lot was already full and officers were entering the building.
"C'mon Carrots we gotta go or all my hard work will go to waste!" Nick got of the car quickly and started to walk toward the station but Judy grabbed his paw.
"Hey!" Nick said confusedly. "What're you doing? We gotta go or we'll be late!"
"Trust me Nick," Judy said, "Bogo will be madder at you if you show up looking like this than if we're a couple minutes late. Now lean down."
Nick was surprised at the fact that he listened to her as he leaned down, "Why, exactly am I lean…Whoah!" Nick yelped as Judy grabbed his fur and started patting it down trying to fix it.
"You can't do this here!" Nick complained as he looked around the parking lot worriedly. "Someone'll see!"
"Why are you worried?" Judy asked, not really paying attention to Nick's words as she absentmindedly licked her paw and used it to pat down a stubborn strand of fur that kept sticking up.
"Because if one of the officers sees you fussing over me like you're my mom or something I'll never hear the end of it!" Nick continued to look around the parking lot hoping nobody was watching Judy grooming him in the parking lot as she readjusted his upside down badge.
"Oh quit whining, ya big baby!" Judy said as she took a step back and smiled, "I'm done! You look great!" As Judy smiled proudly, Nick grabbed her by the paw and rushed towards the station.
"I'll have to take your word for it! The briefing is about to start!" Nick yelled over his shoulder as he and Judy hurried up to the front doors and ran into the lobby.
Clawhauser, who was enjoying a donut (the 18th donut he had eaten that morning), saw the pair dashing through the lobby and waved. "Well look who's just in time! They're right about to start!"
As Nick continued to run towards the meeting room with his partner in tow, Judy managed to give Clawhauser a quick smile and wave before they turned down the hallway and burst right into the meeting room.
Every animal in the room turned to see a fox and a rabbit, both panting rapidly right at the front of the room. Judy looked around at the surprise on the faces of her fellow officers. She was embarrassed that they had caused such a scene so she lowered her head and went to take her seat.
Nick followed but suddenly his ears perked up and he froze as he heard the clock issue the beep that signified it was time for the meeting to commence and his face became a mask of immense joy.
"HA!" Nick yelled as he thrust his arms into the air in celebration, his smile so wide that all of his teeth were visible, "WE MADE IT! I DIDN'T THINK WE WOULD FOR A BIT BUT WE DID IT! HA!" Nick started laughing like a mad man until he heard an angry snort behind him and felt heavy breath on his neck and his smile slowly turned into a scared expression.
A deep voice behind him growled into his ear, "I suggest you sit down now Officer Wilde, or would you like to continue yelling like an idiot?!" Nick looked around the room to see every pair of eyes glued to him and only then realized that his celebration may have been a little uncalled for.
"Yes Chief Bogo" Nick replied so quietly it was almost a whisper and scurried over to his seat.
He looked over at Judy. She was holding her paw to her mouth to keep herself from laughing while shaking her head in disbelief.
"Alright!" Bogo yelled from the front of the room, "If we are done with the interruptions," Bogo eyed Nick angrily as he said this, "I have new case assignments for all of you." Bogo cast his eyes around the room moodily and then pulled up his clipboard and put on his glasses that looked miniature compared to the rest of him.
As he called off names he gave each group a folder outlining their duties and the specifics of their case. Judy sat impatiently in her seat as her foot kicked wildly at the air as if it had a mind of its own. Please don't be parking duty, please don't be parking duty, Judy begged. Bogo must know after the events of the Night Howler case that they could handle some pretty tough cases. Still, she was worried that Bogo would underestimate them.
Nick saw the troubled look on Judy's face and instantly knew what she was thinking. He put his paw on her shoulder and her leg stopped kicking nervously as she looked at him.
"Hey. Don't worry. We'll get a good assignment. Bogo knows you're the best cop in the whole of Zootopia," Nick said seriously and then smiled and added, "after me of course."
Judy smiled at this and remained at ease until Bogo finally called out their names. They hopped out of their chairs and walked up to the Chief.
"Now after your little performance this morning Officer Wilde I almost reconsidered giving you this case." At this Nick smiled bashfully.
"But," Bogo sighed, "you have both showed tremendous potential and I think I can start trusting you two with much more important cases. Here," he handed them a red folder, "don't mess this up."
"We won't sir!" Judy replied enthusiastically as she jumped up and down, already excited to start the case.
Bogo shifted his gaze to Nick, "It isn't you I'm worried about Officer Hopps."
Nick simply smiled at the grumpy cape buffalo as he walked out of the room with Judy. "Oh Chief Bogo, you always say the nicest things," he remarked snidely before leaving, satisfied with the grunt of anger he heard from Bogo as he left.
Judy was too excited to notice as she greedily read all of the information in the folder. She was so caught up in the file that Nick had to place his hand on the top of her little head and steer her through the crowded hallway so that she wouldn't hit anybody.
Nick led her to a bench in the lobby and sat both of them down. "So what're we looking at Officer Hopps?"
"An armadillo, by the name of Eric Elmer. He was a demolitionist up until a couple of weeks ago when he suddenly quit his job after an intense argument with his boss and disappeared without a trace. His brother came forward a couple days ago and reported that Eric had been making explosives and had said something about blowing up his boss's home. When a squad was dispatched to Eric's house though he was gone and although there wasevidence of explosives production there were no bombs in the house."
Nick whistled, impressed by the seriousness of the case. "So what do we do?"
"Hmmmm," responded Judy deep in thought.
Man she looks cute when she's thinking, Nick thought as he watched how her face scrunched up and her eyes narrowed. Not that Nick would ever tell her that. Judy hated being called cute. He had learned that the hard way and he still had a bruise on his arm to prove it.
Judy spoke up, "I think we should talk to Eric's boss first and figure out the suspect's motive. After that we should keep close watch on him and his house to protect him if Eric really was serious about attacking him. So maybe, a stakeout?"
Nick had been listening intently and nodding in agreement and when he heard stakeout he turned to face her, excitement showing on his face, "You mean we get to do one of those cool stakeouts like in the cop movies?!"
"Sure, if you think it's cool to sit still for hours on end staring into the night and probably not spotting anything." Judy watched as Nick frowned a little more with each thing she said and felt a little bad for crushing his hopes. "I'll bring snacks and we can use walkie-talkies if you want." Judy said to cheer him up and it did just that.
Nick was already excited. As he entertained himself thinking of all of the classic stakeouts he had seen in old cop films he heard a high pitched laugh from the middle of the lobby. Nick, Judy, and several other surrounding officers looked to see where it came from and saw that Clawhauser was the source of the noise.
Clawhauser saw the eyes on him and smiled, "Oh don't mind me! Something just tickled my fancy is all!" The cops just smiled at the Clawhauser that they had all come to know and love and went back to what they were doing and Nick and Judy decided to go talk to the perpetually-optimistic cheetah before they went to investigate their case.
"So what's 'tickling your fancy' these days Clawhauser?" Nick asked with a friendly grin as he walked up to the desk covered in multi-colored sprinkles.
Clawhauser looked away from his computer screen and squirmed with childish joy when he saw them. "Hi Nick! Hi Judy! It's funny you should ask that," Clawhauser looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was around, and he turned his computer monitor to face them.
Nick's jaw dropped and Judy burst into laughter as they saw the security camera footage of Judy grooming Nick from the parking lot this morning.
Clawhauser bubbled with laughter. "I wasn't spying on you, I promise! It's just my job to review security footage and I couldn't help but notice this juicy little tidbit!"
"Erase. Now." Nick said seriously. Clawhauser and Judy looked at Nick's stern face and then at the computer screen and finally at each other and erupted into laughter.
Nick's face grew red, or at least redder than it already was, and he frowned at them. "Seriously guys! I can only imagine what something like this might do to my reputation!"
Clawhauser's and Judy's laughter simply intensified at Nick's complaining and it took them at least another minute to compose themselves before Clawhauser spoke.
"Now Nick you know I can't delete security footage, but I can assure you that nobody ever watches this stuff. Your secret is safe with me." Clawhauser zipped his lips and flicked away the key. Then Clawhauser looked at the screen again and his seriousness faded away as he began to laugh again.
Nick groaned. "I'm gonna go sit in the car. It's been a long day." As Nick exited the building Clawhauser wiped a tear from his eye and sighed joyfully.
Judy leaned in close to Clawhauser. "You can get me a copy of that footage, right?" she asked.
"Definitely, sweetheart," Clawhauser grinned mischievously.
"OK Nick we're almost there," Judy said as she turned into StonePaw Heights, the neighborhood where the suspect's boss and potential target lived, "and would it kill you to wear your seatbelt?"
"You know I can't stand feeling restrained, Carrots. I don't judge you for your quirks." Nick replied matter-of-factly and then smiled wickedly. "Like how you sleep with a stuffed carrot."
Judy squeaked and slammed on the brakes, causing Nick to jolt forward and almost smack his head on the dashboard. "Whoa! Easy, Carrots!"
"Shoulda been wearing a seatbelt," Judy remarked, feigning pity, "and how did you know about Carl... er… I mean the stuffed carrot!"
Nick perked up, "Oh so it's Carl, is it?" he said teasingly.
Judy growled in a surprisingly predatory way. Nick quickly backed off.
"Ok, ok I'm sorry I brought it up! I only know about it cause of this one time I came over to visit you and you were gone. The door was kind of unlocked so, you know, I went in and, boom, I saw a carrot" Nick explained.
Judy huffed and started to drive again. "It was a gift my parents gave me to remind me of home when I moved out here." Judy said and Nick sensed homesickness.
Nick felt kind of bad for reminding her of her distance from home so he rushed to reconcile with her. "Ok how about a trade" Nick offered.
Judy cocked her head to one side, "Huh?"
"I know one of your secrets so in exchange I'll tell you one of mine. Deal?"
Nick instantly regretted his awful idea for a secret exchange and angrily thought to himself, what are you doing, stupid? You've never told anyone your secrets! Ever!
Judy forgot all about home as she wondered what Nick had to hide and agreed eagerly.
Nick frantically thought about something he could tell her. I can't tell her about getting arrested that one time since we're kind of cops. Nick continued to cycle through his mental catalog of secrets. Nope that one's too personal. That one's too embarrassing. Definitely not that one!
Nick started hoping that if he continued to stall like this Judy would forget about the deal that he had foolishly made, but she just sat there expectantly. Nick was more than a little disappointed in himself for not being able to bring himself to tell Judy almost half of his secrets. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he just wasn't used to opening himself up to people.
Up until he had met Judy, Nick had lived his whole life believing that the only person he could truly trust was himself and that confiding in anyone else would just lead to trouble. Now Nick would trust Judy with his life. However, old habits die hard and though Nick tried, he just couldn't bring himself to give away anything.
Judy sensed the discomfort in Nick's silence. "Nick, you don't have to tell me anything" Judy said reassuringly. "I get it. Some things are better off kept to yourself."
Instead of being relieved at this, Nick actually felt a little ashamed and he frowned. Judy sounded all right but he couldn't help but feel like he had let her down. His one friend in the world and he couldn't even tell her one hidden detail of his life.
Nick suddenly became very angry at himself and pledged that soon, very soon there would be no secrets kept between him and Judy. Nick's thoughts were cut off as Judy's voice broke the silence.
"Here we are," Judy said, and the car slowed down and pulled into a driveway that led up to one of the biggest houses Nick had ever seen in his life. The lawn sprawled out spaciously and a pool could be seen behind the house.
Nick whistled in awe, "D'you think we can get Mr. What's-his-name to pay us for our services?"
"Nick we're cops" Judy said simply as she parked and stopped the car.
Nick thought about it for a while. "Well then maybe we could tell him that a mandatory and very extensive search of his pool is in order." Nick smiled and rubbed his hands together.
Judy smiled at her partner. "You know sometimes I wonder how you made it through training."
Nick simply replied, "I had a great mentor."
"You got that right" Judy smiled and opened her door. "C'mon partner, let's go solve us a case."
Nick hopped out of the car and the pair walked up to the house side by side. As they approached the front door and rang the doorbell, the cop duo donned their sunglasses and gave each other a fist bump. Officers Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde were on the case.
OK! I left off here just because I thought it would be good if I covered the rest of the case in the next chapter and called it "The Stakeout."
Also, in regards to the problem that came up when Nick wasn't able to open up to Judy, I will not just forget about it! I fully plan on resolving the conflict in an upcoming chapter. I chose to keep the tension between them kind of low because I feel like Judy would understand why Nick wants to keep his secrets and because it's much more fun to write about them when they aren't mad at each other.
Anyway, I hope you all liked it! If you have any suggestions, ideas, comments, criticisms, or literally anything else please contact me.
Oh and just a warning: I have AP exams this week and next week so the next chapter might be a little while away. But not too long :) Take care!
