'What's gotten into me?' Nick thought to himself as he walked back to his 'apartment' in the freezing cold of the night, shocked. Thankfully he lived just around the corner so it didn't take long for him to find his way back to his place.
He let out a long, partly satisfied sigh as he arrived to his destination, taking in the cozy sight of the storage depot he spent most of his nights at.
Soon enough he was kneeling down in front of his unit, his head now at the same height as his waist was just seconds before, trying to connect his keys with the padlock on the right side of the large door that kept it closed. His paws were shaking; although not because of the chilly air that surrounded him. The low temperatures of Tundratown didn't really bother him at all after having lived in the snowy region for just about ten years.
The reason for his uncontrollable shakiness was the fact that he had (definitely more than) befriended somebunny- a freaking bunny- he barely knew at all. He let that thought sink in a bit deeper whilst still desperately trying to open the blue roll-up door, which denied his access to the comfy warmth waiting inside.
'We letting rabbits on second dates now?' the little thing called 'the voice of reason' questioned him. Nick would often have arguments with it after doing some really low stuff back on the streets. Things along the lines of hustling senior citizens and such.
But this time the voice was different. It sounded teasing and the disappointed tone from all the times before was replaced with… an intrigued one?
"Oh shut up, I'm trying to think here. Besides I was just being nice. She would've frozen in that joke of a jacket of hers", Nick mumbled back.
'Alright, I'll give you that one. But care to explain that note then?'
Seconds after seconds passed, Nick scrambling through his brain for a proper answer.
He never found one.
'That's what I thought, Slick'.
"I don't recall my dating life ever becoming your business", 'Slick' fired back.
'Oh don't be like that. I'm only here to help you out.'
'I've got a good feeling about this one.'
"What's that supposed t-"
He was interrupted when he felt the snow cover under his back paw slip and his whole body jerk in an attempt to regain balance- eventually losing the fight to gravity. The fox fell forward, his muzzle hitting something before the rest of his body slammed with the slippery ice bottom, which was hiding under the clean snow. The key to the padlock flew from his paw and landed about eight feet from him before sliding an extra two for extra measure. It was quickly covered under a new layer of snow, making it almost impossible to notice.
Nick found himself trying to stand up after laying still on the ground for a good half a minute, groaning in bitter defeat. However, he didn't make it far up before he was pulled right back down on his stomach. He finally opened up his eyes to examine what exactly was going on.
"Oh give me a break!" he shouted at no one in particular, understandably sounding very frustrated.
His wet, black nose had touched the metallic padlock and was now frozen against it. He carefully rose to his knees, keeping his head low. Multiple delicate yanks, and even more minutes spent trying to locate the key, later, he - much against his will - gave up.
Having lived there for far too long, the vulpine knew that no one would show until the next morning- maybe not even then, since this was a rather secluded place.
Nick grabbed his phone - an old Pawkia with a crappy touchscreen - from the left pocket of his khakis, entered his very secure password of four digits (1234) and made his way through the long list of contacts. Despite having very few actual friends, he still knew most of the mammals living in Zootopia.
Finally finding the name he was searching for, Nick selected the 'Call' option multiple times before the device registered his pawpad touching the screen. He brought the phone right next to his left ear, holding his right one with his free paw in an attempt to block out the howling of the wind.
After two or three drawn out 'beeps', the fox heard his acquaintance pick up.
"Whaddup man?" a disturbingly deep voice greeted, surrounded by distant shouting and sounds of things breaking- must've been a bar fight or something.
"Yo, can you come and help a brother out? I kinda had an accident."
"Not this crap again. How the fuck do you even lock ya ass out like that, Nick? This the fourth time, right?" The mammal on the other end was clearly stifling a hearty laugh.
"Doesn't matter dude! Are you coming or not? I'm getting cold out he-". Despite him having developed a winter coat because of his long stay in Tundratown, he couldn't bare the chilly air for too long.
"Shit man, I'm on my way, no need to get all weepy 'bout it", the gravelly voice answered swiftly before Nick could finish.
There was a long frustrated but relieved sigh followed up with "A'ight, thanks, Finn. See you in a bit." He hung up before his buddy had the chance to answer.
He was just about to shove his phone back into his pocket when he felt it vibrate twice in his paw. He took a very brief look at the screen, which showed a notification of two new messages from an unknown number.
'Let's deal with that later', the voice inside of his head returned, and Nick put his phone away.
Nearly twenty minutes later the all too familiar and beat up looking van pulled up to the parking lot right next to the storage depot- the ground almost shaking from the loud music bursting out from the insides of the vehicle. The questionable art on its side reminded Nick of all the great things the three of them had gone through together- not that he ever wanted to relive any of them.
The door slammed open, and out jumped an extremely small sized, brownish-gold coloured fennec fox with ears seemingly larger than his actual head. Like always, he was wearing a black bowling shirt, which had a thick red stripe on its right side, and olive shorts.
Nick always put on his regular smirk in the presence of his closest friend; this time being no exception.
"D-do you ever wash tho-those?" Nick joked, holding in a chuckle. His teeth clanked together from the long stay outside as he spoke.
Finnick grunted and started casually walking towards the now freezing red fox. "Oh look who's talking. You remember that green Hawaiian shirt of yours? Three years without washing it and you kept it on almost every single damn day", he witted back in a tone that could only be described as 'I'm-being-really-cocky-to-my-pal-here-cuz-he-knows-that-I-care-about-him'-y.
The two hadn't really seen each other after Nick left for the College of southern Tundratown, which everyone simply called by the same name as the reason it was so often picked, just like in the red fox's case- COST.
Although going to COST was rather cheap - at least when compared to the other alternatives - it really wasn't that much worse. Actually the biggest, and maybe the only, difference was that the campus itself was in a rather bad shape. This didn't bother him that much as he had gotten used to living in a poor neighborhood as a kit.
And as long as Nick had a chance of getting himself a degree, he would ignore all the difficulties he would face in the process of doing so.
"Here's a can", Finnick said- now in his normal flat tone, and threw a medium sized beer to the bent down fox. "Get ya fluffy ass up 'n' help me find the key."
"Yes, m-ma'am", Nick lazily saluted and caught the can of beer using both of his paws, still unable to turn his head towards his friend. The beverage was lukewarm, maybe a little below room temperature.
He opened the can and started pouring the liquid inside onto his nose. He almost threw up when the strong stench of rotten eggs made its way inside of his nostrils.
"How o-old is this Finn?" he asked, gasping for air with watery eyes.
"Hell do I know man, I don't keep track. But based on the smell I'd say somewhere 'round six to seven months", he replied grumpily, lightly kicking the snow on Nick's right side in order to feel or see the small object he was searching for.
There was another audible gag followed up with a loud gasp.
"Whe-where did you even find this?" Nick asked, genuinely curious, but then changed his mind. "Never mind, I d-don't want to know".
After what felt like an eternity of torture, the larger fox got up and cleaned his whole muzzle using the white snow on the ground. Both of the two now looking for the key, Finnick turned to face the other mammal, and changed the subject.
"Why you still living in this shitty storage anyways, Nick?"
"Why are you living in that van of yours?" the larger fox fired back without looking at him.
"You already know my reasons."
"And you know mine, Finn. Going to college isn't exactly free, and I want to have some spare cash for a rainy day. Besides, I think that my-", he held up his paws and made quote signs, "'nest' is more than satisfying".
A moment of silence fell between the pair- the only sound being Nick's teeth repeatedly clanking together.
"Yo, found it!" Finnick shouted out, picking up the metallic object before strolling to the padlock. He opened it in the matter of moments, having no problems whatsoever doing so.
Nick grunted and rolled his eyes in a large circle motion as he rolled the door up so that they could enter.
The storage unit was designed to hold mainly polar bear sized things in it, so there was no shortage of room. The 'apartment' had a portable radiator heater on its both sides and a large cabinet on the back wall. The walls were painted white, although some of the paint had been scraped off by the cold, revealing the dull grey concrete under the thin layer.
Nick didn't own a bed. He thought they were too uncomfortable not to even mention expensive. Instead he had a very big, dark purple, velvet covered bean bag chair. He slept on it like a little kit, rolled tightly into himself with his tail covering most of his mass as if it was a blanket. Only a few selected mammals knew about this, Finn being one of them.
Surprisingly enough the storage had a single outlet, which had been installed just in case. This allowed Nick to have a microwave, which he barely ever used. He much preferred going to a couple cheap diners around town to achieve his daily nutrition income.
"Hmpf. More than satisfying, my ass. You don't even have a bathroom of your own."
Nick emptied his pockets and threw all of his things inside the wooden cabinet's lowest drawer and shut it. He then reached up and opened the second one, pulled out a black and white striped sweater, put it on and turned to face the door.
"Speaking of which", he said matter-of-factly and left for the toilet located in the office building. The owner of the business, an old reindeer, was a close friend of Nick's parents back in the day, and was more than happy to help him out- as long as the fox didn't cause any trouble. And paid a little extra.
As the door closed once again, Finnick jumped onto the bean bag chair. He browsed through the room for a while, mainly trying to figure out something to do while his buddy was gone.
His giant ears picked up a very muffled buzzing sound originate from the lowest drawer. He got back to his feet and made his way to the cabinet.
Slowly pulling on the brass handle attached to the wooden surface, he opened the drawer slightly with an ear-piercing creak. A bright light shined inside.
Seconds after he was holding Nick's Pawkia in his tiny paws.
"Three new messages, huh? If only I knew the password", he chuckled to himself, the raspy voice filling the storage unit.