"So soft and fluffy."
"Nick, what are you doing back there?" Judy giggled.
"Nothing," as he grinned. Sunlight was streaming into the bedroom from around the sides of the blinds providing plenty of light in the room. Judy was lying face down naked on top of the sheets with a naked fox snuggled next to her. Nick's head was resting on Judy's lower back. His snout inches from Judy's tail as he gently moved his paw through her tail fur.
"Nick, stop it that tickles," Judy tried to put some authority into her voice but failed miserably, as she couldn't help from laughing.
"Nope. It's my turn," as he continued to caress her tail.
"So just why is a bunny's tail so cute and fluffy," Nick stopped caressing her tail so she could answer.
"It evolved that way to distract predators. In the past, when rabbits were hunted, the white of the tail would draw the predator's attention away from the rabbit's body. When a rabbit made a sharp turn, the predator would lose track of the tail and have to refocus on the body. That gave the rabbit several seconds to try and escape."
"Well, it certainly works. It's definitely, distracting this predator," as he started moving his paw through her tail's fur again. He stopped stroking her tail and grinned mischievously, as he moved his muzzle closer then gently blew through her tail's fur."
Judy gasped at the sensation, "Okay Nick, that's it, you're done. Get up here. I've had enough of you torturing me."
"That's not fair, you're the one who came up with this game, and it's still my turn."
"Fine, you can have an extra turn next time we play. Now get up here."
Nick turned and slowly planted kisses up her spine till he eventually reached the back of her neck. He shifted pulling her close and kissing her deeply on the mouth before breaking the kiss and rolling over onto his back. Judy moved over settling her chin on his chest while looking at his face.
"So are you still concerned that we may not be physically compatible?" she asked with a smirked.
He smiled at her, "I think we laid that matter to rest multiple times, last night." He paused, considering for a moment, "Though, since we may be the first bunny and fox couple we probably should try it at least a couple hundred more times purely for scientific purposes, of course."
Judy laughed, "Of course. Speaking of which," as Judy's paw moved through his chest fur, "are there any condoms left?"
"Unfortunately, no. We used all of them last night. So unless you want to risk it, we are going to have to wait until we can go to a store."
Judy bit her lower lip, "Sorry Nick, but I don't want to risk it. There's an old saying that a female bunny can get pregnant from just having a male look at her. Unfortunately, that is pretty damn close to the truth. While I don't mind the idea of having your kits, I would like to enjoy being a cop for a few years before dealing with becoming a mother."
"Well Carrots, I don't know about you, but I'm famished. I think I'm going to grab a quick shower, then make us some breakfast. How do blueberry pancakes sound?"
She smiled, "Wonderful."
"Well, why don't you rest up a bit and I will let you know when they are ready." Nick kissed her gently before crawling out of bed and heading towards the bathroom.
Judy smiled as she watched the naked fox walk to the bathroom and close the door. Several seconds later she heard the shower turn on. Judy reached for her phone thinking that she should probably check her email, in case the ZPD had sent her anything. Her paw paused over the phone, "Oh to hell, with it." She got out of the bed and walked to the bathroom. She opened the door, walked over to the tub, pulled the shower curtain back then climbed in closing it behind her.
As she saw Nick in the shower, she burst out laughing. Nick turned towards her quirking an eyebrow. She couldn't stop laughing, "I'm sorry Nick, but you look like a drowned rat."
Nick crossed his arms in mock annoyance, "You don't sound very sorry" as he looked at her. "I will have you know I'm a perfect model of what all male foxes should aspire to."
She couldn't help herself, "Nick, if that's the case, then I'm starting to pity your species."
"Nice, just for that you can wash your own back."
"Oh come on Nick, don't' be like that," as she continued to laugh. "Hand me the shampoo and sit down."
They had turned off the shower and filled the tub. Nick was sitting and enjoying the feel of Judy's paws as she slowly ran them through his fur cleaning him. She was in the middle of doing his back when she suddenly stopped. He felt her pulling and tugging on his fur separating it. He frowned, knowing what she was looking at, though the anger in her voice surprised him.
"Nick, who the hell did this to you?"
Judy was staring at Nick's back. She slowly reached out and traced one of the four scars that had been hidden under his fur, running from his left shoulder blade down to the top of his right buttocks. They had obviously been produced by a large predator's claw.
"Please Carrots, I'd rather not talk about my scars, it's from a time in my life I would just prefer to forget."
Judy's eyes narrowed in the way he had said scars. The way he had said it could have more than one meaning, so she made a guess. She had ice in her voice as she asked, "Where are the other ones, Nick?"
She felt Nick stiffen under her paw. He paused briefly before replying, "There's another set across my chest."
"Show me, " she shifted around in the tub until she was sitting in front of him, then carefully started separating his wet chest fur until another set of claw marks was revealed.
"Nick, how are you even alive? These wounds should have killed you. I can't even guess at how many stitches it would have taken to close all of these."
Nick was frowning, "I wonder about that myself sometimes."
"Okay, explain how you got these."
"Sure. But I'm getting a little water logged here. Let's finish up, and we will discuss it over breakfast."
Judy was about to agree when she caught herself. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the fox. "No, I don't think so. You are too clever of a fox. If I let you delay even a single minute, you are either going to find some excuse or come up with some way to distract me. So we are going to sit right here, and you are going to tell me what happened."
"But Judy the water is getting cold, let's just.."
Judy reached behind her and turned on the hot water valve. "There the water will be hot again in a minutes now stop trying to get out of it and tell me why my boyfr..," she stopped for a moment before continuing, "Why my mate looks like he was run through a meat grinder."
Nick's eyes widened a bit at what she had just called him. He smiled and opened his mouth to speak, and Judy just placed a finger over it.
"Now Nick, no more evasion."
He frowned, and finally growled out, "okay," as he settled back in the tub.
He had a resigned expression on his face and paused for a while before beginning, "It happened a couple of years after I graduated from high school. Finnick and I had stopped running the popsicle hustle and were doing some more lucrative things at the time."
"Such as?"
"I would rather not get into the details, let's just say at the time I was a bit of an expert at getting other mammals into and then out of places they weren't supposed to be."
Judy frowned, "I think I want to get into the details."
He shook his head, "Sorry Carrots, that's not going to happen. Let's just say there are some things I did in my past that you don't need to know about. Besides, my lawyer was adamant that I shouldn't discuss it with anyone. So are you going to keep interrupting or can I continue?"
He could see, the annoyance in her expression, but eventually she responded, "Fine. Please continue."
"Anyways, after a couple of years of this activity, I was starting to get a bit of a reputation, which of course went straight to my head." He shook his head. "I was such a cocky, self-assured fox back then."
Judy broke out into laughter, then tried to cover it up. She tried to maintain a straight face, "I'm sorry, but I have a hard time imagining that."
Nick just glared at her a moment, before continuing. "At the time a pack of wolves had decided to run a protection racket in Fox Town. They were roughing up the shop owners and threatening their families."
Nick frowned, "The ZPD was called in, but for whatever reason they did nothing. Then one of the shop owners, that had reported the pack's activities, and his mate were nearly beaten to death in retaliation. I always liked those foxes, and it pissed me off that no one was doing anything about it."
Nick glanced at Judy seeing the anger in her eyes. He reached out and pulled her to him, "So, being the young idiot that I was, I came up with a really, dumb plan. I was going to challenge the pack's leader and kick him out of Fox Town. Setting up the fight was surprisingly easy, though I now suspect that Eric Sharpfang probably just wanted to kill one of us publicly to get the rest to fall in line."
"Anyways, while Sarge taught me how to fight, I wasn't stupid enough to want to take on a wolf three times my size, bare pawed without precautions. So I kind of, cheated."
Judy saw Nick was looking uncomfortable, "Okay, so how did you cheat?"
"Carrots, if you tell anyone about this I will categorically deny it."
She sighed, "What did you do?"
"Before the fight, I may have bumped into a ZPD officer, and a magazine of his tranq darts may have somehow fallen out of his utility belt and into my paw."
"Nick, you didn't!" he could see the shock on her face.
"Don't blame me. The ZPD had months to get rid of the pack, but they did nothing. I considered the magazine as their contribution to getting rid of them."
"Well, needless to say, the fight didn't go quite as I had planned. I palmed a dart and slipped the needle out between my fingers. Then when I first hit Eric, I made sure the dart struck home. The problem was I delayed a little too long trying to get as much tranquilizer into him as I could. When I did pull back, he left me with a parting gift, across the chest," Nick's paw unconsciously moved up, touching his chest.
"I danced around a bit waiting for the tranquilizer to kick in, then attacked again. Eric was slowed down enough that it took me less than a minute to take him down. It really wasn't much of a fight after I used the dart."
"I remember feeling pretty smug when he hit the pavement. But since I was bleeding pretty badly and my chest felt like it was on fire, I decided it was time to leave before I passed out. What I hadn't counted on, was his brother Jason. I was in enough pain and concerned enough about my wounds that I didn't notice him coming up behind me. I had only walked away a couple of steps when I felt his claw slicing open my back."
Judy could see the mixture of emotions on Nick's face. He was trembling, reliving the event as she held him. She gently stroked his fur trying to comfort him has Nick continued. "I'm pretty sure he thought I was just going to collapse from the wounds. I remember the surprise on his face when I turned to him. I was so angry from being attacked from behind. I didn't even give him a chance to defend himself. Before he realized what I was doing, I kicked him with everything I had, shattering his knee. He fell to the ground howling. I remember he was trying to get up when I drove my knee into the side of his head." Nick stopped for a short time before closing his eyes and continuing in a quiet voice. "He was curled in a ball on the ground, and I kept kicking him until he stopped moving."
His ears had folded back, and he was panting in distress at the memory. She wanted to tell Nick to stop. If she had known it was going to tear him up like this, she never would have asked.
"What was left of my shirt was soaked in blood. I remember feeling the blood running down the back of my legs. I knew I was bleeding out and that I was probably going to die," Nick shook his head. Being the cocky fox I was, I turned to the rest of the pack and demanded who was next. But they just turned and walked away, leaving the two brothers lying in the street.
I'm not sure how I managed it, but I staggered half a block and into the nearest alley before collapsing. I remember hearing the ZPD sirens. I knew I was either going to die or spend the rest of my life in jail. The last thing I recall was seeing my blood pooling under me before I passed out.
Judy held him tightly, resting her head against him while stroking his muzzle with her paw. "It's alright Nick. You are okay. That all happened a long time ago, and you survived it." She held him until he stopped shaking. She wanted to know what had happened next, but she didn't want to risk opening any other old wounds now. But she did need to know one thing.
She asks in a quiet voice, "Nick, did you kill that wolf?"
"No, they both survived the fight, although I didn't know it at the time."
"A few weeks after the fight when they were both out of the hospital, they went back to the pack. What they didn't know was that while they were gone another wolf had taken over the leadership. When they showed up, the new leader decided he didn't need the completion and shot both of them. He ended up going away for life for the murders and the pack fell apart."
The water in the tub had grown cold. Judy stood up and helped Nick up, then turned on the shower and quickly finished cleaning and rinsing them both.
They both toweled off and got dressed in silence. Nick was about to leave the bedroom when Judy stopped him, "Nick I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you into telling me that."
He smiled weakly, "It's okay, you would have heard about it eventually and I would rather you heard the truth from me. Then to listen to any of the embellished versions you may hear on the street." He paused a moment before asking as he avoided looking at her, "So are you having second thoughts about this relationship yet? I told you yesterday morning that I have messed up almost everything in my life. By now I think you can see that I was telling you the truth."
Judy took his paw into hers, "Nick, you may be a messed up fox. But you're my messed up fox, and I'm not going to let you go if I can help it. So come on, I seem to remember you promising me pancakes for breakfast."
He smiled in relief and pulled her into a kiss, "If my bunny wants pancakes for breakfast, then she's going to get pancakes for breakfast.
…
Judy was sitting at the table watching as Nick cleaned up after breakfast annoyed that he wouldn't let her help when they heard a knock on the door. Nick walked to the door thinking it was probably Finnick.
Nick opened the door, and his eyes looked straight into the stomach of a ZPD officer. He sighed, "Well, there goes the neighborhood." He looked up confirming who it was. He leaned casually against the door frame and looked back behind the Chief before asking, "So where is your wagon of cookies?" He chuckled as he turned and reentered the apartment, leaving the door open and calling out, "Carrots there's junior ranger scout here for you, do want to buy any cookies?" He grinned as he heard the Chief swearing under his breath.
"Nick cut it out, please come in Chief, what can we do for you?"
As Bogo entered the apartment, he took a quick look around frowning at what he saw. He had hoped to get a little insight into Nick from seeing his home, but now he was even more confused by the fox.
He had been a little surprised when he had driven to the address. While it wasn't the worst neighborhood in Central City, it certainly ranked among them. While the apartment was clean, it was small, and everything in it was dated and well used. The walls were all empty. There were no family photos, memorabilia, movie posters, magazines, knick knacks, nothing. It was like Mr. Wilde didn't own a single personal item that he couldn't carry on his person. The only exception was a small bookcase against one wall filled with, of all things, what appeared to be law books.
The ZPD didn't pay much, but his officers lived in better places and had more possessions than this. Heck, the ZPD safe houses were nicer than this. If Mr. Wilde was as successful as the mayor had hinted at then why would he live here like this? For that matter, why would anyone live like this?
He brought his focus back to the two mammals in the room, "I came here to ask both of you for your assistance."
…
Nick and Judy were sitting on the couch while Chief Bogo sat on the floor since there was no furniture in the apartment that could hold him. The document the Mayor had created was sitting on the coffee table.
As Bogo finished his description of the issue, he was feeling more confident that they would help. Mr. Wilde had been listening intently and nodding through the whole explanation. He had stopped him several times asking several detailed questions regarding the issue. As Bogo finished, he asked, "So, can I count on your support?"
Nick paused, considering a moment before replying. "Ah no, it's out of the question. Chief, do you have a pen?"
Bogo was surprised by the answer and the request. Without thinking about it, Bogo reached into his pocket and handed Nick a pen. He watched as Nick flipped over the Mayor's document and started rapidly writing on the back. Bogo glanced at Hopps seeing her jaw was hanging open, staring at Nick in disbelief.
When Judy had recovered from the surprise, she asked, "Nick, what are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing, I'm writing my resignation. Don't worry. There are several pages here so we can write one for you too."
"Nick, I'm not resigning, and neither are you. We are going to help them."
"No, we're not," Nick stated in a clipped voice.
Judy replied slowly and with authority in her voice, "Yes, we are."
Bogo was feeling awkward as the two small mammals sat glaring at each other. He saw Nick grit his teeth as he asked, "Judy can I have a word with you in the other room?" Bogo watched as the two got up and stalked to a room in the back of the apartment, glaring at each other the whole way.
Nick closed the bedroom door, then turn on to Judy, "We are not doing this. It is too dangerous. If you weren't injured, I might consider it, but you are so it's out of the question. Besides, how can you expect me to trust him? As he started ticking off points on his paw, first he intentionally set you up to fail. He gave you an impossible deadline and provided you with none of the resources available to his other officers then tried to take your badge before it was even up. Two, the first time I met him, he told us that he wouldn't believe anything I said, simply because I was a fox. Three, he was part of that meeting with Bellwether which caused you to quit the force. Four, he's an ass. He had us come in for a meeting knowing you were injured and then didn't even have the decency to provide the correct size chair for you to sit in."
"Now he's here asking us, the only two eyewitnesses, to go back into what he freely admits is a comprised facility. He is effectively painting a target on our backs. So how do we know this isn't a trap? How do we know he isn't working for Bellwether?"
"Please Nick, I trust him."
"Judy you see the good in and trust everyone. I'm not like that, I have lived my whole life in this city, and I only trust three mammals," He looked her in the eyes, "and before you start wondering, yes you are one of those three."
He pulled her into a hug, "Judy, I don't want to lose you doing something stupid. I have enough money saved away. We could go away on vacation, and when we get back, we can start any, kind of business you want."
"Nick, I'm happy being a cop, and while I know you won't admit it, but I know you like to stand up for the little guys. I also know just what you're willing to do to protect the mammals in this city. Please, Nick, Zootopia needs the ZPD and the ZPD need us." She squeezed him, "And I need you," she felt him sag in her arms and knew she had him.
"Okay, I'll do it, but only if you agree to certain conditions."
Judy frowned, "What conditions?"
"You can run the investigation, but I'm in charge of our personal safety. That means no complaints about any of the precautions I deem necessary and trust me there are going to be a bunch that I know you are going to hate. It also means I can override any of your or Chief Bogo's plans if I consider the risk is too high. Lastly, if I decide the risk is too great for either of us, then I can pull the plug on this operation. If I do, we both walk away from it, and you will not protest it."
She considered for a moment, "What kind of precautions?"
"For starters, we are both going in there with vests and armed with real guns, not that stupid toy of yours, where if you have to go up against a large mammal you would have to hit them with multiple darts to put them down."
"Nick you're a civilian, you can't just walk into the ZPD headquarters with a gun unless you want to be arrested or shot. Besides, where are you going to get a vest, they usually need to be custom made for small mammals like us."
Nick grinned, "I already have a vest and as for carrying a gun into the ZPD, I know of a way, and it will be completely legal, so don't worry your little bunny head about it. So do you agree?"
She thought about for a few seconds, before answering, "Okay."
He let her go and pulled back from her, looking into her eyes, "Judy, are you sure about this? If we aren't careful one or both of us could easily end up dead."
Judy joked, "Come on Nick, where is all that bravery you showed in taking on the Sharpfang brothers?"
Nick frowned and sat on the bed, "I think I left a lot of it with my blood in that alley."
Judy sat next to him taking his paw and squeezing it, "That's not true, you're the bravest fox I know."
He gave her a wan smile, "That's not saying much Judy. How many foxes do you know? Like three?"
Judy smiled at him, "Nope, four, and you are definitely the bravest one."
Nick laughed, "Judy you may want to work on your confidence building skills. They seem a little lacking."
Her face turned serious has she reached up with a paw and turned his face to her, "Nick you have been there for me whenever I needed you. When those rams were trying to kill us, and I told you to leave me, you stayed with me and protected me. Nick, you are the bravest mammal I know." She knew she shouldn't tell him, it was too early, and that it may scare him, but she couldn't help it, "It's one of the reasons I fell in love with you." She waited for him to crack a joke or to pull away but to her surprise, he pulled her into a kiss instead.
He broke off the kiss after a minute and continued holding her, "Okay, Judy, let's go tell Chief Buffalo Butt we'll do it.
