Author's Note:
I reckon ya'll are getting' pretty tired of all the cuddly fluff, am I right? Well tough, the bunny's hurt, but she will get better and get into more trouble again soon. Those catching up after being away a bit, well, Judy's apartment was condemned and she got into a little accident right after so she's recuperating at Nick's place. Her new roommate understands her better than pretty much anyone, so that's a pretty lucky thing right?
I'm still enjoying writing this, and while I know I can't always post twice a week, I will still do my very best! This week was particularly hairy, but I should be able to keep at least once a week or more. I write because it gives me peace, so it works out for my readers that I kind of need peace! Zootopia is property of Disney, as are Nick and Judy and most of the other characters I am using. I write for fun and hope those who read have some fun too.
Guardian Blue: Season One
Episode 14: Weakness
The sleepy bunny stirred a little, rolling onto her back, and then slightly jumping in agony the moment her shoulder pressed into the back of the couch. That jolted her awake completely. She found herself in the dark and a little alarmed at first, but the scent from the couch reminded her she was in Nick's apartment where she was supposed to be because she actually lived there for the time being. She pushed her face into the back of the couch, feeling calmed by it and then pulled back, wrinkling her nose. That wasn't a very healthy thing for her to be doing. She was reminded of her sister absconding with the pillow. Was there something she wasn't telling Judy about? As far as she had gathered in their conversations, Sammie had dated a fox. Had she built a similar attachment and needed the scent of fox to feel safe and happy? Would Judy be driven to filch random things from Nick? That worried her.
"Sleepy bunny." Nick's voice was warm and gentle from the direction of the darkened dining room.
"I'm sorry, I hope I didn't wake you," Judy groaned. She then cried out in surprise as light flooded the room, Nick pulling open black-out drapes and letting sunlight in.
"It's eleven so I've been up a while." Nick grinned at his partner.
"What?!" she cried. She sat up and then grunted, fell back, and groaned again.
"Hell, I thought the doctor was kidding about how spazzy bunnies are when they get hurt. Have you not figured out that it's the whole suddenly moving thing that makes the hurt happen?" Nick sat by Judy's feet.
She held her shoulder. "Pills. Trip-back-from-hell pills, please." She groaned. Nick held up two oval white pills between his fingers. Oh good, he already brought them over. How considerate. Judy reached out meekly for them.
"First are you going to be good and try to stay still through the day?" He asked.
"Yes, I promise, now, pills or I explore the wonderful world of violence," Judy growled.
"And no pushing your partner around and threatening to embarrass him in front of his mother?" he asked, drawing the pills back.
The bunny whined plaintively and reached for pills that were held just out of reach. "I won't tell anyone about you telling me fox secrets, gimmee!" Judy finally sighed as Nick gave them to her. "Making a bunny suffer. You aren't gonna make me swallow these dry are you?" she asked, her voice garbled a little because the pills were already in. Nick gave her some water. She downed the pills and laid back. "Cripes this is more agonizing on day three."
"Probably just because you haven't moved in sixteen hours. I suspect you were not really sleeping so much as occasionally dozing in the hospital. Maybe bunnies don't like them either?" Nick offered.
"Maybe. I was hoping you'd be able to go out and do your normal stuff today because I would have been able to tough through the pain but the hell with that!" Judy sighed.
"Well, I am going to pay a few bills online and send an email to Wolford to make arrangements for a shift trade since he's covering me today. That will have you working alone, likely desk duty Saturday, but it won't be too bad and you shouldn't aggravate your shoulder too bad with that. When I am done with email and such we can binge-watch something on TV, that's not gonna hurt my feelings one bit. Truth told I am actually still a little sore from Munch." He laughed. Judy perked up, having not realized he'd pushed himself that hard. He made it look easy, but he did do some pretty extreme things, like jumping and catching Angela out of midair and tackling a few others. He was also a bit older than her so there was that. Nick handed the TV remote and her phone to Judy and headed into his room where his laptop was set up.
Judy turned on the TV first, finding a puzzle show on and leaving it there. She watched in the direction of Nick's room a moment, then pushed herself tighter to the back of the couch and took a deep breath. There it was… the feeling like being safe from anything that could ever want to hurt her. She then furrowed her brow. Okay, there had to be a way around this mess before she started doing something embarrassing. She glanced over at Nick's room again, and then looked up on her phone the term 'Bunny Security Attachment'.
The responses to that query were dozens of pages of various implements intended for bunnies to protect themselves from larger animals, general sorts of crime, and natural disasters. There was nothing about what she wanted to know. Sometimes the internet just was not helpful. She then looked up 'Bunny Psychology – Security Attachment'. She got more of the same, but a little ways down she saw one for 'Severed Attachment Syndrome'. She knew what that one was already, it was a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder for widows and the like, that did not describe her problem.
She looked up probably half a dozen variations on psychology and security and found a couple of articles saying that bunnies needed security to be mentally healthy and happy, but absolutely nothing about behavior resulting from focusing their security need on someone else. It made sense in how it was explained to her, but Sammie had specifically told her it was a normal thing for bunnies. She made it seem common. For her to find nothing on the internet about it suggested a level of obscurity a general court counselor would likely not delve into. Had Sammie actually lied to her about it? Why would she do that? Did she still think Judy was dating her partner and did it to try baiting her into saying something? That seemed reckless given that she was a counselor and others valued her for her advice. Judy messaged her sister, requesting an article she could read on Security Attachments. She watched TV for a bit, and then found herself starting to doze. The pills were working and they made her sleepy. She dozed off and on for probably an hour while Nick busied himself in the other room with whatever he was working on. Judy finally stirred again, and realized she had a message. It was from Sammie.
"It was all lecture stuff."
Lectures? Judy folded her ears back and growled inwardly. She did not make it sound like lecture stuff. That, to the bunny, was not much better than a suspect saying, 'So yeah, my brother's friend, he's got a hunch the homeless guy down the street took it.' But why in the world would Sammie do that? The bunny rubbed her face, which thankfully was not hurting. She just could not bring herself to care enough at that moment to get into it with her sister. Next time they talked she might put her on her heels over it, but as Nick entered the room she pushed those thoughts aside. If it's not a security attachment, then it was no more cause for concern than it was before her sister said anything in the first place. She felt safe around him because he would never, ever hurt her. End of story. She pushed herself up the couch a little and mentally crushed Nick with her choice of the old Tales from the Darkness series. He should have known better than to let her choose the program. She took advantage of her injured status and he watched, sometimes in obvious discomfort, as his mind was subjected to just the suggestion of horrible things because the technology and social norms were not there to allow them to be shown. This, Judy found, was always so much worse to Nick.
After several hours of torturing Nick with jump scares that never happened and twisted endings that painfully challenged his perception of reality, the phone rang to spare Nick from the suffering he'd agreed to. From what Judy was able to glean from the conversation, Wolford wanted to know if Judy was well enough to come in to help identify the cheetah who caused her to get hit by the bus as they felt reasonably certain that they had caught him. Nick told Wolford to just send a picture of him and let the injured bunny ID him that way. The wolf spoke to Nick a bit longer and Nick finally handed Judy the phone.
"Hey, what's up, Wolford?" asked Judy as she leaned back against the couch.
"So, yeah, it's more than an ID issue, or we could have done this Nick's way. There's a ton of remorse pouring off this cat, and the detective thinks he might give up some useful information to you if you ask a few questions since we've been really dancing around his repeated question about whether or not you survived." Judy frowned at that. She thought that was kind of cruel, not able to imagine how she would feel if she got someone else killed like that.
"I'll be out there, sure." She said. Nick shook his head frantically. He didn't want that but Judy had already said yes.
Wolford spoke seriously on his end. "I don't want to push you, this is just a rare opportunity to get inside info, so I do agree with the detective. This is possibly related to a great many more crimes in the area targeting smaller animals. If you are still hurt too bad-"
"No, I'm almost off the pain meds, I just have to go slow and take it easy. It will be good to get out of the apartment." Judy spoke a little longer to make arrangements where to meet Wolford and Nick continued to give her the stink eye. She finally hung up the phone and her partner crossed his arms.
"You didn't have to say yes to that, Fluff. You should not have said yes to that," Nick stated.
"I'm still a cop, Nick. We still have a mission, right? And it won't be that bad. I'll just be careful not to throw myself in front of vehicles." Judy laughed a bit and shook her head.
Nick sighed and relented. "We're taking a bus, but please be careful. I don't want to have you out of work any longer than is necessary. They partnered me with Higgins tomorrow. He gets sleepy about noon, and when he yawns in the cruiser it feels like days before he closes his mouth again and it's just… awkward," Nick explained. He helped Judy get ready as best he could, though she was able to get into the only uniform she had with her without trouble. They both then headed to the bus stop. Nick remained out of uniform because he was afraid that they would spot him and shuffle him off to help in records or something while Judy was being an unrepentant workaholic.
Judy stepped onto the bus and sat down and Nick slipped in beside her. She thought it was odd at first because there was no one else on the bus at all, Nick could sprawl out on a seat the way he seemed to prefer on the rainy days that they took the mass transit. The first time the bus lurched to a stop she understood however. Nick slipped a hand to her side to prevent her from shifting much on the seat. It was not necessary, but she decided that it was more for him than her, he wanted to help, and he didn't like that she was going at all.
The ride out was peaceful and quiet given that it was at an odd time during the day, and they arrived without incident at the precinct. Judy still had a noticeable favoring of one of her legs that Nick readily pointed out and made sure she knew that he was willing to help her if she needed to lean on him. Judy was appalled at the idea of needing help walking into the police station. They already tried to give her the lightest duties because she was a bunny. She didn't need to encourage it. While she appreciated the offer, she passed it up. As they entered the lobby they were treated to a rarity. Clawhauser completely out from behind his desk. He ran up to Judy only to find Nick in front of her. This surprised her a bit, and seemed to surprise the cheetah as well.
"Don't go scoopin' her up, Benny." Nick advised. "Her shoulder was smacked pretty hard." Judy rolled her eyes. The fox in shining armor bit was wearing on her. She was bruised, not on a respirator.
Clawhauser shook his hands in front of him excitedly. "Okay, won't pick up or hug. But ohmigosh, are you gonna be okay? Bogo told everyone in the morning meeting when you weren't there the following day, but by the end of the shift you were out of the hospital already!"
"I'm doing better, should be back in tomorrow or the next day, we will see how it goes. Probably gonna be pushing pencils for a little while until Bogo feels sure I'm good to go." Judy indicated her light blue sling. "I'm supposed to meet Wolford and a detective to check on a suspect?"
"Oh yes, interview room… seven." Clawhauser pointed upstairs. "Good to have you back on the job, Hopps. Next time, just ticket the driver, don't attack the bus." He laughed and headed back to his desk. Judy followed behind Nick, smiling a bit. It really was good to be back. It felt like such a long time. She had been home for four days, and then the accident, she hadn't been out of work so long since she resigned more than a year ago. She looked up at her partner, following closer behind.
"You did not have to block Clawhauser, he wasn't gonna maul me Nick." She scolded in a light tone. She didn't want him to think she did not appreciate that he was trying to help. Nick seemed like he was still a little shaken by everything.
"You know how Ben can be, Carrots. He really will just grab you and squeeze and not think ahead if he's excited." He smiled though, making it obvious he didn't hold it against the bubby and excitable feline.
"I know, but let me at least try to fend off disaster so I don't get rusty. With our line of work, I need to stay sharp!" She slapped Nick's tail as it bobbed in front of her. He scooped it up and stroked it comfortingly, looking at Judy with a playfully shocked expression.
"I will expect a written apology and chocolates addressed to my tail," he said with a pout. He then opened the door, finding Wolford in the way. The lupine backed out of the room and nodded to Nick, then smiled brightly at Judy.
"Welcome back!" he barked, wagging openly. He then looked at Nick. "Okay… peek through the document slat… You know a ton of mammals in the city, do you recognize that one?" Nick did as asked, squinting as he spoke in a near whisper.
"If I only knew a ton of mammals I'd be pretty lonely. I know Francine, after all," he chuckled. His laugh died suddenly and he looked back at Judy. "Is that the guy?" Nick moved back. Judy stood in front of the door. The document slat was a bit over her ears. She wore a grumpy expression. Wolford moved to lift her up. Judy winced in agony.
"Sorry!" Wolford gasped.
Nick smirked at Judy. "I did not interfere, just like you asked." He helpfully pointed out the obvious result. Judy slowly turned and stared daggers at her partner. Nick swallowed and then hopped down on elbows and knees on the floor in front of the door. Wolford backed up, wearing his own smirk at the exchange as Judy hopped right on up and peered through the slat. She narrowed her eyes and nodded. It was him. He even had the black hoodie with the white cross on the back.
"Yeah, that's the guy." Nick grunted a little given that Judy had hopped down from his back.
"That's Reggie Swift." Nick said. "He's small time. Lifts bags left unattended and the like. He's not a monster though, much as I am disinclined to go easy on him given recent… events…" Judy saw the gleam of Nick's teeth, one of the rare times she knew he was not snarling for show. He could not help it. He was angry.
"Do you know anything about the cross?" Wolford asked.
"I do. I would like to talk to him, if you will let me." Nick crossed his arms.
"I suspected you might. Detective Pawlander is pulling records at the moment but he said you and Hopps could ask him questions if you want. He feels that Judy's presence might get some straight answers about who he's fencing to or working for given that he's apparently stepped up his game to gang-related crime." Wolford stepped back. Nick gestured to Judy to have her come in.
"Hey, you're okay!" The exclamation came from the stressed cheetah as he tried to stand up and went back down, ankle probably bound to the bracket under the table.
"Oh yes! The arm sling is all the rage this year! Just her color too!" Nick said with glee. Swift winced a bit at that. Judy moved across from him and stood in the chair anyone else in the department would have sat in.
"I'm really sorry about that. You know I didn't mean for you to get creamed by traffic, I didn't even see it." He gestured wildly, seeming very genuine about it. "They said I could be looking at attempted murder charges! I didn't mean to hurt anyone! I just re-home merchandise!"
"And you are absolutely terrible at it," Nick stated.
Swift gave a puzzled look at Nick and then gestured back to Judy. "Yeah, but I'm gonna go straight, I just need a little extra to get to a different part of town, I swear, I wasn't making the direct approach my next big thing!" He seemed to realize that he was out of his element.
Judy spoke up. "You will be facing those charges, just as you understood them if I pursue them, but I think you know you messed up and will gladly take a big step back after this… so I'm not after you. I want to know who handles your merchandise. I might be looking for something special that he can help me with that will make my job so much easier." Judy smiled as Swift lowered his head, hands cupped behind his ears, obviously weighing his options. She knew how this went, she'd watched so many videos in the Horizon Lounge (a training room). He would ask for a bit more, something they could not give, they would offer less than they wanted, they would say it wasn't enough, she would take the deal off the table, they would go for the thing that wasn't enough.
Swift finally inhaled and looked back up. "I want this, I do, but you have to understand, I don't know who handles it, I drop the stuff off at a one-time use drop point and then a random member of the club passes me the resultant cash a few days later. It's for everyone's protection. We don't know who has the stuff and we don't know who carries the money." Judy leaned back, sighing. Of course it would not be that easy. She decided to wait for Swift to add something.
However, before he could, Nick cut in. "Well then, in the absence of something more valuable, perhaps some information. Some gossip, if you will, can't ever be traced back to you, you don't know anything." Swift looked up curiously, seeming a little blindsided by Nick's sudden counter-offer. Judy was just as confused.
"I really don't know anything." He gave a meek shrug.
Nick stood up slowly. "Who the hell did Darmaw piss off enough to recruit a lightweight like you?" Nick's words were cold and severe. Judy widened her eyes. The fact that he was wearing the white cross suggested he was in a gang, but she had not expected her partner to play his hand with it so suddenly with a question that seemed unrelated. Swift furrowed his brow.
"Hey! I have no record so I obviously ain't that bad!" he protested. Judy opted not to say a word, she had no idea Where Nick was going with this but was going to have another chat with the fox about communication when they got out of the interview room.
"The Alabaster Paw vets its claws carefully on their history. You don't have one. You're an opportunist, that's why you messed up so bad, and you forgot they have a rule about taking a mark while wearing the cross. If they saw you get picked up wearing that after nearly killing a cop your problems are going to be a lot worse than trying to figure out how long you are going to be in a cell. What did Darmaw do?" Judy thought the whole conversation was a mess as she looked at Nick, but as she looked back at the cheetah he seemed almost panicked. Judy widened her eyes a little. Sometimes she forgot Nick was a part of the streets before she met him. He knew this stuff likely better than some of the detectives.
"Look officer, I don't know how you know all that stuff but if you got an inside guy, ask him. I'm in enough shit without actually pulling the rope around my neck myself," he offered.
"Take off your shirt." Nick commanded.
"What?" asked Swift, bewildered.
"Off with it. Hand it over." Nick took out his cell phone, seeming to just distract himself checking messages as if the order was routine.
"What? No way, what good's it even gonna do you?" Swift protested.
Nick put his phone away, wearing a sudden expression of concern. "Look, I'm trying to save you, not inconvenience you. You want to turn over a new leaf, right?"
"Of course I do, I wasn't lying. I never hurt anyone before." He glanced at Judy, seeming genuinely unhappy about what he'd done. He did risk being caught just to help her so she believed him on that note at least.
"Well, if you give me the shirt, I will have it and maybe no one ever knows you were sloppy and got busted in it because his guys on the inside don't see you going through processing in it. You don't want to go through processing in it I can promise you that." Judy gritted her teeth. The tone Nick used was really bordering on threatening. What was this even about? Swift did not even seem to need to think about it, he tore off the shirt and threw it on the table.
"You make the rumor that it was found near where I got picked up, stashed in a can, and maybe I share a rumor with you. But that's it. It's all I got. Rumor. Talk." He wore a lighter grey t-shirt underneath and seemed so much wirier for it.
The fox leaned back. "Alright, share then." She hoped this was not going to get Nick in trouble given that they were asked to figure out who the gang was unloading their goods on, but she suspected that was going to be a convoluted trail at best given how Swift had described it. A network of one-time use drop points and random money-runners? That was pretty complex. It wasn't called organized crime for nothing.
"Okay, so all I heard, and I wasn't even supposed to hear it, was that he had one of his top claws nickin' flowers a while back, not the good kind as you two are most deeply aware." He mashed his ears flat, seeming extremely nervous.
"Well, we already know who the flowers were for, so why's he worried about it suddenly? They weren't contraband when he was collecting them," Judy explained.
Her partner cut n again. "I'm gonna make a guess, so you will have told me even less, and you just tell me if I am not wrong, okay?"
Swift nodded. "Fair enough."
Nick spoke calmly. "Darmaw wasn't able to deliver his product after he had his claws grab it, and he needs to pay for those services or those top bid claws are going to let him be discovered in an embarrassing and public way with a very large stash of Nighthowler."
Judy widened her eyes at that. "He's being blackmailed."
"You ain't wrong." The cheetah sighed.
Nick picked up the shirt, balling it up. "I'll let the good detectives decide what that information's worth outside this room, but I'll make sure my side of the deal stands. You were wearing a gray shirt when we brought you in." Nick strode toward the door.
Judy got up and narrowed her eyes coldly at Swift. "You get clean. You do not want me to be the one chasing you again."
"On my family honor," Swift stated. Judy hoped he meant it and followed Nick. He stood in the room on the other side of the door with Wolford and the detective, a white-furred wolf with ice blue eyes, Pawlander. Those eyes were quite wide.
"That was a direction I would not have thought to go. The DA is gonna burst into flames when I give him this, Wilde, I hope you feel up to writing a report on any details you might deem helpful to the case. I figured Judy being there would soften him up but I didn't even think about what really had that guy shaking his spots off. Geeze… How much of the bad stuff do you think that guy's sittin' on? What if he tries to unload it to another whack job?"
"I will be at work tomorrow, taking Wolford's shift, so you will see me bright and early and we can discuss it," Nick explained. "For now, I am putting an injured rabbit back on the couch."
"Oh good! We can get back to our horror binge watch!" Judy chimed. Wolford laughed heavily. He was aware of Nick's dislike for scary movies.
The fox put his hands up. "She's all yours; she knows even more than I do, names, places, blood types, fantasy sports rosters, make her write everything." Nick threw Judy to the wolves. That got a rare laugh even from Pawlander. Judy limped after her partner, pondering if it was worth the pain to try to kick him.
While she was not feeling much in the way of pain that night, Nick still insisted that Judy go ahead and take her medication. He wanted her to sleep well since he would be at work the following day. Another good hard night of sleep should leave her at least able to care for herself without needing the medicine and supervision, so she finally agreed. After a few hours, she was feeling that same giddy sense of silliness that Nick had learned to escape from. The teasing and silliness were uncharacteristic and if she had someone to tease she would start trying to move around and would not rest. The giddiness was starting to wear off and she was just relaxed, poking through her phone. She found her pictures of Nick sleeping. She hadn't really needed those since she started sleeping on the couch at his apartment. She already felt that sense of security, but she assumed being medicated had a lot to do with it. She felt much more relaxed and sleepy all the time when she was on it.
She scanned through the pictures and tried to decide if she should delete them to help get rid of her odd hang up. She could not bring herself to do it. The pictures were, in Judy's own thoughts, too cute. She liked them for the same reason she liked having stuffed animals on her bed her whole life. They represented the very idea of peaceful comfort. She sat up, wandered to the restroom and then sat back down. She had slept half the day and she was sure she was just a little hyper from how happy the detective had been with their help. That kind of thing makes its way back to the chief. It eased her feelings of defeat from having missed a few extra days of work.
There was a soft sound of a door opening and Judy looked up, seeing Nick stumble through heading to the restroom himself. He did not look her way until he came back out.
"Sorry, I hope I didn't wake you," he stated.
"You didn't. I was worried I woke you," she replied, a little dizzy still.
"Nah, I hadn't gone to sleep yet. I've been looking through a Fur Side comic anthology to bleach out the spooky." He made a creepy grabby gesture at nothing in particular. His partner laughed. He sat on the far side of the couch and yawned achingly wide. "Seriously, how do bunnies even enjoy that stuff? I mean, you guys can literally be scared to death. How is that fun?"
Judy laughed again and shook her head. "Well, I guess it's like roller coasters or anything else like that, right? Little scares that you expect are kind of fun." Nick leaned back a little on his side of the couch. Judy got up and got a can of soda to sip on that she then left on the kitchen counter in case she needed it in the night. The medication dried her mouth out terribly.
Nick regarded the bunny for a moment, and then spoke again. "Okay, so now I get to ask a serious question while you are medicated. I think I earned it after last time."
Judy nodded. "Sure!" She felt pretty amicable about the trade honestly. Once she sobered up, she felt a bit ashamed about forcing Nick to tell her what he ultimately gave in and told her. She had not brought it up since, holding that as one of her most closely guarded secrets.
Her partner spoke softly. "I know you get scared. I've seen you scared. But you don't seem to get scared at the right stuff. Like, the stuff that seemed scary to me seems fun to you. Does it really feel fun? I mean, running from Manchas was scary, you seemed scared, but was that actually fun for you?" he asked. Judy looked as her partner for a while, actually trying to figure out why he was even asking that. She was terrified that day but at the end of it she felt so… alive. It was thrilling in its own way. She wasn't worried about her heart stopping if that's what he was concerned about.
"It was scary, yeah. I would not have listed that as a fun encounter. We could have died. I like scary things okay when I am not seriously about to get ripped to shreds." She nodded curtly at that. That was an accurate portrayal, she thought.
"So, scary things are still fun to you if you know you won't get hurt?" he asked. His partner nodded. He was getting it, at least. Maybe that would help him enjoy the movies she liked.
"So, when I chased you around in the museum as Bellwether watched… Was it fun because you knew I would not hurt you, or was that scary because you knew if we messed it up Bellwether certainly could?" Judy walked over toward Nick. That's what this was about. He felt guilty about hunting Judy and baring his teeth and pretending to bite her. It was about her being hurt by Gideon so long ago. She stood behind the couch that acted as a divider between the living room and dining room and leaned closer.
"Nick, I was worried about Bellwether yes, but we had the serum and she'd already called the ZPD after she shot you with a blueberry, we both knew how it was gonna go. I will admit, my heart really raced seeing you in action, what a predator might have looked like hunting me. You did a great impression of Renato Manchas. It was convincing, but I guess I'm kind of weird because I had more of a curiosity about it than a fear." She rubbed one of her ears down in front of her. "If I had to say anything about what I was thinking as I watched you stalk me I would have to say it was oddly... thrilling. The whole thing was beautiful in how it played out, and I very much enjoy the memory of that afternoon." She hoped that helped him.
Nick was leaned back more against his side of the couch. He laughed a bit at that, but he seemed so sleepy in his laugh. "I guess I have been thinking about that a lot, having not realized then that you'd ever really been hurt by a fox. I know I said we'd drop this, but that whole… thing had new meaning to me afterward. I guess I just wanted to make sure that the memories stopped where my teeth did." He touched his own bare cream-toned throat with his claw tips softly, his a-shirt leaving much of that light-colored fur visible. Judy remembered something as she watched his eyes close a moment in reflection. She leaned over the back of the couch again and took one of his triangular vulpine ears between his index finger and thumb and began to rub in a slow, very gentle circle.
Vivienne told her about this, perhaps by accident, but in her somewhat loopy state she just had to try it and see. She was just so curious about it and repercussions were not firmly etched in her mind right then. To her silent giddy glee, Nick seemed to just sink harder against the couch, and his eyes closed more completely. His ears folded back, his chest began to rise and fall in the familiar, comforting slow rhythm of slumber. She watched him for a while, not letting his ear go, not wanting him to wake and scold her. She then sat back down on the couch on her side of it and folded her ears down her back. Crap. What did she do that for? She'd just have to wake him up and send him back to his room. She was not going to take his bed, and she certainly was not going to let him wake up and find her asleep there with him, how creepy would he think that was given that she intentionally put him to sleep?
The whole time she watched his chest rise and fall. Her nose moved when she slept. She knew it did because every bunny that she knew did that. Foxes seemed so much more still and peaceful and serene. She leaned up closer to him. Did his eyes move? Was he dreaming? As she leaned in close that gentle scent of wildflower… violet… was more perceptible. She found herself wondering again if that's really what she was supposed to be smelling. She then widened her eyes. She hadn't taken a shower before going to work! She was there with two wolves! They hadn't said a thing about it; maybe Nick was worried about nothing, but she would endeavor to be more careful when she went back to work. She was avoiding even saying anything about having lost her apartment to anyone but Bogo.
She looked back to the sleeping fox and that pang of worry erased completely as his ears flicked a bit. She knew why her youngest sister was so interested in that. They were such quick little motions. She looked back to his nose, his whiskers, and then a sinful thought, an obsessive, unnatural, horrifically powerful urge swept through her. She looked away, holding her ears down. What the hell? Had she no self-control? Was it just the medicine? What was wrong with her?
It seemed like time froze for a moment from the second it went through her head, and there was no escaping that the thought was there. And it wasn't going away. She turned again, and she slowly leaned over her partner as he leaned back a bit more, seeming so comfortably half reclined against the arm of the couch. She slipped down closer to him. What the hell was she doing? If he woke right that moment she'd have absolutely no useful explanation. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly feeling dry as she licked her lips. Her hands felt cold, her heart was racing. This was that fear she was telling Nick about. Fear and thrill side by side. That russet muzzle was so close, resting peacefully before her filled with teeth that were, eons ago, intended to end her. They would never harm her. She was safe with them. Her own muzzle drew closer a little above his. That was right. This was safe. He would understand. Her curiosity had always been insatiable. Hell, he owed their friendship to her merely being curious about what he and Finnick were doing!
She drew closer still, her heart beating so hard she could hear it in her ears. She felt his whiskers actually touch teasingly at her chin, and she froze. He exhaled slowly, his hot breath rushing out evenly under her chin and at her neck. Judy sucked in a slow, deep breath. She couldn't help it. There was no turning back, she held firm in her belief that with all they had been through he would understand. This of all things, he'd understand. She lowered her head, tilting her muzzle a bit, parting her lips as she leaned in close. She cupped her mouth over his dark, perfect foxy nose… and blew.
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