'YOU TOLD HER WHAT?!' Nick exclaimed on one of the typical, square-shaped notes, looming over Judy, who sat on the edge of the otherwise empty guestroom's lonely bed. His shocked face was wrinkled to a barely readable setting as his other paw shook her by her shoulder as if she'd gone insane.
The dinner had ended shortly after the two does had gotten themselves tangled in some incoherent and mainly weepy hug sequence, the clearly flabbergasted and discomforted Stu having made himself scarce during the episode, much to Nick's disappointment, though not surprise. However, what really bothered him more was missing the conversation that had followed the question concerning his third greatest fear after earthworms and a certain fennec in a pissed off condition- kits.
"That we'd adopt", she repeated nonchalantly, wiping away the very last drips of the happiness caused moisture from the fur below her eyes. Still, her sloppy grin did falter a degree or two as she realized his not-too-calm state regarding the subject at paw. "I mean… it's not like we can, you know… go the biological route", she mumbled carefully, watching her clearly disoriented mate detach his paw from her torso to write down another comment, which he then lingered in front of her.
'Are you out of your mind?! We've never talked about this stuff and you just go and announce something like that? Without even asking me?'
It wasn't that he had a particular distaste for their round the clock drooling schedules, smelly diapers and constant wailing in front of complete strangers at random supermarket aisles. No, he could handle those aspects with only minor difficulty if he deemed it necessary and worthy. Or at least that's what he thought, based on the things he'd seen on some cheesy soap operas and cringe-worthy comedy shows back in the day. Neither did he have any problem with hanging around other mammals' offspring.
The bunny's ears fell back a little as she realized her mistake. "You don't want kits?" she inquired in a somewhat timid voice, gazing up into his unblinking eyes for any sign of confirmation, the green orbs hovering only a snout and a half away from her violet ones.
Nick's restless motioning came to a halt as he struggled for an answer, his paw that held the pen outright freezing in place along with the cogwheels inside his head. A full month of serious dating and a commitment to never leave this mammal's side no matter what, and he'd still been dumb enough not to spend a single second thinking about their shared future.
Instead of scribbling her a reply, which he'd finally come up with, the fox turned around, and walked over to the rabbit's half emptied black and white backpack that had been left on the floor after their earlier process of unpacking had been cut off by the current discussion, having no interest in continuing the discussion via ink. He wanted Judy to get a clear picture of his emotions, and that would be simply impossible without some mechanical assist.
The bunny was not one bit surprised as she saw him pull out a dark blue ring box, open it, return to his earlier position, and hold it in front of her on his knees. That being said, she could still feel her heart flutter for a beat or twenty-seven before skipping one in disappointment. Out of all the possible options she'd had for a container for her hearing aids, she'd thought it would be a good idea to choose that particular one. Sometimes she wondered how Nick could allow her to call him a dumb fox, considering her own, easily worse idiocy at times. For now though, she grabbed the small earpieces, set them up, and focused back on the talk.
Seeing his rabbit all prepared, Nick climbed onto the bed next to her and curled his neck closer to the base of her ear, instinctively taking one of her soft paws into his own as her other one found its way onto his throat. "I… I've never thought about any of that, to be honest", he confessed, gently running the pad of his thumb over her padless, silky palm. "I mean, I've lived most of my life as a borderline criminal with Finn scamming others out of their supposedly well-deserved money. Plus I'm still in college, and haven't had a stable job since being a professional burden at age eight. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really consider that dad-material."
Pushing him back to get a clear view on his eyes, Judy let out a partly relieved sigh and pressed on one of his fingers. She was glad the premise of one day starting a family wasn't completely off the table. "Nick, we've already gone over this. Don't you dare tell me you're a bad mammal for trying to help your mother all alone when everyone else at your age were still playing with frigging Legos."
Nick all but snorted at her, trying to reach her hearing-radius once more only to be held back by her surprisingly firm paw. In a way it was unfair how easy it was for her to control any given conversation without any backlash thanks to her disability.
"And I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm still in college too", she quipped with a half playful expression. "Of course we'd wait until we'd be financially ready. I've fought all my life to become a lawyer and am not planning on throwing it all away just because of a stupid and rushed decision."
Feeling the pressure against his neck slacken, Nick could finally share his opinion again: "And yet here you are sitting with the biggest one of your life".
"Oh, so you admit that you're stupid?"
Although out of the bunny's vision, Nick rolled his eyes and fought the inevitable grin tugging at the corners of his lips. "No, but I am saying that you've been studying and sleeping way less since we met, Cottontail. Give it a month or two and you'll start considering Bugga Burger as a sensible career choice."
"In your dreams, Slick", Judy huffed in amusement, practically able to feel his earlier panicky behavior melt under her touch as she leaned her forehead against his supporting arm. "You're just jealous that I get better grades than you."
There was a light chuckle that managed to flee through the gap between Nick's curved lips before the room was consumed by silence, both members of the odd pair simply enjoying the other's presence and the comfort it gave them. Neither of them could be described as calm though, as they both knew there were still things to be discussed. A good moment of hesitation later Nick managed to force his muzzle apart, a feeling very close to guilt slowly fading his genuine smirk away into a much more serious expression.
His mildly damp, nuzzle-seeking nose having never left the contiguity with the fur on top of her head, the vulpine merely tilted his muzzle to get a better angle at the hearing aid and spoke, his voice sounding unusually wary to the rabbit clinched to his side: "Fluff, please don't punch me for this, but..." He sighed heavily. "But what if something… would happen to us?"
"What do you mean?" she inquired a little cautiously, trying to get a read on his expression but to no avail.
"Well, I uh-", he stammered, paying very careful attention to how he should order his words in order to avoid violence. "Even though I know, for a rock solid fact, that you love me-".
"Nice work, detective".
Nick ignored the terribly mistimed jest and continued with his own statement, not even bothering to pause and act amused. "I'm still afraid that you'd leave me."
Even the last little hint of a smile fell from the bunny's muzzle at hearing this.
"I know it sounds crazy, but it's still possible. I don't want the kit to go through the same crap as me if we do end up getting one."
Judy tried to protest even the assumption that she'd ever leave him, but found herself completely mute due to the lump now forming in her throat. It took her several attempts and vast concentration just to utter his name. "Nick… We'd never be having this conversation in the first place if I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Even if you don't want kits."
"Promise?"
"A thousand times over if you make me, Slick", she cooed, pulling him lower by the neckline of his T-shirt to reach the tip of his snout for a more than a little prolonged kiss. "You don't have to give me an answer now as long as you'll think about it, alright?"
Nick responded to her attempt at intimacy, only pulling back when she parted for her second deep huff of breath. "I don't think you're leaving me much of a choice here, Carrots. What kind of options have you thought about?"
"Two foxes. One boy and one girl", she declared with no hesitation whatsoever, not even having to take a look at the vulpine's expression to know its surprised state.
"Wow, Fluff", Nick astonished. "I wouldn't be amazed if you had picked the names by now. Why no bunnies though?"
"Simple. I want more foxes in my life. It would be easier for the kits to have a sibling of the same species too. Less bullying over their parents being freaks and stuff", she added with sarcasm and a smirk. "And you don't have to worry about the legal matters by the way. We'll have the same exact rights as any other different sex couple out there as long as we get married."
Needless to say, Nick's whole mouth and throat went dry - to put it lightly - at the very last word, immediately sending the fox into a coughing frenzy. He'd never be able to explain how she could scare him so much with such unrealistically pleasant notions.
It was during this loud coughing fit that the several pairs of feet right behind the locked wooden door made their silent exit down the long hallway and back to the elevator, their common objective to find the rest of their clan to share the fresh information regarding their sister's odd partner with.
Bonnie wiped her soaked paws in the dishcloth hanging from the handle of one of the dark brown kitchen cabinets, having just finished washing the dirty plates and cutlery with the help of six of her 13-year-old kits. Every other day there would be an official raffle that determined which litter would get the honor to serve as their mother's personal helpers, an event so traditional that she'd even heard rumors of her oldest kits running a betting pool on it. Of course she'd never found any evidence of this happening taken how fast the message of an incoming ambush seemed to travel within the walls of the burrow.
Either way, busting this scheme was a task for another day as right now she needed to find her clearly less than chirpy husband and properly talk with him for the first time since their daughter's mate's arrival. Thankfully the last twenty-something years had taught her a thing or two about the all-too-emotional buck, which definitely eased her search around the farm. Before following her gut instincts outside to the fields though, she climbed upstairs and checked their own bedroom in case she had misread the reason for his premature departure earlier. Not finding a single soul, as she suspected, the grey furred and sky blue shirted doe headed out the front door to the slowly cooling air of the late-winter evening. Stu had always had a habit of relieving his frustration through physical work rather than, a very useful trait for a farmer, although not so much for a solicitous father of 276 rather demanding attention seekers.
It was well under five minutes later that she found the round-cheeked buck at the small, though relatively tall, tool shed next to the quarter of an acre of yet to be harvested white potatoes, the conveniently loud and repetitive banging of a hammer hitting both metal and wood having led her there. The cedar-colored rabbit was hunched on his knees on the slightly tilted rooftop barely twice his size in width, apparently in the process of switching the aged planks to newer, non-rotten ones. The noise ceased as he put the hammer down and set another long nail in its place, fumbling furiously.
"What have I told you about using that ladder alone", Bonnie chided gently, having to raise her chin quite a bit to get a good visual on her husband, who nearly jumped as a result of being pulled out of the depths of his mind.
"Geez, Bon! At least the ladder won't give me a heart attack", he retorted, holding his paw over his chest in genuine scare.
"Everything gives you a heart attack, Stu", she said with a fond smile, trying her best to look as innocent as a bunny at her age could. The tactic proved little to no use as her mate merely sighed, shook his head and turned back around to resume his work. "Honey, I'm sorry. I should've told you before they arrived."
"Carrot sticks right you should've", he snorted agitatedly. "I don't get how you can trust the fella."
"Aw c'mon, Stu! Didn't you see how nervous and polite he was acting at the table? There's no doubt in my mind that he's in love with Judy."
"And there's no doubt in mine that he's hiding something for the same reason", the buck stated flatly, glancing over his shoulder to look down at her. "I've heard enough stories about his kind to know not to let down my guard."
Bonnie sighed knowingly. Debating with this particular rabbit had always been far too easy, no matter the subject. "And where or who have you heard those stories from?"
Stu looked puzzled but answered nonetheless. "Pretty much from everyone in a ten mile radius. How come?"
"Oh, no reason. Just trying to put things into perspective", she told him with a stale expression, which quickly turned into a slightly victorious one. "Say, which one do you think knows more about foxes: your farmer friends who base their judgmental attitude on a single bad encounter and mostly untruthful rumors they've heard from other farmers, or your own daughter who encounters all types of mammals on a daily basis and has gone so far as become mates with her natural enemy? I understand that you want to be careful around Nick, but at least have some faith in Judy."
The rabbit on the rooftop opened his mouth in order to protest but found his own arguments irrational before they so much as made it to his vocal chords. "I… I'm just tryna protect her, Bon."
"Stu, she's not a kit anymore. No matter how much we disagree with her choices, we still can't change them. All we can do is be supportive and hope for the best", she convinced, seeing the buck's frustration crumble apart bit by bit. "You'll be seeing a lot more of that fox in the future so why not get on good terms now? Unlike us, that boy's done nothing wrong so far."
A drawn-out sigh ensued, followed by an even longer silence of the Hopps patriarch weighing his options. It would be very hard, if not impossible, to wash his mind clean from all the unacknowledged prejudice he'd gathered over the decades.
Then again, trying to live knowing he was preventing his little bun, whose life had thrown her enough challenges already, from being completely happy didn't seem like a reasonable alternative either.
Before he could properly reflect on his thoughts though, two distant and, most of all, urgent voices reached his drooped ears, causing him to raise his gaze up at the two boys racing toward the lonely shed. He and his wife exchanged confused and partially worried looks as she turned away from him and began hurrying towards the two young little figures, Jonathan and Michael by the looks of it.
Stu watched as the three long eared mammals met each other some distance away, his attempts at eavesdropping the conversation proving worthless as Bonnie got the two kits to calm down and stop screaming. Still, the chat seemed rather intense and was already over before he could so much as guess what it was about. He noticed his wife send him a brief distressed glare before the trio parted ways, the doe leaving in the general direction of the main structure while the boys made a beeline straight to his position.
"Hi, boys! What's the- Hey!" he shouted and stood up, taken aback by the kits immediately taking a hold of the ladder and carrying it away from the wall. "What do you two think you're doing?"
"Sorry, Dad", the older one of the two light brown furred rabbits, Jonathan, said, a truly apologetic look in his hazelnut colored eyes. "Mom told us not to let you down for five to ten minutes."
"Wha- Why?" Stu stuttered, the recently buried frustration crawling its way back up to his mind along with drips of worry. "What's going on?"
"She thought you'd hurt Judy's boyfriend", the ten-year-old Michael announced, his voice free of any guilt at the situation, much unlike his brother's.
Stu could only blink at them in confusion. "Why would I wanna hurt him?"
"Ethan and Emma told us that they heard Nick call himself a criminal when he was talking with Judy about having kits just a few minutes ago", Jonathan explained, rubbing the back of his head nervously at the sight of his father's eyes flare with anger. Had it not been for the older buck's bad hip preventing him from making the 6-foot drop, the fox known as Nicholas Wilde would've most likely already been nothing but a hide on their doorstep. "They said it didn't sound like a joke either."
"Geez, Nick! It's not that hot in here", Judy sneered teasingly, looking up at the heavily, though inaudibly, panting fox's gaped snout and slightly hanging tongue. The pair had just finished unpacking and were now navigating through the pink halls of the huge family compound paw in paw, their target to reach the front door from where they would proceed to the dozens of blueberry bushes, the second biggest reason Nick was in Bunnyburrow in the first place, on the far edge of the property.
'It's hot everywhere I go, Fluff. I can't really help my perfect looks', came the snarky written remark, the fox having consciously shut his muzzle in what she could only guess was embarrassment.
"Oh, believe me, I've noticed and certainly don't mind", Judy hummed contently with a cheeky grin of her own, taking note of the spaciousness of the usually cramped rooms as they passed by each doorway. She didn't put much thought into it though as not having Nick getting chased by yet another twenty or so of her still curious brothers and sisters did feel like a nice change. "You should get your fur cut when we get back to the city though", she stated in a thoughtful tone, letting her imagination run free as she glanced up and down at his slim frame covered by a thick layer of fuzz. "I kinda wanna see you rock a summer style for a while."
The canid shot her an odd look and untied their intertwined paws to scribble once again, the two at last stepping out the front entrance into the fresh air. 'You know, as lovely as fulfilling the deepest of your fantasies sounds, I'm not really sure if I'm up for paying around fifty bucks just to freeze to death each and every morning I get out of bed.'
"Nick, it's not like that", Judy said meekly, a slight blush creeping up to her cheeks. How the fox still managed to cause such reaction from her after all the nights they'd spent together was a mystery. Her voice quickly shifted back to its normal and confident state however. "One: you always complain how hot it is in my apartment and pretty much everywhere else than outside. Two: one of my brothers is a furdresser so the whole thing would be free and you could have it practically right away. Three: you don't even own a bed, jerk."
Nick seemed to snort and was already scrawling on another note, when he suddenly came to a full halt, his ears perking up in partial confusion and curiosity. Not even having made it fifty feet from the porch, Judy turned in the same direction as the vulpine to see the reason for the interruption. The last thing she was expecting to find was her mother storming towards them, descending the large, healthy green hill that the burrow had been built into, anger and intimidation evident in her general posture.
"Nicholas!" she shouted in a low grumble, sending glares of daggers at the gulping fox.
Despite his basic instincts telling him to do so, Nick didn't allow his usual protective smirk to take over his current unsure expression, knowing that the older doe must've had a good reason to once again change moods all the sudden. The last thing he needed was not to only seem like a threat to her deaf daughter's future, but an ignorant threat at that. With one last mostly distressed glance at the bunny beside him, he spoke: "What seems to be the problem, Mrs. Hopps?"
Bonnie stopped in front of the pair with crossed arms and a stern stance, regarding the younger rabbit with a half-done nod. "You have two seconds to explain why two of my sons ran to tell me that you're a criminal before Stu comes and blasts you a new hole under that tail of yours."
"Oh", Nick said dryly, now understanding the situation clearly. "Any way we could delay that appointment with your husband? I'm not sure two seconds is going to quite cut it."
"Less jokes and more talk", came the sharp reply. Judy tried to open her mouth to ask about the topic only to have her mother's paws tell her to can it and wait for a moment. Interrogating the two separately was the most certain way to get the whole truth.
The red fox sighed heavily and closed his eyes, steeling himself for the moments to come. A pained, protective smirk finally took its standard position as Nick began with the shortened version of his biography, following a similar pattern as just a week prior.