Big thanks to MrShurukan for the fantastic correction once again! Good job brother!

Hope you enjoy it a little, have fun reading!

Zootopia – Springtime Circumstances

Chapter 24 – A few important questions (POV Nick)

I´ve never been laughed at this much before in my whole life. When I woke up this morning, it was about half past ten, I was greeted by a widely grinning and excited nurse once again and I already knew that something was not right. I haven´t seen her here before, she must be taking care of Suzanne´s shift for today or something. She was a young lioness, also dressed in a white hospital outfit, and she was here to give me the drugs I needed to survive the day. I still needed the painkillers, it wasn´t bearable without it. Nevertheless, I was in a good mood when I woke up.

"Have you slept well, Officer Wilde?" she asked me in a friendly way, as I just began stretching myself a little after opening my eyes carefully.

"Very well, thanks for asking" I replied with a little smile. Her excited grin was a little contagious, "The name is Nick by the way, I would not be mad at you for calling me that."

She came a little closer shyly and shook my paw very carefully, "Nice to meet you, my name is Monika" she introduced herself.

"You seem to be a happy nature, aren't you?" I asked, referring to her good mood.

"No…I´m just a little excited to meet you personally!" she explained, "you know…on such a big day!"

"Big day?" I asked in confusion.

"The SMA-show" she reminded me.

"Oh yeah, that…" I sighed, "Hope that calmed down a little since yesterday…I nearly got the shock of my life when I first saw that."

"Why?" she asked in confusion, "Didn´t you know about it before?"

"Not really, no."

"But it was a nice surprise for you, wasn´t it?" she asked.

"I don´t really want to go there you know…I do not belong in that list anyways…" I chuckled confidently, "It was nice of them to mention me after all that, but that´s all the attention I´m gonna get, I hope. I don´t even want more hype than that…" I explained. Her grin widened even more suddenly. I knew immediately what that meant, and I had a bad feeling coming up already.

"Uhm…" she whispered carefully, "Well…"

…

20 minutes later:

"Hahahaha" his excited laughter greeted me when I picked up the phone and accepted the call with a little sigh, "hahahaha haha" it continued, "what did she tell you yesterday?" Max told me, and I heard Fangmeyer´s laughing in the background as well, "What did she tell you?"

"Yeah, yeah…" I sighed, nevertheless being a little amused about it.

"Guess who went to work on their free day just to organize everything for you!" he laughed.

"Don´t tell me you were…" I asked him in disbelief.

"That footage is biblical" he continued on laughing, "You´re like so unbothered about it and your dry comments make it even better, I cannot stop watching that! …And that is a compliment when a guy is telling you that!" he chuckled.

"I hate you guys."

"No really, this is brilliant! Well send it to your phone in a minute!"

"You guys want to fuck me up, don't you?" I chuckled, still not believing them, "You´re joking!"
"We´ll see you tonight on channel 7!" he told me excitedly, "We´ve been talking to the press already! This is going to be so awesome!"

I hit my own paw into my face as I heard that. Then, another thought crossed my mind: "If you really want to use that footage for the sake of fun, you have to ask Cammy for her permission as well…" I explained to him plainly.

"What does she have to do with you walking around nude…" he asked, before he stopped in his tracks, "Oh…"

"Yeah" I chuckled, "I have to explain that shit."

"That…is a problem, yeah…"

"Ok, whatever!" I told him after another quick thought about it, "If you guys talk to her, explain all of that to her -the two of you personally, I want a witness of that- and when she is fine with it, you have my permission to use it" I told him plainly, and that was followed by a short silence, just as expected.

"Um…yeah" Max said slowly, followed by an unsure chuckle, "…alright…"

"All out of confidence now, aren't you?" I teased him just for fun.

"Ok, fine! Whatever! That's worth it!" he told me then, "I don´t care what she thinks of us…"

"I hope she just laugh at you and says no afterwards" I teased him, although I doubted it a little.

"You´re not getting away with that, Nicky!" he told me with another little chuckle.

"Dammit" I joked, but I knew it anyways. But I wasn´t even mad about it.

"Talk to you later, Nicky! Got to arrange a few things, this needs to be epic!"

"Yeah, yeah, I´m going to hear that in forever anyways!"

"No doubt" he chuckled.

"See you later, assholes!" I told him ironically, then I ended the call.

15 Minutes later:

"Hahaha haha, Wilde!" I´ve just heard of it!" he laughed, and I have never witnessed him this happy before, "You never fail to surprise me!"

The Chief was in a good mood obviously, and I wasn´t expecting that when I accepted his call. I thought he would be mad, I thought he would tell me not to spare too many details in the show and to forget about Max and Daniels idea with the video footage, but nothing of that was happening. He seemed to be totally cool with that. Now even the Chief laughed about me.

"I´m doing fine in here by the way, thanks for asking!" I greeted him back, sounding a little unnerved on purpose.

"You´ve got to be fine after hearing that!" he answered, not even slightly bothered about it, "That´s the payback for all the crap I have to hear every day!" he laughed, "Congratulations on your win by the way!"

That made a bit of sense actually, I probably had been going on his nerves a couple of times before, I couldn´t deny it.

"Yeah, thanks very much…"

"This is going to be good, I´m watching that, just to let you know!"

"Never knew you were into that…" I teased him, "You´re watching that every year?"

"I´ve never heard of that until yesterday evening…" he chuckled lightheartedly, "Didn´t knew something like that even exisited…"

"I can undress for you too, Chief, but that´s not cheap!" I continued, "Just tell me when and where!"

"There is no need for that, thank you, guess what Fangmeyer just showed me" he told me.

"Have they been talking to her already? I mean Cammy…"

"I think they have…talk to him by yourself, I´ll hand you over for a second!"

"Hey Nick" I heard Fangmeyer´s voice greeting me on Bogo´s phone, "How are you?"

"Hi Dan, don´t tell me she agreed on that!"

"She was laughing her ass off" he confessed, "But it was worth it! We didn´t even need do convince her, she just wanted to make sure she´ll be able to watch it!"

"Greeeaaat!" I sighed ironically, "That´s what I wanted to hear!" I added with a faked enthusiastic voice.

"Yeah, isn´t it?"

"I will never be able to go anywhere again without having everyone´s attention! And all that because of you little fuckers!"

"You should honestly do that undercover thing in the sex bar again some day, just to see how the girls react" he suggested.

"Guess how the nurses react all the time" I sighed.

"Oh, I´d have so much sex if I were you" he chuckled, totally unbothered that the Chief was listening.

"Yeah…" I commented that carefully, "I´m sure you would."

"Anyways, have you been talking to the producers already?"

"I have to be in the Lobby in half an hour."

"Yes! Great, this is going to be so awesome!"

"Oh yeah, it is!" I thought to myself with an evil little grin, which he obviously couldn´t see through the phone. I had a little plan of revenge for myself.

"You´ve mentioned that a few times already" I sighed.

"I´ll repeat it once again for you, this is going to be brilliant!" he repeated it excitedly.

"Alright. See you later guys" I ended the call finally, "Tell Bogo he´ll get an autograph later, everything for the fans!"

"Bye Nicky" he chuckled, "See you later, Superstar!"

Half an hour later:

"You surely know that the show is presented by our favorite popstar Gazelle traditionally…" the moose in the business suit asked me, after he had introduced himself to me and handed me one of the two coffee mugs on the cafeteria-table in front of us.

I shook my head silently, before I took a sip of coffee first of all. That made him look a little puzzled.

"I´ve never even heard of that show before, I´m sorry" I told him the truth plainly, "I don´t even know how that all works…what the point of all that is…"

He shrugged his shoulders a little, but I didn´t feel bad for it, it was just the truth.

"…well, 75% of the viewers and 90% of the audience are women…" he guessed the reason why I probably told him that.

"…maybe it´s also because I´m just a police officer and not a well-known celebrity…" I suggested.

"You indeed crushed the board this year. You joined two days before the vote ended and you won it with a great lead…you can consider yourself a celebrity by now by the way!" he chuckled in amusement.

I shrugged my shoulders and took another sip of coffee.

"How does that all work this evening? Do I just come on stage when I´m asked too?"

"Well, yeah. Sort of."

"And Gazelle is hosting it?"

"Yes. She has prepared a few questions for every nominee, naturally, but you don´t get to know those questions before. You have to answer them live and without any preparation. That´s the tradition of the show."
"Questions? What sort of questions?"
"Prepare for something probably very spicy and detailed, the girls want to know a lot about the SMA´s, and Gazelle is not shy of going more intimate with some topics either" he told me with a little grin, "Is that a problem for you?"

I just shook my head a little. I was actually quite excited to hear that, it sounded like it could be a lot of fun all over sudden.

"Some of your colleagues have given us some video footage we´re allowed to use…" he let me know, and I couldn´t hide a little smile anymore either.

"Yeah…are you sure you´re ok with that?" he asked with a whit of hope in his voice.

I just nodded slowly and with a little smile. "I´m even explaining that in the show, if necessary…I won´t get rid of hearing that anyways…"

"This would be very awesome!" he told me happily, "The predicted quotes for this year´s show are even higher than we ever imagined pretty much because of what happened in the last few days!"

"Trust me, I wouldn´t want to repeat the last few days if I could…"

"Yeah…sounded like you had quite a hard time…" he confessed.

"Anyways" I waved it off, before it got too emotional right now, "Now it is like that, so whatever…"

"Yeah, we should just try to make the best out of it, don´t we?"

I nodded shortly.

"Am I the last one on stage?" I asked him then.

"Since you´re in first place, yes. But don´t worry, there is a lot of good stuff backstage, we´re not short of anything!"
"Blueberries!" I told him, "That´s all I need. I want some blueberries please!"

He chuckled a little while hearing that.

"That should be possible…but I was not only talking about that, if you know what I mean…"

I just waved it off as he noticed that I knew what he was talking about.

"Still not feeling like the SMA?" he asked.

"Still feeling like somebody who´s girlfriend is in an induced coma" I corrected, "But at least that all is good for killing some time…"

"Wow" he said, looking a little stunned.

"Sorry?"

"I didn´t expect to hear that from a top three nominees ever!" he clarified, "Normally, those guys are doing it with every girl there is…normally they never even heard about the word relationship…"

Now I really felt bad hearing that. About what I did yesterday, about my stupidity. Luckily, nobody knew about that, because I really was ashamed about it.

"…that´s what I meant I´m not one of them" I told him lowly, "I don´t want to be labeled as one of those guys."

"That depends on you" he told me with a shrug of his shoulders, "You´re allowed to say anything you like. It´s not a rule to be an asshole, it´s just likely to become one…"

"Anything? I can say anything I like?"
"This is a late-night-show by the time you´re on stage anyways, so yeah…basically anything! …I would be careful with certain political topics or something like that, but otherwise… …that brings me to the next thing I wanted to ask: That video footage…do you want that censored? Because we got it…well…as true as it is."

I just shrugged my shoulders again. "Is there footage like that on this show usually?" I asked, knowing how detailed that video is.

"Well, we had some scenes from some actor´s films-shootings from time to time, but not exactly from that perspective. It´s not forbidden to show it like that to be clear, but that is all up to you as well, naturally."

"I don't care about it…do what you think works best" I told him. I really wasn´t too bothered, why would I, I got nothing to hide. But there was another thought on my mind that was much more important.

"One last request please" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"You know those two colleagues of mine, officers Wolfheart and Fangmeyer, the ones who were taken hostages a few days ago…probably the ones who contacted you about the video…"

"Yeah, sure!"

"For the show…can I please do a little…?"

…

He nodded in agreement, he liked my suggestion.

"I´m going to talk to them just in a minute, that´s a really good idea!"

Backstage, Channel 7 TV studio; 9:30PM:

I´ve been sitting here for about three hours by now, but I wasn´t alone, luckily. The show had progressed to the top five since quite a while already, we could follow it live on the screens in the backstage area. Gazelle really was taking her time with every single nominee, but the audience seemed to really enjoy it. Most of these guys really were popular actors, singers, presenters or even athletes, and all of them got even more attention than they normally get already.

The producer wasn´t joking with what he told me about this place either. All of the nominees had girls around them. Very beautiful girls. Very beautiful girls who weren´t shy of coming closer. Even talking to one of those other guy´s was not easy, a few of them really were busy over there. The few that I was talking to just said hello, shook my paw quite kindly and then got back to their couches. They obviously recognized me, but they weren´t really bothered. One of them was talking to me for a little longer, but he was not friendly. He told me that I do not really deserve to be on that list and that I shouldn´t be so proud about it. I just shrugged my shoulders and shook my head in disbelief about that, but he seemed to be serious. Neither did I ever tell anybody that I was proud of it, nor did I insult him or did anybody else. I wasn´t even looking like I gave a shit about the ranks. He kept on complaining for a little while, but I just ignored his rude comments and sat down onto my own couch again, leaving him where he was and showing him my respect that way. I didn´t want to start a fight in here or something, and I didn´t want to upset him either. I guessed that he was just a little jealous at me and that was why he was this rude. "What a crazy world these guys are living in" I thought to myself.

A few minutes later I found out that the unfriendly tiger I was talking to actually got onto the second place of the list, after I had knocked him right off the top yesterday. That made a lot more sense now, he really was mad at me. He was the star of some exercise TV-program or something, if never heard of him before, but he seemed to be very popular among the women of this city.

The pretty girls were around our couch too, we actually had the most of the attractive canine and feline-ladies around us, but unlike Max and Daniel I was just sitting there eating blueberries and drinking coffee. I wasn´t bothered about them at all. A few of the vixens looked at me like they wanted to eat me as a whole, but I wasn´t letting them get any closer to me. I was winking at them from time to time, just for fun, and it got them absolutely crazy. My colleagues had no problems with their attention, predictably, but the closer our entrance on stage came, the less they were bothered about the girls.

"Hey Nick?" Fangmeyer asked me, just as the secondly placed tiger walked onto the stage, "Nervous already?"

"Nah, just a little. What about you?"

"I´m really excited actually! Our montage is very good and we´re all looking awesome in these uniforms!" he got it straight to the point.

Max nodded in agreement, "This is going to be so cool, my mom is going to be very proud of me!" he chuckled ironically.

He was right on that, we were indeed looking good. We were allowed by the Chief to wear our special ZPD-Ceremony uniforms tonight, which had a slightly more elegant blue than the normal ones and the golden ornaments decorating our shoulders. I would actually be lying when I told them, that I wasn´t excited about this. I really wanted to begin already, but I had to keep my cool for just a little bit longer.

"Got to agree" I told him with a proud little smile, "We are looking great tonight!"

POV Jennifer Wildeheart

Not only was I watching the show live, I was in the audience. Max and Daniel had gotten me a ticket for the show somehow, and I was not sitting anywhere but in the front row right now. It really was a great evening for me already, I couldn´t thank them enough for this.

Gazelle just had an interview with the third nominee on the list, and now one of her background dancers was joining her on the stage and waited for the applause to calm down. The tiger made a name of himself in some weird exercise TV-program that comes on every morning and they showed some footage and outtakes of that on the giant screens behind Gazelles couch before the interview began. She was asking him a few questions, just like she did with every other nominee before, but it wasn´t even slightly getting boring this evening, it was like addictive to listen. It was actually quite a funny conversation between them, because she knew him pretty well and she also knew a lot of interesting details about him that he couldn't deny were true. He was quite a good sport, even about the more spicy and controversial questions she was asking him, but one of the last answers he gave really angered me a little:

"How do you feel about being kicked off the top like that, just before the voting ended?" Gazelle asked him, trying to sound not too offending.

"Well…luckily for him all of that hype in the last few days gave him a huge push, you know that ´cop and prisoner´ thing…it worked out well for him, and now it is like it is."

"But he also caught and arrested all of the remaining prisoners all by himself afterwards…I wouldn´t just call that luck…" Gazelle reminded him with a cheeky smile and got a lot of support from the audience for that.

"Well, I guess he was just doing his job...I´m Not saying that he isn´t a bad police officer or something, he did his job pretty good I believe, but just like me he is just doing his work, I´m not quite sure what the big deal about that is…" he chuckled slightly cynically, "…it´s not like I´m doing nothing all day long either…" he added, truly meaning it like that.

"Maybe he can tell us that by himself later…" Gazelle supposed, to calm the situation down a little. She was not alone with that idea either.

"…I can´t deny that he is a good-looking guy as well…" the tiger tried defending his sympathy, but he already failed for me with saying those things about Nick earlier.

"…if I only had such a nice police uniform!" he joked.

I really hoped right now that Nick would notice and kick his ass for that later. He would have earned it.

"…but I grant him the win this year, I have to life with it anyways, don´t I?" he smiled at the audience.

He got a little bit of applause for that as well, but not from me. I couldn´t stand that guy anymore. Even Gazelle sensed that he really was a little jealous.

"Nick!" I thought to myself, "…please stamp this guy into the ground with your performance!" I thought to myself, grinning a little in anticipation, "This is going to be so good!"

POV Nick

"Max, Daniel!" one of the assistants told us suddenly, "Prepare for your entrance please, you have about three minutes!"

Both of them lifted themselves out of the comfortable couch in excitement and followed her right away. The stressed out panther lady was directing the nominees for the whole evening already.

"Rock ´n´ Roll!" Daniel grinned at me.

"Wish us luck!" Max told me lowly.

I gave them a thumb up and a confident smile on the way, then they disappeared out of sight already. Just like that, it was about to begin. Finally.

About two minutes later, the tiger guy was coming from the stage and passed my couch on his way. The audience was still clapping for him.

"Have fun on the stage, kid!" he told me with a little chuckle, but he wasn´t looking like he was being ironic.

"Ouch!" I just commented that dryly. It noticeably annoyed him.

"Nobody will ever remember you anyways…" he told me then dryly.

"Ouch! …that must hurt!" I smiled back at him with a faked painful expression, "You sound a little frustrated…is everything fine?" I asked in an over-acted way, "Do you want to talk about it, darling?"

"I´m telling you, for today you may be a hero…but in half a year…"

"Just to make it clear for your tiny, self-blinded mind" I suddenly told him a little more seriously, "I´m a police officer, a detective in most cases! I know that I don't belong in this world and I know that I probably won´t be too famous in half a year anymore, but that never was my intention…so what about that?"

He just shook his head about that in disbelief. He wasn´t really getting my point I believed, he looked like hearing that was not making it any better for him.

"…and I´ve heard your friendly words about me on stage by the way" I added with a little wink, "I´ll think of you!"

There was a second filled with silence, before he found his voice again.

"I meant it just like I said it" he replied, not changing his expression, "No matter that you´re a police officer, or a detective, you don´t deserve to be here. Here is the place where the big players are, where the real stars are! The end, fox!"

"Alright" I thought to myself, "That´s enough! You´re going to hear that again! You´re going to regret that!"

"If you say so…" I told him, still in a noticeably faked-friendly and peaceful way, "…let´s see what your boss has to say about this then…" I told him, "She must know best about it, she is the host of the show…" I told him lowly but very intriguing.

"Officer Wilde?" I was interrupted carefully. It was the panther lady who waved me towards her.

"Yes please?" I answered, slowly taking my eyes off the tiger in the fancy white shirt.

"You should prepare for your entrance in the next few minutes!" she told me.

"Oh, yeah! Just a second!" I answered her in a friendly way. Then I turned my attention towards the jealous tiger once again.

"You´ll hear of me again, buddy!" I told him, before I left him alone where he was.

"Doubt it."

"Wish me luck!"

"Going to need it" he commented, before he finally went on his way again, "This could go badly wrong for you, you got no experience with that at all!" was the last thing I´ve heard from him

"I wanna see your face when all of this is over!" I thought to myself with an evil little grin. He wouldn´t get that out of his head very quickly.

I just ignored his last sentence and went towards the assistant who waved me towards her.

"You know about the procedure?" she asked me once again.

I nodded confidently, I was the one who helped with working it out. I was perfectly confident right now.

"You´re entrance is in about two minutes" she began explaining.

The screen besides her showed me the stage where Max and Daniel were sitting on Gazelles couch and talking to her already.

"…just wait for this red light here to turn off and you´re good to go" she pointed out for me.

"Alright, got it! Thank you very much!"

"Good luck, Officer Wilde!" she smiled, "Hope you have fun out there!"

Damn, I´m such a bitch! Goddamn cliffhangers with the worst timing again!

...Anyways, hope you liked it a little and are excited for more! Tell me what you think!

Hope you have a great time, see you soon!

Love you!

~furrwolf