Yeah, I know, it took me forever. Germany is like a sauna right now and it´s too hot to really concentrate on anything. And I´m lazy AF.

At least I got this one finished. Big thanks to MrShurukan for correcting and even writing parts of it! Great job, buddy!

Hope you enjoy, have fun reading!

Zootopia – Springtime Circumstances

Chapter 43 – Just a moment

I couldn´t move. There was a bright light blinding my eyes and I got used to it just very slowly. I didn´t know anything. I didn´t know where I was and it seemed like I also didn´t know what I was. The only thing I remembered was that I couldn´t move already when I had woken up the last time. I couldn´t do anything to stop them and they just sent me back to sleep again. I was sleeping far too long already, it felt like an eternity. I wanted to tell them that I was alright, that I didn´t want to hurt anybody, but I didn´t even know who they were. Then I suddenly heard a voice in my head that seemed familiar. I couldn´t hear what she was saying, but her voice triggered a lot of flashbacks. I saw prison bars before me. In the background I heard the sound of a clapping and cheering audience. I was on a stage suddenly; bright lights blinded my eyes, just like right now. I had a sword in my paws and held it above my head, a polar bear landed on it with great impact. There was blood everywhere, but a moment later I was yet at another place once again. There was a shattered bowl on the floor besides a sofa and a glass table. Shredded blue clothing was laying besides it. The clapping became louder. I was standing on top of a skyscraper, a second later I was hanging on the ceiling in a brightly illuminated room. Then I saw a very beautiful bunny in a blue police uniform attaching a golden badge onto my chest. Her smile was just so heartwarming, so joyful, so happy, her purple eyes were staring right at me. I wished that one of the few nice images stayed a little longer, but it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. What followed was just disturbing. I heard voices talking about me. They said that I was a bad person. They said I was doing more harm than good to the public, they said that I was misusing my powers. They were not that wrong as it seemed, because what I saw was myself, and I did horrible things to a lot of different people. I saw myself beating up another fox, I heard him begging for mercy. He was not the only one I saw who I was doing things like this to. I was dominating them, I was letting of steam using their bodies, I made them suffer just for my pleasure. Then I remembered the most important part: I was in a relationship! But I still was doing things to other women who clearly weren´t her. I was more like a toy than a serious boyfriend.

"W…was that really me?" I asked myself, "This horrible things, I…did I really do that?"

Those images wouldn´t stop for a while. I even saw myself from their perspectives I believed.

"Who…am I? Why am I doing all this? This really needs to stop, it had gotten totally out of control already!"

My head hurt. I hoped that all those flashbacks would stop now, finally, but instead the clapping in the background became louder and louder, those voices became louder, and when I was just about to reach the point where I couldn´t stand it anymore, I got that last picture showed in front of my eyes: It was another fox, he had been hugging me as it looked like, I felt a little stitch in my back and in that very moment he winked me with his eyes very shortly.

"Have fun explaining that to the press, Officer Wilde!" he said, and that was the one sentence that made all my memories come back immediately.

I am Nick Wilde. The counterpart to the most bad-ass cop in history, the most beautiful woman in the whole world and with the coolest colleagues and friends I could ever think of. It was like I´ve never forgotten about it.

My eyes finally got used to the bright lights that illuminated the room I was laying in, and the next thing I saw were yellow walls and a yellow ceiling. I was tied down onto the bed by my wrists and at my ankles. Once again, I had a catheter in my left arm, it was connected to a tube that led up to a plastic tank full of ´something´, but apart from all that there was not much else in the room. I felt really left alone and forgotten after only a few minutes. It was quite depressing, but I didn´t want to fall asleep once again either, so I decided to wait until something happened. I had a lot to think about anyways.

POV Judy

I´ve been up since five in the morning. I couldn´t sleep for longer than two hours in total throughout the whole last night. It was one endless nightmare. I felt cold, because I couldn´t snuggle myself into his smooth fur, I felt insecure because somebody broke into his flat just last evening and I was plagued by my fearful thoughts as well. I just hoped that he was fine and not in any immediate danger anymore. At 6am I left his apartment, dressed in my regular police uniform, and headed right for the ZPD. Not even chief Bogo was in the house yet. I met a couple of guys from the nightshift who were impatiently waiting for the end of their shifts already, but I wasn´t in for a lot of conversation with them. I just went towards my office and closed the door behind me.

"There is a problem growing in our own rows…" I remembered Jack´s words from yesterday, as I booted up my computer and logged into my account.

I stared at the search bar for quite a while, thinking about what else they had told me. I clicked onto the bar with the cursor and typed "evidence" into it slowly, before I hit the enter key.

A number of entries appeared on my screen, all of them labeled and sorted by the latest dates, case-numbers and storage destinations. Everything that was older than half a year was correctly labeled as "destroyed" as well, just as it should. I even remembered most of those cases, Nick and I had personally secured quite a lot of that. I scrolled back up to the beginning of that page and clicked on one of the most recent cases. It was the evidence that was secured after we had taken down that dealership in the sex-bar. It showed a few pictures of different substances being packed up in boxes, surrounded by packs of coffee power, which they used to drown the smells a little, but that wasn´t a very new trick either. What was a little weird though, was that it didn´t exactly look like a truckload. Everybody was talking about a giant delivery worth several million pounds, but what was shown in the pictures was barely one whole pallet.

"Well, that´s interesting…" I thought out loudly, before I took a picture of the computer-screen with my phone, "Where did all that stuff go?"

I quickly wrote down some data to the colleagues responsible for the evidence, and then I shut down my computer once again. "I´m curious what they´re going to say…"

I took another look at the time the display of my phone showed and shook my head a little. "…but not now, I need to see him first!"

POV Max Wolfheart

She was still laying on top of me when I woke up this morning. She had her free day today, I had to be at the briefing in half an hour.

"Hey Maxie" she greeted me with a dirty little smile, "How are you my little sex-god?"

I just smiled mischievously and licked over her face carefully. She was just as beautiful as ever. I wrapped my arms around her and rolled her onto her back carefully.

"You should move your fluffy little butt soon" she giggled, "Bogo won´t like it if you´re late…"

"You really think that´s his biggest issue right now?" I asked back from above her.

"I wouldn´t want to find out about that if I where you" she replied with a happy smile. She surely noticed how another region of my body became a little more active suddenly.

"Oh, I think I´m good on that. You know…when he´s scared of a little fox already, I think he´ll respect a wolf even more…"

"Oh…" she snickered with a big ironic smile, "…I still want to see you take on that little fox one day!"

"Uhm…yeah" I chuckled, "…sure…maybe… …yeah, someday…"

She just grinned a little as I started kissing her wildly to change the topic.

I was rather successful with that, because when I finally was done with her, I just had some time left to take a very quick shower and rush out of my flat in order to be at work on point. While I walked along the sidewalk and the ZPD building came in sight already, my phone rang suddenly.

"Wolfheart?" my colleague and old classmate at the ZPD academy Spencer Howlton asked, after I accepted his call.

"Yeah, it´s me, what is it?"

"You coming to work today?"

"I´m on my way already, I´m a little late…"

"Ok, great! I wanted to ask you if it´s fine if I change patrol with Fangmeyer today? I need to talk to you about something…"

"Something?" I asked. I wasn´t actually that glad about hearing it, although I always considered him as a friend back then, he was quite a nuisance and could get pretty annoying after a little while.

"Yeah…I´m pretty sure you´ll like the idea, but I don´t want everybody to know about it…"

I sighed a little, but not loud enough that he could hear it.

"Yeah, ok, why not. If Dan is ok with that…"

"He´ll go with Anderson the old fartbag…"

"Alright, fine. I´ll be at the briefing in just a few minutes, see you there."

"Cool, see ya!"

And with that he hung up again. I just shrugged my shoulders and put my phone away once again. I still was in quite a good mood, especially after what I`ve just had with Jennifer. I wanted to get this shift over with as soon as possible so I could be with her again. I promised her a nice evening a few days ago, and we both were anticipating for that this whole time already.

POV Judy

I was just in time. Although they normally didn´t let anyone in before 7AM, they made an exception for me today. At least the popularity was good for something.

It actually was Suzanne who brought me towards the room he was in now. She was, as always, quite excited, obviously, but that didn´t bother me too much at the moment. What she told me was much more important.

"He woke up just a few minutes ago, and he finally seems to have calmed down a little" she explained the situation, just as we arrived at another doctor, who was standing in front of the door.

"Officer Hopps" the oryx greeted me shortly, "Good you´re here!"

I just nodded with a friendly smile.

"How is he?" I wanted to know.

"Well…after he had woken up last evening already, we had to send him to sleep once again immediately. We gave him another full dose of the antidote, because he nearly ripped the belts apart that tied him down onto the bed…"

"Oh god" I whispered, "I hope he didn´t hurt anybody…"

"No, don´t worry. He doesn´t seem to be aggressive anymore either…he rather was begging for help…your help to be precise…"

"My help?"
"He just woke up a few minutes ago. We didn´t talk to him yet, we wanted to wait for his reaction to the patted room…but he was asking for your name lowly, it nearly sounded like he was crying…" the doctor explained to me.
"Can I go see him?" I wanted to know.

"Are you sure you don't…"

"You just told me he wasn´t aggressive anymore. I want to end his suffering already!"

"Alright, yeah, if you´re confident…" he agreed, before he opened the door for me, "Here you go."

I went in and saw him immediately. It really was a depressing little room they had locked him in, but I still was nothing but glad to see him. He noticed me immediately and he really seemed to be quite emotional right now.

"Judy!" he cried happily and with gleaming eyes, "Thank god you´re here!"

I jumped onto his bed and climbed on top of him carefully before I hugged him happily.

"Oh Nicky" I sighed, "I´m so glad you made it!"

"Couldn´t just leave you alone" he chuckled, still with tears in his eyes.

"Unbelievable" I chuckled happily.

"What happened? Did you find something out already?" he wanted to know.

"You destroyed the whole briefing room, threw half the furniture out of the windows and decorated the Chief´s face a little…but other than that…"

"Oh god" he sighed, "I´m going to hear that again, don´t I?"

"Probably" I chuckled, "But don´t worry too much about it."

"Where is he?" was his next question, and I knew right away who he was talking about.

"No! Nick, you shouldn´t…" I wanted to stop him, but he calmly shook his head right away.

"No, not that. I just want to ask him something. I believe he winked me shortly after he injected that stuff into my back…"

"I think I know who he is" I whispered, "There are quite a few things I must tell you, but not here…"

He just looked at me a little suspiciously but then he nodded.

"You think you can find somebody who can free me from this bed?"

"Are you sure you won´t get aggressive once again?" I asked him with an ironic little wink.

"Every inch of my body is aching like hell, carrots" he chuckled, "And yeah, I´m quite sure I´m back to normal again…"

"Alright" I smiled at him, "Just give me a second, I see if I can find that doctor again…"

POV Max Wolfheart

"So…here we are…" I opened up the conversation, as I steered the police cruiser across the ZPD parking lot towards the road, "…what is it, Howlton?"

"You´ve been hooking up with Jennifer, haven't you?" he asked with a chummy little grin to start our conversation.

I nodded with a mischievous little smile.

"Damn, you little bastard" he grinned, boxing my shoulders a little.

"Don´t tell me you even considered it" I joked back, "She´s by far too beautiful for you…"

He nodded with an ironic little chuckle. "I was about to ask you that too, how did you make that work?"

"Well…you know that red fox?" I asked ironically, "The one who turned the whole ZPD upside down…"

"Oh that little show-off" he chuckled dirtily, "Did you pay him back for all that already? Somewhere in a dark alley where nobody could see you?" he snickered.

"Ha! As if he has a need for that" I chuckled, "…but it´s interesting to hear of your secret fantasies…"

He just gave me another ironic little grin for that, but then it seemed like we were done with that stupid topic finally. He just waved it off and paused our conversation for a few moments.

"…anyways, I wanted to talk about something else originally…"

"That´d be?"

"You know…there is this cool new thing a colleague recently told me about…" he began carefully, "…Anderson is part of it as well in the meanwhile…but it´s still a quite exclusive thing and not everybody should know about it…you know?"

That sounded so painfully suspicious, the way he explained it made me nervous already, but I didn´t show it for now and just kept on concentrating on the road while listening. I nodded a little to his last question.

"…you can make a lot of cash without even doing any harm to anybody…" he finally brought it to the point, "…you don't even need to do anything, that´s the whole point of it…"

"What the hell, Howlton?" I asked.

"Just listen!" he cut me off hastily, "…those guys would get the stuff anyways somehow…"

"What stuff?"

"…"

"What stuff, Spencer?"

"Weapons, drugs, black money…that sort of stuff. You know, the evidence we ´destroy´ after half a year…"

"Are you out of your mind?!" I asked, before I quickly slowed down and parked the car at the sidewalk for a moment.

"Nobody knows about it! And nobody will, Wolfheart. It doesn´t even change anything! We just pretend to look away on some days, tell them everything was normal in our district and double, when not even triple our loans! You understand me?"

"Are you fucking serious?" I wanted to know, "You are kidding, aren´t you?"
He just shook his head very slow- and seriously.

"Wolfheart, listen! This is way bigger than you. You´re not the first one I tell about this and you won´t be the last one to say yes either" he told me coldly. He looked at me quite intriguing all over sudden. I didn´t even know what to reply on that.

"…I´m…I´m not saying yes to that! Are you aware of what you just told me?"

"It´s not your choice, actually" he said, and before I could even look I´ve had a dart gun pointed at me, "You know too much already, so that is your only option anyway. And believe me, you wouldn´t like the alternatives to that."

I froze completely. My paws were still laying on the steering wheel, the sunlight that crashed through the windshield was warm and stressed me even more.

"Here is the deal, Max" he told me, "You just shut your mouth, don´t ever talk about it again until you´ve proven yourself -just like Fangmeyer- look away when you´re told to and get your extra cash every now and then. Because otherwise I only have to offer a very special treatment for you…" he told me, shaking the gun a little in his paws, "And we got you by the balls already anyway, Max. It shouldn´t be too hard to capture and take her hostage either, it worked with you two fools pretty well already…"

"Fuck my life" I sighed, "…and I already wondered how they could find us in that club…our own colleagues are stabbing us in the back in the meanwhile…"

"You don´t have to worry about anything, as long as you keep your freaking mouth shut" he told me, "We worked far too hard for all this already, and I don´t care what you want and what not."

"You little asshole."

"Don´t be sore about it. Nobody will notice anyway."

"I so want to see what happens when Nick and Judy find out."

"Those two caused enough trouble already. But don´t worry, that won´t matter anymore either pretty soon…"

"So you bastards poisoned him with freaking night howlers yesterday?"

"That…" he thought about it shortly, "…that was just the beginning of it…" he said.

"I wouldn´t want to be you when Nick finds out about that" I told him, "That´s gonna hurt!"

"That´s why I have to make sure he wouldn´t ever find out" he said, as he pulled something out of his pocket and threw it over to me. It was a black little box with a red blinking LED at one side, "That is a GPS tracker" he told me. "You´re going to have that with you everywhere you go from now on. There is a microphone inside it as well, so be careful with who you talk to and what you say to them. Because I actually wanted to find out since quite a while already how your girlfriend feels from the inside…" he told me with an very evil and dirty grin.

"You keep your dirty paws of her!"

"I will, as long as you shut up… Because we´re going to find out if you told anybody, you can count on that!" he told me with a superior looking smirk, "And I will keep an eye on you, personal promise! We can see what you do with your phone as well by the way, so do not even think about that."

I just kept shaking my head in disbelief.

"…I thought we were cool, Howlton" I told him disappointedly.

He just looked at the ground for a moment. He still had the gun in his paws and pointed it at me, I still had my left paw on the steering wheel and inspected the little black box in my right one.

"…let´s go back to work again, shall we?" he asked after a little pause, pointing at the GPS tracker in my paw once again. His expression was still quite cold and intriguing.

"Yeah…" I sighed, because there was nothing more to say for me right now anyway. Then I selected the drive gear once again, "…let´s get back to work."

POV Nick

"This needs to stop, carrots" I told her, as we made our way towards the ZPD building slowly. We had left the hospital just a few minutes ago and everything seemed to be back to normal again with my body. It was half past nine in the meanwhile and the regular morning traffic of Zootopia was still at it´s finest. They´ve done what felt like a hundred tests with me, before they finally freed me of those annoying belts, but apart from my aching muscles, everything was just as always.

I wore my blue police uniform from yesterday, because I didn´t have anything else with me in the hospital, and I wanted to talk to a few people in the ZPD anyway, so that was our first goal. But I also needed to talk with her. Sadly, that nearly was impossible while we were on our way, because we were noticed every ten feet we went.

"What needs to stop?" she wanted to know, as we finally had a few moments of silence.

"All of it. All the stupid TV shows, the interviews, the fights, and last but not least the freaking orgies we start everywhere!" I explained, "Sorry for my words, but I must say it as it is…"

She sighed a little, but she knew exactly what I meant apparently. She nodded.
"No, you´re right" she agreed, "We really went into a few extremes in the last time…"

"I just realized it" I sighed, "Alone what we did to Freddy was by far too much! What were we thinking? And we´re police officers!"

She didn´t disagree with me on that either, she just nodded shamefully.

"That was too much" she agreed, "I don´t know if we can apologize for that, but we should at least try it…"

Just in that very moment somebody caught up with us and held a microphone into my face hectically, walking besides me on the sidewalk.

"Officer Wilde!" the badger yelled at me, "How do you feel? Do you think that will happen again? Can you describe wh-"

Before he could even react, I ripped the microphone out of his hands and began disassembling it right before his eyes. I screwed the corpus off the body, opened the slot of the batteries, ripped them out and dropped all the pieces onto the floor one by one, before I came to a halt and turned my gaze towards him finally.

"First of all…" I explained lowly but very intriguing, "I just woke up in a patted room, tied down onto the bed and treated like I was a bomb that was just about to explode. I just was told that I destroyed the whole briefing room of the ZPD city center yesterday. And now you disrespectful little asshole are here and yell into my face! How do I feel you ask? I´m annoyed. Do I think that will happen again? I don´t know, do you have an injector filled with night howler´s serum with you? Do you want to try that? Because I can´t recommend it…"

"But…no…I…"

"Let me tell you what is going to happen right now: You will just apologize to me, leave us alone, maybe try to save the remaining pieces of your stupid Microphone and warn everybody else who intends to try the same. And I highly recommend to learn some manners first before you try to talk to me again, maybe I´ll be down to talk to you on a normal basis then."

"I…I mean… …I´m sorry!"

"Good boy" I told him while patting his shoulders shortly. Then I completely ignored him.

I just turned back towards Judy and we started moving again. We just left him where he was and didn´t say a single further word anymore.

The people around us who had been listening got a step back from us in respect, a few of them chuckled a little or held their hands before their mouths, but I didn´t change the expression on my face. Not at all. I really didn´t care about that anymore. Judy didn´t care about it either, she just followed me. It wasn´t very far to the ZPD building anymore anyway.

"…it gets even better than that" Judy told me a few moments later, "I need to warn you in advance…"

"Bogo?" I asked.

"No, don´t worry. Bogo won´t be mad at you…"

"Injuries I don´t know about?"

"No, we were lucky on that as well" she said while shaking her head.

We just had arrived at the entrance of the Lobby and she held the door open for me.

"But I encountered some other ´acquaintances´ yesterday…in your apartment…"

"In my apartment?" I asked in confusion, not quite understanding how she meant that.

She just nodded a little. "…you can imagine that I was not that happy about it after a day like that yesterday…"

"Wait…they were inside my apartment?!"

"I wouldn´t even have noticed it if the lights hadn´t been burning…"

I just shook my head a little in disbelief. I never even imagined something like that to happen to me before. "Who would break into my apartment? It was not like I owned a lot of expensive things anyways, so what even was the point of that?" I asked myself.

We just entered the hallway our office was in.

"Who was it?" I asked, just as I noticed two other mammals waiting for us right at our office-door.

Judy stopped in her tracks as well when she noticed them. That seemed to be very convenient.

"Those two" she sighed, "Exactly those two."

It took me a second, but then I believed I knew where we had met them before. He was the bunny who helped out in Judy´s team when we were playing volleyball at the mystic springs and she was his girlfriend. The white-furred vixen casually leaned against the door of our office and waited patiently. Both of them were dressed in quite fancy black suits and looked quite professional.

"Wait…Skye and Jack broke into my apartment yesterday?" I asked her very lowly, as we nearly had arrived them.

She just nodded a little.

"Yes, we did, Nicholas" the male bunny greeted me plainly. He must have heard that as well, obviously, "…and we are very sorry for that. But this is important…"

"Important?" I asked curiously, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes, very" he affirmed.

"Alright" I sighed. I gave him one more look that should tell him that I wanted answers already, but it seemed like he wanted to stay in the position to ask the questions. I didn´t let him have that, not at all, so I ignored him first of all. "…good to know."

I was not in the mood to ask for every detail myself. I ignored him completely for now and began unlocking the door to our office after Skye had stepped out of the way for me. I held the door open for Judy and went in for myself afterwards. They had to speak up for themselves if they wanted our attention, I wanted to make that clear right away. He obviously didn´t like that, but that wasn´t a big concern for me either.

"Ignoring the problem wouldn´t solve it" Jack explained calmly, because Judy simply left them standing there as well.

"You have exactly two minutes to explain it" I told them, not looking back, "There must be a different reason than stealing anything out of my apartment, because you wouldn´t look like that right now if Judy had caught you doing that."

"We didn´t steal anything" Jack explained, following us into our office without even hesitating. Skye followed him inside and closed the door behind her lowly.

"You have some black sheep among your colleagues" she continued explaining, "Not only in the city-center, in almost every division by now. More and more of your colleagues are getting forced into it every day, and this will end in a giant catastrophe if we don´t do anything…"

"Forced into what?"

"Looking away, basically. Some of them even give the evidence back to the clans it belonged to instead of destroying it."

"Who do you know that from?"

"From a lot of sources in the meanwhile. One of them was C4 for example, the police-recruit you smashed against the wall yesterday."

"C4?"

"His name is Charlie" Jack sighed, "Everybody in the agency get´s a number for their codename…"
"You guys are freaking agent´s and think it´s a good idea to poison somebody with freaking night howlers?" I asked in disbelief.

"That was a big mistake I must admit. We´re very sorry for that."

"Say sorry to your colleague" I told him coldly, "That was one of the worst ideas I´ve ever heard…"

"It was."
"Was it his idea? Because that would have been very ballsy."

Jack just shook his head in shame slowly. I really hit him at a weak spot there, so I was pretty sure he was the leader of his team. I could use that, I had something to shut him up, and that was always helpful.

"…whoever though that was a good idea should have done this by themselves" I explained, "because telling somebody else to do that is a very weak move."

"You should never criticize decisions you haven´t been a part of…" Jack tried to end the topic quickly. I really had him by the balls with that.

"That was just utterly stupid" Judy supported me while shaking her head at what the other bunny said, "I´m sorry, but when there is somebody to criticize you, it´s Nick."

"We needed to…" Jack wanted to justify himself, but his own partner interrupted him this time.

"Let it be, Jacky" she chuckled, "Everybody makes mistakes sometimes and everybody survived it in this case…there have been worse things in the world…"

He sighed a little but didn´t knew anything to reply on that.

"He´s a good actor though" I told them, even being a tiny little bit amused about it "I believed his little story before he winked me and jabbed that injector into my back…"

"But he was supposed to get out of there before the effect kicked in" Jack complained angrily, "Now he´ll be useless for the next few weeks…"

"You better be a little more respectful" I warned him, "…because you´re not the one with the broken bones. And it might have been somebody else instead of him who got heavily injured or even worse."

Judy had been booting up her computer in the meanwhile and waved me towards her now. I left Jack standing there and ignored him for a moment.

"He was not that wrong about the evidence though" she told me, as she showed me the inventory in the network quickly, "That´s ´allegedly´ everything from what they had confiscated from that raid. They all were talking about an entire ´truckload´, remember?"

"Yeah…" I agreed. There really was just barely one pallet of substances, "That´s not exactly a truckload…"

"That´s just one of the many cases…" Skye informed me.
"Why did nobody notice this before?"

"Because that whole freaking department is part of it" Jack added impatiently.

It was quite funny to notice how the former gentleman suddenly became a little aggressive even since I´ve confronted him with his bad idea. But I tried to stay cool and don´t force it even more.

"But how does this work?" Judy wondered, "I doubt that so many police officers would do that, not even for a bit of profit…I think we can´t complain on our loans…"

She surely had a point with that.

"However this works, we need to find out more." Jack concluded, "You two have pretty much the best connections to your colleagues…"
"We" Judy interrupted, "…we are the biggest targets of every shady person in this city. I doubt that anybody will talk to us about something like that…"

A short little pause appeared, everybody seemed to be thinking about it.

"…this looks like a lot of work again" I sighed, "But I have an idea…"

"You want to spread rumors?" Judy guessed, hitting it right on the head once again.

I nodded.

"What sort of rumors?" Skye asked.

"´Officers Wilde and Hopps are in massive dept´" I explained, "´They need the money, they want to get in.´ …That will spread faster than anything. And who wouldn´t want to have the most effective and most famous police detectives on their side for their business?" I asked rhetorically.

"I don´t know, Nicky" Judy sighed, "Not sure if that´s believable. And that will spread far beyond the ZPD. I bet the press would ask you about this just a few days after we told that to anybody…"

She crossed her arms on the table before her tiredly and rested her head on them.

"Would that be a big problem if the press knew about it?" Jack asked, "Because that idea is not that bad actually. You can tell them about that lie afterwards anyway…"

"I don't know" I sighed for myself. Just like Judy I wasn´t really motivated for anything right now. I wanted to be alone with her and I wanted them out of my sight for today, whoever they were.

"We´ll think about it…" I told them more directly now, "…but we have to take care of a few other things first of all."

They didn´t seemed to be satisfied with that.
"We didn´t come here for fun, Nicholas" Jack reminded me, "We really shouldn´t lose any more time, because it gets more and more difficult with every single day!"

"Why don´t you ask Charlie if there are more important things right now?" I replied coldly.

"It doesn´t help us if you bring up that topic again."
"It doesn´t help if you keep making pressure either. Give us a phone number and get out of our office right now."
"It doesn´t simply work like tha-"

"Then just get out! You should know how to get into private living spaces right now anyway, don´t you?" I told him harshly, "Do me the favor and stop marking the big shot right now!"

Jack just shook his head in annoyance once again. But he just couldn´t say anything.

"Come on, Jacky" Skye told him calmly, "Stressing them really doesn´t help."

"We´re all adults!" he complained, "This is no kindergarten here! Those guys are police detectives, and pretty good ones on top of that! Yes, I did a mistake, yes that all was bad…but you can´t tell me they´re not able to concentrate a little longer on this right now!"

"We surely could…" I told them dryly, as I stood up from my chair again and strolled over to Judy´s side of the table. I simply picked her up, took a seat on her chair and sat her down onto my lap carefully. She put her pencil back down onto the table and hugged me happily, while I rested my head on top of hers, "…but I´m the one who decides when it´s time for that, stripey-butt. And that time is not right now."

Skye chuckled a little at that nickname I called him, he didn´t have anything to reply on that either.

I ignored them from now on anyway I just decided. I was just concentrated on my beloved bunny, and I didn´t care if they were watching or not. I began massaging her back a little and kissed her a couple of times. She opened up my uniform with her paws slowly and began running them alongside my stomach carefully. Having her this close to me right now felt relaxing and just utterly fantastic. That was just what I needed for my nerves.

POV Skye

Jack actually was lost for words right now, he knew nothing to reply for the first time ever since I knew him. Normally, he was the one to be on top of the conversation, but Nick didn´t take him seriously at all right now. He underestimated that a little as it seemed, and that was quite an unusual situation for me as well. But I had a funny idea to turn the tables a little right now. Just when he finally was about to take the word again, I lifted him up by his arms and carried him over to Nick´s office chair on the other side of that table, where I did the same what Nick did to Judy and placed him down onto my lap carefully.

I didn´t expect that to work very well, but Nick just chuckled a little about it. He wasn´t too mad actually.

"You must be kidding me right now" Jack sighed while resting his head on my chest in disbelief.

"Oh you are so tense today, Jacky" I teased him in amusement.

"Is that what we call work in the meanwhile?" he complained.

"No" Nick replied from the other side of the table, "That´s called ´calming down the annoying crybaby instead of kicking him out of my office´ …So you better shut up already and take the friendly service from your girlfriend."

I couldn´t help myself but giggle at his dry comment.

"Wilde…" Jack replied, as I just began to unbutton his smoking, "I see we´re going to get along well with each other…"

"Oh, you bet we will" Nick chuckled back with a little sigh of pleasure. I wasn´t entirely sure what Judy was doing to him right now, the monitors on their desk blocked most of the view, but they both didn´t seemed to be bothered, "…but this is still our office and you´re just some blokes who broke into my apartment yesterday. The only reason I didn´t kick you out already is that I´m a little…otherwise engaged here right now…"

We heard Judy chuckling a little. Jack still wasn´t happy with his situation. There were not a lot of people before who messed with him like that, but with Nick he really found some concurrence as it seemed.

"I´m beginning to think that you´re not taking me seriously anymore, Wilde, but I don´t recommend…"

"You´re not wrong with that" the other fox interrupted him, "…but can´t you just take a quick look at my perspective of all this? I woke up in a hospital this morning, somebody broke into my apartment last night and now that somebody thinks he is can boss me around…"

"I´m not bossing around!"

"No, you´re not, because I´m not listening" he just chuckled, "And you´ve caused nothing but trouble until now, so excuse me, but I think you´re the last one to even open his mouth."

Judy still giggled a little. There was no way Jack was getting through to Nick right now, not even with his calm and superior way of speaking, and slowly but surely he seemed to understand that as well. Nick sadly had a point with what he said. I just kept on massaging him a little bit, trying to get my giggles under control finally.

"…you guys have somehow conspired in advance before this talk", Jack asked, after I finally had managed to stop grinning stupidly.

"I´m sorry to say it" Judy chuckled, "But I must support him here a little. We really just came back from hospital and Nick has a rough night behind him. We´re going to take a look at it, I actually have already, but give us at least a few hours of time to ourselves, can we agree on that please?" she asked.

POV Nick

Jack still muttered something, but it seemed like only Skye was able to understand it. Judy had snuggled herself into the fur on my chest and still rubbed my back with her paws carefully. That was the only thing I needed right now.

"Alright, listen guys, I confess: we all here said some things that are not necessarily helpful to the problem we´re having", I said after another short pause. "But why don't we continue this conversation at my flat this evening? Let's say, about 8 PM?"

"Doesn't sound that bad", Skye replied after thinking about it shortly, "What do you think, Jacky?"

Before Jack could even open his mouth to say something, Skye lifted him from her lap and moved him around a little, like she was playing with a doll.

"Oh, I think it's a wonderful idea, Nicholas!", she changed her voice in pitch to imitate Jack's way of talking.

That was followed by a little giggle from Judy and a long sigh from Jack, who´ve obviously had enough of it by now. He really wasn´t used to be messed with like that, and just like Judy wasn´t able to control me all of the time, he seemed to have the same problem with Skye, and I actually really wanted to give her a chummy high-five for that. But it wasn´t quite the right moment right now, maybe later.

"Then it's a deal, Nick!", said Jack, as he suddenly jumped down from Skye's lap. "We will be there. We need to finish this, this is serious."

"Just…maybe use the doorbell this time?", I chuckled sarcastically.

Skye hopped off my office chair and followed him towards the door, giving us a quick little wink on her way.

"Ha-ha, we'll see about that!" Jack said, while holding the door opened for the sneaky vixen, "See you later, Nicky. Bye, Judy!"

"Bye Sweetheart" I replied in a singing tone, "See ya later, Skye."

He softly closed the door.

Judy still chuckled a little as Jack closed the door behind them softly.

I believed I still heard the vixen giggling a little outside the door in the hallway.

"Finally" I sighed.

"Do you want to lock the door before somebody else can annoy us?" Judy asked with a little smile.

"You bet I will" I whispered back while deeply looking into her beautiful purple eyes, "Just one moment to ourselves…" I sighed, "Can´t be too much to ask, can it?"

Next Chapter? I don´t know...someday...

Let me know what you think! Have a nice summer, see ya!

~furr