December 20th, 2020
It was an astronomically rare occasion for Nick to wake up before Judy. Even more astronomical to wake up, prior to the bunny, while she was sleeping in the same bed as him. Her personal bed and in her original room, no less. The connotation of her kithood quarters was not lost on the todd as his eyes fluttered open. The subterranean room was accented by a semi-natural lighting system, which mimicked the actual time and light conditions from the outside, so that the residents knew where they stood before even looking at their clocks or watches.
The todd immediately backed his torso away from the doe, subliminally, while his mind urged his desires into high-gear. He could see the definition of the colors grow in intensity while the gray ring outline saturated his visual acuity. There was almost a natural feeling behind the predatory slits of his pupils. The two brains of the fox had essentially swapped roles between which one would be primary. The more modern brain managed to withdraw his body so that there would be no press of his erection, through his pants, against the doe's body. The modified version, of the two, decided to skip ahead – by several steps – and drag his tongue over the top of Judy's head, right in between her ears, several times over.
The doe, on the other paw, had not made a sound or moved throughout the whole night. Both of the mammals had slept rather comfortably in each other's embrace.
The rasping of his tongue against the doe's fur eventually began to stir a natural response from Judy. The scent of her arousal deeply accentuated the air within the room while her own consciousness began to come around to the real world again. The two sides of the todd's brain were fighting relentlessly against one another. Despite this, his own tongue had not slowed down in the grooming of the little bunny: who was curled up within and very much pressed against his own chest.
When her paws came up to bat at his muzzle, Nick began to chuckle at the challenge even though his body began to unfurl a little more to allow for Judy to escape if she wished to. Instead, she twisted around quickly and immediately caught the next lick right against the face. He stopped immediately as his ears went straight up and forwards towards him. The expectation of her being perturbed was not met. Instead, the doe shuffled over to his chest and wrapped her paws around the collar of his t-shirt so that she could bury her muzzle into his fur.
The next breath released from his nostrils was accompanied by a gentle whine, even while his chest had begun to release a purr, for the simple fact that his instincts desired to continue grooming the beautiful female that was within his grasp. Luckily, she had not woken up to any of the ministrations.
It took several minutes for Nick to relax against the feeling of kneading paws against the collarbone. Judy's nose was deeply buried a little higher, against his Adam's apple, and her own breathing was slightly faster than he had usually heard it to be. The more she tussled at his fur, the louder he was beginning to purr in the quietness of the room. So, the todd laid there in the bed. A large paw was slowly brought down along the back of her head and over her warm ears. He could feel the moisture, left behind from his more adventurous nature, and the thought of those connotations made his own body heat up that much more from the embarrassment.
It must have been rather early in the morning, for the doe, because an hour eventually passed with the fox rolling into his back. The gray bunny had clasped on to his frame to ensure that she would end up right on top of him in her sleep. Nick felt the gentle urge to take a leak. Once another hour had passed, he could not stand the feeling anymore.
Another gentle roll brought the doe back down onto the bed proper so that he could unclasp her from his torso. As soon as that was accomplished, Nick made sure to place his pillow down in front of her so that Judy could commandeer that for her own use instead. It took a few moments to find his dress shirt, tucked under the covers at the end of the bed, before throwing it on and making his way out of the room quietly.
The todd turned around, after gently shutting the door, to find himself face-to-face with the eldest buck who had been in the recording studio the day prior. The young buck was adorned in a whole new bit of darkened attire and had his ears held high in surprise.
"I have to take a leak, buddy. So, if you can walk and talk, then I'll let you get whatever it is off of your chest." Nick whispered politely.
The teen eagerly nodded and pointed down towards the far end of the hall, which really made no sense because Judy's end of the hall had another set of bathrooms, but the todd was not about to complain. Maybe it was a little more of a long-winded conversation than he had originally anticipated.
So, Nick began to pad off in the indicated direction. "I'm Nick." He introduced himself.
"I know, Mister Wilde. I'm Daniel Hopps. Son of Albert Hopps, and grandson of Bonnie and Stu." The buck replied just as politely.
"Must be pretty important to want to see me this early in the morning." The todd commented.
"Technically speaking, Sir. But, you're the late-riser around here." Daniel said.
"Touché." Nick said with a chuckle, looking over and down at the buck while slicking a paw over his head and ears seamlessly. He felt a little greasy from all of the exertions that he had given the day before. "Though, I wonder why that might be."
The swinging door to the bathrooms was tapped and both of the males entered without so much as a hitch. Instead of waiting around for the teen to get down to the business of the conversation, Nick immediately stepped over to one of the urinals to take care of his more pressing of matters. Daniel was polite enough to give him a couple of stalls of space while doing much of the same for himself.
"We all heard you playing yesterday, Sir. It was amazing to hear some of our favorite songs covered by a mammal who was just playing a guitar to compliment the vocals. We all wanted to ask a favor of you." The teen finally spoke up.
"Straight to business, huh?" The todd inquired with a raise of his eyebrows, staring off at the whiteness of the tiled wall in front of him. "Well, go ahead."
"We all wanted to know if you could come play music at our prom." Daniel stated immediately.
"Have you sought out permission from your school to even make such a request?" Nick asked, wiggling a little before zipping up his pants and stepping off to move over to his usual locker. The sound of the proximity sensor set off the urinal's flush behind him.
"No…" The todd heard the younger buck hurriedly finish his business so that he could follow along.
"Then, you have your first steps mixed up, Daniel. In your case, you need to get that kind of permission before trying to land someone a gig." Nick chuckled as he rifled through his locker. "Though… I guess there's a bit of information, that you could use, which could be pertinent to this proposal and unto the school's organizer."
"What do I need to know?" The buck inquired eagerly.
Nick closed the door, after retrieving a spare change of clothes that he had left behind, before making his way over to the towel rack so that he could scoop one up. Once he was done with that, he walked back over to lean up against his locker, in front of the teenager, with crossed arms: his apparel tossed across his shoulder.
"I'm alright solo. But, I don't play with random mammals. I actually have a crew that I love playing with back in the city. Three other guys who love to play music as a kind-of getaway from their own busy lives: as I do with mine. A gig like that would be done better with a group of mammals who has a solid cohesion in the chords." Nick explained. "I have no doubt that they would love to be involved in this little endeavor of yours."
"I'm not seeing the problem, Mister Wilde." Daniel said in confusion.
"It's a pred crew, buddy. I don't think that you specifically know where your school will stand on that. And, furthermore, just as it is a pitch for you to make to them; I also have to make the same pitch to my friends. Because, maybe, I could be wrong and there may be nothing for any of us in the endeavor itself." Nick continued simply. "Would you like me to make the inquiry now?"
"What?" It was clear that Daniel's mind had just blanked.
Nick smiled a little while removing his cellphone from his pants pocket. He hit one of the speed-dial numbers while the teenager began to realize was he was doing: causing the bunny's ears to fall backwards and his underfur complexion to pale immediately. The phone rang twice before Dave's growling tone answered on the other end.
"What's up, Nick?"
"Apologies for the hour, Dave." Nick said. "I've got a gig request that's just been presented to me. I said I'd only really be willing to do it with the whole crew, so I wanted to talk about it shortly."
Even though the phone had not been on speaker, Nick knew that the buck could hear every bit of the conversation, as well as, the rustling of the sheets on the other end of the line. The todd knew that he had managed to get the wolf upright in his own bed by the sounds.
"Shoot."
"I've got a request to show up at a prom venue out in the Burrows and I wanted to know if you would consult with Randy and John about getting together for such an event." Nick explained.
"I can do that."
"Considering the demographics of the locale, I figured we'd let Randy take point on the music selection. I'm thinking upbeat, love-struck…" Nick grinned a little in his pause. "Y'know, countrified. To keep with the premise of the event and all."
Daniel rolled his eyes so hard that his ears fell down over the front of his face while a paw rubbed at his muzzle out of mock frustration. The buck's outward appearance very obviously did not convey that kind of reality, but that was not the point at all. The venue would call for such music to be played and they both knew it.
"What kind of prep time do we have?"
Nick smiled gently while staring down at the buck, whose head had snapped up to consider the inquiry, noting that the todd's right brow was raised expectantly.
"It'll be one of the last two weekends in February, Sir! We don't know which weekend. It'll be on a Saturday, though!" Daniel replied quickly.
It was obvious that the young buck could hear Dave's chuckling over the top of Nick's through the speaker.
"Family of Miss Hopps, I take it?"
"Yeah. I think all of you will like his crew." Nick said with a humored nod.
"What kind of perimeters should I present?"
"Let's say… Have Randy pick out seven songs?" The todd said, leaving it open-ended for the buck.
"Five to seven would be great, Sir!" Daniel said excitedly.
"Get him to pick out ten or twelve for the practices and we'll do them at my place." Nick ordered. "Once Mister Daniel has sorted out his end of the deal, I'll confirm with you all for your decisions on the matter."
"Sounds good."
"Alright, buddy. I'll talk to you later."
The call ended before Nick could even touch the corresponding point on the touch-screen. A glimpse towards Daniel revealed that the buck was in a state of shock. Going out of the todd's own way to wake up a friend just to talk about possibly being able to play for a high school: despite all the pieces not being in place yet… That was so far out of the teen's wheelhouse that he was damn near starstruck simply based on his appearance.
Nick turned back to his locker, taking up a pen and one of the notepads to write several things down on it prior to offering a slice of paper to the buck.
"That's my personal cell number. Additionally, all of our names are included: in case the school wants to run their own background checks on us. We…" Nick was talking about both his friends and about Daniel's siblings. "We want there to be full transparency, in the regards of who my friends are. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, Mister Wilde." Daniel said with a quick nod.
"Alright. Text me when you get an answer. And, you tell them to call me if they need to. You have my permission to pass that number on to the relevant resource at the school." Nick said finally, shoving himself off of the locker with a passing ruffle on the buck's high-held ears.
"Thank you, Sir!" Daniel said loudly from behind the todd.
Nick turned enough to shoot a glance over his shoulder. "It's just Nick. Now, go on. You all have some work to do." He said with an upward snap of his muzzle, indicating that the teen should get to it.
Well after his shower had been concluded, Nick stood prominently in front of the stove within the Hopps kitchen. The air, nearby to the todd, let him know that all of the does on the breakfast roster were slightly nervous about his blatant cooking within the kitchen itself. None of them had contradicted his presence within the first half-hour that he had ended up being found. They had dutifully worked on their own tasks while moving around him, as necessary. The heaviness and hushed tones were more out of concern for what would happen when Bonnie inevitably found him. There were rules, and he knew that, but a promise had also been made. Promises were to be kept in a timely manner and in accordance to how the todd had been raised originally. Consequences be damned.
The air changed again forty-minutes later and good ol' Nick knew better than to even turn around. He could feel the stare boring into the back of his head and knew that it was Bonnie looking at him from the doorway. Fortunately, the sound of the eggs that he was making for himself kept his ears forward even as the matriarch sidled up to his right as sneakily as she could.
"Your daughters gave you away, Bonnie." Nick said quietly.
"They're probably wondering if there will be a horror picture shown in the family kitchen." She replied.
"I only ask that you let me go out valiantly." Nick said, trying to stifle his chuckles.
"Would you like to state your case, first?" Bonnie inquired.
"I needed to do something…" The todd said awkwardly. "It's odd to not be able to follow through with my normal routine, is all. And, I think Judy likes the food I make, so I was happy to make something for her this morning."
"So, this was a con." The doe muttered.
"No, no… I mean, it could be the most recent con that I've run in memory, but that's not how it should be viewed." Nick explained with a whispered urgency, moving his portion onto a plate nearby. "I don't want you to look at it that way."
Bonnie hummed a little as she strode around the todd so that she could relieve him of the empty pan. He could tell that she was thinking heavily on what he had explained. So, Nick continued on with his cooking until his own plate was filled adequately and the matriarch had decided to respond.
"You are to talk to Stu about helping out around the warren. The tasks will not be the things that you may have wanted to do but those are the rules of my warren. Which means that all of your nightly cooking needs to be done before three in the morning." The doe said firmly. "Alright?"
"I understand, Bonnie." Nick replied, smiling a bit while looking down at his plate. "Thank you."
...
The heat in the room eventually became far too stifling for Judy Hopps to stay asleep any longer. Despite the fact that she was surrounded by the comforting musk of Nick, she made an effort to roll away from the pillow that she had been clinging to. The younger doe was somewhat startled to find that she was all along in the bed that the two mammals had originally been sharing throughout the night.
Red light from the digital clock readout told Judy that it was later in the morning than when she usually woke up. Not too far behind the normal breakfast hour, but well behind when she would have risen to take a morning jog before the normal shift hour. The feeling of matted fur brought a fuzzy paw over her head and ears before it was brought down: the scent of why was taken in through her nostrils and it forced her back up against the pillow. It was clear why it was so hot in the room. The heat between her thighs was tempered by the fact that Nick had ended up grooming the doe before taking flight for whatever reason.
And, there was no way that the todd had not noticed the scent on the air. He knew well enough what it was and had always been polite about those things.
It was hard to take any kind of solace in the fact that the todd had been as sweet as he had been. Not when Judy was frustrated by the fact that she had slept through an opportunity to show him just what he really meant to her. The frustration was taken out on the pillow in the form of a firm and thorough marking of the spot where the todd had originally laid his head. Judy could tell the difference in the scent of where his shoulder had been versus where his throat had been. That was the place from where he would mark a mate and that area caused the strongest reaction from the young doe.
It drove the desire, to claim him for her own, haywire within the body.
Several minutes later, she had exhausted herself with the claiming of the pillow. There was a realization that she would have to end up washing the pillowcase in the end and that saddened her a little. It was what finally withdrew her from the bed, though. After taking it off and placing it in the hamper, Judy found a fresh one to replace it with.
The doe made quick work of changing her clothes and hustling out of the room so that she could shower. Fortunately, it had been late enough that none of the gossipmongers were still around the bathing area. The result was a cooling of the heat within her core and a careful scrubbing of the areas where Nick had laid waste to her fur. That was for him, of course… It would have been thoroughly embarrassing to hear one of her sisters make the comment that the doe smelled like him and in such a manner that did not indicate intimate activities.
It did not matter how the two mammals felt about each other. That was a level of embarrassment that would not be tolerated by Judy Hopps. Not when she was as hopeful as she was for what could come next.
Blessed Serendipity, please let this be real, Judy prayed.
There was a flash of a memory that caused her lips to purse and heat a little bit. Her paws covered her mouth as she attempted to feel the sensation that was causing her heart to race. The words that Nick spoke the night before echoed in her mind. Judy had not been aware that she had inadvertently stolen the todd's first kiss.
You owe him one better than that… the Rebel commented.
And, he changed the subject so smoothly! She thought out of frustration.
Her thoughts went back to the way that he had held her close and how sweet his kiss had been. It was something that had been far too short for the young doe. Just thinking back on it was making her feel like she was going to burst from a cumulation of happiness and frustration.
The spray of the shower was welcoming, though it did nothing to distract the gray rabbit doe from the desire to find the larger russet-colored todd and lay as deep of a kiss on him as she could possibly muster. It was only when Judy spun the temperature dial to a truly colder setting that she woke up from such thoughts. She would have done it in the middle of the Grand Hall mere moments before that. Eventually, she heard another shower turn on right next to her own.
A sudden splattering of water so close to Judy brought her out of her own thoughts quickly enough to look over and find that Vera was busy smoothing her fur and ears back while she had her head angled upwards towards the spray of the nozzle. The mother seemed pleased with the heat being poured out on to her body. Every level had its own bathing area, but with as few of the last of the alphabetic kits as there had been in the later years, they sometimes preferred to shower with other siblings on other levels. The difference with Vera was that she was not a Hopps by birth. She had married into the family after Derek, her own brother, had asked for her paw. If it was not for the fact that the buck worked closely with Stu, then they probably would have started on their own family burrow, on his own patch of acreage, within the greater Hopps farm.
"Good morning, Vera." Judy said in greeting.
"You're never going to be able to scrub his scent out of your fur with the cold water." Vera replied with a gentle smile as she let the spray focus on her modest dewlap and breasts. "And, you are correct. It is a good morning."
Judy immediately turned the water back up so that she could begin soaping and scrubbing the musk, which she could not detect anymore, away from her fur. It pained her heart to do so, but the questions that would come from her siblings were not needed presently.
"I take it that you won't be attempting to follow through with any of Kathleen's plans to mess with Nick?" Vera inquired politely.
"It was a cute thought… But, Nick blew that plan to smithereens last night." Judy said absentmindedly.
"Did he do something bad?" Vera asked, looking rather surprised.
"No!" Judy exclaimed. "He, uh… He kissed me after giving me a Christmas present."
A balled paw was softly placed against Vera's lips, which did nothing to hide the growing smile on them, and it was used more in an effort to stifle a pleased giggle. Judy's own complexion was that of confusion while considering her sister-in-law: for the fact that Vera was usually chipper this morning. She was usually so reserved. Not at all unlike Bonnie herself, no less.
"In his defense, he was only responding to your own cues." Vera chortled. "But, I can see that he totally threw you off of whatever plan that you might have had."
"I didn't have one yet," The gray doe said quietly.
"So, what's the problem? You can formulate a new plan around this." Vera said firmly.
"It's complicated!" Judy said harshly. "I wasn't thinking… I don't know why… After his mother died, he tried to comfort me, of all things, and I just—I just kissed him. I stole his first kiss back then. And, I was so surprised by his gift last night, Vera… He slipped in and was so tender and sweet. If I really think about it, I can still taste the first kiss that he's ever given to another mammal. And, he distracted me in such a sly, fashionable manner afterward! I'm just now realizing what I did. And, last night? It felt like something that I've dreamed about for a long time…"
When the younger doe's head finally rose against the drum of her own shower nozzle, she found Vera looking across her shoulder at her. The other doe was relishing in the fact that the water was relaxing her neck and shoulders from over the top of her ears.
"So, there are two options…" Vera muttered in one of the most serious and hushed tones that she had ever heard. It was both firm and caring. "Judy. You can either follow with what Kathleen suggest and make it into a fun, romantic, and sensual game until you two finally throw down on one another. Or, you can throw a rock at your own glass box and tell Nicolas Wilde, outright, that you love him. Everybody in the warren knows what you're built for and what you aren't. Playing around with him, just to finally meet in a steamy rut-fest one night, is only going to confuse you as much as it may alienate that todd.
"Even if you merely ask Nick out for a date night, at least you will have set the ball in motion down the ultimate path that you wished for it to travel on. And, if you don't want to mess around then just tell him. Serendipity knows that I have some things to tell Derek today." Vera said excitedly, but also firmly.
Judy's surprise was immediate. "What do you have to tell Derek?" She said nervously.
"I'm pregnant again." Vera stated matter-of-factly. "And, you're the only one that knows for now. So, please, keep it that way until I find Derek?"
Now there were several more things running through Judy's mind. She had never considered how happy it may have made her to have kits of her own: not with all of the focus on her studies that she had had to do for the Academy. The heat was renewed Judy's body but, this time, it was out of the embarrassment from hearing such intimate information even before the husband.
"I would never say anything about that before you were ready, Vera. You know that." Judy said, trying to fire it back indignantly though there was not enough fire in her to make it seem like a heavy-pawed statement.
The sound of a shower knob brought Judy's eyes back up. She found that Vera had shut it off and was already close enough to wrap her in a hug, under Judy's own shower stream, before letting go and shaking herself off. A towel was quickly reached out for and subsequently wrapped up around the pregnant mother's body she had stepped far enough out of the way of the stream to remain somewhat dry.
"You know what you need to do, Judy." Vera said kindheartedly. "But, right now, you need to get upstairs. From what I've heard, that todd of yours has been in the kitchen cooking you breakfast…" The mother giggled softly. "And, it's a little late for such bold actions considering how your mother usually reacts."
Vera remained her newfound bubbly self, laughing on occasion, while she watched Judy shut off the shower and scamper over to one of the fur-dryers with a haphazardly draped towel over her shoulders. There was no way could risk catching a cold and that made the amethyst-eyed doe crank the heat up far higher than usual so that the residual water would evaporate quickly.
A minute had passed in front of Judy's locker before she felt a paw on her shoulder. Maybe the surprise was due to the fact that she had expected a hug from the other doe. It was clear who it was, obviously. Judy had not spoken to any of the other does who had been in the local area to her shower.
"Don't rush up there, Judy." Vera said quietly, giving her shoulder a meaningful squeeze. "Nick will think that something is wrong and that will distract both of you from the purpose that had originally brought him to the kitchens in the first place. Get dressed and take a breather while you work your way upstairs. OK?"
The level of consideration shown for Judy's issues ended up pushing her paw to release the towel and step back into the fur-dryer. The fact that she had still been rather damp had gone completely ignored by the gray doe. It was extremely likely that she would have gotten sick if she had been so reckless as to have left without completing the usual regime that she did in the mornings.
Vera had disappeared by the time Judy had felt confident enough to step out of the hot air and into the cooler surroundings of the bathing area. The doe tried to keep the dressing of her nude body at a regulated pace. Her heartrate was high considering what she had been thinking about in the hot fur-dryer and the embarrassing nature of the thoughts had left her inner thighs rather wet. Judy managed to take the towel across the area, so that it would not be so readily detected by others, before pulling up her undergarments and pants.
Even her inner Rebel was speaking to her. Clean up so that he doesn't get the wrong idea. He might think that you're interested in someone else... Don't let that happen, the voice echoed in concern.
Once everything was properly put away, Judy made her way out of the designated bathing area so that she could begin breathing cooler air. The entire purpose was to slow her own heartrate down to the regular level even as she was climbing the stairs to the ground floor.
There was nothing Judy Hopps could do about that when she turned the last corner towards the main dining area, though. It did not matter that her heartrate had picked back up deeply: considering the fact that she could hear it in her own ears by the time the visual of the todd had sank into her mental facilities.
Nicholas Wilde was sitting at one of the nearby benches with six newborn kits "precariously" laid across one of his arms while the opposite paw was attempting to make sure that their bottles were all properly sitting on a manner that would allow for them to feed. The todd's paw would dart between each one while the rest were carefully propped up to their little muzzles by the shirt that was covering his chest.
Judith Laverne Hopps stepped back enough to hide behind the corner of the entryway in an effort to stifle the whimper that was precariously sitting on the back of her throat. It was at that point that the doe realized that she was beginning her heat cycle. The sight was absolutely adorable to witness. She recognized the mother, Echo, while she was merrily giggling about how two of her kits were fussing over wanting to escape as opposed to being fed. Meanwhile, Nick was desperately trying to keep them happy while not disturbing the others.
The todd would use one of his finger pads to gently push the little hellraisers back upwards before offering the teeny bottles to them again. None of their eyes were even open yet, that's how young they were. But, it was the look on his face that really set the whole tone. It was clear that Nick's brow was tightly knitted together, but there was also a hushed tone on his grinning lips while he poked and prodded at the little ones to keep them in order.
He looked so happy while taking care of the kits.
"C'mon, Annabelle. Tell your brother, Nico, to calm down and eat up." He chuckled, quietly admonishing the two. The sound of the words was loud enough for Judy to hear. He ended up having to reach over them all to catch one of the fully-fed kits as they began to scurry towards the crook of his arm. "And, you! You're not supposed to be aiding and abetting them, Gloria. That's a crime where I come from… You just go to sleep. Your little bottle is empty anyway."
Nick made quick work of passing the empties off to their mother, before placing Gloria amongst her three sleeping siblings, and then he began feeding both Annabelle and Nico. Judy quietly stepped out from her hiding place to make her way into the kitchen: noticing immediately that Nick's nose had picked up the scent of his friend within the immediate area.
"Morning, Carrots!" He said happily. Judy noticed that his eyes snapped up to meet her own, for a moment, before turning back down to the immediate unruliness in his arms. "There's some breakfast, on a plate in the oven, if you are hungry."
These kits were probably the youngest that Nick had ever had the privilege of handing or playing with. It was clear that he was out of his own depth, in that regard, but it was also clear that he was so happy for it. Judy focused on how he was doing while she withdrew the plate of food that he had reportedly made for her. There was no helping the fact that she broke her own rule mentally. It was so cute that he was trying not to nuzzle his nose into the little pile of sleeping kits after the two troublemakers had calmed enough to feed from their own bottle finally. It was cute because he was concerned about being too forward and rude to the doe who was hovering over his shoulder. The todd clearly was not paying attention: otherwise, he would have noticed the audible coos that were coming from the mother.
Judy quietly made her way over to the table and sat across from Nick, but a little further away to watch how Nick did with the younger ones.
"All the little ones feel the sound of a heartbeat resonating nearby, Mister Wilde. Some of them are sensitive to the local scent. Annabelle and Nico seem to recognize that your scent is not mine, but you shouldn't worry about that, OK?" Echo explained calmly, smiling all the while.
"But! I don't want to upset them!" Nick whispered urgently. He was carefully guiding the errant two towards the pile, that the rest of their siblings were already in, with a brushing digit.
Judy immediately took note that Nick's ears were pinned back firmly while his claws were nearly fully retracted. It was not something that was usually seen with foxes. They could do it, but the doe already knew that it was not physically comfortable to do so. She had heard that sometimes it was extremely painful: especially if they been on the hindpaws. When her eyes snapped over to Echo, it was clear that the mother was not paying any attention to how the todd was feeling as she carefully began to swaddle the blanket around her kits while they laid in his supporting arm.
"He needs to rest, Echo!" Judy's voice came out in a growl.
It immediately caught both of the adults' attention as their heads snapped up to meet her gaze.
"Judy!" Nick said sharply.
Their eyes met in a momentary clash. The harsh feeling that she had been feeling was washed away when it clicked in her mind. Nick's eyes were slitted as he began to watch and wait for any more of a verbal argument to be made. Judy attempted to replay the entirety of what she had seen to recall if he had had the pupil restriction the entire time or not. But, she felt the immediate blankness of her memory banks.
"I don't want them to fall." Nick might have been able to keep an even tone, as far as Echo was concerned, but Judy heard every bit of the low-toned growl that he emitted. "I'm alright."
"Oh, no! Mister Wilde, I apologize! I interrupted your breakfast… Here, darlin'. Let me take them so that you can eat." Echo exclaimed, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there was a discourse occurring at the table.
The swaddled kits were immediately scooped up from within his arms and the mother laid a thick kiss right on top of a downturned ear.
"Thank you for being such a sweetheart, Mister Wilde. You're a real gentlemammal." Echo said before turning on her heels to step out of the room with her bundle of joy and a small bag of supplies to keep them content while on the move.
If it had not been for the fact that Nick was staring her down, Judy probably would have leapt out of her benched seat to say something by that point. The todd intimately kept his eyes on her while she watched the mother happily leave out of the kitchen area with her bundle of joy. Judy knew that even as she turned back to meet his eyes. The other doe had been none the wiser.
"You were in pain, Nick!" Judy hissed finally. "I know you can't keep your claws like that!"
The result was immediate. Nick's claws snapped back to their usual length even as he thumped a paw on the table. "They don't know that!" He replied sharply. "There was no call to speak to her that way!"
"You were in pain, though!" Judy shot back, louder than she had intended.
"That doesn't matter!" Nick's snarl sounded more as if it was a growl due to how low the tone was on the air. The sound of the bench being shoved backwards by several inches, that screech of wood on stone, was far more illuminating within the room. "I couldn't risk hurting them!"
Once upon a time, Judith Hopps probably would have quivered in fear from the dominant display of a predator. Today, the only things that occurred were how her ears fell behind her head and how wide her eyes were while looking into the constriction of Nick's own. His lips weren't pinned back to show any degree of hostility and nor were his ears. They were upright and forward to take in any further argument from the doe. Nicholas Wilde was of the air of determination and not aggression.
"They know you wouldn't hurt any of the kits here, Nick!" Judy fired again, albeit weakly.
"They don't know that, Judy!" The todd replied quietly. "There could have been an accident. One wrong bump or brush could have resulted in a cut or worse. Focus on the wrong kit too long and another might have fallen to the floor. But, you will let me handle things. I know well enough now that if I'm not comfortable with doing something here that I need to say so, but that's my job."
Judy was absolutely speechless as she watched Nick pull the bench back underneath him so that he could continue eating his breakfast. It was clear by the way his ears laid back that he would hear nothing more of the conversation. He had made his point and it likely had not been an easy thing to do. This was the first serious reprimand that she had received from the todd in a long time, and it was abundantly clear that he was not happy with her actions.
She watched quietly as Nick began to fork eggs into his muzzle and munch on some of the fish that had been made the day prior. It seemed as he was enjoying them despite the fact that his eyes were closed. It was clear to the doe that he was attempting to reorient his mind so that his pupils would return to normal.
"Hey, Nick!" Robby hit the doorway and sounded off.
"Yeah?" He replied with a mouthful of food.
"The General's called a Meeting of the Males. There's some work to do. You're up." The buck explained.
"I'm in. Let me just clean up here." Nick said firmly.
"Swing by his office when you're done." Robby said loudly and took off.
She watched as Nick picked up his plate and the look that he had when he looked over at her. The pupils had returned to normal, and the overall temperament of his eyes was somber. It was not a look of judgment or disapproving in nature. Nick just seemed saddened and concerned. He walked the plate over to the sink and passed it off to one of the does that immediately began to shoo him away from the area. He was gone through the main entryway with a swoosh of his bushy tail.
At least it's not overly hot anymore, Judy thought to herself in sadness.
...
The feeling of the gentle snows blowing against his longer fur was somewhat of a relief. The males of the Hopps warren had rigged the overhead net of the central courtyard to retract enough so that they could eventually put up a makeshift firewatch tower. At that very moment, the structure's sole purpose was for keeping an eye-out for the Bird-of-Prey that was somewhere within the Tri-Burrows. It was high enough for the guard to see well over the trees beyond the fields. Once everything was taken care of there, the net was closed while the ground team bolted the apparatus to the concrete slab in the middle of the whole place.
At Nick's side was Stu. They were taking a bit of a break from being on pulley duty, heaving the tower into place with a couple of other large bucks, and listening to the welders as crossbeams were being placed to keep the whole thing upright just against the wind.
"Bonnie said that I had to give you something to do because you were getting restless," Stu finally spoke up. "I heard you were in the kitchens this morning."
"Wanted to make Judy something to eat." Nick said in a clipped manner. But, he chuckled a second later. "It will disappoint Bonne if she figures out that this was not a punishment, though. I wanted to help everybody out by pulling my own weight and she wouldn't let me wash the dishes or my own clothes."
"She probably would. So, it's a good thing that I'm just going to put you to work and we're not going to say anything." Stu said, reaching out to grab a hold of Nick's collar to jostle him a little. Warm-spiritedly, and all.
"I appreciate that, Stu. And, if the work is this hard around here. I'd like to experience more of it." The todd said with a grin.
"In turn, there's something that I've been meaning to check with you on." The buck said quietly, still watching on as the other working parties continued without a care. "Did you get everything taken care of with your mother?"
Nick angled his head down towards light powder of the snows beneath his paws. "She gave me everything that was left. My kithood home that we all had lived in, namely…" Nick explained shortly.
"Did you find her a nice place, though?" Stu inquired.
"No." The todd said, shuddering a little against the cold now. "I couldn't."
"Why not, Nick?" The buck's voice was tinged with concern.
"I didn't know… The will she wrote explained that she had left a token stone for my father. She had him cremated after his murder. My mother could not let him be buried in a place that had never accepted him." The lump that was forming in his throat began to impair the vocalization of his explanation. "She asked that I choose a spot for them both and that they be kept together. No matter what. But, I don't have a spot anywhere except for whatever home that I'm in."
A moment had passed before Nick felt Stu grab him under the upper right arm, hauling him off of the bench that they had been occupying. Once the todd was on his hindpaws, Stu hooked a grasping paw around to the center of the back of his light jacket and began walking them away from the work area.
It was a surprise to find that there was a gate placed between the Main Hill and the West Hill so that there could be pedestrian traffic to the outer reaches of the property. There was no helping the bristling of fur when Stu sounded off with a deeply toned whistle before dragging the todd along. Several minutes later, the two males were immediately flanked by Robby and Samson Hopps. They were both armed with shotguns and the todd could tell that they were focused on the skies around the warren as opposed to the duo who was trekking across the county road and up the hill. It was clear where Stewart was taking Nick now.
Eventually, the patriarch halted their push in front of the same tree that Nick had chosen to give his well-wishes to his mother.
"This is the spot, Son." Stu said resolutely.
The view was amazing even during the full-daytime hours. The sun was high, overhead, and illuminating every bit of the shadows of the limbs against the ground below them all. There was not enough snow to cover the immediate area underneath the tree's body anymore and it showed Nick exactly where he had left the second shot glass at the immediate base. The todd immediately knelt down to take hold of the glassware. It was still scorched from all the instances where it had burnt the borrowed whiskey away and gone out before he had refilled it and set it alight once again.
That time felt like so long ago to the todd now.
"You said you wanted her to have a place of beauty so that you could pay your immediate respects, Nick." Stu spoke again softly. "So, I'm asking you if this spot is somewhere that they would love to be left with."
"They'd be able to see the beauty of the area and the sun at all times of the day." Nick commented absentmindedly. "And, I think they would have loved to meet all of you. My mother would have loved all of the kits. She would have tried to have all of them set into the ultimate fluffle within her famous curl-of-love. It would have been funny to see her be swamped by all of them all the while… And, they would love this kind of sun…"
"Nick," Stewart brought the todd's head around immediately. "They belong here. Do you hear me?"
"Sir?" Nick responded loudly.
The older buck immediately began digging against the base of the tree and quickly uncovered a hollow that was hidden by a little soil and some of the snow that had be laid overtop naturally. The roots were gnarled around the hole at the base of the tree. Stu quickly cleared away enough snow to reveal an untouched layer of dried leaves and soil within. It was the equivalent of the tree's time capsule: if one was honest about the view within. The whole cavern was illuminated by the overhead light. It seemed warm and comfortable to the todd. Small and welcoming.
"If you think that this is a good enough place for your parents to either be kept or spread, then I want you to bring them here." Stu replied solemnly. "We want you to bring them here if they don't have a place to rest."
"I don't have a stone for them." Nick muttered, dragging an errant paw from the back of his head around his left ear to scratch at the wet fur that he was suffering from.
"You're gonna let me take care of that, Son." The patriarch's tone was as firm as the stone that he seemed to be planning on chiseling into.
"They're so long overdue, Sir…" Nick's voice was monotone as he turned the glass. "My mother didn't want my father to go in a place that was full of torment for them both."
A paw immediately found its way around Nick's shoulders as Stu leaned in close enough to rest his left temple against the todd's forehead. The scent was recognizable, but it was still foreign enough to set off a tiny alarm bell at the back of his hind-brain. It was entirely ignored.
"If you leave now, you should be back before midnight." The buck whispered. The sound of a jangling set of keys immediately followed as the buck rolled them into a flat paw beneath both of their lines-of-sight. "I understand what you need to do. And, I'll trade you these for that glass."
Nick's paw opened enough to release the shot glass and let it roll around in his paw loosely, waiting until Stu plucked it out of the pads to drop the todd's keys into the same spot. The truth was that the fox could not remember where he had last left the keys to his truck. It made him grin rather toothily at the slyness by which the patriarch had managed to obtain them. It certainly rivaled his own, by all accounts.
"Go on. Before they catch on to what is about to happen." Stu said, roughly hauling the todd upright.
"You're going to catch all kinds of hell for this, Stu." Nick commented.
"They're going to be mad until they hear the reasoning behind it." The older buck countered. "I can live with that. Now, go on. Carry your ass and come back safe, Nick."
The keys were grasped tightly against the pads of his paws, feeling the shove of the rabbit's paws against his shoulder, even as he looked back to consider the emotional state of the buck. Robby and Samson were both flanking the fox by then. Each of them knew that they would be needed to protect the patriarch of the family when the todd inevitably left the area. Stewart Hopps merely nodded in the direction of the todd's truck softly.
Nick's running gait was powerful as he made his way back across the snow-banked ditches and into the parking area. The emotional turmoil that he was facing was clear as he started the Furd pickup and ripped a lane through the snow-covered gravel strip of the lot, swerving out and onto the westbound county road so that he could make time on the main thoroughfare towards Zootopia.