The little sleep that Nick got is finally ended by a ray of morning sun shining into his eye. For him, it's a much more pleasant, natural way to wake up than the calls that had plagued him during the night.
In the morning hours of Zootopia, everything seems deceptively peaceful. There aren't anymore screams coming from outside and the smoke from the fires has finally died down.
A calm chatter can be heard coming from outside his window, sounding no different than the usual morning crowd walking the streets.
Nick lays there for a while, just trying to imagine that everything is back to normal again.
That the dead aren't the ones shuffling around in the city below.
They might be decaying husks now, but they sound like they're in good enough spirits.
As far as Nick can tell, everyone who has turned has so far enjoyed the change. Nobody's upset once they're among the dead. What is it that makes them so damn accepting of their deaths?
It's like they don't even mind that they're missing parts of their bodies. Nick can't imagine being okay with missing multiple parts of himself. And poor Corduroy is just a severed head! He can't move at all without someone else carrying him!
A shiver passes down Nick's spine and he wraps his blanket a little tighter around himself.
He listens to his own heartbeat for a long time, trying to imagine what it would be like if the organ simply...stopped. What does it feel like to have your blood stop pumping? Why do they seem to enjoy it so much?
Each breath that the fox takes is one more than the rest of his friends and family. He's alive and they don't get to be anymore.
So why does he feel like the one that is being left out?
His life is over whether or not he accepts Judy's request. The world ended and he didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.
Does he want to bother joining the new world?
A metallic banging noise disrupts him from his thoughts and sends him bolting to his paws, ready to flee. The panicked fox spins around, trying to locate the source of the disturbance.
It's not the door. It didn't sound like wood.
It wasn't his window, he was staring out of it when the sound occurred.
The piercing noise fills the room a second time and Nick's ears are drawn to an area on the wall, close to the floor.
He takes a nervous gulp and slides his way closer to investigate. He can hear a shuffling come from a metal vent cover.
His blood runs cold.
Something's trying to get in.
The only thing preventing it from doing so is the slotted grate of metal.
If it gets in, he has nowhere to go. It's already here and it would take Nick far too long to undo all of the locks on his door. The fire escape outside the window might work, but it's daylight now and all he would be doing would be exposing himself for the undead below to see.
Nick accidentally takes an audible, shuddering breath and the sound stops.
The silence that follows casts the fox in a cloud of tension.
"...Meow," says the all-too-familiar voice of his favorite undead bunny from behind the vent.
Nick lets out a massive breath and slinks to the floor in a trembling heap.
"For the love of...Judy, are you TRYING to give me a heart attack?" Nick groans as his face reclaims it's home, buried in his paws. She moves around inside the vent some more, banging her head a couple times as she turns herself around.
"Of course not! I was just...inspecting your central air! You know how it gets around here, don't want to have you roasting in this heat, after all! Is that any better?" she mumbles through her shame.
"I don't know, Judy. It smells like something crawled in there and died. Might want to take another look," Nick says flatly.
"Really? I didn't see anything...hey, are you saying I stink?!"
Nick smirks, the bunny's silly nature brightening his morning. She might be dead, but Judy will always be the most amusing thing to him.
"Judy, you're a corpse. Of course you stink," Nick chuckles. He can feel her glare through the vent.
"Okay, well...you don't have to say it," she whines.
"...Uugghh...what am going to do with you?"
"Oh, you can let-,"
"I'm not letting you in."
"...Have you thought about it at all?" she asks, her voice lowering to a soft whisper.
The fox sighs and rubs his eyes again.
"Yes, I have. No, I don't know yet. But...if you had actually gotten through the vent, my decision wouldn't have mattered, would it? You would have just gone for the kill regardless of what I wanted."
Judy has the words kicked out of her and doesn't respond for quite a while. When she finally does, it's in the same sorrowful, broken tone she used when she apologized to him for the Nighthowler conference.
"I'm...snf...I'm sorry, Nick…it's just so hard! I have this constant overwhelming urge to share this with you, and I haven't seen you since this all started and I...I'm sorry if I made you feel like I didn't care about your decision. I know you don't trust me right now and I don't blame you. I just really miss you…"
Her sniffling and trembling voice are too much for Nick. How is he supposed to listen to this and stay mad at her? His life might be on the line, but he isn't ready to sacrifice his friendship.
"It's okay, Carrots...just please, let me make this choice by myself. It's important."
"Okay...hic...I'll just make my way back out of the vent, now," she agrees. He hates hearing her sound so down.
"You can hang out by the door again."
"Really! Okay!"
"IF. You promise to stop singing and drumming," he warns. Judy is quiet for a few more seconds, weighing her options.
"Okay…" she finally concedes.
"...And don't try the air vent again, please. The whole room stinks like you now!"
Another hidden yet obvious glare.
"You know, you don't keep your sense of smell when you turn. If my smell bothers you so much, I have the perfect thing in mind."
Nick flinches and takes a few steps away from the vent just in case.
"Okay, okay, kidding! Just...kidding…" Nick laughs nervously. Judy gives an indignant huff and scurries her way back up the air vent. He can hear her in the walls for a few more seconds before he loses her location.
A second chair realized its purpose of blocking a possible Judy entrance.
He sighs again and lets his shoulders droop.
Why can't things just go back to the way they were?
He doesn't like having to bum his best friend out. But if the only thing she wants is to end his life, what choice does he have?
The only choice left
Nick shakes his head, trying to clear the offending thought from it. He's not ready to give up on life just yet. He doesn't want to die!
But if he doesn't, he'll never be able to see Judy again. Or his mother. Or any of the friends he's made.
The only one he might be able to fall back on is-
TAP TAP TAP
Nick yelps and jumps back from the source of the sound. Instead of wood or metal being struck, this time it's glass.
He turns to the window.
Despite the morning sun doing its job of illuminating the fire escape just outside his window, he can't see any signs of movement. Was he just imagining it that time? Is his paranoia finally getting to him?
It couldn't have been Judy. She's fast, but even zombie bunnies can't teleport. His BBF is probably still making her way back through the maze of duct work.
"YO NICK!" shouts a voice from just outside his apartment. Nick freezes as a feeling of recognition washes over him. He knows that voice. It's a voice so deep that it rattles the glass. And the mammal's identity also explains why Nick is unable to see him.
He's too short.
The very tip of a knuckle struggles to reach the glass. It taps the window again, this time with more urgency. The very tips of a pair of humongous ears pass by his vision. They are quickly obscured by the wall of the building.
"Finn?" Nick calls out in disbelief.
The ears perk up.
"Oh geez, Finn!" Nick runs to the window and starts to unlock it, but something in the very corner of his vision startles him back onto his rump.
He slides back until his shoulders hit drywall.
"No…" Nick whines as the body of a small fox leaps up into the frame of his window. Two giant, tattered ears hang loosely at his side, chunks torn out of them haphazardly. It's like two leaves got munched on by a pair of very hungry caterpillars.
Even through the glare of the sun, Nick can see every detail of the diminutive fennec. His fur is falling out in patches. One of his eyes is rolled back up into his head. A greasy red stain is soaking through the bottom of his usually well-kept hoodie.
But considering what Nick has seen so far, Finnick isn't actually all that bad. The most damage is done to his ears and those are just flat flabs of skin and cartilage anyway.
"NICK!" Finn booms from behind the closed plane of glass, his blood-soaked paws trying desperately to tug the window open.
Nick sees the window actually open a tiny bit before slamming closed again. The zombified fennec positions himself to try again.
The locks!
Like a bolt of red lightning, Nick leaps from his spot on the floor and slams his body weight onto the bottom of the window just as it starts to open.
"HEY!" barks Finnick angrily. Nick's paws get to work resetting all of the locks, despite the curses coming from the husk on the other side of the glass.
The second Nick finishes clicking the final lock shut, the balled fist of the furious fennec pounds into the glass and sends Nick scurrying away to the safety of his couch.
Finn tries to open the window again, but it doesn't budge. He tries punching the glass again, but it's too heavy and thick for him to damage.
"NICK! OPEN UP AND I'LL BITE YOUR FACE OFF!" he fumes. Down below in the streets, the rest of the undead crowd goes strangely quiet.
"Don't you mean 'Or' you'll bite my face off?" Nick asks, smiling nervously.
"NO!"
This time he gives the glass a tiny kick, only succeeding in knocking himself backwards.
An enormous string of curses erupts from his oozing mouth and he takes a few moments to have his tantrum.
Apparently his vocabulary isn't much appreciated by the husks below.
"Hey! Watch your language! There are dead kits down here and the last thing I need is them trying to replicate your rotten mouth!" comes a voice from the onlookers.
Nick watches as Fennec rolls to the edge of the fire escape platform and leans his head over the side.
"MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS, YOU SORRY SACK OF MEAT!" he belts. A few gasps of horror ring out at his usage of what must be one of the new derogatory terms.
A boot soars up and narrowly misses Finn's tattered ear. It plops down on the metal floor next to him and he's quick to whip it back down onto the onlookers.
Where did they get a boot? Barely anyone wears boots anymore.
A distance thwack is heard, followed by several angry shouts.
"My baby!"
Finn bursts into laughter, having to hold his guts it as his deep voice bellows in sharp gasps. The boisterous laughter turns into a wet, hacking cough that concludes with Finnick up-chucking a well ball of flesh.
Is that his liver?
Finn stares at the organ with little emotion before shrugging and tossing it over the rails. A few seconds later, a wet splat echoes out from the same area as the boot had fallen.
"My other baby!"
This gets another evil chuckle out of the smaller fox. Nick watches this all happen with a tilted head, unsure of how to process any of it.
Yep, that's definitely his partner in crime.
"So I see you're...still you," Nick says, trying to break the ice. The giant ears of the tiny fox swivel in his direction, a chunk actually getting enough momentum to fly off entirely.
"...Why you still breathin'?" Finns asks incredulously. Nick sighs and scoots a chair over to the window to chat.
Might as well, there's nothing better to do, other than starve.
Or seal the deal with Judy
He shakes his head again. The thought goes away but leaves behind some emotional residue for him to chew on.
"Haven't had my fill of living yet, it seems," Nick exhales and crosses his one leg over the other. Finn takes the hint and finds a spot on the nearby railing to balance himself.
Finn takes a long, hard look at his friend.
"So whatcha waitin' for? You scared?" Finn asks abrasively. Nick narrows his gaze and leans back in his chair.
"What, you here to tell me how great being a dead body is? Got some pamphlets I can read about the wonders of decomposing? Because if you're just here to bother me, I can-."
"Nah, fam. This kinda sucks," Finn says casually as he chews on...something. Oh, please don't let that be something else that he coughed up.
Wait, what?
That's different.
Out of everyone so far, Finn is the first to express displeasure in his turning. Nick is stunned silent and can do nothing but stare at his friend.
"...What? Got something on my face?" the fennec asks as he reaches a paw up to his cheek and digs under the skin. He pulls out a juicy-looking bug of some kind and stuffs it into his mouth.
"'Preciate it."
Nick swallows his mouthful of stomach acid before it can come flying out onto the window.
"So...you don't like being a zombie?" Nick manages to ask once his gag reflex stops going crazy.
"HELL NO! Well, I mean...it's not the worst. But I definitely preferred being alive."
"What do you miss about living?"
Finn eyes Nick carefully.
"This isn't one of those times where I'm supposed to tell you not to jump, is it?" the smaller fox asks suspiciously.
"What the- No! I'm just asking because all of the animals I've talked to so far have said how happy being turned made them!" Nick argues.
Finn shifts his position and shrugs his shoulders.
"Really depends on who you ask. Who have you asked, anyway? You been in contact with some deadies?"
"Just Judy, my mom, and her new boyfriend."
"No kidding? Mrs. Wilde is taken? Shoot, man, I should have known turning would finally change her mind about testing the waters again. Sucks, I would have tried my luck."
Nick gapes at his friend.
"Finn, that's my mother you're talking about! She's practically yours too! She raised us!" he exclaims in an animated fashion. Finn watches his wild arm motions with a mischievous smirk.
"Just messing with ya, Nick. I'm taken now, anyway."
Nick shuts up.
"...You're still kidding, aren't you?"
"Nah, not this time."
"So who is she?"
Finnick squirms a bit, sliding the bottom of his blood-stained hoodie over his knees to hide his bottom half.
"Arctic girl. Really pretty and really nice. Tall, too. She's got these legs that I can climb for days!"
Classic Finn.
Nick rests his head on his fist and leans slightly forward.
"How did that happen?"
"Well, it's actually how I turned, ya see. Met her at a bar when this was all starting. Didn't know about the infection yet. Apparently she was one of the early ones that caught it, didn't get mauled when she died. Sooo she was looking really pretty for a corpse and I couldn't tell anything was up. She tried to warn me, but I laid the ol' Finnick charm on a bit too thick and got myself in pretty deep."
Nick's on the edge of his seat, waiting for the rest of the details.
Finnick falters and goes quiet.
"What happened?" Nick asks, scooting the chair a bit closer to the window.
"She…"
"Yes?"
"She bit it off."
Suddenly the way that Finnick is covering his hips with his hoodie makes more sense. It also explains the blood on the bottom.
"No way…"
"Nick, I wouldn't lie about something like this. She didn't mean to, but I guess she got a taste and went for it. Apologized like hell but it was too late."
"So that's how you died?" Nick asks, any feelings of mourning overshadowed by his revulsion at how his friend suffered.
"Nooooot exactly…"
Silence falls between them.
"Well, go on! Do tell! You've gotten this far, might as well go all the way!" Nick urges. Finnick sighs and buries his rotten face into his paws.
"Ugh. Fine. But you owe me a bite. Anyway, when I felt what she did, I flipped my lid. Yelled, cursed, made her cry and bled everywhere. I ran out, blood draining out of me like crazy. Bunch of deadies took turns taking bites out of my ears as I ran by and then…"
"Then…?"
"Ran into a pole and cracked my skull," he finally says while pointing a claw to his droopy eye. With the truth out, Nick leans back in his chair and takes a massive breath.
"You laugh and I'll swear I'll destroy everything but your brain. You'll be like a rolling tumbleweed of meat with some grey matter in the middle," Finn warns grumpily.
Well...that's definitely an image.
"Okay, okay…" Nick submits, holding his paws up as a sign of good humor. Finn huffs and looks away, his good eye glaring at the city below them.
"So you got together with the vixen who...you know," Nick asks cautiously.
"Well...yeah. She didn't mean nothing by it and I totally get it now that I'm like her. It's not like I have the blood flow to use it anyway."
"I guess that makes sense, in a weird kind of way."
Finn nods and spits the hunk of whatever was in his mouth over the side of the fire escape.
Splat
"My third baby!"
"DAMN LADY, MOVE YOUR BRATS!" Finn yells back down at her.
Nick can't help the chuckle that slips out. Luckily, his feisty friend doesn't seem to care.
"What brings you out this way, anyway? Can't have been to turn me. You were surprised to see I was still alive, after all."
Finn turns his gaze away from the horizon and gives his friend a more sincere look.
"Do you remember when we were kits? That night we got drunk for the first time?" Finn asks in a sober tone. Nick looks past his friend, letting himself reminisce about a time long ago. Everything was so much less bloody back then.
"Yeah, I remember. Grabbed a case from Old Man Bruno's store and ran like hell. Finished the whole thing that night, didn't we?" Nick laughs.
Finn smirks, his ears flopping behind his body lazily. Only those close to Finn know that his floppy ears are a sign of relaxation for him.
"Yeah, yeah! Man, we pounded those things back and thought we were the kings of the world! We acted so drunk, ha! Stumbling around and getting poetic and crap. But we didn't know it was-."
"Non-alcoholic beer," they both say at the same time and descend into more nostalgic laughter.
The moment passes when Finn's messed up eye pops out of its socket and dangles there while he laughs. Nick goes silent until the fennec manages to wrestle the organ back into place.
"Woo! Heh...but do you remember what we said when we were stomping around thinking we were blacked out?" Finn asks, his voice lowering to a more acceptable level.
Nick tries to think, but it was so long ago that he can't quite recall.
"We said that we'd be brothers until the end of the world."
Nick stares at his fallen friend, a feeling of sincerity tingling down his neck. Very rarely did Finn ever show a softer side to himself, and when he did, Nick knew enough to take him seriously.
"I remember that, now that you mention it."
Finn reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out two unopened cans of Meadowbrooke Brew.
"Well, here it is. The end of the world. And I just wanted to make sure that we could stay brothers. You know...since the pact is technically up, and all."
Finn doesn't look at Nick as he sets the beer down on the window's ledge. But he doesn't go to open his either. Nick realizes with a creeping fear that he wants him to open the window.
The window right next to the corpse of his friend.
...Who could leap in and tear into his flesh the moment he's allowed entry.
Nick eyes the beer on the other side of the glass, feeling conflicted beyond reason.
Finn seems to have expected his hesitation and looks down solemnly.
"I won't attack you. I'm not into that whole thing. You're my brother after all, right? Plus, I'm sure bunny cop is itching to do you in herself."
Nick looks between the drink and his brother.
He really doesn't have a choice.
When your brother wants a toast, you give him a toast.
His paws are undoing the locks before he can stop them. His body is no longer his to command.
Finn notices the movement and gives a tiny, hopeful glance in Nick's direction.
The window opens, forcing Finn to take a step back. The outside air rushes in, bathing Nick in the smells of the city.
Then, it's just the two of them staring at each other with nothing to separate them.
Nick holds his breath.
But true to his word, Finnick doesn't rush at him. Nick's paw shakily grabs hold of the can and lifts it. Finn could easily jump down and rip his arm open, but he just stands there with his paws in his pockets.
Nick brings the can back to his body and holds it to his chest.
"So...what to?"
"To us, you thick-skilled waste of a heartbeat," Finn cracks with a genuine smile.
"Brothers."
"Brothers."
"Until the end and whatever comes after."
"True that."
They both crack the lid on their drinks together, letting the pressurized air hiss out into the morning sky.
They throw their heads back and drink to the future.
Until a feral holler and an incoming scamper of paws sends Nick reeling back into his room, the beer splashing all over his chest.
Above him in the window, Finn laughs so hard that he falls onto his back and rolls around again.
"You little…" Nick curses. "Can I close the window? You're making my room smell like you!"
Finn's laughter turns into a taunting scowl.
"That's a tasty looking throat you got there, Nicky Nick. Care if I have a bite?"
"...Yeah, I'm shutting the window now."