So, I promised all of you that I would work on these chapters as I could. I've been writing pretty much every night for the past five or so days so I could get these out to you all. I hope that you all continue to read this so that I may have the inspiration to write more chapters for all of you.
Now then, sit back, grab a good snack, put on that very inspirational song or songs (mine is the entire Undertale soundtrack orchestral style), and enjoy.
Judy ran into the girls' locker room giggling as Nick stopped short of chasing her into it. She didn't mind the smiles at her from the rest of the girls. With the smile still on her face, she walked to her locker and started to undress and ready for a shower. There weren't too many of the female members in the showers yet so Judy had a wide selection of the area.
She chose one nearer to the entrance and turned the knob. The water that flowed out was cold and slowly warmed up. Judy stood there for a moment to let the water flow over her and get her fur completely wet. When she was satisfied with the temperature of the water, she grabbed her fur wash and began to lather herself with it. Whilst she cleaned her mind started to wander towards her fox partner.
She had watched him do many things while they had been partners over the past five years. Both of them were near equally matched in how slippery they were, but the main difference in them was size and strength. Nick was strong despite his very lithe form. It made for some interesting interactions with larger mammals. What stood out to her is that when he was shirtless, especially in the summer, she could see the muscles ripple across his body and arms when he moved. It wasn't as prominent in the winter since his fur grew out to accommodate. But this didn't stop her from staring at him when he wasn't looking.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and to clear some of the water off of her head. With her washing done she turned the water off and walked out of the shower room to dry off and get dressed. The process seemed to take seconds in her mind while she was lost in thought.
"Hey, Judy. Wanted to let you know you did amazing in the ring today." Someone said from behind her, "I never thought anyone would be able to land a hit on him." Judy turned to see Fangmeyer standing next to her.
"I just applied everything that I had learned from the rest of you," Judy told her sheepishly. She chuckled and rubbed the back of her neck. Fangmeyer made a tsk sound and smiled at her. She knew better than to believe that.
The rabbit turned to finish dressing, picking up her t-shirt and pulling it over her head. She then stuffed her uniform into the duffel bag she pulled from her locker, zipped it up, and slung it over her shoulder.
As she walked out of the girls' locker room she saw Nick leaning against the wall and staring at his phone. An evil smile crept onto Judy's lips which she turned into a smirk as she skipped over to him.
"Texting your girlfriend, Nick?" She asked him sarcastically. This got Nick to look at her with genuine surprise on his face, which only made Judy's smirk wider.
"No, I'm not." He told her defensively. Even under all the red fur on his cheeks, Judy could see the blush appear on his cheeks. The rabbit began to snicker and pulled a paw up to her mouth to cover it.
"I was joking, Slick." She waved a paw at him, effectively dismissing the conversation. "We had better get going. I'm hungry, and it's already almost four in the afternoon. Our shift ended over half an hour ago." With that, the two of them began the walk to the front of the precinct. They waved to Clawhauser as they passed the front desk and walked out the front door.
The plaza in front of the precinct was always busy when the two of them got off of work. Parents conversing and watching their children play. Some of them played with a ball or a frisbee or two.
"Alright, Slick, where to for dinner?" She asked her fox friend.
"We're going to a place called The Silent Howl. It's over near Tundra Town." Nick told her as he caught a frisbee and threw it back to the kids, who thanked him and went back to playing. Judy hummed and thought about it for a moment. She thought the name of the place was familiar but could place where she had heard it before. Maybe Fru Fru had mentioned it to her once.
The walk to the train station was short despite the number of mammals that were on their way home from work. They bought their tickets and got on rather quickly. The ride wasn't very eventful as Judy stared out the window to avoid staring at Nick. When she had chanced a look at him he was looking at his phone again, apparently playing a game of sorts. It didn't take long for them to reach the train station just outside of Tundra Town. Judy's ears swiveled back when she heard the click of Nick's phone turned off.
They said nothing as they stepped off the train and walked next to each other towards the buildings that made a perimeter around the main city of Zootopia. Judy followed a little behind Nick, staring at his tail that swished back and forth the entire time. It mesmerized her. The rust-colored fur that darkened towards the tip of his tail into an almost jet black.
Nick stopping broke her of her trance and she looked up to the building they were standing in front of. The Silent Howl was a rather small restaurant with a picture of a wolf and a rabbit 'howling' at a moon. The name made her think of a bar.
"Here we are," Nick said as he looked down at Judy. He pushed the front door open and held it open for her. She was greeted to scents of fresh vegetables and what she supposed were tofu and fish. There was a wolf at the reception desk that looked up at them when they entered.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Wilde. Table for two, tonight?" He asked. Nick nodded and gave the lion a fist-bump. Judy took a closer look at his name tag. It read Chibi. The wolf gestured to a rabbit that walked up to them. "Nina will show you to your table."
The two of them walked wordlessly behind the doe. She was slightly shorter than Judy was. When they arrived at the table, Nina set two menus down across from one another. The two of them took their places quickly, picking up the menus and finding the drink selection.
"What can I get you to drink this evening?" She asked them after having given them a moment to find and look at the drinks.
"I'll have a blueberry shake," Nick told the rabbit. The doe quickly jotted it down and turned to Judy. Her brows were drawn down in concentration as she looked between two of the options.
"I'll..have a carrot juice." She finally said. The other rabbit jotted it down and walked away to get their drink ready. "You know, this is a nice place, Nick. How long have you known about it?"
"For some time. I helped the owners with getting their marriage together and not feeling too bad about it. That and I worked here for a little while." Nick told her as he started to play with the menu a bit. "The salads are really good." Judy's eyebrows raised at this. She knew he liked salads now and again but didn't know he had preferred ones in terms of flavor. Most of the time when they went out to eat he ordered beef-flavored tofu.
After their drinks had been brought to them, they began to look at the menu a bit. Nick had already set his aside while Judy surveyed the items. As she looked through the salads, one of them stuck out to here. The house salad had radishes, carrots, sharp cheddar cheese chunks, and a home-made dressing that went with it. Just reading the ingredients got Judy's mouth to water.
Instead of Nina coming to take their orders, it was a rather tall snow leopard that sauntered up to them. With pen and notepad in hand, she asked, "And what can I get for our lovely patrons tonight?"
"I'll have my usual, Lisa," Nick told her with a wink. "Judes?"
"I'd like the house salad, please." Lisa took her order down and walked away towards the kitchen. "Do you know everyone that works here?" The rabbit asked her partner accusingly. Nick's eyebrows raised and he raised his hands as well as if to surrender.
"Yeah, I do. I come here a lot so I got to know everyone." He told her. Nick's casual smirk returned to his face as Judy could feel the heat in her cheeks and ears. It wasn't until then that she began to notice the number of mammals that were there in the restaurant with them. And at how many of them were staring at them with disapproving eyes. This made Judy all too aware of the position they were in.
Between sips of her juice did she look around at the rest of the mammals around her. This made her ears flop down her back in shame at the thought of the two of them being out together. What made it worse is that she had never really noticed up until now. She was always so focused on Nick that there wasn't much room for her to notice anyone staring at them.
"H-hey, Nick? You do know that there are a lot of mammals staring at us, right?" She asked him nervously. Nick looked at her for a moment, then looked around at the other tables around them.
"So?" He said, almost scoffing as he did, "What's it to them that we're having dinner together? Besides, the owners of this place are an interspecies couple." His smirk grew that much wider as he took a quick look at the mammals around them. The shock on their faces was too funny. It almost had Judy laughing.
"Are you serious, Nick?" Judy was just as astonished.
"He's dead serious, Cherie." A voice said from a little ways away from them. Judy's ears perked up and she looked to the source. A buck had addressed them and was carrying their plates. He was wearing a business casual set of clothes, a white button-up shirt, and black pants. That wasn't what caught Judy's attention, though.
The wolf behind him stood a few feet taller than the buck, and his fur was snow white. She wore a loosely fitting red dress. Her tail swung gracefully behind her and the white gold necklace she wore shimmered in the light. Her smile was almost too perfect to be genuine and her crimson eyes almost offset the whole ensemble.
"Nick, how have you been?" The buck asked as he set the plates in front of them.
"I've been doing okay. Plan on going to see my mom this weekend and check up on her." He said with his signature smile plastered to his lips. "Ammy, looking lovely as always." He said as he nodded towards the wolf. She gave him a slight bow.
"My name is Waka. A pleasure." The buck said as he extended his arm out to Judy. Skeptically, she took it and shook his hand. This made Waka chuckle. "I won't bite, I promise. You have quite the catch here, Nicholas."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nick asked defensively. "I didn't catch her, she caught me." He said jokingly. This got all of them laughing except Judy, who blushed furiously. She immediately pulled her ears down. She picked up her fork and stabbed into her salad. As soon as the flavor of the salad hit her tongue she nearly melted on the spot. It was the best salad she had ever had outside her mom's home-grown salad. And this came close to knocking it out of the park.
"Anyway, I'll let you two eat in peace. We're actually on our way out now. Have a nice evening, you two." They both bowed to the fox and rabbit duo as they walked away, leaving them to their dinner. Judy looked over to Nick's plate. He had ordered what looked like steak, and was most likely tofu, with fries on the side. She took a sniff of the air and could smell it. It smelled like beef to her.
Their meal was eaten in silence, their ears attuned to each other in case someone said something. Only when they knew that both of them were done eating did they look at each other. Even then they averted their eyes. When Judy looked away, however, something caught her eye. The special agent had come into the restaurant at some point and was sitting across from an arctic fox dressed in a sleek black dress.
"Hey, Nick? Check this out." She said, getting her partner's attention and pointing to the wolf and fox across the room from them. They seemed to be passing documents between them and spoke in what seemed like hushed words since the place was rather quiet anyways. As soon as Nick noticed he hummed for a moment in thought.
"I guess they work together or something?" Nick said almost as a question. "Never seen her, though. I'm not too worried about it though." He said as he pulled his wallet out and laid some money out of his wallet to set down on the table. The two of them finished off the rest of their drinks and got up. They walked out of the restaurant standing close to each other.
"It does make you think, though," Nick began as the doors closed behind them. "What if he was there for a date?"
"Nick, he was wearing casual clothes. I doubt it." Judy said, tapping his arm. He recoiled and feigned pain. "You do have a point, I'll admit." Judy let a small smile slide onto her face as she imagined her and Nick in a situation like that.
"It'll never happen, but I can fantasize, can't I?" She told herself. The rest of the way home was pleasantly quiet. They boarded the train, making small talk the whole way. Even some of the others on the train even joined in a game that they played to pass the time.
When their stop came they said their goodbyes and got off the train. It wasn't a very long walk back to Judy's apartment from the train station, and it was done in almost eerie silence. The sun was almost completely set, and the street lamps had already turned on. It wasn't the fear of what lay in the dark that had Judy uneasy. She had a feeling that something was wrong with Nick in some way. It was almost as if something was telling her such in the back of her head. She shook her head to try and rid herself of these thoughts.
Before she knew it, the two of them were standing in front of Judy's apartment door and she was turning the key to the lock. She opened the door and stepped in. Before she closed the door, she turned towards Nick.
"Uh..you wanna come in and chat for a minute? My neighbors are out of town for the week." She asked him nervously. Her eyes flicked up to Nick's ears for a moment and noted the redness of them. She also took note of his nose working overdrive. "Nick?"
"Huh? Oh, uh, thanks, but I gotta get home. And I still need to call my mom." He said, his ears growing even redder.
"Are you okay, Nick? You look as little redder than normal." Judy said. He nodded and stepped back a little.
"Yeah. Just a little tired. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" He said.
"Okay." Judy leaned out of the door to watch her partner walk stiffly down the stairs. She breathed a breath she didn't know she was holding and locked the door behind her. With Nick out of sight and earshot, she set her phone on the table and her duffel on the floor next to it. She didn't bother to change her clothes as she flopped onto her bed. Pleasant thoughts filled her mind as she drifted off to sleep.
Okay! Chapter 2 down and in the bag. I hope you like it because I enjoyed writing it and going back to fix some issues that were in the original chapter. There was a lot that I thought was rushed, and I'm trying to stretch these out a little bit more.
Now then, onto the reviews, as always.
Thecrazystorywriter14: I appreciate your kind words. I hope this chapter satisfies you for the next few days or so as I start the next chapter.
Alright! There we have it. Now, if some of you that read The Deepest Shades of Red all the way through, and didn't like how I put in mythical creatures, I plan to eliminate all of that in this version.
May inspiration light your paths,
Leon