Chapter Thirty-Seven
Taking Matters Into Paw
A line of thick crimson trickled from the corner of Nick Wilde's mouth. He drew his teeth back from the pinch around Jack's neck and shoved a tight paw in replace: sharp claws probing roughly into the windpipe of Savage's jugular. Taking the back of his free paw, the fox wiped at the red running from one corner of his mouth, thus, smudging blood across his muzzle. His hard eyes bore down into the rabbit pressed against the wall before him, while his grip tightened.
The rabbit sucked in a dry, drawn-out breath. It shook a little, but Jack managed to hide most signs of fear as he spoke, "Okay, Mister Wilde, you have my attention. What is it you wish to discuss?"
"You know exactly what I want, 'Smith'," Nick shot back, in the mood for anything but a light-hearted chat. "I want you to leave Hopps and me the fuck alone."
Jack masked a convincing smirk over his fear, alike as it was. "Such harsh words to hear from such a gentle mammal. Whatever would Hopps think if she heard you now?"
"She'd think, 'why haven't I slashed this little runt's eyes out yet?' that's what she'd think!"
"And if I told her everything I know about you? What then would she think of you?"
"You can't tell her," the fox argued, plainly, "and that's not an empty threat, it's a fact. If you let on about my past, then sooner or later you'll face the question 'how do you know?' And what are you gonna say? 'I'm a defected agent who spent three years selling MI-Z information to the Kray's for my own personal gain?' Not likely. Face it, either of us spill what we know 'bout the other; we throw ourselves under the bus too. Stalemate."
"No, it isn't a stalemate," Jack said, managing to appear threatening despite the large paw pressing into his neck, "after all, all I need to do is 'find' enough evidence to have you convicted for this drug spree, and anything you say about me will instantly be discredited as nothing more than you trying to take me down with you. I have the advantage."
"No," Nick breathed, his voice becoming a low growl as his grip around Jack's neck tightened, thus, Jack started to twist uncomfortably due to the lack of air. "No, that just makes me desperate. And a desperate fox is capable of just about anything."
"W-Wilde, killing me won't get you—"
"On the contrary, Savage. Killing you will get me just about anywhere." The rabbit's eyes started to lose focus, unable to breathe, with his heart pounding loudly and fruitlessly in his chest. Nick moved closer, bringing his face inches from Jack's, his voice a harsh whisper in the rabbit's ear, "This, is your first and final warning. You either leave me and my Hopps alone, or I'll show you just how savage a real predator can be."
Gazing grimly into Jack's face, Nick watched as the life started to fade from his eyes — something the fox had seen oh so many times in the past — before dropping the rabbit like dead weight to the floor. Crawling onto all fours, Savage clutched at his throat, retching and coughing as he forced air back into his lungs, while Wilde stood over him, watching.
"All— all these y-years," Jack wheezed, "and I thought you were d-dead."
"Yeah, I bet you had a real panic attack when you heard my name."
"Whatever did happen to you? For three years you came to me for information, pushing me higher and higher up the agency ladder in exchange for bigger and evermore sensitive information. Then, all of a sudden, you stopped. What happened?"
The fox was still for a long moment. "I had an epiphany. It came to me in the form of a near-death experience. It made me look at myself, my life around me, and showed me the things that really mattered."
"You think you're a damn poet now?"
The fox grinned. "Oh, I've always had this poetic streak inside me, Stripes. For instance: There once was a rabbit called Jack, he stabbed his country in the back, but when the Kray's went astray, Jack ran away, and I hoped he would never come back."
Nick stepped forwards and took firm hold of Jack's wrists, knowing him still to be too weak to resist. He raised them and lifted the rabbit onto his feet, before holding his arms straight up above his head, holding his wrists next to a water pipe on the wall, and cuffing both Jack's paws to it with a satisfying click.
"Hang around, Stripes," Nick said with a wink, "I'm sure the security guard will be along to let you out in an hour or two." The fox stood and started pacing down the corridor, a smirk on his face which turned to a scowl the moment his back had turned on the rabbit. He had intended to keep walking until he was far away from Jack, but then Jack's low and ominous voice gave his legs frost.
"And what about when I get out of these things, Wilde? What then?" Nick's snarl bathed the surroundings. "You can't hold off the paw of justice forever. You know that. And the fact you became a police officer, started calling yourself an 'honest' mammal and fooled that innocent child from the Burrows that you are in love with her? It makes me sick."
Nick fought for a witty response; tried to come up with a typically Nickish comment that could turn the tables of what Jack had just said, consequently, twist his words to his own advantage. But his mind came up blank, his silver tongue failed him and his ears fell flat against his head as he came to realize that Jack was closer to the truth than Nick cared to mention. He couldn't hide from justice forever, not now when Jack was on his tail.
Without a word, Nick turned from the black-striped rabbit and continued forward down the corridor, while Jack's voice shouted at him in mockery that faded into the gloom. "Go ahead," he jeered, "keep on running, keep on hiding from who you are and what you've done. That's the only thing you or any fox has ever been good for."
Nick paced hurriedly down the corridor, the rabbit's words echoing in pursuit behind him. He turned a corner, Jack out of sight, and his pace slowed as a thought struck him. His ears pricked up a little. There was one detail the rabbit had failed to get right.
A small smile formed and the fox spoke to himself under his breath, "'Fooled that innocent child?' I'm not fooling anyone. I love Judy more than I've ever loved anyone, even—" he trailed off as he floated to a stop with a stare on the floor. His eyes shut tight, and he breathed slow breaths in the silence.
All these years, and he still couldn't bring himself to say Scarlett's name in vain.
In the deafness, Nick heard the dull thunk of a drip hitting the floor. His gaze lowered to see, just as another droplet of red fell from his mouth to join the other. Nick opened his mouth and raised a paw to his jaw, wiping it, and examining the blood stained across his paw. "Crap," he muttered as the adrenaline wore off with a painful, throbbing sensation growing where the rabbit's kick had hit him. "Crap," he said again, more urgently, as he began sprinting down the corridor, picking up speed as the tingling numbness left him to be replaced by pulsating, hot pain in his mouth.
He spotted a doorway at the end of the corridor with the light on, and could see Judy moving about in the light through the glass windowpane. He jogged down the corridor towards it, also spotting the 'toilets' sign while clutching at his jaw as he ran.
Inside, Judy was just skimming through a hefty tome that listed all the companies established in a particular year, when the door behind her burst open. She dropped the book and turned, startled, and the door slammed open against the wall with the red fox rushing in. "Nick, there you are! What took you? Where have you been? What's going on?"
"I'm fine," he blurted as he rushed past her, darting towards the room marked 'toilets'.
"Nick, your mouth! What happened? Let me see."
"I'm fine!" he shouted, concealing himself as he vaulted for the bathroom.
Confused and deflated, Judy blinked at the bathroom door that it swung closed behind the fox. Slowly though, her sadness shifted into a different emotion... and her expression hardened upon the door, until it looked almost as though she could defy an inch of solid wood with the mounding fury in her gaze.
...
The door to the male's toilets burst open and Nick Wilde got in. Clutching at his jaw, he dashed for the sinks, lurched towards one and spat a large mouthful of blood into it. Cursing under his breath, Nick pulled back the corner of his lip to see the wide cut along the base of his gum and the bruise forming around it. It dawned on the fox that he was lucky not to lose any teeth, a little higher and he'd have lost two for sure. He probed the cut with his tongue, winced and spat a smaller mouthful of red into the washbasin.
Behind him, the bathroom door opened again silently and a rabbit moved across the hard, tiled floor. Nick was oblivious as he ran the cold tap and pushed his throbbing face beneath the cold rush of water, watching as the blood in the sink became diluted with the clear water, and then, behind him, a paw touched him on the back.
Acting without thinking, the fox span on his heels and his sharp claws sliced through the air at the rabbit's chest. The small figure of the rabbit caught the paw by the wrist and twisted it, slipping behind the fox, before bringing his paw up behind his back in an armlock, kicking his knees out and forcing him to drop on them.
"Ugh, Judy! Jeez, you're strong."
"Better strong than weak," she retorted without amusement, while keeping Nick firmly in an armlock on the floor. "I'm sorry it has to be this way, but if you're not going to tell me what's going on through choice, I'll have to get it by force."
"Isn't..." he tried, meekly, "Isn't this a little extreme?"
"I've had enough of your dodges, enough of your vague answers and of your 'I didn't want you to get involved'. I am your partner: romantically and professionally. Do you have any idea what that means to me? Do you have any idea?!"
Judy pulled the armlock tighter and Nick beat his fist upon the floor like a wrestler tapping out. "Ouch, ouch, ouch! I'm sorry, Hopps, but please!"
"No! Not 'til you tell me what's going on."
"I've already told you, Hopps, I can handle iirrugh—" The rabbit increased the strain on the joints, and Wilde bent double, crippled on the floor. "Carrots... Carrots!" Nick warned, almost frantic, "you're gonna break my damn arm in a minute, Carrots!"
"I'm sick of your lies, Wilde," she shouted, unmoved. "This kind of behavior nearly cost us our relationship once already, and I'm not going to let it happen again! From this moment on, I am taking matters into my own paws."
"Alright! Alright, I'll tell you, jeez, I'll tell you. Just, arugh, just let me up!"
The rabbit's grip loosened... but she didn't let go quite yet. "Nick," she said again, no longer sounding angry, just tired, "please try to understand: I love you too much for you to do this to me. When I see you hurt, I'm hurt too. Your pain is my pain. Then you come running in, not only clearly very distressed, but bleeding too? And I can't even talk to you about it? Do you have any idea how that feels?"
"Oh, Judy... Judy, I'm sorry, give me a hug, I didn't mean it." The fox slipped out of the loose armlock, twisted and, still crouched on the floor, put his arms around the rabbit, while she didn't even blink a response…
"And now you're using affection to try and make me forget all about it. You've used that little trick before." The rabbit sighed, her fear and sadness fading into simple irritation. "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to do things all off my own back. Just like it's always been."
"Hopps, look, I will tell you, I promise. But let's just finish-up what we're doing here," he said slowly, "and I, will tell you, about it, later. Okay?"
Judy growled. "Later," she growled, "it's always later. Why can it never be now?"
"Well, if it was always now," Nick started, and Judy could already tell it was going to be a pitiful joke or play-on-words just by the stupid smug grin he was wearing. That wry smirk, which she usually found so appealing, it currently made her bitterness all the more unbearable. Judy clamped her paw over Nick's mouth to stop the pathetic comment before it could start, and the muted Nick watched her in trepidation as her mood shifted from sadness to resolve, with her expression getting harder, her shoulders now squared and her body stood an inch taller. She pushed the fox away, who ended up splayed on the bathroom floor, and drew her dart gun from her utility belt.
"Erm, what— what's the dart gun for?"
"I'm gonna get the bastard who did this to you." Spinning on the balls of her feet, the rabbit marched from the room.
"Hey, wait! There is no-one, I did this to me. I, erm, I tripped! Yeah, I tripped an—"
"Sweet cheese and crackers!" Judy shouted, her voice hoarse as she turned around to face the fox, "Do you even want to marry me?"
"W-what?"
"You can only marry someone you trust," she shot, "but if you don't even trust me to look after you, you're not gonna trust me enough to marry you. So I ask again, do you even want to marry me?"
Nick was struck by the raw passion in the rabbit's words; the glistening tears building around her eyes. For all tension, the pain in his arm, the shouting, the accusing... there was only one answer he could ever give to that question.
A little wetness building in the corners of his own eyes, Nick knelt down on the floor before the rabbit and brought his head close to hers. He reached out a gentle paw, wiped a single tear from her eyes, and rested his palm on her soft, smooth cheek.
"Of course I do, Judy Hopps."
Judy touched the fox's paw on her cheek. "Then let me help you. Please."
"I don't know why I treated you like a little kid needing protection," he lamented, his paw slipping back to caress Judy's ear, "you're so much more than that. My love, my partner... my friend." Nick leaned slowly forwards towards the rabbit's face.
For all the heartache he so often caused her, for all his faults and his flaws, for all his lies and deceit... this was still Nick; this was still exactly where Judy wanted to be and this was still the mammal she loved. She didn't hesitate for even a moment before pressing her lips against Nick's in a long and regret-filled kiss. From then the rabbit knew they were all made up... but there was still one thing she needed to ask.
"No more lies?"
"No more lies."
"No more secrets?"
"No more secrets."
"You promise?"
A smile grew on Nick's face. An honest smile. "I promise."
Taking the fox's paw, Judy helped Nick to stand. Paw in Paw, they made their way from the bathroom. Nick pushed open the door, and together they slipped out, making their way back towards the corridor, with Nick's voice being soft-spoken in its aim at the kind-hearted rabbit following beside him.
"Come on, Jules. It's time you knew everything."
…
Author's notes:
Hesitance jumps around your mind,
Grooms decision thus chosen blind.
Your thoughts most succulent of snack,
All delivered by luscious feedback.
So don't hide like a tiny shrew,
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