Hey everyone,
So I'd been wanting for more than a couple of years now to write a big series with lots of character development, deep plot, and all those things, but anxiety and fear of failure have kept me back from actually doing anything with it, and I didn't want to write short stories in case I would use up ideas I had for the series. The net result being that I didn't write anything.
To combat that, I decided to try and write a short story a week. Doesn't have to be long, doesn't have to be deep, doesn't have to connect with anything, it could just be a scene or a moment from that series I had wanted to write but never got around to actually doing. Thus I am writing this series of sorts, entitles Paws and Claws and Teeth and Tails. In any case, I'll try and write a story a week, and post it on r/zootopia, my , and my ao3 accounts, just to get it out there and hold myself accountable for actually doing it.
If you'd like to see me write something, feel free to suggest a topic or a scene or what have you, I'll keep a list and pick from it when I'm low on inspiration. Also, if you would please be so kind, make sure to also go fave the story on and AO3, the views and kudo counts help!
Without further ado, enjoy!
It had been just another day at the precinct. Fall was approaching, the temperature was comfortably cool, and the afternoon sun shone brightly through the windows at the entrance. Chatting playfully with the portly cheetah at the reception desk, a certain red fox was enjoying the last few minutes on the job, waiting for his partner to come back from her errand. A small gust of wind blew in though the rotating doors, bringing with it the smell of leaves turning and seasons changing, and Nick turned his head just in time to see his partner walking in.
A huge smile plastered across her face, the small grey bunny walked excitedly towards the pair of predators. For a brief moment as she stepped into the building, the contrast between light and shade created a golden halo as her fur was illuminated from behind. Nick liked to think that it was her angelic nature showing through in small moments like this.
Soon enough he saw she wasn't walking towards them so much as she was walking towards him, specifically, ignoring Clawhauser. While it was nothing terribly unusual, like when sometimes she was literally dying to tell him a joke, she did seem to have an unusual amount of pep in her step. Before he even had time to comment on how dangerously adorable her smell was, Judy almost ran right up to him, beaming her smile right in his face the entire time, and said what he had always dreaded to hear.
"Nick, I, I think I love you!"
Time slowed to a crawl. Did he really hear that? Yes, yes he did hear that. Out loud. Right in front of the entire office. Right in front of Clawhauser. He couldn't let it stand like that, couldn't let word of this get out. Quickly, a plan formed in his mind, and without missing a beat, Nick burst out laughing good-naturedly, and placed a paw on her shoulder.
"Hahaha well, I am after all the most lovable of all officers in this dreary precinct!" With a little flourish of his paw, he made a vague guesture towards the offices in the back, then laid his palm on his chest. "Everybody loves little old me!"
A small puzzled frown appeared on her face, wondering how he could have possibly misunderstood her. "No Nick, for real, I mean it!"
"Yes, yes, of course you do," he said, turning around and waving an arm to indicate first himself, then the cheetah at the front desk, and finally the precinct in general, while at the same time moving his other paw to her back and hurrying her along towards the offices. "You love me, you love Clawhauser, and despite how impossible it may seem you love ol' Buffalo Butt. You love everything and everyone because there's just so much darn love in that big bunny heart of yours. Honestly I have no idea where you keep it all, there is so little of you!"
"But Nick..."
"Ah ah ah," he interrupted, "there'll be time for emotional bunny stuff later, now we gotta go and finish some paperwork." Turning around he waved to Clawhauser, who waved back as cheerfully as ever. Thankfully, the cat seemed to have taken it as just some more playful banter between partners. The plan was working so far.
As soon as they were out of sight from others, he dropped the playful pretense and kept pushing Judy in front of him, who looked up at him with worry writ large over her face. Honestly, some people wore their emotions on their sleeve, but she displayed hers on her face like it was a billboard, and she would be the death of him. Steeling himself, he kept resolutely staring forward, and, double checking that there was nobody in the nearest conference room, he pushed her in then turned around to shut the door behind them.
"Nick, what's going on?" He clearly heard the confusion, the pain, and the hint of fear in her voice, and it tore at his heart. Still, he couldn't just let say stuff like that, and he let her know.
"You can't just talk like that Judy! You start throwing words around like that, and pretty soon that's how rumours start!"
He turned around to face her, but seeing her with her ears down, hands clasped in front of her chest, and large eyes open nearly broke his heart. He knew he just wouldn't be able to face her tears, so he turned away and started pacing in the conference room.
"What if someone hears you, and starts thinking you're serious huh?"
"But I was..." He quickly cut her off again.
"Soon the rumours start flying, and then there's gossip, and then they start worrying about your integrity as a police officer," he snarled, waving his paws in the air for added emphasis. "Eventually the words reach chief Bogo, and then he'll start wondering if it's wise to have a police officer who's a predo!"
"Wait what?" Reeling from the unexpected barrage, Judy had a hard time formulating a coherent thought, let alone a rebuttal.
"So then you've got the Chief breathing down your ears, you've got half the precinct following your every move, and the pressure is on, until one day you make a tiny mistake, and then they'll be convinced you're a deviant, a predosexual." At this he turned indignantly towards her, spreading his arms out. "And then everything you've worked for, everything you tried so hard to build, it's all gone out the window, you'll never be promoted, and they'll do their best to try and kick the deviant predo from the force. Is that what you want?"
"No, not at all Nick!" Feeling a surge of anger, she stepped forward, balling her fists and staring defiantly at him.
Before she could say more he steamroller her once again. "Good! Because neither do I! You can't just say that Judy, you can't risk your career like that! You have to be more careful! Please!" With that his ears lying down flat against his head, he extended his paws towards her, pleading that she would see reason. "Just promise me you're not gonna say stuff like that anymore?"
Indignantly stepping forward and waving her finger up in his face, Judy was about to give him a piece of her mind, when an errant thought popped in. Nick noticed her fury instantly evaporate, and her ears pop up as, clear as day, he could see written all over her face that she had an epiphany.
She returned her attention to him, all aggression gone, and simply said, "You didn't say no."
"I'm sorry, what?" He leaned back a bit, ears popping up in confusion.
She took two more steps towards him, dangerously narrowing the space between them, and while she wasn't being aggressive, he still felt vaguely threatened, and stepped back one pace.
"You. Didn't. Say. No. Despite all that speech you gave me, not once did you say that you didn't feel that way towards me." Stepping forward once more, and this time deliberately trying to corner him, she added "You could have simply said that you didn't feel like that, and brushed it off, but you didn't."
At that, his tail curled lightly between his legs and his ears flattened against his head again, out of fear this time. Then, shaking himself off and standing tall, he stepped forwards into her space, forcing her to take a step back.
"And maybe that's just because I know how emotional a certain bunny can be, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Maybe I just didn't want to have the whole precinct right up my tail because I made the hero cop cry." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, hoping that he looked as cool and collected as he desperately tried to appear, and that she couldn't hear his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest.
Ears rigidly upright and pointed squarely at him however, Judy could indeed tell, and pressed the advantage, calling him out on his bluff. Leaping up and grabbing his collar, she landed and pulled him down so he was face to face with her. Off-balance, he swung his arms and tail out wide, and the fur puffed out from the top of his head down to the tip of his tail in distress.
"Now listen here Slick, I know you and I know you well. You just have to tell me, looking me dead in the eyes, that you don't love me, and it ends there. No trickery, no word games, just four simple words. IF you can look me straight in the eye and say you don't love me, then that's the end of that, and we continue being friends just like before."
She held him there, face to face, with his nose slightly below her chin, looking him dead in the eyes. His were opened wide in panic and fear, darting around. He tried to regain his cool and pull back, but Judy wouldn't let him. He tried, he desperately tried, but every time he looked into her wide eyes, he just couldn't find it in him to lie to her. After one last pointless battle, he closed his eyes and hung his head.
"Uuggghhh, FINE!" Throwing his arms in the air and turning away from her, he walked around for a bit. "Fine fine fine fine fine! I can't lie to you darn it, not when you use those impossibly adorable eyes on me! BUT," he exclaimed, rounding on her with a finger pointed in her face, "you still can't say stuff like that! I know Zootopia is progressive but all it takes is a few who think predos are deviants to raise a stink, and you can kiss your career goodbye!"
"Yes, I know." To his dismay however she didn't look the slightest bit upset at the notion. "I mean I worked hard to be here and prove to the world I could be a police officer, but there's more to life than just a job."
"Just a job? You, Judith Laverne Hopps, called this," he waved incredulously at everything around them, "just a job? Ok ok ok, who are you, and what have you done with the real Carrots? This was her dream, not just any old job!"
Walking towards him, she shyly added "Yes, well, it was my dream, but recently there's been something else in my dreams."
The look she gave him this time petrified him on the spot. He'd caught feelings for her the moment she pinned that badge on him, but he resigned himself to knowing she'd never feel the same way. Besides, it was better this way, she'd have her career, she'd be happy, and they wouldn't have to deal with the predo/preyosexual mess. He'd been so busy trying to protect her that it hadn't quite sunk in that yes, she did return his feelings. The look she gave him left him no illusions, and not for the first time, he felt completely and utterly unprepared.
"I always dreamed to be in blue, to serve and protect, but lately there's been someone else." Coming up to him, she took his paw in hers, her tiny grey fingers dwarfed by his far larger reddish-brown paw. "Someone tall and funny and red with piercing green eyes, who always knows what to say to cheer me up." Glancing up at him coquettishly through her eyelashes, she cranked up the cute factor to 13, and was gratified to see him visibly gulp. "I don't care about that whole predosexual thing, I don't care about the problems, I just care about you, and want to be with you, Nicholas. So please, be my boyfriend?"
He was frozen on the spot, barely able to breathe, but it wasn't long before the loving gaze she directed at him caused warm feelings of love to bloom in his chest. All those precious feelings he'd locked away tight, convinced they'd never be reciprocated, convinced it was for the best, came bursting forth, and like a dam coming undone, he felt overwhelmed with the love he'd kept to himself for so long.
Hope was a dangerous feeling to have when things could go wrong at any moment. Hope made you make mistakes. Hope was an open invitation to disappointment and disaster. Hope wasn't worth the time and effort until after you succeeded, and then it wasn't even hope anymore - it was just an accomplishment. This one time however, Nick allowed himself to open the door to hope, just an inch, to let himself think of how life might perhaps get better. Noticing how he was choking up a bit, Judy smiled wider still and pulled him down by his tie.
"Aww, come here ya big softie, gimme a hug," she said, and pulling him down to his knee, she proceeded to wrap her arms around his torso. "Oh you foxes, so emotional!"
Giving in, Nick reciprocated and hugged her tiny form tightly against his heart. How on earth such a small frame could contain such a big heart he had no idea, but he loved her all the more for it, and hugged her fiercely. Her arms were wrapped tight around his torso, but hugging her felt like holding a small doll. Both his paws could cover the entirety of her back, and she felt so tiny against him, but it also felt oh so incredibly right. He allowed himself to luxuriate in this feeling, before reluctantly pulling back, still kneeling before her.
"Ok ok enough emotional bunny stuff," he said, ignoring how she rolled her eyes at him. "For real though, we have to keep this a secret. I know you don't care, stupid intrepid bunny that you are," he added, voice rising as she raised a finger and prepared to protest, "but we could still get into a lot of trouble, and it's best to just not have to deal with it, yeah?"
Crossing her arms and harrumphing in annoyance, Judy caved. "All right, fine, we'll keep it a secret. For now."
"And no public displays of affection either," he added, smiling and booping her nose.
"Ugh, this is gonna be so hard," she added in frustration. Turning towards him, he saw her eyes fill with stars and a beaming smile work its way across her face. "Still, if I get to tell my fox that I love him every night, it'll be worth it!"
"Oh I'm YOUR fox now, am I?" He asked, jokingly?
She came up to him once again, pressing her paws into his chest, standing nose to nose with the kneeling fox. Nick brought a paw up to cup her cheek, and could not for the life of him stop himself from smiling like a blithering idiot. Slowly, ever so slowly, they leaned in closer to each other, eyelids slowly closing, until...
"AAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"
The ear-splitting squeal caught them both completely by surprise, ears turning towards the sound and fur puffing out in surprise. There, standing in the opened doorway, paws pressed to his face in obvious glee and bouncing from foot to foot, Clawhauser tried to hold himself back from squealing in joy again.
"You two are just so gosh darned ADORABLE! Oh I can't take it anymore I gotta share this!" With that he pulled out his phone, snapped a quick picture of the two absolutely mortified officers, and quickly dashed back deeper into the precinct. "THEY FINALLY DID IT YOU GUYS! RHINOWITZ YOU OWE ME 20 BUCKS!"
As soon as Clawhauser vacated the door, Nick and Judy saw Wolfard had been standing slightly behind the cheetah, and was winking at them and giving them two thumbs-up. Fangmeyer's head popped in and just smiled at them, and the tip of Francine's trunk was barely visible behind her. Wild cheering and hooting erupted from everywhere in the Precinct, and Fangmeyer decided to take pity on the two petrified policemammals.
"It's about damn time, you two!"
Slowly turning back to face each other, and mindful of the joyous hollering that was still sounding from everywhere in the precinct, Nick let an easy smile slip back over his face.
"Well then, I guess you CAN say that you love me after all!"