Summary:
Judy's in a good mood coming back from a photo shoot in The Angels City. She spends the afternoon with her black rhino friend Lance at his gym, and she ends sparing with a wolf. Later they retire to his flat for dinner while they watch a movie and cuddle. Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, in Zootopia, Nick is suffering from the after-effect of the bachelor party that Finnick threw for him. Wolfard comes in to help him fix his tie, and they bond over Wolfard's personal lose. After that, Nick attends a wedding - his.
Flashback - 7 Years ago: Downtown in The Angels City
Judy pranced down the city street, the ache between her legs counter-balanced by the spring in her step. She felt good, even though every stride brought a burning twinge from her crotch. She supposed it must be the endorphins rushing through her system that made her feel so high, her body's response to all the strenuous stretching she had just done for today's "Veggie Delight" photo shoot with Herbivore Hotties.
The carrots that she had started with at the shoot had been easy enough to handle, and since they were tapered it was easiest to start with them. The cucumbers that followed had taken more work, but with some time and patience, she had conquered even them. But that long bitter melon, with it's ridges and lumps? That one had been almost impossible. But she had gritted her teeth, and by rotating it around she had finally made it fit.
It was an exhilarating experience, to do that in front of a small herbivore crew handling the light and her makeup, with a skunk photographer snapping photos madly away just a few feet from her pelvis. She had raised her paws in triumph, and they had given her a little round of applause to congratulate her. That portion was going to end up on the blooper reel, she was sure.
Porn is such a weird business.
She grinned as she skipped along the sidewalk. Herbivore Hotties was a national magazine, a staple for horny herbivore males across the country, even in conservative Bunny Burrow. It excited her to realize that bucks that she might know personally would buy next month's issue, and take it back home for their viewing pleasure. After the bucks were done with them, they would be hidden from the does' prying eyes, and eventually passed around the community of frustrated single males. She knew that some of her brothers, and many of her cousins, bought the magazine, and that they might just end up seeing just what she had accomplished today. It gave her such a horribly illicit thrill to consider that possibility.
But she didn't need to worry about her father finding out. Unlike other female performers in the industry who's fathers did consume porn, the only picture magazines that her father ever bought had just tractors in them. Well, and the occasional tractor calendar with scantily clad farm-does. Hum… Maybe she should ask around, see if she could talk her way on to one of those shoots. Maybe dress up in hip riding daisy dukes and a tied off shirt, stick a wheat stalk in her mouth for the added touch, all while she stood at the controls of a large powerful tractor. Wouldn't that be hilarious, ending up a tractor bunny in a calendar pasted to her father's workshop wall? Miss September, anyone?
Not that he would recognize her. Not that anybody back home would recognize her, certainly not how she looked now. Her body fur was dyed an iridescent black, and when she moved a rainbow sheen would chase across her body, rippling down her length. Shaved into that ebony fur were eldritch patterns dyed in screaming scarlet: bold spirals winding down her arms and legs, chevrons etched into her neck and chest, and angel's wings bleeding across her back. Complimenting the fur, she wore deep emerald green contacts to hide her amethyst irises. Combined with the way she walked, the way she held her head up high, she knew that no one in Bunny Burrow would ever recognize what she had become.
Completing her look, she wore torn fishnets over her legs and under her black denim spanky shorts, a torn t-shirt presenting a fox's middle finger salute, and a black mamba leather coat with chrome studs. She was the perfect punk rabbit, which was ironic, since she never listened to punk music. Lite and poppy stuff, like Gazelle or Justin Timberwolf, suited her mood far more accurately.
She was done with the day's shoot, and was on her way to visit her "boyfriend", which is what the porn paparazzi called her friend Lance Blackhorn. The Angels City was a study in scripted reality, where sculptured actors pretend to be anybody else other than themselves, while the tabloids tracked the dalliances and disaster that those actors lived out when they weren't on set.
Randy McHorny and his diminutive girlfriend, Jessica Lapin. The dynamic duo, two very different yet still very aggressive mammals, unafraid to take the world head-on, wholly on their terms. No event to small, no party to big, they were there to be seen, willing to throw down and take some names.
Who they were in private as a couple was a completely different story.
Judy stopped in front of a local MMA gym that went by the unassuming name of "Hard Right", located in an old brick multi bay repair garage. It was a former boxing gym that had since transitioned the more popular MMA fighting style, and Lance worked there part-time as one of the coaches. One of the ironies of the porn business was that while it was heavily male-centric in organization and audience, it was the females who were the best paid. Judy would get paid two grand for her shoot today with HH, based in part on her name and what she was willing to do on camera. Not bad for two hours of work. Lance, on the other hand, usually managed to pull down only half to a quarter of that fee for his shoots.
He had to hustle to make ends meet. Luckily, he had other skills he could bank on, including teaching his martial arts skills to young MMA hopefuls, as well as blending in some pro wrestling techniques as well. An observer might think the two fields of study were mutually exclusive, but there was quite a lot of overlap, in the way body was balanced, the aggression projected, and the economies of motion.
Judy's personal favorite was the version of Amazonia Kenpo that they taught there. Lance and a few of the other instructors at the gym had spent the last few months working with her on her forms and techniques. In truth, she had little interest in actually competing, because as Lance liked to point out, concussions sucked. She didn't want to addle her brains anymore than they already were. But it's mixed fighting style still appealed to her rough and tumble childhood spent at Juvenile Detention and Cliffside, and it most closely resembled what little she could remember of her police training in another life; a life once lived proudly but was now mostly shrouded in the mists of time and lost memories.
She only practiced Kenpo once or twice a week, mostly for the mental discipline that it afforded her. Yoga and running kept her body lean and tight, but she still needed an edge, something that told other unscrupulous mammals that might try to take advantage of her in the industry or on the streets that she was not to be trifled with.
She ducked under one of the open bay doors, and wandered through the busy gym looking for Lance's large frame. She walked with her head held high, and her ears erect, a smile on her muzzle. She held little fear of being accosted in the gym itself, as most of the mammals there were too busy with their training to notice her small form. Those mammals that did cat call her quickly came to regret it, since the coaches would unceremoniously toss them in a ring with her, where she would quickly hand them their asses back to them with a smirk.
She spotted Lance in his black gym sweats at the back ring, coaching a female dhole on her footwork. The little rabbit bounded up to the ring and hopped up on the floor, climbing the ropes in the corner so that she could sit level with Lance's head. "Hey there, big boy!" She said by way of greeting, and held her nose out to him, closing her eyes in the process.
"Hey yourself, little rabbit." Lance reached his massive nose across the space between them, and gently rubbed noses with her. It was an expression of the total control he maintained over his body's motion that he could do that without headbutting her with his snout.
He turned back to the dancing dhole, "Hey, Keya! You had enough practice? You want to go a couple of rounds with JJ here?" He cocked his horn at the rabbit sitting next to him.
Keya stopped her feet, and put her gloved fists on her knees while trying to get her breathing slowed down, "Do I have to?" She winced.
Lance stood back from the ring, his mighty hooves wrapped around the top rope, "Isn't that what you're training for?"
Keya stared at them, her gaze flicking back and forth between Judy and Lance, "Yeah, except that I really don't want to get murdered by your girlfriend today, Coach. I'm really tired, and she's fresh and ripping to go. I mean, look at her eyes." Keya waved her glove at the rabbit sitting on her perch like a raptor surveying her hunting grounds.
Lance glanced over at Judy, Yeah… Her eyes are really bright. Maybe a little too bright. She must have had a really good session with HH to be riding so high right now. Lance had turned the pain of a beating into power many times in his past, but he also knew that when the endogenous morphine flowed through his veins he didn't always make the best decisions. Maybe later, when she's calmed down a bit, he thought, I can watch her fight.
"Alright", he told the dhole, "We're done for the day. Go cool down."
Keya walked to the ropes, ducked under and hopped down, heading off to the lockers.
Judy muttered under her breath, "Wimp."
"Hey, hey… Maybe she just wants to keep all her teeth inside her jaw today, ya know?" He admonished the energetic bunny.
"Well, how about you and me, then?" She purred at him.
He grinned as he shook his head, "No way! I know better!" He laughed, "Tell you what! I'll ask Carlos if he's willing to put on the pads later and take you on, after he's done coaching and all? Maybe he can work off some of that excess energy you seem to be carting around right now?" Unlike Keya, the smaller lobo was an experienced fighter who liked a good challenge.
Judy perked up on the post, "Ooo! That sounds good! Let's do that!"
Later that evening back at Lance's pad, he was chopping vegetables on his kitchen while Judy lay on the counter, moaning. He grinned and asked, "How ya doing there, JJ?"
Judy groaned, "It hurts… It all hurts… Like, every muscle from my hips on down is burning..."
He snorted as he observed, "Well, maybe you shouldn't have gone that many rounds with Carlos. He likes to make his partners dance, ya know?"
Judy nodded. She couldn't punch worth a damn in a fight, and she was too short to intimidate a larger partner, so her entire strategy depended on her legs. Moving, jumping, striking, it was all on her legs. She was an excellent kick-boxer, but the little wolf was a cagey sparring partner, and he knew all her weaknesses. He would sham some opening while sparring with her, fooling her into committing to her attack, and then stepping back just out range while she just struck nothing but air with her feet.
Enough rounds of that, and she hadn't even been able to continue standing, much less kick him. He just waited her out, and then when she could no longer get up of the ring mat, he just stood over her grinning and mockingly asked her, "That all you got, frijol?"
That was her nickname at the gym; frijol or bean, short for jumping bean. Except that after Carlos was done with her that afternoon, she hadn't felt like jumping anymore. It hurt too much.
Lance scrapped his vegetables into a large bowl of hay, and started to walk out of his kitchen. Judy held her arms up to him and crooned, "Laaaaannncccee… Carry me?!"
He looked down at her and just shook his head, "I swear, rabbit! You are so helpless!" He set his bowl aside, and gently picked her up to cradle her in the nook of his elbow. Fetching the bowl with his free hand, he wandered into the living room, and sat down on his oversized couch to watch a martial arts movie with her.
Judy smiled to herself as he adjusted himself. He was always so gentle with her, like she was some little pet of his that he had to take care off. That was the truth of her relationship with him. Intellectually, they were the best of friends, united in the expression of their professed lively hoods, a love of martial arts, motorcycles, and really bad movies. But physical affection between the two mammals was difficult, and sex down right impossible. She was simply too small, and he too large.
Other mammals in the industry had assumed that the two had figured out a way bang each other silly, but was just fantasy on their parts. The truth was far simpler. After a long day on set, the last thing either of them wanted from the other was sex. They both just wanted somebody to come home to, somebody to talk to, somebody to have a quiet dinner with.
Judy still needed more, but it wasn't in Lance's capacity to give her what she desired, and it was still too soon after her break up with Skye for her to consider adding yet another fox into her life. She liked foxes physically, especially their predatory nature, their economy of movement, and the fact that while they were large enough to make her feel small and safe, they were still small enough that she could comfortably share affections with them, both publicly and privately.
But emotionally, her heart wasn't ready for that commitment just yet. Maybe someday, but not right now. Now, she just snuggled down with Lance, snacked off his bowl of goodies, and laughed at the corny movie dialog with her best friend, before finally succumbing to the allure of his warmth and the drag of her exhaustion as slumber took her away.
At Mama Wilde's Church in Zootopia
Nick stared at his reflection in the mirror as he struggled with the basic task of fastening his bowtie to the collar of his tuxedo. Not only was the bow backwards in the mirror, the image was a bit blurry, and his two sets of fingers didn't quite want to cooperate with their opposite numbers. It was all rather frustrating.
It must be the pre-wedding nerves.
Or maybe it was all the alcohol they had consumed last night. Finnick had taken them to this new strip club that the little fox had found over in the Meadowland for Nick's bachelor party, his last hurrah before putting on the old ball-n-chain forever. As he squinted at his reflection, he had to wonder if everything that had happened last night had been Finnick's idea of revenge. Revenge for not picking the diminutive fox as Nick's Best Male. Finnick had sworn it didn't matter to him at all that Nick had asked Wolfard to do the task, but he still had this little evil gleam in his eye after Nick had promised him that he could plan the bachelor party instead.
Ugh… This was hopeless. He was so not ready for this wedding. Or marriage. Who would have thought that he would be getting married at 30? He was an old bachelor! Dedicated to the free pursuit of vixens at every corner! Yeah right, he thought, who am I kidding here? Miki's had me by the short lease for thirteen years. The bigger question is why I didn't do this sooner? Or why she waited for him?
That was probably the biggest mystery in Nick's life right now. That, and where the hell Wolfard was with his painkillers. His head was splitting open right now.
There was a knock on the dressing room door. He turned his head and called out, "Come!"
Wolfard open the door and snuck in, "Hey, there little fox, how ya doing?"
"Well, old wolf, my head is killing me, everything is blurry, and I'm about to tie this fucking thing into a knot and leave it like that. I'll just cut it off tonight." Nick snarled at the mirror.
"Here, let me." He gently turned his partner around, and handed him a couple of small pills and a steaming cup. He reached down, and deftly undid the mess that Nick had made of his bowtie.
Nick tried to focus on the pills, but he couldn't tell anything but their color. "What's this?" He ask his attentive Best Male.
"Carprofen for your headache, and the tea is Chamomile and Willow Bark." He answered as he smoothed out the wrinkled tie, and starting tying it correctly. He could see just fine, most because Finnick wasn't interested in getting him drunk last night. Just Nick.
"Not Coffee?" Nick had been hoping for a taste of the forbidden bean as he threw the pills into his mouth and washed them down with a swig of scalding herbal tea.
Wolfard just snorted, "You want to have a heart attack at the alter? That would please Miki to no end, I'm sure, having to do CPR on your sorry ass on her wedding day!" He observed as he finished Nick's bow tie and smoothed it flat, "There. All better."
"Her wedding day? What about me? It's my wedding too." Nick protested.
A strange expression came across Wolfard's face and muzzle. "Sorry, Nick." He softly apologized. He stood back.
No way, not today. Nick stepped forward and laid his paw on Wolfard's crossed paws. "I'm sorry too." He should have been more sensitive, and realized the emotions that this was bringing to the fore for the wolf. "I shouldn't have asked you to do this." Nick gestured out toward the chapel.
"It's okay, Nick. It's no big deal, really. It was a long ago." Wolfard shook his head as he awkwardly patted Nick's smaller paw.
"Not so long ago that it doesn't still hurt." Nick gripped Wolfard's paw.
When he had first met Wolfard seven years ago, he had just been assigned to the Cliffside/Horizons case by Bogo. Wolfard had been partnered with him on a temporary basis while his female partner was out on maternity leave. Nick quickly learned that she was Wolfard partner in every sense of the word, since she was on maternity leave because she was carrying Wolfard's pup.
She had been a gorgeous female timberwolf, all black, save for a single white patch on her forehead in the shape a four pointed star. Wolfard like to call her 'Starlight', and she was his whole world. They had been on the force together for four years, and saved each other's life at least twice, from what Nick had discovered talking to other ZPD officers. They had been bound, body, blood and soul. Soul mates.
Nick didn't quite know what that meant, at least for him. He really didn't think his relationship with Miki qualified as that. They might have had that magic in the beginning, when they first met, but they had been just teenagers, living dangerously, where everything felt like magic. But after thirteen years of dating the same mammal, you were left with very little illusions about the strengths and weaknesses of your partner.
Nick stared at the sad face on his partner, and tried to grapple with the alien concept that someone was truly meant for you. That they were the perfect complement for you in every regard. Maybe that had been how his Mother felt about his dead Father, since she had never remarried. He didn't know. Maybe he never would. He doubted that he would ever be that lucky to met her, who ever she was. But Wolfard had, and the loss of her had torn his soul in two.
Starlight had died in the most mundane of ways for a Zootopian mammal, not even a month into her maternity leave. She had been clothes shopping for the kit in Tundra Town, and had been stopped at a stoplight, waiting to turn. A large delivery truck had been coming down the hill to her left was going a little too fast, and when he tried to slow down for the light, his tires broke traction, and he careened into the side of her car at thirty miles an hour. She never even saw him coming.
She was crushed instantly.
It took the responding fire rescue team an hour to extract her and her pup from the wreckage caught under the truck, but by then it was too late. She had died there, her pup joining her on the next journey.
Nick had driven Wolfard to the Tundra Town central hospital, having been alerted by Dispatch as to the accident. The cruelest of irony had been that Wolfard had been planning on asking her to marry him, working up the nerve to ask the mother of his pup to say yes. Nick and Finnick had even helped Wolfard in picking out the ring, which the wolf had taken to carrying around in his breast pocket in a little velvet bag, but he never got the chance.
Captain Bogo had been waiting at the hospital for them to arrive, and he had taken Wolfard back to say his last goodbyes to her, leaving Nick standing alone with his thoughts in the waiting room. He had only been there for few minutes before Finnick came running in, followed by his cat co-worker, Hugo. Finnick had been talking to him, trying to break through his shock, when he noticed Hugo had been staring at him the most particular fashion.
Hugo had pulled up a stool next to the fox, gotten up on it, and wrapped him in a bear hug. He held the fox like that for a couple of moments before releasing him, and then held him at arms length. Nick would always remember what he had said, even if he didn't understand why.
"Nicolas, you have been touched by death once more, and you will be touch by death again. Should you ever want to talk about it, I will always be willing to listen." Hugo had then done this gesture, where he pointed to his own eyes, then laid his paw on his own heart, before reaching across and laying that paw on Nick's heart. "Always." He had said, before climbing down.
Nick hadn't understood why the cat had done that. He had known Starlight all that long, less than a month, and he was more concerned about Wolfard than himself. Plus, he was sure the little feline didn't like him, so he didn't understand the offer at the time. But the little gesture had stilled his agitation, and he was able to sit down next to Finnick and talk.
As he now stared up his larger partner, dressed an identical black tux, he thought about that gesture. Looking down the paw holding his tea, he set the cup down on dresser. He pointed to his eyes, then laid his paw over his heart, and then reached across to lay it over the larger canine's heart. As his paw met the jacket, and pressed inward toward Wolfard's chest, he felt something under the palm of his paw. A little circular object held in a little cloth back.
Some pains never heal, no matter how much time goes by.
"Hey," He spoke softly to the melancholy wolf, "I would have like to have her here today too. She would have been so supportive of Miki. And your pup too." Nick smiled to break the dark mood, "That way Finnick wouldn't have to be the combination ring bearer and the flower petal pup."
Wolfard gasped out a laugh, "Ahh Yeah." He agreed.
"Speaking of ring bearer," Nick observed as he took his paws back, "Where are they?" The rings were the last things he needed to lose today.
Wolfard smiled down at him, "I gave them Cheryl. I figured she was the most sober one here today."
Nick nodded, "Yeah, she the responsible one of the this bunch, now that she's got her doctorate." Nick turned back to the dresser and grabbed his now cooled tea. He quaffed it down as quickly as possible before tossing the empty cup in the trash. He patted his friend on the arm, "Come on, buddy. Let's get this party started!"
He walked out of the dressing room.
Nick stood on the dais in the front of the chapel, with Wolfard at his back, holding him upright. He nervously waited as the chapel began to fill with friends and family. Well, not a lot of family, he knew. He was an only child with limited cousins on his mother's side, and knew nothing about the relations on his father's side. He was sure there were other Wilde's out there, it's just that he's never met them. Miki only had her parents and her two younger siblings in the entire country for family, with most of her other relatives still living back in the Sunrise Islands far to the west.
I feel queasy...
No, his family was the ZPD, his brothers and sisters on the force. Quite a few officers had come down for this wedding, some coming to wish him well, and some others just coming for the free cake and champagne. Officer Clawhauser was running around with his camera taking wedding pictures left and right, and mostly making a nuisance of himself. But he was so cheerful about it that nobody stayed annoyed with the cat for long.
I hope I don't puke...
Wolfard nudged him, "Check out Finnick.", he said, motioning with his muzzle down the aisle.
Nick looked up nervously and what he saw made him groan, "He didn't!?"
"Yup, he did." Wolfard assured him, "He might be even more pissed at you than you ever realized." The wolf chuckled.
Finnick was marching down the center aisle, dressed in a pure white leisure suit with a sky blue shirt and a large gold medallion hanging from his neck. Mincing alongside him on impossibly long legs was the tallest female wolf Nick had ever seen, fully a foot and a half taller than Wolfard. Her red fur darkened to black socks on her paws and a black ruff of head fur wrapped around behind her head. She was wearing a red sequin tube dress that was too short for anything except a dance club, and far, far too short for a wedding. They stopped and found a couple of seats on the left side of the aisle.
"Is it her?" He asked Wolfard, hoping that his hang-over was fucking with his vision, and that she wasn't who he thought she was.
"Yup!" The wolf gleefully agreed, "It's the same really tall one who was giving you all those lap dances last night, the ones that Finnick kept paying for!"
Nick groaned. Oh, Finnick, buddy, why you have to do that? Why? What prompted you on God's Great Green Earth to bring a stripper as a date to my wedding? Miki is going to have an absolute wild eyed fit when she finds out!
Wolfard clapped him on the shoulder, "Cheer up, kit! It's gonna be a memorable day!"
Yeah, the same way an elephant riot is memorable. God, I hope Finnick doesn't embarrass me during the toasts later. Nick held out little hope for that.
I really am going to puke…
The organist started to play music, and this was the cue for the rest of the guests that were standing outside talking to take their seats, ZPD cops on the left, and the medical professionals on the right. Captain Bogo also arrived, and sat in the back, staring at Nick. Oh, my God, he's here, and he's glowering at me. Huh. That's weirdly comforting. Nick smiled.
What would have been even more comforting was if he had been allowed to wear his uniform for this ceremony, but Miki had put her foot down. She was marrying Nick, her long time boyfriend, not Officer Wilde the cop. She had sarcastically suggested that if he wanted to wear his uniform to this, did he think she should come in her scrubs? Well, actually he hadn't seen any problem with that idea. Why shouldn't they be comfortable at their wedding? It had been the wrong answer, he quickly learned, one of many he would eventually get wrong in this whole process.
Luckily, his request that Cheryl be one of his grooms-mammals had been taken without a fuss, as long as Miki's youngest brother took the other grooms-mammal duty. Nick watched as the female coyote was doing her duty of escorting the mother of the bride down the aisle, and he had to say to himself that she did look absolutely smashing in a tux. She seated the older vixen, and motioned Miki's father to join her. Once he sat down, she turned toward Nick and Wolfard, walking to join them on the dais. She pulled a small velvet bag from her pocket and handed it to Wolfard, returning the rings to him, before turning to stand next to the wolf.
Distracted by that, Nick missed the bride's maids slowly climbing up on the opposite side of the dais from him. They were climbing slowly because they were all wearing identical pink kimonos with cherry blossoms on them. Unlike Miki's younger sister who took the maid of honor position, the other mammals were close friends of Miki from nursing school, and they were unused to moving in the tight clothing.
Nick was absolutely relieved when they managed to get to their positions without tripping and bashing their muzzles in. He hadn't vomited into the flower arrangements, Wolfard wasn't drunk, and Cheryl hadn't lost the rings, so maybe, just maybe, they were all going to get through this alive. The only thing they were missing at this point in the party was the bride.
God, I hope she isn't puking!
The organist paused for a moment, a moment that quickly stretched to infinity in Nick's stress addled brain, before starting the bride's overture. The guests quickly stood and faced toward the doors at the head of the aisle. The ushers, both ZPD rookies in formal dress, opened the doors, and what Nick saw took his breath away.
Miki stood at the entrance, escorted by her paternal grandfather, who had flown all the way from the Sunrise Islands for this wedding, and while he was dressed in a black tuxedo, she was wearing the most elaborate kimono that Nick had ever seen. It was made from what appeared to be several pure white robes layered one over the other with little tassels hang down from the collars, and covering her head there was a large round headpiece that look for all the world like a laundry bag to him, only made from silk. Her grandfather started to walk her down the aisle slowly towards the dais.
Cheryl leaned over to whisper in his ear, "It's called a shiromuku, a traditional Sunrise Island wedding dress. It was her grandmother's wedding dress."
Nick could only nod, as he was dumbfounded by what he saw. She was beautiful, his lady in white, slowly walking down the aisle. She had been so right to make him wait for this.
After what seemed to him to be an eternity, she was suddenly in front of him, climbing up the steps to join him in front of everyone else. He held out his paw to help her up, wonder etched on his face. She took his paw and held fast, smiling up at him in her quietly intense fashion, while he grinned back at her like a dope.
His mother's pastor, a short rotund raccoon came up and lead the congregation in a prayer. Miki dropped her eyes, breaking her hold on him for a moment, and for a moment he panicked, struck by a sense of wrongness to what was happening, but he couldn't put a claw on it.
He did a quick mental check of the old saying, Something old, something new. That would be Miki's kimono, and the rings were brand new. Something borrowed, something blue. The tux is rented, and Wolfard had given him a blue carnation for his lapel, so he was covered there. What am I missing?
He stole a glance out over the audience, checking to see that everyone was where they should be. His mom was here, as were Miki's parents and her grandfather. Bogo was in the back, and Clawhauser was next to him. He looked back at Finnick and found him in the lap of the maned wolf, held there by her clasped paws. He smiled a quick smile at that, before sweeping his eyes back up. There, in the back next to two white hares, a small gold feline head. Even Hugo was here, seated in among the nurses, which made sense since he was a doctor.
No, everybody was where they were supposed to be. But as his eyes swept back down the aisle, his gaze stopped down at the very front, at the empty space between the two rows. It was empty, and he couldn't understand why that disturbed him. Ever since his assault and hospitalization a year ago, he had been prone to moments of disquiet, a sense that something was missing from his life, but what was missing he could never put a claw to.
He didn't know if it was PTSD, or maybe even brain damage from his concussion. He didn't even known how to describe the odd sensation to the department shrink when he had talked to her about it, other than he felt an empty space beside him that he could not describe. She had nodded wisely, said something profound, and cleared him for active duty anyway.
As he stood on top of the dais, holding on to Miki's paws, listening to the pastor call upon the benedictions of the Divine, he was struck with the sense that someone was missing, and that he should know who they were. They needed to be here with him on this most important day of his life. They needed to be here to share this with him. But they weren't, and he didn't know who they were.
All he felt, staring at the empty space, was a sense of dancing gay laughter, and two words.
...dumb fox…
Ain't that the truth, he thought. He turned his gaze back to Miki, to his mate, to his future. She would be his, and he would be hers. They would be one, together, and he would finally be complete.
He hoped that completion would still the echos of emptiness within his soul.