She was having that dream again.
It would start off innocently enough, waking up in her bed in her home in Bunnyburrow. She got up and would move to the kitchen, but there was no one there. Not one single bunny in the whole house, except for her. She would call out, to no response. The dream had gotten creative lately. As she started to feel mild panic, she would move through a doorway and suddenly be in the streets of Zootopia. All of the lights were still on; perhaps they seemed too bright, but there were no cars, no sounds, no signs of life.
Judy would call again, rushing down the streets, trying doors. When they opened, they never seemed to lead to anywhere logical. She'd end up at the ZPD, the snippets of other districts she'd explored, the park where she'd graduated the ZPD academy. She would begin to feel like she needed to struggle to keep moving, suddenly, like she was falling, or that she couldn't keep her eyes open to focus.
Everyone was just gone.
Despite having the dream more times than she could count, she never seemed to realize that it was a dream until it was too late and panicked fear crept across her. No one to interact with. No one to love, or even hate. No one at all.
Judy tried to cry out but she felt like she was choking. The feeling of being unable to go on continued to weigh upon her. As terrified impulses shot through her body, she jolted awake and felt the world slowly spin back into normalcy.
"Ghlk..." Judy sputtered. She had somehow managed to mash her pillow deeply up under her chin and into her neck. That explained why she felt like she couldn't breathe, she thought. Slowly, her nose stopped twitching, her breaths slowed down, and her pulse began to slow. She shot a tired glance to her alarm clock. An hour and a half left before she needed to get up and get ready. She sighed. It was barely worth trying to go back to bed. Wait a minute, wasn't this her day off?
She sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. It was, it was her day off. Judy had no idea why she was still trying to shake the dust out of her brain and try to wake up. She felt a slight chill. Okay, maybe she did know why. It had happened before; if she went back to bed too quickly after having that dream, it was all-too-happy to just hit the unpause button and continue torturing her with thoughts of loneliness and despair.
Judy didn't know why she kept having that dream. She wasn't lonely anymore, was she? She hugged her knees closer to her body. Nick was only a couple of rooms away, after all; they lived in an apartment together. A fairly nice apartment. Nondescript, but nothing was wrong with it, at least. A thought crept into her head; maybe she could go into Nick's room and see how he was doing.
Childish, she scolded herself.
What would happen if Nick woke up and caught you gawking at him? Especially in these clothes? Judy looked at herself in the mirror from her bed. The cute, cottony lavender top that didn't quite reach her cotton sleep shorts, which were almost a matching hue of purple, with enough pleasant tightness to snug her form a bit. Okay, so now she was thinking about what Nick would think of her based solely on her looks.
A small step up, at least I'm a teenager mentally at least, Judy's mind said as she let out a breath slowly.
Nick, Nick, Nick. She devoted way too much of her thoughts to that fox of late. Him finding her attractive was always kind of a joke between them, just like she would return back in kind. But lately, she started to feel like it wasn't a joke. She craved his attention and company. Sometimes she would be the one to tease him to provoke a reaction. It felt almost wrong.
Rubbing her forehead with one hand, she found herself getting out of bed and moving across the apartment towards Nick's room. She didn't even recall entertaining that thought, not really. She winced before placing her hand on the door. Maybe she should have put something else on? Maybe she'd never mentally progress past her teenage years? She removed her hand from the door handle and sighed, turning back around, but her ears twitched and caught a small, strange sound. It sounded almost like squeaking? It was definitely coming from Nick's room.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she opened the door to Nick's room. Nick was curled up in bed, facing away from her. The sound continued. Short, chirpy squeaks almost. No, it was whining. Nick was whining in his sleep. Judy felt a flash of pity.
Oh, Nick... Judy thought. She ran a hand through her drooped ears and approached his bed. She held her hand out, feeling the urge to wake him and tell him everything was going to be all right. Her hand paused, though, as she also thought of just letting him sleep and spare them the awkward conversation that would follow. She decided to compromise.
"It's okay, Nick," Judy whispered as softly as she could muster. "I'm here. It's me, Judy... you don't have to be scared." She was hovering dangerously close to him, but pulled back. To her surprise, the squeaking, terse whines halted. In that moment, a warm feeling flooded Judy, and her face broke out into a smile that joined a huff. She felt powerful, in a way, and important. She could comfort even Nick's subconscious? Nick's sleep seemed restful. Judy gave him an adoring, lingering smile, then walked back out of his room, gently closing the door.
Judy felt totally awake, and grumbled. Her stomach did, too. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and spilled milk all over it. She then sat on the couch. She have a half-smile at her flagrant disregard for the rules. That never would have flown back at her parent's place. But she was an adult now, she could make her own rules!
She didn't really feel like an adult, though.
Crunching on the sugary flakes with the cool plastic of the bowl on her lap, she took her phone up with her other hand, flipping through her photos. She was sure taking a lot of pictures of Nick lately, she wryly scolded herself. Worse yet, the ones where he struck her as more handsome sent a mild thrill through her and her pulse quickened a bit.
Yup, definitely still a kit, she groaned, taking another bite and carelessly flipping her phone onto the end table. Even though she was no longer leering at pictures of Nick, she was still thinking about him as she crunched down on her cereal, vacantly staring at nothing in particular.
She tried to conjure up the feeling of him taking her into his arms that one time at the bridge. How she treasured that moment. He was so sweet and tender, and completely obliterated her overwhelming feelings of loneliness and self-loathing with a well-timed joke or two. Though she was standing on his tail, so maybe that one didn't count as a joke.
Judy wished she could get that sort of feeling more often. Being taken into his long arms and hugged up against his tall body and told that everything was fine, nothing was ruined, and that sly fox would fix everything. Maybe she should start crying more.
"Wow, you're pathetic," Judy chuckled to herself, finishing up her cereal. She rinsed the bowl, putting it into the sink. Judy's feet again moved her towards Nick's room. Maybe she should check on him to make sure he was still okay. But what was she going to do if he wasn't, climb into bed with him? She felt a small dash of embarrassment in her ears.
"Gyuh!" Judy exclaimed as she opened the door outward to the sight of a very tired-looking Nick, and she flinched and started at him suddenly being there. His arm was extended as if he was about to open the door himself, but this was accomplished for him.
"Oh, thanks," the groggy fox said. He shuffled towards the kitchen. "G'morning."
"Hi!" Judy said nervously, feeling under-dressed, though Nick was even worse; he was just wearing his lime-green sleep shorts.
"Whatcha doin' up so early?" Nick gave a huge yawn that Judy couldn't help but stare at. So many teeth! Such a long tongue! Judy looked away as if that would stem the tide of any impure thoughts she was in danger of forming.
"Oh, no reason," Judy sang in a pleasant tone. Nick raised an eyebrow, knowing she was lying, and his skeptical look to her as he poured his own bowl of cereal was actually kind of amusing to Judy.
"Right," Nick replied, starting to feel a bit more awake. "It's our day off and you're just wandering around in your sleepwear, about to come into my room."
Judy squinted her eyes shut and gave a moan of annoyance "Hoped you'd be too tired to recognize that."
"Uh huh," Nick said, starting to eat from his bowl right on the island of their kitchen after pouring himself some milk into it. He was still staring at Judy. "You're fully awake, already had breakfast." He jerked his head toward the bowl in the sink. "What gives?"
"Could you be a little less observant in the morning, maybe?" Judy folded her arms and gave an accusing smirk. She looked away again. "I had a... uh... a bad dream."
"Ah, that's too bad," Nick said flatly. For some reason this shot a burst of frustration through Judy. Didn't he care? She quickly pulled back this emotion before it showed more than a tiny widening of her eyes, though. How childish she'd be to burst out at him over that. "I can't remember what I was dreaming about. Woke up hungry, though."
"You can't? You sure?" Judy wore a tiny smile.
"Nope," Nick shook his head.
"Must be nice," Judy grinned.
"Oh, I do have nightmares that I remember sometimes," Nick nodded, now fully awake, crunching down on his cereal. "Hey, you ever wonder where that term came from? Do horses say it, too?" He didn't expect an answer. Judy shrugged.
"Any recurring ones?" Judy wondered.
"Well, I keep having these dreams that my teeth fall out or my gums rot. But... there's one where my mom dies," Nick grumbled. "Hate that one. Lately, haven't been having it anymore, though. It's..." Nick cut himself off, looking briefly at Judy, but then his eyes moved away from her. Was it her he dreamed about instead? Judy groaned within herself at continuing to have these selfish thoughts. "How about you?"
"Oh, my dream is nothing compared to that, the one that keeps haunting me," Judy gave a fake laugh of frivolity, rolling her eyes and folding her arms. "It's just, no one's there."
"No one's where?" Nick's eyes squinted as he rinsed his bowl.
"Anywhere," Judy said, giving a shallow, nervous laugh. "No one's anywhere. No matter how hard I yell, no matter where I go. There's no one. In the whole world. Haha... silly, r-right?" Judy's eyes were misting up. "Just a childish, stupid nightmare for a dumb baby bunny kit! Hehe..."
"Judy...?" Nick stared at her in concern.
That did it. Whenever her first name came out, it was serious time. And knowing this was too much for Judy. She started to sob a bit.
"Whoa, Judy, it's okay, I'm here," Nick said, rushing over to her. He wasn't sure why; it was the first thing to come to his mind. Nick didn't just offer a hug to her, he hugged her actively. Instead of merely standing there and taking it, Judy desperately moved into the hug, her paws closing around bits of Nick's fur on his chest as if she was afraid he would vanish. "It's okay." Nick pat Judy on the back.
Judy was in a spiral of shame and hopelessness. The more she thought about what was happening and why she was crying, the harder she cried. She lost the ability to articulate, standing there sobbing into his fur. It was just a dream, a stupid dream. Why did she feel so sad?
"I'll always be here for you, Judy," Nick said firmly. "Also, poke me if I start sounding too cliche." Judy gave a shaky laugh and poked Nick very firmly in the chest. "Ow. Okay, not so hard?"
"How do you do that?" Judy looked up at him with sparkling, teary eyes, but a smile. "Here I am sniveling like a kit who needs to climb into bed with her parents to scare away a nightmare, and you just drop a tiny little joke right on my head and break my concentration to pieces."
"Fox trade secret," Nick said in a smug voice, petting over Judy's drooped ears.
"I refuse to believe that," Judy chuckled tearfully, her breath catching into a bit of a heave as she tried to calm down. "I'm thinking it's just one of the many reasons that you're so special."
"I'm just an average fox, my dear," Nick grinned down at her. "All I'm doing is standing here with an emotional bunny in my arms, that's all."
"Shut up, liar," Judy accused, gently placing her fist on his chest. "If I say you're the most special, wonderful fox in the world, then that's that."
"Whew, that was pretty heavy, Judy," Nick let a breath out slowly. "You have anything you want to tell me?"
"That I love you...?" Judy said quietly, burying her face into Nick's chest. Even his scent seemed like a comfort to her. Nick felt her nose there and gave a slight giggle; it tickled a little bit.
"Something I don't already know?" Nick said cockily. Judy stepped firmly on his foot with hers and twisted her foot this way and that.
"Jerk," Judy accused, flashing him a sneer.
"Guilty," Nick nodded. "But you love me all the same."
"I do, though I'm starting to forget why," Judy grinned larger.
"I'm gonna take a shower, Fluff," Nick moved away from the hug and gave a luxurious stretch that Judy was pretty sure was meant to entice her. "You want to go jogging or something in the park? There's not much to do this early in the morning if neither of us are going to go back to bed."
"Sure," Judy said, feeling a bit puzzled. Nick retreated into his room, but the door cracked open again.
"Oh, this is finally relevant, so here you are," Nick said flippantly. An object flew across the air and Judy flinched and fumbled, but managed to catch it.
It was that blasted carrot pen.
Judy sighed as she heard the water to the shower start up. So that was it? That was her confession. She'd kind of hoped it would have gone differently. She still somewhat felt like a little kit, confessing a crush on a teacher or something. Grumbling, she hit the button.
Nick's tinny voice emitted from the speaker: "I love you too, Judy."
Judy gasped and felt her eyes start to water again. She hit the button again, as if she had misheard it. It said the same thing. Warmth flooded Judy's body and soul.
"Nick, you moron!" Judy shrieked, rushing towards his bathroom door, which was locked. She pounded on it. "Nick! How dare you! Let me in!" She alternated giggling and sobbing, feeling fits of emotion crash over her one after the other.
"Can't hear you over the water, my dear!" Nick's wavering, teasing voice came out.
"You come out right this second!" Judy laughed.
"Wet and naked? You'd like that, huh?" Nick went on.
"I would!" Judy laughed. "You smug jerkface!"
Nick collapsed against the side of the shower wall, breathing in and out. He'd done it. He honestly was too afraid to say it to her directly, and it'd taken him something like an hour to make that tiny confession into the pen just right, after which it lay dormant for months. Coward, he thought to himself, even when he was so sure she loved him, even before her confession just then. And now, he was hiding from her reaction. He felt like such a child. He almost felt like he didn't deserve it, whatever affection that lively gray bunny was capable of and was struggling to give him.
"Nick! You better hurry up! We have a lot to snuggle about!" Judy pounded once more on the door, and he barely heard her pleasant giggle.
Eh, he thought to himself. He guessed he could have handled it worse.