Let me make something very clear.
This work is unbetad.
It will continue to be so.
Anonymous reviews that are in any way questionable or insulting will not be tolerated and will be deleted. I am a person who enjoys writing. That is all.
I wrote smut!
Enjoy!
It's by accident that Judy, while looking up DIY gifts for sixteen of her sisters birthdays (two on Thursday, one on Friday, and one stubbornly attempting to wiggle out of it altogether) that she stumbles upon the website.
Well, stumble was a relative term: Curiosity is to the Cat as Judy is to Accidents. So perhaps it wasn't so accidental. Perhaps it was foolishness born from a night of Nick's teeth murmuring their steady path down her neck and stomach and thighs and-
- and she finds herself clicking on the given links, sitting back in bed, watching the action play out without much reprieve.
It turns out, when it comes to canine anatomy, despite the lengths that she and her very canine boyfriend have gone, Judy Hopps is, without a doubt, a novice.
The Rabbit is larger than she is, and by all accounts, more attractive, and the Fox -though thinking back, she quickly realized that had she seen this just a few years before, she would have cringed away at the concept of a Fox being anything more than a Predator
[Predator: (n) an animal that lives by killing and eating other animals : an animal that preys on other animals; see fox, bear, lion, etc.]
- was less handsome than Nick.
Most were less handsome then Nick.
Because they weren't Nick.
The Red Smudge of a Predator pounded into the lithe Prey, and Judy turned down the volume when her neighbors went silent, no doubt with an ear to the wall. Wrinkling her nose at the noises the two actors made, she watched with rapt attention as the Fox gave one defining roll of his hips and-
oh.
oh.
oh.
She didn't watch to the rest of the video. Slamming her screen down once that had happened, left to talk with words that Judy had never once let herself utter
(baby you're my Prey and I just wanna hunt you and-)
(oh my Predator, bite me till I-)
She considered calling Nick that night. She wasn't going to sleep anyway. But instead she stared at the ceiling and wondered effortlessly about nights and days and wandering fingers and things that hadn't thought to be said.
Judy's a rumpled mess in the morning. But she hardly cares. There are questions that have to be asked, and a few buttons out of place wont deter anything.
"Carrots!" he greets her at her door, perfect and horrible at once, and she can't help but marvel at the walking phenomenon that is Nicholas P. Wilde. "You're looking great. Tell me! What's your secret!"
"Oh can it, Nick."
"Nah. No way. Judy Hopps isn't gonna start taking fashion advice from me and not at least give credit where it's due." He tweaked her collar, teeth flashing in a cackle barely concealed. "Gotta say, you're rockin' the Wilde Family slouch."
She straitened herself, spine stretching. "I don't slouch!" Another quick posture check. "And since when were you such a little fashionista!"
"Since khakis and vacation pollos became a staple."
"They're not."
"Not yet!" He took a long drag of coffee, downing most of the stuff in one go, and she could hear the grinds at the bottom sloshing about in a merry chorus. "Come on, Carrots. Snap to it. I can't have half of the dynamic duo asleep on the job."
"You always sleep!"
"Exactly. And if we're both snoozing our lives away then where would be be."
"Sleeping."
He cackles again, and she counts to ten, doing her best to hold together whatever semblance of self a loss of sleep from porn wouldn't allow. "Come on, Hopps," he says, all broken record and soft vignette. "We've got a world to save."
That night, Nick is at her apartment. And for some strange (completely known, not at all strange, unconvincingly convenient) reason, she's furious about it.
Fingers and tongues move her into something close to pleasure. And his claws are at her back, and his teeth are at her lip, and in the background the CD he insisted on playing that he'd flashed at her from behind the chain and bolt lock of her small apartment was crooning a jazzy beat that he was syncing himself a little too well to.
And then something pushes against her leg, and suddenly she isn't Judy. She's the Bunny from the video. And he's the less handsome Fox. And the corniest names that she can think of pour out of her (bunnies in a blanket, foxy loxy came to play, judy and nick sittin' in a tree) and she reels back, pushing his muzzle away with a force she doesn't mean.
"Judes?"
"Can you just leave?" Porn, porn, oh god, porn, porn-
"Carrots, what are you-"
"I just want you to leave." She's still undressed. They both are. But she's lying down, and has more room to wiggle away and push her face into the pillow, muffling her words like far away sirens. "So go, okay? Just… just go."
So he does. He collects his things, popping the cd out of her ancient player, casting a look her way, and shutting the door softly behind him. She can hear the rustle of him getting dressed in her hallway. Can hear him pause. Stay. Wait for her to change her mind.
She wont.
And so he goes.
She watches three videos. And then, because she's Judy Hopps and research is the most important step of the Scientific Method, she reads twenty seven published articles on the subject Canine Anatomy alone in bed. And halfway through twenty eight she clicks on the word rut-
which then leads her to the word sex
which is followed the words
mate and
relationship and
commitment and
(love love love love)
[Love; (n) def 2: a feeling of strong and constant affection and/or attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship; see adoration, relationship, romantic]
-until she has to turn the thing off, her heart an executioners drum beating an unsteady denial against her ribs.
Judy, comprehensively alone, turns herself toward the wall, and watches the car lights shutter past.
9:45 PM
NICK: hey, dumb bunny, pick up ur phone.
NICK: wat did i do?
NICK: come on, judes, we both know i can be a dumb fox sometimes. let me know. i miss you.
NICK: carrots?
NICK: hopps?
NICK: …judy?
10:13 PM
NICK: i'm sorry.
NICK: if i did anything i'm sorry.
11:36 PM
NICK: you know you love me
NICK: …
NICK: you know i love you.
NICK: more than anything
12:01 AM
NICK: call me. i love you. goodnight.
The next morning, when Nick walks in looking like hell on two feet, Bogo hands him a folder without a word. He stares at it, manila and offending, then back at the bull.
"What's this?"
"A case."
Nick snorted, weighing the folder. It was light. Whatever was inside was low maintenance. A one persons job at most.
Back to the Bull.
"I know what it is, Chief."
Back to the Fox.
"Good. Then you'll have no trouble doing it."
Nick growls, and the rumble tugs at his lungs. "You usually give these to Judy. She collects the cases."
"I'm giving it to you today."
The Fox before him weighed the folder again. Weighed the room. The situation. Behind the door, the sound of chairs scraping lined a chorus, the other cops filing out. He watched them, eyes hanging low, waving mutely to the few who smiled and called his name. But he didn't see a Rabbit.
"You wont find her," the Chief read his face well enough, pocketing his glasses. "She's already seen me."
"About-"
"Parking duty. By herself. Two weeks."
Which wasn't Judy. Not the rabbit who'd starched herself thin with pride, demanded more than anyone else to be given opportunities of ten men before throwing caution past the wind and into the riptide and giving Wilde premature greys for it. Not the Judy who'd cocked a hip and a brow and snorted derision like it was as simple as breathing. Not his Partner. His Judy.
"She said something about personal business." The Chief finished his thought for him.
"What kind?"
"Don't know," he said, looming away, pacing a slow mockery across the carpet. "Don't care."
He finds her on the corner of 1st and Union in City Central, tapping away furiously on her counter. He pulls up behind her, adjusting his glasses, rolling right over a pair of small mouse cars and a tin Pawpsi can.
"Really, Hopps?" He leans out the window, elbow relaxed against the pane like an old 1920′s movie star on a smoke break and leers at her in the tepid sunlight. "Parking duty? You? Asking for parking duty?" He gasped. "And here I thought I'd seen everything." Judy glares up from under the brim of her hat.
"You're double parked, Wilde," she says, waving her ticketing machine up at him.
"C'mon, Carrots. You can do better than that."
"Sir, if you don't move this car-"
"Oh, so I'm sir now. Last night I had you screaming a few different names but that wasn't one of them."
"Nick."
"How do you do."
"I'm working, Nick."
"If you call this working…" He lets the sentence hang in the air, heavy, sharp, and doesn't miss the way she flinches.
"It's mandatory." Tilting her had down she shadows her eyes under the curled over edges. "We all need to. I'm getting mine over early this month."
"So it doesn't have something to do with me?"
He's got her pegged. And really, it's only because she's Judy Hopps that she manages to look so panicked at the concept of hurting him, mostly because he's Nick Wilde and she's Judy fucking Hopps, and she can split him open with a smile and a soft request. And there are days where she leaves him bleeding and he's cruel enough to display the splatter marks; a forensic pathologist with an abandonment complex.
"…Nick," Judy says, soft, so soft, leaning forward on the curb.
Nick scoffs, tugging his glasses from his pocket and propping them against his face. Hides his eyes. "Whatever, Carrots. Tell me when you wanna stop acting like a five year old and talk to me."
She steps forward, as if she could catch up with the car, but it's around the corner in an instant and she's left behind with plumes of smoke and a ticket resting against her palm.
"You're right," she tells him that night, presenting him with a salmon casserole she'd slaved over packed tight beneath cellophane. Her fur smells like fish. As does her apartment and her hallway and, as they'd made a point in saying as loudly as they could, her neighbors, who suffered through the ritual.
Which is a big deal.
Judy hates fish. The last time he'd eaten it (and then decided, without much thought on his account, to kiss her, she'd gagged into his clogged sink) it hadn't gone swimmingly (and he'd told her as much, which she hadn't thought funny at all) and he'd promised to warn her in advance even though tuna was his favorite and he wasn't going to stop eating it just because of one bunny and her tender sensibilities.
But now-
She holds it out for him. The glass of her mothers old stew pot warms her hands. The smell of fish is everywhere. "It was about you. And I was acting immature. And you should tell me to my face about how much you despise me for it."
He leans on the jam and considers her. Her and her salmon. "I don't despise you."
"You should. I was an ass."
"You were difficult." He corrects. He held the title of Ass proudly too many years running to lose it against a Bunny with a bad few days, and the invisible medal he wore weighted his shoulders into a rumple that only confirmed the look that had gotten him far enough there. "Are there peas in there?"
"Naturally. And I was an ass."
"No you weren't. And what about watercress."
"You hate watercress."
"As everyone should." He reaches out and tugs her over the stoop by her collar. She's wearing a pink shirt. The ones she saves for Friday night movies and late night dinner runs and the occasional farm girl striptease he can finagle out of her. But the thing is still pressed, the collar starched, and it just goes to show that even in her moments of rest she's never learned much in the way of passivity. "Come on. I'm starving. And, chef permitting, there might be rabbit on the menu."
"That isn't funny, Nicholas."
"Grain of salt, Judith. Grain of salt."
It was a good thing he was an excellent teacher.
The fish stays in his fridge for a time when she's not there.
She shows him how much she appreciates it.
Things between them quell for a while, and Nick is glad for the silence. It's assuring. Like the calm before the calm before the calm and he's hoping beyond everything that there's no storm brewing somewhere on the lavender.
So when she asks him over a case file to go to the supermarket, he's scrabbling for keys. "What do you want," he asks, dropping a kiss between her ears, giving one of the long, drooping things a tug. She hums noncommittally, leaning her head back to catch his lips.
"Beets," Judy says into his mouth before going back to her work.
"Got it-"
"And radishes."
"I hate radishes."
"You don't have to eat them, sweetheart. They're for me."
"But you don't even like radishes that much either."
She hums again, back to ignoring him, and he knows when the curtains have closed. There's an encore though, and before the door shuts she's shouting buy bread for lunches! and he yells back something, but he couldn't even remember what.
The whole trip is fast and monotonous. He ignores the looks and the comments of sly Fox and skulker that come with the package, grabbing things from off the shelves, dropping them into the basket.
He's standing in line behind a Zebra who's taking his time deciding on two different grass smoothies while the Lion at the register did his best to smile through it when he sees the thing. It was a raggedy magazine that had been picked up and put down enough that the edges were dog eared and the front was beyond saving. But it was easy enough to read through, and he hooked his claw under the front and flipped.
An average Home and Gardening thing that he'd find on his mothers coffee table and against the sides of squat laundromat waiting chairs.
He snorts at happy looking families (most of them, he notices with a sour taste in his mouth, Prey- all the same species, same smiles, same yes yes yes how may we help you this lovely evening posture) sitting around tables with steaming plates of fake and faker, showing off love seats and cushion prices as if the amount they claimed "affordable" was anything but.
The shift happens sometime between page 8 and 12 in the folds of an article where an Antilope was telling her end all be all secrets to growing the best in-house lettuce when
the bed
the coverlets
the matching seats
the useless decorative pillows
the generic picture frames
"Sir? You gonna buy anything?"
The Zebra is gone, and behind him the line sits and waits, permeated by the occasional cough and mutter, and his ears flatten back. He looks down into his basket, at the beets and the bread and the pudding she loves that he grabbed last minute and the radishes she doesn't.
And after a thought
(a beat)
(a skip)
(a jump)
(a what are you doing Nicholas Wilde)
he throws the magazine on top of the pile.
"That's it," he says.
He sits in the parking lot for thirty minutes with the windows cracked and reads.
By the time he's home, his car smells like radishes.
He hides the magazine under his mattress when he gets back and doesn't tell Judy anything.
They eat sandwiches for lunch, and she picks at the radishes and he makes fun of her for it endlessly. There's a quiet sort of settling that he likes. That's comfortable. That's them. There are jokes and quips ("you're eating pudding cups for dinner instead of sandwiches because of radishes" - "why did you let me get radishes, I don't like radishes") and pointing fingers and eating things that are good for you but taste lousy and at the end they're back in bed.
In the same bed.
Together.
Lying on top of the hidden magazine, her top lost somewhere in the shadows of the corner and his pants no doubt cavorting behind the dresser where he'd flung them dramatically to get a quick laugh.
"Hey Carrots?" he asks later in the quiet and the dark, and she turns to watch his eyes flicker against the cold night.
"Mmmm." Her voice is gravel with fatigue. And something else. Something syrupy.
"You'd tell me, right? If something happened between us?"
"We're fine," she lies. Badly.
He draws his claws down her spine, and every dip is a new trail to follow. She's smaller than him, but fits against his front and he holds her tighter, proving puzzle pieces from different boxes can find a way to replace something long broken. "I know that" (liar liar liar) "But if there was. If there was something about me. About us. That you didn't like. You'd tell, right?"
"Yeah." She shifts in his arms. Curling against him. "And would you?"
"Would I-"
"Would you tell me. If there was something about… about me. Something that you didn't like," she says, sour and soft. "You'd tell me about my radishes?"
"Your radishes."
"Things you don't like…" Judy replies sagely, and then, after a moment, adds- "but you want to like. Really bad."
He holds her closer, and the gloss burns of pages burn through the mattress. "You have no radishes. Or watercress." he tells her. "You're Judy. You're made of pudding cups."
"And beets," she adds. "You like beets."
"I like beets," he nods, and kisses her.
"Hey, Gideon!" It's an odd thing, asking her mother for her former playground rivals phone number, but she dialed him up the moment after the text came through, and he answered on the second ring. She can hear the clamor of baking tins in the background. The phone feels hot against her ear, and the room is tight.
"Judy! Well ain't this a lovely surprise!" His accent is strong, and it takes her a moment to adjust again from the smoky pollution lilts that hoard her newfound homeland. She tests her tongue, searching the annals of her bank- parents, siblings, aunts, uncles; finally pulling enough out to train her tongue back (Gideon to Gid, Judy to Jude the Dude, Mom and Dad to Ma and Pa, cheese and crackers, daisy dukes, sunshine and soft and tilted) and she finds herself still in her apartment, putting on a face that used to be all she had.
"Gid! How are you."
He launches fast into a quick, modest explanation of this and that ("mighty fine!" - "how are pie sales?" - "as well as they can be!"). They small talk for a while. Farming and the family and whatever else comes to mind while the musical tones of preheat and sifters tickle the speaker.
It's when the conversation begins to run dry that she plucks at her bedspread, sucks her lip, and tentatively prods at the wound.
"So… I have a boyfriend."
"Well ain't that just mighty fine, Miss Judy!" Gideon called her Miss Judy the same way she'd read in old, worn, moth eaten novels; with a sort of easy humor and perfect eloquence. She smiles into the familiar, leaning back against the cool brick of the wall behind her. "I'm happy for you!" And she can tell it's the truth. "How are ya fairen' then?"
"Good! He's- he's great." She leans her head back. Surfacing from a loud second of drowning. "We worked together, actually. We- he's a cop. Too."
"He on the force?" He was impressed, maybe. And she could hear the question stretching out like taffy before it sprung out. "Not ta… not ta be an old timer or anything. But… but I'm plum plucked that they let another Rabbit ont'a the force so fast!"
And slow as blown glass, she takes a breath and forms her answer. "Actually, Gid. He's a Fox."
The silence is a recognizable one that she's heard enough times to memorize. Except Gideon's silence is a mess of baking pans clattering and ovens dinging and attendants bustling and laughing. "Gideon?" she tries. "Um… you… you there?"
"You're with a Fox." He's up again. Ready again. Round two. Ding ding ding. "Miss Judy?"
"I am."
"And ye told him 'bout-"
"Yeah." She swore she could hear the baker on the other end deflate, poorly hidden tension taking over. "But I explained that it was just- we were kids, Gideon. None of that mattered."
"It did matter, an' ya know it. My therapist says that, that all things important are worth holdin' onta. An you still got them scars, an' that's good enough to hold onta, I think."
"Gideon, I'm telling you now, it's fine." She laughed. "I forgave you a long time ago. And you apologized. There. Done."
His responding chuckle is breathier than it was meant to be, but there's a calm in it. And she's grateful for her ears picking it up. "Yeah," he says. "Okay."
"Good."
"So… so ya called me all the way out here at six in the mornin' ta tell me you're courtin' one'a my kind?"
"Sort of?"
"There's more, ain't there."
"Definitely. There's definitely more." She looked left. Right. "Actually… it's sort of a personal question. Do you think you could… um… maybe go somewhere quiet?"
She dreads the heavy absence of any words, and is about to apologize for even calling in the first place when- "Trish, take over the eclairs."
"Sure, Mr. Grey!"
He's walking away, and the noise behind recedes. "Trish," he mutters into the receiver, his claws making soft noises, "she's… uh… this new gal I'm working with. A lot of younger rabbits tryin' ta push past old ways, yunno?" There's a door opening. Closing. She can hear a church bell and checks her clock. Seven. "It's been good, act'lly. Ever since you went off in that truck, a bunch'a folks have been tryin'. I've been tryin' too. And it's been good. They're all right smart. And they wanna learn. More than just pies, yunno?"
She knew enough. Her parents were prime examples.
The community was hardly large. And the laws in their burrows were still ever restrictive (she would be going back in a month to cast her own vote to allow Predators to set up market stands at the weekly farmers market- a thought that still left her sick and dizzy with a wash of second hand hatred) and those who stood fast were old and firm in their ways.
But there were a few.
And the number was starting to grow.
"That's great, Gid."
"She's a good girl. A right good chef, too. But we're still workin' on not torchin' the crust."
She laughs. He laughs. It's all sort of old and young at once, and she has to wonder just how much time has really passed that she can touch the scars on her face and aimlessly laugh casualties into an empty room.
"So," he says, and shatters the glass ceiling. "You wanted to talk to me?"
"Uh, yeah… I did. About foxes, actually."
"Ah! Thought you'd ask an expert on that par-ti-cular matter, huh!"
"Something like that."
"What? Is it tha smell?" He scoffs. "Trust me, that ain't never goin' away. We're a musky sort. But my grandaddy always said that bakin' soda did the trick. Swore by liquor too, but that ain't something I'd go hollerin' about."
"No… no not-"
"If it's the ears too, those ain't gettin' smaller. Not that yours are anything ta-"
"What's a knot."
If someone could perfect choking on air, Gideon might have held a patent. Game. Set. Match. He slurps a few times back on heady oxygen, and she can hear him thump at his chest with a clawed fist. "Wha-" another cough. "What did ya just say!"
"I said… um… I wanted to know more about knots."
"Like… like a sailor…"
"No, Gideon."
The space between their phones is infinite. Farther than any roads could carry her, and she can feel it against the cool bricks behind her, arching and perforating. A swallow grates her chest.
"… No?"
"No, Gid." His name sounds like a plague.
"Yeah. No. I was just… just stretchin' there…" He coughs, and it blows against the wind. "So, you wanna ask me about… about that."
"I do."
"Because…"
"Because I'm curious!" A beat. "And… and porn doesn't really do much."
"And you didn't ask yer partner first." Shame blooms a red red rose across her face and ears, and she bundles herself closer to the wall. Her silence speaks, and Gideon sighs again. "Right… um… this ain't exactly my best topic. Ya know that the schools only just startin' teachin' bout birds and bees and proper ways ta treat a lady in the bood-war."
"Yeah…"
"And it's not really yer place, yunno? Though… with your… special someone. I guess it'd be a topic now." He sucked his teeth. "Still… this should be yer pardners talk!"
"Gid…"
A huff. "But I guess cuz I have a first hand experience…" He laughs uncomfortably at his own joke, and she can feel it crystallizing against the speakers. "Right. Um. Do ya got a pen?"
"I will!" Scrambling around, she finds one. Clicks it against her abdomen. "Yup! Got one!"
"Right. Well… Why don't you ask me somethin' and I'll do my best."
It would be the most awkward ten minutes of Judy's life. But god, if it wasn't the most informative. And somewhere in minute eight she'd at least begun to relax enough to think that maybe, a sex talk at seven thirty in the morning was exactly what she and Gideon had needed.
"I'm scared," she tells him, more than she's told anyone, and she wipes at her eyes when they're hot, watery. "Not about… not about this. I can handle this."
"You sure, Miss Judy?"
"Mmhm. It's more just…" She fiddles with her coverlet. "He didn't tell me. He didn't even ask if I wanted-" She doesn't want to cry over the phone with her ex-bully while the subject of sex and canine anatomy bleeds fresh between them, but she does anyway. Sniffling and wiping at her eyes with the bottom of her pajama shirt.
"Ya know. Maybe he was scured too."
"Like Nick's ever scared."
"My therapist says we all gotta have fears. An' anyone who tells ya otherwise is a damn good liar." She laughs, and it comes out like a bark. "He's afraid, Miss Judy. Maybe afraid'a what ya might think of him with all this… crazy stuff that goes on with our bodies."
Crazy was putting it lightly. She'd always been accustomed to Put Part A in Part B. Not quite the complex furnishing hell of Put Part A into Part B and wait for Part C to agree with X, Y, Z.
When in Rome.
"Or," Gideon's voice curdles her thoughts and she rises, "maybe he's worried 'bout hurtin' you."
"Please. Like he'd ever hurt me."
"You ain't invincible, Miss Judy. Ya got scars 'nuff ta prove it."
"Scars only prove you survived," she annotated haughtily.
"Oh sure. But he ain't tossin' ya round. He's doing the sweet stuff to ya. Gotta think about a guy when he's doin' his best ta keep his woman a happy one."
"I am happy."
"Would ya be happy if he sprung this on ya. This ain't exactly spring chickens."
Which was true. And god… she'd never really thought about it like that.
"So… I should just… talk to him about it." It sounded so simple when she said it then, like the math problem figuring itself out.
She can hear Gideon getting up, chuckling down to the ground as he beat the dirt off his pants. The door opening. Closing. "That's what my therapist says! Talkin' builds good relations."
"Your therapist sounds really smart."
"She's alright. Done enough for me, at least."
"Well tell her that I think she's doing a fine job."
"Well thank you kindly, Miss Judy!"
"Judy's fine, Gid. We're friends."
Because, reasonably, anyone would have to be friends coming out of a conversation like that. Her scars burn with a nostalgia that wants to ebb bitter, and she pushes it against the light. Forces childhood to be a simple sugar, melting it down into something sticky, burnt.
"Friends." The noises of the kitchen are returning. The homey sort of atmosphere that she misses. "Ah- Ah think I'd rather like that!"
"Aw sure, Miss Judy! Just give me a - put that over in that case, thanks Trish! - just give me a second!" There were a few more directions glazed over the tinkering of pots and aluminum. A few rustles followed. There's the sound of laughter and a few shouts back and forth, coworkers accustomed to a cycle of banter, and Judy suddenly feels very small in her world of underground sewers and grid lines. Yearns for something she hadn't allowed in an expanse of time she'd set aside for dreaming.
"Listen, Gid, you sound busy. But… I'll be back in a month. How about I stop by? My moms been raving about your strawberry rhubarb, and I'd love to see your new shop!"
"You come here an' I'll give you the full tour."
"Is that Judy Hopps?" She can hear the chatter from the background find focus. "Say hi for us!"
"They say-"
"I heard!" A chattering of laughter filling her greasy hole-in-the-wall. "Say hi back." His sobriquet is sung fondly one last time with an, "I'll see you around, Gid," and he's quick to harmonize back-
"Of course."
And that's the end.
And
maybe
the
beginning.
"So, I found out about the knot," she tells him over coffee the next morning, and Nick nearly yelps, pounding on his chest with a taut fist. The morning was a smokey one, the ground pulling at condensation, and she feels like the topic doesn't belong in the smog and the fog and the calm calm calm.
"What?"
"I found out about your knot." She says it like she's talking about going to the grocery store. Like this topic is so completely mundane. Like she's not screaming under her fur. As if she's not terrified that he can see the way her fingers are shaking. She gestures bordely to his pants with her shaky, quaky fingers before leaning her chin against her knuckles. "Is that why we never go very far?"
"Carrots-" he coughs again, rubbing at his eyes. "We go plenty far."
"Not really." Not as far as she'd like.
Not as far as she wants.
"Last night I had you screaming my name in three different languages."
"Two."
"Whatever. Isn't that far enough?"
She considers it, staring at the ice floating its merry way in circles about in her plastic cup before searching out the straw. She looks out the window. Shrugs. "Sure."
They don't talk for the rest of the car ride. But that night he still comes over, and he still uses his fingers and tongue to make her see stars and at the end of the night she still finds herself wrapped in his embrace. And wondering-
(is it?)
(am I?)
(is he?)
-if it counts as cheating that she watches porn videos with names like Fox Chase and Rabbit Season and Down the Bunny Hole while snuggled against his snoring form.
Blushing.
Trying to make strides over her farm girl sensibilities but finding no such respite. Closing her eyes respectfully at the pairs most intimate moments and focusing on the way Nick's claws knead at her belly.
She decides it isn't.
But the next morning, groggy with hours lost wondering, she still leaves her apartment with him and an empty feeling in her chest.
"We're okay, right?"
He says it to her over the radio in their cruiser. Her hand is on the wheel, and her eyes on on the street. His are hidden behind glasses, but she can see in her peripherals the way the lenses flicker in the dimming summer light.
"What?"
"Us." He taps his claws on the dashboard. "We're okay?"
"Mmmhm."
"Are you sure?" tap tap tap
No. She wants to say. No, because I'm undoubtedly rattled and I'm starting to rethink what we are and I want to understand the why's and the why's and the why why why nots and this is the first time in the whatever-this-is that I'm not–
"-sure."
He sags, and she can't tell if he's relieved or terrified of his own disappointment.
"Okay," he says, dragging his face to the passenger window.
No. No I am not. I am most definitely not-
"-okay."
They stop at a little coffee house and Judy excuses herself to the bathroom with a mutter that he almost doesn't catch. He waits in line for their drinks. There's a stack of magazines by the counter.
He picks one up.
An old gardening thing featuring suburbia at it's finest, the lights of the city just peeking out over a pasture filled with smiling children, all shadowed by the title Greener Homes Today!
"Is this free?" he asks the barista, a bored looking hippo, who glances up from his phone long enough to say;
"Two dollars."
Nick slaps it onto the counter with his credit card.
By the time Judy exits, looking a little rumpled and a little red eyed, he's rolled the magazine up, glossy and bent, and shoved it into his pants in a way that won't look like a boner (and he knows, he checks- twice). Hands over her coffee, doesn't comment on the way her face is puffy and tired, and holds open the door.
He keeps that magazine under his bed.
With his collection of every other one of them. One for every shopping trip fantasy that had him re-exploring himself in more ways than might have been possible. Twenty one of them, burning little stories past the coverlet.
That night he reads it while he rolls through an orgasm and wondered when the fuck good old fashioned porn stopped being enough.
As if he doesn't know the answer.
She promises herself that maybe the best way to settle this entire situation is to not turn to pixilated confectioners sugar and instead move onto something more substantial, but she still finds herself logging onto her computer after work, switching over to one of her better websites. Turning down the volume so her less than respectful neighbors won't hear and do a spontaneous commentary cut.
Her phone sits beside her, and a text from Nick comes through.
She ignores it, and scrolls instead. He can wait. He's made her wait for things before.
She hasn't really watched much porn. Not real stuff anyway. Just the dime store pizza delivery or repairman schtick that has her biting her tongue and suppressing groans as much as moans. But apparently she's visited the website enough to merit a recommendations tab of her own, and she isn't sure what to expect when she clicks on it.
She did not expect the homemade movie at the top.
There are no repairman, and the person at the door doesn't have a pizza in hand, and there's a spark of jealousy when she sees the Rabbit sitting small and sure on the too large bed, hands clasped against her knees, watching someone behind the camera.
That someone finally reveals himself after some fumbling and laughing. "I think the tripods gonna stay."
"You sure?" The rabbit drags a hand down her ear. "I know it's super finicky. It's… it's really all I could find in my dad's basement."
"No! No, it's perfect. And did you have to bring your dad up? Now?" He steps out, making sure the lens is pointed at the right subjects. He's an arctic fox. Judy feels something twist. "That's against so many girlfriend rules."
"Like you haven't broken them before!"
He's sweeter than her Fox. Doesn't have the same weathered looks of a Predator beaten under the tide, and his smile is more open, like the ones Nick saves for rare occasions (birthdays, holidays, sunday mornings). His back stands tall. And when he says: "Hey, Jenny. You okay?" it's without the perpetual coffee burns that she's accustomed to.
"Mmhm!" Jenny is softer, quieter. Nods. "It's not… not our first time."
"Yeah, but-" he approaches, clamoring up next to her, taking hold of her ankle to drag her a little closer. "But, you know."
"No. I know."
They have the cadence and routine of a couple. People who've known each other enough to memorize and repeat back and forth. She reaches around to draw circles on his spine and he's already leaning down to nibble her neck. "Okay. I'm gonna just-"
It goes on like that for a while. Predator and Prey, moving back and forth in the small 3x6 rectangle in her paw, the noises barely above a whisper in the earbuds she shoves deep enough to hurt.
Which is fine.
Because she wants something to hurt. It's better than feeling the ache and twist. The fearsome and betraying one two three of a stuttering heart that makes her want nothing more than to reach into her chest and pull out the handful of push pins and Polaroids she knows have long since been settled. The jealousy pressed to the side of her emotional fridge like a favorite project.
Jealous.
That was it, wasn't it.
She was jealous.
The entire situation ends with a moment where Judy wonders if she should call 9-1-1 because how is that going to fit, but it does, and the escalation of it all results in a call of;
"Sean!"
He bites down on her shoulder. Hard. Just as he gives a final push and-
The sound Jenny makes is hair raising. Pain and pleasure and oh god.
Oh god.
How… how the hell did they…
It isn't like the other porn's she's watched where there was knotting sometimes and other times not, and the system is a hat drop of inconsistent acting skills and denial in the form of noises that don't sound quite right compared to her own. But this… this is real. This couple, on her screen, is real.
And remembering that, she almost feels like she shouldn't watch. Like this moment is too intimate to intrude.
Jenny and Sean are stuck together, and neither seems like they have the energy or the will to get up and turn off the camera. So they stay there, toying and teasing and laughing about awkward situations and funny scenarios. They talk about names for impossible children and ways they can bake a cake (apparently Jenny is partial to vanilla while Sean, who thinks vanilla is just about as boring as boring could get, will only stand for red velvet) and then for a brief flash of time they're rolling around on the couch, snarling and yipping and play hunting, until Jenny gives in and admits that perhaps she could stand to eat red velvet once in a while-
Then Jenny kisses Sean. And Sean kisses Jenny. And the entire thing is like a vaudeville act about to collapse in on itself.
"I love you," says Sean against her shoulder.
Judy closes the computer and cries.
Judy stands in the mirror the next night, listening to Nick breathe through the door.
"Radishes," she says to herself, her breath fogging up the glass. "Radishes and beets. Radishes and beets."
She decides. Flicking off the light she leaves, moving back into bed to settle against him and think about vegetables until the morning breaks.
She finally decides to go through with it on a Thursday morning. They have the day off, and outside the weather has decided that it was going to be a perpetual downpour, hiding the sun behind the veil of the meteorologic equivalent of peek-a-boo.
Nick's taken to practicing card tricks which had trickled off into a game of solitaire that he'd been losing for the fifth time in a row. I'm my worst enemy, he'd always told her, flipping cards onto their face to snarl at the unlucky number that was sure to grace his table. In the background her radio hummed a static interpretation of an old jazz song she remembered. They'd danced to it once, she thought. Maybe. In her pajamas and his boxers, the smell of burnt waffles from his kitchen. Dancing and swaying to jazz and a ruined breakfast.
She swallows. Her mouth tastes like ash.
"Nick?" A card flips over with a thwap. "Nick."
"Hmm."
"Can we talk?"
Thwap thwap thwap.
"Sure, Fluff." He's sitting on her bed, legs crossed. The cards in front of him aren't good ones, and she watches them pass by before shuffled back into the deck. "But tell me quick. I think I might win this one."
"You won't."
"So much confidence. You flatter me."
Thwap thwap… thwap thwap
"Nick." She thinks a moment and then, after conceding that the only way to capture his attention was through dire means, she says: "Nicholas."
That works. And his green eyes are flecked with gold and worry. "Judith," he Parrots, insecurities an accent of their own. "What's wrong?" The cards go down with a final thwap. "Is it the fridge? I know I said I'd restock it. But… it got late last night. We can get take out or something-"
"It's not the fridge."
"The toilet seat?"
"No."
He falters, looking out the window into the slamming rain. "Me?"
After a moment: "No." And then, just as quickly: "Maybe. More me, really."
"… What?"
She approaches the bed, crawling towards him. It's like the diarama at the museum, Judy thinks. The one with the Fox skulking after its next meal. Except this time the tables have turned. She wants to giggle, hysterical in her twisted lungs, and pulls it back deep. "It's about us." The cards are pushed to the side.
Nick swallows. "Are we…"
She knows what he's asking, and she's quick to reach out, taking his paw in a breath of a grasp. "I'm not asking to break up. Or anything like that."
"Oh thank Marian."
"It's about us. On a more… delicate basis."
"A more-"
"A sexual basis, Nick." She clears her throat. "Sex."
"Ah."
"Because you have made it your single most frustratingly awful goal not to knot me." She thinks about that, looking up at her water stained ceiling and laughs. "Huh! Not to knot. Get it?"
(He gets it.)
(But he doesn't laugh.)
"Carrots-" her name, like a prayer, like a hymn, like a sunday school mystery, "-you know how I feel about this!"
"No. I don't. I know how you feel about me."
"And I don't think we should do it."
"Why!"
"Because…" He looks away again. The rain hasn't slowed down, and it's mixing with the earl grey music that's swapped into something that's three parts saxophone and one part bad reception. "You don't get it. You've never been with a canine before."
"I've been with you."
"Not like that." He wanted to throw up. So he breathed. "The first time I knotted a girl it was an accident, Carrots. Because I was sixteen and dumb and she was hot and it was under the bleachers-"
"You are such an 80′s move stereotype."
"Hush. You know how I feel about those movies."
(which is to say, she'd endured many a movie night filled with bad song sequences and black leather jackets)
(and day glo lipstick)
(which she had pointedly refused to wear on Halloween)
His smirk fades with a breath. "We were stuck together for sixteen minutes, Fluff. Sixteen. And it was… it was awful. Because it turned out she'd never done it either like that, and it hurt. And I spent that entire night apologizing before she could wiggle off."
"Classy."
The Fox of High-School Hookups Past dragged a hand down his snout. "She was a Vixen, Carrots. And if it hurt her-"
"You didn't hurt the next girl."
"Who was also a Vixen. Who knew what she was doing."
"I can figure it out."
"Porn doesn't count." Her ears fell. He reached over and tapped her nose. "Night visions a bitch, Carrots. Don't think I don't know."
There's silence for a time after that. Except for the coffee filter radio and the rain and the rattly air conditioner starting up its next cycle, blowing stale cold into the room. The cards between them lie vacant. The three of hearts sitting up, staring at her.
Judy's never been much of a quitter. And as she sits there-
beets
she begins to think-
radishes
that it isn't the time to start.
"You know," she tells him, reaching out and gripping his face in her hands-
smaller, softer, so much stronger
stronger
stronger
-"you know I know you'd never hurt me, right?"
"Judes-"
"Right?"
He's not sure. And it's there, on his face. The clarity of a future he can't predict. A thousand ideas piled up of doors closing and half empty boxes waiting outside to be retrieved. Of voicemail crackled with bad reception from tunnels and car windows and running away. Of goodbyes not said and ones mentioned in passing.
Nick Wilde was utterly and inconceivably convinced that he had always been meant to be left behind, and he was looking at her from a distance that he hadn't even begun to consider.
But-
"Hey."
He looks up. At Judy. At her purple eyes and her kind smile and-
good
too good
(too good for me)
He chokes back a breath.
"Radishes and beets," she says. Closing the distance between them to rest her brow on his. He blinks.
"You hate radishes."
"But," she says, "I always try them."
Because, as Judy Hopps always does,
because he's memorized every damn cadence and habit from the way she brushes her teeth to the way she she she folds her clothes
she saves the beets for last.
The cards fall off the bed.
"You ready?" he asks, hunched over her like a bigger, a badder, a predator-
(a Fox)
She's smaller than he is, and their angles have always been awkward, but he's tense, this time. Too tense. Holding onto either side of her pillow next to her face, claws dug deep into goose down. "I already told you," she wiggled in place, unhappy with the entire speed of the proceedings (flash flash hundred yard dash my ass) and reached up to grab his waist. "I'm totally ready."
"We could stop now."
"Or we could not do that. And you could just do what you've been wanting to do for forever."
Which is true.
He has.
So much it hurts.
… But he could hurt her-
"It's a Fox thing," he says, almost apologetically. "Knotting. The whole… um… wanting babies and claiming. Not that I want babies. And I'm not really a suburb kind of animal. Unless you are. Because I mean, I could try-"
"Can you explain the mushy stuff to me later." She's all fire, and when she crosses her arms it only fans the flame. "I've been imagining this for weeks."
So he saves his talk for later, storing it on the back of his tongue, and sinks down.
It hurts. For a moment. For longer than a moment, if she was being honest. And she was doing her best to not voice that particular opinion the way that Nick's begun to look like he's just opened Pandora's Box. He leans over her, gritting his teeth, claws sinking into the headboard. "You okay?" he asks for the millionth time, and she has to wonder who he's asking. So she asks him. Just to be sure.
"Are you?"
No. "M'fine."
She makes a sound, and doesn't mean to be as pained as it is. But he hears it and his eyes are quick in their sorrow. She's faster. "I'm fine," she insists through a hiss. "Just… adjusting."
"You shouldn't have to adjust."
"Adapting, then."
"Judith."
"Nicholas."
He's already started swelling, and she lets out another pained noise. But their beyond separating at this point. Which doesn't make him any less panicked as he searches above her- "Do you have cooking oil? Maybe we could-"
"No, Nick."
"If we just spray some Pam-"
"No."
It turns out, that despite complications and the odd few grunts and squeaks and minutes spent playing the equivalent of genitalia jenga,
Her mouth splits, happy and sure, and she reaches up to pull him down. His claws leave latches in the wood. He's heavy, but she's glad for the weight. "Nick," she says soft, soft as a prayer. "I'm okay."
"… Judy?"
"I love you," she says.
He swallows, and there's a betrayal there, hidden behind myrtle.
More than you'll ever understand.
The rest of the night goes as follows:
Nick worried about Judy. Judy worried about Nick worrying about her. They both followed a pattern that really had no texture or form until it did. And Judy, somewhere between his last expansion and the sticky, gooey mess her favorite sheets were lost to, began to realize just how un-pornish the entire thing had been.
(Incredible un-pornish)
(Like, bad grade C porn, un-pornish)
It's really a hilarious situation. And she tries to explain that over his constant apologies.
"God Judes… I- I am so, so sorry-!"
"I look like a disturbed puppet!"
"I really didn't think that- I mean, I meant to control it better but-"
"This is like the sexiest Chinese Finger Trap ever!"
"Judith. I'm trying to apologize."
"And I'm trying to enjoy myself." She gave a little wiggle, and he hissed. "Now shut up. We have, what, ten more minutes like this."
He looked away, letting out a heavy breath that ruffled her clumped fur. "More. Thirty at least."
Her brow lowered, face pinching. "But the site said-"
"That website you so adamantly admire is a porn hub. They're just paid actors, Judes." He leaned forward, and his forehead bumped against her shoulder, his teeth brushing against her skin as he did his best to muffle his next words against it. "They're minds aren't on the fritz about love and stuff."
She looked between them, then back up, then down, then up again. Her face split. "So-" she began, speaking between another happy bounce that had him muffling a moan on her shoulder, "we're stuck together this long because you love me."
"Something like that." He gave her neck a muted bite. "My dick loves you."
"Your dick is part of you, Nicholas Wilde."
"How right you are." A kiss, slow and true. "I love you," he admitted.
"I know." She looked down, down, down, and let out a long sigh. "But you ruined my favorite sheets."
"I'll wash them."
"You will," she agrees. "Now… can you stand? I wanna see if we can work around this."
"Judith-"
"There are beets in the fridge-" she taps his nose. "And I saved a pudding cup for you in the crisper."
He's never been so eager to figure out how to move in his life.
He tells her about everything over beets and pudding cups, strategically avoiding her soiled sheets and choosing instead to sit on the quilt she folded up on the end of her bed every night. Which turns out to also be a bad idea, because his ever-so-affectionate body keeps pumping into her like a carnival shooting game and he promises, with a mouth full of artificial sweetener, that he'll clean that too.
"So… this whole knotting thing." She takes a bite of a beet. Her fingers are stained pink and the sides of her mouth are beginning to look like a finger painting. "It's… it's about babies, right?"
"Mmm-something like that." He licks his spoon.
"It's what you do when you mate."
"No."
"No?"
He made a show of digging his spoon in for another generous heaping. "Um… it's… it's kind of a weird shot in the dark. It's something we do when we're really sure of something."
"Sure of what."
Another scoop of pudding. She couldn't help but notice how interested in his spoon he'd become, green eyes fixated on that. Avoiding her. Dumb Fox. "Knotting isn't about just biology. It's about more than that. It's when… when you can't be separated from the other person."
She preened. "And I'm-"
"Yeah…" His pudding cup was almost empty, and he shoved his finger in, scraping the last dregs off the side. "You sort of are."
She wiggles again, happy in her revelations. "You liiike me."
"Ugh."
"You really really liiiike me!"
"Carrots, seriously!"
"Judy and Nick, sitting in a tree-!" He covered her mouth, and the pudding on his finger ended up smeared across her cheek.
"You are sickening, you know that?"
"I've been told." He took away his hand, but her smirk remained. "Dumb bunny."
"Sexy bunny," she corrects.
"Very." He concedes.
Thirty minutes passes. They're still stuck.
"So," Judy says against his chest, and he holds her tight, tight, tight, "this is a major compliment, right?"
"If you want to see it that way."
"I do." He holds her tighter. "So, you really like me."
"Not quite the word I was looking for-"
"Well, what is the word you were looking for."
She's baiting him. But Judy is always baiting him. And really, between all their fights over nothing-
(something, as she always tells him, and in the end after he's realized exactly what's transpired he can say with complete certainty that she was right)
- it's a miracle that they work.
Maybe not such a miracle.
Because he likes to stack pudding cups in her fridge, and she lets him arrange the photos on her desk in the way he calls organized fluxing chaos, and even though he can barely stand the idea of museums he still takes her to one every third Thursday of the month-
It isn't that they work, so much as they fit.
And he tells her so much.
"You think so?" And she looks down at where they're connected, all humor, buck teeth on display. "I mean, you're not wrong."
"I'm not." He kisses between her ears. "You, Judy Hopps, are what make me fit."
She swells a little of her own at that.
Forty five minutes passes.
It takes them forty seven minutes and twenty three seconds to finally be allowed to separate. She holds him tight (tight tight tight tighter) and they stay together anyways.
It's when the sheets are bundled and in a messy heap on her floor, that he tells her.
"I bought a magazine." When that doesn't do more than get him a few weird looks he clears his throat and reaches into the bag sitting propped on the wall and takes out his latest venture. It's a thing he took from a trip to the bank. Planning to Save? Trust Bank of Zootopia Today! Pictures of a happy family throughout, smiling and laughing and looking too damn happy the entire time.
He was sure the Bank of Zootopia would have thought twice about ever giving him a loan if they knew what he did behind closed doors with their pamphlets of easy saving techniques and proper investment management.
Judy takes it and flips it open, ears twitching along with her nose, her tail, and it's all so her and mundane that even if his palms are a wreck of sweat and nervous shakes, he really doesn't have much room to care-
(but that's always been what it's like
because Judy is a creature of habit and radishes and the more he thinks about the pile of magazines at home the more he thinks about the way she always butters her bread on the right side and always folds the sheets over in a way that makes him feel like they live in a hotel and always locks her singular piece of jewelry in the same box at the same time every damn night and he thinks he might not love the idea of magazines so much as the idea of-
her)
Nicholas Wilde has been tamed by a bunny.
"You thought about us getting a home." she says, flipping through the pamphlet.
"I don't do houses."
"I didn't say house."
(And god, can't she just read him like a magazine)
"Judith, I think you're trying to push my buttons."
"Mmmhm." And the pamphlet moves to her side table. "You might just be right, Nicholas."
He's at her in a moment, soaking in her laughter and her cries of his name, sweet with a southern twang that really only shows up when she's especially amused by him-
(or especially angry, but that's for special occasions)
- and he dips her, long ears dragging the floor, kissing her hard and dirty.
"I thought about two and a half bathrooms and three bedrooms and square feet and plumbing and back yards." He pressed a kiss to the side of her face, to each of her shoulders, rattling off appliances and homeowners jargon that even he wasn't sure about, peppering her between each word. "And I thought about barbecues and neighbor rivalries and teaching Nick and Judy Jr. how to properly egg a house-"
"That is so sickening," she says, all smile and violet.
He smiles back, and he can't control it now. "And I thought about having a bedroom. A master bedroom." He dipped her lower. "And we'll get rooms with names and maybe I'll even have a study. I've always wanted a study."
"I get a study," she pinches his side. "You get a room to store your dumb collection of CD's."
"Jerry Vole would be aghast."
She knows it's a deal.
They slip into a comfortable that's all them. All Judy and Nick and rainy days off. There's paperwork to be done on her desk, but they do little more than shuffle it around. Instead he pops a CD into her computer and they lie on her bed, sans sheets, listen to the rain and think about futures that aren't quite-
(there)
(theirs)
(they're)
At one point they get hungry. She's got extra beets in her fridge and the brown, grainy bread Nick likes that sticks to the roofs of their mouths, and they stare at the ceiling and sing along to songs they know by heart, mouths full of beets and bread and (mine, yours, Nick, Judy) song.
"You want to build a nest with me, Fox." she says at one point, behind the song change and the pit-pit-pit of rain on the stoop. "You want to build a home."
"You are my home," he admitted. "I just want a house that comes along with it."
"Can I see your magazine collection?"
"Later."
"How much later."
"Later enough for me to destroy the more damning ones." He kissed between her eyes, watching them cross. "I may have taken a red pen to a few. Circled some things I wanted."
"Your birthdays coming up."
"You're not getting me an ottoman, Carrots."
"I'm not knot getting you one."
He groans.
Their sheets are long since finished, the app on her phone that connected to the basements washer, dryer complex singing at her. But they leave them be.
"Sly Fox," she says, pressing her face into his shoulder. "I love you."
"Radishes." he says.
She nods. "Radishes."
In the end, they agree that they need to try more things.
Once again, this work remains unbetad.