Judy and Nick had finished their work day early, having brought in a couple of suspects and the dispatcher decided to send them off-shift since if they headed out again their shift would be done by the time they arrived on station. So they had decided - Judy enthusiastically, Nick with feigned distaste, in a byplay that had become a comfortable routine between the two of them ever since Nick had gotten in shape for the Academy - to visit the precinct's small and surprisingly neglected gym. As it turned out, most of the local officers took pride in using the free weights in the open courtyard instead, leaving the gym for visiting officers that weren't so comfortable with the cold.
They had warmed up on the treadmills, then spent some time lifting weights - Nick sticking with hand weights because Judy couldn't safely spot him with the larger ones - and then, inevitably, ended up where the two of them had spent quite a bit of time recently - the crash mats.
ZPD rules of engagement gave a fair amount of leeway to officers dealing with violent mammals larger than they were, and as Judy had demonstrated back at the Academy, she had found ways to make speed and momentum make up for a relative lack of raw strength. But Judy wasn't happy with that, and kept trying to push the limits on the size of mammal she could successfully grapple and therefore arrest without relying on physical damage. And now, apparently, she was up to foxes. And for the fourth time in as many minutes, Nick found himself face-down on the crash mat with Judy putting just enough pressure on one of his joints to communicate that continuing to resist would be a bad idea.
Nick had mixed feelings about continuing to resist. On one paw, he wasn't averse to Judy clambering all over him if she was so inclined, so resisting her efforts to do so seemed a bit of a waste. But on the other, he was worried that one day she'd go for a grapple with a mammal she really should have given a good kicking to instead, and end up hurt - or worse - because of it. So when they faced off for the fifth time that day, both panting softly, Nick resolved that this time, he'd show Judy a thing or two.
Then he resolved to do it the sixth time, because while he had been resolving Judy had grabbed an arm, swept a leg, and ended up perched on top of him with one of his joints at her mercy once more.
It was actually the eighth time when Nick's resolution got anywhere - he could have pushed it earlier, but he wanted to be careful to make his point without involving teeth or claws. Judy had either become overconfident or had decided to find a joint of Nick's she hadn't abused yet, and apparently not aware that Nick's nose kept him constantly informed of her exact position, circled around him and stayed still a moment too long while sizing him up from behind.
With natural flexibility he rarely displayed, he turned and pounced in a single motion, his paws outstretched. Despite hesitating for a fraction of a second Judy managed to sidestep out of the way, right into the path of Nick's lower half which had twisted in the air to bring his back paws to bear. Though they lacked the agility of his forepaws, they were sufficient to knock her off balance while his front half arrested his lunge and sent him back towards Judy, almost bending double. In an instant she was pinned down, his paws on her shoulders and his toothy grin in her face. He had intended to say something to rub it in, but in the moment, words failed him.
Judy's expression was shocked and slightly impressed through her slight panting, complimented by her rapidly twitching nose as she wriggled slightly and found that she was thoroughly pinned. The smell rising from her was one he rarely got a whiff of - very Hopps-ish, but stronger than usual and with an almost exotic spicy tinge to it. With a husky growl to his voice, he murmured "gotcha" and leaned in, nibbling at the nape of her neck playfully.
"Nick!" she giggled in feigned outrage, and her paws rose to push at his face. And as one of them brushed against his nose, that smell he had smelled earlier was flooding his nostrils with it's mix of familiar Judy-ness and the new and unfamiliar spiciness, and he stopped the nibbling to bury his nose further in her neck, inhaling deeply. Judy gasped and squirmed, and Nick's paws clenched slightly at the intensity of the moment, his claws pressing slightly against Judy's shoulders through her loose shirt, and her paws were on his, but not pushing them away, and she was pushing her chin against his probing muzzle, her eyes closed and her breath panting and her nose twitching in a way that was absolutely enthralling. The buried part of him that would have exulted in the sensation of a helpless rabbit pinned beneath him had been completely subsumed by the larger part of him that was fascinated by Judy in particular, so the conflicted feeling that the cynical side of him had been expecting never surfaced, allowing him to be fully absorbed by the moment.
He knew for a fact that he wasn't paying enough attention to the pin. If Judy was so inclined she could have taken advantage of his distraction to reverse it and put him in yet another jointlock. Instead, she was allowing herself to lie completely vulnerable below him while his muzzle pressed against her bare throat. He pressed his claws a little harder into her shoulder and she gasped and arched her back, her paws grasping his. Without opening her eyes she probed at his muzzle with her twitching nose until she found a corner of his mouth and started peppering it with light kisses, and a moment later her paws shifted to his muzzle to lift it from the nape of her neck, bringing the entirety of his mouth within striking distance of hers, and as a side-effect rubbing the bunny sweat of her paws over his lips. He had thought it's presence to be powerful before, but now it was all-consuming, this new yet familiar taste of salt and spice and Judy. It sent electricity through his entire body, at once relaxing him and exciting him, a contradictory and heady mix of emotions flowing through him and obliterating all rational thought.
He wanted to bury his nose in those paws but with them holding his muzzle, getting to them would require more forward planning than he was capable of at that moment. Then Judy started pressing hard, insistent kisses against the end of his muzzle and he forgot about everything else, and when his lips parted to pant out a breath her small, soft bunny tongue darted inside and explored as best it could inside Nick's much larger mouth. Before long it encountered Nick's much larger, rougher, stronger tongue and roamed over it, before Judy broke the kiss in favour of breathing, gasping in air in gulps. Nick remained dumbfounded for a moment, and just as he was getting his thoughts back in order, Judy finally exploited his lack of attention to reverse the pin, flip him onto his back, and plop herself down atop him. But instead of targeting one of his joints, she went right back for his muzzle, grabbing it between her paws and running the bottom of her chin along the top of his nose, her eyes half-closed in bliss. But with that task done, her eyes opened, and the small part of Nick's mind still capable of conscious thought recognized a mischievous spark in them.
She took one of her paws off her muzzle to look at it thoughtfully for a moment, then gave it an experimental sniff. She held out the damp paw just out of reach of Nick's muzzle, and after a moment a single drop of sweat dropped off of it and onto the end of his nose. The smell flooded his entire world. Without conscious thought his tongue flicked out and licked his nose clean, and the taste was just as intoxicating. Momentarily sated, he turned what little of his attention that wasn't focused on the sensation back to Judy, who was watching with rapt attention as her scent and taste dominated the fox beneath her. Their eyes met, and Nick managed to pant out, "you taste fantastic."
Judy smiled down at him, and leaned down to kiss him once more and reply "you taste pretty good yourself." She planted her paws on Nick's shoulders and leaned in to bury her muzzle in Nick's neck in an imitation of his pose earlier and inhaled deeply. "And this smell... every time I smell it I just feel warm and happy and safe."
Nick's arms circled around Judy and clutched her even tighter to his chest. "How are you so perfect?" Judy made an amused noise into his neck as she snuggled deeper. "I don't deserve you- ow!" Nick jerked his neck away from Judy, who had just nipped sharply at his neck. "You bit me!"
"And I'll keep biting you every time you put yourself down like that, Nick." She pulled her face from his neck and looked him in the eyes, her little bunny face marred by a disgruntled expression and her teeth bared in what was supposed to be a threatening manner.
"You know, you're just proving my point-" Judy's threatening scowl deepened, and Nick laughed and surrendered. "Alright, alright. You win, you savage little bunny."
"Good." In an instant Judy melted back into Nick's embrace, burying her muzzle in the top of Nick's chest that his shirt left uncovered. "Being mad at you cuts into my snuggle time." Her voice was muffled by his fur, and her voice sent vibrations through his chest that tickled strangely.
Well, that tears it, Nick thought to himself. There was no doubting it any more. He was in love with a bunny.
A/N: This chapter was a tricky one to write. Describing motions - especially of two characters interacting in close proximity like this - is a tough mechanical challenge for me to write with two humans, let alone a pair of mismatched critters like this. And then things got a little bit hot and heavy and out of my control, and at one point I was seriously considering upping the rating on this story to a hard M and letting these two go nuts on each other. I eventually found a way to calm things down without, I hope, making it seem abrupt or blue-ball-ish - I hate the will-they-won't-they thing myself, so I'm trying to keep this firmly in the they-will category, but also with them lingering at all the points leading up to it.
Now for the Critter Facts Corner: Rabbits sweat through their paws! Well, possibly. Some sources say yes, some say no. I went with yes so I could work it into the scentplay scenario. Rabbits also cool down through their ears - lots of blood vessels and a high surface area is great at radiating heat - and both foxes and rabbits pant to cool down.