An Evolved Sense of Justice Chapter 7: Cha-Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes, a Zootopia + Backbone Crossover fanfic

Chapter Seven, "Cha-Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes"

And it was the strangest thing, but much like how he always felt like the snarky cynic when he was around peppy Judy, something about being around that stoic and reserved raccoon made Nick feel bubbly and hopeful by comparison. It was as though nature itself dictated that there must be one upper and one downer in every pair, and without even trying to alter his personality, Nick found that being around a nice but clearly bummed-out guy like Howard had made him feel compelled to be a can-doer for the both of them. And thus Nick became such, completely organically. Hey, there had been points in that encounter where the fox had been a little faker than at other points, he was certainly striving to be nicer and less cutting than he might otherwise be if there were absolutely no stakes, but for the most part, he was being real, and when he'd said that Mister Sunshine's vibe of being a disappointed optimist reminded him of himself, that had been one hundred percent genuine.

And as Nick sat at his computer, researching what he needed to do to legally employ somebody as he waited for his bunny to get home from work, his mind kept wandering with strangely sunny thoughts. He wasn't merely relieved that he'd finally found something to grab onto; he was actually, actively happy. What an odd sensation. When he'd entered that situation, he'd expected to only feel somewhat tolerant of whatever would have come to pass, but no, that outcome actually seemed… good. Hey, catching cheating spouses might not have been quite what he had in mind for a living, but it was an opportunity that didn't totally suck and to do something that at least some people would find tangibly beneficial to society, and that's what mattered. Besides, Howie had let slip that his mundane cases had on at least one occasion led to something more adventurous, and while that had been an extreme example, surely that was a sign that this gig couldn't be nothing but mundanity forever.

Of course, now he could just see Judy not agreeing with this move. He could already hear her trying and failing to hide how offended she would be that he'd signed up to do something he could just as easily have done on the Force if not do easier there than as a civilian, and he could absolutely envision a girl with a conservative upbringing like her criticizing his morals, saying something like it being bogus that he thought being a cop was immoral but breaking up marriages for a living wasn't, and then there would be an argument about whether truly good relationships ever end badly, or whether Nick had ever actually professed to thinking being a cop was immoral in and of itself, and so on, and so on.

But the fox was feeling pretty good about this new path and he wasn't going to let some hypothetical arguments get him down. If anything, he could probably avoid any conflict about this by going on a charm offensive, and soon enough she'd be too smitten by him to feel any contempt for his difference of opinion. Worked every time.

...And speak of the devil, who was that he heard turning the key in the lock?

"Hey, Carrot Cake!" he said sweetly as he put his laptop down on the coffee table and stood up to greet her in person.

As she shut the front door behind her and turned back to face him, he could see that she had a very… noteworthy look on her face. Now, Nick was better than most at reading faces, he wouldn't have survived in the streets for as long as he did if he wasn't. But nobody was perfect at it; so also him, he was merely one of the least-bad at it. So he had no trouble discerning that she was vaguely uncomfortable, but he couldn't quite make out about what. Did she seem… nervous? A little. Conflicted? A bit. Regretful? A touch. Cautiously forcing confidence? Just a tinge. But he didn't have enough context to decipher the chief factor here, so it was time to go sniff it out.

"How was work?" An easy starting point.

"Hi, Nick," she said with a tone like she was embarrassed to have forgotten to greet him in return the first time. "Work was… work. Nothing great, nothing… terrible." She was making eye contact, but only sporadically between random eye-darts around the room - prey defense instincts, perhaps? Her eyes weren't bursting open, so she didn't seem frightened, just… extremely hesitant. Tentative perhaps, as much as that word could describe a mammal.

"Well hey, in this line of work, no news is good news, right?" he asked as he pulled her into a hug she didn't resist but didn't seem too excited for either.

"...This is true."

Nick noted that she didn't actually say that statement applied to today necessarily.

"Alright," said the fox as he grabbed his bunny by the shoulders and held her out at arm's length, "...you're clearly ruminating on something. What's on your mind?"

Her completely neutral expression finally disappeared, only to be replaced by one of confusion. "What're you talking about?"

"You look lost in thought and your sly little foxxo could see it from space, Judith," said sly foxxo said with a sly smirk. "You should know by now that you can't hide that from me. C'mon, you can tell me! That's what sexy hot attractive immaculate boyfriends are for!"

She conceded a nasal chuckle but otherwise still looked confused - a benign confusion, not an offended confusion, but still a wince with her smile. "Well, Nick, you're pretty good at reading mammals, and you know it, but maybe that might lead to you thinking you're perfect at it and that you can't get it wrong. Sorry, Slick, but nobody bats a thousand." With this, Judy walked off towards the kitchen. "There's nothing eating me up inside, I'm just… tired… and looking bored and lost is the best I can do, but it's better than being a mope, right?"

Nick nodded a nod she couldn't see as he followed her out of the room. "That's my girl, won't submit herself to emitting negative energy!"

Either she was genuinely not feeling anything significant and this really was a false-positive assessment brought on by his own overconfidence, or she was getting good at putting on a fake face - in which case, she was boldface lying to him about not dwelling on something. Hey, as long as she learned this deception from him, he could only be so hurt by such an action.

His guess was that she was wondering how to feel about potentially disappointing the Chief. She'd said yesterday that she was going to decline the opportunity to hop onto the detective track, right? That was clearly a tough decision for her last night, and telling Madongo himself that she'd be turning down his generous offer couldn't have been easy. But she had come to the conclusion that such a path simply didn't suit her and she wasn't the kind of gal who would acquiesce and go along with something that wasn't her just because it was convenient for everyone else, she'd be brave and say no even if it meant others might interpret that bravery as cowardice - which they certainly would. That had to have been rough for her.

His sympathy for her was twofold: she didn't deserve to feel so downtrodden like that after such a showing of strength - and also, lest we forget, he owed her his gratitude that she didn't take the offer, because otherwise that would have really aborted his new career before it even had a chance to launch. A police detective and a private investigator weren't inherently an incompatible pair of occupations for a couple, but given the circumstances and politics of the choices that would have put them in such a hypothetical position… yeah, no, that would have been a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames.

Therefore he decided it would be in everybody's best interest if he were to put her in a good mood tonight. That way he could ease her mind from the frustrating actions she had to take today and then prime her to be good-tempered when he broke the news that he had not only gotten a new job but also founded a whole-ass company via legally-gray methods not unlike how he used to.

"Hey, hon," he asked her as they arrived in the kitchen to prepare dinner, "you've clearly had a long day… how's-about we have ourselves a Wilde night in?"

You know, there was another way that Nick would argue his little gray redneck girl was kind of socially conservative: she was an absolute sucker for a tall, lean guy like him. Her tastes in males fit the female stereotype to a T, and honestly, as much as she wouldn't like him saying this, he'd wager that her finally finding a tod who treated her decently was a major catalyst for her overcoming her anti-vulpine prejudices, ahem, if you gather my meaning. For this reason, her attraction to him had proven a useful tool at least once before; might as well let it be a useful tool again.

-IllI-

My friend, I wish to stress that Nick was doing this for her pleasure first and foremost; this was not meant to lead to anything else in particular. If he just so happened to get something out of this in return, well, that wouldn't have been his primary objective, but he certainly wouldn't say no.

I'm… gonna have to be very careful with how I write this, aren't I? Oh, lordy.

The mood lighting was set by taking two of the three light bulbs out of the ceiling fan's lamp, the remaining one being the one pointing faintly in the direction of what would be his "stage". In addition, an adjustable desk lamp was lit and twisted around to face him just like a spotlight, albeit off from an angle so as not to blind him. Not to worry, he'd have his eyes focused on her, not the desk, as she lay in their bed, wearing something much more comfortable than she'd come home in.

He was just wearing his standard attire. For now. I'm sorry, am I spoiling the surprise, or was it already obvious where this was heading?

Another thing that she was embarrassed to admit she found attractive about him was just how confidently he could deliver an incredibly stupid joke to the point that it worked as anti-humor; again, Nick hypothesized that something primitive in Judy's brain found this odd charm about him to be indicative of leadership qualities and ergo something a cave-bunny doe would seek in a partner. Towards this end, Nick had had a few ideas for songs he could use during his routine; his younger self would have pounced on "A.D.I.D.A.S." by Kornfed in a heartbeat, but he wasn't an edgy young man anymore and he knew that song was too aggressive; then there was that "ohhh, you touch my tra-la-la, oooh, my ding-ding-dong" song, but that was perhaps too goofy, and besides, he didn't actually know the name or artist of that song and didn't want to nuke his Zoogle search history by looking it up. But eventually, he arrived at a conclusion, a song that perfectly struck the balance. Man, late-'90s acts really had a knack for goofy love-making songs.

The bunny was stifling a giggle as he went to press play on his laptop, the volume on the speakers turned all the way up; she already knew this was going to be wonderfully dumb.

"Ha-ha! Well now, we call this the act of mating!"

The fox assumed his spot in the spotlight, privately thanking the Bloodhound Gang as an ambiguously disco-rock beat took over the room. Time for the show.

"...Sweat, baby, sweat, baby,
Sex is a Texas drought,
Me and you do the kind of stuff
That only Prince would sing about."

First off came the tie. With bedroom eyes and oscillating hips, the tod unknotted his accessory and began running the long piece of fabric back and forth around the back of his neck like one would clean a pole with a rag.

"So put your hands
Down my pants
And I bet you'll feel knots.
Yes, I'm Siskel,
Yes, I'm Ebert,
And you're getting two thumbs up."

Followed by him flossing that tie between his legs as he subtly stepped just a few inches closer to his audience, who certainly had begun cracking a grin as her eyes were fixed on that region of his body.

"You've had enough
Of two-hand touch,
You want it rough,
You're out of bounds.
I want you smothered,
Want you covered,
Like my Waffle House hashbrowns."

And now it was time for the shirt. The tie went into his mouth like a predator heroically chomping down on a snake while he started unbuttoning his top, a sensual eyebrow raised and a suggestive sneer on his snout the entire time.

"Come quicker than FedEx,
Never reach an apex,
Just like Coca-Cola stock,
You are inclined
To make me rise an hour early
Just like Daylight Savings Time.
(Do it now!)"

Just in time for the chorus, his front was fully opened and he held his arms back to show off his tan-furred chest and stomach in prominence as the tod made much clearer steps towards his doe.

"You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals,
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.
(Do it again now!)
You and me, baby, ain't nothin' but mammals,
So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.
(Gettin' horny now!)"

During the twenty-second instrumental interlude, Nick completely doffed the shirt and hopped onto the bed, making Judy bounce a little as tremors ran through the mattress - and even a blind mammal could see that she enjoyed the little ride. Arms in the air and bent up at right angles at the elbow, the performer kept shaking his hips for a few measures before switching to thrusting his pelvis back and forth, his crotch conveniently eye-level with his reclined viewer. And the rhythmic squeaking of the bed springs as he moved actually complimented the horns and techno-like beats of the music quite nicely.

"Love…
The kind you clean up
With a mop and bucket,
Like the catacombs of Egypt,
Only God knows where we stuck it."

Ol' Playboy spun around and began shaking his ass and tail in Judy's face, because for reasons that still confuse me, apparently straight chicks really are fond of a nice male butt. Not to say nothing of his long, thick, and opulent rear appendage, which was sticking out and swaying back and forth with the rest of his body just a few inches in front of the rabbit's nose. Hey, you know what they say about a tod with a long, thick tail…

"Hieroglyphics,
Let me be Pacific,
I wanna be down in your South Seas,
But I got this notion that the motion of your ocean
Means 'Small Craft Advisory'."

Now it was time to get creative: Nick dropped chest-first onto the bed and started doing the Worm. A brilliant idea: not only was this dance suggestive as hell in the context of the music and a good way to make himself look even more masculine by showcasing his core strength, but it did indeed get the entire mattress shaking, giving Judy a wild ride like she was aboard a ship on the ocean without even having to make physical contact with her. He couldn't tell whether she was giggling at the fact that her boyfriend was seriously doing the Worm to turn her on (as you can imagine, she will not tell me whether it was working or not, but you can also probably imagine what Nick thought about its efficacy) or if she was laughing at the song's self-deprecating joke right at that point in the act.

(Nick Wilde wants me to clarify that even though he is totally self-confident enough to go along with such a self-deprecating joke, his "craft" is not actually small, and adds that it is actually, and I quote, "profound"; I can neither confirm nor deny this because I have not personally measured Nick's dick nor educated myself on average vulpine penis size to compare it to and I have no interest in doing either of those things. Jesus, this is getting weird, why did I agree to write this? Oh yeah, because Nick sent me a $100 Raising Cane's gift card. Which I have already depleted. God help me.)

"So if I capsize on your thighs,
High tide, B-5,
You sunk my Battleship,
Please turn me on,
I'm Mister Coffee
With an automatic drip."

Plot twist! The shirtless fox jumped up into a handstand, his back to his subject. Not only another showing of what might be called athleticism, but the first instance of making contact with the bunny as the fox, his head tilted as far back as it could go so he could see her, tickled the tips of her ears with the black tip of his tail. Her ears twitched, and the contact with such a sensitive part of her body might have set off primitive alarm bells in her brain that she was in danger - but much like rollercoasters and horror movies, sometimes danger is thrilling, and Nick could see that Judy was getting exactly the right kick out of this. The fact that Nick's phone, keys, and wallet all fell out of his pocket as he stood upside-down did nothing to kill his swagger.

"So show me yours,
I'll show you mine,
Tool Time,
You'll Lovett just like Lyle,
And then we'll do it doggy style
So we can both watch X-Files.
(Do it now!)"

He flipped off the end of the bed and landed on his feet, facing her, walking backwards back into the spotlight while still thrusting his pelvis, his arms and paws up behind his head to show off what constituted his guns - like most foxes, he was still skinny as a rail, but he still had more meat on his bones than any rabbit buck his bunny had ever seen.

There was one lamp in the room that was not currently on, a long, tall, standing one. Nick pulled it out of the darkness and into the light, along with a cowboy hat, because you have to. You simply have to. It's illegal not to. And as the song went into another instrumental section, the fox got to work.

Magic Mike, eat your heart out, and get out of the way; it was time for Nimble Nick. He actually got some pretty impressive velocity as he spun around, his arms and legs bent just enough to again show off his muscles ("muscles") flexing. And he gave her a sly smirk all the while.

But as he was spinning, it became harder for him to actually see her face, and he could hardly notice as her look of excitement started to fade - not because he was doing anything wrong, but because her mind was simply being dragged elsewhere as something eating away at her forced her attention.

The chorus repeated with the instruments greatly subdued:

The instruments came back and Nick somehow spun himself not only around but upside-down once again, arms and legs twisted around and his groin sticking out in prominence as he kept swinging.

This position had its drawbacks, however, as in this inverted state his face was near the floor and he could not see Judy's face looking back at him, growing still more troubled as she watched him pole-dancing like a goofball. Unbeknownst to him, she was coming to feel disgusted with herself for taking part in such fun and games when there was a very serious thing that needed to be said. And as he kept spinning to the instrumental of the song's denouement, she couldn't take it anymore.

"No - I-I can't- I said yes."

Nick stopped spinning.

"Wait, wha-!? Whoa, whoa, WHOA-!"

Crash.

(What, you didn't think this scene would end with them actually doin' it, did you? You thought I would put actual smut involving real individuals with their real names up on the public internet!? You fucking perverts.)

Judy yelped as she hopped off the bed to help her fox, who had toppled over with the lamp when he lost his momentum and had subsequently fallen front-first.

"NICK! Omigosh, are you okay!?" she asked, bending down to his pained face.

"I landed on my dick," the fox groaned, eyes pursed shut. "I landed on my dick…"

The rabbit just stared in the general direction of his netherregions, wondering if it made her a bad person that she'd otherwise do the caring thing and massage her love's aching body part, but she wasn't going to lay her hands on that part of his body because she considered herself a good Christian girl and also because this isn't pornography. You all disgust me.

"Just take some deep breaths and don't think about the pain," she offered instead, "take your mind off of it."

Luckily for him, however, he had just the question to distract him from his screaming nerve endings: "You said yes to what?"

"I… I agreed to go detective." She looked ashamed to admit this. "I thought more about it, and… I need to make a change, and this seemed like an opportunity. I… I'm sorry, I was afraid to tell you earlier because I didn't want you thinking I asked your advice one day and then immediately did the opposite thing the next, I didn't want to be that mammal-"

"Hey, hey, hey, it's alright," Nick cooed as he forced himself to sit up and pulled his upset little bun into his arms, hugging her tightly as he rubbed his paws up and down her back. "Don't apologize, you realized you were gonna make a bad decision by saying no and you fixed it, you're always gonna know better than anybody else what's best for you."

"Hmm…" Judy murmured as she just let herself linger in the hug. "Thanks, Nick… I'm just glad you're not mad."

…Nick was fucking pissed.

Not because she had gone ahead and pursued a line of work that was going to conflict with his, not because she'd done the opposite of what they'd agreed to the other day, not because she'd inadvertently taken away the opportunity for him to safely bring up his own new career path to her without instigating drama, she was still her own person with her own priorities and all these things were well within her rights - he was mad because she'd lied about it. Or if not outright lying, she'd at least withheld it from him.

Like, okay, in fairness, he'd never had a healthy relationship before this one, so maybe he wasn't the expert on this, but wasn't the entire point of being a couple that you two would be the first ones you'd trust with new information? He was fairly certain that it was. And their relationship wasn't new or anything, it wasn't like she was still feeling out whether she could tell him everything and anything. Her hesitance to tell him wasn't in and of itself intolerable, but her going several hours without even trying to mention it seemed tantamount to moral cowardice - yeah, that's right, Brave Heroic Action-Cop Judy Hopps, your beloved fox thinks that in this instance, you were being a scaredy-pants worrywart to the point of it being a damning character flaw. God knows if she had just ripped the Band-Aid off, it would have saved him some physical discomfort down south.

He stood up, put his shirt back on, put his props away, and put the ceiling light bulbs back in place. They went to the living room and watched some light TV as Judy explained more of the details of her promotion; her last day on the beat would be tomorrow before starting her training the day after on Friday. He seemed very interested in her new journey and that, in turn, made her feel less tentative and more confident about the choice she'd made, at which point she started feeling pretty excited about what adventures were awaiting her. And Nick was doing such a good job of pretending to be happy for her that Judy became happy herself, and she never even noticed that he never said anything to the effect of congratulations.

She went to bed early as she always did, and he stayed up well past midnight in the living room as he always did; after 10 p.m. was Nick Time. But he didn't use this time to further plan out any more of his new business strategy or to even divert himself with his favorite hobbies; he just spent his energy half-watching terrible late-night shows and inwardly focusing on his thoughts and feelings about Judy's choice and the way she'd gone about telling him - and not telling him.

Maybe he'd have been more accepting of her accidentally screwing him into an irreparably awkward position if she'd have been upfront about it, but she hadn't been, so now we'll never know. And yeah, her hesitance was likely some combination of fear that he'd be frustrated with her for changing her mind and personal inner conflict about whether she'd made the right choice, but the former suggested that something inside of her still didn't fully trust him not to hurt her, the latter was something that she was honestly obligated to have sorted out sooner so as not to cause the illusion of the former, and goddammit, her choices had made him feel bad and he was allowed to not like that she'd made him feel bad.

So you know what? He'd take his sweet time thinking about how he'd break the news that he'd taken up a line of work that could be construed as direct competition to hers. Maybe he'd tell her tomorrow, maybe he'd tell her next week, maybe the entire operation would fall apart before it really even started and this would all be a non-issue. He already had a plan if she found out and confronted him about it, he'd simply say he was waiting to get his feet in this new career before making it LinkedIn-official and was saving it as a surprise to her, a happy surprise that he'd finally found what felt like his calling in life - or at least something closer to it. And if push came to shove, well, he could always play his newly-acquired trump card: you weren't going to tell me about your new job, either.

But it would probably never come to that; he knew she was a good girl and she would probably be understanding that he'd been just as nervous of telling her as she'd been of telling him. Overall, things were still looking up for the both of them, and as long as they didn't step over each other's feet along the journey, they'd both wind up in a better spot for themselves soon, and with any luck, they'd arrive at their separate places together.

…Though he was still pretty sure that he'd never be able to hear that stupid Bloodhound Gang song again without physically remembering the feeling of his "wooden" "craft" crashing into the "land".