Chapter Ten, "I Wanted to Be Who I Wanted to Be"

That night for Nick had been largely uneventful. He'd come home to find Judy already there, telling her that he'd been spending the day looking for work again (technically not a lie). They'd had dinner, unwound by watching some TV together, she'd gone to bed early before her day off to maintain her sleeping patterns and he'd stayed up past midnight for some quality Nick Time, every so often shooting out a random social media DM to someone who he thought might want the services of a P.I. when they crossed his mind. Nothing remarkable, but that was fine. That was fine. Sometimes no news is good news.

He woke up late the next day and she was already gone; okay, nothing too odd. She was a workaholic and had probably gone out to get errands done before daring to enjoy her only day off before she began her detective training. He sent her a good-morning text and she replied to confirm she was still alive, and Nick left it at that. She was still her own mammal and didn't need him breathing down her neck.

Howard picked him up sometime later and they went bumming around in the raccoon's car, driving around aimlessly in search of anything that might help them: an economical office space they could rent out for their new agency, a place for Howard to live, and with any luck, another client who needed a mystery demystified. And they actually got lucky with the last one, spending much of that day on a downright hilarious adventure involving a donkey contortionist and a washing machine and a vole priest who was also a trapeze artist and a ten-gallon drum of chocolate pudding and one of those singing wall-mounted robot fish that everyone had in their houses twenty years ago which was purportedly uttering death threats in Ancient Greek and I swear to God I nearly pissed my pants laughing when Nick and Howard recounted this story to me during our conference call, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with the rest of our tale here and it would take about sixty pages to relay it all here, and I have too much self-respect as an amateur writer to waste my readers' time like that. All you need to know is that they made a solid hundred bucks off the case and put the experience in their pasts, though finding physical real estate proved a fruitless endeavor. But for now, that was okay. That was fine. They had all the time in the world to get their act together.

Howard dropped Nick off sometime around the end of rush hour. Nick got a text message as he was walking up the steps to their triplex townhouse, that being Judy asking where he was this late; this had been the first communication they'd had since he'd woken up. He didn't bother replying, instead ringing the doorbell to give her a nice little surprise.

It wasn't too long of a wait for her to answer, but he had enough time to be alone with his thoughts and to contemplate this and that. And what he found himself thinking was… this is fine. This was alright. With a few days to reflect on it, he was no longer as frustrated by the ludicrously bad luck that she and he had wound up in conflicting lines of work; hey, give her some time to settle into her new role and she'd probably be receptive to hearing it. Nor was he as annoyed that she'd hesitated to tell him about her promotion; he understood now, she was nervous to tell him about her good fortune just as he was cautious to tell her about his, and she'd only had his feelings at heart. He was feeling better now. This was okay. Everything would be fine.

Finally, her footsteps approached, and the door unlocked and opened soon after. She was wearing that playful faux-seductive smile he loved; yeah, she'd peeked through the peephole and ruined his surprise, but hey, she was still happy to see him.

"Nice of you to finally grace me with your presence," she said in a tone to match her look, but her nose soon started twitching and she had to surrender to a look of confusion. Sniff, sniff… "...Why do you smell like chocolate pudding?"

He gave her a smirk of his own. "That's classified information, ma'am."

And sensing she wasn't going to get a straight answer out of him, she went back to smirking herself as she opened the door to welcome him home. "As long as it doesn't spoil your dinner - which I'm currently cooking, without your help." She still used a teasing tone, but she was clearly at least a little annoyed.

"Ah, but I know that a country girl like you probably lovvves cooking dinner to await your man when he gets home from a long day at work!" Pushing her buttons: probably not the greatest strategy for anybody else, but from him, he'd seem suspicious if he wasn't wisecracking at every opportunity.

Sure enough, she rolled her eyes but kept on smiling in spite of it. "Well then, tell me," she asked as they entered the kitchen, "where were you all day?"

And he timed his response perfectly, not too quick, not too slow, just right to sound natural: "Went to go see Finnick."

She stopped walking to turn and face him, her smile softening.

"Wanted to make sure the poor little guy ain't feeling lonely again," he continued.

Judy broke eye contact and just looked anywhere else around the room. "Oh… well, that was nice of you."

Hook, line, and sinker. He knew that line could get him out of the interrogation with no questions asked. "What can I say? That's just the kind of guy I am."

"And I wouldn't have you any other way," the bunny replied, clearly embarrassed to have asked her question.

"So, what about you?" Nick asked in return, still beaming to keep the mood light. "How'd you spend your last day before you started your Columbo training? Lemme guess, you were at the gym all day exercising so you could be an action-hero detective? Nonono, waitwaitwaitwaitwait! I know, I know! You were at the library all day binge-reading mystery novels tryna practice getting into the sleuth mindset because you're just not enough of an overachiever already! So, am I right or am I right?"

"Eh, you're half-right, I was proactive today." She turned from whatever she was cooking on the stove to give him a new smile, this one looking happy again, and nodded her head in the direction of the kitchen table. "See for yourself."

So Nick did. On the table were a few pieces of paper. He picked them up to give them a gander.

His heart nearly stopped.

"...Judy, what is this?" Yes, my friend: Nick was so spooked that he used her real name.

"A gift," she said sweetly, eyes still on the stove.

It was a receipt, specifically.

"It was the least I could do," she elaborated.

Nick just shook his head slowly, dumbfounded. "...N-no, Carrots, you didn't have to… sign me up for real estate school!?"

"Nick," the rabbit began as she turned away from the stove, "I wouldn't be a good partner if I didn't do everything I can for my-"

"Five hundred fucking dollars!?" the fox yelped, turning the papers around and giving them a smack. "You spent five hundred dollars of your own money to sign me up for something I didn't even agree to!?"

"Nick. Nick. Calm down," Judy insisted, and ever the responsible one, she extinguished the stovetop flame before walking over to him. "Okay, first things first… I had the money, it's fine. Secondly, you and I both know the importance of gambling on ourselves. Well, this is me gambling on you, and I'm confident it's gonna pay off. It's an investment, Nick - and quite frankly, you're coming up on a year of unemployment with no leads in sight, and since I've been paying the majority of bills in this house for a while now, I really think I'll be getting a good return on investment, ahem. I don't wanna be vindictive, Nick, so I'm gonna assume your best intentions and guess that you'd be happy to finally start paying your fair share again, so there, here's your opportunity. Like you said, you're a good guy."

Nick had several objections. "Okay, all of that sounds fair in a vacuum, but why real estate!? I swore that I would never go back to selling shit for a living unless I was about to starve to death! It's too underhanded!"

"Well-"

"And don't say that I'd already be starving to death if it weren't for your support!" the fox snapped.

But the bunny kept her cool. "I… wasn't gonna say that," she sneered cheekily. "I was gonna say… like it or not, we both know you have a talent for selling stuff, Nick. Face the facts, you'd be amazing as a realtor. Thank Brady, he gave me the idea. It almost makes too much sense that this'll be what gets you back on your feet-"

"But I wanted to do something with my life this time around that would make the world a better place!" Nick protested, slamming the papers back on the table. "We've discussed this! You agreed that it was a noble endeavor!"

She nodded slowly as she went back to her cooking. "Well then, make it a way to make the world a better place. You're a crafty fox, get creative. What about…" she tapped a wooden spoon on the rim of the pot as she pondered. "...Don't I remember you telling me about that friend of your brother's back home who's really passionate about fighting against poverty? And that you regret how when you first met this guy, you were a stupid twentysomething kit who only liked him because you thought he was the perfect example of a clever fox being a sneak, and it took you meeting him again a few years ago for you to realize he wasn't the loveable-rogue bad guy like you first thought but actually a good mammal?" (Ooh, I helped with that one! I was the one who put him and Nick back in contact again a few years ago when I needed to interview Nick for his brother's and the other guy's story, then Nick decided he was an egomaniac and wanted to be the star of his own story, aaand here we are.)

"What does he have to do with any of this!? What does he have to do with fucking real estate!?"

She gave him a side-eye. She wasn't smiling anymore. "Well, assuming he wasn't also a contributing factor in you quitting the police-"

"He wasn't! …Okay, maybe a little-"

"Take a page out of his playbook," the rabbit said, turning to face him again. "Here's an idea: use this as a way to help financially-struggling mammals get a place to live. Find them decent affordable homes in this overpriced city and maybe use your expert haggling skills to help them buy a home at a price that isn't insane… maybe starting with us," she said as she gestured to their humble abode. "Then you can say you made it up to him for completely missing the point of who he was the first time," she said, then turned back to the food before musing, "...and for stealing a big chunk of his personality, if I understand correctly-"

"Oh, I did not steal his entire fucking personality!" the fox barked. "I borrowed some goddamn cues from him, excuse me for being twenty-two and impressionable, for Christ's sakes!"

Judy tsk-tsked under her breath as she prepared the meal. "Ah, Nick, you and your potty mouth. Remember how when we first met you never swore? Because you wanted to stay classy? And you had that swear jar that you stopped using not too long ago because you ran out of spare change to put in it?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ-"

"Yeah, you were completely different when I met you! You didn't even tell me you had a brother, that took a year to get out of you. And it took almost as long for you to confess you lied to everybody in this city by telling them you grew up here-"

"Why are you being so vindictive!? Where is this coming from!?"

"Because I went out of my way to do something big for a guy I love and in return he shuts me the heck down and throws it in my goshforsaken face!" She'd spun back around from the counter to tell him that, and somewhere along the line threw the wooden spoon on the ground, splintering it.

Nick was quiet now, the anger gone from his face and replaced by a look of something close to fear.

But Judy soon closed her eyes, breathed in deeply through her nose, and started counting to ten under her breath. When finished, she looked up at him and walked closer. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry. But… yeah, that's how I feel. I feel like I just did something big for you and you're… well, not valuing it." She broke eye contact to look around at nothing in particular. "But I get it, I mean… you are your own mammal," she shrugged, "it's your life, I can't tell you what to do. If you don't wanna do it, that's fine, just…" A sigh. "...I can probably get my money back if I call them by tomorrow."

It would seem that more often than not, sadness is a more effective way to elicit sympathy than anger, and so also was the case of the fox looking at his hurt little hop-hop. He was a predator, but he wasn't a monster, and he just couldn't stay mad at that face.

…Not to say that she had completely changed his mind. Far from it; there had been a lot of reasons why Nick quit the Force, but one of them was that he wanted to lead his own path and help the world in his own way instead of just following where she led him. Her idea to use this as a method to level out the housing market wasn't actually that bad of an idea, but going into a line of work that she'd selected for him would literally be the same issue of independence and autonomy all over again. Suffice it to say that he chiefly felt bad for not being able to force himself to adore her proposal.

"C'mere," he finally said, arms wide open and a warm smile freshly on his face. "C'mere, Carrot Cake."

She came, hugging him tightly and burying her face in his chest as he put his arms around her.

"Hey," he said gently, "if it means that much to you… I'll at least go to the classes and give them a try, sound fair? And if I don't like them, I'll pay you back-"

"No, no," she insisted, "it's a gift."

"A gift? What's the occasion?" he asked jocularly. "Did we commit blasphemy against nature and somehow conceive? Hey, Father's Day is coming up, is this your way of telling me I knocked you up?"

"Oh-! You!" the rabbit giggled as she socked her tod in the gut, a little harder than intended.

Nick produced a practiced snicker of his own as he reexamined the papers. "...It starts Monday?"

"Yup! No use in waiting around!"

"And it's… nine a.m. to six p.m.," he observed, trying not to sound dejected. "Monday through Friday."

"Mmhmm! They had an option for four-hour classes, but that would take four weeks, these'll only take two. But I know you're up for it, you're a hard worker! You were hustling before hustle culture was cool!"

He smiled. "That I was!"

…Fuck! he thought. This was gonna eat up a lot of his time, so he really would have to hustle if he was going to fake these classes while still running his and Howard's new agency. Assuming he was indeed going to do both at the same time… which he had not made up his mind on yet. But hey, if he had to choose one or the other, the choice was clear: it was either to disappoint the bunny he loved, or to disappoint some random Canadian guy he'd just met a few days ago.

…As well as disappointing himself.

Goddammit, I shoulda just told her straight up that I started a private-eye business the other night instead of trying to get her in a good mood by pole-dancing for her. That was good exercise, though, I should do that again sometime.

-IllI-

Nick made a point to eat quickly because he wanted to get out of the house again. He told Judy that it was a nice summer night and he just wanted to go out for a walk to enjoy it and think some thoughts about where his life was going. She had replied with a quip to not have too much of a wild Friday night without her - and it seemed like she was only half-joking and didn't really believe that he was just going for an innocent twilight stroll, but it was clear she was resigned to the fact that Nick would do whatever he wanted while she went to bed early.

The fox called up his new raccoon buddy for a ride, assuming (correctly) that the vagabond would not be doing anything at the time and wouldn't mind taking the time to be his taxi service. Nick had decided to retroactively make what he'd told Judy earlier not a lie.

The sun was setting, but the looming darkness was no foe for the fox's eyes. He saw the one he sought right there out in the open. Poor dumb sap. Just standing there in the middle of the green field, utterly defenseless. Time to go into predator mode.

Nick snuck along, hiding behind his target's neighbors as he zeroed in. When he got close enough, it was time to implement the soundtrack. Cue the Jaws theme:

"…Duh-nuh…! Duh-nuh…!" the hunter chanted to himself as he drew closer. "Duh-nuh duh-nuh DUH-NUH DUH-NUH DUH-NUH!"

The red fox pounced. The fennec would never know what hit him.

"SHARK FINN!" Nick exclaimed as he jumped up behind his old pal, then chuckled as he patted him on the back. "Sorry, Finnick, I couldn't resist! How ya been, man?"

No answer.

"Aw, I know you're annoyed that I snuck up on you, but hey, lighten up! I'm here, aren't I-? Wait…"

Only now did Nick stop to actually read the front of the headstone.

CLARICE A. FOXWELL

1942-2014

"OH! Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am, uh…" Nick stammered as he backed off and threw his paws up, feeling bad about grabbing a stranger like that. "...I-I thought you were a friend of mine. You look just like him from behind! Um…" He looked at the next marker to his left:

REGINALD M. FINNICK

1972-2020

"There you are!" Nick laughed as he patted this other stone tablet on the back. He then propped himself up with his elbow on the top of the stone; Finnick always hated being used as a pillar. "Hey, you got me good, you blended in with the crowd and bamboozled me! I guess you always were the foxier fox between us, eh, Finn?"

The only reply he got was aggressive silence.

Nick stood up straight and got his elbow off Finnick's metaphorical head. "Hey, I'm just trying to lighten the mood!" he protested, paws up defensively.

…

"Fine, I'm sorry I used you as a support beam. Again."

…

"Jesus, every time I come here I say the same thing, I woulda knocked it off with the short jokes if you'd just been transparent with me about all the freaking comorbidities that came with dwarfism! If you weren't too proud to be straightforward and say yeah, I have a compromised immune system along with a bunch of other stuff that's probably gonna send me to an early grave, I probably woulda backed off! I have standards, Finnick, but you had to make it clear to me that I was crossing them!"

…

Nick sighed and decided to take a seat on the grass. "Well, in that case, I'm gonna have to ask you to be merciful with me, because I need your help." He stared off at the constellations of light from the setting sun poking through the gaps of the tree branches. "I… know you had mixed feelings about me joining the police… I know deep down you were secretly happy that I seemed to find my way, but you were too manly to show it, and - understandably - feeling like I'd left you behind… and then you were pissed all over again when I quit because it was like, what, Nick, you shitcanned me for nothing!? So I get it if you're not-"

…

"I am not expositing! There's nobody here for me to be giving this exposition to! I'm saying this all out loud so you know that I know these things! Jeez, what kind of hack do you take me for?"

…

"Well I can talk and you can't, so I win. Anyway, back on track: I…" Nick twirled his paw in the air as he searched for the words. "...I'm at this sort of… crossroads? Like… yeah, yeah, I know that sounds cheesy, but shut up. I… hrmmm… okay, so here's the situation: Judy… she… she's a little too helpful, she went ahead and tried to get my life together for me without even telling me and… it's actually not that bad of a plan, but, y'know, it wasn't my idea, she just dictated it for me, Nick, this is what you're gonna do now…"

…

"Hm? Oh, it'd be going into real estate. Which is ironic! If I follow the law-lady's lead, I'd be going back into the slimy world of selling shit. Granted, she wants me to do it as a way to help desperate people find housing, which is fair, but it's like… what's next, Judy? Become a freaking used-car salesman like my old man and somehow make that morally righteous? Oh, find them a good deal! …Naw, ya dumb bunny, the world of sales will never be that… nice."

…

"Oh, no, Finn, the other option isn't to just stay unemployed, I actually already had something lined up that she didn't know about when she signed me up for realty school! I actually kinda-sorta just co-founded a private detective agency-"

…

"Yeah, I know, it's perfect, my thoughts exactly! All the cool parts about being a cop without alienating commoners and feeling like I'm blindly following my girlfriend! And I admit, I just got lucky, I just ran into a random Canadian guy who needed help relaunching his P.I. firm in the States so he doesn't get deported, and I know you're not supposed to go into business with your friends, but hey, I-"

…

"Oh, don't you start! I'm not replacing you, I… hell, were we actually friends, Finn? Or were we just that, business partners? Because I was secure enough to call you a friend, but you always would have said that was, and I quote, 'some gay shit.' Hey! Hey. Finn. It's 2021, you can't be saying vaguely-homophobic shit like that anymore! Just because you're dead doesn't mean they can't cancel you!"

…

"Yeah, I know you're not actually saying anything and that I'm just replying to what I think you'd be saying, but do you think that makes it any less real to me!? C'mon, Finn, I…" Nick looked around to make sure the two of them were alone. "...For better or worse, Finn, for the longest time there, you were the closest thing I had to someone I could confide in, and if I'd've known how things would end for you, I woulda made a point to make more time for you after I met Judy, and… goddammit, I miss you, dude. And I feel like an asshole for leaving you behind when I finally found a significant other, and that's why I'm here, I want your wisdom because I'm in a situation where I have to screw one or more people over and I wanna be the least assholey I can be!" The fox let out a long groan, refusing to believe he was saying this all out loud in a public space.

…

"...Okay, fine, so maybe I am trying to replace you… kind of. Hey, for a while there I was getting way too comfy with Judy being my ride-or-die, but… recent events have made me realize I need more than one person I can confide in. Because she's her own bunny, she can't always be the person I need her to be, no matter how close we are, and you're busy being dead and stuff, so…"

…

"Well if it makes you feel better… I'm gonna treat this new guy better, I learned my lesson with you. I'm not gonna be that guy who bails on his guy friends now that he has a female in his life."

…

"But that's the problem. It's not just the way that I've got this weird choice to do cop shit like a hustler or do hustler shit on the straight-and-narrow, it's more that…" Nick paused to readjust his position, sitting up against the headstone. "...I can do what makes my girlfriend happy… or I can do what makes a random guy I just met happy. Now, at this point, you live - lived in the same world I do, Finn, everybody would say put your romantic partner over your platonic friend, we both know that. But here's the catch! What's good for my friend is good for me too just by virtue of it being me making my own decisions! I wanna make her happy, but I refuse to believe that it's healthy to just always go along with whatever she comes up with for me to do."

…

"...Well, this is me doing it my own way. If I go with this new guy-"

…

"Well, yeah, when you put it that fucking way! The world is a big place and history is a long time, Finn, anybody could make the argument that anything anybody does is copying somebody else whether they realize it or not!"

…

"Oh… okay, that makes sense…" The fox blew some air out his snout as he shook his head, looking around the cemetery. Nick really missed birds; this moment could really have used birds tweeting in the background to add a soundtrack to it. And it was too early in the season to even have any cicadas setting the tone for that summer evening sunset, not that Zootopia had a lot of cicadas either. He could just imagine a flock of finches or robins or sparrows perched on the elephant statue a stone's throw away, chirping and singing to each other and making Nick feel less alone as he sat there with what remained of his old friend. "...I mean, would this just be me copying Howard instead of copying Judy?"

…

"Oh, uh, Howard's the, uh, Canadian guy's name, I… guess I didn't mention that yet…" He paused for a moment before clutching his head in his paws. "God, why can't I come up with any ideas for my own destiny!?" Another contemplative pause. "...Oh yeah, I did do that once, I did that for the longest time, and it made me into an asshole! Hell, maybe I have such a deep-seated self-image of being an asshole that I lack the confidence to make a big decision on my own that won't hurt anybody! And my inner little kit who wanted to be a good guy is so disgusted that I was that asshole for twenty years that now it feels like I need a grown-up to guide me because I can't be trusted to guide myself!"

…

"No, no, that's not the problem, I'm not afraid to ask for help, nobody's truly independent in this life, that's just some American Wet-Dream myth, God knows I wouldn't've gotten as far as I did in this town if I hadn't run into you. What's bugging me about this is…"

His animal instincts demanded he keep looking around for danger, and his social instincts demanded he keep looking around for someone who might hear him spilling his guts to a hunk of marble.

"...So earlier tonight, Judy actually accused me of stealing my personality from, uh, this guy I met when… you remember that one summer when I went back home for a while?" He stopped and did some counting on his claws. "No, wait, 2005, that was before I met you. So anyway, there was this guy I met there who'd made friends with my family while I was gone, and… everybody loved this dude, and, y'know, I was twenty-two, I was basically still a kid, I was still figuring out who the fuck I was, so yeah, maybe I took some inspiration from him, but just a little, y'know? I didn't wanna be a photocopy of the guy, God knows I woulda sounded like a freaking tool if I tried to copy his accent…but Jesus, if she needs proof that I'm still plenty different than that guy… man, Finnick, don't tell anybody I said this."

Finnick would not.

"...There's a lot of things I could point out to prove me and him are different foxes, but what's in the front of my mind right now is… everyone thought that guy was a badass, and a big part was because he was a good dude who did things his own way. I tried to do shit my own way, and on paper, I succeeded! But I was not a good dude. I only became one because I followed the lead of someone better than me, and I still can't figure out how to be a good mammal on my own! Hell, part of the reason my little brother was so jealous of the guy was because everyone saw him as a righteous leader - no one can accuse me of being that! I can barely lead my goddamn self, and when I do, it's not gonna be righteous!"

He stopped when he realized he was raising his voice, looking around once more to confirm nobody was there - which, ironically, made the scene an entirely different kind of alarming.

"I am screaming to myself in an empty cemetery," Nick muttered to himself, a paw over his eyes, "I should be KILLED."

…

"Yeah, yeah, I know you'd gladly kill me and take my life over, Finn, but that option's not on the table right now." One more groan of a sigh. "So I guess… that's the long and short of it - what!? No, Finnick, that was not a joke about you! You do not have a copyright on the word 'short'! God!" He rolled his eyes and got back on track. "So part of it is just a… karma sorta thing, I made my own choice that was bad, and now the choice I make to offset it has to be my own. But just in general, man, just… fuck, if I'm not making my own decisions in life, what kind of mammal am I? Am I even a man? Am I even an adult?"

And that was about the time Finnick asked his most poignant question of the night.

"...What would Little Nick in his Junior Ranger Scouts uniform want me to do?" He had to stop and actually ponder that. "...Honestly? He'd probably want me to build a time machine and stop my life from ever going wrong in the first place. Little Nick was a cute kit, but I dunno about making big decisions on the whims of children." He shrugged. "That was a good point, though, Finn… I can't let that poor kid down. Not when I'm so close to being who he wanted to be."

Nick wrapped an arm around his friend's headstone and padded it on what would have been his shoulder. "I'm glad I had you in my life, Finn. I might know everybody in this town, but there aren't a lot of 'em I'd choose to share this stuff with. I just hope I was good at being that guy to you, too."

…

"No, Jesus, Finn, I haven't told anybody about your kinks! What, you just think we sit around and talk about you when you're not around? You little fucker, are you a narcissist or are you just paranoid?"

"Is this how you spend your Friday nights?" asked the first other voice the fox had heard in a while. "Talking to yourself about kinks in a cemetery?"

Nick nearly snapped his own neck as he spun his head around to see a cop approaching him. He recognized this guy, of course: Brandon Lyons, ZPD for nine years, two cubs with a third on the way, really hated ranch dressing, really loved ZSU basketball, and faintly against Nick's decision to quit the Force but not losing any sleep over it.

And when Officer Lyons recognized Nick too, he stopped walking and dropped his scowl, instead just looking embarrassed. Nick knew what was coming and stood up.

"I spend my weekends hanging out with my friends, yes," he said plainly, gesturing to the grave.

Lyons gingerly walked around to see the front of the headstone, and looked spooked when he read the name and remembered hearing about it through the grapevine. "Aw, I'm, uh… sorry, Nick. But, uh…" The lion raised a paw to the sky, now a deep hue of purple. "...It was legally dusk five minutes ago, the cemetery's closed. I won't arrest ya, but I need you to head on outta here."

"Fair enough," the fox shrugged and walked off without saying anything more to the officer, only glancing back at the marker and saying, "See you again soon, Finn."

Howard was waiting at the gate when Nick got to the exit, standing under a streetlight that had just come on for the night.

"Was everything alright in there?" the raccoon asked as he tossed his cigarette butt into a sewer grate - the holes of which were very small to keep rodents from falling in. "I, uh.. I heard screaming."

Nick just nodded, lips pursed and a stoic look on his face, before he decided to make a proposal. "Hey, Sunshine… it's a Friday night. You wanna go have a drink somewhere? I owe you a fuckton of gas money, I'm buying."

Even though the fox wasn't looking all too excited about his own suggestion, the raccoon couldn't say no to some free alcohol.

-IllI-

Nick tried to stay as quiet as possible when he got home, and he mostly succeeded. Good hunting instincts and all that. He likewise had no trouble navigating the space in the dark, though the digital clock on the kitchen microwave reading "12:31" nearly blinded him. He wasn't even that drunk; most of the night had been spent chatting up other bar patrons in hopes of finding leads for a gig and asking Howard how much of this detective stuff he could do by himself should Nick hypothetically not be available.

He didn't bother showering or slipping into some junky nightclothes, he simply doffed his duds and scooted in as gently as he could under the covers next to his beloved bunny, who was perfectly still and presumably fast asleep. Presumably.

"...For real, though, Nick, why do you smell like chocolate pudding?" she asked groggily, body not moving besides her mouth.

The fox wondered whether he should try to take a shower after all. But in the meantime, he could only think of one thing to say to answer his girlfriend's question. "Because I've lost control of my life."

And the sleepy rabbit giggled at the millennial pop-culture reference without even realizing that her tod wasn't joking.

-IllI-

"...Sheee haaad the siiiiiiightlesssss eyyyyyyyes, telllllin' meee nooo liiiiiiies, knockkkin' meee ouuuuut wiiith thossse Aaamerrrrriiicaaaaan thiiiiiiighs, nihhh nihhh nihhhhh nihhhhh nihhhhhhh, nihhh nihhh nihhhhh nihhhhh nihhhhhhh…"

Officer Dean Hudson was singing to himself in a low mumble to pass the time. While the rest of Zootopia was enjoying their Friday night, he was the one stuck with the task of reviewing the security footage from the Little Medium Mart incident, which in the current state of the ZPD was only now being seen by somebody more than twenty-four hours after it had occurred. It was presumed that whatever had happened was something that would not be worth tracking down and the business would just fall back on its act-of-God insurance, but somebody had to check just in case there was some evidence of it being an act of premeditated malice, and Hudson had drawn the short stick.

"Alright…" the polar bear murmured as he saw the antics of the two young clerks, "so the fox is a Nazi, good to know…" He didn't know the exact time of the occurrence, so he couldn't simply skip to it and get it over with, but he had the idea that maybe he could play the video in time-and-a-half speed to get there faster. And no sooner did he toggle the playback settings than the strange entity burst onto the scene.

"...What the fuck?" Hudson audibly asked. He quickly paused, rewound, reset the player to real-time speed, and watched it unfold all over again. Then he watched it again. Then he watched it again. Then he watched it again, and he kept watching it until his face hurt from squinting.

The fact that the convenience store had been using a security camera that was perhaps older than the two employees manning the register certainly wasn't helping him decipher what this anomaly was. To say this was filmed with a potato would be an insult to the recording capabilities of tubers. A flip-phone from the Bush administration could probably have painted a clearer picture than this. All Officer Hudson could make out was a blur of black and orange-yellow pixels.

And yet… upon rewinding a little bit further and reviewing the events immediately preceding the disturbance, he could make out everything else clearer. The image fidelity was still horrendous by modern standards, but he could still make out all the other shapes on the screen pretty well. When the fox kid absentmindedly did the sieg heil salute, it had been no issue to see it with enough definition. It was simply this… thing that seemed to defy technology and wouldn't allow itself to be captured on film. It was almost like whatever this creature was, was something from outside the realm of nature.

Well, time to break out the reinforcements, Dean thought to himself in his head this time as he minimized the program and opened up a new one, a software designed to analyze photos and videos to determine what might at first seem an indeterminate species, be it a sapient individual or a random insect on the sidewalk. It wasn't completely flawless, but you could count on a paw or two the number of instances where it had incorrectly identified a species in the hundreds of cases where they'd had to use it. And the grainy footage shouldn't be an issue, either; they'd used this baby on videotape footage from the Eighties for cold cases and it had still worked like a charm.

He uploaded the video file and jumped to the relevant section, scrolling frame by frame to try to find the best image he could to work with. Just to be safe, as a control variable, he had it scan everyone else in the scene first, highlighting them by drawing a box around them; sure enough, it recognized the fox as a fox and the rabbit as a rabbit and the sloth as a sloth. Feeling confident that this would be no challenge for the computer, he clicked and dragged his cursor diagonally to section off the creature of interest. A right-click to run the program, and the software got to thinking.

And it took its sweet time, but Hudson wasn't worried. He knew it would take a second with the quality of the footage, so he waited patiently. He took out his phone to Zoogle the lyrics he'd forgotten from the song he was singing above to pass the time, and while he was reflecting on the fact that he'd always thought that the words were made a man out of me but were actually made a meal out of me and that the lyrics were far dirtier than he remembered, his periphery picked up a notification popping onto the screen. The computer had its final answer, and what it said nearly made the polar bear's eyes burst out of his head.

Species could not be determined.

Dean threw his paws in the air. "Oh, that is fucking cheating!"