Disclaimer: Zootopia and all Canon characters are owned by Disney. All other characters, product names, trademarks, and copyrights belong to their respective owners.
…..
"Nice and easy. Don't overthink it. One clean tap, and you're good to go."
Judy wiped away a drop of sweat from her brow. She focused, mentally judged every angle, changed her grip slightly for a more solid feel, concentrated at the level she did during sniper practice, and… and…
…slammed the egg down on the edge of a mixing bowl.
Causing it to explode in her paw and splatter raw egg yolk on the counter, fling slimy egg whites on her apron, and have to pick eggshell bits out of her fur.
"Sorry," said Judy, nibbling at her bottom lip.
"It's okay," said Nick, wiping the egg parts into the sink with the two other failed 'cracking' attempts.
"It slipped."
"I know. You don't need to grip it quite so tight. Think of an egg as a delicate flower versus a perp whose head you have to bust open. Visualize—"
"A light hit with nunchakus?"
"A very light tap, with no bunfu leadup."
Judy nodded, picked up another egg, and relaxed. She let her chi flow and calmed her breathing. She closed her eyes and felt her heartbeat slow from a pounding drum to the steady flow of a babbling brook. All was good. Gently. Not too tight, not too loose. A light tap, no gunplay.
*crack*
"I did it! I can cook. This is great. Wait until I tell my mom, she'll totally freak out."
"Yes, yes, probably not as much as I am right now, but yes. Let's finish with the pancake mix, and then you can call your mom."
-/-/-
"Good morning, Ben," chirped Judy, "You won't believe what I did this morning, the first time ever without using a fire extinguisher, too!"
"I had one ready to go just in case," added Nick, stepping out of a bunny hip bump of faux annoyance.
Ben's muzzle lit up, although it always did whenever his favorite couple stopped by his desk to talk. "That sounds wonderful, what did you do?"
"Nick taught me how to cook pancakes, and they tasted really good."
"He did? That's terrific, and yummy. How did the rest of your first official day of being his fake girlfriend go?"
"Well…" smirked Judy, "Nick was great helping me move all my stuff in, and he cooked a delicious welcome dinner, but you're going to totally laugh at his pajama fail."
Ben smiled big and, settling into his chair, said, "Pajama fail?"
"Yes…"
…..
"Are you okay there, Slick? That box isn't too heavy, is it? I still can't believe we got everything moved in one trip," said Judy, walking backward carrying two bags of cans, dry food and a full backpack of household items. "Probably a good thing most of our clothes were already at your place."
"Yeah, except I take exception to the word 'most,'" chuckled Nick, carrying a decent-sized box stuffed full, along with a full wolf-sized backpack of clothes. "I didn't realize how much of my stuff I still had at your place and how much of a closet clotheshorse you really were."
Judy bounced over to Nick and gave him a little hip-bump, "I think you're just showing off how muscley you are. Any normal fox would have made two trips."
"Au contraire, my fuzzy fake girlfriend, any ordinary fox would have needed three trips. Fortunately for you, though, it was pure happenstance that you remembered that you'd squirreled away your luggage in your neighbor's storage cage, and we were able to fill up multiple conveyances so that your new fake boyfriend could schlep all your bunny junk across hither and yon and deliver it, and you, to your new humble fake abode."
"Six Metro stops and three blocks of walking."
"You say potato, I say please unlock the door before my back seizes up."
Judy rushed ahead, dropped her bags, and, pulling out her keys, unlocked Nick's apartment door.
Just in time, too. Nick grunted as he made his way into his, no, their apartment and set the full box and stuffed backpack on the floor.
"Thanks," said Judy, bouncing into the apartment.
"Come on. You can unpack our stuff and put it away while I get dinner going."
Nick's, and now Judy's, apartment was buzzing like a smoothly oiled machine. Boxes and backpacks were efficiently emptied, clothes folded to appropriate fox standards, not bunny standards since those more closely resembled piles on the floor, and put away in the appropriately designated tall dresser drawers. Historically, the top three drawers were for fox clothing, and the bottom two were for bunny garments. Now, with the new bedroom arrangement, singular, some rearrangement was agreed upon, and the middle drawer was converted into bunny storage.
Nick got the top shelf in the closet along with the short side hanger bar for his uniforms and nice clothes. Most of the longer hanger bar and the other short-side one were now filled with a large selection of casual bunny clothing, mostly gingham, uniforms, nicely pressed, and a few dresses that Judy had worn at the behest of Fru Fru when she visited the Big's estate sans her fox due to him wanting to avoid ending up a foxsicle.
"You really need to stop letting Fru Fru shop for you," commented Nick.
"Pfft," was Judy's retort as she held up a party dress she'd worn when she and Nick had gone to a ZPD fundraiser six months ago to help raise money for a new outreach program. "Don't give me that. Fru Fru let me pick from three, and after you made me try them all on, twice, this was your favorite."
Nick shrugged, "Yeah, and if we can find a party within ten minutes of here, maybe we can get dressed up and crash it."
"Not if you're going to wear another one of your ugly Pawaiian shirt, ugly tie, combos like you did last time."
"Such a thing for a fake girlfriend to say about her fake boyfriend's classic wardrobe."
"Please, please let me throw away your ugly ties, and all your Pawaiian shirts. Consider it a housewarming gift for your new bunny fake girlfriend who just moved in."
"But how can you declare today as a housewarming, move-in day when you've been leaving stuff here for over a year now?"
"Niiiick."
"One shirt, the green and pink one with the hole in the armpit."
"Two, the orange and purple one with the spaghetti stain has to go," said Judy, holding out her paw. "And if you need me to sacrifice something, I'll get rid of my jeans with all the rips in them."
Nick took Judy's paw and said, "Deal if you keep the jeans and throw away that burlap sack-shaped sweater your aunt knitted for you."
Shaking paws, the pair performed their agreed-upon clothing reductions and then sat down to dinner.
"Yum, this is delicious," moaned Judy. "With how good of a cook you are, I don't know why we even bother going out to a restaurant."
Baked salmon, asparagus browned in a cast iron pan, and Moroccan Couscous with pine nuts and raisins. And for dessert…
Nick and Judy made carrot ice cream with the mixer attachment Judy had given Nick as a birthday present and helped Nick use over a dozen times since then.
Empty ice cream bowls on the floor next to them, and a bad movie so bad it's good rolling its credits, Judy yawned as she cuddled up closer to her best friend, who adjusted his arm so it would stay wrapped around her.
"Thanks for helping my mom out with this hustle. Not many girls would be willing to go along with whatever crazy my mom got herself into."
Nick used the back of his finger to brush Judy's cheek fur smooth, then used his paw to pet her ears until he heard her purr.
"It's okay, we're best friends, and that's what best friends do for each other. We improvise, adapt, overcome, fake date their partners, and hustle their grandmothers. All normal best friend stuff."
Nick laughed.
So did Judy.
Nick continued his ear ministrations until Judy was purring again.
Judy's paw undid a button on Nick's shirt and slipped in to gently give him a belly rub.
Nick started to purr, too.
The TV screen went dark for lack of input, and—
There was a knock at the door, and Nick's phone pinged with an incoming text.
"Delivery," came a voice from outside the apartment door, followed by footsteps leaving.
"I didn't order anything, did you?" said Judy.
The paw, previously petting Judy's ears, picked up Nick's phone and held it up for Judy to see.
"Lambazon? Kind of late for a delivery, isn't it?"
Nick leaned back as he said, "I paid extra so it would be here before bedtime."
Disengaging themselves from each other, reluctantly, Nick and Judy made their way to the door, and low and behold…
Nick tore open the package and handed Judy the smallest of the inner packages.
"More clothes?"
"Yup," said Nick, tearing open a clear plastic-wrapped addition to his wardrobe.
Holding her package up, Judy saw a thick flannel, gingham patterned shirt and pants set and said, "Flannel Pajamas?"
"Uh-huh," said Nick, showing Judy his. "I figured in case my mom and grandma showed up in the middle of the night, we'd be wearing something nicer than we normally do when they burst into the apartment."
"Okay," grunted Judy. "But we don't wear pajamas to bed. You sleep in your boxers, and I usually wear a t-shirt."
"You mean you usually wear one of my t-shirts."
"Yours are more comfortable to sleep in," pouted Judy.
Nick stood and, with pajamas in paw, said, "I know it'll be a pain, but my mom's a little on the conservative side, and if she shows up and we're in our regular sleepwear, no matter how cute you are in it, she might freak.
"I'll change in the bathroom. You can use the bedroom. Okay?"
Judy nodded, "Sure, but if these pajamas aren't as soft as your fur, I'm going to need another pie."
Nick finally made it out of the bathroom. The pajamas he'd ordered turned out to be a lot more difficult to put on than the product description let on, and they were uncomfortably hot. Thick fur and a full-body flannel outfit that might as well be a snowsuit didn't mix well.
Stepping into the bedroom, Nick made his way to the lump under the bedcovers with a cute bunny head sticking out.
"So, how do I look?" asked Nick.
Judy chuckled, "I like the tail sleeve. All you need is a hood, and you'll have the whole kit's onesie look going on."
Nick reached behind his neck and pulled a hood over his head and ears.
Judy pulled back the bedcover and patted the mattress in front of her.
Nick rolled his eyes, "You're not wearing your new pajamas."
Judy patted the bed again and said, "No, no, I'm not. And in a minute, neither will you. So, get your fuzzy tail over here, and let me help you take those ridiculous pajamas off. It's late, we've got a big day tomorrow, and your fur is definitely a lot softer than those itchy flannel PJs you bought for us."
…..
"…So, too funny, huh?" said Judy to Ben, who'd had the same look of coo-overload on his face for the last few minutes of Judy's story.
Ben looked like he wanted to uber-coo, but couldn't because his brain had seized up.
"Do you think he's okay?" asked Judy, waving her paw in front of Ben's face. "Did I say something too weird?"
Nick looked closer at Ben and said in a loud voice, "Blink once if you need us to call an EMT, twice if you're okay."
Nothing…
"Wait," said Judy. "I think…"
Ben blinked once.
Nick pulled out his phone as he and Judy continued to watch for signs of life.
Ben blinked again.
"Yup, he's fine," said Nick, putting his phone away. "Help me with some coffee in the breakroom? They still haven't moved the coffeemaker down low where I can get to it by myself."
"Sure," replied Judy, giving her fake boyfriend a light hip bump as their daily routine began to unfold.
"You know you missed the part about the foot rub I gave you after you helped me take off my pajamas."
"How about you give me another foot rub tonight, and I'll tell the story right tomorrow."
Ben's ear twitched as the voices it had been tracking faded down the hall towards the breakroom, followed by…
…Ben blinked once.
-/-/-
Judy unlocked the apartment door, and Nick carried in the painting supplies they'd picked up during their lunch break. Fortunately, they'd been called to a Den Depot to settle a dispute that arose during a wall texturing demonstration. The demo got out of paw when one contractor disagreed with another on the proper technique to use for applying knockdown texture to new drywall.
Each mammal mixed his own texture according to their own specs, filled their texture gun hoppers, set their compressors to their defined pressure, and…
"You're going to need to throw your uniform in the laundry. Those guys both got you a little in between spraying each other down with texture."
"Yeah," said Nick, looking at his lightly splattered shirt and pants. "Remind me to wear my ballistic gear the next time we're called to a hardware store for anything."
Judy giggled, "You were cute trying to get those guys to stop texturing each other before I pulled the plugs on their compressors."
"Right, and as you so aptly pointed out, this fox doesn't know his way around home improvement tools as well as his bunny fake girlfriend does, which means," Nick took a knee, bowed his head, and said, "train me oh master of the paint, you are my liege, and I am but your padawan learner."
Judy regally lifted her nose as she motioned toward her supplicant with a brush and said, "Well said, today, in return for a backrub later, I shall impart upon you the painting wisdom of the ages. You will learn preparation is everything and drop cloths are always to be used."
"Thank you, my Senpai. What is the first step your Kohai must take to be on the path to painting enlightenment?"
Tapping Nick on the head with the bristles of her brush, Judy said, "The first step in painting is to change into our painting clothes."
…..
"What are you wearing?"
"My painting outfit," replied Nick, holding a roller in one paw and a brush in the other.
"Did you order that when you ordered the pajamas you wanted us to wear?"
"Maybe."
"You're covered ears to toes in a paper gown. How can you even see out that tiny slit in your mask?"
Nick turned and showed Judy his paper-wrapped tail. "I don't want my fur covered in 'Winter Orchard' splatters."
Judy ran her paws down her front and gave Nick her patented 'seriously' look.
Nick shook his head. Judy was wearing thigh-length cutoff jean shorts and an old t-shirt that had more holes in it than not over her gray sports bra.
"Are you telling me that you paint in that barely-there outfit, and your fur doesn't get splattered?"
"Yup. It's all in the tools you use and how you use them. And for some, watching where they put their tail. That can get messy fast if you drag it through a roller tray full of paint."
"So, I'm ready then, right?" asked Nick, raising his brush and roller to their operational positions.
Judy opened up her paws and calmly and carefully approached Nick. She stepped softly so as not to spook the subject, and as soon as she was within arm's reach, she stopped and slowly said, "Everything's going to be fine. There's no reason to get excited or panic. I'm here to help. Just put the painting tools in my paws, and we can go over how to paint a wall properly."
Nick's ear twitched.
"It's all going to be okay. Just put the tools in my paws and step away from the paint can.
"But…" whined Nick, looking back and forth between his prized painting implements.
Judy, to her credit, held her ground and, using calming sounds, kept the situation under control. "Gently. It's all okay. Nothing bad will happen, I promise."
Nick relaxed and handed the brush and roller to Judy, who let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.
"Thank you. Now, take off that silly outfit, and I'll show you how to prep the room for painting."