Chapter Text
By the time they bring Bellwether back into custody, the rest of the ZPD has more or less rounded up the escapees from his prison break. Nick believes some semblance of peace and quiet has finally come his way, but he should know better. Since when has he had either after joining the force?
He's smiling to himself as he goes around and collects the mess in his home. Thankfully the space isn't large so it doesn't take that long. Their most recent discovery brought reptiles back to Zootopia in hordes. The raise he and Judy received wasn't massive, but after a bit of discussion they decided to spend their mandatory leave looking for new digs…together.
Nick hasn't shared a den with anyone since he lived with his mother but Judy's joy over the whole thing swallows up his anxiety…for now.
After changing clothes, Nick meets Judy a train stop away at their favorite coffee location.
She's already there, punctual despite Nick only being five minutes past their agreed time. The hybrid hasn't seen him yet, because his partner is talking rather animatedly with another rabbit hybrid Nick has never seen before.
The buck smiles fondly at Judy, an air of intimacy and familiarity that settles into Nick's gut like lead. It's not the first time he's seen Judy receive such attention and it won't be the last. His partner is undeniably pretty.
As he gets closer Nick looks around hoping to find something to do with his hands. Just as he thinks he's out of luck, there's a hand in his own, a firm shake accompanied by a smile. Judy grins around a sip of her coffee--iced, double shot Americano, with carrot cake cold foam.
“I'm Jack, Judy's brother. It's so nice to finally meet you, Mr. Wilde! She never stops talking about you.”
A shrill complaint comes from Judy, which he misses most of. Don't get Nick wrong, he's glad this male isn't a secret boyfriend Judy's been hiding behind his back, but meeting family--her family--might be just as intimidating. Stew and Bonnie had brought most of the younger Hopps’ to De’Snake’s welcoming party. They spent their time playing with Nick’s tail and asking why he didn't have any pie. Judy later explained the Hopps family has a working relationship with a fox who owned a bakery. All of those instances made it hard for Nick not to charm his way around meeting them.
“Please, just Nick. It's nice to meet you.”
Judy's then pulling Nick to their table, pushing a peanut butter, blueberry latte into his hand. When she discovered his drink order, Judy had laughed, not mockingly, but with a tender mirth that made Nick unbelievably gooey. The first sip--like all the others to follow--are more sugar than espresso.
Judy's mouth is running a thousand miles a minute and Nick loses himself in listening to her nonsense while his partner points to her brother--a real estate agent in Bunny Burrow and neighboring towns. Apparently Jack has a contact in Zootopia that owes him a favor and they're to meet with her to look over some two bedroom properties in their price range.
They leave right afterward and Lisa--a leopard hybrid--leads them into an incredibly modest but cozy enough space for the two of them, he thinks. Nick's only requirement is that their bedrooms be as far apart from one another as possible. He refuses to deal with his yearly rut while Judy is in the next room over, pheromone insulated walls or not.
Other than that though, Nick could give a shit how or where they live so he lets Judy fuss over everything. Each location gives Lisa a better idea of what Judy is looking for and on the fifth apartment Lisa goes giddy and pushes Judy into what would be her bedroom to show her the walk-in closet.
“You know,” Jack starts, “I've never seen her happy like this before.”
Nick's vast emotional unavailability leaves him to shrug and down the rest of his coffee but he's sure his cheeks are as red as his fur.
“You've told her, haven't you?”
“That she's a pain in my tail? Only everyday.”
Jack chuckles, “no, that you love her.”
Nick thanks every god he readily knows the names of that his drink is empty when it falls from his hand and onto the kitchen tile.
Hastily he scoops it up and tries his best to keep from rubbing the scent gland on his wrist to ease his discomfort. As odd as it is to be having this conversation with Judy's brother, Nick isn't a coward, he never will be. He still tries to underplay the choke hold his partner has on him because he promised Stew nothing questionable was going on between him and his little girl.
“I, well, obviously I love her. She's pack. And she said I'm her fluffle.” It's meant to tease, but Nick is too lovesick for it to land properly. Jack's lips quirk like Nick's told the funniest joke he's ever heard.
“We both know that's not what I meant, but fluffle is cute as hell.”
Nick's growing restless enough he doesn't notice when he starts thumbing over his wrist gland. He's got blocker on, obviously, so it's not like his scent is saturating the place, but it's still rude to do.
“It's…there is nothing to tell. I like things the way they are. She's not the only one who's never been this happy before. I'm content with where we are--what we are.”
Jack looks ready to object but then Judy and Lisa sweep back into the room. They're smiling at first and Nick can tell Judy is finally satisfied with this apartment and their search is over. Nick isn't the only one who can read his partner’s expression because Judy's eyes narrow at her brother, fierce and protective and powerful. She positions herself between him and Nick like an impenetrable wall even though he can see clear over her head for how short she is. All he has to do is shift his weight to look around her ears.
“What the hell! What did you say to him, Jack? You promised me!”
Thank gods for pheromone blocker because Nick doesn't even want to know how erratically his scent just spiked. Nick reaches forward and despite how his fingers shake, his palm settles softly over the juncture between Judy's shoulder and throat, the very place he would sink his canines into if he were to mate her. He can just barely see her scent gland poking out of the cuff of her pink t-shirt and without much thought he thumbs over the thing, an instinctual attempt to soothe her mood, very common pack behavior.
Judy nearly goes limp and Nick watches in real time how her pupils swell and her ears fall softly to her spine. He snaps his hand back and clears his throat, “it's okay, Carrots. He didn't say anything offensive.”
Nick has never seen Judy so…pliable. Thoughts run by unbidden and Nick realizes he has to try and get this--whatever the fuck this is--back on track.
“Anyway, Lisa, did Judy approve of the closet? Can we finally stop walking around? My feet are killing me!”
Lisa--bless her--picks up right where Nick left off. “Yes! All I have to do is get the paperwork and the key from the landlord and you two are welcome to move on in!”
After they both sign away 800 dollars a month for the next foreseeable years, Nick and Judy agree to go back to their old places to get their things. Which is good because Nick needs some space.
Finnick is nice enough to lend his time and his van, Jack sticks around to help place box after box on the floor in the living room, he even orders pizza and salad from the restaurant around the corner.
It's…nice.
After all their helpers return back to their respective homes, Judy steps away for a shower and Nick is left in a pile of both of their things.
Which at first is a bit overwhelming, good thing they have three more vacation days to get everything mostly sorted.
Nick isn't rude enough to snoop through Judy's stuff but everything in plan sight is fair game. She doesn't have a lot, but it's clear from her things Judy has always had a pack. Pictures of her enormous family take up an entire box and he can't help himself but to flip through the massive picture book.
Admittedly, Nick doesn't know a lot about Bunny biology. Hoping to learn something of use, he turns page after page.
It sneaks up on him, the pheromones that cling to their belongings begin to saturate the air and Nick isn't strong enough to keep himself sober and relocate. Judy's smell, of which Nick has only really caught whiffs, is rich in rosemary and lavender. Nick has always found solace in it, but he's never been exposed to her like this and before he can make the decision to leave, he's already scent drunk.
Comfort has never come to him like this before, Nick sinks to the floor and continues to turn the pages of the photo book in his hands. Even through the haze, Nick's perception doesn't stop working.
Young Judy is adorable, of course, but her face at some point between ages nine and ten--if the messy handwriting on the back is anything to go by--has her left cheek blooming with scratch marks.
With the years they've faded, and Nick never questioned it but if he squints hard enough they still stain her face, pale and dull, but obvious to anyone who knows where to look for them.
Judy had said it was a childhood accident with a chain link fence, but these pictures, fresh and raw and red, give her lie away.
A mammal did this to her. Nick glances down at his own healing hand and scowls. It doesn't make sense why Judy would lie to him but it's not his place to call her out on it.
The pages feel endless, like her family, and with him as pheromone high as he is there is no catching Judy rejoining him.
“Nick, you don't mind if I skip the blocker while we're home, right?”
Would there even be much of a difference at this point? His instincts are sluggish and even though he eventually makes eye contact he's sure it's rather obvious what kind of state he's in.
“Oh shoot.” She mutters and sits next to him on the floor, “are you alright?”
“Uh huh….”
Judy just giggles, like drugging him with her delicious scent is nothing but amusing.
“Don't worry about me, Fluff. I'm sure it can't get much worse than this. I'll adapt eventually.”
There's been no attempt to unstick himself from the floor below and he definitely has zero plans on moving when Judy starts dragging her nails through his fur so she can scratch behind his ears. Nick doesn't realize he's chuffing like a fool until Judy comments on it.
“I've never heard a buck do that. What's with the noise, Slick?”
It takes a moment for Nick to gain his bearings with any degree of accuracy. “Oh, uh sorry. It's a predator thing.”
Nick tries to pick himself up off the floor but all he can manage is lifting his head before Judy directs him right back down, and on one of her thighs no less. He grunts, but it's not a complaint.
“Can you explain it to me?”
Nick thinks it over, which is really hard to do because her fingers are back scratching his scalp and Nick is just about ready to roll over onto his back and submit. Part of him understands it's odd for a predator to feel such ease and to be brought there by a prey hybrid of all things is even stranger. There's no time or spare brain cells to analyze something like this so Nick bites, “hmmm, can't get nothing for something, Carrots. How about information for information. I'll tell you, only if you answer one of my questions.”
“Deal!”
Nick wonders if he'll ever tire of her enthusiasm.
“It's called chuffing. A lot of pred hybrids do it when they feel calm and happy and satisfied.” Nick leaves out the sexual aspects of this particular biological quirk. Maybe another time, when his cheek isn't pressed into the softness of her thigh.
“What did you wanna know?”
Maybe he shouldn't but, “here, in this picture”, Nick asks, dragging a finger over the image, “you told me you had a freak accident with a fence…but that's not true, is it?”
Judy's entire body tenses below him and her scent turns sour. It stirs him from the blanket of comfort that has settled over him.
“Your turn for a shower. I'll try to sort some things in the meantime. We can talk about it when you're not literally high off my pheromones.”
While Nick scrubs himself down he lets the steam from the shower clear his olfactory senses. It's hard for him to even believe he's as soft as he is for Judy, and as much as he loves to have her scent swallowing him, he also realizes that whatever Judy is going to tell him is very important. Why else would she have lied otherwise?
Nick dries his hair and fur just enough not to feel wet before swaggering back into the living area. He's only been gone ten minutes but Judy is nothing if not efficient. She's got their things in two clear piles and somehow found the time to set up the loveseat sofa in the middle of it all.
She smiles sweetly at Nick, patting the space next to her in encouragement. So Nick does as he's directed.
-----
“I was nine.”
They're both staring at a moving box directly before them. Judy never had any intentions of telling Nick the truth, her childhood trauma was going to go to her grave! But then he had asked, all sweet and gooey and high off her scent and Judy found herself unable to deny him anything.
Nick snorts, amused apparently. She looks at him incredulously, Nick only smiles, sharp teeth flashing.
“Trying to imagine what nine year old Judy was like.”
She blows him off completely, but a smile still finds itself on her face.
“I was nine.” She says once more, firmly, “I knew I was going to be a cop, even at that age. There was this mammal….”
Judy hates how she hesitates. How she withholds the truth like the experience still haunts her.
“A fox.”
Judy can’t tell if Nick tightening his hand into a fist is a reflex or not.
“The same one I told you that has a working relationship with my parents now. Anyways, when we were younger he spent a lot of time picking on us prey animals. One day I pushed back trying to defend some of my friends and well….”
She gestures to her face where the claw marks are permanently etched into her skin. Despite the pep talk Judy gave herself she’s still unable to maintain eye contact. The shame that curls in on her is suffocating.
After minutes of uninterrupted silence Judy finally grows the courage to look him in the eyes. Even though they haven't been partners long, Judy knows Nick and she knows she's never truly seen him angry before.
He's not looking at her, he's not looking at anything. Nick's eyes are screwed shut and his fists are closed even tighter. His next exhale comes from the center of his chest then whatever is happening inside of her partner is gone. He's cupping her jaw and angling her cheek just right so the light can catch the faint lines of her scars. The same exhale. The same careful consideration. The same fury. Nick's eyes look half crazed, agitated in a way she didn't think was possible for how laid back he always is.
Judy tries to placate him, to wash away those eyes, “he and I patched things up when I turned in my badge. He apologized. It's not a big dea-”
“-Stop. I’m going to stop you right there. He marked you, Judy.” He tells her, fingers squeezing her jaw not hard enough to hurt but just enough to grab her attention. His hair is still damp and when Nick shakes his head in disbelief the strands hardly budge. A laugh, crude and frustrated sounds, “you will not defend him to me. I don't care if he teaches Sunday school for orphans.”
Nick proceeds slowly, slow enough Judy has seven business days to react before Nick scents her. With his wrist pressed firmly into her throat Judy nearly goes limp beside him. It's the second time he's touched her there. They stay that way, huffing in their combined scent like a calm, woodland forest until the comfort starts to be replaced with arousal. Humiliatingly enough, it's coming from her, not Nick so she adjusts.
“Is this part of pack behavior or something?” Judy wonders through a forced laugh. Nick isn't laughing and his eyes are as hard as ever. “Yes. Does it bother you? I can sense when you're distressed, it's supposed to help.”
Sweet cheese and crackers.
If Nick's nose is good enough to detect minor changes in her mood there is no way he's not picking up the scent of her slick.
“I owe you an apology.” Nick says beyond bashful, “during the Night Howler Case after the press conference I backed you into a corner. You were still wrong about preds but I pushed you because I wanted you to be afraid of me.”
“Why?”
“It would have been so much easier than to admit how important you became to me in such a short period of time.”
The last thing she should do is scoot closer but she can't help it. If Nick can scent her so casually then what's stopping her? Judy tries to remember the last time she scented anyone. Long before she left for the academy. It's obvious what she's doing and Nick doesn't even bother trying to stop her. She gets the angle wrong, but the friction against her sensitive skin feels heavenly anyways.
Nick's eyes roll once she gets it right and his weight pushes her even closer until he can hold her wrist where he wants it. He makes that noise again, a deep rumble that nearly reminds her of an Omegan purr and Judy can do nothing but watch the scene before her with heavy eyes. He's beautiful on his worst days, but like this? Judy can only fear for her sanity.
When Nick finally pulls her wrist away she thinks she's safe to flee into her basically empty room but Nick isn't done throwing her off guard.
So much for the shower he took. He's once again drenched in Judy and his pupils are so wide the green she loves is completely negligible. Intoxicated Nick is one of her new favorites. He's not running his mouth or making jokes on her behalf. No, he's completely and utterly transfixed by her. Nick places a tender kiss on the center of her palm, then all five fingers before he seals his lips over her gland and sucks.
No lover Judy has ever taken dared to do such a thing. She gasps and can't control the groan that follows. Nick either doesn't realize what he's doing or doesn't care in the slightest as his tongue laps at her wrist forcing enough pheromones in the air to make her just as dizzy as him.
His chuffs only get louder and while Judy knows she should kick him off her, she can't manage it. There is no way to know how long they've been sitting there inhaling one another, it feels like forever has passed but simultaneously only two minutes. When Nick grazes her gland with his canines it should send alarm bells through Judy's drunk head, but it doesn't. Her Omega even seems thrilled. The next scrape of teeth has Judy moaning his name like it's the only thing she has left in her brain and just like that it's over.
Nick shoves himself away, jerking far enough the armrest catches his back. Her fox is apologizing. Useless ‘I'm sorry’ after ‘I’m sorry’ but all Judy can stand to pay attention to is the massive erection in his sweats.
His eyes follow her own and the speed at which Nick covers himself should be studied.
“F-fuck, I--gods, I'm sorry. I'm, uh…I'm gonna go cool off.”
He's in his room, sealed away and safe, before Judy has a say in the matter.