Chapter Text
“You say justice is dead, I say Neighhh —”
The phone buzzes beside him, the screen lighting up with a familiar, bunny-eared contact photo and accompanying text message:
Carrots - 8:47 PM
I MISS YOU
His own ears redden in a goofy flush of happiness. Thank God the only ones around to see it are an empty peanut butter jar and Mayor Winddancer’s rippling mane on the TV.
Nick puts The Neighsayer 3 on mute, wipes his paw on his shirt, and settles back against the couch cushions with his phone, typing.
You - 8:48 PM
Miss you too, partner. How’s everything at Chez Hopps?
Carrots - 8:49 PM
BORING
Another text in all caps, he notes as he makes a long reach for the can of soda sitting out on the coffee table. She must really be stressed. Poor Carrots.
He takes a quick swig of his room temperature Koala Kola, using the thumb on his other paw to tap out his reply.
You - 8:50 PM
Lost your holiday spirit already, Fluff? How could baking 278 batches of cookies possibly be boring?
Just kidding. I’d rather eat my weight in mistletoe.
Seriously, what else is there that’s better to do in Bunnyburrow during the holidays?
(Other than talking to the better half of Wilde & Hopps. Obviously.)
Carrots - 8:51 PM
🍆🍆🍆 💦
Nick raises an eyebrow. Is Judy Hopps — self-appointed arbiter of anniversaries, queen of mixed signals, grandmaster at blurring the lines between friendship, partnership, and every other ship therein — sending him sexually coded veggie emojis?
Eh, probably not. Just a couple of typos. But that doesn’t mean he can’t take advantage of this little opportunity to send a few mixed signals of his own. It’ll give them something nice and awkward to discuss during next week’s Partners in Crisis session.
The fox’s smirk broadens into a naughty grin as he composes his response.
You - 8:53 PM
You talking dirty to me, Carrots?
He hits ‘send’ and has another swig of soda, anticipating Judy's admonishment to get his head out of the gutter.
The phone buzzes again.
Carrots - 8:54 PM
I LOVE TO GET DIRTY 🍑 👋 😍
Nick chokes midgulp on his soda. What. The. Fuck.
He hastily scrolls back through the last few messages, convinced that he has just suffered an aneurism or retinal detachment or stepped into some kind of bad rom-com alternate reality. Is he reading this right?
Three eggplants. Water ‘droplets.’ A stated affirmation that she loves to get dirty, followed by one peach, a waving hand (ha), and heart eyes.
Yeah, he’s reading this right. Which means someone spiked every gallon of carrot nog in the Tri-Burrows, but it takes two to tango, and if this is how Judy wants to go about taking the next step in their relationship, then by God, Nicholas Piberius Wilde is ready to dance.
You - 8:57 PM
Oh, I’ll let you help me wash my carrot anytime, fluff.
Carrots- 8:58 PM
CAN I USE MY SPECIAL SOAP, MR NICK? 🧴
Mr. Nick’s phone is promptly assaulted by a spluttered mouthful of Koala Kola, and, appropriately, also his pants.
He wipes the screen dry with his shirttail, wheezing. Holy shit. Holy shit. How long has Judy been holding out on him like this? Is he really lucky enough to have a partner that’s smart, strong, gorgeous, and filthy-minded?
Frazzled, he takes a few cleansing breaths (holy shit!) and fires off the sauciest response he can think of.
You - 9:01 PM
‘Mr. Nick?’ Hmm, I gotta admit, I’m really liking the vibe here, Carrots.
Keep it up, babe…and take me higher.
One minute passes. Then two.
Nick finishes the rest of his soda, growing antsy. Has he just been hung out to dry?
Three minutes.
He starts up a game of Pandy Krush, trying to distract himself.
Four minutes.
The clock on the status bar reads 9:05 when his phone finally buzzes in his paw. He rushes to open the message, very, very eager to see what Judy has in store for him next.
Carrots - 9:05 PM
Hi, partner.
Hmmm. The sudden lack of suggestive emojis and double entendres is a little odd, but less is more, right? No point in rushing into things. After all, they have an entire selection of fresh produce to explore. Plus the GIF keyboard.
You - 9:06 PM
Not quite, my fuzzy little meter maid. Repeat after me: *Mr. Nick*
You - 9:06 PM
(Not my words. Your words.)
Carrots - 9:07 PM
Agree to disagree. *Maisie’s* words.
Nick’s eyes lock in on ‘Maisie,’ and his blood runs cold.
Five-year-old Maisie Jane Hops, the youngest of Bonnie and Stu’s gaggle of kits, is the spitting image of Judy at the same tender age. But whereas her big sister had entered the world wearing a firm moral compass on her sleeve, Maisie was born the textbook definition of chaotic neutral – a purple-eyed tiny terrorist, all wrapped up in a cheerful, fluffy little bundle of zero fucks given. Young Judy had asked Santa for a toy police badge and hat for Christmas. Maisie skipped the middleman, called up the other St. Nick at the ZPD, and asked for a burner phone and new identity.
Nick adores Maisie.
He would go to his grave remembering the fallout of the kit’s recent birthday party, which had been marked by Maisie doling out her own brand of vigilante justice after Mrs. Juniper, the neighborhood curmudgeon, kept issuing complaints from her front porch about Bonnie and Stu allowing their brood to play hide-and-seek with a sly, wicked fox.
Having finished opening gifts and blowing out the candles on her carrot cake (gleefully sporting her new pink Pawaiian shirt, courtesy of the aforementioned fox), Maisie had quietly slipped out of the warren, stolen Mrs. Juniper’s mobility scooter out from under her nose, and proceeded to take a joyride straight through the grouchy old coot’s heirloom tomatoes.
Nick’s keen sense of hearing meant he was the first to arrive on scene. He found Maisie lounging in what remained of the garden, covered in pulp and unconcernedly munching on a ripe Bunny Best tomato as Mrs. Juniper ranted and raved about undisciplined kits and where were the parents and destruction of property.
Judy was on site next, followed by Bonnie and Stu, who upon seeing the wreckage decided that they were officially Done With This Shit. One child with a magnet for mayhem was plenty, but exceeding this number risked the possibility of them losing their goddamn minds.
As Judy hauled the birthday girl off for a bath, Bonnie declared that there would be no more buns put in her oven, and Stu, in fear of his wife’s fertility and their insurance adjuster, hurried home to schedule his vasectomy. Nick had the misfortune of witnessing this TMI tête-à-tête in its entirety and was looking forward to dousing his brain in the nearest bucket of bleach, but ended up getting stuck with the task of charming a justifiably pissed-off senior citizen into not filing a police report.
The phone buzzes again. Bracing himself, Nick takes a reluctant peek at the screen.
9:12 PM
MR NICK LOOK LOL LOL 👀 💩 💩 👻 😆
His worst fears confirmed, he claps a paw over his eyes with a groan, and slinks down an inch or two on the lumpy sofa cushions. Has he really just spent the last fifteen minutes innuendo-ing his ass off with the object of his affection’s little sister? He’s fond of all of Judy’s siblings, simply by virtue of them being related to Judy, but Maisie is the only mammal to ever look at him like he had hung the moon, right from the moment she laid eyes on him.
Yet another mocking buzz from the phone. Nick warily peers between his claws and looks at the message.
9:14 PM
Still with me there, partner?
Nope! His old faithful friend, crippling embarrassment, is the only partner he will be keeping company with for the foreseeable future, thanks very much.
More buzzing, now accompanied by the tell-tale ring of an incoming MuzzleTime call.
Cringing, Nick reluctantly taps ‘Accept.’ Because making a complete ass of himself via SMS wasn’t bad enough.
Tail-curling mortification aside, his heart skips when the call connects and he sees Judy’s amused smile. Maisie sits on her lap, floppy ears damp from the bath, clad in a faded pair of pink Pawaiian print pajamas.
(These were the compromise after sustaining multiple bloody noses due to repeatedly tripping on the too-long hem of her birthday Pawaiian shirt. It was not designed for a kit-sized frame, but she persisted in wearing it anyway, and pitched a Cat Five shitfit when Stu reasonably suggested buying a new one. Bonnie’s offer to remake the garment into new pjs and a couple of dresses was met with greater enthusiasm, allowing an armistice to be reached. This did not stop Nick from feeling like an idiot when he later caught wind of what happened, or falling over himself with apologies for giving Maisie a shirt that resulted in her spending the better part of a month being her own occupational hazard. But none of that debacle compares to the catastrophe he has found himself in now.)
“Well, look who it is,” Nick exclaims, “Officer Hopps and my favorite culprit.” (He is careful to imbue his voice with 😎, and not what he is actually feeling – 🫠😳😱)
Maisie perks up, interest piqued. “What’s a culprit?”
“The best kind of rabbit there is,” he counters, still going for 😎. “How’s it going, turnip? And Officer Hopps,” he adds, wanting Judy to know that he is interested in how her day went, too.
Maisie’s sunny disposition darkens into a scowl.
“I was trying to dig holes in Mrs. Juniper’s garden and mom caught me,” the kit heatedly informs him, “so she made me pick all the winter eggplant because she was canning today and then I had to go shower because I got dirt in my fur but I got into trouble again because I used my rainbow soap to wash the eggplants off while I was in the shower instead of washing them in the kitchen sink like we’re supposed to, and the only thing I like canned anyway is peaches but the lids are always too tight for me to open by myself and that means I can’t eat them straight out of the jar how I like to.”
This litany of grievances is offered up in a single, uninterrupted breath, and casts a very different light on ‘Judy’s’ previous text messages.
“Eating food out of the jar means leaving your germs behind for everybody else,” Judy reminds her.
Maisie shrugs. "Worth it."
Nick surreptitiously nudges his empty jar of peanut butter out of sight with his elbow and changes the subject.
“Why were you in Mrs. Juniper’s garden, anyway?” he asks, confused. Technically the kit isn’t supposed to be within ten yards of the property line.
A wicked gleam enters Maisie’s big, innocent eyes. “I wanted to plant foxglove.”
It takes Nick a second to parse out this logic, and damn if he isn’t impressed once he connects the dots: Foxglove flowers, blooming in the garden of the bigoted, fox-hating neighbor.
He swallows hard, touched, but he conceals the onslaught behind a genuine, if wobbly, ear-to-ear grin as Judy playfully ruffles Maisie’s ears.
The kit lunges towards the screen as she makes a grab for the phone, giggling. “Can I show him the Five Nights At Ferret’s filter?”
“Absolutely not,” Judy answers, voice flat. “Here, play with this...”
Both rabbits briefly drop out of view as she removes her FurBit from around her wrist and hands it to Maisie.
“Ooh, ‘Snake!’”
Judy reappears on the screen, partially framed by the tips of Maisie’s ears. “FurBit game,” she explains, anticipating Nick’s question. “So…” She folds her arms and sits back in her chair, smirking at him through the screen. “You want to tell me about the Chief temporarily reassigning you to parking duty?”
Thanks a lot, Clawhauser, Nick grumbles to himself, mildly irritated.
He gives Judy his most winning, who’s-your-favorite-fox-I’m-your-favorite-fox smile.
She sends him a look.
Oh, well.
He plows ahead anyway. “What can I say, Carrots? My partner abandoned me to go on vacation and I was just tragically left to my own devices.”
“You were abandoned for one day,” Judy retorts. “Fess up.”
Knowing he’s been caught – not that he cares, this was one of his better pranks and he has zero intention of not taking full credit, even if it meant being condemned to the joke mobile for a week – Nick agreeably obliges her request.
“I, uh, may have invited myself into our intrepid leader’s office and done a little redecorating while he was at lunch today.”
“And what do you mean by ‘redecorating?’” Judy pointedly inquires.
She’s thumping her foot under the table; he just knows it.
“I covered the place in Post-it notes.”
Judy’s expression grows twice as exasperated.
“It wasn’t anything major,” he insists, and starts ticking off the list on his claws. “Just his computer monitor, a couple of wall plaques…”
He pauses, wanting to build up the anticipation.
“And?” Judy prompts, knowing damn well that there is more to come..
“Chair,” he continues without missing a beat, “filing cabinet, waste basket,” he switches the phone to his left paw, having run out of claws on his right, “the desk – the top and all three sides of course, because like I always say, if you’re going to do something, do it right the first time.” He’s never made such a boneheaded statement before in his life, but, details. “You know how it is with good old Chief Beef, though,” he finishes, and flashes Judy another rakish grin. “No sense of humor at all. Walked in, walked out, and boom – parking duty.” He utters 'parking duty' in a reasonable imitation of Chief Bogo's voice, but Judy is unimpressed.
Her head drops into one paw with a muttered, “Sweet cheese crackers…”
“You know you miss me,” he teases, and mugs for the camera.
She lifts her face back up, meeting him with a roll of the eyes and a smirk of her own. “Do I know that? Yes,” she primly agrees. “Yes, I do.”
“I remember him!" Maisie pipes up. "He was the guy who got really mad that time I called you and we sang ‘We Don’t Talk About Bogo?’”
Judy sighs and moves the phone down, bringing her sister back into view again.
“And would you know what," Nick remarks, dropping his voice to a conspiring tone, "Once he was done stuffing me in the waste basket yesterday, he told me that he secretly wants encore performance. What do you think, Turnip? Ready to get the band back together?" He sees the glare Judy is aiming his way and smoothly continues, "But it'll have to be a pre-recorded concert, because you're not supposed to call us at work unless it’s an emergency. Remember?”
The kit cocks a leery eyebrow in the manner of any self-respecting mischief maker who finds themselves in the position of being questioned by an outside party. Nick recognizes the expression, having seen it regularly in the mirror since the day Judy bunny-punched his conscience back to life.
“No one would play witches with me and I needed to cast a spell,” she protests, sounding a little forlorn. Maisie was Stu and Bonnie’s oops baby, younger than her siblings by several years and often found herself without a playmate when she wasn’t at school. “I couldn’t find a grownup. It was an emergency.”
Judy’s head falls back into her paw with a groan, but to be fair, she was never made privy to the finer details of that particular phone call to the ZPD — primarily because Nick had found the whole thing to be hilarious, and was more than willing to procrastinate on doing his actual work in favor of having his ear talked off about why conjuring a fire goblin in the carrot patch required many, many matches and if he had any recommendations for a really effective hex.
(He did not.)
He still held a stern discussion with Maisie afterwards about fire safety, of course — he wasn’t completely incapable of setting a good example — but he also didn’t think it was fair for her to be scolded twice, and so never ended up telling Judy the whole story when she later found out that Maisie had called him at work. Again.
“Maisie —”
“Uh, speaking as one agent of evil to another,” Nick interjects. “Turnip, we talked about this. Witches and matches — they don’t mix. You can't summon a fire goblin if you've melted a hole in your cauldron.”
He can tell by the sullen set of Maisie’s ears that she isn’t buying any of this.
He tries a different tactic.
“Look, once you're older and a little less flammable, I’ll show you how to play with fire all you want — kidding, Carrots — but right now? Not being able to find the little sticks that go whoosh isn’t an emergency.”
The kit’s gaze grows mutinous. “It is if you need to prove you’re a real witch.”
“Hunnybun, bedtime,” Bonnie’s voice calls from the hallway, sparing Nick from being dragged into an argument with an aspiring sorceress that he will undoubtedly lose.
Maisie leans towards the phone, closing in on the camera until her face fills the entire screen.
“I found Bunnies and Burrows,” she tells him intently. “Someone put it in the compost pile by accident. Can you bring us another one?”
Nick’s smile grows a little fixed. He is the someone who put the book in the compost pile, and he sure as hell had not done it by accident. The Bunnies, Burrows and Hand Grenades incident was a clusterfuck that he does not care to repeat, and only happened because he had been so hung up on impressing Judy’s parents.
Gary De’Snake’s family reunion was Nick’s first opportunity to interact with Bonnie and Stu in a casual setting. A chance to demonstrate that he was a Fine, Upstanding Fox, the very best of carnivora canidae. In the span of one afternoon, he could dispel any lingering doubts whether Nicholas P. Wilde was an mammal of integrity, moral fiber and good character, who, through his own Hard Work and Dedication™ had earned the privilege of wearing a ZPD badge, and was worthy of being their daughter’s partner and trusted friend.
Or…something. Mainly he just needed them to believe that he didn’t want to eat Judy.
He was in the midst of slinging pawpsicles for a bunch of kits coked up on Red Dye #5 when Bonnie and Stu casually invited him to join Judy on her next weekend home to Bunnyburrow. Success! He’d done it! Fine, Upstanding Fox Achievement: Unlocked!
Riding high on this accomplishment, Nick sailed off to give Judy her gift, and it wasn’t until after the party was over and he was dabbing Jumbo Pop stains out of his tie that he realized:
One, Judy was surprised by his knack with children, but he couldn’t blame her because the only kid she had seen him interact with was Finnick and God knows that didn’t count.
Two, the youngest of the Hopps crew was his favorite and had no business being in the vicinity of a helium tank again, ever.
Three, Judy was headed back home that weekend, and he was going to screw everything up.
Desperate to continue building upon his now-established reputation of being a really swell guy, or at least not wanting to gobble Judy up for dinner, Nick kicked his ego to the curb and sought out the advice of an expert.
Dr. Fuzzby spent the first twenty minutes of the session showering him with labeled positive praise and earnest affirmations of what wonderful progress he was making in Dysfunction Junction 101. With the exception of fraud, Nick had never been a star student in anything, especially not Feelings, and the experience of anyone relentlessly piling on the compliments left him wanting to bolt out the door screaming ‘Coconut’ at the top of his lungs. But he kept his safe word to himself and gamely held out until the diminutive little therapist finally circled back to the actual point of his visit.
Why not, she soothingly suggested, read a story to the younger members of Judy’s siblings?
Not exactly an original idea, but one that was feasible and easy to execute. Off he went to Boars and Noble. The salesquirrel in the children’s section was happy to help, and after paging through the books she had recommended, Nick concluded that he did not know what the hell he was doing and picked a title at random. Bunnies, Burrows and Hand Greens it would be. And based on the enthusiastic response he received from his fluffy little audience a few days later when storytime rolled around, it seemed he had made a perfect selection.
He had not made a perfect selection.
Nick was a few pages into Chapter One: Bloody Tails and Even Deadlier Trails when he discovered his error. He had misread one keyword in the title – it was not ‘Hand Greens’ but ‘Hand Grenades,’ and the brightly smiling rabbits on the cover were holding not unripened potatoes, but munitions. How was he supposed to know that Bunnies and Burrows was a spinoff of Puppy Playtime, the smash-hit horror video game series that featured clever world building, immersive gameplay, and a manically grinning cadre of homicidal toys? And what kind of douchebag software developer would gear the entire franchise towards kids?
He was quick-witted enough to kluge together a happily-ever-after story that by sheer dumb luck adhered to Puppy Playtime canon, which he knew fuck-all about, and no bunny seemed the wiser when he began skipping multiple pages at a time in his haste to reach the gory end of Chapter One. The minute everyone was asleep, he crept out and found the compost pile, shoved the book under some wilting cabbage leaves, and feigned bafflement when it was nowhere to be found the next morning.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Nick apologises. “Boars and Noble’s closed for the night.” Boars and Noble does not close until eleven and he is lying through his teeth. “But I’ll see what I can do.” He won’t, because he refuses to buy merch that is going to set a kid up for a lifelong complex about stuffed animals lurking around corners waiting to murder her.
“Please?” Maisie says, wheedling.
Arrgh.
“Maisie Jane Hopps, I’m not going to tell you again!”
Bonnie’s voice holds the time-honored maternal note of final warning, and Maisie responds with the traditional whine.
“But I’m not tired…” Her protest ends in a yawn, and she does not argue further as Judy nudges her off of her lap.
“Time to scoot, bun-bun,” she says, pressing a kiss between Maisie’s drooping ears. “I’ll come tuck you and Cotton and Clover in in a minute.”
The kit reaches up to Judy for a hug, then turns to give the phone a quick wave.
“See you tomorrow, turnip,” Nick tells her, smiling.
“’Kay,” she drowsily answers through another yawn. “Bye, Uncle Nick.”
“Night, Maisers. Sleep tight –”
Bye, Uncle Nick.
Nick’s reply dies in his throat. Wistful dreams sweep towards him, tangling him in a web of uncertainties, and if he’ll ever have the guts to walk away from the lonely confines of stolen street signs and a battered green couch.
Weirdly, it’s the token string of Christmas lights hung up on the wall that gives him hope. He can’t erase the last twenty years, but Judy shines fiercely through the scars of his past as Maisie blithely twinkles around the shadows, letting him experience an illusion of a slate wiped clean.
The scars are permanent, the illusions are fleeting, and the slate will never be clean, but he’s not alone anymore. Slowly, he is starting to believe it.
Bye, Uncle Nick.
Three ordinary words, instinctively spoken and meant only for him.
Time narrows, the world grows still. A pinpoint is formed, marking this moment in his life in splashes of purple sunsets and brilliant yellow daybreaks, but before either Nick or Judy can react, a little paw reaches for the screen, and the connection goes dark.
~ MuzzleTime call ended ~