Chapter Text
Judy was climbing the stairs in her apartment building and it was boring, so she took out her phone and saw missed calls from her parents that she somehow hadn't heard. She wasn't used to having her own phone and after the debacle with Lionheart (not their fault, she reminded herself) she'd put it on vibrate, and—
everything ok there, pumpkin? 9:32
say something jude, we're starting to worry 10:09
your shift must have ended by now, judy, where are you? 10:46
young lady, if we don't hear from you soon 11:04
—she didn't need to read their shoot how many dozens of text messages to know they'd already packed their bags and would be standing on her doorstep in the morning if she didn't send some life sign.
She didn't feel like writing, writing pulled at her like the river still drying in her fur. She ground her teeth against the pull.
Long day at work sorry I'll call tomorrow everything's going great ♥
Pocketing her phone, keying open her door, she realized what the pull was.
Time. It moved so differently in the city.
She hadn't been away from the apartment for more than a day, really, and yet it looked like she'd been away for weeks. Her desk had acquired a new layer of charcoal-like dust. So too had the window mantle. Probably auto exhaust, it turned to a film of grime when she tried wiping it with her paws. And the air was stale, and it smelled like a black thing rotting in a veiled corner, and if she didn't open the window now she was gonna—
Smile, because of the cool, fresh air.
The window only opened a crack. Fourth floor, they were probably worried someone would fall out or jump, and Judy might've found this annoying if the idea of her own window weren't so novel. This was freedom in sliver-form, cool and fresh and complete with a view. One she could appreciate even more now that she'd just driven through it. There was the Earth Trade Center, there was Moose Capital, and—and wasn't that an odd thought. Was he still out there, charging a phone in some office outlet?
Nick, she thought, with the thrill of catching him unawares.
To the sliver of freedom she put her nose. A breeze kissed it, and she was back in the car and he was sucking out the oxygen like he was stoking a fire inside. She owed him cigarettes, she thought. She should buy him new cigarettes, and now she was picturing the torches her family brought out every year for the spring ritual: pale wood, smeared pitch, the diamond of expanding flame, the gases rising hungry and fast, their shimmer morphing into inky trails.
Chemistry lessons. Combustion, the oxygen combined with . . .
Lingering sun on black plastic and that was the garbage down there, wasn't it, stacked for collection on the sidewalk. Bagged litter had corrupted her breeze. She was no longer back home with her wild torch, she was standing in an apartment that smelled like the skin of grease papering its foundations.
Now she smelled sewage. Hidden in canals behind the walls; rising from the roots of her fur. Something else had lodged in her as well, sweet as rotting fruit and carnivorous flowers and that forest slime after a long rain. Gathered leaves, white fungi, trodden insects all mashed as one.
The moment she became aware of it, she had to shut the window, pull down the yellowing drapes, and strip.
Fox-fear, and she didn't understand how it had spread to her. They hadn't touched more than paws. It must've traveled by air, and no wonder Mr. World's Most Expensive Perfume had been so out-of-sorts. He didn't understand how she ticked.
Don't be ashamed, she thought he should know. You should come out to our farm, see what life out there smells like. After a few minutes, you start focusing on other things.
Stop the clocks. Nick on a farm, sorting through seed and dirt in flannel and jeans, aviators protecting his eyes from real sun.
She wanted to laugh, because, well, it would never happen. Easier to imagine him in glossy black and sheer white, stirring a cocktail and eyeing a dance with eyes that moved only to smirk. He would smell of expensive wood and tar stuck to the back of her throat.
Shower basket, fluffy towel over her arm, and she was slipping into her robe when she pictured him again. The moment he got home he'd start scrubbing himself raw, she thought. She got a flash of the look on his face: the wrinkle of disgust, the furrow of impatience.
That was his problem, she thought. He was so obsessed with how others saw him, he forgot to see himself.
(well if it isn't judge judy)
At least he had his own bathroom. He must be glad to have it back to himself, she thought. Not in a million years would he take to Bunnyburrow, where even her parents shared facilities. Their family was large but small.
She was also glad to be alone. She didn't need Nick to laugh at her robe, the carrots in the pattern. The belt had come undone already. She had a vision of it crumpling, sending the halves apart, as she walked to the bathroom. She grabbed it with force and tied it with a double Bunny Scout knot.
Looks like this calls for a Ranger Scout, she could hear him say. Here, let me.
She pushed open her door, stepping out into the hallway. What her parents would say when she told them, she thought. Foxes are the worst. It's in their biology, and the fact that Nick would agree with them didn't stop her ears from heating to the tips, like radiant carriers of shame.
My best friend, my best friend. Small but large. She liked him least when he was familiar. When his words echoed sounds of home.
She passed one unit, then another. Two more units to reach the bathroom. It loomed ahead with its brown door. She was in nothing but her robe and the towel over her arm and she regretted not bringing her police radio. Nothing was going to happen. A bear lived here. So did a family of fishers. An anteater, too, and a capybara. You'll be sharing, the landlady had said.
A push of her shoulder against the brown door, and she stepped into—
A crime scene.
Judy ignored the tightness of her skin. It had gone cold and the fur was rising. Someone had left a lot of brown fur on the floor, that was all.
There was tear-free shampoo next to a rusting sink, the metal pearly with age. She would've heard if a bear had gone savage in her own building. A child had gotten a fur-cut, the parents—the babysitter—had neglected to clean up afterward, and that was all.
She stepped into a shower stall. No-one had gone savage. The fur on the floor, it was part of the city experience. She didn't like nearing it. She didn't like the shower curtain made grey with lime-water, the traces curving downward like fish-scales. She didn't like what was growing brown in the grout or that smell of fur mouldering in the drain. But she had rubber shoes. She had shoes for the shower, she'd never owned shoes like this before, and life was novel and the water was cold and she was shivering.
But she felt warm.
Nick, she thought, would tell her parents what they wanted to hear. She'd hate it, but they'd like him. It would be a start. She'd be allowed to have him to herself, she'd take him to the twisty tree and show him the shaded paths. Sharla had always clutched her arm until it was bloodless; he'd be different. Because he was a fox, the fox-markings on the paths wouldn't frighten him. They'd slide down the steep hill to the stream and he'd grin at the fish with teeth dappled by the canopy of the forest.
We'll drown, Sharla used to say. Wanna swim? Nick would say.
Wanna swim.
When she returned to her room, the bear-fur was forgotten. She was dry and warm. She was covered by pajamas that smelled of Cottontail's Best, and she could picture the box sitting on the washer at home, what he'd say about fluffy cottontails in fluffy clothes.
From under the desk lamp, her phone blinked like a predatory eye.
Oh, shoot.
She'd forgotten about work. She'd forgotten why she'd come home in the first place. She'd forgotten the real reason she needed space from the fox who could sound too much like home.
The hardness of her chair and the cold weight of the phone were soon what she'd forgotten. She was scrolling through photographic evidence, files already emailed to the precinct. She wanted to know she was not only picturing reality in her mind.
She hesitated before playing the video.
". . . consider their biology," said the medical advisor.
The medical advisor was a nurse, Judy had learned. Not a doctor. Not a researcher. She was a badger, and that was the most interesting detail. Their biology, she'd said, like badgers and lions weren't predators of the same stripe. Their biology, and Judy could picture Mom talking about foxes and Dad talking about bears, and these weren't some faceless predators. This was Nick they were talking about like an infectious disease. This was Nick, grinning at streaks of fish, and someday parasites would hatch out of his body, leaving nothing behind but the shell of the fox she—
She paused the video and turned off the screen.
The phone reflected her face in glass smudged with prints. She sat back and tried to empty her mind of the sense of creepiness. The first time she'd felt this way, she'd been in the third grade. Like now, it had all been a fantasy. Jason had started it, he'd laughed at her for grinding her teeth through classics. Mrs. Thumper won't give you extra points for those. Jason had gone through one horror story after the other, he'd scored the highest monthly page count in their class. Once Judy'd caught on she hadn't been able to stop. She'd won herself more pizza than she could stomach with her dedication to the genre.
The stories had been predictable. Silly, even. She'd felt, even then, that she could write something better. She'd grown to think nothing could scare her, had picked up one about a ventriloquist and his puppet without second thought. The puppet had gotten revenge on the ventriloquist, and she'd closed the book and looked at the stuffed toys on her bed.
Their eyes had gleamed.
Stories, nothing more.
She ran a paw across her eyes and saw Nick in the strip of darkness. Sorry, Carrots, this is reality.
Them and us. Them and us. Them and you and me. Destiny's a congenital disease.
Up and down, she rubbed the lengths of her arms. Her body was having trouble adjusting to all the different temperatures. The high had been over ninety-five in the city center that afternoon. The animals at Cliffside had paced in air-conditioned cages of glass, like the doctors thought they were reptiles and could be made to fall asleep if the temperature was low enough.
She wasn't going to speak of a them, she decided. Them was the driving plot of a story, they were a group of victims.
Her phone blinked at her. She turned on the screen and swiped until she reached what she thought was her first photograph of Cliffside. Brain scans that told her nothing. She swiped one back to be sure she hadn't forgotten anything.
Scouts, grinning at her past the distortion of her own reflection in glass. Her photograph of the photograph wasn't very clear at all.
She should go back to the evidence, but the picture exerted a pull. She found herself zooming into the center until Connors became an amorphous stain. A form of mockery. She slid a finger around to get a better look at the others.
Ed Hayes, here a yellow blob. The zebra and wildebeest and hippo, faded smudges whose names she didn't know. When she zoomed back out, she saw more of herself than them.
The only figure she'd caught with any distinctness was Nick, standing to the edge of her reflection like he was critiquing her poor show of skill. On the small screen he came across as a sharp slash of color. Black and red and cream; the forest green uniform. She zoomed into his face.
So young.
What had happened, other than time? She remembered, in the car, how he'd sucked the oxygen out. Like a fire burning too fast, his fear: the fear he was now old. She didn't understand it. She wanted to be thirty. She wanted to be settled in her own skin, experienced, respected . . .
I'm alone, he'd seemed to say. I'm alone unless you say you want to be with me, respected only if you say you like me, experienced only if you say you covet my skin.
Would you date me, she thought, was Nick-speak for am I good enough.
The question returned to her the feeling of cold. The light of the desk lamp seemed to settle in her fur like flakes of ice. She was shivering under its frozen beam; she was back in the water hoping Nick would open his eyes and find her, fearing what she'd find when she opened hers. What Nick was really asking, she thought, was whether she'd have left him suspended there.
We almost died, she thought.
The phone sank in her paws. She looked at the boy suspended in film and glass and light and pixels and thought, you almost died because of me.
The boy gazed back at her with ears edged gold from distortion. She thought of the giant wings of swallowtails and felt a catch in her throat. She squinted at him until more gold seemed to come out in his fur, until the smirking boy became the smirking adult who'd passed her a passion fruit like a satchel of coins.
She zoomed in until his face was a blend of pixels.
You almost died and I don't even know who you are.
You tell me, Carrots.
Judy mastered the catch in her throat, the lever to her tears. She put the phone face-down on her desk, because she didn't need to be talking to the photograph any longer.
I'll tell you alright, she thought.
*
". . . and the mercury's expected to climb to the upper 90s today, looks like those air-conditioners will be working hard. Remember, an air quality health advisory has been issued for Savanna Central — ground level ozone is no joke, folks, so limit the outdoor activities if you can . . ."
*
Morning was hard.
He ached, he'd barely slept, he was filled with dread. He wished Carrots had never told him about this press conference.
Sun pierced the bathroom window, sending him squinting. He only kept one black suit here, so at least that choice had been easy. The problem was finding a matching tie—no easy task, Milly took perverse pleasure in sorting her ties beneath her underwear—and then knotting it when his mind was elsewhere and his coordination totally shot.
The maid ended up doing it for him. Windsor knot, her speciality. He tried to smile while she was at it.
She was a coyote and almost twice his size. This intimidated him, and intimidation always made him look aggressive.
In response, she pulled the knot to his throat with excessive force. "You not supposed to come here when you are ill," she said. "I catch it."
"Who's ill?" he said, making a point of looking around.
His paw went to his chest and he let his eyes widen. "Me? Teresa, darling, you've been watching too many soap operas."
"You loco," she muttered, stepping back and wiping her paws like she was glad to be free of him. "I wish you stay home."
What a great start to the day.
Patting at his pockets once she'd stalked off to vacuum the bedroom, he realized he'd left the repellant in yesterday's clothes and had to go through his laundry bag to find it. Lovely. Now his paws reeked, and what if water had gotten into the canister and it didn't work anymore?
Should he test it? he wondered, aiming the nozzle at the sink.
What if the cloud travelled? He really could do without feeling the effects himself. Except . . .
Never mind, this was too hard. He pocketed the damn thing, thinking he could get some real pepper spray later. It was just a silly precaution anyway.
"Bye, Teresa."
"Go to hell!"
Teresa had been in Milly's family for years. Nick could understand, he really could.
Arthur was waiting for him downstairs with one of the firm's black cars. Nick was surprised, but slid into the back seat like this was an everyday occurrence.
"This is unexpected," he said.
"Boss said you'd be running late," said Arthur. He sounded peeved—understandably, it was no fun to have to wait in a car under the beating hot sun. Nick could guess he was thinking about how much he wanted to go spray some water on himself.
"Now that's odd, because I'm never late," he said.
The moment Arthur turned his attention to the road, however, Nick glanced at his watch.
Yeah, alright, he was running a little late. It wasn't entirely intentional.
Even for a hippo, Arthur was slow on his feet. Too many helpings of fried grass, a busted knee, and a sitting job, and it was no wonder he weighed more than most. Put him in a car, though, and he was one of the fastest drivers in the city. They were parking in the back-street closest to the police department before Nick could figure out why Chuck had bothered to arrange any of this.
"Guess I'll see you later, big guy," he said, reaching for the door while the other paw hunted for cigarettes. "Thanks for the lift."
"I'll wait."
"Thanks, but no."
"Boss wants a report."
Translation: no more running around with the rabbit. "I know, I'll take a cab back as soon as it's over."
"No," said Arthur.
"You'll dry out before it's over," Nick said. What? It was true. "Look, I've got this."
Black against bubblegum pink, Arthur smiled—or more accurately, he opened freakishly horned lips to show the roots of his enlarged incisors and canines. Once, he'd used those very same teeth to spear his own sister in the leg.
The hell, Nick thought, aware of his heart picking up speed.
He welcomed the spike of aggression. It made for some of his best smiles. "Your choice," he said.
And if Arthur had anything else to add, he didn't get it out before Nick had leapt onto the pavement.
The car door was too big for him to slam, but he came close. The hairs on his tail were rising one by one, and he thought of the reanimated dead. He thought: Arthur wasn't his boss. Arthur couldn't stomp on his tail and laugh anymore. Arthur was lucky to have a job, Arthur lived in a mud-pile in the stinking Canals, Arthur was on medication to keep him from going psycho on the rest of them, because Arthur, believe it or not, was basically a predator, and someone that low in the pecking order sure as hell wasn't going to tell Nick what to do.
With his back to the car, he stuck a cigarette between his teeth and lit it right where he stood.
Arthur honked the horn. Nick turned his head to show off the curve of his smile.
It's called dawdling on purpose, he thought. Suck it, fatso.
But the smoke was pretty much ruined. He'd been thinking instead of savoring the start, and things could only go downhill from here.
Tucking the lighter away, he shoved one paw into a pocket and used the other to hold the cigarette. Now that he thought about it, Arthur was only the latest in a long string of recent offenders. Everyone was treating him like a kit these days.
He wasn't going to run off with a rabbit. He wasn't fourteen and desperate. He didn't need a minder. He knew exactly what he was and exactly what it took to fix it, he'd found his place in the world and he was proud of it, and—
Carrots.
Standing in the shadow of big words, POLICE painting ears quivering like the eggs grandma used to cook and peel for breakfast before tearing into them the whites had jiggled between her teeth
(run)
fallen out her mouth slivers like when Ed clipped his hooves yellow crumbs all over the table I told you to eat your breakfast Nicholas
(faster)
air sick with ammonia rot flowers white mold a forest drowned
"Nick!"
"Carrots!"
"You came."
"I-I should've been here earlier."
"You came," she said, and Nick's breathing was out of whack but he'd composed himself enough to catch the repeat.
She was really worked up. Nose twitching, the sheen to her eyes that shivered like after the waterfall, when all he'd been able think about was how she was ignoring the fact she'd almost died and how stupid he was for wanting to drape a coat over her shoulders.
He was still trying to catch his breath. "Sure," he said. "I told you I would."
The cigarette was singing the fur of his paw. His paw was trembling like it wanted to drop the whole charade, but he managed to get the filter to his mouth.
Better.
Smoke curling against his tongue, the shot-put of pleasure, and he could study her now, how she rubbed the sides of her arms with her paws like she was cold.
"I'm so nervous," she said.
He couldn't send her into a press conference wearing his jacket. Let's run away, where there's snow, we'll smoke on the fire escape, huddle together until our fur is warm. He took the cigarette out of his mouth like it was the heater they'd gather round.
The summer sun was already experimenting with the air around them, synthesizing ozone and other poison in heat that branded his feet and he was holding it out to her—
"One drag won't hurt."
—and would look ridiculous taking it back now.
"You sure about that, Wilde?" but it was the light in her eyes that was interesting, the light that said she was actually considering his offer.
When she looked at him like that, like he was worth taking seriously, it made him feel like a con-artist. That was the only reason he was surprised she could be so casual. Casually intimate when she drew the stick from his fingers, and she was supposed to be the nervous one.
"Thanks," she said.
She didn't sputter after inhaling, even though her cheeks puffed out like sails. He kind of wanted her to cough so he could laugh, prove to her he wasn't what she thought he was; it was dawning on him that she might've done this before, and that she wasn't what he'd thought she was.
"OK, Press Conference 101," he said.
He wasn't here to think. He was here to make sure she didn't screw them both over. "You wanna look smart, answer their question with your own question and then answer that question."
She gazed at him, rapt.
"Like this," he said, and he drew up a pretend microphone with his paws. "Excuse me, Officer Hopps. Can you explain why predators are going savage?"
He pivoted, lowering his knees and his ears to make it clear this was how she should answer. "Well, are there predators going savage? Yes, yes, that's as much as we know. You see."
She exhaled, turning her head to keep the smoke from blowing into his face. "I wish you could be up there with me."
"Just don't let them get to you."
Her smile was wry. She passed back the cigarette, and although his paws were a spasming mess she managed not to burn either of them.
She took in a deep breath. He watched her shoulders straighten.
"OK," she said. "I feel better."
Nick was afraid to put the cigarette in his mouth, because he knew it would be fleeting. At the same time, he was afraid to push. The more often he insisted on something, the less likely she seemed to believe him.
He touched the filter to his lips, succumbed to the drag.
Not long enough, it felt like snow. "Judy," he said with the exhale.
Her eyes widened like she'd seen an alien or something. He frowned, trying to get her to realize this was important. "Do you—"
There was a cough from behind, and he managed not to freeze up. Sheep, and only the smoke had kept him from smelling it.
Do you have questions, do you get it, do you understand what I'm telling you, and he could say all he wanted in his mind, but she wasn't looking at him any longer.
Tossing the cigarette to the ground, he turned like he was grateful for the interruption.
"Officer Hopps?" said Dawn. "You should come inside."
She stood at the door, shoulders drooped like she wanted to curtsey. The bell of her necklace was still, and he wondered that he hadn't heard it. She pushed her glasses up her nose, and looked at him, and he was surprised to see accusation.
He opened his mouth to say something harmless and friendly, but the look on her face forbade it.
"Of course," said Judy.
Dawn smiled at her and they turned to go inside. He would follow in a moment, but something made him look out at the steps. It was going to be a very hot day. Somewhere beyond the grave, his grandmother would be making chowder, like she'd always done on days like this.
He could hurl.
*
Bellwether took her by the elbow, drawing her into the precinct like they were dance partners. She'd barely spared a glance for Nick this time. The professionalism was welcome. This close, Judy could smell grass, and sod, and something faintly like ammonia salts. More striking were the sounds she made with her bell and her wool and her clicking hooves—
"We're so proud of you, Officer Hopps."
—because it reminded Judy of Sharla. The way Bellwether held her now, she could almost be Sharla in reverse, leading instead of following Judy as they'd snuck down the steep decline into the border lands, into wilderness and adventure just shy of fox territory.
"Thank you, I—"
"Now, when you go up there, I want you to tell it exactly as you see it, alright? This is your moment, you know?"
"This isn't about me."
Bellwether blinked behind her glasses, the other hoof rising to adjust them. She turned in towards Judy with a smile. "Well, of course not. You're so right. I guess I was just thinking about all the viewers at home, what this might mean for them, seeing you up there proving all those damaging stereotypes wrong."
"We might be little, but the job gets done?"
"Oh—good one!" A giggle, like something startled out of her. "See, you're a role model already."
Judy glanced over at Nick, walking beside them at a discretionary distance. He was smiling without his eyes, and she found herself doing a double-take.
Something was bothering him. His ears were lying flat in a way that reminded her of an old movie about soldiers climbing out of a trench on their bellies. The black tips gleamed like metal, and she could picture rifles and bayonets snaking out from muddy chests.
Flattery, she thought. Bellwether was flattering her a lot.
Maybe he was telling her to return the favor. She adjusted her focus to overlarge glasses. "Thank you. But I'm not the only role model here."
Bellwether seemed to hesitate, and Judy put on her kindest smile. She got a wobbly one in return, then a laugh, deeper and more interesting than the giggle. Like she'd struck a hidden chord, one that matched the strange song of swishing dress and ringing bell and crinkling wool.
"You're so sweet." The way hard fingers lingered on Judy's elbow, and suddenly Bellwether wasn't like Sharla at all.
Judy's ears were warm.
"Well, I'll leave you here," said Bellwether.
She withdrew with a breathy laugh. A little wave, a flip of skirt, and her bell sounded like a whale under the sea. "Good luck!"
"May the wolf choke."
Judy managed not to choke, but it was a close call. She turned to Nick and saw his benign smile, and something beneath it with an edge.
"Excuse me?"
"Variation on 'break a leg'," Nick said.
His eyes were tracking Bellwether's progress. Judy felt the click of understanding. No wonder she felt nauseous. Some superstitions you never got over, apparently, even years after quitting theatre club.
She was still hyperaware of her ears. She didn't like this part of herself.
"That's not very nice to wolves," she said. "Oh! I nearly forgot. This is for you."
The satchel in her belt was just the distraction she needed. She really hoped Nick liked his gift, carrot-studded satchel notwithstanding. The paper store hadn't opened in time for her to buy a proper gift bag, so she'd used what she had.
His brows came down; his tail lurched. "It's a present," she said, and now she was becoming really nervous.
From her periphery, she could see Chief Bogo moving to the podium to speak. She should've done this earlier.
Nick took the satchel with a caution that reminded her of an earlier risk. The first time (of the pawful of times) she'd smoked a cigarette had been on a sibling dare. Jamie, Jason, Bree—they'd all found it hilarious when she'd forgotten that the butt was hot and accidentally scorched herself.
He seemed to think the satchel was that cigarette. She smiled, even though the instinct to bounce away the nervousness had taken over, lifting to her toes. "You can open it now, if you want," she said.
She looked at his mouth, rising into a smirk. "Am I gonna pull out a rabbit?"
Please don't draw this out.
The pack of Nesterfields came out first. Judy had been positive she'd gotten the right kind, but Nick rolled his eyes, making her question herself.
"Carrots—"
"There's something else."
He seemed hellbent on doing everything slow, like he'd forgotten she was about to go onstage and was sinking in enough doubt without having to wonder if he liked his present.
The carrot pen almost fell out of his fingers. Not on purpose, she thought—his paws were very unsteady today.
She watched his smirk fade. "It's a recording pen," she explained. "I left you a message for later. Don't listen to it now. And it works as an ordinary pen too."
She'd expected a carrot joke. A token complaint. Something about her leading him on, carrot-and-stick, or her poor taste.
He said nothing.
Waiting for words, seeing him stare at the pen with unreadable blankness, she found herself embarrassed. She'd packed it as a kind of apology, but what if he didn't recognize it for what it was? What if he was so put off by the garishness that he never used it, never thought of their friendship? What if he found the whole conceit presumptuous?
"It means a lot to me that you were here," she said, and finally she got a response: a look, half-lidded like he was still confused.
He opened his suit jacket and slid the pen into the pocket over his heart. She waited with the dread of knowing that any second now, she would be pulled over the waterfall.
"Thanks, Judy," he said.
*
—couldn't even knot his stupid tie and she'd returned the car reported to duty made the time to buy him replacement cigarettes why carrots why
Sport remember what I told you about the true measure of a mammal watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals Dad was onto something Dad would've loved her good old dead Dad so much they'd all forget about spoiled potential and kits the vomited eggs and chowder the disgust of eggs and hurled chowder and Ma would take him aside look him in the eye you have a friend like that then something went right afterall
Dearly departed something's defective no with this pen I give you my promise no that's mixing it up he's mixed up in the head wish you were here Dad would've known what to say you ever see anything like this before, squirt? a pen shaped like a carrot and it takes recordings now isn't that something gotta love it, l o v e
say something you fool
ears falling down her head avalanches snow on savaged earth he's mixed great going all he's got is her name i know you're not a joke i know you're a sign like a tug into the night sky planets rising inscrutable through purple trees—
*
So it hadn't been a fluke of her imagination. He did know her name.
The fact that he remembered was astonishing. She didn't even remember giving him her full name, but she must've done way back at the beginning—and how many other tiny details from ancient history had he stored?
She looked at his eyes and saw a smile building. She wondered if this was an attempt to wound or mock. She looked at his lips and couldn't find the curves of malice or scorn. He wasn't leering, either.
She looked at his eyes and found a story—lids at half-mast, veins unfurling like ivy around lumps of green glass. The incline beneath, puffy as soil after a saturating rain, and he was tired. She looked at his lips and saw forgiveness.
Real forgiveness.
Apology accepted, she thought with the sense of a fan unfolding. Leaves greeting the morning light, chlorophyll dance, and she'd done him right, and she was proud.
Suddenly her ears twisted; she was back in the rushing water, desperate to avoid colliding with the rocks.
"Officer Hopps? It's time."
That smile. It would have to be her raft.
*
Dawn glanced at him with open curiosity.
There was an ache in his back, and he considered sitting down. She'd led them to an alcove near some unoccupied benches to the side of the podium; there was plenty of space for him to sprawl out.
No, he wasn't sitting down for this. Standing, Judy could still see him. Standing, he could see her as well as the press.
The press . . .
It was ironic, he thought, watching them jostle each other for good spots as she climbed the podium. Nearly all the reporters were prey animals. Gather them all together in one room, though, and they started acting like wolves.
They certainly went after her like a pack.
"Officer Hopps!"
"Over here!"
"Officer Hopps!"
"Here, over here!"
She pointed at someone too small for Nick to make out. "Yes?"
"What can you tell us about the animals that went savage?"
At least she'd seen this one coming.
"Well, the, uh . . ."
Or not.
He felt dread swoop as she turned to him. ". . . t-the animals in question, um . . ."
She'd blanked on his lesson already. Later, he'd regret ever lighting that cigarette. Less time smoking and more time coaching, and his advice might've stuck better.
But the way she was looking at him then, it resembled a fantasy called trust. That was a thrill, and he thought: we've got this.
Encouragement came easy. He projected the calm he didn't feel, rotating his paw like they were back outside, rehearsing her lines, like all she had to do was reel in the fishing rope of memory to find them.
Her ears perked. Oh, she mouthed.
With her eyes still on him, her body turned towards the crowd. "Are they all different species?"
Something sprang inside him, heat sliding up the back of his skull. He was a six-year-old in the bath again, and his mother was washing his fur.
"Yes," she said, "yes, they are."
Her eyes darted back to him and him alone, and he thought—we've really got this. Warmth had claimed the entirety of his skull. He could feel himself smiling.
He gave her a thumbs-up. She gave him the flicker of a smile.
"OK, so what is the connection?"
"Uh. . ."
She blinked too many times, retreating into a state of unseeing. "All we know is that they . . ." Seeing. "The victims are all members of the predator family."
Shawn Woolessey stepped up. "So predators are the only ones going savage?"
(Nick didn't have political views. He wasn't one of those foxes. Politics bored him, honestly. If he changed the channel when Sheep News was on in the office or the gym, it wasn't because he was bothered by what Woolessey and the other anchors were saying. He was just creeped out by the way sheep moved their eyes.)
Nick felt his muzzle tighten.
Her eyes told him the worst. Woolessey had spoken before she was ready to move on—if life were a comic, he'd have interrupted her speech bubble—and Nick knew: they were back to square one.
He lifted his wrist and circled it, trying to catch her eye.
She took in a deep breath. "I'm sorry, can you rephrase the question?"
"All the savage animals are predators, right?"
"Yes, b—"
"So predators are the only ones going savage." Woolessey lowered his mike, stepping back in satisfaction.
There was a collective murmur; several reporters bent down over notebooks to scribble furiously.
Her nose began twitching pretty furiously too. Nick felt his tail lurch.
"I wouldn't, no, I wouldn't put it like that—"
The clamor of attention-seekers, drowning her out. Flummoxed, she pointed at someone Nick couldn't see.
"Why is this happening?"
"We, we don't know."
"Can you say more about the biological connection?"
"No. At this point, we're talking about mere coincidence—"
She was drowned out again. Nick closed his eyes and told himself: all things considered, she was doing fine.
"Over here, over here!"
He opened his eyes and saw that the reporters kept glancing at something behind her. Light threaded through the air in a pale stream, turning dust into floating gold. Nick followed its trail until his eyes fell on a projector hanging from the ceiling.
Right. A slide show.
"Yes?"
He had to walk in a curve to see it. The photographs were ones she'd taken, he realized: the angle corresponded to her height. Hospital equipment. Glowing brain scans, implied to be abnormal.
"What if more predators go savage?"
Strutting with its teeth, eyes white with shine: the savage tiger in its cage. Nick remembered feeling like a grasshopper. The shadows had been purple and green and he'd seen the traces first, deep like a massive weight had been dragged; he'd imagined the size of the claws responsible, and his heart had recognized—
"First off, there is no way to know it'll happen again, let alone whether this only affects predators—"
—the truth. Fox, rabbit, it wouldn't matter to these beasts.
"Officer Hopps!"
Tiger, dread tiger
"Are you saying this could also happen to prey?"
no art twisted that fearful heart, and Nick was mixed, burning
"I'm saying that it's too early to rule out any possibilities."
No, he was actually fine. Look at that. New slide. Four shots, four savages. That's some fine symmetry you've got going there, Carrots. Look at them, the monsters. Creatures of forest and savanna, salivating, feral,
collared, leashed,
muzzled like
trust a fox without a muzzle, you're even dumber than dumb you look
what did I do dumb wrong you guys
go home fox scum nothome
guys i'll be off good
like we're gonna believe that fox what a baby nothome
i'll be good i'll be good!
repeating something doesn't make it true good one zach
aw is he gonna cry shut up
please i'll be good
beat it loser art you're gonna have to carry it
i said all of you, shut up
ill be so good
now
i'm listening to you, fox.
maybe i'll even give you a second chance.
what do you mean,
you'll be good?
i mean
chuck he's just gonna lie shut up ed
i'll-i'll-i'll
brave loyal helpful are you seriously buying
or-or whatever you want
". . . prepared and here to protect you."
Nick realized that he'd zoned out.
It was louder than before, he realized. He was sweating through his paw-pads and so were the reporters—the air was rank—there was a haziness to the light like waking after a concussion. He hadn't fallen yet but he could picture it, fainting here right before the lot of them stampeded over his body.
Behind her, more savages, framing the question of how lambs and tigers could co-exist. He glanced at Dawn and saw an expression as still as the sea without wind.
"Have you considered that predator biology might be the reason this is happening?"
He looked at Judy and saw her eyes, round as plums. "You know," she said, "before we all start jumping to premature conclusions about predators, let's just take a—a deep breath and think about how that sounds. The victims could have been targeted for a number of different reasons, and—"
"Targeted? Can you elaborate on that please?"
Shit.
"Well, what seems more likely to you?"
Shit shit shit
"That animals are going savage, something that hasn't happened since the dark ages? Or—that someone is targeting them to make it appear that way?"
She was holding out her paws like the cups of a balance—unbalancing him, because fuck she was channeling him it was painfully obvious everyone would blame him this was it betrayal was coursing through him he wanted pounce strike
teartheplumsapart
Calm down, Wilde.
Dawn was already on her way to end this farce. Whatever happened now, it wasn't in his paws any longer.
Carrots, you traitor—think, Wilde, think—too many camera men at the main entrance, nope, he didn't want to end up in some tabloid—
Back exit?
The Traitor was looking at Dawn with surprise. She was distracted, which was what mattered. If he was quick, he could steal away before either of them noticed.
Sounded like a plan.
*
these changes
ain't changing me
the cold-hearted boy i used to be
*
Judy looked for her raft. She looked and looked until she found a suspended black trail.
His tail, vanishing like soot into wind.
"Hopps, what are you—"
"One second, Chief!"
"Hopps! We're not done here!"
Fear. Treachery.
Loss.
*
"Why are you following me?"
"Where are you going?"
"Somewhere as far away from you as possible. It's called abandoning ship, if you didn't know. This? This was a waste of time. I'm out."
"What? N-no, you don't mean that—"
"Can you do us both a favor and not make a scene? Honestly, I don't know why you're surprised, Carrots, this was never going to work out—"
"Work out? Nick, you're my best friend—don't run—why are you running?"
"Why'd you run your mouth?"
"Look, I know I said some things you didn't like—"
"Didn't like? Who said anything about liking, rabbit, I thought you believed in me—"
"I do believe in you, Nick, with all my heart—"
"—might as well be some dumb kit for all you were willing to listen—"
"—and I did listen, but this was necessary, we can't let the public think—can you slow down, I'm trying to talk to you—"
"Clearly I don't want to talk to you, so if you could kindly fuck off—"
"I did the right thing!"
"The right thing, was it? Speculating on television, stirring up panic and controversy, of course there's a way to put the right spin on that in your mind—don't touch me!"
offoffoff that awful catch in his throat aw is he gonna cry
repellant this is my gun
there's nowhere to run
you're the traitor babe and i'm
"Nick."
lost come closer see if my trigger can
depress we're next in line we're next
"Please."
ugly spiders hold on aim for lost this wasn't the plan
nowhere but down nowhere but hell
"Don't do this."
do this you threw me to the wolves i'm gonna be sick put it away son that awfulcatch i'll be good swear you make me sicksicksick
made me promise to run and
run you dumb bunny can't you hear
the bells they're bellowing like
"Officer Hopps?"
bulls
"There you are. Chief Bogo's been looking everywhere for you."
"Thank you, I'll be right there—"
peppers in his pocket all he'd wanted was to run
"You might want to hurry, Judy. It seemed urgent, and—oh, I didn't see you there, Nicky. I wanted to talk to you, actually—"
"Assistant Mayor Bellwether, if you could just give us a moment, please?"
how dare she sound like tears
how dare she look like plums bursting falling from trees
how dare she treat him like a child she was supposed to believe in him
No. No, she'd never believed in him. Her actions proved it.
"We can talk now," he was able to tell Dawn. "I'm done here."
"Oh, good—"
"I'm not," said The Traitor. "Nick, I'll call you later, OK?"
go on make it worse to the wolves why don't you i hate you hate you h a t e y o u
"Bye now," he said, and his lips were stretched to their seams, and his throat was hoarse with building screams, and his fur was a pelt that was about to slide off his body into a dead heap.
"I'll call you later," she said ugly with tears in her eyes he sneered and turned I h a t e y o u
*
what did you say, fox?
whatever you want whatever you want
swear it packhome
i swear
forever and ever and ever?
yes yes yes!
*
Funeral bells and he was out in the sun the day was hot and he couldn't do this right now not with Dawn he was sick he was sick he needed
"What happened?"
a bath and a cigarette and
"It wasn't my fault."
"I believe you."
she was following him and he wouldn't stop her, he knew what this meant he could guess what she'd seen and good thing Arthur was waiting after all Nick slid in first and she slipped in beside him and ZNN was on in the dashboard television so Arthur had seen it all.
He was gonna be sick
"Turn that off, please," said Dawn.
Arthur smirked the bastard
but he obeyed even tipped his purple hat.
Dumbass not that Dawn cared she wasn't even looking that's right you don't matter at all fatso and
"Nicky, did she threaten you? Why did you pull out pepper spray?"
fox repellant, so she'd been watching the whole time you dumb bunny look what you're making me do
"She's crazy. She wouldn't listen, she wouldn't listen to me—"
"Nicky, I can see you're upset," she said. "I know it's difficult, but I need you to start from the beginning so I can understand."
She touched her hoof to his arm and he leaned in because that was what she wanted because it was a cure for the sick he never cried never he wasn't crying his eyes were dry why did it fee
"Can you do that for me?"
Sure.
He never let them get to him. See? he wasn't leaning in for comfort. He wasn't a child. He was leaning in to leer.
Now he was looking into her eyes. Green like split fruit and crushed worms,
"Now, the beginning. You were there with Judy, you saw what she saw . . ."
green like the creature he was, deep down inside. "I saw a bunch of savages in a mental asylum, exactly where they belonged."
Green like fear, green like the tent at night, when darkness filtered through the tarp and the shadows were stolen for leashed sex. Green like his sickness, like the breaker of plums, like the eater of plums.
"What on earth made her think they were being targeted?"
He was good but he was a fox. He was good but he'd tear into plums and suck them dry and toss the skins away to moulder in the shadows. He was good when he was bad, he was smart when he was dumb, and she must've really thought he was dumb or she'd have listened and none of this would be happening.
"Something Lionheart said."
Lying embraced him like a cloak around his naked form, a garment of dignity. He watched Dawn's brows knit a thick line behind her glasses, her mouth curl with scorn.
"Anyway," he said, relishing the warmth her anger gave him, a lie pulled off well, "I told the rabbit he was just trying to save his own skin, but—"
"She didn't believe you."
Toss the plums. Break them. Stomp on them in the planet-light, the moon-light, tear into the bruised skins with teeth.
"It's not my fault she's got a seriously demented way of thinking!"
"Oh?"
When she smiled like that, full of derision, he was reminded he was despicable.
He ran his paws over his ears, because there was heat gathering at the tips and he needed to dispel it. "Yeah," he said. "Thinks everything is a conspiracy. She'd lock up half the city if she had the chance."
"Oh, Nicky," said Dawn. There something like weariness to her tone, like this was not something she'd anticipated having to do.
She shifted, cotton sliding against pleather. "You really think she might just be, ah, how to put this delicately—"
"Unstable?"
"Well," said Dawn with a careful cough. "I didn't want to say it. But . . . you're sure?"
This could be a grave mistake. A mistake could bury them both. But he wasn't the traitor. He was on his own now, and he could only act in his best interests.
"Absolutely," he said. "I am absolutely, positively sure that bunny is in some desperate need of help."
Gather the plums into his teeth. Hurl them to the shadows.
"It's so sad," said Dawn, voice breaking a little on the word. "She's been such an amazing role model for us little guys. I was really looking forward to having her on my team."
She pushed her glasses up her nose. "But with this on top of that reckless scurry, the way she nearly destroyed Little Rodentia—"
Nick didn't know anything about the near-destruction of Little Rodentia, but he did remember Mr. Big's daughter. Carrots had saved her from a flying doughnut or something. That reckless escapade was the only reason Nick hadn't been iced.
He'd spent a lot of time considering what would happen to him. Somehow he'd never really gotten around to considering what would happen to her.
She was prey, no-one would try to kill her. Unless—
"—it looks like there need to be some serious questions raised about her fitness for the job. If she strikes out again, a suspension might be in order."
"A suspension?"
That couldn't be so bad.
For her. For him, not so much. Big loved Carrots, Carrots was the only reason goons hadn't turned up to finish what they'd started, and if word ever got to him that Nick was behind her suspension?
"Not right away, of course," said Dawn.
He felt his heart the way his bones would feel a stampede.
"Maybe it won't even be necessary. She was acting from the best impulses, you know. It's commendable, really. No-one could accuse her of bias. That's not something you can say about many police officers these days . . ."
Could things get any worse? Suspended, Carrots would've at least been out of the way. Safe. Publicly humiliated, angry and miserable, but safe.
(plums tossed the shadows, where they'd lie still and concealed from other eyes)
And now Dawn seemed to think she would come around?
Sure, they had a certain chemistry, he'd seen it himself, it had frightened him actually, but chemistry was never enough with Carrots. She'd realize the truth. She'd accuse Dawn of masterminding the whole charade, and then—
Stay calm. This was her fault this was her grave to lie in, and if he'd thrown them both into a volcano for fear of a little ice and the shame, oh the shame make me hurl make me small
Little strokes to his arm. Tugs that reached the roots.
Bile stirred, and so did his awareness to words. ". . . and I'm not blaming you, Nicky, but you are a predator, and this has been such an emotional time for you, and—well, I'm not surprised you had a misunderstanding, you know?"
Shame overcame him like a rancid black hood. Spiders crawled up his legs, a shiver she could see.
"This must be hard for you."
"What?"
He swatted them with his tail. Dawn cocked her head like a curious bird. "I know how much you like her."
"I thought she was a friend," he said.
He pulled away from her touch, uneasy with the weight of his own admission, and looked out the window. Traffic passed as it always did, as though this were an ordinary day, as though his grandmother were out there, stirring clams into a chowder. "Obviously I was wrong."
"Oh, Nicky, I saw the way you looked at her. Like a schoolboy with a crush."
No, no, that was just a trick of the light, he wanted to say, except that there were bubbles starting to prickle under his skin. Bubbles like hot gases popping beneath the layer of fat, like he'd been skewered on a spit and would soon be roasted to the bones.
That catch in his throat, and he was being swept down the pipe again, watching his life join the rushing of waste. He was paddling in water too soft against his paws, surrounded by noise and feeling like it was the most oppressive silence. All of him was rushing out in slimy rivulets from the hole the silence had made, the pus of his self was dribbling down to the spiders, the spider-gases bubbling beneath his skin and boiling in readiness to drink him down to his shell.
"I hate her right now," he said.
Dawn clucked her tongue. "That's the stress talking," she said. "I told you, there's no reason to give up on her yet."
She was waiting for him to say something. He thought about saying: if you want me to talk to her again, I'll do it.
But that was the trap, wasn't it.
She patted his arm. He could hear her smile; he wanted to curl over a toilet and hurl. "Now, I think I need to go have a long conversation with Chief Bogo. Thank you for being so candid with me, Nicky."
"Boss wants a call," said Arthur.
Nick wasn't even looking, and he could tell she was pursing her lips. "He'll get one soon enough."
Caress of his tail, pulling against the grain of the fur, and the bubbles became a burn in his cheeks, like that time when he'd pulled a chili pepper from the plant and then rubbed his eyes. A taste of his own medicine, and with her fingers still tugging his tail, she leaned forward to plant a peck on his cheek.
"Come visit me soon," she whispered.
"Yeah."
He should turn and give her a proper smile. He should turn and acknowledge her power over the girl he hated and loved. He should turn, change his story and make himself the sacrifice, make it his fault, because her necklace was ringing with warning, because she was exiting the car, and if he didn't act, she would take Judy with her.
Love was powerlessness, he thought as the door thudded shut. Love was a mistake. Love was—
"Knew you'd screw things up."
Nick welcomed the flood of anger. It washed everything else away.
"Shut up and drive," he said.
Later, he'd realize he'd showed another scout his claws and fangs.