Chapter Text
What is this? Why am I like this? Just . . . what on Earth is happening to me?
Judy Hopps has begun consciously pondering this facet of herself over the past few months. There had been a change in her as a whole. Something she was not necessarily willing to go around telling everyone. A change that society would not want to know about. A slow and gradual change that she had begun noticing due to a noteworthy addition to her life. A paradigm shift who’s catalyst was a red fox, one Nicholas Piberius Wilde. A bad influence, society had told her, some parts more subtly than others.
Society, as she was slowly figuring, was dead wrong about Nick being a bad influence . . .
Perhaps not bad, per se, but there was something to consider in their nature of their interactions, in their growing relationship. A fox, a predatory mammal, had . . . unique influences on a rabbit, a prey mammal.
Something had happened. Something had changed. A fox changed a rabbit, and it came to a head in a dark restaurant where the pair sat close, listening only to each other breathing, fulfilling their city’s unofficially adopted motto;
Try everything.
~
Saturday night, sitting on her couch, deciding on what to do, and Judy had put the ball back in Nick’s court. “I don’t care,” she said, checking her phone, “All I know is that this bunny wants food. Something new would be preferable, but I’ll let you pick it and we’ll go check it out.”
She caught herself waiting on the witty reply that always came, but this time, didn’t. The fox was looking up at the ceiling, deep in thought. She waited to see what the eventual retort would be, because it wouldn’t be Nick Wilde if there wasn’t one.
A smile, handsome, lupine, and sharp, spread across his lips. He eyed her without moving his head.
“My pick, huh?” He waited for her to protest. When Nick smiled like that, or talked like that, or looked like he was about to quickly close the distance between them like that, Judy tried to never cut the moment short. It was hypnotizing in the most alluring way. The kind of way she loved getting sucked into. Dangerous, society warned. She nodded, not smiling, face set in anticipation of his answer.
He stood up, making for her closet. She was up and behind him immediately, studiously checking to see what he was looking at. Her partner was tactful, but she didn’t think he’d be the type to invade and breach her privacy and start looking through her underwear. The fox stopped in front of a clothes rack, examining the few dresses she did own.
Nick selected a black dress, one with a V-cut neck that revealed a healthy amount of the top and middle of her chest. Busty, her mother would call it. Unflattering, Judy would call it, considering her small bust was nothing to be demonstrative of. “This will do,” Nick said, more to himself than to her, tossing it to Judy before starting for her door.
Quickly changing between staring at the dress in her paws and the fox already partially out her door, Judy managed, “Wait, Nick, where are you going?”
“Have to stop and find a sports jacket for the place we’re going for dinner. I’ll text you the address and we’ll meet there. It’s not too far from here.”
Oh, a little on the fancy side. The thought of dressing up had never been an active and forefront part of the Judy Hopps MindsetTM. She was perfectly happy in her uniform and felt that dressing up was something others females could do. Let them have their skirts, heels, and makeup. Give me my badge and my uniform
And my fox
and I’m a happy bunny. And for the first time in her life, Judy had butterflies in the stomach, giddy and excited at the thought of getting dressed up for a certain fox.
“So, what’s this place all about?” she asked as he made to turn down her hallway, letting gravity and the off-kilter hinges shut the door behind him.
She caught that toothed grin, coupled with those hooded emerald eyes, the combination that made her mind foggy, her legs weak, and her sex ache.
“Trying new things,” he whispered to her as the door clicked shut.
~
Judy walked up to the big neon demon of a building, feeling the wind rush past her ears and heart hammering away in her head. The moon, pale and fat, hung in the cloudless sky. The air was chilled, and she was regretting not bringing a jacket. The night air felt especially invasive and perverse as it ran its breeze through the open V of her dress, directly against her bare cleavage and up her legs. More than once she tried smoothing down the knee length skirt that seemed intent on riding up to her underwear.
The restaurant in question, UMI, was bathed in harsh neon blue light that originated in hidden crevasses alongside the exterior. There were windows, black ovals that didn’t show what could be possibly happening inside.
Standing against the wall, by the door, was a figure in black, orange fur poking out from the collar, sleeves, and pant ends. He looked up from the ground, those fierce green eyes managing to lock onto her from across the deserted parking lot.
They held fast on her, not moving from the rabbit, even when the pair were no more than a few feet apart.
“You look absolutely lovely,” he said, eyes running up and down and back up and back down her body, a devilish smile on his face. Judy couldn’t help the blush, couldn’t help but let the feeling of being beautiful and appreciated and gorgeous run through her chest. It was both novel and welcomed.
“And you look quite handsome yourself, Mr. Wilde,” she replied. And she meant it. He was wearing a double-black suit and button down shirt. To match his fur, a bloody orange tie lapped from his collar down into his buttoned jacket.
Before she even realized it, before either really realized it, Judy had placed a single paw against his chest, center mass, feeling the tie and the body heat of the mammal beneath it.
They stared at each other, Judy’s mouth hanging open, trying (and failing) to come up with a plausible excuse for the clearly intimate and likely inappropriate touch. She didn’t dare look up his face, her own feeling like it was about to combust under her fur.
Something smoothed over her paw. Judy looked up and saw an orange paw caressing her fingers, claws retracted, textured and sensitive paw pads feeling her hand. Above the hand, a smiling fox. Without words or inclination, he took her paw from his chest, kept it in his paw, and led them both inside.
It was empty. Entirely devoid of any other patrons. And the smell . . . something familiar but factually unfamiliar. She couldn’t place what it was. Nick walked her to a bar counter bathed a blue and white lighting. Black and neon blues, it seemed, were the only predominant colors at work in the interior as well. Even the napkins, folded as origami on the tables, were jet black.
They sat down without waiting for a server. Nick, ever the gentlemen (that he could be when he wanted to), got her chair for her. As soon as they were seated, a small, raccoon-y looking mammal appeared from the back, as if on cue. Judy withheld judgement on species because she had never seen a brown furred raccoon before, amongst other differences that led her identification of the mammal away from raccoon.
Nick leaned over to Judy. “Our chef for tonight, a Tanuki.”
Judy hadn’t heard of that type of mammal. The chef, who was now facing them across the level bar top, was busy setting up a display of cooking utensils and containers. The mammal also set up a small grille, charcoal operated and lit. The heat was palpable in the cool atmosphere of the restaurant. “Does the chef have a name?” Judy asked when the chef did not as so much acknowledge their presence, busily continuing setting up for dinner.
Nick shrugged. “Won’t tell me his name and no one seems to know it. So, ‘chef’ or ‘Tanuki’ seems to be the accepted designation for the mammal taking care of us tonight.”
Judy’s focus drifted back to the smell she couldn’t quite place. Her brain was registering the scent as something that she, well, shouldn’t be scared of, necessarily. Not like the first reaction to smelling a predatory musk. But the smell was kicking awake her hindbrain, the portion containing all of the evolutionary groundwork. Something urgent, with red lights and a growing, distant siren’s screaming, was trying to get the rest of her brain’s attention.
Be wary
But her befuddlement and inherent curiosity kept the small panic at bay.
The Tanuki set two white plates in front of them. Reaching underneath the counter, Judy heard the telling crunch of ice shifting. He set something in front of them, a dark cherry-red mass that finally ID’d the smell Judy couldn’t quite place.
Fish. Tuna. Sushi.
Death what you were smelling is dead fish
She spun and looked at Nick, eyes wide, her heart rate steadily climbing. The fox seemed to appraise her reaction for a moment.
“Just say the word, and we’ll go,” he told her through a smile. There was no malice in his voice, or hint of mockery. Judy looked back to the cut of meat in front of them. Her mind was buzzing. An internal battle raged in her mind, between inherent safety failsafes and her legendary stubbornness to not be a quitter, to never judge until you’ve walked in another mammal’s shoes, to not show them that they get to you.
The last part caught her a little. Looked like the fox’s mantra was rubbing off on her. Just a little.
“Well, while you decide,” Nick said, turning to the Chef, “I’m going to have something. Before the Sashimi, may I have the sannakji?” The Tanuki nodded once, and began rummaging around under the counter, pushing the red mass down the counter for later.
He produced a small white plate, displaying a small octopus placed in a shallow puddle of . . . a marinade of some concoction. Light alcohol and sesame oil?
It was splayed out, each of its eight limbs stretching across the plate, its head positioned squarely center. In a simplistic design, Judy thought, it looked very presentable, one of those dishes that was pictured in cookbooks for predators.
The water on the plate rippled, one of the tentacles moving beneath the surface. Judy felt her face go numb, didn’t hear the small squeak she emitted. The tentacles on the octopus moved. The whole octopus moved. The whole animal moved around, slowly, on the plate.
It was still alive.
Nick rubbed his paws together, then pulled the plate closer to him, getting out a pair of chopsticks. “He, uh . . . uhm, the chef still has to cook it, right?” Judy managed to breath out, failing to keep the panic out of her voice, staring at the wiggling creature in the shallow dish.
“Nope,” nick said, picking up the small animal by its bulbous head. Nick held the octopus in front of his face, as the small creature’s arms began wrapping around the chopsticks and reaching into the air for any additional purchase.
Judy’s hindbrain was now an active airfield of warning sirens, waves of adrenaline starting to rush through her system. She watched as the small animal was placed into Nick’s open maw, into a large mouth full of sharp incisors.
It’s like a car accident, Judy thought. It’s so awful, but you just can’t look away.
And Judy watched, unblinking, as the machinations of evolution, the basic concept of life driven forwards, unfolded only a foot away from her. She watched his teeth, glistening with strands of saliva, sliced down and parted the limbs of the octopus away from its body. Watched as one eyetooth came down and pierced the globular head of the octopus, watched fluid pour out from behind the little eyes.
Nick attempted to keep his mouth closed and chew modestly
Don’t . . . I want to see
But the struggling creature made it difficult, with Nick resulting in widening his maw to un-stick some of the octopus’ tentacles from his lips.
With a hard SNAP! Nick’s jaws came down across the remains of the octopus, pulping and further dicing the remains. The next few bites were more, dare she describe them as, wild and feral. Quick, harsh, efficient bites that finished off any hope that the octopus was still alive. Judy watched the lump of butchered animal passed down his throat as he swallowed.
Nick turned and looked at her, smacking his lips. “So, Carrots. Ready to try something new?”
Judy felt herself nod from a distance, like remembering the sensation of nodding up and down, not aware of it actually occurring.
“What did it taste like?” she whispered in morbid fascination.
“Ever have lobster?” Judy gave him a serious, almost pleading, look.
“Right,” Nick quickly corrected. “It tastes smooth, subdued, clean. Octopus has a very clear and transparent feel to the muscle. Not rich, so to say, but smooth on the palate. Good.”
“And . . . and y-you always eat it . . . alive?” she asked, her mind swimming that predators ate still living things. That Nick still ate living, breathing animals alive.
This is wrong this is dangerous this is absurd
The easy smile faded from Nick’s face. The look he was giving her was . . . perhaps unfriendly, perhaps scrutinizing, perhaps curious, perhaps judging.
“Why?” she braved.
The smile returned, teeth seemingly looking sharper than when they were at her apartment. “I am a predator, Judy. This is my design,” he told her, his quiet voice bordering on taunting.
In front of them, the Tanuki pulled back the large slab of red and began preparing it.
“That,” Nick started explaining, gracefully moving onto the next topic, “is se-naka, best part of the red meat of the tuna.” Judy felt a wave of cold grip her chest staring at the cut. A small river of red blood began running around the cut and pooled off to the side. “You won’t find much of any fat on that cut.”
Fat keeps you warm in the winter you get rid of it by working out or by surgery you are not supposed to choose what part of an animal you are going to eat not pick the meat that doesn’t have fat on it
They both watched in a revered silence as the chef began preparing their food. In the near total quiet of the restaurant, Judy listened to the knife elegantly part the muscle and sinew of the flesh, inhaled the gripping and powerful stench of blood and body. The sharp and attentive smell of the vinegar rice. The subdued spice of the wasabi. And real wasabi, at that. Judy couldn’t detect any horseradish in the mixture from scent alone.
“Normally, Tanuki here prepares all his food via Ikizukuri, which translates to ‘prepared alive’, but I thought that would be a little over the top letting you watch our chef battle and slaughter the tuna right here.”
I just watched you kill . . . kill and eat a living animal
And I didn’t do anything to stop it
The Tanuki took four pieces of ruby red muscle and laid them against the grille. The unique sizzling was an entirely new sound to Judy. It sounded completely different than how fruits and vegetables simmered over fire.
While the meat cooked, the Tanuki quickly began paw-pressing small boats of rice, fingers pressing and repressing every bit of surface area into four pieces. He took his thumb and depressed and smeared a small dollop of wasabi on the tops of the rice forms. After twelve seconds, the chef took all four pieces of meat, seared one side only, off the grille, and applied them to the rice beds over the wasabi spreads. Next, salmon roe, to contrast to the tuna meat, applied over the flesh. Lastly, a brush that painted the tops of each piece once over in sesame oil.
The Tanuki placed the four pieces on the plate, and pushed them towards Nick and Judy. He did not move away, just folded his paws behind his back and watched them, face blank.
Nick looked to Judy. She stared back, eyes wide, breathing a little quicker than normal. Nick could smell the adrenaline seeping off her, a combination of stress and excitement.
To say it did nothing to him would have been a boldfaced lie.
“Want me to go first?” he offered. She quickly nodded her head, eyes refusing to leave his face.
Again, she watched it all unfold in front of her, this time leaning in a little more than last time to better examine the feeding.
Judy watched as his teeth parted the flesh with the surgical precision of the chef’s knife. Watched as his eyes rolled back in his head when the rice and meat touched his tongue. Heard the growl of enjoyment that was so light it was more akin to a purr. Heard the teeth repeatedly cutting into flesh. Heard and watched him swallow and lick his lips.
Nick looked at his date, whom had been remarkably quiet for this evening. Judy saw the remaining three pieces of sashimi, placed between them.
It’s a joke he’s pulling your leg
“Would you like to try, Fluff?”
Say no Jesus God above please say no it’s unnatural it’s an aberration think of what your parents would say if you said
“Yes,” she muttered. “Yes, I would.” Judy took her chopsticks and picked up – well, attempted to pick up the sashimi. But she had never once held chopsticks (a good reason behind that), and combined with the elevated stress/excitement that was running through her veins, Judy couldn’t manage to work the process to her advantage.
By the sixth attempt, the piece she had settled on was now three pieces of rice/wasabi and a still singular piece of tuna, and Judy felt her face heating beyond a comfortable margin.
“How bout I help you with that?” he fox whispered, already picking up his own chopsticks.
Par for the course of the Judy Hopps MindsetTM, she naturally tried to refuse. “Nope, no, no, I can get it. I can do it –“
Her sense of hearing picked up the sound of his claws popping out from his fingertips before she consciously registered those sharp talons running under her jaw. The breath, and the ability to breathe, left her. She didn’t feel the chopsticks leave her paw, didn’t hear them clatter against the counter top.
In one paw, a rabbit. In the other, tuna sashimi.
“Say ‘Ah,’ Judith,” he purred to her. Judy tried to say something – anything – back, but the feeling of sharp claws parting the fur under her chin muted her. She could only open her mouth in response.
His claws left her chin, and Nick brought the tuna up to her open mouth.
No. No you cannot you should not this is unnatural this is so wrong you have never eaten meat rabbits are not supposed to eat meat
The rice touched her tongue first, the bright and bitter flavor of vinegar began seeping through her mouth.
Stop stop right now you can stop take it out of your mouth spit it out grab him and push him away
Judy opened her mouth wider to let the tuna and salmon roe clear her teeth. She bit down,
Spit it out Run out of here
and began chewing.
That’s another animal’s flesh you are chewing you are going against everything society expects from you, you are going against everything nature designed you to be
Felt the sensation of her buck teeth easily pairing the tuna meat apart.
Enough is enough you are . . . you cannot do this you should not WANT to be doing this
The flavor profile that was building across her tongue and palate and slowly translating into her mind . . .
STOP RIGHT NOW YOU CANNOT SWALLOW IT THAT IS SO DAMN WRONG THAT IS NOT VEGETABLES THAT IS NOT FRUITS THAT IS NOT NUTS OR BERRIES JUDY LAVERNE HOPPS
THAT IS CARNIVORY THAT IS
“Delicious,” Judy breathed out after swallowing the sashimi. “That is . . . really delicious. I’ve never tasted anything like this, Nick.” The calamity from her hindbrain was silent, perhaps dead.
In her first taste, and the bliss of how delicious the vinegar rice paired with the tuna meat, Judy didn’t realize that a little bit of her consumption had spilled its way onto her chin and the corner of her lips.
Judy was brought back to the present by the movement of a fox, leaning in towards her. His pupils widened to let as much light in as possible, and Judy stared back at herself in those dark pools as Nick drew near.
Out of an automatic response, Judy leaned back at the sudden advance. A sudden, low growl escaped his lips, freezing her in place.
Don’t move a predator, a fox, just growled at you do not move
His lips parted, pink tongue snaking out towards her, touching the side of her cheek. Slowly, very slowly, Nick dragged his tongue across her check to the corner of her mouth, catching the rogue salmon roe and juice from the rice and tuna. Keeping as slow a pace as he could, his tongue continued across her lips, which parted and a small rabbit’s tongue briefly tasted a fox’s, as it smoothed across her mouth. His tongue stopped when it reached her other cheek, having lapped up in one motion any bit of food spilled.
Nick held his head still as his tongue retracted back into his head, nostrils flaring, eyeing the rabbit.
Judy part shuddered, part whimpered, letting out a rattled and choked breath, incapable of breaking eye contact with the fox. Her heart felt like it was trying to escape up and out of her throat. She felt like she just finished running her new record for the mile sprint. Nick leaned back into his chair.
“You are right, Judy,” he muttered, voice husky and rough. “That is delicious. I’ve never tasted anything like that, either.”
His lips peeled back ever so slightly, half way between a smile and a predatory growl. Between satiated and unsatisfied. Something beyond what she had ever seen before.
Judy’s mind was still buzzing, but the train of thought simmered down from the panicked screaming into a dull white noise.
What is this? Why am I like this? Just . . . what on Earth is happening to me?
She instantly thought of what Nick had told her.
I am a predator. This is my design.
And she was thrilled, shocked, excited, terrified, enchanted, horrified, delighted by his design. And how she played into his design, and how he played into hers. She wanted to learn more, experience more with him.
To be vulnerable for him. To live up to and beyond their respective designs.
Judy took hold of Nick’s paw, returned his smile with her own, outwardly nervous and inwardly thrilled. In one motion, like it wasn’t her first time, she deftly picked up a piece of sashimi, holding it in front of Nick’s muzzle.
“Say ‘Ah’, Nicholas,” she cooed. Her fox smiled back, pupils narrowing, maw opening to accept her gift. With her free paw, she found his. With an audible click, she heard then felt his claws come out and start tracing circles in her fur.
All of this . . . is my design.