Zootopia I've been thinking

Chapter 7

He does his best to avoid her, and luckily, fate is on his side, because they get assigned to parking duty for the next two weeks, which means while she's hopping around being her adorable meter maid self and placing tickets around in one section, he's a section over doing the same, probably only half as cutely. When the weekend that they have a day off comes, instead of prancing off to Judy's for whatever trouble they usually brew up, Nick is home and slinging his tie onto his tie-rack and pulling his delegated shirt off, which he's about to fling haphazardly across the room before he notices a furry, flying grey bullet outside his window that slams his door open. It breaks off its hinges and Nick immediately stills, ears alert and shirt still caught on his forearms.

"You asked Bogo for a reassignment?!"

"Wha–"

"How could you?!"

"Who told you–"

"Are you insane? Have you lost every functioning brain cell?"

He puts his hands in front of his chest, except it looks dumb cause his shirt is still there, but he's not sure whether he should put it back on or just take it off? "Woah, woah, no need for such strong–"

"What were you thinking!"

"Well, I was think–"

"Unless you weren't, because who in their right mind–"

"Well if you'd just give me a minute to explain–"

"You didn't even ask me–"

"How was I supposed to bring that up to you–"

"It's been two years and you think you can just leave me for dead cause of a stupid kiss–"

"I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU!"

This gets her attention. Nick is breathing hard, his shirt balled up and tossed to the floor, hands stretched out like he's begging for something and looking absolutely stricken. Judy looks startled, like she's been caught off guard... which she probably has been. But that's all she looks: startled. Not hurt or angry or disgusted, and he's kind of relieved. Except she hasn't said anything. And she doesn't for what feels like an eternity, so he's no longer relieved. He's pretty sure he's just screwed up their whole dynamic, and now he's going to have to switch to the desk next to Jenny, which is going to suck because she always sniffs him for some reason and it makes him uncomfortable–

"Nick,"

At the delicate tone, Nick growls and pushes his fingers against his temple, closing his eyes as he drops haplessly onto his bed. "Can you not talk like that?"

"What?"

"Like you're afraid I'm gonna break!"

Her eyes are so confused. "I don't want to hurt you!" She presses, inching closer.

That sounds ominous, and he resolutely reminds himself not to let her see that she's getting to him. "Well you're not going to! It's fine!"

"Can you just be nice for a minute?" Her voice squeaks and starts to tremble on the last syllables, and his heart wrenches. Finally, he lifts his eyes to hers, which he sees are kind of glassy. Clearly she is fighting the temptation to cry.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"And ruin this?" His pointer finger switches between her and him. "Tell me how we were gonna recover from something so left-field, Judy. Things get awkward when somebody's in love and the other isn't."

"You didn't even ask me how I felt!"

"I knew how you felt!"

Her bottom lip stiffens and her nose twitches. "You can't decide how I feel!"

This is exasperating, and he wants to roll his eyes but he refrains. "Alright. How do you feel?" He knows the answer and this is really just adding insult to injury. His certainty is confirmed by her surprise, as if she hadn't expected him to actually ask her.

The grey on her is tinted a dark shade of crimson as she stumbles around words for a second before beginning. "I- I know that I really, really love you, Nick, and, um, I don't know, because I've never been in love–" the fox in question feels his heart crack a little when she says this, because he knows he is, and if she isn't sure, then she must not feel the same thing... "but I know I don't want anybody else around for the rest of my life the way I want you around. And- and- when I think of you leaving, I just want to cry and it hurts so much. And sometimes when I hear about how you've been with other girls, I get this weird, mean feeling inside of me, but I always think it's so stupid, because I know it's not like I own you!

And it's all so confusing because I don't know what any of it is, cause what if I am in love with you but I'm just too much of a dumb bunny to get it? The only thing I've ever wanted in my life is to be a cop so I could make the world a better place, so I've never cared about boys or romance or whatever, but now I'm a cop and things are kind of good right now so I dunno what to do anymore or what to want anymore so I try not to think about it, but sometimes I think about how I'm still only 27 and I've got my whole life ahead of me, but it's like I can't even imagine anything if you're not there. And I want to experience it with you because I just can't imagine life without you, and everything seems better when it's with you, and I guess what I want is you, and- and- I don't know!"

Her mouth is moving a mile a minute, and she looks so stressed he's afraid she's going to blow up. "I don't know if I'm in love with you, but... but... I'm willing to find out!" Then she loses whatever wind was pushing her sails, so she kind of just deflates.

He gets up slowly from the bed, heart thumping recklessly because he's hoping again. This time, his voice is all rounded-corners and goose-down pillows. "Carrots," she looks afraid, eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights. "I'm pretty sure you're in love with me."

The poor little bunny exhales and then smiles weakly. "I- I guess I am, huh? Laying it out like that..."

Nick quirks a shoulder and shoots her a lopsided smile. He spreads his hands out from his sides, beckoning for her to come into them.

"Let's try this out," she murmurs, walking into them. "What's the worst that could happen. Right?"

He squeezes her to him before taking a seat back on the edge of his bed, pulling her into his lap. "The general population is gonna freak out."

Sighing, Judy hooks her hands around his neck and burrows her face into the crook of his shoulder. "Well... screw them."

"Wow, getting comfortable already, huh?" He smiles through his perpetually half-lidded gaze, and his friend laughs while trying to smack him. "I like it."

They side-track for a second from the seriousness as Judy continues trying to land a punch and he keeps dodging and grabbing her fists. He's still grinning and she's laughing loudly before she ends the play-fight by threading her fingers between his when he catches both of her balled up paws. "I love you so much, Nick. You have no idea."
Oh
Her eyes are shining and his heart feels so big and like it might just rupture, and he's not going to cry, but his voice breaks all over the place when he speaks. "I love you, too."

It feels so good to finally say it out loud.