FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Substantia nigra

It was blackness that enveloped him.

His home. His torment.

Clouded, unending, monumental in scope; it gave itself away and rocked with an ebb and flow of rushing dark waters that could not be mistaken as anything but second-guessing. A reverie wrapped in doubt. A silent hope crushed by impulse. This was the reality pressed upon him.

This was his way of living.

Give in.

He would tell himself this.

Give in, Nick.

A predator's instinct told him to not heed his own demand, but everything else in his body gave him permission to collapse this barricade set before him. He was tired of living by_her_ word, tired of picturing a place of distilment and melancholy where in the end animals were left with nothing but broken memories built upon fractured lives. Animals chasing meat...animals muzzled. This place of cobwebs and decay could not possibly exist with such voracity.

It simply could not be.

And this was because he knew it not to be true.

He knew it as a façade ever since she came into his life--ever since he held her and she held him back even if it had been during a moment of duress.

In the background, inspired by the dreamlike sounds Judy had shared with him nearly two weeks ago, he had Beach House's "Days of Candy" playing softly on his SoundLink mini Bluetooth Bose speaker set near the small drawer stand where he kept his door keys in a glass bowl next to his black wallet. The room was set in a mode that reflected his very emotions at this juncture in time; it was dark and hopeless with the blinds drawn shut. He was partially preparing for the time he would have with his work partner and partly meditating for the fear that stained his insides so profusely like globs of hardening tar; in fact, it was a trepidation so deeply wrought within the cavity of his chest that it hurt to imagine its presence, so he attempted to deconstruct it into nothingness, to rearrange the pieces into his liking, to picture it as nothing more than a fallacy, but the truth stared him in the face and battered his head with no remorse: he was terrified. That much he knew. He was utterly terrified of spending this time with Judy, and it wasn't even a romantic date they were embarking on; it was going to be like any other outing they shared with one another as friends: no implications, no hidden agendas. But it still didn't help to think this. The fear lingered. Fooling his cunning mind did not work because it knew itself too well.

He stood in front of the mirror hanging next to his doorway drawer, staring at his face. Closing his eyes, he slowly placed a paw up against the wall in front of him and let it slide down the grooves of the plaster, feeling every inch of the bevels, curves, and tiny indentations. Like before, if he pictured hard enough, if he focused on the right points of interest, he could imagine himself slipping inside the crevices of this place of perfect imperfection--microscopic, deeper, down there, now...and then there would only be humming.

A deep humming.

A numbness.

Like what he used to feel when he sat outside underneath the night sky.

His eyes opened and what lay before him was the visage of a vulpine more terrified than when he had once been muzzled.

Give in.

He would tell himself this.

Give in, Nick.

?

The full-length beveled mirror reflected a trim and robust rabbit frame twisting slightly left to right in order to examine itself and the Manitou blue strapless sundress that hugged its every curve. Judy came to the conclusion that she liked what she saw, but the true test would be whether or not he liked what he saw. She grabbed at the thin cloth encasing her, thinking about how Nick had not been lying when he had told her to properly prepare herself for the concert: Sahara Square, a utopia for desert animal life, reached sweltering temperatures as devised by the architects of the massive climate wall bordering the district which was juxtaposed to the icy and fiercely cold Tundratown. The coexistence of such polarizing climates made it possible to circulate mass contradicting temperatures in a single unit so closely to one another because of the gargantuan coils hardwired to the wall that were somewhat akin to a refrigerator or portable heater, and it was because of this that Judy felt obligated to go shopping for a more fitting and comfortable line of clothing. The thought of walking around 100-degree weather in jeans and a t-shirt made her feel queasy, and she never did get the opportunity to experiment with "girly" clothing having been very used to adopting a rather plain style growing up on a farm. The idea of wanting to look good for Nick, of wanting to make him look at her, sent a chill up her spine. It was strangely erotic for her, relative to an exhibitionist's fantasies. While shopping, she had been simply browsing without a critical eye nor an objective, not too sure what she was even looking for, when the SunTropic-Blazt store clerk (a diminutive and long female ferret with red lipstick) suddenly came upon her as if telepathically knowing of her struggles and suggested that because of Judy's bust size she would look best with something that did not have straps on them and instead revealed the bare fur of her shoulders and shoulder blades. Not too sure what to think of such a remark, Judy had taken the line of clothing anyway and was surprised to find that as she stood in the dressing room examining herself, the ferret had been completely right: she looked absolutely amazing, downright sexy even, and in secret she hoped that Nick would think so as well.

Judy had been exercising religiously at this point in her life and couldn't help but feel a sense of pride as she slightly hiked up the sundress which already stopped well above her knees to reveal her well-toned legs built from a strict regimen of daily running activities. Her species demanded anything that was cardiovascular, and her efforts proved to pay off well. She turned again to the left and admired how her grey fur slowly shifted colors to a creamy white the higher it trailed up her inner thighs; she pictured something that would have made it look better: a strong dark red fox hand slowly sliding up it, groping higher and higher until his clawed digits...she cut herself short and stopped thinking of such great possibilities; it could wait until she was in the privacy of her own apartment and not in a changing stall surrounded by other strange customers. Saying this was easy enough, but the real challenge was actually following through with the demand because the truth was it was getting exceptionally difficult to stop herself nowadays from imagining Nick touching her, kissing her, licking her...even...she halted her thoughts, gulping. Even fucking her. This concept, this desire was deep within her mammalian body, and the more she hung around him, the more she realized how lustful and dirty she actually was. It was as if he opened the best worst part of her inner chambers, but rather than recoil and attempt to escape, she pushed forward with a determined curiosity through series after series of doorways toward a dark and sticky mess that made her stomach summersault. Not any more did she think of creating a silence from noise for a chance at nostalgia, an escape from chaos for a chance at simplicity, but rather she now longed for loudness and blissful struggle--passionate moaning, screams of ecstasy, fidgeting and heat and...

Cheese and crackers! she screamed inwardly. Get ahold of yourself, Hopps!

She looked at the mirror again to see her ears drooped low and her face flushed dark pink. Her battle would now be to bring herself back into normalcy instead of exiting the fitting room with a scent around her that suggested anything but a rabbit shopping.

But damn it all to hell, that was easier said than done.

She had gone too far and felt like there was no going back.

And the truth was quite simply put: there wasn't.

Remember yesterday? Her mind mocked her. You've already gotten a taste. You know you want more. Now what, Hopps. Now what?

Judy gently sighed.

This was a struggle that wit could not overcome no matter how good of a student of Nick's she had been.

This wispy tangle of desire infiltrating her body twisted itself into too many knots as proven the other day when she had finally acted on an impulse too vigorous to fend off. She had done something bad, or at least something society perceived as unnatural when it came to the animal kingdom and its stringent acceptance of sexual allure. What her parents would have thought had they saw her made her feel a slight weight of guilt thrust itself upon her shoulders, but it didn't matter at this point; the excess baggage could be handled--she was strong enough to take it. As she saw it, the damage was already done. She had been sitting at her tiny dinner table while munching on a mixed-veggie salad, her iPad set atop the wooden surface and playing a funny YouTube video, when a character, a red and black furred fox similar in build and stature to Nick, made an appearance wearing nothing but a pair of well-formed Woofy boxers, and while what was transpiring was supposed to be humorous, Judy found it anything but. His muscular legs and bare chest suggested that the egg white fur surrounding his inner thighs and naval slithered up and down, covering whatever had been barely encased by the fabric of what he wore; this made her bite her lip and got her thinking about whether or not Nick had the same pattern as the vulpine in the video trotting around without a care in the world. She'd set her fork down and then frantically began typing away on her iPad Google search engine: the exploration had been innocent at first--things like "foxes" and "fox models" and "fox with no shirt"--but her yearning for something more tripped over a metaphorical rock and slid its way down a slope far too steep to crawl back up. A dark thought enveloped her mind...a curious one as well because up until now she had never thought of the possibility. Would it truly be a thing? Would it be _allowed_to exist even on a place as wide and unending as the internet? Before she could muse any further or stop herself from acting, her fingers had already pressed the digital keys to spell out "interspecies porn", and much to her surprise, the tap of the search button spilled forth an onslaught of various sites that nearly made her eyes bug out from her head: TabooFur, SecretSexLives, Interspecies4u, and page after page of what could be none other than an industry she never imagined existed until now. It was actually a real thing.

...and there was a shit ton of it.

After realizing she had already gone too deep, she figured that turning back at this point would have been foolish. Clicking on the first link provided, Judy had been greeted with a warning verification page and then with a site categorized by species of interest; it took her only seconds before she had clicked the category of fox and then slid down the accompanying scrolling box to rabbit. Her heart had been thumping so rapidly that one would think she'd never delved into pornography before. It was impossible to not in such a rapidly moving world, and while she didn't make it a daily habit of hers, she had been known in the past to examine it from time to time simply because of the power of biology which ferociously grasped rabbits with a sexual fervor akin to addiction--by no means was she a flake nor a prude, but this type of exploration she was engaging in now was so foreign to her that its territory did nothing but send wave after wave of adrenaline through her tiny frame. Never had she attempted to look at another species in this way; in the past it had always been rabbits. But that all seemed to be thrown to the wayside. She wanted nothing to do with her own species anymore. Without even thinking, the first video she had clicked on revealed a quite muscular vulpine standing over a small and well filled out lagomorph that was cream white with occasional splotches of brown covering her tight body; their faces were blurred out from some type of video editing technology, but what could be seen was the only thing a site of this caliber cared for: a red, long, and thick fox member plunging in and out of the rabbit like a jackhammer, his nearly full-gorged knot demanding entrance, his heavy balls slapping against her with a ferocity akin to an animal that had just eaten multiple Night Howlers. His paws were locked at her thighs, the black claws digging into the creamy rabbit fur hard enough to demonstrate dominance but not with enough force to draw blood. Their rutting had been fierce and loud, and the rabbit in the amateur video moaned and shrieked in pleasure, seeming to love every second of it. She was being taken, plain and simple. Taken and used. How he would eventually tie her, if he did, Judy could only imagine. All that she knew at that point was that watching this scene play out made her very own breath come out in ragged waves, and her ears had nearly drooped down to the floor in a puddle of sexual tension so powerful that her beating heart could be felt through her temples. One of her deepest and darkest fantasies was right before her, and she knew right then and there what had to be done. It simply could not be avoided. Picturing Nick, she had spread her legs as she sat at her very own dinner table and helped satisfy a deep, powerful itch by releasing herself of the pent up arousal that had been plaguing her orifice.

She'd made a hot, sticky mess of her seat, and it felt wonderful.

Standing here now in the semi-privacy of the changing room, thinking back on her actions made her feel even more dirty...and it was a filth she wanted to experience again.

But not from a video.

Not from an artificial creation of her mind.

Him.

She wanted him in every which way.

Realizing her paws were scrunching the front of her dress on either side of her thighs, she suddenly let out a huff of air and then nodded at her reflected image.

In her mind, she traipsed across familiar territory and revisited her philosophy: Look inside yourself and recognize that change starts with you.

Like the text message she had read into, her stumbling on this new information of predators and prey engaging in intercourse only made her feel more courageous. The implications of there being such things online fed into her optimistic point of view that what she was experiencing was not in the least uncommon; in fact, it may very well have been a desire cultivated within every animal at some point in his or her life regardless of how prejudice against another species he or she may have been raised to be. This mass municipality known as Zootopia and the kingdom it resided in was a melting-pot after all, an orbiting globe with the theme of open-armed acceptance in what had once been an unacceptable world, and at the end of this maze could very well have been a crossing point, a hybrid line for every species to coexist in ways that had never been imagined. The magical question begged to be asked though: how _truly_accepting was this place? Not long ago, ever since her hunger for Nick surfaced, she would had thought not too much--only on a level of respect for your fellow prey and an admiration for betterment--but now her pondering only produced more questions that's answers could not be explicitly told but rather inferred. This utopia of colliding species was far too big to avoid eventual lapses in thoughts and feelings, and with that could only be an evolution of principals, and with that, far off in the distance, far off beyond what the older generations could even begin to accept, rested a promotion of desire and the will to reform old habits. Judy found herself nodding again at these buzzing thoughts. Old habits could die off. This was possible. She had once said that every animal has limitations, that one could find the willpower to try new things and relish their experiences, and it was until this very moment that she realized each creature's limitations, while seemingly solid in foundation, was only measured by how fearful and unwilling predators and prey were at attempting to shift themselves from their cemented nature.

And nature could be changed. It could be manipulated if tried hard enough...all it took was persistence.

It was change that needed to happen.

Change built from courage.

"Would be interesting...that's for sure," she whispered to herself.

She ducked down next to her pile of clothes she had changed out of and began rifling around in her miniature purse. She brought out her phone and snapped a quick picture of herself putting her paw to her side and smiling at the camera and then scrolled down her contacts list and attached the image to "Mom" before pressing the send icon.

Sitting down on the changing room bench, she set both of her paws on her lap and waited.

Not too long passed until she received a response, and the texting ensued:

Mom: Wow! You look amazing!

Carrots: Thanks! J

Mom: I don't think I've ever seen my little girl look like such a little girl before! Not since you were very young!

Carrots: Har, har.

Mom: Really, you do look fantastic! It makes me jealous that I was never that beautiful.

Carrots: lol. Thank you. I'm blushing now...

Mom: When are you guys leaving?

Carrots: A couple hours. We'll probably hang around Sahara Square for a while before we go to the stadium.

Mom: Fun! By the way, make sure and stay hydrated!

Carrots: Okay worry wart.

Mom: Hey you're still my baby girl even if you're a tough cop in a big city.

Carrots: I know, I know. Hey can I ask a favor?

Mom: Sure.

Carrots: Can u and dad maybe find some time today to meet Nick. I want to introduce u guys to him.

Mom: Absolutely! I'd love to meet your friend! When your father's out of the fields I'm sure he will want to meet him as well.

Carrots: Ok. Thanks!

Mom: Not a problem.

Carrots: I'll call you guys later closer to when we leave to the concert.

Mom: Alright. You two have fun! Love you.

Carrots: Love you too!

Judy set her phone aside and thought for a moment about everything she wanted to have happen tonight. Cliché as her thoughts were, her desire for her parents to approve of Nick was only a stepping stone, a mere ripple among an otherwise monumental mass of water in the complete scheme of things concocting within her subconscious. Her imagination would play out the scenes for her like an old movie reel: the feeling of his eyes undressing her body, a longing sense of desire emanating from his posture and movements, that cute and confident look he would shoot at her in an attempt to successfully seduce her, perhaps a grazing of paws intermingled with the smell of him close to her underneath a blazing sun, the feeling of his strong digits on her bare shoulder--these were all small snapshots, randomized images charting the timeline that would lead to one earth-shattering thing her lips craved. She could only imagine how riled he would be, and it made her shiver to think of him feeling like putty because of her presence. But in the same instant, she could not help and feel as though these delusions of grandeur were just that: delusions. What on earth could happen that would override the searing fear wrought upon their predator and prey bodies? Either of them no doubt knew a thing such as intimacy unknown to withdrawal could not exist with the eyes of other animals resting upon their every movement, and if it ever did, these very same eyes would more than likely turn down into an angry scowl. Staring and forever...a boundless sense of unacceptance pressed on their visage. A life like that would be no life at all. Bitter. Constant in struggle. Painful even. And then what? What were they left with other than walking on eggshells amongst perpetual disapproval?

No.

This was silly.

Screw that, she thought. Screw what they think. Remember what Nick says.

_ _ The frustration and ridiculousness of the entire situation made her stand back up, but it was the sudden buzzing of her phone that truly woke her from her slump.

She looked at the caller and her heart skipped at seeing it was Nick. In an instant, she pressed the answer icon.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey, hey, Carrots. What're you doing?"

Judy looked at herself in the mirror.

"Just getting some stuff for the concert."

"Stuff? Sounds mysterious." Judy could hear Nick feign a gasp. "This is all on the up-and-up, right? Nothing shady?"

"Yes, you stupid fox," Judy said while shaking her head. "I'm not getting anything illegal."

"Just checking. I mean, I wouldn't be totally opposed to us sharing a Night Howler and seeing if we can destroy half the city."

Judy giggled and was glad the slight shifting in her breathing didn't register over the phone. The thought flashed across her mind of either of them in a savage state, tearing at each other's clothes, tongues tangling over each other's--

"Hmm," she started, stopping her mind from wandering, "sounds tempting, but maybe I'll pass. I planned on having a good time today, but not that good of a time."

"Fair enough."

"So what's up?"

"Well, I figured we'd scour the area before going to the concert. You cool with hanging around Sahara Square? I was thinking maybe we could check out the markets next to the Palm Hotel, maybe eat something, and then head on over to the stadium."

"Yea! That sounds fun!"

"Alright..."

Judy bit her lower lip and gave what she was going to ask some thought.

"Hey, Nick..." she trailed off.

"Yea?" the volume in his voice told her he could sense she was loading up for something.

"So...would you be opposed at all to meeting my parents over FaceTime at some point today?"

There was a brief hesitation on the other end of the line.

Judy quickly cut in with, "I mean, if you don't want to that would be okay. I'd understand if--

"No, no," Nick interrupted. "I'd love to. It's just...didn't you say they were...well..."

"Yea," Judy said nodding to no one but herself. "They are somewhat 'old fashioned'. At least, my dad is. My mom is pretty much open minded. But after I told them about how you helped me out with Bernhard, they really seemed appreciative."

"Well that's good."

"Yea. So...you wouldn't mind? They really do want to thank you."

"Sounds good, Hopalong. I'm excited!"

"Awesome!"

"Alright. Any last requests? Ideas? Thoughts? Nude photos?"

Judy giggled.

"No, you deviant...nothing like that."

"Damn. Well, I'll see you at four then. Nothing to see here I guess."

"Okay. Bye," she laughed.

"Adios."

The call ended. Judy set her phone down and could see in the reflection of the mirror that her state of bliss showed clearly on her face.

It was always proven to be true that Nick brought out the best in her.

He never failed.

And this time was no different.

_ _ Tired with her prior pessimistic inner thoughts, she promised herself to just enjoy the day and began assorting her clothing before wiggling out of the dress. She tossed it aside and began examining the light yellow floral lace g-string panties hugging her firm buttocks--the lacy undergarments had beckoned her on her way over to the dressing room and begged that she left with them in the hopes of being seen by a pair of stunned fox eyes at some point tonight. She again began turning left and right to admire the curvature of her frame paired with her toned behind, pleased with how well she took care of herself, and the naughty thought of "accidentally" sending Nick a picture of her posing in such miniscule clothing only entered her mind for a fraction of a second before being pushed away by common sense and logic. How he would respond to such a gesture she could only guess, but it would not be too farfetched to imagine him never messaging her back and instead taking the incentive to save such an image for later viewing, or better yet, later use; this alone made her feel a sense of sexual desire at the thought of him frothing over her like some kind of hound dog with no sense of limit or willpower. Animalistic without abandon. Dogged and instinctual. What he truly was, deep down. She felt her legs tremble, and the tiniest tinge of guilt plagued her at realizing how strong her fetish for predators actually was. Where it started, she did not know for sure. She would sometimes rack her brain at detecting the source and usually came up with the answer of Gideon Grey. Not him specifically as an individual, but there may have been some kind of deep psychological twisting that had taken place after her scary encounter with his angry claws, and it could have manifested even more so adding onto the fact that her parents, especially her father, had ever since then labeled foxes as an "off-territory" nomenclature, an entity that eventually became exotic and unattainable in her eyes when she came. It could have been any one of these things. It could have been none of them. The end result was the same though: it made her incredibly horny and bothered--predators in themselves--and the idea of being dominated by a beast she could not fend off stimulated her intimate thoughts above all else. In the past, she couldn't help but feel immensely perverted and unnecessary to the world; however, now it didn't sting as much knowing there were thousands upon thousands of those just like her who were actually engaging in acts of taboo rather than merely thinking them.

Embracing what she was would be a challenge.

It still was.

But she felt it to be a necessary one.

Putting back on her casual clothes before opening the dressing room door and taking her desired purchase over to the cash register line, Judy put a smile on her face. She wouldn't let anything else ruin her day. It was meant to be filled with enjoyment after all. On her way over, her eyes were caught by a sunhat, smooth in material, that matched with her dress perfectly, and without a second thought, she grabbed the headpiece from the rack it hung on. She stood behind several customers, one who was a bulky Texas Longhorn, and was nearly slapped across her face by the fidgety rope-like tail that whipped from side to side as the white and black speckled bovine turned to leave the post and stomp his way out of the shop.

Once at the front of the line, Judy looked up to see the ferret that had helped her.

"Find everything you need?" she asked.

"Yea! Thanks for the help. You were right, by the way."

"Oh, that's great!"

Judy hopped up and set the sundress and other clothing on the counter.

"You know," the ferret said while ringing up the lingerie, "it's really none of my business...but I think that's a great choice for underneath the dress. He'll definitely enjoy it."

Judy chuckled, only slightly embarrassed.

"Thanks..." she said, and then with more courage, "I hope he does."

"By the way, we do have these in orange too. You know, in case you want to look more carrot-like for him."

Judy let out a light laugh.

"Why?" the rabbit asked.

"Oh! I didn't mean anything by it. What I meant was...and I don't want to sound off-putting, but isn't that what rabbits respond to?"

"It is," Judy nodded. "For the most part I guess."

"$65.70," the ferret said.

Judy handed the ferret a one-hundred-dollar bill and as the change was being handed back, a thought crossed her mind. Its power overrode rational thought and before she could do anything, it was already exiting her mouth.

"Looking like something a rabbit would like doesn't matter for him though."

"Oh?"

Judy took the plastic bag of clothing and shrugged.

"Yea. He's not a rabbit."

"Not a rabbit?"

It slipped from Judy's mouth.

It demanded to be known.

Shit! Cheese and crackers, girl! What're you doing? her mind raced.

"Fox," Judy corrected.

The ferret looked perplexed.

"Fox?" she repeated as a question

Judy simply couldn't help herself. Feeling light headed, she spoke without a filter.

"He's a fox."

And with that, she turned around and briskly exited the store before anything else could be said.

?

From a distance, Sahara Square glimmered in a shimmer of gold and heat that could only be associated with something as epic as a busy Las Vegas strip. However, this was far more spacious, far more luxurious even, and it was devoid of commonality in the sense that it boasted itself constantly and reflected its radiant body against a stagnant, clear bordering lake that the Zootopia transit system bulleted over countless times in a day. Massive green palm leaves built from green jade and flexible metals encircled the main street, Ilahub, and its connecting roadways weaving off into the lower subsections of town where palm trees stood as commonplace as grass in the Burrows. Among the small piking market places and low-levelled apartments made from dark red, brown, and yellow sandstone, Palm Hotel was a godlike spire towering among every facet of the undergrowth that was a horizon shot of varying rocks and chiseled Meza structures, and the gargantuan building of leisure was massive in scale due to its constructed cylindrical body made from hundreds of thousands of interconnected gold-brown steel beams and silver trimmed glass panes. It held the shape of a giant palm tree, hence its name, and raked in millions of dollars annually all thanks to its reputation for immaculate service. At its base, a giant oasis of lush grasses grew by aid of sprinkler systems and animal-made water geysers that sprayed into the air like liquid fireworks. Anyone who passed through would be crazy to not gaze upon every inch of the giant hotel, and so it stood with vanity unmatched to anything other than the mayor's main offices at the epicenter of the neighboring city. In Sahara Square's backdrop, rolling hills of fine sand waved up and down at smooth angles, and it was not uncommon to see cluster upon cluster of camel joggers clad in shorts and form-fitting running shirts trotting along the invisible line crossing the town to the barren fields. For them, this place was just right in its temperature, but for Judy and Nick, they were entering territory that required they be dressed and prepared for the occasion.

So they were.

Nick's eyes, when he had first gawked at Judy as she exited from her apartment building entrance, were affected in the way she had hoped for: he could barely even hide the fact that he'd been relentlessly trailing up and down her body as if she was a piece of Grade-A steak--from her paws partially covered at their hinds by light blue protective leather to her small bust that partially budded out of the thin sundress draped over her frame. He had been quick to compliment her in a humble fashion, but Judy's massive grin had already told him he'd given away everything she wanted to hear without actually saying it aloud. In the opposite sense, though, she could not withhold her own admirable gaze at a vulpine she really didn't see dress openly save for when he entered the Zootopia Police Department gym for his routine workout. His chest, muscular yet light of frame, was covered in a green sleeveless shirt which boasted a set of toned and long vulpine arms, and it was toward his solid forearms that the fur trailed into such a dark shade of red that they nearly looked black; the same could be said for his legs and feet paws which were currently being shown off by the pair of casual shorts sagging from him. His eyebrows had been hunched in his cocky and sly look as they greeted one another, and perhaps in an attempt to hide any further gazes at the rabbit, he grabbed from his pocket a pair of black sunglasses which were casually placed in front of his eyes. Secretly, Judy adored every feature of the vulpine, and it was during their moment of entering the vehicle--which Nick surprisingly managed to convince Judy he would like to drive this time around--that the fox could outwardly see her eyes locked on him with what could not be mistaken as feasting upon his body in the very same way he'd been doing moments before.

It had been a silent victory for Nick and one that made him even more jovial than he'd already been.

However, the same could be said for Judy as well.

At this point, in either of their minds it was tied 1-1.

During their travel through the streets, they made light conversation, and it wasn't until the district was in sight that Nick noticed Judy's excitement fully bloom.

"Pretty cool, huh?" Nick asked, referring to the enormity of Sahara Square. He turned his head to look at Judy who was sitting at the passenger side of the pickup. Her fascination could perhaps have only been outmatched by a child witnessing such a sight for the first time.

"Yea! It never really gets old. I remember only seeing it for a bit on the rail system when I first moved here and then when I'd do my parking ticket rounds. But this...this part of town is just...wow..."

Nick smirked.

"By the way, we're fairly close to Jumbeaux's Café," he said. "We could visit it for old time's sake. Maybe say 'hi' to Fatty-McFatterson."

Judy was looking around and then her mouth opened at realizing Nick was right.

"It is."

"First place I met you."

"First place we met each other."

"Yea..."

Judy laughed. "It's all coming back. Pawpsicles ring a bell?"

"Of course it does. That was my life for quite a while."

Judy leaned her head back against her seat. "Gosh! I remember how pissed I was when I first figured out what your little business model was."

"Pssh! Pissed at how you didn't think of it first?"

Judy suddenly gave Nick a light and playful punch on his shoulder.

"Ow!" he mocked. "Rabbit steroids!"

"No, stupid fox! I was so convinced I was just helping some poor dad who was being discriminated against."

"Half right."

Her nodding head made her ears slightly flop from side to side. At suddenly remembering how horribly Nick had been berated, she let fly from her mouth, "That owner was a real asshole, wasn't he?"

"Yea..." Nick nodded. "But what can you do? He had a right to be bitter. Elephants got it bad. I mean, look at what they have to work with as far as the females are concerned. It's like the Return of the Blob Redux!"

Judy put a paw over her mouth and giggled. "You're horrible...absolutely horrible..."

"And you love it."

Judy tilted her head and glanced over at him. "Do I?"

Nick smirked, his cocky grin peaking.

"Yes. Yes, you do," he said, and the slight tinge of sexiness in his voice, whether unintentional on his part or not, made her nearly squirm.

The pickup truck was steered onto the ramp that would eventually merge onto Sahara Square Main Street. The center of the district was in sight and made itself known with reflective light glimmering against its monumental frame.

Judy pointed to Palm Hotel.

"That's so amazing. Never gets old seeing it."

"The inside's even better."

"You've stayed there before?"

"Well..." Nick cleared his throat. "When I was still in my old line of business...yes."

Judy raised an eyebrow at him and posed a sly smirk on her miniscule pink lips.

"So, Slick conned his way into a five-star luxury hotel, huh? Pawpsicles weren't enough? You also had to steal rooms and meals?"

Nick put a paw behind his head and Judy couldn't help but take a quick look at his flexing bicep before peering back into his bashful face.

"You might be partially right, err...you know. Yea."

A laugh jumped from Judy's mouth.

"Let me guess," she said flipping her paw so her palm was facing up, "you and Finnick. You used Finnick as some kind of poor defenseless child."

"Guilty as charged. Well...no charge actually...however you want to say it."

Judy's smile was gleaming, and she couldn't help but say, "Right now you look like a kit who was just caught. Is that the same face your mother saw when she got you in trouble?"

Nick slightly jumped at Judy's comment. It was barely registerable, a miniscule jittering of his maw and face, but the movement was such that Judy's keen eyes, true and trained at detecting barely noticeable gesticulations, caught him in the act in the same manner she would have cornered a perpetrator attempting to hide an unintentional reaction to lying. But there was no falsehood going on here; it was only masking as a defensive mechanism. Nick's own well-trained emotional barrier he had set up for himself, as powerful as it had been, could barely hide the fact that his ears and whisking tail ever so slightly tilted downward in what could not be mistaken as a feeling of sudden melancholy, and then what followed caused Judy's own smile to slowly crack at the corners of her mouth: she could see what appeared to be a bothered vulpine beginning to veil himself with a weak smirk, a forced expression learned through years of perpetual downfall. She had seen this only several times--the first being when he had cracked and relayed his story of childhood trauma involving a muzzle. In an instant, Judy's regret and sympathy came rushing forward similar to when she had seen him and his fake child in the café. Her ears followed suit by slightly drooping.

She could see it all clear as day.

She could see his pain.

"Probably," he said flatly.

The moment seemed fractured, shifted elsewhere.

This wasn't how she wanted things to go. This day was intended to be perfect.

"I mean...you know. You just looked..." Judy could feel herself slipping. "You just..."

"I just looked embarrassed," Nick finished for her good naturedly, although there was still a tinge of bitterness in his face and voice.

"Yea."

"I know, Fluff. You caught me red-pawed."

Judy's grey and white digits were twining over themselves in a nervous fumble. Nick briefly looked down at this and raised an eyebrow.

"I could say the same for you, too," he said.

Judy chuckled, looking at her own paws, and then said, "You could."

"I guess we'll just call it even then."

"Okay...I'm sorry..."

"Hey!" Nick reached over and gave her bare-furred shoulder a light squeeze. It made her let out a light, nearly undetectable gasp, but not of fear. Had the moment been tender, she may have been turned on. "Don't apologize. C'mon! I know you didn't mean anything by it. Really, you're fine. I'm fine: see!"

Nick flashed Judy an incredibly cheesy smile riddled with fox teeth which caused her to slightly tilt her head back and laugh.

"There we go!" Nick said. "There's the bunny I know! All smiles and giggles."

"And there's the fox I know. All ego and wit."

"Compliment taken," he said satisfied.

"Now we're even."

"Sounds good to me."

Both animals were quiet for a moment in an attempt to think about how to shift the conversation toward something else. Inwardly, Judy chastised herself for having mentioned something she knew was sensitive to the one animal she could call her best friend without hesitation. In the past, they had only grazed over Nick's previous life as a small vulpine trapped in a torrent of painful scenes, and she never really did have to warn herself to refrain from speaking about certain topics other than his mother who, to her knowledge, had been someone who had tiptoed along the ghastly line of being supportive yet seriously harmful to his upbringing. His love for the vixen who raised him seemed as though it trifled with being passive and filled with unfathomable regret. The details were only vague mutterings, something Judy couldn't quite piece together, but what she could decipher was that her own experience with life had never even come close to something as scarring as Nick described to her in their past conversations while cruising around in their police car; however, that didn't stop her from being sympathetic to his situation. And so she was to the best of her ability. A scarred animal was a scarred animal. She was supportive to him whenever she could be, but it just seemed as though she overlooked this particular moment as a result of her bubbly nature.

As to mend the situation, a question popped in her head, and she felt the need to speak.

"So, when you were out here as a con, what was the coolest place you went to?" she suddenly inquired aloud.

Nick tilted his head slightly. His good spirits seemed to have returned.

"As far as Sahara Square goes?"

"Yea."

"Hmm..." Nick's brow lowered next to his sunglasses as he appeared to be in a state of pondering. "I'd probably say..." he stopped, thinking again. "Yea. I would probably say the Sonoran Market Place."

"Ooh, what's that?"

"A big strip. Long, lazy street filled with flea markets and trade and all sorts of stuff. Kind of near the outskirts of the district. Pretty much a hub for anyone who wants to scope out the Sahara Square life. Finnick and I used to stake out that area a couple times. We made a lot of money actually."

Judy hummed. "Really? What'd you guys do?"

"Oh, the usual: turned less valuable things for profit. Freezy-Cones created from the Tundra District. Sold the plastic cups the customers recycled to Gerbil families for roof shingles and home repair."

"Ha! You guys were bad."

"To the bone."

Judy giggled. There was a slight pause, Nick seeming to be plotting something in his head, and then he returned the beat.

"Chicks dug us," he commented smoothly, nodding.

Judy tilted her head toward him and lowered her maw in a state of nonbelief.

"Please," she said. "You guys wished."

"No, no. Really."

"All talk."

"I'm talking a different vixen every day. Blonde, red, black-furred, brown-spotted. You name it. Long tails. Short tails. Suzanne, Skyler, Stacy, Stephanie, S--

Judy rolled her eyes and interrupted with, "You're just naming off random 'S' names."

Nick let out a loud laugh.

The vehicle came to a slow halt as he pressed the brake at the red light. A large shuffle of camel, rhinoceros, and zebra citizens herded from either side of the pedestrian walkway with a strut and stride as if they were prowling for water.

"Fine. Don't believe me..." he teased.

Judy turned her head back to the outside sights. It was quiet for a moment while she appeared to be mulling concepts over.

She suddenly turned back to him.

"Besides," she started quickly, "the little sleaze bags probably just wanted in on your profit is all..."

"Damn, Carrots..." Nick's grin was massive. "Is that really what I think it is? Could you possibly be...jealous?" He let the word slide off his tongue like poetry.

Judy's ears shot up.

"No! Are you kidding me!? Of what?"

Nick's grin was immense.

"Of me getting some," he stopped and quickly cleared his throat, "_attention_from other females, so to speak."

"Give me a break! Why would I care?"

"C'mon, Fluff. You can tell me! I know you're happy being my closest female friend. It's only natural if you feel somewhat green-eyed."

Judy waved him off. "Stop flattering yourself."

"Okay, okay. You don't have to say it..."

The light turned green and Nick pressed on. Judy had her arms crossed now and was quiet for a while.

"Besides," she began out of nowhere, "it doesn't matter anyway. I guess it would be no different than some of the guys that 'dug' me at the academy."

"Ooh," Nick grimaced. "Shots fired."

"Boom," Judy smirked. She was glancing at Nick with sneakiness emanating from her eyes; however, he could have sworn there was the tiniest traces of seriousness as well.

"Now, I must say that sounded very suggestive. What kind of_digging_ are we talking about here?"

Judy straightened her back, her crossed arms and expression looking like a child with a secret.

"Don't know. Probably the same kind of attention you were talking about."

Nick slapped the steering wheel with his paw and laughed, enjoying the back and forth game playing out.

"Names? Spill it. Let's hear it."

Judy counted off each name by tapping her fingers. "Ben, Brad, Broderick, Brady, B--

"You're just naming off random 'B' names."

"Oh, really?"

"Yuh-huh."

"Fine. Don't believe me!" She stuck out her tongue.

Nick turned the pickup onto Sahara Square's main street, Ilahub. The chaos of the streets matched the ferocity of the heat, and it was almost unbearable.

"Shit," Nick said. "Busy as hell today."

"Yea," Judy agreed.

Nick swiveled around tiny street side markets set so far against the borderlines of the roadway that they seemed to be obstacles.

"So...really though," Nick started, his smirk nearly nonexistent now, "what were their names?"

Judy's arms, crossed again, slightly tightened up as she said delicately, "Chris and Jackson."

Nick whistled.

"Boyfriends?"

"Once..."

"At the same time?"

"No!" Judy made a face of disgust and the slap she gave Nick this time was real. His laughing brimmed the inside of the pickup.

"Hey! Easy! Lay off the protein shakes! You'll break my arm!"

Judy simply shook her head in disapproval although there was some amusement to her demeanor.

"You're _un_believable..."

"Can you blame me for asking? I mean, I can't help that rabbits are known for their...um, exploits."

"You sound like that fat elephant with your stereotypes."

"Nuh-uh. You know it's mostly true."

"Oh? Like how all foxes want to _maul_every tiny rodent they see on the street?"

"Hey, that's unfair."

"Says the guy who's labelling rabbits."

"Okay, okay. Point taken. Anyway, so you didn't get frisky with them ala ménage a trois. That's fine. Tell me about them."

"No. None of your business now."

"Pwweaaase!" Nick squeezed the steering wheel in a child-like manner and let all of his teeth show.

"Nope. You've lost your best-friend gossip privileges for now. Just drive, chauffer." Judy let her last remark sink in by brushing Nick away with her paw.

"Aww." Nick made a sad face. "Alright, Carrots. I'm sorry."

"Not gonna' work, Slick."

"Seriously. I apologize."

"Too bad..."

Nick began to smile.

"You're getting very good by the way."

Judy only nodded with a look of satisfaction.

"Learned from the master," Nick continued. "My protégé, my muse."

"Whatever, freak. Anyway," she said, unwrapping her arms, "off the topic of my private life, what was the street you were talking about?"

"Sonoran Market Place."

"That was it. Sounds fun."

"We can go there right now, you know. It has some pretty good places to eat too."

"Yea?"

"Yea. Want to?"

"Yes!" Judy playfully clapped both of her paws.

Nick adjusted his sunglasses by pushing a claw against the bridge of his muzzle. His black-lined lips crept up in a smirk.

"But I warn you," he started, "be cautious. These animals love a good hustle. Especially the flea market vendors."

Judy shrugged. "Good thing I'll have a shady pro to assist me," she said almost dreamily. "He'll protect this feeble and poor rabbit, yes?"

Nick put a paw over his heart and scoffed in a faux sophisticated voice, "Why of course, darling."

Judy tittered.

As the vehicle crossed a small overhanging ramp and veered from a tiny avenue onto Cascade Street, the Sonoran Market Place was in view and rocketed its way into a long, boastful straight line that was overpowered by an onslaught of small vendors set up at posts created from handmade wood frames and boxes. One could not help but admire the dedication it took for most of these animals to make what they would consider a moderate if not weak income by slithering from their beds at early hours, well beyond what any individual envisioned as normal, and trudging out to the empty streets to set up at their unofficial sections of the sidewalk in an attempt at exchanging products for their livelihood. The entirety of the display posed itself like a theme park for gypsies--exoticism intermingled with traces of the disheveled; a strange kind of organization for the seemingly unorganized. What stood before Judy's wandering purple eyes was a haphazard yet interesting display of random trinkets for sale: postcards bought and sold for marginally higher percentages pinned onto rotating black swivel racks, cacti plants squeezing through tiny brown pots set at affordable prices, fruit markets displaying exotic varieties shipped from locations unknown to anyone other than the producers, magazines and caricature hand-drawn art pieces covered in shade by large posts hanging long sheets for protection against the hateful sun, and what appeared to be every other item one could imagine were all set side by side at an uncomfortably close range from one another. Cougars, deer, gazelle, and other flowing desert animal life shuffled along the labyrinth of amateur outlets and they all were buying, bartering, and benefiting from the cheap deals being advertised by large cardboard signs marked with black sharpies. Everyone seemed to be gesturing and speaking in a fashion only comparable to a crazed stock market bidding, and the sight alone probed Nick's adrenaline as he thought of talking someone down to a nearly nonexistent margin of price. The moment in itself was as if he was revisiting his old stomping grounds, and in a way, he was.

Peddling and profiting.

The life of expectancy's enemy.

This was the time and place of movement he once knew.

Judy could see this and rather than interrupt Nick's reverie, she idly sat by and watched his expression.

He looked so handsome, so fit in the moment, and she dare not interrupt him.

Idling the pickup into a nearby parking lot, Nick turned the vehicle off and turned to Judy.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready!"

Nick guided Judy to the starting point of the market place, and they began casually walking down the long trail, weaving their way through a mass of loud, large, and small animals alike. Many of the proprietors were a species that clearly inhabited the desert district, camels and such, and their large hairy humps jutted up against their shirts in a manner that brought them close to appearing like the cousin of Quasimodo. Judy stopped near one of the markets and was browsing through a display of hand-carved wooden figurines: some were immaculate and amazingly detailed palm trees, others were cacti surrounded by waves, and some were even different types of animals molded by such a crafty eye that if looked close enough one would see different engravings intended to be flowing fur. The artist, a large and burly zebra equipped with what looked like a beer belly, sat slumped on a fold-out chair and had a small piece of wood resting against the round blimp of flesh below his breast that was covered by a blood-red t-shirt that had a picture of a rocking chair and the words "Rockin' On" underneath it. His mane, a trademark of all African equids, jutted up like a Mohawk and looked like red and white licorice sticks standing upright in a floral-like pattern. From his other meaty hand, a whittling knife danced its blade against the piece of wood he held and knocked out various angles of shavings until they fell to the concrete below like leaves descending from their tree branches. It appeared he was carving a small oasis with two palm trees sitting next to it, and like his other works of art, this one also did a fantastic job of standing out due to careful and meticulous detail, specifically the trunk of the trees which were angled with small-scaled diamond patterns that could only be possible through a steady and trained surgical precision.

"That's really good," Judy awed.

"Thanks," the zebra said in a gruff phlegm-riddled voice. The ashes of the cigarette that was clung between his lips floated down to the ground in the same manner the shavings had been.

Judy stood straighter and put both paws behind her back, which now held her purse, and she asked, "How long does it take to make one?"

The zebra closed one eye and his lips lowered in a state of pondering. While he did this, he continued to carve as if having a third eye.

"Mmm...depends I guess," he said.

"On?"

"On how big it'll be."

Judy pointed to the carved fox. It was somewhat minimalistic, having identifiable features yet not in the sense that it could have been a specific vulpine.

"How much is that one?"

The zebra eyed the carving for not more than a second before saying, "$20.00."

Judy had her purse in front of her and was opening it until Nick stepped in.

"So what kind of rotary tool did you use on it?"

The moment was halted by silence stepping in view.

Taken aback, the zebra's brows lowered quickly before setting back in their normal position.

"What you talkin' about?" he asked, slightly annoyed.

"Just wondering. Was it a high torque carver? Or precision? Probably torque because of how it's not as detailed as the others, right?"

Judy looked up at Nick, her mouth agape.

"Alright, foxy," the zebra said nodding, removing his cigarette and puffing a spike of smoke toward the sky, "I don't know what your aim is, but these are all hand-carved originals. Lotta' time went into these babies."

"She'll take the fox for $8.00. A buck for every minute it took to make it."

At this point, the zebra had stopped whittling. He set the knife down on the table next to him and leaned forward.

"Fox, you got some balls..."

"Nick," Judy whispered, an inkling of fear rising from her voice. "Stop it."

Nick smiled at Judy and winked. She didn't know what was happening, but she trusted him enough to allow it to continue.

"Listen, you and I know this fox sculpture here is not hand-carved. The beveling is very precise, and the way his torso is lined out looks very generic." Nick pointed closely at each detail with his index finger claw. "I'm guessing this took no more than ten minutes. I'd say $10.00 is the most it's probably worth."

The zebra's eyes were slits. He was now leaning one elbow against his knee and looking carefully at Nick.

He sat that way for several seconds.

"Don't know. Five-dollar discount on Fridays is all I'm willing to offer right now," he said with skepticism.

Nick nodded, rubbing his paw against his muzzle.

"What happens if, say, it fell to the ground? I know it's an original carving, but how sturdy is it?"

"Sturdy enough," the zebra said flatly. "Made from Walnut."

"Ah. I hear Walnut is hard to carve by hand. Interesting. It's just...hmm...I don't know."

"How 'bout you just let the lady choose..." the zebra suggested.

"Well we're here together right now. This is a joint purchase, so I can only voice my opinion too. What do you think, Carrots?"

Judy looked from the zebra to Nick and then back to the zebra.

She felt torn, and still did not understand the little game being played, if in fact it was a game.

"I think..." she started, unsure, "...I think that...fifteen is just fine?" The zebra's stoic frame softened, and he leaned back in his chair as the money was exchanged.

Looking over at Nick, Judy saw he had his head tilted to the side and was rubbing his forehead with his paw.

"Thanks little lady," the zebra sneered, handing her five dollars back.

"Thank you..." she said with confusion in her voice.

"See you around," the zebra said cheerily while waving at Nick.

"Hey," Nick pointed, "if she knew how the hell this worked, I coulda' had you at $9.00. At least."

"In your dreams, fox."

"At least tell me now."

Grinning, the cigarette pressed against his slightly yellowing zebra teeth, the whittler said softly, "High torque."

"Fuck!" Nick snapped his fingers. "I knew it!"

Judy grabbed Nick's forearm.

"Uh, let's go, crazy," she said.

Guiding Nick away from the market, the fox statue carving being cradled by her other arm, Judy looked at her best friend as they continued walking and didn't know where to start.

"So...is this like the unwritten rule of the markets?"

"Yep. It's a battle of verbal chess here. And you moved the king into the open there, Carrots. Check and mate."

"Sorry."

"Quite alright," Nick said, patting her on the shoulder. "If you're new at this, it's pretty tough. These guys do this all day every day. They're pros."

"And so did you."

"Yea!" Nick's voice oozed with pride. "I did."

"Do you really think you could have gotten him down to $9.00?"

"For sure. He looked tired, not ready. Plus, the bigger guys tend to exhaust faster. Less stamina. Even if it's just talking."

"You'd think it was a fight..." "Kind of. But there's a respect to it."

"Hmm." Judy had a small smirk on her face now.

"What?" Nick asked, smiling as well.

"You look very satisfied is all."

"I am. That was like a taste of foreplay."

Judy giggled.

"You could have picked someone...better to do that with."

"Ha! Like who?"

Judy wanted to say "me", but her mind swatted that word away.

"At least someone who didn't have a balloon under his shirt," she said.

Nick chuckled.

"Well you got a point there, Fluff."

"Let's keep looking around!" Judy said excitedly with a hop to her step. "I'll shut up and learn. Watch a pro."

"Now we're talkin'."

Scouring around the marketplace proved to be quite lucrative if one was keeping track of lowballing; in fact, Nick had nearly talked down every single vendor he and Judy randomly stopped at--from the home-made candle maker who crumbled down to nearly 80% off the original asking price to the Llama selling what she claimed was original sewn blankets and who might as well have handed over the sheet for free to Nick once he started pointing out the inconsistencies of the "sewing machine" patterns. If anything, Judy took one thing from what she saw: the vulpine had not been lying when he said this had once been his life; it showed like a vibrant, glimmering star in the sky, and throughout the entire time Judy was utterly fascinated at seeing the different strategies he used to veer the conversation to a territory that gave him the upper hand. It seemed that was always the strategy: gain the upper hand. Talk faster, talk harder. It was an art style, pure and true. On occasion, he would glance down at Judy, who at this point was carrying a baggie filled with purchased goodies (most bought by Nick for her, even with her insisting he didn't), and he couldn't help but give her a small wink which she took in and reflexively began to blush at seeing him be so bold. It very well could have been a wink signifying success at their dealings, but she took it as something more. His handsome features, his grin, his strut made her legs wobbly, and she couldn't divert her gaze. As the day carried on quite quickly, the sky began to dim into a color and temperature that made the heat much more comfortable. The slight breeze, still warm and humid, wafted out a scent of cooked vegetables and tortillas from the surrounding Meza sandstone restaurants lined behind a large section of the remaining markets--accents of different dialects murmured and shouted within the rows amateur vendors as sounds of sizzling and boiling emanated from the primitive yet surprisingly comfortable looking places of business behind them.

Nick's eyes dropped down at Judy.

Her expression told him they were thinking the same thing.

"Hungry?" he asked.

She only nodded, but it was a frantic nod.

After her subsequent acceptance, he walked her along the border between the markets and the eateries. They glanced in every opened window frame to get a glimpse of what was being served: some places held only charred meats grilled by huge stoves while others only sold mashed salads with almonds and mushy soups on the side. Finding something that would cater to both of their dietary and palatal needs proved to be somewhat of a challenge, as they both experienced many times in the past, but their search proved to be fruitful when Nick's eyes came across LaHoliton's, a small and humble sandstone structure that seemed to hold a bit of everything according to the large menu displayed next to the open kitchen. It looked almost like a hybrid food wagon with the chefs cooking in the open. Choosing to sit on one of the white outdoor tables covered by an umbrella, Nick and Judy ordered their meal from a tall male gazelle wearing a skull and crossbones headband. His punk-rocker voice caused Judy to smirk when Nick shot her a glance, and their little secret joke went unnoticed by anyone other than themselves especially when Nick, not being able to help himself, began imitating a Keanu Reeves surfer boy trying to find his wax which nearly caused Judy to topple backwards in laughter. When the food arrived, the two began to scarf it down, Judy munching on a tall salad and Nick chewing meat off of ribs like a beast gone savage.

"How's your food?" he asked in between bites.

"Good. Do I have to ask how yours is?" Judy handed Nick a napkin which he patted against his dribbling maw.

They both stopped eating and stared at each other in silence. Suddenly, they both began laughing at the situation.

After continuing to eat for a lapse of time, Nick pushed his plate forward and cocked his head to the side.

"So, did you have fun here?"

"A lot. I thought I was getting pretty good the last two we tried talking down."

"You were. A natural, actually."

Judy shifted in her seat, excited.

"How did you learn to do this? To do all this?" she asked.

"Practice, really. Nothing secretive. Just getting out and doing it. Desperation..." Nick stopped for a moment, shoveling a toothpick between one of his fangs. "Desperation can make you learn things pretty quickly. Having no money puts ingenuity above all else. I had nothing, so I had to make something out of nothing."

"I guess it would," Judy said in realizing this. In the same thought, she couldn't help but feel a shiver trail down her spine at what Nick had said. Where he had attempted to create something from nothing, she in her mind spent her days doing the opposite.

The silence.

The silence created from the noise.

It was a paradox, it seemed. One she cherished.

Above all else, it reigned supreme in her philosophical outlook.

But then...why did it not bother her today? Why did this complete and unrefined chaos not send her over the edge?

Him, her mind answered for her. Because you are here with him.

"So," Nick started. "What got you into Beach House? Just sort of happened?"

"Kind of," Judy shrugged. "Every morning I listen to music. I just plug it on random. They just happened to be there for me when the silence wasn't."

"Hm. Silence?"

"Yea..." Judy looked from side to side, slightly embarrassed she had unintentionally confessed something very personal to her.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean..." Judy's hesitation was beaten when she looked up to see Nick's paw resting on his chin. His curiosity and interest in everything about her melted away any opposing thoughts bumbling around within her consciousness. "I mean that this place can sometimes be overwhelming for me. Its...loud and brash and...and it just hurts sometimes. I like to, at times, make, you know..." Judy trailed off and lamely added in a near whisper, "silence."

Looking down in shame, Judy was surprised to see Nick nodding when she had enough courage to gaze up at him.

"How do you do this? Create the silence, I mean. I could use some at times."

Judy smiled.

"Well...I just take a place."

"A place?"

"Yea. A place of importance. Somewhere no one else can get to you. And I picture it. It's usually big. Wide. And I like to think I'm the only one there. No worries, no pain. And then I put myself there again, and keep going down further until I'm so far in it that I can't go back. And every once in a while, it'll be there...the silence."

An image of Nick's paw pressed against his wall, sinking in the crevices of the paint came to his mind.

An image of him as a scared child imagining a better life fell upon that thought.

"And it works?" Nick asked with seriousness in his voice.

"Sometimes."

"But not always."

"No. I mean, look," Judy said, waving her paw across the bustling markets.

"Yea. I hear 'ya."

"Yea..."

Nick was poking the toothpick into his teeth again. They were both quiet for a while, thinking, when he suddenly said, "Bunnyburrow."

"Huh?" Judy tilted her head in curiosity.

"Why don't you take a trip to Bunnyburrow? I bet that's a fantastically silent place. Big fields. Land upon land. You'd talked about it in the past. Would be a great meditation trip, I bet."

"It...would..." Judy said as if suddenly realizing this.

"And you'd get a chance to see your parents again. I know you talk with them all the time, but it isn't the same, right?"

"True."

A thought suddenly popped in Judy's head.

"Hey!" she exclaimed. "By the way, speaking of my parents, I told them I'd call them around this time. Would that be okay?"

"Absolutely."

"Yay!" Judy clapped her paws and then grabbed her phone from her purse. She began to dial.

Nick glanced over to see she was using FaceTime and remembered she had requested that Nick meet her parents.

His heart skipped a beat at this sudden revelation.

Shit, he thought. Her parents. Meeting her "old fashioned" parents.

Nick's paw ran through his head fur, hoping he didn't look like complete trash.

The dialing could be heard and when there was no answer for two rings, Nick thought he'd be in the clear.

Then an answer followed on the third.

"Mom! It's me!"

"Bun-Bun! How are you?" Bonnie was at her usual position in the kitchen, no doubt whipping up a massive meal for a family that would soon fill the entirety of the house and then some.

"Good! We're at the Sonoran Market Place. Nick is showing me all the sights. We were bargaining with some animals. It's pretty crazy."

"Oh, that sounds fun."

"Yea...hey, is dad there?"

"Not at the moment. Tractor sputtered out again. He and some of the boys are working on it."

"Darn. I wanted him to meet Nick."

"Aw, that's too bad. I'll be sure and let him know you called if he's not back soon."

"Okay. Well...do you want to meet him?"

"Of course!"

"Alright..."

Judy turned to look at Nick. Her face displayed hesitation, but Nick's large smirk told her everything was okay. She turned the phone so that both of them were in view of the camera.

"Mom, this is Nick Wilde. Nick, this is Bonnie Hopps."

"Hey, Mrs. H! Nice to meet you!" Nick waved at the camera and put on his best smile. Bonnie showed not even the tiniest hint of disapproval or negativity toward him, and in fact she seemed to brighten up at finally getting the chance to meet the animal who Judy not only spoke about to her wits end but who also rescued her from certain peril.

"Hello, Nick! Nice to meet you too. I heard you helped Judy with a little mishap a while ago."

"If you're referring to the incident at the pub, then yes I did."

"Yes, I am. It sounded like she was grabbed by some...hooligan."

"Personally, I'd use a different term to describe him, but yea...we took care of that quickly. No problems now. Although, she probably could have walloped the guy herself if she wanted to..."

"Don't be so modest. I wanted you to know my husband and I are very grateful for what you did. It always feels good knowing we can entrust someone to protect my daughter when things aren't going so well. And it makes our lives easier knowing she has you as a partner while on the job"

"Oh boy. Pressure's on," Nick said, putting a paw behind his neck.

Bonnie laughed.

"No pressure at all," she started, "I just wanted to thank you."

"You're welcome."

Nick glanced over at Judy to see a minute trace of worry behind her eyes. Unsure of what this meant, Nick turned back to Bonnie.

"So...what's it like being the wife of a carrot farm guru?" he asked.

"Busy," Bonnie chuckled. "It keeps me on my toes, especially with most of the kids still around."

"I bet. How many of those little rascals are still there, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Not at all. 205 exact. Brothers and sisters alike."

"My goodness..." Nick said in disbelief. "Do you ever get them mixed up?"

Bonnie's smile intensified. "It happens on occasion," she said. "Even as good with remembering names as I am, it'll slip by and I'll sometimes call Tim Tucker or Sammy Suzan if I'm not paying close enough attention."

"Ha! Wow. I thought it was hard enough being an only child, but I couldn't imagine the difficulty of having an army living in one house."

"It definitely has its ups and downs," Bonnie nodded. "And 'army' is a good word, by the way. That definitely sums it up sometimes."

"Well...I hope you don't mind me saying, but I'm sure they are all fantastic kids, and it's interesting and satisfying to see that I was right in thinking Judy inherited her good figure from her mother."

Bonnie put a hand up to her mouth. Judy's own embarrassment was overshadowed by the fact that as she looked at her mother's reaction, she mistook it as a mistake on Nick's part, that is, until she saw the corners of Bonnie's mouth upturned in a powerful smile. Once Judy's mother regained her bearings, she removed her paw.

"I don't know how true that is, Nick, but thank you for the compliment," she said, clearly flattered by his remark.

Judy glanced over at Nick and remembered in an instant why she was so attracted to him. He was positively knocking it out of the park with her mother, and his ability to carry on a conversation stood the test of being unmatched by anyone she knew.

"So how has work been for you two?" Bonnie asked. She was now leaning against the kitchen countertop, immersed in the exchange.

"One day at a time," Nick said, placing a paw underneath his muzzle. "It's been pretty hectic lately actually. Lot of drugs. Lot of inner-city strife with young kids. I'm sure Judy has told you a little bit about it. We had a pretty nasty run-in about two weeks ago. Three deaths."

"That's horrible...and yes, she has. It sounds pretty dangerous."

"It is at times. But luckily we're more of observers from a distance. Not on the front lines. We put our time in to save the city once before. Makes me remember why I became a cop in the first place. All thanks to your daughter and her words. She claims I'm the silver-tongue of the troupe, but I think she's inheriting that mantle."

Bonnie's face was beaming now. "She is something else, isn't she?"

"Okaaay, mom," Judy said, her ears drooping in complete and utter embarrassment. Her face was beet red, and her fur couldn't even begin to hide this fact. "Enough of this," she demanded weakly.

"You are, honey. You don't give yourself enough credit."

Judy's silence was the only answer she could muster.

"She really is, Mrs. H."

"Oh, call me Bonnie!"

"Alright, Bonnie. So I don't want to sound too forward, but the whole carrot farming business sounds pretty fascinating. I'd like to see how it works sometime. I've never actually been out to Bunnyburrow before."

Judy's ears shot up at Nick's proposal.

"Stu would love that," Bonnie said. "Any time he gets a chance at talking about it, he can't be stopped. I'm sure he'd love to show you around the farms one of these days."

"Awesome."

Nick glanced over at Judy to see she was radiating pure happiness.

"Well," Nick said, "it was great meeting you, Bonnie. We actually have to get going if we want to catch the concert in time."

"Alright! It was good meeting you too, Nick. Don't be a stranger, now."

"I won't. And when you get a chance, tell Stu I said 'hello' and that I'd like to meet him sometime."

"Oh, I will. You can count on that."

"Okay, bye!"

"Bye!" Bonnie waved at her camera jubilantly.

"See you later mom," Judy said with contentment in her tone.

Bonnie puckered her lips and made two kiss sounds. "Love you, Bun-Bun. Have fun!"

"Love you too."

After the call ended and her phone's screen went black, Judy looked over to see Nick displaying his brows in a cocky arch. He actually had the audacity to raise one eyebrow a couple times quickly.

"So..." he said, "it appears we have another nickname that--

"Don't you even dare," Judy warned, genuine anger suddenly ricocheting off of her.

Nick put both paws up in defense.

"Chill."

"Nick, I'm not even kidding!"

"'Kay. Judy has a limit. Got it. No Bun-Bun. Duly noted." Nick made an imaginary checkmark in the air. "Any others I should know about?"

"Yes. But you sure as hell aren't hearing them. That's one that she let slip, but I'll make sure that doesn't happen again."

"Ha! Alright..."

Looking at the sky and its contrasting shade compared to earlier, Nick nodded his head and then said aloud, "We should probably get going anyway. Beach House awaits."

The anger Judy had in her face, while perhaps not fully serious, immediately melted away.

"Yea, we should."

Gathering their things after paying and leaving a generous tip for the waiter, both animals got up from their seat and began to make their way through the maze back to the beginning.

Nick turned to Judy as they were walking passed some markets beginning to pack up.

"Think she liked me?"

Judy's teeth showed from her smile.

"Well. Let me put it this way: she wasn't even close to being as nice and accommodating to Chris or Jackson when I introduced them."

"Well, well. Aren't I somethin' special."

Judy looked to the ground as they continued walking and couldn't help but blurt out, "Yes. Yes, you are."

Both animals looked over at one another and their grins spoke of feelings unspoken. The bustle and chatting and loud voices that overtook everything seemed to not exist for either of them. And it was in the silence that was created from this noise that they felt connected and as one.

A deep humming.

A numbness.

Give in.

This is what they told themselves.

Give in.

?

It was nearly time.

A moment of change; a moment when space and matter and ideas would alter into nothing but sound.

Everyone saw it coming, and no one wanted it to end.

Zootennial Stadium was brimming with animal life, and the structure itself, shaped in the manner of a wavy water droplet that had just made contact with a hard surface, was immense in size and built from blue sheets of metal melted and then molded into amazing and nearly unfathomable shapes. Gold and yellow lighting shining from the inside like small sunbursts were a cool, sexy contrast to the upper and lower colors they were squeezed by, and the large rounded sections of grass encircling the stadium only made the destination Nick and Judy walked toward seem even more like an oasis than the Palm Hotel had. Cemented among the stadium's view was the neighboring amusement park, a whimsical, old-fashioned sight of vibrant metal lined with shimmering colors seeming to twist and turn in synchronization with the working rides and the animals screeching and laughing as they were thrown from side to side on rollercoasters and spinners and elevator drops. It all was a fantastically appropriate metaphor for the exciting occasion set to take off in no more than thirty minutes. Red bursts of color pulsated as the stadium sign flashed itself every four seconds in a boastful manner, and it did a phenomenal job reminding every approaching species that they were about to be bathed in greatness upon greatness: a utopia for the audio aficionados, a heaven for those who wanted to feel moved by lyrics. In the slightly chilly dark blue twilight air, the strong smells of asphalt and car oil permeated as everyone's doors were constantly shutting and opening, excitement brewing in the background like a thunderclap ready to explode, and soon there would be actual claps, an actual thunder of cheers and roars all aimed at a singular and exact purpose, all directed toward two individuals who could bring their concocted sets of sounds to thousands upon thousands of animals who would appreciate every second together regardless of their bloodline.

Nick and Judy shuffled toward one of the twenty entrances, presenting their tickets to a tiger dressed in a blue security guard uniform on their way in, and were greeted by a waterway of fur and tails and bodies moving left to right, some frantically making their way toward the merchandise where they would pay well over the reasonable price for a custom Beach House shirt emblazoning a chic yet original feral bluebird in accordance to the tour name. Foxes, wolves, hedgehogs, koalas, pandas, and every other animal under the sun seemed to be dressed in shorts or other light clothing save for the desert locals who had already developed an immunity to the heat. The scents of hotdogs, burgers, and other fast-made food wafted into Nick's nostrils, promoting his saliva glands to work overtime at the thought of gnashing into a feral meal. Above the animals, a cacophony of white steel rods was welded at exact angles as to keep the fancy ceiling, immense and tall, from collapsing on the movement below, and what looked like high-powered air vents blasted forth burst after burst of cool air into the stadium cavity. Judy made sure to stay close to Nick for fear of being swept in the animal waterway, and Nick could tell this was her goal, taking the initiative to gently place his paw against her back as he guided her through the chaos until they reached the other side. A large horse tail, broom-like and nearly bristly at its touch, whipped from side to side and nearly caught Nick straight in the muzzle when he had helped pushed Judy through--he may have heard the brown colored citizen whisper an apology, but it very well could have been mistake on Nick's part. At Judy's end, even with the unorganized movement, even with the craziness that she normally didn't adhere or connect to, her good spirits were immense and could not even begin to be hidden by the fact that her powerful grin remained plastered on her face like a permanent expression chiseled by an artist.

This night was amazing.

Excitement built upon excitement under a vibrant sheen of anticipation.

And deep down, she hoped it would only transform into perfection.

"Nick!" Judy broke through the loudness, suddenly grabbing his forearm, "I want to get something to drink! Let's go over there!" She pointed toward the concessions and Nick smiled at how cute she was acting as a result of her uncontrollable excitement. She was like a child rabbit getting happily lost in a toy store. Looking down at her soft paw wrapped around him, for a moment--what seemed like a fraction of a fraction of a second--he thought of softly pulling his arm away for fear that other animals may mistake her closeness and latching onto him as something more than it was, but he, like Judy, was not about to let other's negativity affect how damned good he felt right now. It was getting to the point to where his trepidation, while still a thing of slight existence, was nearly snuffed out, and the thought of giving in, the feeling that he may just have the right mental tools to slice away the one thing standing between him and true happiness, was so close that he could taste it. So he allowed the warmth of Judy's paw to continue to be pressed against him, and he did not hide his happiness caused by it; in fact, it grew even more. And the part that made him feel even more pride was that she wasn't even buzzed and already transitioned into the phase of pressing against him like she would normally do when feeling more courageous. She was the one guiding him over now. He could do nothing but follow. It must have looked goofy seeing this diminutive lagomorph drag a far more imposing creature to a destination as if he was a pet of some kind, but after they reached the line to the concessions, Nick decided to take the lead and leaned down next to Judy's ears to speak above the noise.

"What do you want to get?"

Judy put a claw against her lips. "Don't know. Something...fruity? Hard lemonade, maybe."

"Hmm. You feeling queerish?"

Judy lightly pushed against Nick's hanging arm, her smirk revealing her amusement.

"No. Just...girly. You only wish, Mr. Wilde."

"Won't lie. The thought did cross my mind." Nick examined the concession choices and felt a craving for one of the tall blue Bud Lights being advertised.

A thought crossed his mind though.

"I guess I'll have to be responsible and be the designated driver, huh?"

Judy shot Nick a sneaky glance.

"I won't tell if you don't," she said with what sounded like the subtlest hint of seduction in her voice. "After all, we're the law, right?"

"Ooh. Naughty bunny. I might have to call up your mother and let her know she raised a hellcat in disguise."

Judy's smile showed a pink tongue slightly being bitten down by her auxiliary incisors.

"Shh. It's a secret," she joked.

"Not anymore."

"But really, go ahead and get something. We'll be fine."

"I won't say no to that," Nick chuckled.

Both animals ordered their drink and then shuffled their way into the inner-stadium entrance set near their designated row where the sight of a massive stage that had many times in the past hosted the Zootopia Wolverines NFL team graced the eyes of the tens of thousands of furs already seated or flowing in like an endless worker ant chain. The well-tempered evening air and starry backdrop softly washed over the skyline in dark watercolor fashion for all to see, and high above the heads of the concert goers below, puttering in the air was a large dirigible slowly steering in a predetermined pattern so that it may display an attached screen flashing the band name for those to see far off from the venue. Four liquid crystal display screens the size of small mansions were placed on each farthest point of the inner circle of the stadium onto the blue metal that looked so much like waving water from the outside, and short blips of advertisements blazed from the projectors until the dimming of lights finally ensued and the band made their entrance on the stage which happened to be set up like a small rocky island lined by what looked like hundreds of different lighting effects and strobe machines. Nick had done his homework even though he had not been to this place before. The price had been hefty, but it was well worth it. The purchased seats were on the edge of the lower-levelled rows, and he, always thoughtful when it came to his partner's comfortability, quickly found them and allowed Judy to take the outermost seat in case she needed to take a trip to the ladies' room.

Thanking him, she pressed her dress down at her thighs and sat her rump on the seat.

Nick followed suit and began scanning his surroundings.

"This is so cool," Judy said in a daze. "I bet it'd be fun to watch a football game here."

"Yea it is. And yea, it would be..."

Judy sipped her Mike's Hard Lemonade and peered up at Nick.

"I'm surprised you didn't con your way into here before...or did you?"

"Nope," Nick took a swig of his beer. "Never have. And actually, now that you mention it, I could've made some serious dinero."

"You could have. Peddling off shirts. Tickets maybe. Parading Finnick around as a crippled child..."

Nick's eyes widened. "Damn, Carrots. That was a very macabre yet creative thought."

"Hm. Yep."

"And speaking of creepy and dark thoughts...lets go back to what I was curious about earlier today."

"And what was that?" However, Judy's voice suggested she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"Oh, just some mysterious males who managed to swindle and lie their ways into a certain rabbit's life while at the academy."

"That's very presumptive. And ironic considering how we met."

"The second part is true. So prove me wrong on the first."

"Like you said earlier: I'm getting too good at this. Nope." Judy's feet paws bounced up and down against the concrete below as she experienced a sudden rush of giddiness at how witty she'd gotten as a result of her constant interactions with Nick.

Seeing this, he burst without warning.

"Aw, c'mon!" He hadn't meant to project forth the fact that he was actually frustrated at not knowing about Judy's past boyfriends, but when his tone came out, it gave Judy a smile at realizing how much power she had.

She was leading him around, and he clearly wasn't used to that.

In a way, it turned her on.

"Let's make a deal," she said, staring ahead and not looking at Nick. The little grin her lips made turned Nick's eyes into speculative slits.

"Oookaaay...what's the deal?" he questioned.

"I'll tell you about them if you first tell me something about you."

"Hmm." Nick scratched his chin. "Alright! Deal accepted! I'm frightfully allergic to--

"Lame!" Judy interrupted.

"Lame?!"

"Yes, lame."

"Why?"

"I meant tell me something_worth_ telling."

"So my well-being and health is not of value to hear?"

"If you're gonna' play it this way, Slick, then I'm done."

Nick shook both paws. "No-no-no!Okay! Alright! Jeeze..._control_freak..."

Judy giggled as her lips hovered above the neck of her beverage. Her purple eyes looked up at Nick.

"Let's go," she cooed, "I'm waaaaiting..."

Nick sighed and placed one of his foot paws against the back of the seat in front of him. Both of his paws found their way behind his neck and rested there, clasped tightly in an expression of defeat. His eyes and face held complete seriousness, sitting stagnant as he attempted to search himself for something to tell Judy.

And then he found it.

She could see him preparing for the words to flow, and as he spoke, he refrained from looking directly at her.

"When I was a kid," he started, "the first time I suspected that something was wrong with my mother had been when I got home from kindergarten during some month. It was cold, the air was frigid and there were leaves on the ground so probably October or November. Could've been closer to December. I can't quite remember. I know that at the time she'd been working night shifts very hard, and so she always seemed to be in a state of exhaustion. We weren't poor, but there was definitely a sense of..." Nick shook his head, trying to find the words, "...a-a desperation or longing or something like that. It's hard to explain. Heh. Well...it's really not, but for the longest time I felt like it was." Judy, her large purple eyes slightly glassed over, now had her body turned toward Nick, giving him every piece of her attention as she could. Continuing, Nick said, "I hadn't known at the time I found the bottle hidden in the garbage cabinet that it was liquor. I was stupid, you know. Little kit. Curious. Just fucking around. It spilled when I had been messing with the cap and when she came stomping in the kitchen she was so goddamn pissed. You should have seen her. Blew up on me. Yelled and hit me across the face a bunch of times. I'll never forget it...the bitch." Nick was smirking, but it had been caused by anything but happiness. "And I have to say, things weren't even clear then. You'd think they would have been. But I mean, all I knew at that point was I accidentally spilled some of her cleaner or dish wash liquid or some other shit. And so I'd stay away from the garbage. What really sunk in the reality was when I'd see her sitting at the kitchen table after she got home, her head against the surface of it, and she'd be in a state of...of the most depressing expressions I would ever come to know. Sputtering and saying shit about the guy that fucked her over, and she'd say this out loud to the silence of the room. Just talking to the room, you know. It was like her best friend. Sloshed pig." Nick turned and looked directly at Judy. She appeared to be so saddened by the monologue that her eyes were in a near state of tears.

"Aw, Carrots," Nick said, wrapping his paw around her shoulder. "Sorry. I didn't mean to get so real. You asked."

Letting out a laugh, Judy wiped her eyes.

"I guess I did. I just didn't think you'd go all out."

"Hey, you know me."

"I'm sorry..."

"Don't be. It's all over now."

"Yea."

"I don't know if that was worth telling, but I'll have you know I've never told anyone that story before."

"Really?"

"Yea. Not even Finnick."

Judy sat thinking about this. She then lived up to her end of the deal.

"Well...what did you want to know about me?"

Nick's smile revealed his true self. What had been projecting a horrid memory seemed to wash away, and his gadabout personality stood in place.

"Tell me about those boyfriends of yours."

"What do you want to know," she said somewhat embarrassed.

"How'd you meet them? Where?"

"Academy training. I met Chris in one of my classes. And after we split up, I met Jackson while climbing on the academy rock mountain in the gym."

"Ooh! Steamy!" Nick wiggled his shoulders, causing Judy to giggle.

"Who ended the relationship?" he asked.

"It was pretty much mutual with Chris. I ended it with Jackson."

"How long did you guys date?"

"Couple months. Nothing too long. Jackson and I only went out for close to a month, and it just...it didn't end well."

"Sorry."

"No, don't be. He was an asshole. Expected too much from me. My dad liked him, but he didn't have to deal with his shit."

"Yea."

"Did either of them cross paths?"

Judy smirked at Nick's question.

"No. Why?"

"No reason."

"Are you really getting back to this little fantasy of yours?"

"Fantasy!?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, shit...wait, was it like a cheesy love triangle?" Nick put a paw to his chest and said in a rapid fire stereotypical high school girl voice, "...and, like Judy wanted Chris but Chris liked Tina and Jackson wanted Judy but Suzan liked Chris and they totally, like, boned hardcore and--

Judy doubled over in laughter so hard that it hurt her stomach.

Nick's own joking caused him to chuckle at seeing how happy his partner was.

Wiping away tears trailing down her eyes, Judy shook her head and said, "That was too funny..."

"So...did either of you..." Nick trailed off.

Judy looked at him confused.

"Did we what?"

"Let me put it this way: rabbits are very productive."

"Oh, cheese and crackers! Really!?"

"Yea! Did you?"

Judy was looking at the crowd, and after sitting for a moment, she decided to fess up.

"Chris and I did. Jackson didn't."

"How was he?"

"What?"

"You know! Obviously you guys had a thing going on. And I've seemed to have gotten back my best friend gossip privileges, so I was just wondering...how was it?"

"None of your business..."

"Ah," Nick clicked his tongue, his tone suggesting he stumbled upon revolutionary information. "I see. Makes sense now. Mediocre at best. What a shame."

"_What_ever."

Judy turned to take a drink of her beverage but it may have been just to preoccupy herself due to being put on the spot.

Nick continued to egg her on.

"Probably didn't have any stamina, right? Just wham and bam? I mean, he was a rabbit after all."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Rabbit males? C'mon, you know what I mean. I bet he was quick and to the point. No longevity. And small too, right? Not very satisfying."

Judy turned her body toward Nick.

"Oh, and you could have done better?"

The opening was there.

There was no way he would let it slide.

Nick's face held not a follicle of jest when he looked straight in her eyes and said with a small nod, "Damn straight, Fluff. You'd know why my last name is Wilde."

In her mind, Judy had no doubt that he was telling the truth, and it nearly made her wet at the thought of it. His hips, as she'd checked out many times before, were powerful, and the image of him pressed down upon her and relentlessly grinding her into submission in an attempt to force that red bulbous orb of his inside her entrance was overwhelmingly sensual and probed the right spots of her brain. She suddenly caught herself being too quiet. For fear of allowing him to think he had the upper hand, she opened her mouth and said the first thing that came to mind.

"You're so full of yourself, you know."

This was too easy.

Inside, Nick could only laugh.

"And if you play your cards right," Nick raised a clawed finger, "you'll be full of hot, wet, and Wilde--

"Alright!" she threw her paws up with defeated laughter. "Enough! Gawd! You sicko!"

Nick was about to throw out another risqué joke her way until a voice spoke from Judy's left.

"Excuse us!"

Both animals' ears perked at an erect state as their heads turned to see a small group of four standing in a cluster near the row entrance, drinks and food in hand. What caught Nick's eye was that one of the members stood as a female rabbit approximately Judy's height, and she was unmistakably, every once in a while, turning her Caribbean blue eyes from the stage directly onto Nick's, a small nearly invisible smile of hesitant welcoming hanging from the ledge of her lips. For a moment, Nick thought it was the kind of smile exhibited due to worriment of not being accepted, and this caused him to feel somewhat responsible when she turned her look away from him somewhat bashfully; he'd seen the kind of expression before, especially around unaffiliated prey. Judy scooted her legs up to allow passage, and Nick did the same. The group thanked both occupants and sat in the remaining four seats next to them. Nick turned to Judy, making a comment about the stadium, and the two seemed to dip their paws back into their conversation, but the rabbit who had plopped directly next to Nick fascinated him to a level of withdrawal. Her fur was an interesting shade of light brown that enveloped her head with the exception of her muzzle, neck, and whatever may be covered by the well-fitting custom Beach House t-shirt bought from the merchandise section back at the entrance. She smelled of a deep tropical perfume, a scent that Nick's powerful canine nose cried out at, and the aroma pushed thoughts of Pumas and other jungle life into his mind like when he and Judy had detected in the Jungle District. He used his peripheral vision to further examine the new lagomorph: a unique feature he caught was the pattern trailing along her miniscule ladylike arms and how the brown fur lightly faded away into an eggshell white at the base of her forearm until it reached the tips of her black claws protruding from each of her white paw fingers. Small splotches of circular white spots, not unlike a dairy cow, were splayed upon the side of her neck and perhaps on other areas of her body; clearly her genetics demanded that she was passed something from her father who may have exuded a similar pattern as the males usually determined the fur patterns when it came to inheritance. Nick couldn't help but partially think of the female vulpine who he had met back at the pub, and this was only spurred on by the recollections of a rocker-style girl due to the jewelry currently pinned at various points on the rabbit's face--a small pink stud lay above her right eyebrow, one was poking from her soft-pink left nostril, and a final miniscule blue ring looped from within the right side of her lip which was turned in the tiniest of smirks. Her long ears, slightly frayed at their tips, also held onto three or so pink piercings trailing up the smooth inner lining.

Nick thought of how easy it would be to lean over to Judy and make a Hellraiser Pinhead joke, but it didn't feel right because this particular rabbit actually looked good rather than demonic.

Curiosity suddenly striking him, he leaned his elbows against his knees to get a view of the others.

Sipping on a Coors next to her was a skinny hyena looking every bit as "punkish" as the presumptive friend next to him. His hair, a short Mohawk-style fray of charcoal-dark brown threads trailing down to the back of his neck, sat between two perky muddy brown ears that proved to be a fitting contrast to the almost raccoon affiliated pattern of light brown masking his eyes like that of the fictional icon Zorro. He produced a lackadaisical aura about him, seeming to be completely relaxed and not bothered in the slightest by anything around him, and his age could have been anywhere between early thirties and late twenties, although it was difficult to tell. Grabbing several garlic fries from the greasy Styrofoam tray below him, the hyena's chocolate brown muzzle chomped up and down revealing a silver stud below his bottom lip and a plain gold septum ring looping through his nostril like a Disney cartoon bull. His arms, a much lighter brown when compared to his muzzle and hair, rippled in a dance of dark brown stripes that most hyena's bore at some location or another on their bodies, and like his rabbit counterpart, his forearms trailed into an even lighter form of brown until finally stopping at his paws. In the past, Nick and Finnick had tangled with hyenas as work associates; they were naturals when it came to shifting and moving goods, and seeing this particular species of animal sitting two seats away from him caused a wave of nostalgia which clung onto memories flood in Nick's mind.

He was suddenly awoken by the feeling of a tiny elbow bumping into his arm.

Looking down, Nick saw that the brown rabbit had accidentally nudged him while shifting in her seat.

"Sorry!" she said, making eye contact with him for only a moment. Her look of worriment was projected from Nick to Judy who happened to be glancing over.

"No problem," Nick said in his best personable voice.

Judy was peering over from her seat. She suddenly shifted, leaning over her armrest, before exclaiming to the brown rabbit, "Oh wow! Those piercings are so pretty!"

The rabbit slightly bit her lip as she smiled, reminding Nick of how Judy similarly displayed her own enjoyment.

"Thanks!" she said sheepishly.

"I always thought of getting some on my ears," Judy said, touching the lining of the floppy pieces of flesh above her head.

"You should," the brown rabbit said. "They'd look good with your fur color."

"Thanks! I'm Judy, by the way!"

"Hey! I'm Christine!"

Both rabbits reached over Nick and lightly shook hands. The fox's nose twitched at seeing himself caught in the middle, and his eyes nearly crossed at trying to look at both paws touching.

"Sorry!" Christine laughed, noticing Nick's reaction.

"This is Nick," Judy said, putting both paws against his arm.

"Hi, Nick!" Christine's previous trepidation seemed to be dissolved entirely.

"Hey, Christine. Nice to meet you."

"You too!" Both animals shook hands, Nick's paw overtaking hers in a massive effect, but he was gentle enough to give her the message that everything was fine.

Christine shifted so that the hyena across from her was in view.

"So this is Bentley, and the two lions you see next to him are Derek and Veronica."

Bentley gave a wave, but the two lions seemed to be preoccupied in a conversation.

Nick and Judy responded with their paws waving.

"So where'd you get those done?" Judy asked, pointing to her own face.

"The Midnight Den. It's in the Rainforest District."

"Oh! Do you live close by it?"

"Actually we live in it. Bentley is my partner. We own a tour guide service."

"No way! What do you tour?"

"You ever see those boats floating underneath the bullet train bridges?"

"Yea."

"We own those."

"So cool!"

"Yea! You guys should stop by some time. We have party boat services too. All sorts of fun stuff. It' a pretty happenin' place."

"That sounds fun! And it's funny that you mention something like that. Nick and I are partners too!"

"Yea?" Christine turned her gaze up at Nick. "What do you guys do?"

"We're police officers," Nick said.

Christine was searching her mind for a moment. She gazed into Nick's face, and then her eyes expanded with astonishment.

"No--way! Holy shit! Holyshit!Night Howlers?!"

"Yea," Nick nodded, smiling. "We worked that case."

"I thought I recognized you! I saw both of you guys on the news! This is so cool!" Christine shook Bentley's arm. "Did you hear that, Bent? These two worked on the Night Howler case! They practically saved the city!"

"I heard!" Bentley said, wiping his paw on a napkin and leaning over. "How are you doing?"

He stuck his paw out which Nick firmly shook.

"Good, good!" Nick said.

"I have to say," Bentley started, taking another bite of a garlic fry, "major respect for what you guys do. I know a lot of people like to give cops shit about how certain things end up, but they don't realize what it takes. Mad respect for you guys. Got a brother in law in enforcement back West."

"Aw, no kidding," Nick said nodding. "Thanks, by the way."

"Yea."

Continuing to converse back and forth with the two new animals for the next twenty minutes, Nick and Judy found out quite a bit about their lives and vise-versa. Christine, having lived in Bunnyburrow for only two years when she was very young, moved with her mother and father to Zootopia where she attended Community Springs Tundra College to major in art, but her dreams and aspirations fell somewhat short when her father unexpectedly fell during work due to a searing pain in his right shoulder blade. The news had followed, and soon the tragedy became real when the diagnosis for cancer came through. Being an unconventional rabbit family with only four siblings, she and her mother had been affected in the worst way, and it didn't even take a fraction of a second for Christine to put a hold on everything and return home to the inner heart of Zootopia where she worked full-time at a Starbucks to leverage a side of income for her parents. Her mother begged her not to, told her to pursue what she wanted, but Christine's stubbornness and love for her father reigned above all else. She would spend the next several months driving her father back and forth to chemotherapy, and did so until his death. It hadn't been until she was visiting relatives in the Meadowlands that she met Bentley through a friend of a friend. His keen sense of business savvy and her determination to get things done proved to be the perfect ingredient for success, something Nick and Judy could relate to on more than one level. It would seem, both of these new friends were in many ways the unspoken doppelgangers of the two police officers sitting side by side. Both groups of animals felt such a strong connection to one another that Judy and Christine added each other in their phone contacts and Bentley gave Nick his business card with an address and number if he ever felt crazy enough to visit the Rainforest District and hitch a ride on one of the boats.

Having to go to the restroom, Judy and Christine hopped up and trotted off, still wildly talking about their lives and interests.

Nick smiled, watching both of them walk off, glad that Judy had made a new friend.

"So," Bentley asked, "how long you and Judy know each other?"

"About six months now. Well...a little before, but we weren't work partners then."

"Ah. I see. That must be interesting...a fox and rabbit working together. Does anyone ever give you shit?"

"Not as much as you'd think. I mean, we work well together, so it's not like we're not compatible, you know."

"Yea." The hyena was nodding, and then he turned and looked at Nick square in the eyes. "I was just wondering, 'cause, well, you know how this place can be sometimes."

"Oh yea. Trust me, I know. Felt it my whole life."

"Are you two..." Bentley stopped for a moment, deciding whether or not he wanted to speak of what he was loading up for.

"Are we..." Nick trailed off.

"Are you two part of one of those Hybrid Clubs or something?"

Nick's head flinched at the question. He honestly had no idea what Bentley was talking about.

"Hybrid Clubs?"

"Yea...you know, like for...unconventional couples."

Nick's muzzle slowly turned in a half-grin.

"No we aren't. Didn't realize there was such a thing."

"Yea. Not many do. It's kinda' hush-hush. But...I don't know. We've had many take tours on our boats before, so I learned about it from there."

"Ah. I see." Nick examined the stage and saw that the roadies were setting up the musician's instruments, a clear sign that the concert was nearing. Turning his head back to Bentley, Nick asked, "So, why do you think we're a part of a...what did you call it...a Hybrid Club?"

Bentley's rows of sharp teeth shone between his blackened canine lips.

"I mean...you guys don't really do a good job of hiding it."

"How so?"

"It's pretty obvious, dude. I can't imagine anyone else thinking you're not a couple. You guys make it pretty loud and clear."

Nick felt his heart beating faster. He stayed quiet for a moment and then looked at Bentley's face.

"You serious?" he asked.

"Serious as a heart attack."

"Shit..." Nick nearly whispered. And then a thought suddenly crossed his mind, but rather than let it marinate inside, he tossed it out into the open. "I don't know, man. If that were true, I would think we'd have gotten our asses kicked at this point."

Bentley chuckled as if he knew something Nick didn't.

"What?" Nick asked.

"Probably thirty years ago, yea, I could see that happening. But now. Naw, man. Not now. Shit. I've seen stranger stuff before."

"Ha! You make it sound like it's a normal thing."

"Well, it's not as not-normal as you're making it out to be, trust me. I've had many many couples who weren't the same species go through our tours, and I've met them travelling and so on."

"And are they affected?"

"Say what?"

"Do they lead a good life?"

"Yea. From the sounds of it. Working, having fun. Hell, it's not like they sprout two heads, man."

"Hm. Right. I just find it bizarre that you say its normal and in the same breath you comment about a secret club that not very many people know about. It just seems...hypocritical."

"Well I'm not saying it's all right, and I'm not saying it isn't viewed as taboo. All I'm saying is it's not as bad as you make it out to be."

Both Nick and Bentley remained quiet for a while, going back to examining the sounds and continuous movement of the stadium.

"What types of species do you see with each other?" Nick suddenly asked. He couldn't help himself at this point--his curiosity had got the better of him.

"You name it--wolves with sheep, pandas with koalas, shepherds with cats. Everything."

"Wow..."

"And by the way, you sound awfully curious for someone who claims he isn't into rabbits."

Nick's lids slid down into an examining stare.

"I would toss that back at you and say you know an awfully lot about the topic of interspecies relationships for someone who isn't in one," Nick said.

Bentley's lips turned up in a smirk of what appeared to be secretive knowledge.

"That I do," was all he said, and then quietly added, "And by the way, I haven't made any claims about my relationships yet."

Nick cocked his head to the side. His mouth opened to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, he sat mulling over everything that had just been said.

After a while, he sensed two familiar bodies approaching.

"Welcome back!" Bentley said.

Judy and Christine sat back in their claimed seats.

"Hey, Nick! Look!" Judy brought up a large Beach House shirt, black in color and bigger than anything she could wear. "For you!"

"What? Me?"

"Yea!"

"Aw, thanks, Carrots!" Nick held the shirt up and admired the feral bluebird. He wrapped a paw around her shoulder and gave her a squeeze of affection.

"That's for getting me all the cool stuff at the marketplace. Now we're even!"

"The stuff I got you could be bought at a dollar store! This...this is really nice, though...thank you!"

"You're welcome!"

Nick folded the shirt, and he could feel as though he was being looked at. He turned to see Christine smiling at him.

"Hey," Nick casually said. "Sup Busy-Bunny?"

Christine giggled and looked as though she wanted to say something but couldn't. Nick picked up on this and gave her a simple, quick nod of his head.

She glanced over to see Judy tapping away at her phone.

Leaning forward, Christine whispered at Nick, "She was right about you."

"Huh?"

It was time.

A moment of change.

A time when space and matter meant nothing.

The lights suddenly dimmed. Before anything else could be said, the roaring of the crowd drowned out anything that could possibly be deciphered, and a deep, artificial humming of the sound system prepared the audience for what would in moments be the opening song--at this point, it was hard to predetermine the oncoming ballad, and every audience member could only hope that it was their favorite. Lights blasting forth heavy rays of dark blue and red twisted and lit upon the darkened stage, and a movement of bodies could be seen walking out onto the animal-made island, swaggering in front of a monstrous roar of love and affection projected from complete and utter strangers. Everyone stood up from their seat, including Nick and Judy, and the illumination of cellphones capturing video clips could be seen lining up the blackness of the audience which floated up and down like blackened waters. The band members, a mere two individuals backed with raw talent, were revealed to be dressed in dark blue clothing, the female lead singer clad in a long flowing dress that almost had a medieval look to it, her counterpart in a smooth button up shirt, and as the ambient sounds kicked up, a screech of an electronic guitar signaled that the song "Sparks" would be the first performed this evening. The cheers signified everyone's approval, and Nick's eyes quickly found Judy who was hopping up and down like a child on Christmas morning. Her excitement caused her to latch onto Nick's arm with her paw, and his own reverie allowed her to stay there with not even a minor worry infesting his thoughts.

As the lyrics were sung from a voice of silk, Nick found himself mouthing the words along with Judy and soon they were slowly moving side to side with everyone else. No inhibitions. A numbing of the senses. It was here, now, in this place of perfect imperfection where everyone's unfiltered pretenses had been put to a halt, their stubborn ideas forgotten for even only five minutes at a time, and a contentment unlike anything experienced in the outside world could be felt building into a thing of proportions equal to that of a leviathan. Judy now had both of her arms around Nick's left forearm, and she was almost hugging it in a way, still rocking back and forth. Her ears were slightly lowered, not from sadness but rather from being so immersed in everything that was occurring. Nick smiled, feeling true happiness shed his emotional shell. This process continued as the concert progressed. Every so often, Nick would lean down to Judy to say something about the music, and on occasion Judy would tug on his shirt to get his attention, telling him of moments in the song she liked or reminding him of when they had heard a particular tune together, specifically "10:37" while in the police cruiser, which Nick jubilantly admired. Moments later, in the darkness of the stadium, as the lights waltzed across the audience, Nick looked over to see Christine standing exceptionally close to Bentley, and a mass feeling of lightheadedness overtook Nick once he realized they were both holding paws--not just holding, but clasping in a way that could only be associated with an intimate relationship. It wasn't mistakable, and it most certainly hadn't been an illusion on Nick's part. They were there, amongst thousands, and not one individual cared. To double check this, Nick looked around to see everyone focused on the musicians. It was true. Not one animal made an effort to ruin the rabbit and hyena's bliss. This made Nick realize what it was that Bentley had been trying to tell him--that this world, bound by its limitations of physics and gravity and mathematics, could not bind the limitations of the species that inhabited it as long as that species refused to be beaten and lived by the philosophy of perseverance above all else. And there were two right next to him that did just that...in fact, they were flourishing it seemed. Give in. This was what floated in the air like a ghost wanting to be known. Give in, Nick. As the band shifted into "Bluebird", he looked down to the rabbit he's come to know as someone near and dear to him, and without giving himself a chance to logically maneuver his body into doing something other than what he longed for at this very moment, his paw, like a snake, coiled around her and clasped onto her hip in a soft grip, gently pulling her in closer to him with the sole objective of feeling her heat and supple body. And he did. She did not falter in the slightest nor did she do anything but project acceptance. They remained like this for a while, adjusting to this unique feeling, and as the chord-induced ending of the featured concert song came about, they both sat down on their seat to take a break from standing.

Neither of them had to say anything.

Their eyes simply peered into one another, shimmering by the twisting lightshow.

It was a message spoken without speaking. He was tired of fighting this feeling, tired of losing himself in an apartment riddled with upturned rocks and melancholy memories and sensations of inner-doubt...a feeble battle, a lost chance at something new, a monumental disappointment built from scratch; it was here that he--that they--needed change to happen, and it was only here among their deepest fears that it could be made possible...and both of them knew this because in the instant that the near-choral piece "Days of Candy" (the bands final song before the encore) began to play, they could feel their paws clasp onto one another as they sat atop the armrest. A flow of time unknown to anyone other than the two sitting next to each other set itself in place of everything else occurring, and Nick couldn't help himself: the beast, the caged animal, the muzzled vulpine that had been trapped in his mind for so long finally tore through the metal bars of the cage. His paw slowly trailed down and found itself resting on the bare fur of Judy's inner-thigh, slowly rubbing up and down in small movements, and when Nick turned back his muzzle to look at her, he was met with a pair of half-lidded purple eyes in a state of complete bliss, staring back at him with a look unlike anything he'd seen the little rabbit give him before. And then the greatest of motions happened. It was the sexiest thing Nick has ever experienced, even beyond the act itself, and it was so subtle in its existence that had he not been paying close attention, he very well may have missed it--her strong legs, shivering and radiating heat beyond measure, opened only what could have been no more than an inch, just enough to allow him further access. It was a projection of her wanting him. It was a sign that she needed his every inch.

That was it.

This was the ripple effect caused from this newly cast stone.

Taking her by the hand, Nick quickly guided Judy up along the concrete steps to the outer section of the stadium. She didn't ask questions nor did she show any indication that she cared about their early departure. Both animals willingly left the band right then and there, and had anyone been examining them, they would have seen a strong and determined vulpine walking a diminutive rabbit outside of the concert toward a section of the building not in view of anyone. And it was here, outside, for all the world to see, where Nick press Judy's back against the wall, lifting her up by the hips against his thighs, and then he jutted his muzzle forward, mashing it against hers in a ferocious kiss of passion so welled up that neither of them had time to catch their own breath. Her legs wrapped around his thighs and her toes curled as their tongues ran across each other's faces. He could feel a wave of warmth between her legs underneath her sundress as he ground his crotch against hers like an animal in heat, and his ferocity found pinholes to leak through the predator portions of his mind: without even realizing he was doing it, his teeth ran across her neck, lightly grazing her as if she was a piece of tenderized meat, and her moaning was the greatest thing he could have possibly heard at a time like this; it was a verification that her attraction to his dominant side was not an apparition but a reality. Saliva dripped from their mouths and trailed down onto the concrete. It had been surprisingly easy to accommodate their muzzle's size difference in a sense of compatibility, but it did prove to an exceptionally messy task, especially on Nick's side of things considering his rough and long fox tongue would not stop and continued to trail its way across her lips, mouth, and neck like it was longing for its thirst to be quenched. Unable to speak other than in deep moans, Judy's claws dug into Nick's neck scruff and he could feel her grinding her own thighs and crotch against his, urging his erection to slope down at full mass and press snugly against his shorts like a massive spear. Her smell and taste was everything he had hoped for, succulent, salty, and his paws squeezed firmly against either of her firm ass cheeks, eliciting another moan from her wet lips.

Stopping for a minute to catch his breath and leaving a trail of saliva in between their mouths, Nick looked into Judy's sex-filled eyes.

"Do you have any fucking idea what you do to me?" he asked in between his panting.

In one swift movement, he felt one of Judy's legs flexibly unclasp from behind him and her foot paw was suddenly pressed hard against his crotch.

He let out a loud moan as her toes ran against the knot, which was now about the size of a small baseball, swelling in his underwear. He was absolutely huge, and it took Judy by surprise.

"Fuck," she softly proclaimed in astonishment. "I have an idea now, stud."

Both of them looked into each other's eyes, and they went back to kissing. Judy wrapped her legs around him again and tried to take the initiative, grabbing ahold of his lip with her auxiliary incisors and tugging on it like a predator. He let out a slight chuckle at her efforts and wrapped his tongue around hers before once again opening his muzzle and grabbing ahold of her neck with his teeth. The moan she let out this time was louder and a sudden fear enveloped Nick, especially the deep and possible thought of another animal coming upon them by happenchance and mistaking what was happening as something truly negative. He could see the headlines now: Fox Mauling Rabbit Brought in for Rabies Test! Rather than continue and have something as silly as that happen, Nick slowly lowered Judy from his grasp, kneeling down for a moment to give her another parade of licks and kisses against her mouth, and then he stood up, clasping her paw in his again. She did not take offense or question his motives, another silent demonstration of her trust and willingness to allow him to take the lead as the predator, and he stood for a moment, trying to get his erection to fade. It took a monumental effort, but he finally managed and Judy seemed to be silently entertained at seeing him try and control himself in such a manner.

They were wordless as they walked back to the pickup. Neither had to speak about what was happening because the gravity of the situation finally fell atop their heads. Judy looked as though she was mulling over things carefully and seemed to be in a complete daze at having just done something she could only accomplish in the darkest sections of her imagination. Nick was not too far off, but he was more concerned about what the rabbit who he had just been ravishing with his mouth thought about. The truth of the matter was they both knew what each of them were contemplating: How will we take it from here? It was an important and life altering question, one that bore the weight of the world and then some. But they finally reached this point. Where before it had only been a dark fantasy, they literally had just walked away from a messy make-out session unlike anything either of them had experienced.

Stepping into the pickup, they both closed their doors and simply sat.

Nick glanced over to see Judy slightly illuminated by the parking lot lights and still deep in thought.

Rather than probe further, he started the vehicle.

For the next several minutes, Nick steered as he made his way across town and then back at central Zootopia.

Driving through the streets gave Nick a chance to think things through. He wanted to play out everything that--

"Pull over here," Judy demanded out of nowhere. She was pointing to the side of the street near a row of meters.

Without questioning, Nick obeyed. As soon as he stopped and parked the pickup, Judy unbuckled her seatbelt and crawled over the middle console with purpose and ferocity. She straddled Nick like a cowgirl, pressing her defined thighs and crotch firmly against him, and then she began to feverishly kiss his lips and muzzle, running her small pink tongue across his with fiery passion, small gasps of breath being taken anytime she could gather herself. Nick's paws crept underneath her sundress, running up along the front of her thighs, and he was surprised to find that what she wore underneath barely covered anything; it was as if a thin, barely noticeable string of fabric was the only thing between him and a warm tunnel needing proper stimulation and size. Rather than rip the panties aside, he let his paws squeeze her bare buttocks and he edged her forward even further, feeling his erection once again build into something that would more than likely need a good pumping sometime tonight if nothing other than this happened. This second round of kissing was now a learning experience for them, a curve of new ideas and revelations; whereas before they had never had a chance to understand each other's quirks, this session revealed the high pitched yet undeniably sexy moans Judy would let fly from her mouth every time Nick's paws managed to squeeze her rump, and this was proven to be even more of a truism when he managed to grab ahold of her teardrop tail and lightly tug it. One would have thought he was massaging her clitoris. Her gasps turned him on so much that he thought he might orgasm in his shorts. However, the same could be said for Judy's perspective: she was unaware until this point how soft Nick's muzzle actually was, and his own heavy breathing and occasional panting like a dog was spurned on further whenever her hands managed to run along his abs, teasing him like a cat playing with a stuffed rat. His eyebrows were turned down in utter pleasure, and she could only wonder what cute face he would make, what snarl his teeth would gnash in when he let loose his seed.

Continuing like this for minutes more, they finally stopped. It had been a joint effort, and Judy's heavy breathing came out in wafts as she remained straddled on Nick but now backed away from his muzzle.

"This is the hottest I've ever been," she said with slight amazement to her voice.

"Same."

"But..." she bit her lip, a trait Nick found incredibly sexy.

"But what?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to ruin this."

Nick nodded.

"We won't. You won't."

"Do you mind if we..."

Nick nodded, understanding where this was going.

"We can wait," he finished for her.

"Yea," she said with minor disappointment in her voice. "Is that a bad thing to ask? I just...I like you so much that..."

"It's not a problem at all. We'll move at your pace. This is new to both of us. At least the idea of two animals like us kissing is new."

"Yea, it is."

"Here," Nick grabbed Judy's hips and lifted her off of his lap.

"Nick!" she giggled. "So strong."

"So tiny," he said in reference to her. "Let me drive you home."

"Okay...you're not disappointed?"

"How could I be. I just accomplished something I wanted to do for the longest time."

The distance between their second spot of kissing and Judy's apartment was not too far, but in that time, it felt long. Their silence, while not awkward, was beginning to build, and by the time it reached its limit, Nick had the pickup pulled next to Judy's apartment.

"You could have driven over to your apartment first, Nick!"

"No," he said shaking his head. "I need a good walk. Fresh air."

"Okay. If you say so. I...I really need to think things through too."

Both of them looked at each other, and the question demanded attention.

"Do you..." Nick felt a lump forming in his throat. Never had he felt this vulnerable before.

Not since his mother had been beaten in front of his very eyes.

"Do you regret what happened?" he asked. "Do you regret us?"

"No! No, not at all. I didn't mean it like that. I just..."

Nick could feel his head nodding.

"You just what?" He desperately needed to know.

"I just know what this all might mean. And it's finally starting to process with me. It's...big. It's everything."

Nick only nodded. He knew exactly what she spoke of.

A monumental change.

It was here, and made itself known like a battering to the head.

Judy's paws were now fumbling with each other. She looked down at her feet paws.

"Can I call you tomorrow?" Nick asked.

A smile spread on her face and she turned back to Nick before leaning forward. She gave him a long kiss and he returned it back, trying his hardest to not turn into a beast again.

"Yes," she said. "Of course you can. I would think something was wrong if you didn't."

"'Kay."

Gathering her purse and bag of purchased items, she turned to open the door of the pickup and on her way out Nick could see her small rabbit tail shake back and forth, unable to contain the excitement she felt.

Before closing the door, she turned back to Nick and said, "Goodnight Nick. I had so much fun."

"Night, Carrots. Me too."

The door closed and Nick watched Judy walk into her apartment entrance. She stopped for only a moment, taking that time to glance back at him, and then she disappeared into the building.

Putting both paws behind his head and letting out a long breath of air, Nick's euphoria pulsated in his veins.

He sat thinking of oblivion and implosion like he had done many times before in the police car. But this time, there was no purpose drizzled with depression. Rather, it was him recalling how he could have ever been in such a state before today. There was no reason for it, and he could feel himself moving in a direction that revealed a startling revelation.

In the darkness of his old home's kitchen, his mother had once said that in the end every animal is left with nothing, but what she had not told him was something far scarier, something far more imposing:

Being left with nothing only hurts if you've had something to lose.