By AngloFalcon

Chapter One

A Bright and Clear Confusion

"I think I'll quit this job," Nick mused aloud, staring at nothing in particular. His russet fur seemed almost golden, bathed in the radiance of a summer sun, soft pelt caressed by a gentle breeze.

"What?" Judy said, ears perking and eyes finally leaving her phone to scrutinize his face.

The fox looked down at her. "Well, that made you ditch the phone. Never call me one to hog attention, but a little notice is always appreciated, Carrots."

She kicked his leg and returned to her texting.

The park was aflame with the light of late afternoon. Green leaves lapped up the rays of a summer sun, drawing their life from the heat of contact. That same warm breeze sifted the grass and sent hard-working animals to sleep, whether voluntarily or not. At this time of day, the park was just beginning to lose its packed collection of picnickers, as they dispersed and returned to scheduled lives and the monotonous routine of employment.

Judy lay on her stomach across a white and blue crosshatched blanket, elbows supporting her and allowing for comfortable texting. She dressed casually on her days off, opting this time for denim jeans and a sky-blue shirt. Her wide-brimmed straw hat lay where it had been cast, the victim of a surplus of relaxation.

Today's picnic had been Nick's idea. He had said something about needing to discuss a more timely approach to updating case files. It was nothing new to them. They had come to the park many times on a casual basis, just to hang out. The first time had been the most difficult. Nick could still vividly remember the astonishment on the rabbit's face when he had invited her to accompany him, and it had taken a fair bit of effort to argue that it wasn't a date in work's clothing. From that first time, more outings followed. Today, the proposed conversation had lasted for seven minutes before being dropped and replaced by random quips about the weather, the time of year and how easily rabbits could be distracted. A phone call from Judy's parents had interrupted these musings and stretched on for half an hour. By the end of it, nothing noteworthy had been said and she felt compelled to text a friend about it all.

Nick had lost interest. The food was barely touched. The sparkling lemonade had lost its sparkle and now tasted closer to warm water. The dessert which he had carefully selected was being desecrated by ants. He now stood, paws behind his back, gazing out on the façades of smooth buildings and crystal-like spires which boasted the affluence of the central sector of Zootopia. A memory arose of the first time he had seen those artificial peaks. Although young at the time, the optimism that usually filled the hearts of newcomers to the city had been decidedly absent from his.

He smiled at the thought of his old self. It was a strange feeling. In some ways, he felt that his memory evoked a different animal to the one he was today, with barely any resemblance. Other times, he felt that the shift was less dramatic, more akin to the gentle development of a photo from the dark negatives of his past.

At least one thing about him hadn't changed by much - the look was the same as ever. Weeks of nagging from Judy had failed to convince him that the Hawaiian shirt he favoured was anything less than perfectly compatible with his black and purple tie. He had acquiesced on the issue of the trousers, and changed them for the occasion. Now he wore tan-coloured chinos and hated every moment of it.

Hearing a further jingle from the rabbit's phone, Nick began to question why he had even arranged for the meetup in the first place. She was a good friend. No - she was his best friend. But he saw her every day at work for extended periods. Why did he feel the drive to gain even more time with her alone? He almost suspected that it made her uncomfortable. Now that it came to it, the confidence and ease with which he normally tackled life, including his unorthodox partnership with a rabbit, melted away during these outings, for no particular reason, and it was only getting harder.

"Right," he said, turning round and gathering sandwiches and blankets, "that's me going home".

Judy glanced up again, this time stuffing her phone into her pocket and jumping to her feet. "No, Nick, don't go yet. I'm sorry. I was being really rude. You know how I get distracted!" she laughed self-consciously, brushing her ears to the side.

Nick raised an eyebrow and continued packing.

"Let's talk about those papers. That's what you wanted, right? How can I help?" she offered, paws open.

The fox raised a paw to his mouth and cleared his throat. "Actually, I've had time to think it over. I know what to do with them now." He smiled. "I'm all good, thanks. Just needed some fresh air after all."

"Was it something I said?" Her ears dropped further. Seeing her purple eyes filled with such concern set his heart beating faster. He could feel its rhythmic drumming, the same sensation he had felt when she returned to him after a season away. The feeling had reemerged when he had been stationed with her permanently, after he finished his academy training. In the first weeks of their partnership, he had placed it down to anxiety over the dangers they had faced together. Maybe that's all it meant. It was difficult to say, because it was not quite like anything he had felt before.

"No, nothing," he stated honestly. You said nothing at all. "It's getting late. See you tomorrow, Carrots."

Nick paused, half turned away, sneaking a glance at her from the corner of his eye. "…unless, you need me to walk you home?" His ears pricked almost imperceptibly.

But Judy had already returned to her phone. "I'll be fine!" she laughed over her shoulder. "No need to worry."

Nick trudged home through a street which showed none of the signs of wealthy living displayed by the buildings he had recently admired. He stuck one paw into his pocket ruefully, while the other grasped the wicker picnic basket, swinging it dangerously with each step.

Seven picnics. He had counted. Each and every time, Judy had seemed distant. If she wasn't texting friends, she was being overly professional in their exchanges.

Did she do it on purpose? Was she uncomfortable around him? If she didn't enjoy his company, why keep accepting invites to spend time together? When he was honest with himself, he wasn't really sure why he did invite her anyway. They made good friends and effective partners.

You know you love me.

It certainly wasn't love. The only reason he allowed himself to think about that word in relation to her was so that he could laugh at the unlikeliness of the idea. He had seen enough TV shows and cinema flicks to know that love bursts out on you with butterfly-in-your-belly jitters and lingering eye contact. What he was experiencing was something more akin to slow-burn attraction. It wasn't that he necessarily felt rapturous around her, he just hated time away from her. The beating in his heart could be placed down to social unease. It had been a long time since he had been on genuinely friendly terms with anyone.

The fox kicked an empty can, sending it ricocheting down a side-alley, the metallic clicks echoing between the close walls.

Their friendship was good. It brought them close, but had unspoken boundaries of its own. She was the optimistic paragon who breezed through life with a rosy view on the world. He was the lovable teaser, the insufferable rogue who sweet-talked her without meaning anything by it. Truth be told, he was getting better at it, although 'dreamy staring' was a no go. That tactic had already been tested as a practice run for embarrassing Judy, and it merely received a brusk reprimand and some indelicate words. Admittedly, he had practiced on the chief. In retrospect, that had been a mistake on his part. Nevertheless, it confirmed in his own mind what he always suspected – people found the staring tactic more creepy than endearing. It was best avoided.

Stepping into his apartment block, he faced a dimly lit hall with a plain flight of stairs. Each step creaked as paw met wood, and clouds of dust began their migration from the surface of the stairs to more private corners of the hall. The corridor above led to his room. As always, it smelled slightly musky. A fox's scent was distinct, and no amount of odor control ointment could entirely eliminate the pungency. It was one reason he had failed to sell his old, unneeded bed sheets.

Once the key was slipped snugly into place, the wooden door creaked open unsteadily. Stepping over a tangle of clothes, books, food packets and CD's, Nick dumped the basket unceremoniously on the floor and flopped onto his bed, not bothering to shut the door. He rubbed his face with his paws, yawned loudly, then rubbed his face some more.

Despite initial excitement over acquiring somewhere new, he now preferred his old basement room. This place was claustrophobic, creaky and smelled of mothballs. He had moved into this apartment just before leaving for the ZPD Academy, letting the force pay for his rent.

The fox watched the dust drifting above his head. The tiny specks were only visible in certain shafts of light, and spiraled in micro-whirlwinds every time he lazily swished his paw in the air. The room grew darker as his lids fell over his eyes.

"Nick?"

He turned over.

"NICK!"

The fox yelped and leaped up, perching on the side of his bed and blinking rapidly. A foggy morning vision made his sleepy mind worry that he would never see again. Of course, the mugginess cleared in seconds. Judy was standing in his open doorway, fully dressed for officer duty and tapping her foot on the dusty floorboards. It was at that moment that he became aware of his phone's alarm blaring out a cheesy love song. Finnick always teased him for keeping that sort of playlist on his phone...

"Carrots," he grinned, eyes heavy, "can I help?"

"Nicholas P. Wilde-"

"Piberious."

"Excuse me?"

"Piberious. It's my middle-name," he explained, flashing another smile calculated to disarm.

She threw up her paws and turned a full circle. By the time she was facing him again, she could no longer hide a smile of her own. "Fine. Nicholas Piberious Wilde, what do you call this behaviour?"

He glanced at his phone. 10:35. Should he be concerned about that?

"I…simply thought it was my day off. I worked all throughout the night, fighting sleep with pills, typing reports until my alarm-"

She held up a small bunny paw, raised her chin and adopted her most professional tone. "Not that, Mr. Wilde. Your lateness does not concern me. That is a matter for our chief to address. I'm referring to the offensive state of your room. It's repugnant."

His head slowly scanned the apartment, eyes darting over heaps of half-dry clothes - the debris of last week. The fox's ears lowered in embarrassment. Any facetime communication they had exchanged on their iCarrots had been preceded by careful positioning of the camera so that she couldn't see the rest of his room.

He blinked a few times. "I suppose, to someone who hasn't seen it in a while, it might seem...what did you call it?"

"Repugnant, yes."

Judy was clearly enjoying herself. Normally it would be Nick who got to tease her. For once, she had the high ground.

"Look at this mess!" she continued, "Unwashed T-shirts, unread books, food packets squashed underfoot, and I do believe that smells like mothballs. Tops, pants and I wouldn't be surprised if I found some dirty winter socks and et ceteras laying here somewhere."

She hopped across the room to open the far window and allow some air inside. Nick decided not to point out that he never wore socks anyway, even in winter, but did take the opportunity to kick some 'et ceteras' under the bed before she confirmed that suspicion with evidence.

"There!" She breathed in the fresh air from the open window like a diver inhaling from a new tank of oxygen. The rabbit turned to the disgraced fox and shook her finger at him. "Don't let me see you like this again, Nick Wilde. You may be my professional partner, but that doesn't mean I can't spread news of this at the office. Would you like Clawhauser to know how messy you are? Would you like it aired on daytime television? Hundreds of children throwing action-figures of Officer Wilde into bins and crying 'that's the fox who taught me that dreams don't really come true'?"

Nick gulped. To his knowledge, no one made action figures of him anyway, but the picture she painted was certainly distressing.

"Well, do you?!"

He shook his head meekly.

The triumphant rabbit breathed in deeply, passing off a spontaneous giggle as a brief cough. She bounced to the door and turning on her heel to face him.

"You have five minutes, then I want to see you outside, ready for morning patrol. And who knows? If you promise to clean up this mess, Chief Bogo may even end up thinking you were helping a distressed old beaver find her car keys, rather than lazing in bed."

His partner disappeared down the corridor, leaving a gaping fox trying to collect his thoughts and reason out how to take it all. There was one thing for certain - he would have to work hard to reclaim the daily title of being the teaser for the day.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading my first Zootopia fanfic. I plan to continue this, playing with Nick and Judy's relationship, creating conflict, forging and then breaking bonds. Reviews are a fantastic and essential way for me to gauge if you like this and if I should continue. Please let me know if there is something you'd like to see develop or have any other suggestions. Fluff is on the horizon. Enjoy!

Disclaimer (boring stuff): Zootopia and all related intellectual property is copyright of Disney. I make no money from this and pursue it simply for enjoyment. Any images used are copyrighted to the artist who created them. If I do not mention an artist, it is simply because I haven't been able to track down where the picture originated. If you do know or are the artist themselves, please contact me and I will add your details without question or remove the image if so desired. The text of this work is copyrighted to myself. Do not reproduce the material without permission or try to pass it off as your own. Cheers. :)