A/N: Oops. My hand slipped and I wrote a little WildeHopps smut. Don't know if I'll continue after this chapter, or not. There's feelings in here, for sure. But I feel like it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm supposed to be on vacay for goodness' sake! Yet here I am. I hope you enjoy!

Feedback and comments are greatly appreciated! Feel free to reach me on my tumblr too! lepouletfou

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"You're late."

"But…I'm still here. Where's the self-effacing optimism, Carrots?"

"Just get inside, Nick."

"Cutting to the chase already, I see. No foreplay. I like a bunny with a plan."

The joke falls flat. Not because it's particularly unfunny, but because she's very particularly horny, and the synapses in her brain are firing off and not reaching the correct neurotransmitters. There is no reflexive eye roll. And at this point, she's desperate: arms flailing, toes curling, paws-yanking-you-through-the-threshold type of desperate. But it's not like she has any control over this behavior. Mating season. Heat. Her body is under siege by dumb biological hormones and the only remedy is–

Him.

Or, at least, certain parts of him. Thank goodness for friends, right?

But Judy finds that it's the most irritating thing ever. He'd never let this go. She's sure of it. A big believer in many things, she knows there's an affronting truth in her friend's ability to let her embarrassing moments fester. Teasing is his religion, after all.

He places a paw on the small of her back. It's feathery and cradles her a bit like she's breakable. It's a little touch, really, but– but– but her senses are amplified by an alarming thousand percent (alarming because it's usually scaled to one hundred, and she's normally a by-the-metric type of bunny), and her back turns to liquid.

A month ago, the image of her and Nick intertwining like this would not have even crossed her line of sight. If someone had told her so, she would've stamped a traffic ticket to their forehead and cited them for being out of bounds. In high school, she'd had an awkward first encounter with a buck. Like the dreamer Judy was, she'd wanted the experience to be perfect; laundered sheets, passionate kisses, Kitty Purry crooning Teenage Dream in the background. But her dream of perfection, much akin to the young buck's orgasm, was premature. Her hopes for sex weren't necessarily crushed per se, but her prospective need for it sure diminished before the song reached its pop-y chorus.

But now? With Nick? Now…

Her desire is insatiable. His lips are on hers, and they push and pull and breathe in a syncopated dance that's all too familiar. Filling every downbeat, there's a brush of air on her nose. His breath billows over her. The rhythm is intoxicating. And, there he goes again. A touch. Small. Ripples turn into waves, and suddenly the moans are crashing out of her before he even gets her clothes off.

"Wow, it looks like I have my work cut out for me tonight. You sure you gonna last there, Fluff?" he steadies his hand over the waistband of her pajama bottoms. There's the teeniest silk thread that's snaking its way out, and she hopes her shorts have half a mind of their own to just unravel and dissolve. Nick's pace is agonizingly slow.

"Shut up," is all that she manages. But the epithet does not translate as friendly or sardonic. It comes out all breathy. Frantic. She's hissing into him, and her voice seethes with want. "You're the one that's being slow."

Quick on the uptake, Nick swiftly grips the back of her knees. There's a fleeting moment where she believes she's going to flip backward, but muscle memory is an incredible thing, and her arms are tangled around his neck, and his lips find a way back to hers.

She clutches the collar of his shirt. "All of this. I want it off. Now." It's a string of semi-coherent phrases, and somewhere between fabric discarding and preoccupied paws, her fur bristles at the loss of contact with his mouth.

When everything's off and the clothes are littering the floor and their bodies are free of barriers, she presses her nose into the ruff of his neck and inhales. Deep, slow, and languid. Fed the musk from his fur until the oxygen is no longer stagnant apartment air – it's Nick. She's drowning in him. She decides she likes the vulnerability.

"God, you're gross," he sneers, smushing her cheeks in his palms. "I just got back from the gym and I haven't even showered yet. All at your bizarre request."

"It's because I hate your shower gel," she says. Not an outright lie, but it's still skirting the core of the issue. Nick's natural odor is thick and inebriating, and she can't get enough of it. This heat cycle hearkens to every single carnal instinct of hers and screams mate! Mate! MATE! And suddenly she wants to mark him, smell him, and claim him. So she tells the truth. "...Also because I really like the way you smell."

And the words, "Nick, I can't get enough of your scent and this heat is making me crazy and I need every single part of you" is terribly out of character, and completely off-script from their typical banter.

And hating his shower gel seems to fit more comfortably in the dialogue. But it's all out there.

Thankfully, he just boops her nose and kisses her forehead. "I like the way you smell too."

Now come the fingers. Slick. One, two, th-three – sweet cheese is he good at what he does. Like a well-oiled machine, he has the technicalities down perfectly. Pretty soon, he's coaxing more sounds from her, and it's a symphony of whimpers that Nick is orchestrating with the flit of three fingers. Judy lurches a little, and catches his lips in between every stroke.

"God, it's really bad tonight," she croaks, voice a little dampened from her throat catching.

"Really? From all this verbal affirmation, I'd say I'm doing pretty well."

"N-No, it's not you. You're amazing. It's the heat. It's really really bad and I don't think this will be enough. We're going to have to move like, ten times faster than we normally do."

"Huh. Always way too eager for the payoff."

"Nick! This is serious. This isn't the time to joke-hahhhhH-" and he's pressing his fingers even deeper now - "G-Good God. You're the devil, you know that?"

He smirks. "So says your Pop-Pop."

"You know what I mean. Nick, I can't-"

He flips Judy over – purposely ungraceful – and she laughs as her ears spread crookedly across the mattress. Nick rubs his snout against gentle grey neck, and she giggles at the sensation of his stubble.

"C'mon, I'm here to help, remember? Now hold steady…and, uhh, breathe." His mouth is still where her neck is, and the warm air of his words prickle against her skin.

"Yup, I'm breathing. Steady and everything. I'm ready."

He's still a little unsure, still a little apprehensive. Even after x amount of times like this, an overly cautious claw is fluttering down her arm, and she's feeling weirdly delicate again. Prey: Handle With Care.

"You're not going to break me, you know."

"Judy, give me a minute, I'm trying to concentrate here."

"For what purpose? We've been doing this how many times now?"

Gone is his expression of mirth. "I just don't want to hurt you. I mean, as strong as you are…I just care about making this whole thing feel good for you." And on his face, there's genuine care and worry and security and Judy bites her lip because she literally has a kink for his protectiveness.

So in traditional Judy Hopps fashion, she takes initiative and rolls her hips forward, loosening up as she takes him. She's the trier, after all. And he just needs a little more…pushing. Either that, or her heat has shoved out all sensibility from her brains and maybe she is going way too fast.

But, screw it.

She thrusts once more, clenching around him.

"A-Ahhh, God, that feels good," Nick moans, shaky and caught somewhat off-guard. "But give a guy a warning?"

"Not in a million years."

He rolls into her, simultaneously rubbing a forefinger against her and she short circuits for a second.

"Hey, no fair! I was just getting the upper-paw."

"Not in a million years, this is all about taking care of your incessant needs, remember?"

She huffs, realizing he's right.

What will happen when her needs don't need tending to anymore? The thought is unnerving, really. Judy doesn't know if it's the hormones or if it's just him. She's starting to fantasize in russet much too frequently, and her harmless daydreams trail off into a feverish haze of reds, oranges, and greens until she's frustratingly dialing his number and finagling another meet-up with him. And she not only wants Nick, but she thinks she's beginning to need him too –

His hips roll into a steady cadence, and her train of thought whizzes and slices out of her, and Judy's mind is a blank slate again.

Her eyes snap shut, and there are stars dancing behind her eyelids. "Gah, Nick, I think, I'm – oh." She's approaching that threshold at lightning speed. And tonight, she doesn't even have time to savor every moment. To let his kisses linger, to reach down and touch him, to burn this night into long-term.

He bends his muzzle and kisses the top of her head. "Right here for you, Judes."

And that's it.

That's what does her in.

Burying her screams in his chest, she's bunching his chest fur in her paws (was this hurting him? If she could think for herself right now, she'd apologize), and she's suddenly seeing her train of thought speeding down the hill, off the tracks and into the wind. Everything is white.

"N-Nick! Please you can co – I love y-"

Oops.

One more thrust. Actually, two. And it briskly prompts his descent into ecstasy. He's bursting all inside her, and he's muttering her name into the pillow, and putting claw marks in her bedpost.

And, now –

Oh.

There's a very noticeable knot inside of her. On other nights, they'd been able to work around it. But tonight, in horny overexertion (or…something more), they'd both apparently failed to realize the very real reality of dealing with canine reproduction.

"Oh my god. Judy, I'm sorry. I tried to – Are you okay?"

She shifts a bit. Readjusts. "Actually…" she's wincing, but it has less to do with pain and more to do with what she'd blurted out earlier, "…yeah. I'm great."

"Because if you aren't, I-I think that maybe we can–"

"No. I'm serious. Maybe what I'm going through right now is making me overzealous anyway – so it's probably mostly my fault for pushing it – but…I swear. You're not hurting me. At all."

He softens. "You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. But when we get unstuck, I'm making you watch all the Meg Lion movies."

His laugh tinkles and breaks the bareness of her tiny apartment. "Fine. But you're lucky we have the day off tomorrow."

It's fifteen minutes later, and they're still very much stuck together. They don't seem to mind, though.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you? This is all a clever guise to avoid the Meg Lion movies." She aims for lightness, hoping it's not a lazy shot in the dark. She's glad he doesn't bring anything up, or maybe he didn't hear? She wonders how much worse fox hearing is in comparison to a rabbit's.

"I would never! Kate and Leodore is a classic!" He's game for teasing. That's good.

"And I thought you were more of an Anastasia kind of fox."

"Because her love interest is a conman? That's mighty presumptuous of you," he replies, tugging on her ear, "and quite honestly, blatant discrimination."

"Pfft, Nick. Stop it."

"Or what?"

Always the devious rabbit, she wriggles underneath him, pulsing around his length. She snorts as she hears him curse under his breath. "Or…that." She feels a wetness that's a mixture of both of them creep down her thigh.

"Now that's just cruel, Carrots."

"What are you going to do about it?"

And the next words just about die in her throat. They're all bottlenecked at the base of her neck because he has a finger back down there, and he's stroking it with intent to ruin her.

"And would you look at that. There's that cute little face."

No reply. No time for a comeback. Not when she's literally getting one.

Thank goodness for Nick.

It's twenty-two minutes later, and they finally slide apart.

She tries not to moan too disappointedly during the loss of intimacy.

Her mind slowly reawakens, and the blank slate is covered in a jumble of thoughts and images again. Her gaze wanders over to Nick, snout pointing to the ceiling and fingers splaying across his chest in picture perfect afterglow contentedness.

When this is all over? Then, what?

"Hey, uhh, Nick?"

One of his ears flit forward and angles itself in her direction. His eyes meet hers. "What's up, Carrots?"

The heat cools into a simmer, and she slips into a candor that's just genuinely her. She realizes it is Nick. She needs him because she loves –

Him.

And, in addition, certain parts of him.

"What I said earlier, did you hear any of that? When we were…you know?"

"Ahh, the 'I love you?' Yeah. I did hear that." He makes a move for her paw, and she's surprised at how such an innocent gesture could carry the weight of a thousand insinuations. She crawls up to his side and nestles her face in the contours of his chest.

He clears his throat, continuing, "Did you mean it? Or was it just…heat of the moment?"

"What? Nick, of course not. I would never say something that serious and not mean it."

His fingers trace a line down her back, and her spine tingles with every graze. There's something that hints at relief in his eyes, but it's shrouded in green and secrecy. Finally, "I love you too."

"You do?" The validation is close to euphoric.

"Partially the reason why I was less careful in not knotting you."

"Because…"

"Carrots, I don't want to give you an evolutionary lesson on vulpine knotting, but let's just say that saying I love you is a surefire way of making me want to get stuck to you."

And she's still reeling. "Because you love me."

He snorts. "Hah. Yeah. I do. So what's next then? For us?"

"Well, I've still got twelve more days left in my heat cycle."

"And you're planning to ride it out 'til then?"

Judy exhales obnoxiously through her nose and lands a punch on his shoulder. "Hey, don't joke! We're talking about precious feelings here. Your precious feelings, mostly."

"Says the girl who said 'I love you' first…" a boyish hopefulness casts itself over his face, "But…we'll figure it out, right?"

"After all this is over? Definitely."

She reaches for his paw this time, and they settle back into a comfortableness that's all them. Only them. And for once, her mind is at ease.

Definitely.