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“Huh.” The Officer said, looking up at him. She'd settled herself down onto his bed comfortably despite the thin mattress and rusted springs. “I'm just realizing how…different you really look.”
“Yes, Officer.” Nick mumbled, staring back down at the rabbit. This rabbit wasn't the same as the lieutenant despite the same name, not really. He didn't receive any reprimanding for the choice of wording, so at least he knew he wasn't making a mistake. In fact, her ears seemed to twitch the way rabbits do when they’re pleased at something.
There Judy Hopps was in all her glory, badge sitting against her chest and her fur a light grey.
Just another difference from the Judy that Nick had met previously, whose fur bristled with a color that matched the sandiness of the sahara desert.
If you told him a few hours ago that some prey he hadn't met before would be looking at him without any contempt or disgust, Nick wouldn't have believed it. Or that the whole other-universe thing exists. The sci-fi movies had nearly gotten the mechanics right.
Well, at least the bright eyes were the same. After all, only prey could have eyes that were full of hope. The only time Nick had seen predators so eager was before they turned six; before they were required to put on the collars. That was why he’d opened Wilde Times. Just for predators to get a glimpse of what it felt like to be a kid again. He might’ve been risking his life…but it was…it was worth it.
“Nobody really calls me Officer.” Judy said, sighing as she flopped down against the thin pillows in exasperation. “Before I was given the case, I was just a meter maid.”
“Meter maid?” Nick repeated. He tried to imagine the lieutenant he met a few days ago, standing straight and confident. The brown-furred bunny had stared him down, despite barely reaching his chin. Not that he’d have tried to start a fight or anything. He’s seen predators get thrown in jail for less.
He watched as Judy fiddled with her paws. “My parents were relieved, but I just wanted a chance to do more. To help animals.”
“Even predators?” Nick blurted out, then immediately felt stupid afterwards. What self-respecting prey would want to help a lion? A tiger? Or a fox.
What he wasn’t expecting was for Judy to spring back up, her words steady. “Even predators. I shouldn’t let how some treat me define how I treat others.”
And–and Nick doesn’t really know what to say at the start to that first sentence. To hear some animal say that with such conviction. Like they really mean it, like predators aren’t just wild and horrid, at the bottom of the barrel with only bloodlust on their mind that needed to be beaten down with a collar.
“Really?” He said quietly, more to himself. Except, he’d forgotten that bunnies had really good hearing. One of the reasons he was careful not to mention anything that could compromise Wilde Times in front of the other-Judy. At least, until she’d truly gotten involved and decided not to report him to her superiors just yet.
Judy nodded vehemently, her ears perking up. “The case me and my Nick are working on is about an otter. Do you have an Emmitt Otterton here?”
The name did sound a little familiar. He thought about it for a second, before a name popped into his mind. “Octavia Otterton’s husband?”
Nick remembered Octavia far better than Emmitt, simply because she’d been so distraught when paying for her children.
One of them had turned thirteen, past the age of free entrance to the park. The otter had nearly worked herself into tears when she was just a few cents off. Nick had taken one look at her tired eyes and excited children, then put his best smile on his muzzle as he told them that they had enough for entry. Finnick had given him a suspicious glance about the situation afterwards, but a fox didn’t kiss and tell.
He was sure he could’ve gotten a better apartment with the money that he’d gotten from Wilde Times. But Nick preferred to
The rabbit snapped her digits. “That’s the one! My first high profile case, actually. What about the Judy here? From what you’ve said, it looks like she’s taken on a lot of them.”
Nick had refrained from mentioning that one of them was from investigating him. So instead, he agreed as nonchalantly as he could. “Yep. You're a pretty high ranking officer. Most prey have important roles.”
In the opposite direction, predators that he’d seen around the police force were mostly janitors or went on coffee trips for the prey. Nick remembered Clawhauser had wanted to be a cop before realizing he’d be nothing more than an errand boy.
“Wow.” Judy sighed happily. “This world sounds like a dream.”
“Guess so.” He mumbled. Dream wasn’t a word he’d used to describe his everyday life. Mundane, maybe.
There’s silence for a moment. It’s not unpleasant like most usually are.
“You’ve been touching that a lot.” Judy piped up, suddenly. Nick startled for a second, before realizing she was talking about his collar. He glanced down at it, seeing that his paw had started fiddling with the edge of it. “All predators in this world have it, right? How does it work?”
Ah. He’d wondered when she would start asking about it. He’d told her a little about it at the start when she’d first switched, before rushing to his apartment. The only place they could hide.
She’d looked out the tiny window, and had quickly come to the conclusion after the city was half-filled with collared animals from where she could see.
The words come out of him automatically, used to being taught it. “It’s mandatory for all predators starting at six. It regulates emotions. They say it helps us from going savage on prey.” At least, that’s what the doctors and teachers always tell them.
“Wow! To think a collar can do all that. That would’ve been useful when we came across Manchas.” Judy spared a look at his neck with something akin to wonder.
It was probably the only way she’d see one up close if she decided to hole in here before she switched back after the day like the mirror had said when they’d looked at the wording engraved in the back. It wasn't like she was in too much of a rush. Supposedly their worlds ran at the same time regularly, but after someone would switch with their alternate self, time would briefly slow in the world of the animal who initially touched the mirror. So a day here would be the equivalent of an hour in the Officer's world.
The rabbit was staring at the collar like she’d never seen one before. Because she hadn’t. Nick didn’t think about it at the start, too confused and mystified at seeing the brown-furred rabbit suddenly be swapped after accidentally touching the weird world-swapping mirror that they’d currently tucked into the corner of the room for safeguarding. But now, the idea was fresh on his mind.
Grey-furred Judy’s world didn’t have tame collars. Predators didn’t have them. It was too good to imagine, but it was. Somewhere out there, it was like Wilde Times but everyday. It was what every predator had prayed for at least once in their life.
“Y’know, it's nice to think of your world.” Nick didn’t notice his collar turning a shade of yellow, the thought of living without the weight around his neck making his heart thump dangerously. “Just, to live without these collars would be a dream–”
Zzzapp–Bzz–Bzzzt!
His body immediately froze at the sudden jolt running throughout him, tail shooting up as Nick instinctively clawed at his collar. For a moment there, the world was loud and bright and painful and he needed it to stop. As quickly as the sensation came, it vanished, leaving him alert and embarrassed at the same time.
How could he have been so stupid? Nick thought he knew better than to let that happen.
“I guess you know how they work now.” His ears had flattened against his head, twitching along with the rest of his body at the electric aftershock. “Let my excitement get the best of me.”
He looked back at Judy, half-expecting her to somewhat laugh at his predicament. Except when Nick saw her face, it’d gone pale. Her eyes were wide, and they looked at him like she’d seen a ghost, glassy and horrified. Judy's mouth had dropped open, and her gaze went back and forth between his collar and face.
“...Hey. What’s with the long face?” Nick asked. There was no reason she should be looking at him like that. If he thought about it, he would’ve been reminded of that same look on this world’s Judy’s face after seeing Morris get zapped.
He didn’t realize what was happening next until he felt the thin mattress dip under the weight of Judy moving. There was a rustling sound as the rabbit scrambled forward across his sheets, latching onto his collar with her digits.
No, her teeth. Nick stiffened in shock, paws flying up as teeth attempted to sink into the metal, yanking hard. It reminded Nick of his initial attempts as a child to claw it off, but with noticeably less digits. The sudden pull jerked his head to the side as Judy tried again, tugging and biting at it with determination.
The collar held firm. It always did.
The realization of what Judy was trying to do made his shoulders slacken.
“Officer.” His paws lowered to sit at his side. “That won’t work. Plenty of animals have tried.”
The biting-at-the-collar attempts usually stopped after the first month of getting one.
Judy paused at his words. Nick rubbed at the fur of his neck not concealed by the collar as she pulled away. That was…confusing. Really confusing, actually. It took a hitch of her breath to notice. A sniffle, really. Then Nick saw it. Judy’s ears were downcast, and her cheeks were damp with tears. He’d only known this rabbit for a few hours, but he wanted to wipe them away.
There wasn’t any reason she should be crying, and so randomly at that.
“I thought you meant...meant it beeped. This,” Her voice was uneven. Shaky. Her paw raised, and a digit lightly touched the surface of Nick’s collar, “is cruel.”
“It’s fine. I’m used to it.” He felt himself shrugging. It was part of everyday life. There was no point in getting upset about it.
“You shouldn’t be!” Judy shook her head. Because…
Oh.
She was crying because of Nick. And if that didn’t make something inside of his chest feel warm. That some animal would cry for a predator of all things because they were in pain. Nick’d seen predators be laughed at for being shocked. And here Judy Hopps was, crying her eyes out for something that was nothing out of the ordinary. But it mattered. Mattered cause he’d been hurt.
“Thanks,” He settled against the wall, feeling overwhelmed and somewhat in awe all at once, “for trying, Officer.”
“Judy…just, call me Judy.” She whispered, still close to him and not pulling away. Not disgusted.
“Judy.” Nick repeated, closing his eyes. Felt as warm as them curled together atop of the bed like this.
The word felt weird on his tongue. But nice. Really nice. Nick wondered if the lieutenant would ever let him call her that when she came back; she had softened up a bit after Morris' sixth birthday.
But for now, he was free to call this rabbit Judy, who cried when he was hurt despite it being so ordinary and had soft fur that she was willing to dirty by touching him and tucked against his side without even a hint of wanting to pull away like he might’ve been worth something.