Not Altogether Unwelcome

To a city fox and former hustler, Bunnyburrow was like stepping into another world.

Nick supposed it would've been worse if he hadn't taken the occasional trip beyond the city before. As it was the countryside air, so much cleaner than the city (except for what Judy insisted be called ‘fertiliser’, which he mostly, mostly refrained from ribbing her about) was more like a very old memory than something totally foreign. Bunnyburrow was like no neighbourhood in Zootopia, but it wasn't more different than, say, Sahara Square was to the Meadowlands. He was used to a home of wildly different locales, so in a strange way Bunnyburrow was familiar in its unfamiliarity.

No, the first real hurdle came when Judy lead him through the Hopps family warren, and he started to understand the sheer size of the place. It was one thing for Judy to mention her hundreds of siblings and try to imagine the house that could hold them all, it was quite another to be lead through room after room filled with little sisters and big brothers and big sisters and little brothers and nieces and nephews and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmothers and grandfathers and, and, and…

And they were all watching him. Nick didn’t like being stared at. Crowds were fine as long as they respected his privacy, but any attention a hustler didn’t mean to attract was almost always attention they didn’t want to attract. He didn’t like the tight confines either; the warren was a maze of cramped tunnels and blind corners that made it hard to move, hard to know where to run to, hard to know where safety was. It was more like a city block than a house and, despite the cheery atmosphere, it reminded him of the neighbourhoods back home that were full of dark alleys, the ones he’d scrupulously avoided, where being watched was a Very Bad Thing.

The walls were papered with layers of family photos, but what really stood out to Nick were the maps at every intersection. Big ones, the kind you’d get at a mall with colour-coding and “you are here” arrows. How would he ever escape quickly if something… Something happened? He found himself forcing his breathing to stay level and clutching Judy’s paw like grim death as she chattered greetings to an endless procession of relatives.

He was being ridiculous. This was Judy’s home. She was right there! She’d never let anyone or anything hurt him.

That she knew about. That she realised would hurt him.

He still felt a lot more comfortable when the tour was over and Judy lead him back to the main doors, with that particular gait he recognised as hurrying-without-seeming-hurried. She’d noticed, and she would almost certainly want to talk about what she’d missed, later, but Nick was just glad of the familiar discomfort of the sun glaring down, gladder than he’d been in a long time.

But the porch (they had a porch) was nice. There was shade, and seats, so he waved Judy, gently but firmly, back to her family while he sat and pretended to look at the surrounding fields. Really, he was examining the seat. Most of them were bunny-sized; he could fit in them, but they weren’t comfortable. But this one seemed hand-crafted for a fox’s proportions, although one a little larger than him. It smelled like fox, too, and wasn’t that interesting?

He didn’t spare it too much attention though, so he was still was among the first to spot the pink van trundling up the street (Nick credited his better vantage; it was interesting to be tall compared to everybody else, for once), driven by what was unmistakably a fox, albeit a somewhat portly one.

Now wasn’t that a surprise? Bunnyburrow wasn’t a one-species borough (heh), but the name definitely wasn’t for show. Nick knew there were some sheep and other herds out here, but he hadn’t expected to meet any other foxes, and apparently the new arrival thought similarly. After pulling up outside the Hopps’ warren the driver ambled over with a, “well Ah’ll be! And here Ah thought Ah knew all the foxes ‘round these parts. Gideon Grey,” and an outstretched paw.

Nick shook with a firm grip and thought, hick. Then he looked a little deeper, taking in the soft eyes, plaid shirt, faintly flour-stained paws and earnest smile, and added, but not in a bad way. Maybe a bumpkin, that was a nicer word, right? It sounded softer, at least.

“Nick Wilde,” he answered with an easy warmth that he found he didn’t have to fake as much as he’d expected to, “Judy invited me down for the Hopps’ get-together. I’m guessing you’re-” he flicked his gaze over the van. ‘Gideon Grey’s Real Good Baked Stuff’, and if his nose was any judge (it was), that was truth in however-humble advertising, “- with the catering?”

Gideon chuckled, a deep and honest sound that came up from his belly, “Ah don’t rightly know about ‘catering’, but Ah bring some of the food, right enough. Makes me a friend of the family, these days.”

Nick made an interested hmm, “I’m not so bad in the kitchen myself, but I never had much chance to bake. Judging by what I smell, I’m thinking that’s something to regret.”

Gideon smiled, puffing himself up a little at the praise. “Well,” he allowed, “Ah wouldn’t mind teaching you a thing or two while you’re here, if some of it’ll go Judy’s way when you head back. Lord knows she never could feed herself right and hero cops need their strength more’n the rest of us,” he remarked with a smile that started conspiratorial and only turned sharper at Nick’s blank look. “Y’all are still partners, right? Ah saw it on the news a while back.”

Nick allowed the other fox a smile; sharper than he’d thought. But for all that, he saw something in Gideon’s eyes that took a few seconds to pin down.

Respect.

Respect for a city fox made good. Nick decided he liked the look of it, and stiffened his back a little as he followed Gideon back to the van to help unload.

Head a-swirl with the scent of finely-cooked blueberries and awash with what was rapidly becoming a fairly involved discussion of kitchen conditions in the big city and how to bake in them, Nicholas Wilde decided that, while Bunnyburrow might as well have been another world, it wasn’t an altogether unwelcome one.