Hood - 7

They stood before the door of Bonnie and Stu’s home.

Judy held Nick’s hand tightly. Though he tried to hide it, Nick was absolutely terrified.

“I shouldn’t have called you Carrots Judy.” Nick whimpered, “You saw how they looked at me after that. You saw them!”

“Nick, calm down-“

“They were whispering when we left! They. Were. Whispering!” Nick’s eyes darted from Judy to the door repeatedly. She saw real fear in his eyes, but she didn’t say anything.

“Relax, Nick…” She squeezed his hand and gave him a reassuring smile. He didn’t relax.

Slowly, the door creaked open.

Nick froze up outside the door. Judy had to drag him in through the door by force.

When Nick stood up, he felt a blindfold get placed over his head and promptly freaked out, apologising and pleading loudly for mercy.

“Nick! You can remove the blindfold now! Nick!”

The poor fox was curled up on the floor, scared out of his wits, rocking back and forth.

With a sigh, Judy removed his blindfold. His eyes were shut.

“Nick, you can open your eyes now. We won’t hurt you…”

Gingerly, he opened one eye and had a cake shoved into his face.

“Happy birthday, Nick!”

Nick shot up and scrambled to his feet, glancing about frantically.

The room was covered in birthday decorations, simple yet charming, many hand-made. By his feet was a rather large carrot cake, probably to feed the sea of bunnies that populated the room.

“What?”

“Well, we saw you were all quiet and such when we asked about your family,” Bonnie said as she walked over to Nick and held his hand, patting it, “If there’s one thing we bunnies can do, its read emotions. You haven’t seen them in a long time, have you?”

Nick gulped. He wasn’t used to being read like a book.

“Well, technically, we just went to see them.” Judy piped up as she began handing out the cake to her siblings, “Or, at least, we saw Mrs. Wilde. I’m sure you’d like her, mom!”

Nick was floored by everything happening at once. Catatonic, he sat on the couch with Judy.

“So their whispering was…”

“Yup! Sorry I didn’t tell you about it; I overheard them planning this, but I felt it’d be better if it remained a surprise.” She had another mouthful of the rich cake and offered some to Nick. That was when she noticed he was crying quietly.

“Aww, Nick…” She pulled him close and hugged him tightly, patting his back, “Come on, open up.”

She scooped a piece of cake and moved it to Nick’s mouth, pressing them against his pursed lips.

“Do I have to do the airplane thing?” Judy sighed and chuckled. Nick opened his mouth and ate the cake, sniggering.

“Real witty, Carrots.”

His heart froze when he noticed Stu and Bonnie were listening, but they laughed it off, calling it an adorable nickname. In fact, they were surprised a fox would think of one of the more common nicknames amongst bunnies.

Hearing that, Nick started laughing.

“Judes?” Nick spoke as they headed back. The clouds had cleared during the party and the stars shimmered above them.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell anyone I cried.”

Judy chuckled and punched his shoulder playfully.

“What’s the matter? Scared everyone’ll make fun of you, you big baby?”

“I mean it! Unlike you, I have a reputation to uphold.” He puffed out his chest and smirked. Judy rolled her eyes and shook her head, chuckling. Nick leaned back into the comfy seat and burped, patting his stomach.

“Anyway, your mom gave us our next lead. Ratson’s Forge. We’ll check it out tomorrow.”

“Ratson, huh? He’s a real shifty guy. He isn’t a big fan of cops, let me tell you that. I hope you’ve got a plan.”

“Of course I do!” Judy lied as she pulled up by the driveway.

“No you don’t.” Nick grinned, hopping out of the cruiser. “As usual, I’ll have to do all the thinking around here.”

“Well, what’s the plan?”

“Mr. Big.”