Fleas

Nicholas Piberius Wilde was only 17 years old, and had just started senior year when the fleas became active.

There were many, when Nick woke up, wiggling in his fur for a while now, though he had only noticed them for the time he had been awake. He was very itchy.

Very, but not too much.

All of a sudden, his eyes caught the clock.

11:30.

He had slept in through first period. That was fine. First period entailed a study period, anyway––a fruit of his labour from spending a month of summer completing a course at Sahara Square High. But he had also slept through second period. And that was math. Which he was fine at, but he wasn’t some kind of genius at it like Judy was. Also his teacher would definitely cause a fuss about this and Mom definitely didn’t need to be called in. Not on the second day of school.

He longed for the summer.

Absentmindedly, he scratched at his fur, and that lead to another scratch.

Wow.

He scratched again, relishing in the momentary relief at not being itchy but despairing when it came back just as fast. More and more scratching happened as his thoughts slowly faded out. The last thread of his mind left intact wanted to call in and explain the situation to the office, but that idea, too, was put aside. His paw went back to scratching.

Nick quickly realized that he was in hell.

Perfect.



Judith Laverne Wilde. J-Law, to those who whispered about her, hidden behind their friend’s lockers. Judy, to those who knew her well. She was fifteen. The only bunny in an all fox family. A force to be reckoned with.

Co-Captain of the girls’ track team and the girls’ gymnastics team despite her age, and willing to look the other way when she caught her peers in compromising positions. Which always happened by coincidence and not because she was practicing her detective skills.

Judy was loved by many and hated by few.

She wondered if her brother loved or hated her, making her come home in the middle of the day because he was unexpectedly absent for the entirety of it. This was an unprecedented stunt from him, if it was a stunt. Second day of school? What the hell?

Their apartment was ten minutes away at a full sprint. Hypothetically, if Nick was fine and just skipping class for the hell of it, she could be back in time for the end of Chemistry, but Judy doubted it. He knew full well that if she wasn’t sure that he was okay she would make sure, and that meant that he wasn’t planning to not be obviously okay, and that worried her.

As she opened the apartment door and stepped in, she caught all the scents of home. Blueberry pies, Mom’s perfume, Nick’s scruffy unwashed fur, carrot juice. Judy took a moment to take it all in. It was rare that she had seen the apartment so peaceful and serene. The Wildes tended to be on the chaotic-branching-into-neurotic side of things. At all times.

Her home almost felt unfamiliar.

Something in the back of her head reminded her that she was probably alone.

Fur that wasn’t bristling aside, she closed the door behind her. No lights were on. The midday sun burst through the windows, illuminating most of the apartment but only staining a few specific corners with a pale, darker light. Judy fought down a shiver.

“Nick?” she called. “Nicky? You in here? You okay?”

Her brother’s snarky voice did not reply, but something still felt off.

It was not a rational feeling. It was the feeling that one could only have inside her home. She felt that she could feel her home, as if it was an organic being that she could tap into. She could feel its pulse and its breath. She could feel every movement within the apartment no matter how soundless or minute. And she could feel something in the bathroom, long before a rustle from within rushed into her ears.

“Nick?” she called again, sounding more worried than she meant to. The rustling had stopped after the first incident, but she knew that whatever was inside of the bathroom still remained.

Judy willed herself forward, creeping through the apartment, pretending that the floorboards were not creaking. The bunny steeled herself as she went crossed the living room and the feeling that she was not alone became more and more prevalent. Her thoughts were a mess; an even mix of scolding herself for being scared and scolding herself for not locking the door and calling the police. But, she told herself, one day I WILL be the police, and then I’ll have to do this every day. Might as well get used to it now.

Heartbeat punching her chest as she approached the bathroom, she grabbed the door handle and barged her way in and there was something there and oh my god oh my god.

Nick arms were out when he screamed, and in the blink of an eye he realized his mistake. He tried to shield his face from harm, but his sister tended to take size difference into account when it came to snap decisions.

Judy’s fist collided with the fox’s ribs.

Her brother went down. Despite the dull pain in his side, he was happy that he no longer felt itchy.

“Oh, crap. Nick!”

“It’s okay, Carrots, I forgive you,” the fox coughed harshly. “You know, you’re really easy to get a hold of––“

“Why are you naked?” she interrupted. “Did I catch you...uh, touching yourself? Again? Because I thought we agreed that you’d only do that when I was either sleeping or pretending to be and only after midnight––“

“No, no, no. Jude, please.” Nick said, taking a moment to breathe before continuing. “Look, when you get to be my age, stuff tends to happen.”

“You’re barely older than me, jerk.”

“That ‘bare’ is important. Anyway, I might have made out with Crystal Foxxowitz behind the dumpsters––“

“Ew, Nick.”

“Maybe it was kind of ON the dumpsters, know that I’m reflecting on it. More inside of them, really. You know how these things go. Oh, wait! You don’t, because you do way too many things. Excluding other mammals, obviously. Not like I wouldn’t murder anyone who got their hands on you anyway.”

Judy crossed her arms, suppressing the urge to punch Nick again. “Are you going to explain something, or do you wanna keep listening to yourself until you forget what you were going to explain in the first place?”

“Well, what WAS I––“

“I’m going back to class.”

The bunny turned away from her brother, only to find herself face to face with her brother. She crossed her arms again.

“Look,” Nick finally explained. “I think I accidentally brought fleas from that dumpster back home. That, or Crystal has fleas and you should probably run back to school and burn it. Honestly, I should have thought a little bit before doing anything remotely close with a vixen named Crystal. No matter how hot. Or flexible.”

Judy’s left eyebrow was raising throughout the whole of the fox’s speech, and had reached peak height by the time he finished. “So you have fleas?”

“Yes.”

“And that lead to you getting naked in the bathroom.”

“Yes.”

“And what do you need me for?”

“Fleas spread, Jude.”

The statement went through her, and then around, and then it came back to slap her right in the face. Judy screamed, pushing her brother backward against the door in disgust. “Are they in the room, Nick? Oh my god. Are they in Mom’s? We’re gonna have to clean everything. Nick! I––ugh. Nick! What the hell?”

“Carrots, calm down. It’s just me and the den. I just need your help to get them off before anything else happens.”

“Please stop calling our room ‘the den’.”

“You’re right. The apartment should be the den. Our room should be something like...the burrow.”

No words would come to Judy, so she stared passively at the fox. He stared back.

“So,” he scratched his thigh, and was soon scraping himself back and forth with his claws like he was lathering shampoo onto himself (which is what he would have been doing in the first place, had he not been rudely interrupted). “Are we gonna get to cleaning, or what?”



Nick’s fur was slightly greasy but very well kept, and to see it in such poor condition really ripped the fur off Judy's backside. Her fingers massaged the shampoo into his back as he purred in delight.

She was in the shower, too. Might as well, right? In case her punch had punched the fleas off of Nick and onto her fist, where they travelled to her fur. So here she was. Not at school, but in the shower with her brother, washing gross, dirty fleas off of him like they were still kids. At least this stuff was strong and they didn’t have to bust out the comb once everything was done.

Still, she had to wonder...

“So, how was it?” Judy asked, an echo of a blush on her cheeks.

“Your fingers are pretty great. Maybe you should get into massage therapy, like every other bunny in town.”

“Crystal’s lips, you brainless fox.”

“Wowza! See if Mom likes it when you talk like that.”

“Snitches get stitches.”

“Says the future snitch, snitch.”

The persistent sound of the shower’s stream took centre stage for a moment as a sort of quiet undertone settled in, and then died.

“She was awful.”

“Yeah, I figured. Why’d you get up with her anyway?”

Nick shrugged. “She’s pretty pretty. I mean, as far as the girls at our school go. Which isn’t very far. Mammals tend to think that YOU’RE the bar, after all.”

Judy felt no remorse for her prompt slap to the back of his head. “Yeah, but that girl is not clean. Like, obviously not. She might be the worst maintained vixen I’ve seen that still passes the line of ‘average mammal with a home and plumbing and kind of clean clothes’. I literally do not think that Crystal takes showers more than once a week.”

When she had finished applying the creamy liquid to Nick’s back, she tapped his shoulder.

He turned, and in unison they regarded each other’s nude bodies. Both loathed to admit (not out loud, of course) that the other was as pretty as any member of their family should’ve been. Decently toned muscles, flat stomachs, curves in the right places...

Their hearts beat faster, and passion pleaded for them to give voice to their heated thoughts.

“You have buck shoulders.” Nick started.

“You look like a younger version of Mom.”

“That’s a compliment, actually? Your thighs are barely defined. Like, an old VHS. But instead of the washed out colors it’s a layer of fat.”

“Excuse me for not being a bitch. Uh. Let’s see...Your fingers look like gay tree roots.”

“And your tits are small.”

“They’re cute, and I’m a bunny. Completely expected. Speaking of, you have a boner from looking at your naked little sister.”

“No I don’t.” he said, eyes flicking downward to check anyway. “What are we gonna do about the room?”

“We’re gonna clean it, obviously. ”

“Where would I be without you?” Nick asked, earnest.

“Hating yourself, and your life, and wishing you were with me, probably.” Judy cooed. “Get my back?”



The Burrow, as they were calling it now lest Nick pester her about it for weeks on end, was half a straight up mess and half a perfectly fine––if slightly messy––assortment of things and stuff. They shared a bunk bed. Judy got top and Nick was bottom. Likewise, Nick’s side of the room was the one closest to the door, and it was quite possibly the worst mess of blankets, assorted knick-knacks and dirty laundry that she had ever witnessed.

In hindsight, she should have showered after the cleaning. That was a dumb move, a first in a series of many, such as when she decided that stepping into that ocean of assorted fabric without any kind of foot protection was a good idea.

Her toes dipped into the abyss, and met something sharp on the way to the bottom.

A yelp and an angry crouch later, she had a pine cone in her hands and a question on her mind.

“You don’t remember?” Nick asked from the doorway, where he had been standing for quite some time with no warning whatsoever.

Judy calmed her mildly startled heart before answering him. “No?”

“Cripes, Jude. Do all bunnies have memory problems or is it just you?”

“I know every one of your food orders from every restaurant!”

The fox in the room shook his head teasingly. “You really don’t remember? Back in July, when we took Mom to that ice cream place and Finnick was there? He threw that pinecone at me, but he missed and hit you instead and you took that plastic straw and––“

“I remember now.”

“Yeah, you really went sav––“

“I remember.” Judy asserted, before holding the pinecone up with a renewed fascination. “This is really the same pinecone? You saved it?”

“Didn’t really ‘save’ anything, but pretty much.”

An impressed hum came out of the bunny’s lips, and she reached into the pile of discarded things once more. What else did Nick have, just lying around? A knife, perhaps. Maybe they had murdered someone together and she had just blocked all the memories out. Or some kind of tape with all sorts of weird stuff.

A pirate hat was the next thing she found, to her imagination’s disappointment. It seemed like just the thing that they gave out for free at restaurants when you ordered from the kids’ menu. Cheap, matte plastic and less than durable string. “August last year? Fake birthday? I gave you my cake?”

“That’s it, Carrots,” Nick stuck his tongue out and came forward, playfully tugging at Judy’s ears. “You sure come through for me a lot.”

“I never noticed.” she replied as she nudged him towards the bed. “Take the sheets and everything off and we’ll wash them. I’m not too sure what we’ll do about the floor, yet, but I guess we can just get to that once we can actually SEE the floor.”

“Yes, ma’am. Sure thing, ma’am.”

“Stop that.”

When the beds were stripped of their sheets and their pillowcases, Nick joined Judy in her noble quest to sort their room for the first time in months. Coincidentally, it had also been months since their mother had stopped insisting that they do so. Funny how these things worked out, eventually, as long as there were fleas at some point.

Sorting itself was not a physically taxing task. It didn’t take much. Pick something up, decide if it could be washed clean, and throw it somewhere reasonable. The real work was done in the mind. Resistance to boredom would definitely be tested, and so would wandering minds.

Nick examined a pair of panties that were definitely not Judy’s, and probably not their mother’s. “So how was school, Jude?”

“Wouldn’t know. You kinda took up all my time, today.”

The fox scoffed. “Not for the second half. If we get done before that.”

“I guess. All my teachers are super cool, according to Becky.”

“Fuckin’ Becky.”

“What’s wrong with Becky?”

“Everything. Anything.”

“She said she was sorry about that whole gekkering incident!”

The floor was half cleaned, now. Several models of the Palm Hotel stood at attention on Nick’s desk. He examined them, surprised at their presence. “Huh. This is weird. I thought I lost these things a while ago.”

“Seems to me like you have something from every summer in here, Nicky.”

“Yep.” he replied, and sat down on the floor.

His eyes widened. He looked down. He could see the floor.

He looked back up at his sister’s smile, and felt the urge to cry.

“It’s clean.”

“Well, not yet. Still gotta wash everything to kill the fleas.” Judy turned back, fussing with the overflowing basket of sheets and clothes.

“You really just come in and fix things no problem, don’t you?”

“All in a days work at the ZPD. That’s what I’m gonna say when I’m––you know, actually IN the ZPD. Help me?”

Nick blinked, and did as he was asked. Before he knew it, everything was fine and the washing machine was rumbling happily. He’d have to put everything back before Mom got home, of course, but that wasn’t gonna be too hard. Judy left with a quick, cheery goodbye, and then he was alone. Sitting in his clean room with his clean body and memories of days that went by a little too fast.

"Well," he scratched behind his ear, no longer feeling the urge to keep doing so. "That didn't feel better at all."






Judith Laverne Wilde arrived back in time for History. She had informed the office on the situation, stopping them not one second before they had finished dialling her mother’s office. Fleas were a nasty thing, the secretaries had told her. The poor Foxxowitz girl had even called in and announced that she wouldn’t be able to attend for the very first week. Which was suspicious, at least to Judy, because why would she be outside her house with fleas and why wouldn’t she have told her brother?

That feeling was back. The same one from when she entered the apartment. She could feel something wrong, somewhere, in her home.

Nick wasn’t stupid. It didn’t matter what the other mammals said sometimes, behind her back. He wasn’t. He’d know if someone had fleas. So why?

Summer.

Fleas.

Second day.

Senior year.

Judy’s eyes twitched. She left school in haste.

For someone who followed other kids around, and got straight As, and seemed to fix everything without any problems, she had a lot to learn about putting things together quickly. The ZPD would be disgraced. Her earlier words came back to her. She had called Nick stupid, but he wasn’t. She was.

She was some idiotic floozy of a rabbit.

Her feet carried her home in what felt like zero time, and they practically kicked her door down before she had the chance to calm her breathing and get her keys out.

She found Nick staring out the window, in their newly cleaned room. He looked surprised to see her, but he shouldn’t have.

“What are––“

“You got fleas on purpose,” Judy began, starting to pace feverishly. “Why would you ever get fleas on purpose? My first thought was that you were completely insane, but that’s not it. Not this time. You knew that I’d come running. I’d do anything for you, and I mean that, and you know I mean that. Why couldn’t you tell me what was wrong in the first place? Are boys really so dodgy and weird that they need to make out with greasy vixens on top of dumpsters just because they want to spend time with their little sisters?”

He was hugging her. She was hugging back. They didn’t know what to say, but Judy had already made her speech. Both supposed that it was Nick’s turn.

“I guess that’s part of it, yeah. But I don’t know how to deal with anything, Carrots. It’s my last year at high school and I don’t know what to do, because after that I’m not gonna have you to fix everything. I guess wanted to see how you did it, but honestly I still have no idea.”

“Oh my god. Puberty’s hitting you hard.”

“It really is, isn’t it?”

They held each other for a while longer. Judy couldn’t feel that weird, tingly feeling anymore. She could only feel her brother, and his stupid schemes, and how warm he was.

Nick tried to break away first, but found himself restrained. “Okay, you can let go of me now.”

“I would, but it’s gonna be really awkward if you’re crying or anything. Are you crying?”

“No.”

The bunny let go, and saw the tears in her brother’s eyes.

“Geez, Nick.”

“Sorry. Thanks for coming back."

"Always, Nick."



(Set in the Siblings AU, obviously)
(For Thematic Thursday: Teenage Years)