Sentimental Fox Shopping

The third week of December had rolled around at the same time Finnick was beginning to have regrets staying with Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps. This wasn’t because their company was poor quality (Judy’s certainly wasn’t, as insanely hyper as she could get). It was more due to the fact that since Nick was a total mess when it came to shopping for festive dinners, it fell upon Finnick to pick up the slack, and that meant that he would have to clutch at Nick’s head as they traversed through crowded, holiday crazy malls like they were doing now.

 

Finnick was pressed to tell his companion that it was too early for this shit, but he figured that the other fox knew on account of how much he was throwing his head back to yawn, constantly almost shaking him off and sending him to an early grave.

 

“Can you watch it?”

 

“Mmph. Sorry Fin. You volunteered for this.”

 

“You threatened to evict me from the apartment.”

 

“And then you volunteered for it.”

 

First was the candles. Gotta get that mood lighting. That stuff would have to be perfect, though Judy wouldn’t really mind if it wasn’t. She wasn’t some kind of princess type, after all. It would just be better for the both of them if everything WAS perfect, because that made things easy. Fewer stuff to care about if most of the stuff is completely up to par.

 

“Alright,” Nick began to say, eyes flicking between the two candles in his paws. “Are we going for a ‘Smoky Gingerbread Fireside’ or a ‘Vanilla Peppermint Cascade’ kind of smell?”

 

“The first one’ll go with dinner better. Do tha––oh shit, Nick. They got Gazelle scented candles over there! We gotta go for that.”

 

“That sounds both intriguing and disgusting.”

 

“Don’t you listen to your damn girlfriend, man? She’s got a lady boner for that shit. Shit’s supposed to smell like how people think Gazelle smells.”

 

“And how do they think she smells?”

 

“Like God, Nick. Like God and all the angels created perfume and then doused Zootopia’s Sweetheart in it.”

 

So it happened that their first purchase was Gazelle’s patented candles, and after Nick stopped whining about its marked up price for the holidays, the two foxes would come to agree that even unlit, the wax cylinders may have been among the best things either one had smelled–-even when taking into account that Finnick had once been to an arctic fox massage parlour during heat.

 

Okay, okay, the candles were taken care of. Now they needed…

 

“Candlesticks?”

 

“Fancy bullshit equals happy mammals. Also, the fact that you guys don’t have any kinda pisses me off.”

 

Minutes passed, filled mostly by Nick squeezing through the twists and turns created by the horde of mammals passing through the home decor shop. They ended up at a cramped corner, avoided by what few elephants and rhinos there were due to the delicate nature of what was stocked. Glassware and china ornaments lined the shelves alongside candlesticks in every precious material imaginable.

 

“I’m not getting the glass ones.”

 

“No, yeah, I’ll agree with that. Those’ll probably break on the way home.”

 

“Home, huh?” Nick asked, feeling his heart gallop in response to the fennec’s word choice.

 

His remark was pointedly ignored.

 

“Get the gold plated ones. Bunnygirl’s aunt Christa loved to decorate anything she possibly could in gold. My kind of woman, honestly. Didn’t realize bunnies could be so stylin’ but here I am, hearing about it.”

 

“How do you know that? What. I mean, I don’t know that. Why do you know that?”

 

“We can talk outside of your presence, Nick. Get the gold.”

 

“Gold. Gotcha.”

 

Surprisingly enough, the line did not take more than half an hour to get through. Benefits of coming by the mall at seven AM, Finnick thought to himself. As he and Nick left the store, his mind ran over the mental checklist he had conjured up for the day. Item number one was candles and other stuff. Number two…

 

“Okay, so, dinner. Right?”

 

Dinner. Right.

 

“Yeah,” Finnick replied, getting momentarily distracted by how toasty Nick’s headfur was. “The supermarket’s that way. Better hustle, Nicky. I want to get a good nap in before nightfall.”

 

 

Carrots. Carrots were the most important part of anything ever made in the Wilde/Hopps household. Mostly because Judy knew how to cook them, Finnick would kill another mammal for a good carrot dish, and vice versa. Bourbon glazed carrots, roast potatoes and cauliflower were on the menu tonight, and Finnick wasn’t going to be half assing anything as long as he could help it.

 

“Alright, get the ones from the top corner. Those seem like the cleanest. Or at least the best looking.”

 

Nick grumbled as he did what was told. “Shouldn’t you be the one doing this?”

 

“Can’t get up there without almost stepping on one, and I’m not a damn trashbag like you, Wilde.” Finnick quipped. He felt the low rumble of a quiet growl, but paid it no mind. Nick posed no threat other than being annoying about everything. All was fine.

 

“No, actually,” he continued once the other fox had picked up the directed carrots. “Nevermind. Alright, put those carrots down and dig through the bottom.”

 

“I hate you.”

 

Fifteen minutes of sorting and switching passed, and Finnick was ready to move onto the potatoes.

 

“So, just pick the good ones.”

 

“That easy, huh?”

 

“I’ll pull your ear if you pick a bad one. To let you know that you should put it down.”

 

“Please don’t.”

 

Several moments passed as Nick contemplated which potatoes to pick, almost getting lost in his own thoughts before he realized that he had a job to do. Instinctually, he snagged a good amount of them, all different sizes. He opened his mouth to ask if he had done good, but was rudely cut off by a sharp tug to his left ear.

 

“Ow!”

 

“Make sure they’re all the same size.”

 

“Dick.”

 

Going back to work, the red fox began to sort through the bunch of potatoes in front of him, examining a few under the harsh white lights of the supermarket before putting them back down.  “I missed you, by the way.”

 

The candid statement came as a surprise to Finnick, who was mindlessly browsing his phone before it hit him like a dull punch to the chest.

 

Unaware of his companion’s shock above him, Nick continued to speak. “When I became a cop, I was worried that I wouldn’t get to hang out with you anymore. But then, months later you come by asking for a place to stay. Honestly, I wanted to say no. You’re kind of a mess. You know that. But Judy convinced me that it’d be fun, though, and it was. So, here we are. It’s like the old days, buddy.”

 

“The hell happened to ‘just business partners’, Wilde?” Finnick choked on every word as he attempted to get his bearings.

 

“Don’t know. Maybe it’s all the Christmas music that Carrots’s been playing.”

 

“Right. Cool.”

 

They cleared their throats in unison. The blushes on both mammals weren’t visible, but the looks on their faces gave them away. Each were relieved that the other wasn’t in a position to be seeing him.

 

“Okay, those are good.”

 

“Alright.”

 

Thankfully, the cauliflower was easy as pie to pick out, and while they were at it they picked up some blueberries for the hell of it. Soon enough they were back in the van, happy with themselves for surviving the mall and the early daylight hours.

 

Seconds shy of starting the car, Finnick hopped out. "Yeah, hold on."

 

"What?"

 

"Stay there."

 

 

Around him, the mall thrived. Cubs raced by, playing games of tag. Lion families strutted proudly in their prides, glowing in the familiar air of narcissism that was the license of any big cat. Sheep shuffled along the walls.

 

Nick’s earlier words echoed in his mind. “I missed you.”

 

Who said that while shopping for potatoes? It was ridiculous.

 

And still his heartbeat raced, digging up sentiments that would normally require him to be drunk in order to actually express. He wandered aimlessly, finding that there really weren’t as many mammals here as they thought. A cougar cub walked past him, waving at him. The kid probably thought he was of similar age. Finnick glared at her before waving back anyway. His eyes drifted upwards, towards the store sign which the cub was walking towards.

 

 

A rush of warm air came with the opening of the car door, surrounding Finnick as he hopped up the stack of phonebooks leading to the drivers seat

 

“Hey, champ!" Nick greeted him. "Where'd you––what are those?”

 

Sitting in the cups were popsicles. Pawpsicles, almost exactly similar in shape and size to the  “off brand” ones that the two used to sell. The frozen treats were still solid, thankfully, due to the winter weather, and to Nick’s surprise neither had been nibbled or chomped.

 

They each took a pawpsicle in hand.

 

“I saw these and…” the fennec began, stopping himself from saying the next word. “You were right, earlier. It’s like how it used to be.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I like it.”

 

“Me too, buddy.”

 

The pawpsicles touched softly, and tilted back into the gaping maws of two foxes sharing a moment. Staying with Nick wasn’t too bad, Finnick supposed. He could still use a nap, and he was due to cause some harm to the former hustler when they got home, but if anyone could make stupid shit like this at least partially enjoyable, it was Nick. And it was thanks to Nick that he had somewhere to make dinner, and light amazing smelling candles, and share pawpsicles with, and in the end, it was him that missed Nick, and he didn’t want to say it, but that outweighed him having to wake up early and any other bullshit he might have been forced to go through.

 

 

 

(a little short, and not what i'd usually put out but i just wanted a way to say happy holidays)

(For Thematic Thursday: Christmas)