jeriendhal | Fanfic: The Call, Hugs and Showers

Clawhauser had been hopping, metaphorically at least, the past few hours. Coordinating the ZPD response with the Zootopia Fire Dept. as they fought the building fire in Sahara Square had been quite a job, never mind his regular dispatcher duties as he fielded calls from other officers on more routine matters. Life in the city wasn’t coming to a halt, despite the emergency with that awful Volkov character. He been so busy it had taken him a while to realize he hadn't even eaten in the past hour.

Now with the fire out, and Nick and the Hoppses were safe, there was finally a bit of slack time, and he was able to flag down Fangmeyer and have her take over for a few minutes while he went to take care of necessities. Not to mention get a soda from the vending machine to wash down his next scheduled dose of painkiller for his aching shoulder.

When he slipped into the male locker room, he could hear one of the showers running, steaming up the room. He risked a peek, and saw Nick scrubbing himself vigorously with a washcloth, most of his pelt covered suds. Clawhauser was just debating on whether to say hello or not, when he realized there was something wrong. Nick was panting hard, as if after a long run, his paw pads had almost been rubbed raw, and he was shedding so much fur as he rubbed the cloth over himself that the drain was clogging.

“Nick… Hey, Nick, are you okay?” Clawhauser asked softly. The fox turned around, ears flaring crimson, eyes even redder from the soap. No, the cheetah realized, not from the soap. He’s crying.

“I’m... okay…,” Nick gasped. “Still dirty… I can still smell…” He shook his head and started scrubbing again, then flung the cloth away and starting raking his arms with his claws.

“Nick, stop that!” Clawhauser cried out. “You’re going to hurt yourself!” He reached into the shower and grabbed Nick’s right wrist with his paw, pulling the fox’s sopping wet body out of the shower.

“You don’t understand, I can still smell…” Nick’s voice broke as he sobbed again, beating his free paw against Clawhauser’s chest. “Let go of me, you chubby cheetah!”

“I’m not letting go until you’ve calmed down,” Clawhauser said firmly. He guided Nick away from the shower and sat him down on the wooden bench running been the rows of lockers, dragging the fox along. He might have been fat, but his bulk was good at keeping people from running. Awkwardly, he bought his right arm’s sling around Nick, pulling him into a hug. “Now what’s wrong? What do you smell? Gasoline maybe? I heard about you having to swim away from that fire.”

“Not… not gasoline…” Nick huffed into Clawhauser’s shoulder. “Bonnie and Stu. I’ve still their scent in my nose and I can’t get it out.” He held up two fingers less than an inch apart. “I was this close to ripping their throats out! I wanted to rip their throats out! God, what if Judy had woken up to find out what I’d done…”

Clawhouser wrapped his other arm around Nick, holding him tight as the little fox sobbed into his chest. “It’s okay now,” he cooed. “It’s okay. They’re fine. You’re fine. Judy is going to be fine. We’re gonna find that nasty Volkov and put her away before she can hurt anyone else, okay? Maybe she made you want to hurt them, but you didn’t, did you?”

“N-no,” he admitted. “But I wanted too.”

“Hey, intent doesn’t mean anything if it isn’t followed by action. I’m pretty sure they taught us that at the police academy, right?”

“Y-yeah,” Nick said, his breathing slowing down, thank goodness. Clawhauser eased his grip on him and guided him back to the shower, to rinse out the suds and run him under the ceiling blower until his fur was just damp instead of soaking. Then he helped Nick get dressed in his spare uniform, buttoning up his uniform blouse when the fox found his own paws still shaking.

“Are you going to be okay?” Clawhauser asked.

“Yeah, I will be, once this is all over,” Nick said, still looking distressed. “It’s just that I left my badge on my other uniform, back at my apartment,”

“I’ve got just the solution!” Clawhauser declared. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a sticker roll, pulling a ZPD Junior Officer sticker off the waxed paper strip and placing it neatly on Nick’s right breast. “Tah dah! All fixed!”

Nick looked down, snorted once, then doubled over laughing. “Perfect!” he gasped. He wheezed a couple of times, then patted Clawhauser’s own blouse, soaked from holding onto Nick. “Sorry I got your uniform wet though.”

“Aw, it’s okay,” Clawhauser said cheerfully. “If you still feel bad about it, you can pay for dinner. I was thinking that once Judy is out of the hospital, maybe you two and Francine and I can have a double date together.”

“Francine?” Nick asked, ears rising in confusion. “Wait, you’re dating Francine?”

“Oh, sure! We’ve been together a couple of months now!” Clawhauser felt himself blush a little. “I know most people date within their species, but this is Zootopia, after all.”

“It’s not her species, Clawhauser. I just thought with the squeeing, and the Gazelle obsession and the…” Nick pressed his knuckles to his cheeks and pushed them upward briefly, making a little eeee sound. “… that you were, um…” At Clawhauser’s blank expression he just shook his head. “Never mind. This is Zootopia, just like you said.”

“That’s right,” Clawhauser agreed. “So is it a date?”

“Sure,” Nick said amiably, his earlier upset almost forgotten. “Heck, maybe if my old buddy Finnick is seeing someone, we can make a triple date.”

“Finnick? Have I met him?” Clawhauser asked.

“Yeah, or at least you talked to him when he called for Chief Bogo earlier. He’s a fennec fox, short as a kit, voice like the Chief if he was standing at the bottom of a well. I told him to call after a half hour, when I met Volkov’s goon at that bar, just to alert ZPD to what was going on.”

Clawhauser frowned in confusion. “Nick, I’ll check the call log to be sure, but I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone named Finnick tonight, especially with a voice like that.”

“You haven’t? But I told him to call…” Nick’s expression turned to one of panic. “Oh, no! Where’s my phone?”

“In the evidence locker, I think,” Clawhauser said.

Nick skidded on his foot pads, running out of the locker room, Clawhauser on his heels. “I gotta find it! He was supposed to call! Shit, where is he?!”

TBC