Sunderance - Chapter 16.2: An Actor's Life For Me

Understanding the fox was not as hard as she thought it would be at first, at least on a base level. Glancing at him now as they walked down the sidewalk, he seemed a completely different mammal from the one she had woken up to find sleeping next to her bed. It still brought a slight heat bubbling under her fur. On one level, she couldn’t understand how the fox who had looked ready to ravish her only an hour before could look so blank and calm now behind the dark glasses that once more covered his eyes. On another, she could understand it. She often had to put on a professional face when she was in court, bury emotional reactions and sometimes even act them out when she didn’t feel them. But it was always acting, one way or the other.

For him, it was almost like a switch. It could have been the way he focused on the street and sidewalk around them in the early morning sun. She was pretty sure that every mammal that crossed his gaze was suspect until he decided they were not a threat. His muzzle would linger on some longer than others, his ears turned this way and that. Definitely more cautious than he had been in previous days. She accepted that this extra caution might have been it. Yet even as she decided to focus on the meeting with Otterton later that day, his arm slipped around her waist to draw her close to him and out of the way as the massive door to Jumbeaux’s Café swung open. A rhino, who - like many of his kind - seemed somewhat annoyed, lumbered out of the shop with only a mildly curious glance in their direction before he walked off.

With its decorative and fluidly written sign displaying the name of the ice cream parlor, and the fact that it tended to serve the larger class of mammals in Zootopia, Judy was charmed almost instantly when she was lead into the classic style building. From the pastel colors of the walls and counter to the out dated architecture of the walls, she very quickly got the feeling that this place had been in business for a long time.

“I’m not looking for any trouble,” the gruff voice from behind the counter said, drawing her gaze to the massive form of the elephant. The fact that he looked frightened had her paw moving to grip Nick’s jacket, for a moment thinking that he was talking to them. Then her eyes followed the direction of the elephant’s trunk until it landed on a Red Fox. “But I’m not going to sell. I don’t think that answer is every going to change.”

The fox, who kept a pleasant smile on his face even as he was apparently turned down, looked in all honesty like a less than reputable character. She didn’t find the comparison to be unfair in his case, based on first impressions. Dressed in an all-black suit that hardly seemed to fit the lanky body, there was absolutely no care in the way he wore it. From the fact that the white shirt was untucked, unbuttoned down until she could see the gold chain hanging around his neck, and the jacket looked like something he might have picked up in a thrift shop for how poorly it fit him, he just looked… ragged. Even the hat resting between his ears was too small, misshapen, and, though it was clean, it just made him look like someone she wouldn’t have wanted to meet in a dark alley. And before she could berate herself for jumping to conclusions based on his appearance and the fact that he was a fox, he opened his mouth.

“I fully understand, of course,” he said cheerfully, swinging one paw wide. The acrid scent of the cigar reached her just as he shoved the unlit tip into his muzzle for a puff, the bright cherry at the tip causing his orange eyes to deepen into an almost blood red color. “But I wasn’t saying that you had a choice. This is a onetime offer to get full price, before I take it up with the Administrator herself. Then I will bury you in health code inspections and licensing paperwork for the next six months until you’re begging to sell the place.”

Her eyes turned up to Nick, finding that his face remained as impassive as it had been outside when he looked over the fox at the bar. The mention of the Administrator caused little more than a twitch of one ear before he led her further in without seeming overly concerned. Their entrance didn’t go unnoticed, drawing first the attention of the elephant who gave Nick an uneasy once over without even seeming aware of her existence, and then the eyes of the fox. Those eyes settled on her, narrowed for a moment, and then brightened as he puffed on the cigar in his muzzle a few times before he pulled it out and tapped the ashes on the counter in front of the mammal behind the bar.

“We’ll get back to this later, my friend,” he said cheerfully, tipping his hat towards the angry but silent elephant before he started in their direction. Feeling Nick tense, Judy raised her paw to his arm to stop him from moving to intercept. She didn’t feel… danger around the predator. He clearly hadn’t been expecting to see them, so she doubted he would be a violent threat. She simply saw someone who felt he was superior and wanted to prove it, something that was confirmed with the smirking grin that he easily kept in place as he strolled over to them. When he spoke, he ignored her and addressed Nick. “Well, what have we here? A bunny in Zootopia, what a rare treat you have there, friend! Name’s John. John Worthington.”

When he stuck out his paw, it was directed at Nick again, who rather than shaking the paw simply reached up to slide the sunglasses from his muzzle and tuck them into the inner pocket of his jacket. She used her hold on his arm to draw him closer and down to ear level. She kept her eyes on the red furred fox as she whispered to him, watching as the corners of his mouth tightened before he gave a nod in reply. Keeping her gaze on the fox, who watched Nick with an annoyed frown as he moved past them and up to the counter to order the promised ice-cream, Judy extended a paw when his attention returned to her.

“Judy Hopps,” she said, ignoring the fact that the fox looked down at her paw as though she had offered him some infectious disease instead. “A pleasure.”

“Why of course it is, of course it is,” he said, ignoring her paw while glancing towards the counter where Nick held up his paw with two fingers to the uneasy elephant. His ears perked toward her and after taking a long draw on the cigar, he expelled the smoke directly into her face. “Some reason you’re sneaking around Zootopia, rabbit? Did the quiet one buy you? Decided to show his rare piece of tail the sights of the city?”

The obviousness of the attempt to goad her allowed her to ignore the implications of his statement as easily as she waved the smoke away without so much as a cough. The ‘Bunny sex trade’ had been at best a myth, and that myth had mostly died a very long time ago, before her parents had even been born. Even with foxes in charge, if such a thing still existed they certainly didn’t parade the idea down the streets of the city. “He works for me,” she said simply, making sure that her ears remained high as she squared her shoulders a bit.

She did have the satisfaction of seeing the predator’s ears flatten on either side of his head for a moment, gaining with a simple statement of truth the same disgusted reaction he had obviously been trying to get out of her. Though maybe he was also trying to gain a bit of fear, which she refused to show when he tsked sharply and turned narrowed eyes to her. Then his mood seemed to soften, his eyes going sly as he chewed on the end of the cigar thoughtfully.

“Foxes don’t work for anyone,” he said, stepping away to start pacing around her with his tail swaying easily from side to side. It was when he came around behind her that she felt the slide of his tail around her hips. It wasn’t a sexual thing, so much as it was intended to make her feel surrounded when he leaned his muzzle over her opposite shoulder. She narrowed her eyes as she turned to meet the one eye that was facing her. “There is a reason you bunnies call this city The Foxes Den, after all.”

She smelled little more than smoke and unwashed fox now. The smell was heavy and unpleasant, almost rank as she forced her nose not to twitch and draw more of it is. She reminded herself to thank Nick later for the fact that he was familiar with the miracle of the shower when they were alone again. Now, she shook her head very faintly towards him when she saw that green eyes had gone to ice and he almost took a step towards them. She was aware that his eyes never left them, even though he stayed where he was for the time being.

“If I’m not mistaken,” she said, not giving him the satisfaction of trying to pull away. That, and possibly the chill in her tone, had him frowning again and drawing away as he dashed ashes from the cigar near her feet. “Whether or not you’re a fox, trying to coerce someone into selling their business under duress is extorsion.”

“Look,” the fox drawled out cheerfully, his tail swinging behind him as he did an odd two-step dance to place himself in front of her again, “we’re just trying to help the city. Trying to make sure that Zootopia is everything it should be now and in the future. There is nothing wrong with that, is there?”

“Everything it should be?” she repeated, making sure that her tone was obviously skeptical as she glanced around the shop. “This isn’t good enough? Clean establishment, long standing owner who obviously knows how to run the business, a prime location, classic appeal. What exactly could be better?”

“Well…”

“Is it because it’s not run by foxes?” The bluntness of the question had him pausing with the cigar halfway to his muzzle, his eyes narrowing on her. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t a fair question. What were you before?”

“I’m sorry, but before what?” he replied, his stance falling a bit as he brought the cigar to his muzzle. His mood was not so forcefully cheerful now, she noted.

“Before foxes took charge in Zootopia,” was her reply, though she waved him off as she started to walk the café without looking at him directly now. “I expect you were a low-level hood, a gambler, maybe even a slum lord since you’ve turned your attention to real estate.”

“What is your point, rabbit?” he said, not quite able to keep the growl out of his tone. This told her that she had hit the mark somewhere, and carried that forward as she ran one paw over the smooth and colorful wood of the decorative logo on the side of the counter.

“I’ve seen your kind before,” she explained, shrugging slightly as she moved towards him again with a glint in violet eyes. “Maybe not in exactly the same way, but it’s always familiar. A criminal who has come into legitimate money or power decides he wants to show everyone what a big shot he is. So they try to polish themselves, strut around town with a smile in a suit that looks like a hand-me-down from their second cousin, talking big, claiming to know big mammals.”

“Usually,” she continued, even though she could see the muscles of his jaw working as he ground his teeth on the end of the cigar, “when they don’t get what they want right away, they start to show their true colors. They become mean with their new-found power. They take the fact that they were once downtrodden out on the society that did it to them. They start making demands, start making ultimatums like walking into ice-cream shops and threatening the owner because they, in their self-proclaimed greatness, are suddenly not only equal to society: they’re better than it. Why shouldn’t you be allowed to demand more?”

“And in cases like that, Mr. Worthington,” she said, stopping in front of him and meeting his furious eyes with a fierce yet cool indifference, “for all the bluster and surface polish, it just makes you angry deep down when people see through it because of those actions. Inside you cringe at the reality that no matter how much you try to pretend, no matter how many laws are passed to make foxes the big mammals on Zootopia, foxes like you will never be seen as anything more than bottom feeders.”