Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

June 26th - 9:32 p.m.

“Settling in nicely, Judy?” a high voice perked up the bunny’s ears, and she swirled them in the direction of the mammal who spoke. It was hard to pick up her words over the vibrating bass in the director’s cabin, but Judy could already tell who spoke before she saw them.

“Absolutely, Sasha! I really am just so grateful to have this experience. And throwing a party for team building to make everyone comfortable? Absolute genius,” Judy said, nodding enthusiastically. She couldn’t help but offer the albino squirrel high praise; it was just how Judy operated. Even if the grey rabbit didn’t necessarily believe in what she said. It wasn’t that Sasha’s team building methods were horrible, they just were a little… unorthodox. It made Judy’s rule-following heart beat a little too fast, but she supposed she was at that camp to have new experiences. She wasn’t going to clam up just because she was taken by surprise. She was going to embrace it with a level of enthusiasm only a bunny could feel. 

“Excellent!” Sasha said with a clap of her small paws, beaming at Judy with appreciation. Being the subject of the squirrel’s positive attention made Judy feel a rush of dopamine shoot through her at making her superior happy. Judy loved interacting with other mammals, and she especially loved when they seemed to like her. Because the bunnies she grew up with knew she wanted to be a police officer, she wasn’t a popular mammal around her hometown community. She went against the grain, and her family and schoolmates didn’t appreciate that. As much as Judy wanted to move past the snide comments and whispered judgements and not care, she still desperately did. She still wanted to be liked. So, whenever she noticed her presence being received well, it always healed something in her.

“Are you getting along well with your cabin partner and everyone else at camp so far?” Sasha asked as a follow up from their previous conversation. She regarded Judy with attentive pink eyes, and her tail flicked behind her. As Judy mulled over her answer, the squirrel diverted her attention to produce two cups and poured vodka in them. Judy felt her mouth get warm, and her stomach already threatened to revolt, but she willed those feelings to the back of her mind and grinned to replace the noticeable grimace on her muzzle. 

“Everyone’s great! I haven’t had the chance to meet them all, but Elsie is wonderful! So is Nick!” Judy said with certainty. While she hadn’t had much time to talk to every camp counselor, the few interactions she had were enjoyable. At the mention of a certain red fox, Judy found herself trying to find him in the crowded cabin. Her gaze drifted over each mammal until it landed on familiar orange fur. The owner of that fur stood close to the door with his paws pulling at his ears in stressed confusion. He whipped his head to the left, then to the right, surveying each dancing counselor in his midsts. He said something to Jasper, whose reply seemed to make him even more disgruntled. Judy stifled a laugh as she watched his reaction play out. It seemed like she wasn’t the only one taken aback at Sasha’s choice of team building. 

“Ah, Nick! He’s quite the fellow, isn’t he? I can tell we’ll all be very entertained by his antics this summer,” Sasha said with a grin as she also watched the flustered fox. Before Judy could reply, Sasha shrugged and turned her attention to the bunny once more.

“Well, bottoms up!” the squirrel said, clinking her cup to Judy’s. She seemed suspiciously happy for someone who was about to drink vodka. Judy grimaced and hesitantly tapped her cup to Sasha’s. Before she could tip the dreadful liquid down her throat, Nick suddenly appeared in front of them. Grateful for the distraction, Judy eagerly pulled the cup away from her mouth and offered him a grin. His presence intrigued and excited her. Ever since their first encounter, she found herself wanting to be his friend and earn his approval. She wasn’t sure if it was his clever humor or his surprisingly captivating green eyes that pulled her in, but it made his arrival a welcome one. So, when he made eye contact with her, she smiled even wider and said, 

“How kind of you to join us! Care for some champagne?” 

June 26th - 12:47 a.m.

“Why are you soaking wet?” 

Judy couldn’t wipe the smile off her face even as her roommate looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was crazy. If she was, she didn’t mind the feeling. Judy sighed with content and flopped on the cabin floor. Her bed was only a couple feet away, but it felt like miles. 

“Nick,” Judy answered simply; her smile still never leaving her muzzle. Elsie crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“I hope you know how that sounds,” the red panda said with a smirk. Judy’s eyes widened, and she curled into herself in a fit of giggles. The alcohol she spent the night drinking thrummed through her veins, and she couldn’t stop laughing at the unintended dirty joke. When she finally caught her breath, she looked up at Elsie from the floor and wiped more lake water out of her eyes.

“We went swimming,” Judy said. A shiver wracked her body once she realized that remaining in her damp clothes was, in fact, not a good idea. She pushed herself off the floor and squinted at Elsie, trying to focus on the conversation instead of the room spinning. 

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Judy added with a sheepish smile. The sound of water dripping off her body and hitting the floor filled the room as she stood. Her cabin partner shook her head with a chuckle, giving the sopping bunny a once-over.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just because a handsome fox suggested it?” Elsie asked. Her question made Judy freeze, and she immediately started rambling. 

“What! Nooo, no, no, no, no, no! He’s not, I mean, I’m not, um, well you see--” Judy blurted out quickly before stopping herself with a firm paw against her muzzle. Elsie giggled at the bunny’s flustered state, causing a raging blush to burn Judy’s skin from the bottom of her toes to the tips of her ears.

“I’m just going to stop talking now,” Judy muttered, trying not to think any more about a certain smooth-talking, fun-having fox.

Chapter Text

June 28th - 7:33 p.m.

“I am going to lose my mind,” Judy walked briskly through her cabin door; the sound of it slamming followed her words. She wrung her paws together as she paced the floor in front of Elsie. The red panda looked up from the book she was reading with a raised eyebrow. Her gaze met Judy’s angry expression from beneath her reading glasses. 

“What’s got you worked up?” Elsie asked. She shut the book and sat up in her cot, giving the raging bunny her full attention. Judy continued pacing, and her expression darkened even further. Her eyebrows furrowed, and her nose twitched enthusiastically. She had only one thing on her mind, and that was an infuriating smirk on an annoyingly handsome face. At the thought of it, her anger increased, and she let out a groan, burying her face in her paws.

“It’s Nick! He’s just so… Frustrating!” Judy pulled her paws away from her face and gestured wildly in the air to emphasize her point. Elsie trailed her gaze over Judy’s tense form and raised an eyebrow. A smirk grew slowly on her muzzle before she responded.

“Emotionally or sexually?” 

Judy squeaked and turned to the sly panda with wide eyes. Her muzzle gaped open as she shook her head wildly. 

“I thought just a couple days ago he was all you could think about,” Elsie added. The flustered bunny finally stopped her pacing and sat on the edge of Elsie’s cot. She smoothed over the sleeping bag between them a few times before shaking her head and letting out a sharp huff.

“And he still is all I can think about. Except this time, what I’m thinking about is strangling him,” Judy said. Elsie coughed and backed up a few inches from the vengeful bunny. Judy leaned in closer before adding,

“And I’m a very determined bunny, so when I set my mind to something, I will do it.”

Elsie’s eyes widened briefly before she shook away a bit of fear and placed her paws on Judy’s shoulders.

“Oooookay girl. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I think murder is frowned upon,” Elsie said, shaking her head slowly, hoping her words would sink in. Judy glowered at her under furrowed eyebrows, and she crossed her arms.

“Some friend you are,” she muttered. Elsie barked out a laugh and flopped back against her cot with a sigh. 

“So, what changed? Why does he suddenly frustrate you so much?” the red panda asked as she stared up at the ceiling. 

“It was like a switch flipped, and he started doing everything possible to get under my skin. Like today, you’ll never guess what he did,” Judy said. Elsie sat up again and brought her knees up to her chest to lean her head on. 

“What?” she asked.

“He ate all the carrots in the dining hall right before my eyes,” Judy said. Her muzzle threatened to tilt into a frown, but she managed to keep the serious look on her face. Elsie gasped. The two mammals just looked at each other for a beat before the red panda spoke up.

“Does he have a death wish?” 

Judy smacked her paws on the cot and leaned in closer. She really was all up in Elsie’s personal space, but she couldn’t bring herself to back away. All she could think about was releasing some of her pent-up anger in a solid rant. 

“That’s not all! He also made me plunge a toilet! And the whole time, all I could hear were the echoes of his laugh against the bathroom walls. When I tried to ask him to help, he just said: ‘No thanks, Carrots! I’m too pretty to get my paws dirty.’ As if I’m not also pretty!” Judy exclaimed after she lowered her voice to mimic Nick. 

Elsie’s paw flew to her mouth to contain the boisterous laugh that wanted to escape. She also didn’t want to end up as the second mammal on Judy’s strangle list, so she attempted to conceal any evidence that she found the situation funny.

“Very pretty,” Elsie agreed with an enthusiastic nod to try to soothe Judy. The grey bunny sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them a few moments later, she walked to the window of their cabin and stared in the direction of Nick’s. 

“He doesn’t seem to think so,” she said with a humorless laugh. From where she stood, she could see the fox and his cabin partner, Jasper, lying down on the grass outside of their cabin. The setting sun gleamed off Nick’s fur, making it glow a warm, inviting orange. Judy looked away, already feeling her cheeks start to burn. She had such a hopeless crush on him, and that made her even angrier. He was mean and needlessly cruel, but somehow, she couldn’t forget the kind smile and smooth words of the fox she first met. It all seemed to be some kind of joke where Judy was the punchline, and she couldn’t figure out why. It bothered her to no end, but against her better judgment, she still felt that stupid crush flutter in her heart whenever she looked at him. It made her want to scream. 

“Well, if it were me, I would just annoy him right back,” Elsie said with a shrug. Judy turned around and crossed her arms, contemplating the idea. A mischievous smile grew on her muzzle. She swiftly walked back to Elsie’s cot and jumped on it with renewed enthusiasm.

“You’re right. He’s not the only one who can be sly.”

***

June 29th - 9:20 a.m.

Across the grassy field, Judy stared at Nick interacting with his campers. The sight of him getting along with younger children did something funny to her stomach, and it distracted her from her own responsibilities at hand. She watched as he high-fived a young deer and fist-bumped a small black bear. They all seemed to lean in a little bit closer as if they couldn’t get enough of what he was saying, and it made her feel irritated. Of course he wasn’t going to bully children, but it annoyed her to no end that she seemed to be the only mammal at that camp getting a different side of him. A side that poked and prodded at her until she burst, every single time. Her heartbeat picked up when the subject of her attention turned ever so slightly in her direction. Even from far away, she could see the piercing green of his eyes, and the irritation in her grew. Why did he have to have pretty eyes? Why was his slow, growing smirk so attractive? Why was he suddenly winking at her? Wait, what? Her cheeks burned an even deeper red when she realized she had been caught admiring him, and she snapped back to reality. 

“Earth to Judyyy!” 

The bunny blinked harshly, turning to her cabin partner and the 10 campers waiting for her to respond.

“Oh! Yes! I’m Judy, one of your camp counselors for the summer!” she said cheerfully, trying to act like she wasn’t just in her own world. One of the campers in front of her crossed her arms with sass.

“We already know that, genius. We were waiting for you to catch up,” the young mammal said. Judy’s eyes widened, and her nose twitched. In a world where she wanted to be liked by everyone, she ended up having the worst luck. Even with children. She sucked in a deep breath and willed herself to recover. She kneeled in front of the young otter and offered her a grin.

“In my defense, I was just contemplating how I could get you all pawpsicles without the rest of the camp knowing,” Judy said. In an instant, the otter brightened up, along with the rest of the bunch. She heard a wave of excited whispers ripple through the group, and her grin grew.

“Unless, that is, you don’t like pawpsicles. We’ve got plenty of other snacks like kale… and broccoli…” Judy trailed off right as the children jumped in. They all talked over each other, but the few words she could make out were “we want pawpsicles!” 

She picked herself up from the kneel and straightened her shirt.

“Pawpsicles it is! To the dining hall we go!” she exclaimed, pointing her index finger in the direction of said building. As they all started walking, she let out a relieved breath. Elsie gravitated to Judy’s side, and the bunny had to act like she didn’t see her friend staring at her with a knowing smile. 

“What were you staring at back there, huh?” Elsie asked. Judy’s ears fell down her back, and she ran her paws over them. She needed to make her crush less obvious; that was certain.

“Oh, you know. Just the bane of my existence,” Judy muttered. Elsie chuckled and leaned closer to the flustered bunny. 

“The bane of your existence is kinda hot,” she whispered. Judy felt the skin on her ears flush. Oh, didn’t she know it. 

“He is not hot. He’s annoying, self-centered, rude…” Judy started. As she counted on her fingers all the reasons why she shouldn’t find him attractive, her gaze drifted to familiar orange fur. The owner of that fur was holding paws with two campers as they walked into their cabin. He smiled gently at the children around him, and she thought her heart stopped. He was so unbelievably handsome, and no matter what he did or said, she couldn’t forget it.

“Okay fine. Nick’s hot.”