Zootopia, City of Film (East and Simplicity)

[east]

Nick's morning started with the simple fact that coffee was life. Fox's naturally nocturnal Nick had long ago learned the complete and total value of working in broad daylight. Cops were less suspicious of a fox who worked in the day like a good normal citizen, and less like a... fox. Now he was cop, and his entire social life was hell for it. This was made worse by the fact that instead of his work day starting at 6 am instead of the very nice noon start he had with his old hustle. So Coffee had become the fuel by which all other things rotated around.

Nick's apartment was not exactly grand. He had taken a lot of short cuts in his life, and because of that his apartment was in the rainforest district, with a roof full of leaks, constant artificial storms, paint that was falling off the walls, and his one truest love. The espresso machine. Walking to the kitchen the Fox hadn't even put on clothing yet, wearing only boxer clothing, shower, work all had to wait for the simple divine taste of espresso. He went through the ritual he did every morning, adding water, plugging it in, placing his cup in it's place, and waited for the life giving elixir to manifest in his cup, except it didn't. The machine he had relied on for years let out a pitiful dying gasp, and sprayed cold half solid bean water into his mug. His attempts to salvage the machine only proved one thing, it was dead on arrival. It would need to be replaced.

Walking to the shower, he expected warm water, only to find it freezing cold. One soaked, cold, coffee-less morning later, Nick dredged into his uniform, and walked out into the streets of Zootopia.

and was immediately hit by a landslide of mud from a passing Elephants car.

Nick's green eyes twitched.

He walked to the public transport, going to the over crowded buss, mud still flaking off his fur as he went into Savannah Central. The walk from the train station to Precinct one was at least barable. The heat of the sun helping to dry his fur. Walking past clawhauser the cheetah tried to greet Nick, and Nick simply let out a low grumble, walking into the breakroom, he had at least a few minutes before the actual briefing today. Which meant he could grab Stale two hour old breakroom coffee. He poured himself a drink, holding the warm, dense liquid in his paws and drank deeply.

It wasn't espresso, but it would do.

 

[east]

The bullpen was perhaps the worst place in the entire precinct. It was over full will loud mammals, creating a constant feedback loop of noise that only seemed to plague Nick more, the stale water logged coffee of the break room was simply the worst version of his drink, and far from his normal pick me up, so his ears were still down, even as Judy walked in, however they perked up slightly as the Rabbit came to stand on the seat next to him, and pushed a coffee and a scone directly in front of him.

His nose twitched as he smelled it, blueberry, his green eyes widened and rounded as he looked at Judy, for a moment it was almost like there was a tear in his eye. However the emotions only lasted so long as he could grab the drink in front of him and sip the hot, fresh flavor of bitter coffee, the exact perk up that he needed. "I love you fluff." He had expected that his voice wouldn't have even been heard under the constant comotion and loud yelling of the bullpen.

Unfortinately his words timed exactly after the ten-hut had been called, and so his attempt at gratitude towards his 'Platonic' friend had suddenly been announced towards the entire room. The mammals around them all gave one look at the two rookie officers. Delgato, ever the antogonizer let out a loud 'ooooh' which some of the officers joined in on.

"Shut it!" Bogo's voice boomed as he walked towards the podium. "Officer Wilde, officer Hops, Congratulations are in order, but please keep your date plans outside of the office." Bogo said adjusting his glasses. Wilde's entire body went ridged as Bogo staired the two officers down, before giving a slight chuckle. "Kidding, now onto the work load. I have some bad news, late into last night Sergant Higgens was injured during a swat raid, and won't be able to return to work for a while, in the meantime I'll be assigning officer McHorn to the position, congratulations."

He started to dispense red folders to the teams, leaving Hops, and wilde for last. "Hops, your still new to the city, so I have a special assignment for you and Wilde, School outreach. You'll be going down to Zootopia High today, dealing with kids, showing them equipment, doing some public speaking, and answering questions. Any questions?"

Bogo looked to Judy when he mentioned Public speaking, after the press confrence so many months ago, she had never been given a chance to do any more public talks till today. It was clearly a test to see how she would handle the pressure.

((post was wonderful))

 

[east]

Judy's comment about shaping the minds of tomorrow was pretty much exactly what he had come to expect from his over eager over optimistic best friend. He yawned and stretched he had been a student in schools once, he had remembered days where the ZPD would show up to the school and give these safety talks, and he remembered finding them incredibly boring. Experience told him that being on the other side of it, would not be much fun either. So as he got up to follow the younger officer, he sipped his coffee and ate at his blue berry scone. "Sure fluff, lets go inspire the next generation."

He spread his smile in false excitement even going so far as to make his tail wag so that he looked energized and perky, that was until she said that she loved him too. There was something about the way she said it that stung, maybe the way she batted her eyes, or something, but it earned her a bit of silence from her partner as the two walked. Something about the way she had said that had hurt, but he couldn't even put his finger on it. He was quickly coming to the realization of why it stung him, because it was impossible. She was a dumb little country bunny, there was no way she would ever find a fox attractive. There were a hundred or so reasons why the two of them shouldn't work in a romantic sense. Predator, and prey, close friends, they worked together in a dangerous field, she was too good for him.

So deep into these thoughts he was that his paws carried him almost on their own to their shared police cruiser. He opened the driver side door, and got in, adjusting the seat and mirrors so that he could drive them. "Sorry officer hops, but you can ride shotgun today." He said deciding to push out his thoughts and focus on the task at hand. "I went to Zootopia High, and also you suck at driving."

He waited for her to get in get buckled up, and started the car. "Presentations like this aren't exactly fun stops, they are boring PR stunts, but still you should be ready, kids can be pretty careless when it comes to your feelings. You should expect at least one of them to recognize you from the last time you spoke in public." Nick didn't want to open up old wounds, but he knew full well why they had been assigned to this particular job aside from the fact that they were under represented species in the zpd.

Judy had nearly started a species war the last time she had been on camera, and public speaking was a big part of their job. "I'll be with you every step of the way this time, so if you feel you can't answer a question or something, just give me a signal and i'll speak up."

 

[east]

Nick grumbled a little when she pulled out her phone to look up directions regardless. He knew that for her it was something to do, but to him it annoyed him. He knew this city like the back of his paw, and he knew lots of ways to get around it that the cops simply didn't know, bypasses, small roads, pathes less traveled and the hours of which to use them. He had been a fixer for the Big Family, and while he would say he never did anything illegal he had plenty of knowledge about how to do the extra legal stuff.

Still for his rabbit he would silence those complaints, and focus on the road. Till they arrived at Zootopia High. The school had been expanded a little since he had been here. Like most buildings in Zootopia it was overly large as it had to accommodate all walks of life, not as many Pulling into the parking lot nick pulled out the folder they had gotten with the materials for the safety talks, sure enough it was pretty much a boring slideshow presentation, no inventiveness about it. Nick passed Judy her copy of the material, and he turned the AC on. "We have a little while before we need to set up the auditorium and all that, probably a good idea if we took some time to actually figure out what we were supposed to say to these brats."

Nick's nostrils flared for a moment. He looked up at the building. "I went to school here for about two years before I dropped out, I didn't complete my highschool credits till I was getting ready to apply for the police academy. Never needed it before then." He said rolling his eyes.

"But then I'd guess that you were the perfect student at your higschool. Probably got the perfect attendance record knowing you." He was trying to tease her to lighten the mood after their last conversation turned a bit for the worse with the reminder of the press conference. "Either way, we should probably try to actually make this presentation something people will actually listen too."