clever fox

🤢 he a cop.

Nick tried to pull a scheme on the wrong guy and it almost cost him his life. He was young, reckless and selfish and looking back at it that’s the experience that shook him. He realized he couldn’t depend on the streets forever, and he didn’t want to keep running schemes on people to make ends meat.

The process to go the straight and narrow was a tricky one. He started his college education at a community school where the professors and counselors didn’t seem to care much about whether he passed or failed, and the lack of concern made it easy for him to fall back into the habit of thinking he meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. But he stuck with it, got his GPA up and transferred to one of the better universities on the island where he studied criminal justice.

 Nick is very defensive about his background and the stereotypes and prejudices that come with his skin color and the circumstances of his upbringing. 

He tries his best to help out the kids like him, despite knowing that if his boss were to find out he’d be reprimanded. If he sees a kid stealing food or jewelry to get by he tries to let them off with a warning and reaches out to make sure they’re being taken care of; whether it’s speaking to an adult involved in their life or going out of his way to bring them to a community center to find adults that can give them more support. 

He tries not to take things too seriously when it’s not necessarily. His approach to most things is lax, which he knows pisses a lot of people off. 

His mom is his everything and he spends a lot of his free time checking on her to make sure she’s ok. He helps her out around the house, picks up her groceries and medication and overall just tries to spend his days off with her. 

He’s a very light sleeper. The slightest sound jolts him awake and once he’s up, he’s up theres no turning back.

He pretends like he’s a deep sleeper though, especially if he’s trying to avoid a conversation he doesn’t want to have. If he’s in the bull pen and he knows someone he’d rather not deal with is coming to talk to him he will literally pretend to be out like a light. It’s the nicest way to tell someone to leave me alone, he thinks. 

He won’t ever admit it but sometimes it’s nice to feel like he contributes more to the community now. He can try to make corona a better place but without compromising his ideals so he can always protect the downtrodden and oppressed. 

He hasn’t fully grown out of his cynical outlook but he has improved and he’s working on it. 

Sometimes he misses the hustling. Okay, he often misses the hustling. He was making CAKE back in the day, and he’ll never deny to missing the money and the freedom. Working a regular job was an adjustment for him and he often thinks of giving it up. But he can’t put his mom through the terror and stress of his last scheme gone wrong. 

WANTED CONNECTIONS: 

"Shit" Raph mumbled, drink splashing over the edge if his glass when he didn't make it out the closing door fast enough. Shaking off the excess Raph quickly brought the glass to his mouth as he made his way towards the lawn.

nick had wanted a moment away from everything, and so he finds himself outside with drink in hand looking for a reprieve. when he sees raph come out and spill his drink on himself, he heads over to him unable to stop the little laugh that comes out as he does so. “damn that’s crazy.” he comments. “here.” he holds out some napkins with a small smile.

standing in the fairly long line for the bar, benny’s half tempted to just call it quits and find one of the walking waiters with glasses of champagne, but in the end he decides to stick it out. turning to the person behind him in line, he offered a small smile. “having a good night so far?” he asks before holding out his hand as his smile grows a bit more sure and confident. “i’m benny.” @nickswildbro​

approaching the table and standing above nick for a moment, layla lets out a small laugh that under other circumstances she would have held in - but given her lightly tipsy state there’s no stopping it. “you’re actually here,” she comments before sitting down in the chair beside him and setting her glass of champagne down on the table. “and not for official work reasons, it seems. i’m shocked.” her tone was teasing but there was a truth to her words - the masquerade ball not seeming like it would be nick’s scene at all. @nickswildbro​

Wandering around the festival, there’s very few things Kitty loves about the island quite as much as how festive they can get at any given opportunity. The lights, the music, even the snow that starts to flurry around them puts her in an even brighter mood than usual. Even as she loses her friends in the hustle and bustle she doesn’t mind all that much, content to wander around until she runs into someone else she knows. Noticing a familiar figure walking towards her, it takes Kitty a moment to place him. When she finally does, she feels a slight flush creeping over her cheeks, embarrassment rushing over her in a wave as she remembers just how obnoxious she’d been the last time she saw him. The panic and rage she went through when Benny was missing almost feels like a lifetime ago now, but somehow it had only been a month ago. If she could it all over again she probably would, refraining from making a scene at the police station at the brink of her stress, but it’s too late to take it back now. Taking a sip of her hot chocolate, Kitty pulls the cup away in time to give him a small, tentative smile as though it can make up for being undeniably obnoxious not so long ago. // @nickswildbro​

nick wouldn’t necessarily classify himself as someone who gets worked up about things. he was known for his laidback personality, a lax and seemingly uncaring outlook on most -- if not all -- things. but when something did manage to get under his skin, it remained, making a home in his mind until he felt it was properly dealt with. he’d been walking down the street, minding his business to the best of his ability when his eyes landed on her. the crazy lady who flipped out on him in the height of all the halloween madness. that was something that remained with him. it was never so much that she was upset, a part of him fully understand where her anger came from, her child was missing -- a little benny who wanted to be a space ship or whatever. it was the fact that she’d come in on a hot ten, demanding answers in an impossible situation, and holding little to no regard for the fact that every cop in that building was clearly trying. and he knows she didn’t know how he personally was involved, that he’d been working for ten hours on his night off by the time she’d come in. but still, who the fuck did she think she was to knock his donut out of his hand. to not even seem a little sorry. so, when he comes up to her all he can think is how he could be petty and obnoxious too. so, without saying a single word he reaches his hand out and knocks the cup she’s holding out of her hand. even after the act is done he says nothing, just stares at her with narrowed eyes as he wills her to even protest a little. he’s got time today. 

continued from here.

This is exactly the reaction he expected from Nick, knowing from the second he saw the sweaters at the store that his best friend would have a lot of feelings about them, not a single one of them positive. It’s what drove him to pick up two and bring them to Nick’s place completely unannounced, knowing that Nick’s reaction would be worth it. And sure enough he wasn’t disappointed. He has to press his lips together to keep himself from laughing, doing his best to keep a straight face as he holds out the sweater. “What do you mean?” he asks innocently, holding the sweater up to Nick. “I think it’d look really great on you. The green really brings out your eyes.” // @nickswildbro​

nick watches as ralph holds the sweater up to him, expression reading nothing other than annoyance as this happens to him. his relationship with all his friends revolved around messing with each other, none of them capable of taking a single thing seriously ever. so, he shouldn’t be even a little surprised that ralph would think bringing over an ugly ass winter sweater would be a good idea. and yet, he still stares at ralph as if he’s an absolute idiot. “give it to dodger.” he slaps ralph’s hand, moving it away from him. “i ain’t wearing that shit...unless you paying me and even then i’m not so sure.”

continued from here.

this was painful, agonizing, really any other synonym for just the worst moment ever. it felt like they stood their for hours, awkwardly staring at each other while others looked on. it would’ve been bad enough just to experience nick’s awkward shuffling and throat clearing, but to have an audience made it a hundred times worse. when he places a kiss on the top of her head, judy has a hard time hiding the disappointment on her face. she lets him lead her away from the mingling party, now that people have lost interest in the moment, she could finally release the breath she’s holding. “yeah.” she agrees with a grumble, shrugging carefully out from under his arm. it wasn’t fair to be upset, she knew that. they were figuring things out and they didn’t need their first kiss to be in public. though it was hard to tell if there would ever be a first, or any. “i’m not sure if mistletoe is really an hr approved office party decoration. seems like it could be problematic.” @nickswildbro​

nick shouldn’t necessarily be caught off guard by the angry grumble judy disguises as an answer. he’d danced around the topic of their relationship, flitting and dodging anything that forced him to address it. so, it’s only fair that perhaps judy is starting to get annoyed -- but what exactly were they supposed to do here? disrupt their already working relationship to shift into a dynamic that would fail? because he knows they would. in fact, he’s never been more certain about something in his life, relationships never once having been something he’d deemed worth the energy or effort. one would argue he felt similarly about friendships, and here he is, cradling judy’s feelings and looking out for her more often than he does most people. so, he’s capable of change -- he just won’t acknowledge it yet. “you okay?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer, but it’s as close as he can get to talking about this without having to initiate the conversation. “you don’t seem like you’re having fun.” 

nicholas wilde was a fool. it was an Indisputable fact of life at this point, any of his friends able (and so willing) to support the idea. and yet, he still finds himself thrown off by this moment, as if he shouldn’t have expected exactly this to happen. coming to the chief’s Christmas party wasn’t necessarily his idea of a good time, but he knows he has to make an appearance to avoid scrutiny. and maybe this would be less awkward without all their co-workers staring at them, faces amused and gaze curious as judy and nick skate around something as simple as mistletoe. if anyone had ever wondered if something was up with them, questioning if something had shifted in their dynamic (even if it was the tiniest of shifts) they surely don’t question it anymore. and nick knows that’s on him for making this so fucking weird. clearing his throat, he looks down at judy, small nervous smile on his face. it could be so simple — he could just kiss her and be done with all of this; the mistletoe, the tension, the confusion in their relationship. but a kiss with judy would only further complicate things, he’s sure. because a kiss could never simply be just a kiss between them, stupid traditions or not. and maybe he needs to stop swimming (drowning) in his own thoughts, maybe he needs to just do something. he smiles, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of judy’s head before slinging his arm around her shoulders with a laugh. it was a kiss. not the right kind, he knows, but as he leads her away from the party all he can think of is the already delicate nature of their friendship and how he couldn’t tear at it with a stupid mistletoe kiss. “fucking hate Christmas parties.” he admits to her, as if she didn’t already know, arm still around her. @cfficerjudyhcpps

nick blinks, tired eyes struggling to make sense of what he’s looking at. at first glance, it’s the ugliest thing he’s ever seen, he thinks. but as he stares at it longer, taking note of the patterned fabric — paying it the attention it deserves — he knows he was wrong. it’s the ugliest thing anyone’s ever seen, he knows. “if you don’t get the fuck out of my face right now.” he frowns, tone lacking any of its usual humor and warmth because ralph can not be serious right now. no — he can’t be deadass right now. “you came all the way over here...for this shit? you that bored?” @rclphwrecksit

nick looks down at the mess of wrapping paper in his hands and back up at layla, disbelief clear on his face. “what?” he asks, a laugh caught in his words as he tries to process what layla is saying. coming to her office after his shift to exchange gifts was practically a no brainer, nick well aware that she’d hardly have any other time to see him during the holiday week. but had he known he’d be getting judged for the way he unwraps presents he would have simply kept the gift to himself. “how else are you supposed to unwrap a present?” @ladylaylas

“Oh really?” Ralph asks with an eyebrow raised, an amused smile on his lips. “Are you sure about that?” For as long as she’s known Vanellope, he’s known her to be all too enthusiastic about these fistivals, and never seems to take no as an answer. It’s how he ends up at every single one, participating in far more activities than he plans to. And Nick, Felix, and Dodger have never been safe from being roped in either. “Now what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ralph frowns as she looks over at Nick, though at the mention of Sav his smile turns sheepish. Spending the past fifteen years in love with the same woman might not make him all that qualified to comment on Nick’s sightly messy love life. “Things with Sav are going just fine,” he shrugs, refusing to use the nickname she adopted while in LA. “We’re great.” As soon as the words have left his lips he realizes that he hasn’t actually filled Nick in on any of that and promptly keeps quiet, hoping he won’t ask any follow up questions.

“well, if she has other plans then i’ll simply throw dodger’s name out there.” nick shrugs, not even a little phased by the way ralph easily questions his logic. sure, in all the years he’s known vanellope she hardly seems like she’s willing to hear no, but nick is confident that he can talk his way out of this. “don’t play dumb, you know exactly what it means.” he’s aware that half the time ralph isn’t necessarily playing when he says something dumb, but there’s no way he’s this dense. “yeah? you finally tell her you’ve been embarrassingly in love with her since high school? cause if not you can keep your opinions to yourself.” he’s not expecting an answer, and honestly kind of doesn’t want one because he knows it’s no. nick just needed to make his point. 

“yeah, doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere anytime soon, partner.” judy informed him, sighing as she fell onto the couch next to him, studying the weather app on her phone. “looks like we’re having a slumber party.” she joked, looking up at him with a sympathetic smile. she knew it shouldn’t, but somehow the idea of nick spending the night seemed even more awkward than ever. and she’d really just called it a slumber party… out loud. internally, she cringed. @nickswildbro​

honestly, it could always be worse. it’s the one thing nick keeps saying to himself as judy settles in on the couch next to him. “eh, your couch ain’t so bad. you’ll be fine.” he jokes, even though it’s clear that even if they were at his place he wouldn’t let her sleep on the couch. silence falls over them quickly, playful energy leaving the room as judy calls tonight a slumber party. his instinct is to call her out on how terribly lame that sounded, stare at her dubiously and draw attention to it. but he knows judy, and knows more than anything she’s probably already beating herself up for it. who wouldn’t be. “i’ll only let you call it a slumber party if you bake me cookies.” he shrugs, forcing a small laugh to hopefully help with some of the awkwardness. “or whatever the fuck it is people do at slumber parties.” 

continued from here.

Shaking his head, Ralph chuckles at Nick’s dry answer. He shouldn’t have expected anything different to the response he received. They didn’t willingly participate in any of these events when they were kids, and their desire to participate in wine & design or decorate some cookies hadn’t changed with age. “You make it sound like Vanellope isn’t gonna rope you into everything she makes me do.” Long since wearing the title of Uncle Nick, Ralph had watched as one of his closest friends got dragged along to all the same activities as him. “Unless you’ve got plans with Judy or something. Then I can get you off the hook.” Looking over at Nick with a grin, he knows he shouldn’t say a damn thing, not when his own relationship with Sav is a complicated web of tangled sheets and unspoken feelings. But when has common sense ever stopped him? // @nickswildbro​

“oh, nah.” nick shakes his head, certain that after all this time vanellope would know better than to try and get him to participate in any winter fest activities. not when it was so well known that nick abhorred the season. “she knows not to try and get me to do any of that shit this time around.” or, at least he hopes vanellope has enough sense for that. “now i know your dumb ass don’t think you got shit to say.” he glares at ralph. of course, if anyone were to be able to call him on his halted progress with judy it’d be omari, oscar, dodger or ralph. but as far as he’s concerned two of them have little to no room to talk, and ralph is at the top of the list. “we at least talked about our shit, how’s it going with shank.” he rolls his eyes, both at the sheer audacity of ralph trying to crack jokes and at the fact that he was expected to just accept that people call her shank now. 

“i appreciate you saying a couple for me.” judy teases as she takes one of the cookies off the plate before he can even finish setting it down. she wasn’t sure what’d happened, but somehow the relationship had become even more confusing. she wasn’t sure what she’d expected to happen after they admitted their feelings for each other, but staying in the exact same place they were hadn’t been it. though she couldn’t say she wasn’t grateful, at least she got to keep her best friend. of course, even though she didn’t want to risk ruining their friendship, she was becoming more and more aware of how much she kind of wanted to take that risk anyway. but instead of saying any of this out loud, she just popped the cookie into her mouth.

“you know me, always looking out for ya.” he smiles, taking his seat at the table across from her. there’s a lot of truth to his words, even if they’re said with his usual level of amusement. as if hiding behind carefully placed humor makes the words, and the feelings behind them, infinitely less real.  but as he sits here with her, a brief silence falling over them, he realizes this is far too unbearable for him to sit and accept. he’d need to keep the conversation going, keep them both distracted, in an effort to keep things from growing tense. to keep them from having to talk about this shit again -- he’d literally do anything to avoid another conversation about unspoken feelings and all the things they can’t do with them. “so, any activity in particular you’re thinking of dragging me to do?” 

nick hates winter. that’s one thing he’s never kept hidden, openly sharing that information with anyone who asked. he hates snow, he hates the cold, he hates winter themed drinks — who the fuck wants peppermint coffee? so, it’s a shock to anyone who knows him when he shows his face at the festival. but, like with most things, he hardly has a say in the matter as he’s completely willing to go anywhere that judy wants to. “my plan? mind my business and not freeze to death.” nick shrugs looking up at ralph. “you the one who gotta go participate and shit, you got kids. i aint doing shit other than standing here and being mad.” @rclphwrecksit

judy almost asked what he meant, but playing any dumber at this point was putting it on thick, even for her. “i don’t not want to talk about it. I just…you know…assumed you wouldn’t want to talk about it. so i’ve just been pretending i didn’t say anything so that you could ignore it. but if you don’t want to ignore it, i guess we should talk about it.” she was well aware she was babbling, but she was afraid to stop talking, as if whatever filled the silence after her would ruin everything. potentially, it could, potentially whatever came next had the power to ruin the best thing in her life thus far. she filled her cheeks with air, holding in her breath for a moment before letting it out in a small burst of wind. “was it…did it make you feel weird?”

nick listens patiently as judy barrels through her long winded sentence. under normal circumstances he’d make a joke to lighten the tension, something dumb and small to imply he’d long ago checked out of the conversation. but given the nature of her words, the reason for her clear nervousness, he feels the least he can do is keep his stupid jokes to himself for once. “i mean, do i ever wanna talk about anything?” he asks, because Judy wasn’t necessarily wrong to assume he wouldn’t want to talk about it. but wanting to and needing to were two very different things. “weird?” nick lets the word hang around them, biting the bottom of his lip nervously as he tries to think of a decent way to explain how exactly it had made him feel. “yeah, little bit.” he finally admits with a sigh, this whole thing was weird. “but not cause i’m tryna dub you or nothing. i just...i don’t know i was caught off guard? i just didn’t know you felt that way.”