Chapter Text
It's not like their worlds revolve around each other (well, it sort of is). It's not like if Nick goes out for a day, Judy's wondering the whole time what he's up to. She doesn't miss him for 12 straight hours. Maybe just 30 minutes every so often. She has her own life, and so does he. Sometimes, even when they're together at home, they don't say much. Nick shoves his whole paw into peanut butter tubs on the couch trying to clean out the bottom while he watches bad reality TV, and Judy reads on the other end of the couch. They might not even look at each other until they're brushing their teeth and grinning at each other in the bathroom mirror.
But right now, Nick is doing that thing again. Judy is reading in the living room and Nick is washing the dishes in the kitchen. The trash is one more takeout container from overflow, and Judy's been too busy to take care of it. She's always busy, always got one thing or another going on, even when she's home. Nick's free to take it out, he has been for a day or two now, but he won't. Because taking the trash out would be like giving in. It'd be like losing.
He's taken the trash out the last five times.
And if he has to bring it up himself, if he has to ask her to do it, that's also losing. So instead, they walk around the trash can like it's a bomb waiting to go off, or at least, Nick does, because Judy doesn't seem to care at all. And it's weird, because when he was living on his own, he didn't give one fuck or two about his trash, but now that he's here with her, it irritates him that it's there, and it irritates him that he's always the one taking the trash out.
"Are you okay?" Judy asks tentatively, sitting up from the sinking cushions.
"I'm fine," Nick answers.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
Nick isn't a door-slammer. Well, he is if he's not actually mad. But when he's mad, he gets quiet. He slinks. He slips into their shared bedroom and breathes slower and quieter to disappear. Because he can't pretend that he's okay, but he can't handle the conversation that happens if he's held accountable for not being okay.
"Do you wanna watch something together?"
"Sure."
He sits carefully on the opposite end of the couch, wedged against the arm without any snacks. His eyes stay glued to the TV. Judy glances at him, a little stiff herself, but she reaches for the remote and presses all the right buttons until they're watching another overwrought, soapy drama.
15 minutes in, Nick still hasn't laughed when he's supposed to, still hasn't injected his glib commentary over any of the over-dramatic beats. Judy, heart in her throat, hits pause.
"Can you just tell me what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Something's obviously wrong." If a little frustration seeps through, it's not for lack of trying.
"I'm just tired," Nick sighs, exasperated.
After a beat, Judy reaches for the remote again. "Okay," she says, voice quiet.
The sound of the TV hangs between them, awkward. Nick's not even listening, too busy trying to piece together what he should say, since obviously he can't say nothing. He shapes the way he'll prove his point, considering every permutation of what Judy could say if he brings up his grievances, every rebuttal he could make in turn, until his head hurts and his heart is pounding.
Judy is defensive. She hangs every argument on her best intentions and expects everybody else to know that about her—but her best intentions don't matter if Nick feels upset. He can know she means well, and it doesn't change that he feels the weight of having to take care of his mess and hers. It's not only about division of labor, it's about injustice, too. So shouldn't she care? And why doesn't she? Why is he the exception? Why doesn't he deserve the treatment she gives to everybody else?
He can't deal with it anymore. Nick reaches for the remote, hits pause, and says, "I'm annoyed because I feel like I'm always taking the trash out."
Judy blinks at him. "I take the trash out. I took it out three days ago."
Oh. Nick turns this over in his head, then says, "I just feel like I take it out more than you." And he feels like he does the dishes more than her, and he feels like he vacuums more than her (actually, he knows he does, because she doesn't vacuum at all, which is perplexing, because when she lived alone, he watched her vacuum the crumbs he left on her bed once), and he feels like he cares more than her. About everything. Which is weird, because caring too much is Judy's thing.
"'Feeling' doesn't make it true. I took the trash out two times last week." Judy hesitates. "I think you just don't remember."
Nick grits his teeth. "It's not like I feel that way for no reason. Mammals don't just feel for no reason. And it's not like I'm keeping tally"—isn't that partnership 101? You don't keep track of who does what, it's not tit-for-tat, unless you're aiming for dysfunction—"I just get the feeling like I'm doing a lot."
And you're not doing enough goes unspoken.
Judy sits up, frowning. "I don't know what to say. I'm doing chores. You just don't see it. I mean, you spend half the day sleeping. You're going to miss things."
"I take the trash out at night when it's full! It's not going to fill overnight suddenly!"
"You always do this!" Judy finally snaps. "First it's the dishes, then it's putting them away, then it's laundry, then it's keeping things clean. I'm telling you, I'm doing them, too!"
"Then why does it feel like it never ends? Why do I feel like I'm doing everything?"
"I don't know! Should I start telling you when I'm doing things?"
"Fine! Maybe you should!"
"Fine!"
The confrontation ends. They finish the episode in mutual enmity, and then they get ready for bed. Nick scrolls on his phone, laid out over the covers until Judy is done, then passes her without any acknowledgment whatsoever, glued to his phone to ward off any attempts at further conversation. He sits on the toilet while he brushes his teeth, still scrolling. When he returns to the bed, Judy's already asleep.
She's one of those annoying mammals that falls asleep easily and quickly. It's not her fault she's diurnal, but damn, does it annoy him when they get into one of their spats. It's not like he would have said anything to her if she was still awake, but he'd kind of hoped she'd still be up. It feels like another slap in the face that she can fall asleep so easily when he's still pissed off, like it doesn't bother her at all that he feels this way.
Whatever. He slips under the covers, still stewing in anger while he keeps up the mindless feed-reading.
It's 2am by the time he gives up, huffs, and gets up to move to the couch. He's pissed. He can't be unpissed. He contemplates solutions, ways to get Judy to be more proactive in their partnership. He's already tried doing nothing, tried leaving the trash out, letting the dishes pile. The one thing he won't do is leave his own trash laying around, because he knows he can't saddle that responsibility on someone else. But freakin' A, if she could just help him out a little, y'know? Is that so much to ask for?
He hears Judy step as quietly as she can into the living room at 6am, always five hours earlier than he'd be up on a Sunday. He hears her puttering around, doing her laundry, getting her breakfast ready, eating it, washing her dishes. At 8am, after she's finished her morning stretches in their bedroom and he hears the spray of the shower through the wall, Nick stops pretending to be asleep, opening his eyes and staring at the ceiling.
10 minutes later, the faucet squeaks shut. Nick pulls himself up and into the bedroom so that he'll be there when she exits. He slouches on the edge of the mattress, ruffling the fur between his ears anxiously as he waits. Judy hums on the other side of the door, unbothered while Nick steeps in guilt. When she steps out and stops in surprise, he looks up at her, pathetic and apologetic.
"I'm sorry. I…"
I overreact. I take you for granted. I'm lazy. What's a few dishes, taking out the trash, vacuuming? At least you're here. At least you like me. Right? You like me, right? You love me, right?
You won't leave me, right?
Judy sits beside him, warm and small. Neither of them says anything, but Nick's heart thumps on his tongue, and the back of his throat is tight. He's screwed up, he's fucked up, he can't handle this. Having to care about another person is so hard, having to think for another person when all he's done his entire life is think for himself is too much.
Maybe he wasn't made for a relationship. Maybe he's too used to being on his own. There's nowhere for this to go but to hell in a handbasket. He's wasting her time keeping her here.
Judy bumps her shoulder against his. "I had a thought in the shower. Maybe we should do a chore chart!"
Nick blinks at her. "A chore chart?"
"Yeah! We can list all the chores and then alternate who does 'em."
She looks so eager, and he's just relieved this conversation isn't taking the direction he assumed it would. Smiling weakly, he nods. "Sounds good."
"Great. Let's go buy a whiteboard!"
Nick chuckles. "You and your office supplies."
—
They get back from their errands three hours later, the both of them hauling groceries through the door. After they've packed everything away into the pantry or the fridge or the side table by the couch (which is supposed to be for side table-y things, but Nick insists on storing non-perishable snacks in the cubby, and once Judy had gotten used to the convenience, she couldn't disagree), Judy tacks the magnetic whiteboard to their gleaming fridge. Dry erase marker in her hand, she writes a 'T' and an 'R.'
"Trash and recycling?" Nick smiles sideways.
"Mhm!" She pops the lid back on the marker. "We already do our laundry separately, so no use putting that on there."
Nick frowns. It's a point of contention, but he won't bring it up. Instead, he asks, "What about the dishes?"
Judy goes quiet. Soon, her eyes dart away, her ears fall, and her paws find the droop, fidgeting anxiously. Nick's ears swivel back, flattening.
"We already do 'em separately," she says, trying for casual, failing spectacularly. "We can just keep doing that."
What's been a good day so far goes stale. "Okay," Nick answers, tone clipped.
Judy doesn't say anything back. They both just stand there stiffly, waiting for the other to speak first.
Nick isn't mad. He's not. But he can't pretend he isn't irritated, because lying about how he feels to Judy feels wrong. She's the only one it feels wrong around. "I'm sorry. I just... I'm frustrated. Because we shouldn't need a chore chart."
"Why!" It's not so much a question as it is an exclamation of exasperation.
"Because I do your dishes all the time, but you never even touch mine!"
"I don't ask you to do my dishes!"
"That's the point! You shouldn't have to ask me!"
Judy's arms fly wildly in bewilderment. "That doesn't make any sense! I'm not supposed to ask you to do something you hate doing? Isn't that what I'm doing?!"
"I do them because you hate doing them!"
"But you hate doing them, too!"
"Yeah!"
"Then why do mine?!"
"So that you don't have to do them!"
"But you hate doing dishes!" Her voice rises with every word.
"You hate doing dishes, so I'll do them for you, because I don't want you to have to do something you hate doing!" Nick shouts back.
Judy's jaw drops. She makes an inimitable noise. "How much do you think I hate doing dishes?"
"A lot?!"
"Not that much! They're a minor inconvenience, but I'm not losing fur over them."
Nick is quiet for a long time. Eventually, he crouches to the floor, head in his hands. What she's saying may be true, but it's not the point. He doesn't really know what the point is himself. All he knows is that he fucking hates doing the dishes, would always much rather be doing something else with that time, and he doesn't want that for anybody else, least of all the person he loves most. If doing her dishes will give her time he wishes he had, then he'll do her dishes.
So why can't Judy do the same for him?
"If it's not a big deal, then why don't you ever do any of my dishes?"
There's another long pause. Finally, Judy says, "I don't want to do your dishes."
It's like being stabbed in the heart, and he has no idea why. And yet, at the same time, he knows he shouldn't expect that from her. Is he just lazy? Does he think of her as his maid? A stand-in for a mother? What's wrong with him? He needs to get his shit together. She's not his maid, she's not his mother, she's his partner.
But it still feels wrong.
Climbing wearily back up to a stand, Nick shakes his head. "That's fine. I know I shouldn't expect that from you. And I know you're not a mind-reader"—he never expected her to read his mind, but some things don't seem like mind-reading—"I'm sorry."
He won't meet her eyes, but he can see her hesitation in the corner of his. It's only a second or two, but she reaches her paw to his, holding him. "It's okay."
It feels like his fault, this tiff. It always feels like his fault. He turns something meaningless into a molehill, then a mountain. It's okay, she says, but it doesn't feel anything close to okay, and not at all because of her. Still, Nick smiles weakly at her.
Judy hides her worry poorly. "I love you," she says.
"I love you, too," he replies, saying it, knowing it's true, and somehow still feeling like a liar.
They hug. Judy returns to daily life. Nick does, too, but he feels himself tiptoeing around her, like he expects her to tell him at any second that no, actually, it isn't okay, to tell him that he's got a problem, that he's unbearable, that he's annoying.
He wakes up from an accidental nap in the evening. The kitchen tap is running until Judy shuts it off. A few gummy blinks later, she appears over him, flooding his field of view with a smile. "I did your dishes," she teases.
Nick laughs back, but his heart sinks a little. Did she do them because he told her to? Is she going to grow resentful? He has to stop that before it happens. "Let's just forget that conversation ever happened," he jokes back. Judy laughs without pretense before collapsing into the couch beside him and picking up the remote.
He's so exhausted, he can't even deal with it anymore. Nick throws the emotion out the window and makes snide remarks the whole way through her crime drama. Judy laughs as easily as always, and for the rest of the day, he fights his guilt with that sound.
He's able to sleep at night, but before he slips under, he has the fleeting thought: Was anybody out there ever going to tell him that loving somebody else was sometimes going to feel like being held at gunpoint?