#also krista if u see this no you DIDNT

[stressedanime]

read on ao3

Will was sitting on the couch mindlessly flicking through Netflix. He was sitting completely upright, his body full of tension that he had nowhere to put. Nico was late coming home and Will couldn’t help the cascade of worst case scenarios that were currently parading through his mind.

As always, he remembered too late that he and Nico shared each other’s locations, so Will could literally track his location live through his phone. His arms darted around on the couch for his phone, probably more frantically than was necessary.  

Before he could even find his phone he heard the scrape of keys against the lock, and then the sound of the front door opening, announcing Nico’s arrival back home. Will didn’t waste a second before he jumped off the couch and headed to greet his partner.

Nico was standing near the entrance of the house when Will reached him, but before he could embrace him like he always did, Will stopped.

Nico had an expression on his face that was unfamiliar, and frankly jarring to see. He wore a sheepish smile, but his dark eyes were sparkling with… hope? He was also standing slightly hunched with his hands behind his back, obviously hiding something, which was even more concerning.

They stared at each other for a beat, and before Will could question what he was hiding, Nico spoke.

“Will, darling. You love me right?” 

Will blinked at him. “Yes… of course I love you,” he said hesitantly. Nico nodded, and it looked like he gained a little bit of confidence as he stood up straighter.

“You love me and you would do anything for me?” Nico questioned again, and at this point Will’s mind was racing through a million different possibilities. 

Will hesitated, his eyes darting to Nico’s arms that disappeared behind him. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“What do you have ?” Will shot back, taking a step towards him. Nico held his gaze for another second, before sighing and carefully bringing his hands out from behind him. It looked like he was holding a bunched up t-shirt.

Will frowned, not sure what was so remarkable about an old t-shirt that Nico had to confirm Will’s devotion to him. Then he saw movement. Will’s eyes widened, and he closed the distance between them, and lightly touched the edge of the shirt.

Swaddled gently inside was a baby opossum. Its little black eyes stared up at Will, its pink nose wiggling slightly as it sniffed the air. 

Will glanced up at Nico and almost had to look away instantly. Nico was giving him the biggest puppy dog eyes he had ever seen grace Nico’s face. Even the time that he came across a listing for an extremely rare first edition Mythomagic set didn’t come close to the eyes he was currently giving Will. 

As Will stared at his adorable expression, he already knew what Nico was going to ask, and Will wasn’t sure if he could say no.

“Can we keep ‘er?” Nico asked on cue, pouring every ounce of sweetness he could into his voice. Nico blinked and somehow made his eyes even bigger. Will thought that this was vaguely reminiscent of a scene in the animated Puss in Boots they had recently watched together. 

Nico’s favourite animal was opossums. Will and Nico’s Instagram and Twitter DM’s were more or less filled with possum memes, or just pictures of possums with Nico lamenting over how cute they were. He had always joked to Will that if he was to ever own a pet it would be a possum, so Will had to admit it wasn’t really surprising that Nico took the opportunity to bring one home. 

Already feeling his resolution crack he sighed, knowing one of them had to be the voice of reason. “Nico. It’s a baby. Did you steal it from its mother?”

“No!” Nico exclaimed in a half whisper. Will raised his eyebrows. “No, I would never. It’s mom-” Nico cut off and hesitated, looking down at the creature in his hands. He shifted so he was cradling it protectively against his chest instead of holding it out to Will. To Will’s surprise, when Nico met his eyes again, Nico’s face was pinched into an expression that Will recognized as Nico trying to hold back tears.

“Her mom was on the side of the road. She was the only one that was still alive,” Nico said quietly, the last words of his sentence barely a whisper. Nico’s eyes filled with tears, and in tandem Will’s heart filled with sympathy and he reached out to pull Nico into a hug, being careful of the possum in his arms. He gently rubbed Nico’s back, and whispered comforting words. After a little bit, he kissed the top of Nico’s head and pulled back, decidedly not mentioning the newly damp spot on the collar of his shirt. 

“Okay, let's go sit down. We definitely can’t keep it forever, but we have it now. Let's go figure out what we can do.” Nico nodded, and gave Will a peck as he walked by him, whispering a small thank you .

Nico headed to the living room, and placed the baby possum on the coffee table. He kneeled in front of it, crossing his arms on the table and then resting his head on his arms. Nico fixed the possum with a look of pure adoration as it crawled out of the t-shirt, then headed towards where Nico was sitting. 

Will stood for a moment, just studying Nico. It was rare that Nico looked so absolutely soft with his chronic case of resting bitch face. Will got to see the soft side of him more than anyone else, but seeing Nico being so tender with such a tiny little creature caused Will’s insides to melt into a gooey mess. 

Will sat on the couch behind Nico, and Nico leaned back using Will’s leg as back support. Will threaded his fingers into Nico’s dark wavy hair, scratching lightly as his scalp. Nico let out a puff of air and relaxed into the feeling.

“First things first,” Will started as Nico reached out to lightly pet the possum between its ears. “What did you name it?”

“Heather,” Nico answered, faster than Will expected.

“Heather?” Will repeated back to him, and Nico nodded. “Why Heather?” 

Nico wasn’t facing Will, but Will could tell he was blushing by the shade of pink that his ears turned. He mumbled something Will couldn’t hear, so Will leaned forward, prompting him to repeat himself.

“I named her after the possum from Over the Hedge. She was voiced by Avril Lavigne.”

Will let out a small laugh, not out of judgement but out of affection. “That’s cute babe, Heather sounds perfect.” At that Nico tilted his head back into Will’s lap and smiled at him. Will leaned down, the position was a bit awkward but he still managed to give Nico a chaste kiss. 

Will sat up again and Nico turned his attention back to the coffee table. At this point Heather had crawled into Nico’s hand and curled up, closing her eyes. Nico cooed at her, shifting on his legs but being careful not to move his arm at all.

“Are you able to Google what we should do? I know we probably can’t keep her, but I want to make sure we do everything right.”

Will hummed in affirmation and started looking for his phone again. He finally found it on the side table beside his end of the couch. He googled ‘how to take care of a baby possum’ and started reading out the advice.

“Number one thing is to keep her warm, and have her in a dark place. It says to put some rags in a box for her to go in with some sort of heating. I think we have a shoe box somewhere that we can use, and we have that heating pad, so I’ll grab that in a bit.” Nico nodded, and gently placed Heather back into the t-shirt. 

“What about food?” Nico asked quietly. 

“It actually says not to feed her. We could feed her the wrong thing or she could eat something wrong and get it into her lungs. Most of these sources say just keep her warm and safe until we can contact a wildlife rehabilitator.” 

Nico sighed, his shoulders slumping. “That makes sense.” He leaned his head down onto the table. “I don’t want to give you away to some stranger though,” Nico cooed at Heather, using his finger to scratch her head again.

They sat in comfortable silence for a couple moments, before Nico perked up. 

“Wait. What am I saying. Frank’s literally a wildlife rehabilitator! He works at the zoo as a vet! ” 

Will’s eyes widened. “Oh my god you’re right.”

Nico carefully picked up Heather again, and turned around to look at Will. “Do you think they’ll keep her, and let us visit?” he asked, tentative hope written across his face. Will leaned down and kissed the tip of his nose.

“I’m sure you can convince Frank. I think he’s still scared of you.” 

Nico laughed at that, and then shook his head. “I really don’t get why. I was joking when I gave him the shovel talk when he and Hazel started dating.”

“Babe, you can be scary when you’re happy ,” Will said leaning in and looking Nico directly in the eyes. Nico scrunched his nose in disagreement, so Will continued. “Not to me though. There’s no way I can think of you as scary when you bring baby animals home and name them after cartoon characters.” Nico rolled his eyes in annoyance, but the smile on his face betrayed him.

Will lightly gripped Nico’s chin and pulled him close. He caught Nico in a deeper kiss than the others he had given him since he got home, and Will did his best to pour his absolute adoration for Nico into it.

After a couple of moments though he pulled away. He slapped his thighs before standing up. “C’mon, let’s go set up a box for Heather. We can call Frank in the morning.” Nico nodded and stood up next to him slowly so as to not jostle Heather. Before Will could walk away Nico leaned in and gave Will another short kiss.

“Thank you,” Nico whispered against Will’s lips. Will just smiled, and returned the kiss.