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“I want a cat,” Nico announces one day—as far as Will can tell, completely unprompted.
The blond looks up from the article about VR music therapy on his campus office desk, highlighter still in hand. Nico is in the doorway, menacing as a stormcloud and probably scaring some poor freshman working at the table outside of Will’s office.
“Hi, honey. How was ‘Greek Translations’ this morning?”
Nico huffs, takes three strides into the room, and drops into one of the chairs across from Will, letting his limbs splay and his head tip back. “Uninspired.”
“And that has brought on the desire for a cat?” Will checks, capping his highlighter and setting it down. He places his forearms on his desk, clasps his hands, and leans forward like he’s preparing for an academic advising session.
“No,” Nico replies, petulant. Then, softer: “I just want something warm and fluffy to hold.”
“I thought you appreciated my manscaping,” Will quips, a smirk lifting one corner of his lips.
Nico props his head up enough to glare at his husband before dropping it back down. “Don’t start with me.”
Will considers the son of Hades, eyes roving over the sallow skin, the bone-deep exhaustion. He’s been working late recently, translating pieces for an anthology of classical myth, currently working through Ovid’s Heroides , trying to get the next section to his editor on time. Maybe something soft to take care of—something to bring him back to present-day every now and then—wouldn’t be a bad idea.
“We’ll go to the shelter on Saturday.”
It’s Saturday. Will is going to rip his hair out, curl by curl.
“This little guy’s cute,” he tries, again, forcing patience and love into every cell of his body.
Nico wanders over, eyes on the—honestly, Will’s not sure what kind of cat it is, but the plaque says he’s two years old and his name is “Crazy Train”.
“Yeah, he is,” Nico says with all the enthusiasm of saltines. Will mentally ticks off, Not this one, either .
“Or,” Will looks at the plaque on the next cage over, “Ravioli?” An odd name for a black and white cat, Will thinks.
Nico hums, letting the cat play with his fingertip through the bars. Will’s not sure Nico’s letting himself feel soft for any of them, barely spending more than a moment with each.
“Do you want to ask to hang out with any?” Will checks.
And that’s how they end up in a visit room, a fifth cat settled into Will’s lap, Nico curled next to him to scritch behind the cat’s ear.
“What do you think? Is Pie Crust the one?”
“I don’t know,” Nico hedges. “I think I need to think about it.”
Look, Will can love anything and anyone. He has emotionally bonded with their Roomba, named her Jolene and everything. He could take home any or every single one of these cats and be happy, but he reminds himself that this is about Nico and which cat feels right to him.
“Okay, we can do that. Come back another day or go to another shelter or whatever you want.”
Nico looks up at Will, dark circles and bags heavy under his eyes, and then sets his cheek against his husband’s shoulder. “Thanks,” he murmurs, and Will knows it’s, “Thanks for knowing me” as much as it is “Thanks for being patient with me.”
Will sets his head on Nico’s, wants to kiss the crown but knows Nico still gets nervous about that level of affection in public. “Of course.”
The cat doesn’t come up again for a couple of weeks. Will gives Nico his space to mull on it but provides extra cuddles at night, gives him pastries a few times at his campus office, drops words of praise like they’re leaves in the fall.
It’s not, Will knows, actually about getting a cat. He has no doubts Nico genuinely wants a cat, and he’ll be a great cat dad, but the hesitation comes from a place of uncertainty once faced with the actual reality the shelter brought.
Uncertainty that the next living thing he lets into his life will stay. Uncertainty that he, Nico, can care for the life of another who will be totally dependent on him. Uncertainty, still, that he’s allowed to want something soft and warm.
Will stays, and Nico takes care of him, and he’s soft and warm, but he can also take care of himself and hold his ground if need be, and Will knows those are big differences in this case.
And part of Will holding his ground is that, eventually, he will push.
They’re in the kitchen, Will’s finished latte mug on the table, Nico’s still warming his hands as he gazes blank-eyed out the window.
“What are you looking for in a cat?”
Nico startles at the question, coming back to himself and looking over at the son of Apollo. “What?”
“What are you looking for in a cat?” Will repeats. “Like, is there a breed you want, a personality, an age, a size?”
“I–” Nico’s brow crinkles in thought. “I don’t know, I guess I feel like I’ll just know the right one when I meet it.”
Will doesn’t fully understand, but he nods anyway.
“Well, then we’ll wait until we meet the right one.”
Will’s in the home office paying bills when he hears the key in the lock, the front door open and close. “In here!” he calls.
He hears Nico’s sword drop into the umbrella stand and then his boots walking toward Will’s location. Anticipating, Will looks toward the door with a smile.
There, Nico stands, holding a cardboard box and wearing a wide grin.
“I found them.”
“Them?” Will asks with a raised eyebrow, glancing at the box again and then back up to Nico’s face.
Nico nods and steps fully into the room until he sets the box down on his own desk. Will stands and walks over, peering in.
At the bottom of the box, two kittens are huddled together, one black and one orange. Will’s not good at guessing animal ages, but they’re large enough to be a few months old. So, officially kicked out of the nest.
“Where did you find them?”
“I was exiting the subway station, and they were right outside. I got a box so I could take them to the shelter, but when I picked up the orange one to put him in, the black one lost it, and I knew they were right.”
Will looks up at Nico, notes the joy on his face but also the trepidation, the tension held in his shoulders, like he honestly thinks Will would judge or deny him this. “Well, what should we name them?”
Nico’s shoulders release. He looks down at the cats again. “It needs to be Italian. I’m not naming my cats one of those silly American things.”
Will snorts. “Okay, but I do need their names to be puns. Non-negotiable, I’m afraid.”
Niro rolls his eyes but doesn’t protest. He reaches into the box and strokes a knuckle along the black cat’s back. From the void of what Will assumes is the cat’s face, two green eyes blink up.
“They kind of look like fire and smoke,” Will observes.
“I think they look like us,” Nico replies, still petting. “And you’re not fire, not really. More sun, life.”
“Shadow and sun. Death and life,” Will muses.
“I’m not naming a cat ‘death’, that’s dumb.”
Will huffs a laugh. “Well, what’s shadow in Italian?”
“ Ombra ,” Nico answers, “usually. Or fantasma or spettro , but those are more like ghosts.”
“And I know sun is sole , which we definitely can’t use. The cat can’t be Sole Solace.”
Nico looks up, amused. “The cats get your last name?”
“What, you want it to be Sole di Angelo, ‘Sun of the Angel’?”
“Better than ‘Shadow Comfort’.” He looks at the cats again, and Will knows he’s turning options over in his head, tasting the shape of the options on his tongue. “A pun,” he muses.
Will sets one hand on the small of Nico’s back, reaches the other into the box to scritch the orange cat. It bumps its head against his hand.
“Well,” Nico says eventually, slowly, like he actually needs to defend his thoughts, like Will would deny him anything he chooses in this moment. “The sun is basically a ball of gas and fire, which would produce smoke, same as a funeral pyre. And the sun also provides life, inverse of death. So, maybe Fumo and Vito? They would combine jokes for both of us.”
Will doesn’t point out that the sun, which uses nuclear fusion rather than oxidation, cannot actually produce smoke. Instead, he presses his smile to Nico’s cheek and murmurs, “Fumo and Vito are perfect.”
Later, after Will has taken a trip to the pet store, he asks, “So, is this going to be a thing now? You bringing home strays?”
Nico doesn’t really answer, just smiles at the kittens curled up inside the cave of their new tower, relaxed.