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It was no small miracle that Adam Milligan was able to keep a firm grip on his coffee cup when he happened across Michael, Archangel of the Lord, in the center of the bed they shared, cooing over what looked like a small family of possums.
“I was gone five minutes,” was the first thing Adam thought to say. He said it in a whiny sort of voice that he was fairly certain Michael had excluded from the frequency of sounds he could physically hear. Either that, or his husband was ignoring him in favor of the possums, which were making tiny little chomping noises as Michael fed them what looked like slices of banana.
Michael looked up quite abruptly, as though he had just become aware of Adam’s presence. “Hello,” he greeted, but it came out like ‘helloooooo’ because one of the possums took Michael’s sudden lapse in concentration as an excuse to bite. “Mr. Snuggleboots,” Michael admonished. “That’s not very nice of you, now is it?”
Mr. Snuggleboots, for his part, looked the slightest bit guilty.
Then something occurred to Adam, and he blurted, “You named them?” Naming was bad. Naming was very much Not a Good Thing, because naming meant that Michael would want to keep the things and would probably let them take over the entire room if not the whole hallway. Soon, Adam though, feeling slightly faint, there would be generations upon generations of opossum overlords running amok through the Bunker and causing general havoc.
“Not all of them,” Michael said, as if he had any right to be exasperated. “I saved one for you.” He coughed. “I’ve heard McFluffy is a very popular possum name.”
“Did you?” Adam asked in a withering voice.
Michael shifted, which caused the possums to become slightly irritated, by which Adam meant they all looked in his direction at once and made vaguely threatening sounds until Michael started cooing at them once again.
“Please can we keep them,” Michael asked, changing tack. “I’d do anything.” He held up a possum and made it wave at Adam. “Look at how much this little Cupcake wants to stay here with us until she’s all grown up.” Michael made a sickeningly sweet face at the possum. “Don’t you now, Cupcake?”
Knowing he was going to regret it later, Adam said, “Fine. We can keep the possums. On one condition.”
“Anything!” Michael said, hugging Cupcake close to his chest, which caused her to squeak. Adam had to admit they were kind of cute.
“I get to name mine Olly,” Adam said, crossing his arms and raising a brow at the archangel.
Michael narrowed his eyes. “What sort of name is Olly?”
“What sort of name is McFluffy?” Adam shot back. “All the other possums will make fun of her. Olly the Opossum is hip and happening. McFluffy is just…” Adam trailed off, unable to think of a proper adjective for just how poor he thought Michael’s naming skills were.
“Olly the Opossum it is,” Michael agreed, handing Adam his newly renamed possum.
At which point Olly promptly peed on him, which made Michael laugh, which made the possums startle, which caused Adam to smile ever so slightly.
Worth it, he thought quietly, holding up his new possum pal to admire. Definitely worth it.