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What’s the difference between a house and a home?
A week ago, he would have said that there was none. Home was your shelter, the place you eat and sleep and socialize with family. A physical space, one built on sticks, stones, and a handful of memories.
Surely home was the red brick house on the very end of Greenwood Drive, shared between him, his parents, and older sisters. Home was the overgrown ivy that trailed up their chimney, the soft LED lights that illuminated his bedroom walls. Home was the smell of the homemade pizza his father baked every Friday night, those rare hugs his sisters would offer him in times of need when they weren’t bickering over movie choices or takeout food.
A wave of inner warmth washed over Ranboo, he bathed in the joy that he associated with those memories, recalling the love his family had given him over the years. A million different sensations overtaking his mind and body all at once- too many questions and too few answers.
If a home isn’t a house, then what is it?
When he thought of home, it wasn’t the physical house he’d grown up in that came to mind. No, it was the people he’d grown up with that occupied that corner of his thoughts.
His mother, his father, and sisters. They were the first individuals that came to mind. Of course they were, they were his family.
But then came a visual of Tubbo. And Tommy, and Wilbur, and Techno- it seemed as though all he could think of was just how close he’d become to those people in recent months. Despite only knowing them for a portion of the time he’d known his own blood, they, too, fit right into that homey corner of his mind.
And it wasn’t just the people he considered home- it was also the memories he’d made with them. Different intervals and snippets in time- they, too, were his home. Such a jumbled variety of concepts flooding his mind, he wasn’t sure which- if any of them- were the true meaning of home.
All of my reasonings come based upon the idea of memories, he thought to himself. No two people experience a memory quite like the other.
And maybe, maybe , that was just it.
He often found himself gazing about Tubbo’s living room, and he couldn’t help but observe the photographs and half-melted candles that remained artifacts scattered across every surface of the room, marking seemingly meaningless yet oh-so-important histories behind. Whether it be the remarkably large dent in the kitchen counter or an almost invisible tear in one of the couch’s cushions, every imperfection the house wore was another story to be told.
And Ranboo wanted to hear all of them.
The low hum of Tubbo’s rickety old oven, the tick-tick-tick ing of a half-broken timer. His mind, once floating high above his head, seemed to plunge back into the cold, watery depths of reality. The only thing illuminating the room being a thin sliver of ivory moonlight, chilling the tiling beneath him significantly. The stars were nowhere to be seen, the sky nothing but a thick pool of spilled ink. After a quick glance at the kitchen clock, Ranboo knew it wouldn’t be that way for long. The timepiece read that it was well past three, and the sky would soon begin to crack with crimson-gold light.
“The dough should rise in about 45 minutes,” Tubbo chirped whilst he finished rinsing off the last of their dishes. Rather than drying his hands with the towel as intended, he flung the remaining droplets of water in Ranboo’s direction, earning him a disapproving look.
“How mature,” he grumbled before teasingly ruffling a hand through the boy’s already shambolic hair. Tubbo swatted his hands at him, protesting a string of incoherent curses.
“Oh, look at that! You’ve messed up my hair!”
“It was already like that!”
“It was not .”
“It totally was.”
Ranboo couldn’t help but catch Tubbo’s gaze in his own, the fondness that glazed his eyes soft and sweet. Tubbo’s lips would always quirk into a shy smile whenever the other caught him staring, and he often twiddled with his hair whilst he averted his gaze.
But tonight was different. Any tension that might have previously mingled between the two had lain completely low, a moment of silence that could have possibly been considered awkward in any other instance was now nothing but pleasant. Perhaps it was the warm, inviting scent of honeycomb and pepper that charged the room putting his mind at ease. Before he could fully comprehend the situation he was in, Tubbo’s hands grabbed his own, the boy’s warm and somehow familiar touch causing warmth to bloom in his chest, spreading outwards and through the rest of his body until it was all he could feel.
“May I have this dance?”
Tubbo’s voice crackled in an attempt to hide his laughter, and it was at that moment that Ranboo melted. Something about his tone- sweet and falsetto- tugged at his very heartstrings. He adored the boy’s accent, despite the frequency at which he teased him for it.
“Mm.” Ranboo was much too distracted to give a thorough response. It was only once Tubbo began to move that he was truly snapped back into reality. The boy’s right hand had left his own and was now on his hip as he led them into a less than rhythmic waltz. A wave of shyness overtook him.
He mustn’t have been subtle, either, because Tubbo’s face rested in a taunting grin when he noticed the hesitant, perhaps embarrassed way Ranboo shuffled about as he attempted to match their footing. Their movements began broken and uncoordinated, though the two quickly matched one another’s pace as their bodies swayed in circles around the kitchen.
The initial surprise that came with being held quickly ebbed away and was instead replaced by pure bliss. As Ranboo’s heart pounded in his ears, his lips gave into a widespread smile as his eyes locked with the other’s. The boy in his arms seemed to soften, as he soon found him leaning into the taller’s chest, footsteps digressing into a slow and repetitive rock. Only semi-aware of his own actions, Ranboo buried his face in the boy’s fluffy brunet hair, allowing a low involuntary hum to escape him, permitting himself to indulge in Tubbo.
“Tired?” Tubbo murmured, his voice soft yet still edging a humorous tone. Ranboo only sighed in response, rubbing his eyes sleepily before leaning what was probably a bit too much into the smaller figure.
“Woah there, big man,” he laughed, stabilizing himself whilst he half-caught his friend, who looked a few blinks away from falling asleep on his feet. “Why don’t you lie down on the couch while I finish the bread? I don’t want you to be too tired when tomorrow comes.”
Ranboo shook his head. “Nuh-uh. It still feels weird being alone in your house, it’s still a bit unfamiliar.”
“Okay. Well, I don’t want you passing out on me like you almost did back there, so how about we sit together?” His query earned only a small nod in response.
Ranboo’s hand remained latched to his own as he stumbled half blindly through the darkened living room, following Tubbo’s lead. He trusted Tubbo to know the groundwork better than he and allowed himself to collapse into the cushions’ soft plush the minute Tubbo’s movements slowed, the reassurance of downy insulation causing his eyelids to droop under the weight of his own exhaustion.
“Is that better?” He could hear the amusement in Tubbo’s voice, though he’d been much too tired to make any sort of snarky reply.
“s’fine, just cold is all.”
“You need me to warm you up now, is that it?”
“Yes, Tubbo. Because I’m certainly not capable of getting up and grabbing myself a blanket.”
“As if you’d know where they are. Didn’t you get lost trying to find the washer the other day-?”
“Just shut up and get in here,” he grumbled, though anyone who’d known him for more than a day would know that there was a certain light-heartedness to his words.
And with his arms outstretched and a sleepy smile on his face, how could Tubbo resist?
When Ranboo opened his eyes, the room was no longer dark. Sunlight filtered through the living room windows, leaving pools of golden honey scattered along the floorboards. His mind was still muddled by sleep, thus causing the room around him to appear blurry but vibrant. And although his neck ached from sleeping upright, after gazing fondly at the boy asleep in his arms, he came to the conclusion that he didn’t care in the slightest.
“Pretty boy,” he mumbled half-mindedly to himself.
And with that, he found himself dozing off yet again. The warm sunlit rays kissed their cheeks, a hazy morning’s embrace.
The dough had risen thoroughly by the time morning came, though it was the least of Ranboo’s concerns. All that mattered was Tubbo, the boy sound asleep on his lap. He chuckled as a thought crossed his mind.
I’m home.