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“Home” is a difficult thing to cultivate when you never stay in one place for very long, but that never stopped Twelve from trying. Of course, he didn’t really have much point of reference, but he understood, instinctively, that certain things were as close to “home” as he and Nine could get. The miscellaneous computer parts could stay in their boxes from one safe house to the next, but he always unpacked their five large boxes of books and put them up on shelves, even if it meant having to hastily repack them a few days or weeks later. They didn’t have any furniture that was theirs, just whatever old junk was left in the building they chose to inhabit, but he had a green blanket and a red pillow that he carried from place to place, and displayed them on whatever they had that could pass for a sofa. He set up the chess board first thing when they moved somewhere new, and mounted Nine’s tools to the wall behind whatever would serve as his desk, so he could reach out of habit and his hand would find what he was looking for.
They had only one box of miscellaneous, mismatched dishes, utensils, and cookware – all rarely used – but on the first night in a new place, Twelve would always cook something fragrant to chase back the musty smell of the derelict building and replace it with something more pleasant. Something familiar. If there was an oven, he would bake cinnamon cookies. If there wasn’t, he would melt butter in a small pan on their little camp stove, toss in some cinnamon, and stir it just long enough to let the smell fill the air before rinsing it down the sink.
He had one small potted plant, and it felt important to keep it alive.
Twelve knew that Nine’s headaches were always worse the first few days after a move, the nightmares more intense, though he always pretended that they weren’t. And so Twelve tried to make each new place into the home they had never had – that they both knew they could never have.
It took a year of saying “okaeri” in more than a dozen different hideouts to get a single “tadaima,” but when he did, it was worth it.
The first time it happened, Twelve was so elated that he went up on his toes and pressed a kiss to Nine’s cheek.
Nine reached up to touch the warm spot Twelve’s lips had left on his skin, “What was that for?”
“I’m happy you’re home,” Twelve said simply.
The kiss became tradition, became home. Something they could reach for, and find, no matter how different the space.
When Twelve met Lisa, there was something about her that felt home-ish. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but it nagged at him, and he watched, and he waited, and when it didn’t go away, he brought her home, like a stray cat. A stray cat that Nine was practically allergic to, that filled their safe house with the black smell of burnt food, that threatened to ruin everything they’d been working for, but that made him feel normal in a way he’d never experienced – in a way that felt like what he imagined home to be.
When he and Nine got home just in time to see her running out of their building, and then the building exploding behind her, something broke inside him.
The books were gone. The chessboard, gone. Nine’s tools. Twelve’s blanket and pillow. The plant. His little bottle of cinnamon. Everything he had packed and moved and unpacked dozens of times, the ritual of making and remaking home, all of it was gone.
He was glad Lisa was alive. Didn’t blame her for what had happened, not really. Put on a smile to show her he didn’t. But inside, he was devastated. He knew loss, understood it intimately, had experienced it all his life. Lived and breathed impermanence. But he had made something despite it all, and now that thing was gone, and if this life meant that he couldn’t even have that, was it really worth it?
He knew Lisa would be lurking like the stray cat she wasn’t, ears perked for some reason to flinch, to run, and so he laughed about living in an arcade, tried to make it be okay. And when he couldn’t anymore, he sat quietly in front of one of the arcade machines, hands itching to unpack, to rebuild, to reshape, but without any of the things he needed to do it.
He didn’t hear Nine approach, didn’t even sense him until he knelt right down next to him and put his hand gently on Twelve’s leg. “That place wasn’t home,” he said, his voice kept to a private whisper.
It made Twelve’s shoulders stiffen. “It was just a building,” he said automatically.
Nine shook his head, “The things inside weren’t home, either.”
Twelve made a little sound that was meant to be an agreement, but came out more like a whimper.
“They weren’t home,” Nine said again, more firmly, reaching out to cup Twelve’s cheek in his hand, forcing him to meet his eyes, “You’re my home, Twelve.”
Twelve felt the tears spilling down his cheeks, unbidden, and Nine leaned up, pressing a tentative kiss to Twelve’s lips. Twelve made a soft, pained sound, but when Nine started to pull away, Twelve pursued him, drawing him back into another kiss, surer and a little desperate.
Nine slid his arms around Twelve’s waist, pulling him down off his chair and into his lap, pulling him close and kissing him again, first his lips and then his tear-stained cheeks, his brows, his forehead, his neck, gentle and warm, and when Twelve pressed their lips together again, seeking him out with a gentle touch of his tongue, their kiss had the salty taste of tears, but it also felt like home.
When Nine eventually drew back for air, he whispered breathlessly against Twelve’s lips, “Tadaima.”
And Twelve threw his arms around Nine’s neck, hugging him close and murmuring into his hair, “Okaeri.”