Ash sighed inwardly. Sooner rather than later they would have to leave Cape Cod.
Ash was laying sprawled out on the linen sheets of his old bed. It didn't feel like home. Home could never feel this cold and lonely, desolate and unwelcoming. In a way it had never been a home since Griffin left.
He stared at the ceiling, breathed in the dusty, uninhabited air and sighed once more. It had been years since he last came back here, he thought he'd feel something, anything. Pain, nostalgia... but there was nothing. Just the lingering sense of emptiness, nothing. Like the entire world had dulled.
Resting his eyes for a minute Ash then sat up, the creaking of the old bed's protests filling the otherwise silent room.
He could hear the bickering of Ibe and Max, Shorter too. He heard the groan of the floorboards and the rattling of the old door handle.
Entering just as a guilty mouse, the door parted to reveal Eiji. Warmth filled ash, numbing the aching loneliness in his chest and replacing it with something euphoric and pure, it left him with a soft, unguarded smile. When had he gotten so weak? Perhaps he always was.
Eiji shuffled over, he sat next to ash with his hands resting on his knees, attempting to refrain from fidgeting.
"Are you feeling okay?" Eiji's voice was sweet, like honey, and filled with more care than Ash had felt from anyone other than his brother.
"I mean... It's your old home. You ran away so I'd thought.. " Eiji trailed off as Ash didn't answer. Instead he lay back down on the mattress and patted the spot beside him, silently asking Eiji to join.
"This place was never a home, I've never truly had one." He closed his eyes then continued. "I thought I'd feel something toward this place, anything, hatred, regret... But I don't. I don't see it as a home, it's just empty."
He sighed again, softer, more content.
It was as though he could feel the heat radiating from the other body, washing over his senses. It was both calming and alluring. There was comfortable silence, the two of them laid there, Eiji staring at the ceiling and ash with his eyes closed.
"What is home to you?" This question shocked ash. A few moments passed, he still hadn't come up with an answer. What was his home? He couldn't answer, at least, not yet
"What about you, Eiji, what's home to you?" Eiji gazed at Ash, thinking. "Home, to me, could be anywhere. Anywhere that makes me feel good."
Ash hummed.
"Being honest, I've never regarded anyplace I've been a home before, so what if my home wasn't a building but rather a person." Ash paused. "Something that makes me feel good..." a light blush dusted his cheeks.
"I guess my home is with you."
