Home is where the WiFi auto connects, they say. It’s where the shoes reliably come off, all the hats are hung in order, where the right type of jam is stocked in the fridge, and you know where the remote control is (most times, anyway).

More importantly though, home is where there aren’t any zombies trying to gnaw the meat off your bones and where you can slouch on the sofa, uninterrupted.

That’s how she finds Kyle Crane: slouching his worst slouch on the sofa. His ass is near hanging off, that’s how far forward he’s slipped, and his long legs are doing that thing where they take up too much space extended as they are. He’s wearing a forest green kinda t-shirt that’s a size at least too large for him, a pair of plain grey joggers, and a white sock on his left foot. The second sock is orange. It has white ducks printed on it.

His feet wiggle.

(Because there are a lot of things Kyle Crane can be, motionless is never one of them.)

So, there he lounges, feet wiggling, with his chin turned down to his chest in a way that probably means his neck will start aching soon, and a Nintendo Switch held up under his nose.

She parks herself by the door and watches him.

He’s focused. Very focused. Like the entire world has shrunk to the tiny screen in front of him. He’s also wildly expressive, she thinks. Sometimes his brows shoot up. Other times his entire face gets all pinchy. That’s when he leans his torso left or right and tilts the Switch alongside him. The buttons gets smashed harder then, too. And the thumbsticks get a vigorous workout.

Never mind all that though.

The best bit are the smiles. He has a wealth of those ready to go at a moment’s notice and now is no different. There are wide ones, the ones where he shows teeth and when his cheeks get all bunched up. And the quick ones. And the lazy ones. They all curl into his three-day-old beard and they are what end up tugging her away from the door, across the room, and reel her in to sit on the sofa next to him.

Crane doesn’t exactly look up. He throws her a quick, sideways kind of glance from where he’s halfway down the sofa, and then he’s back to playing.

That is when she notices he has three giant Haribo Dummy candies stuck on his fingers.

Yeah.

He does that.

Sticks them on— preferably a whole ten of them —and then slowly works his way from left to right, beginning with the long ends until only the rings are left. Eventually, those get chewed off too and then he repeats the exercise until he’s run out. The empty bag sticks out from where he’s squeezed it into the band of his joggers. She extracts it, balls it up, and chucks it onto the coffee table.

. . .

Or tries to, anyway. Plastic doesn’t chuck well. It gives up flying halfway and falls to the floor.

She sighs.

That gets Crane’s attention and it earns her a smile. Not just any smile, either. It’s that smile; the private one; the deceptively languid one; the one which mostly sits in his light brown eyes, where it’s unapologetically fierce and beelines right for her heart.

He scoots up. It’s an awkward, wobbly motion, involving lots of grunting and shoulder-rubbing into her direction until he’s finally in a position where he can drape an arm around her.

See, Kyle Crane is a cuddle bug.

Give him any indication you’re up to get nuzzled at and he’ll be right up in there, happy as a clam. (It’s a phrase he dropped on her at some point and it’s stuck, though she can’t for the life of her figure out what makes clams particularly happy.)

Anyway.

He pulls her in close, rubs his cheek against hers, and drags her into his world of— ah— Terraria.

She blinks.

There’s a tiny sprite dude blasting other tiny sprite dudes to bits with what she assumes to be a boomstick of sorts and— she blinks some more.

“Are those zombies?” she asks.

“Mhmm,” he hums. The noise rumbles around in his chest, deep and comforting so close to her ear.

“Isn’t that a little, I dunno—“ She gives her arm a half-hearted lift, gesturing lamely.

“—cathartic,” Crane says. “That’s what it is. Cathartic. Wanna try?”

“No. I’m good.”

“Kay. Hey. Lemmi show you something.” His fingers squish some buttons. The thumb sticks get a wiggle. And suddenly Terraria!Kyle is standing in a ginormous tree. A tree that is also a house, she assumes. Rooms are held up by wide branches and ringed in by leaves and there are lanterns dangling on the outside — and, honestly, there is so much to see, she can’t process it all at once.

“Tada. My tree house. ‘cus it’s a house. And a tree.”

“It’s very intricate,” she admits.

“Right? I been working on it all week. Look—“ He zips up the middle of the tree’s very wide trunk, right along a chain. “—top floor, bedroom.”

It does, indeed, have a bed. In front of a large window looking out across a jungle. She nods quietly to herself. He’d do that if he could get away with it. Have a bedroom real high up somewhere. With the wall facing it being nothing but glass. There’s also a bookcase though. Which is very him, too. Plus more books on shelves. And starfish. And shells. And a pink piggy bank. Also very him. The clutter. The hoarding.

Crane zips back down. “Armoury.” With, well. Armour. On mannequins. And chests full of weapons, or so he says. Further down there’s the dryad and the zoologist. The first one is a lass in nothing but some vines covering her private bits and the second one is a fox lady. Or a cat lass. She can’t tell.

He ships them, he says.

She snorts.

Next, he shows her a kitchen. Then a crafting room. After that, a bathroom with an actual tub and a toilet (“Where does the poop go, Crane?” “Shut up. It’s magic.”) and eventually the bottom floor, where he’s built a deck over a pretty jungle lake off on the left.

For fishing.

He’s an avid fisher, she’s found out. Has a soft spot for fly fishing in particular and often whinges how he doesn’t get to go as much as he’d like.

There’s more to the ‘tree house’. A lot more, and, eventually, something catches her attention. She worms her hand up until she’s able to wiggle a finger at the far right of the small screen.

“What’s that? They look like tombstones?”

“Oh. He-he.” He clears his throat and taps the first one.

Kyle couldn’t put the fire out, it reads.

Her right brow quirks up.

Kyle’s flailing about was finally stopped, says the next one.

“That’s a miracle,” she comments. Crane bumps his head against hers. Gently.

Kyle forgot to run.

Kyle discovered gravity.

       Kyle tried to swim in lava.

And so on and so forth.

“Wow,” she says. “Little Kyle isn’t having the best of times, is he?”

“Little—“ Crane pauses.

His mouth snaps shut. And, after that, it’s a miracle she can’t actually hear the worn-out gears in his head turning. Though she can most certainly feel how the lips he’s pressed to her temple curl up into yet another smile. This one’s cheeky, she imagines.

“Yeah. He’s having it rough. Wanna help cheer Little Kyle up?”

. . .

Okay, she walked into that one. She admits that, readily, but even more so readily she pokes at his ribs with her finger. Once. Then twice. At the third jab he huffs. At the forth the huff turns to a laugh and he twists awkwardly away from her — while not actually going anywhere and always snapping right back.

“I hate you,” she lies, her voice flat, and bites at his nearest finger with one of the candy rings still stuck to it.

“Thief,” he accuses and pulls her in tight again, his chin back to rest against her head. “Fine. Wanna help with decorating instead?”

She nods while idly chewing on the candy.

“Sweet. Okay— so—“

Yeah. Home is where the WiFi auto connects. Where you got all your favourite jam. Where the hats are all in order. And, sometimes, home is tiny and it’s also a tree, and you watch it grow while wrapped up in the arms of a man who can’t wear two matching socks.