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The vertigo of the waystone makes Missa's head spin as he lands in the basement of his home. Their home.
More like Phil's house, his mind whispers to him sourly. His stomach twists and he fiddles with the shimmering wedding ring on his finger.
It's the same fear every time.
Phil will be gone because Missa has been away for too long. This was the final straw—the last time that Phil could handle watching him walk off not knowing when their paths will cross again.
It's been almost an entire month since the previous time they saw each other, surely—
Missa takes a deep breath and fidgets with the communicator on his wrist. He makes eye contact with one of the (many) photos of Schlatt on the walls of their basement and chuckles quietly to himself. Under no circumstances can he allow himself to start spiraling in front of the Schlatt posters.
He sighs heavily. Phil may not even be here—it would be just his luck, too. They're closer to ships passing each other in the night than husbands, at this point.
Deciding that he's tired of freaking himself out, Missa climbs up the ladder into their little house.
The same part of him that whispered fears of Phil running off loves to conjure up daymares of returning to a home emptier than he'd last seen it, a home void of everything that fills it with the love and comfort that calls him back.
So his heart drops when he pulls himself up into what should be—what was—his home filled to the brim with nothing but chests.
He doesn't know what he should think about it. Missa squeezes through the aisles of chests, each labeled with various things ranging from tree saplings to TNT, and then pauses when he notices a bed out of the corner of his eye.
One bed in the midst of all of the chests—his. Completely untouched. A pit at the bottom of his stomach gives him the same feeling of vertigo as the teleportation does.
His hand hovers nervously over the button to open the iron door.
What is he supposed to think of any of this? The house might still be intact but everything is gone. But there are chests in it now…
Missa groans quietly to himself, forces every insecure to the back of his mind, and clicks the button to leave the house.
Phil would not leave—at least, not like this. He would leave a note, wait until Missa returns so they can talk face-to-face, anything except just taking all of his things and leaving.
That's what he hopes, anyways.
The air outside is cool but not cold. It's a refreshing breeze that smells like the rolling sea hundreds of blocks underneath them.
Missa shimmies along the small amount of land in front of the door to the side of the house. Wind catches in his hood as he looks up at all of the newly planted purple trees scattered around the island. They're a beautiful, radiant violet that he almost never sees out in nature.
He walks towards the middle of the island, glancing at the various kinds of flora that have been planted in groups. The scent of fresh grass and blooming flowers relaxes him.
There's a raised area at the center of the island that he's almost certain was not there the previous time he was here. He's in the midst of wondering how long it must've taken for Phil to do all of this when he spots the newly constructed house at the heart of the plateau.
It reminds him of their last home, in a way. Not that big but made with love and intention. It's a mix of red and purple woods with a few accents of black logs. Missa smiles to himself as he recognizes the red wood as the one that Phil loved on the last island—it's a house of them.
He feels lighter.
Vibrant leaves crunch under his boots while he walks up to the front porch. It's certainly bigger than any of their other old homes, though with the comfortable air that only Phil can bring.
Missa steps through the threshold with a wilting apprehension.
"Uhm… hello?" he calls out, gently shutting the door. "Phil? Mi vida?"
He calls out a final time after a few moments of no response and is met with more silence. He roams around the house, a bit aimless but curious what each room holds in it. A small smile creeps onto his face when he recognizes several of the decorations around the house—namely the lamp that he made just to give to his husband.
The house has clearly not been around for too long. There are numerous empty spaces and rooms that have yet to be properly furnished, but Missa loves it regardless. Phil made this all just for them, thinking of Missa even when he had no clue where the man was.
He feels like he could fly if he tried.
In the back of the sparse kitchen is a finely made glass door. Through it he can see a magnificent lake (that was absolutely not there before) and several farms off to the side. He pushes the door open, enjoying the way that the fresh air hits his face despite his mask.
"—at you're all talking about." Phil's bright laugh drifts across the open space, the sound bringing an involuntary grin to Missa's face. "If he shows up then he shows up, alright?"
Missa walks towards his husband's voice, approaching a row of trees—fruit trees, he realizes—behind the farms.
Phil is standing in front of an avocado tree, a half-filled basket dangling from one of his arms as he chats to the squawking crows perched around him. His clipped wings are covered by a light cape that flows with the breeze, and he's still wearing the large green bow in his hair, so cartoonishly big that it slightly pushes up the rear brim of his white-green hat.
Admittedly, Missa does not catch whatever Phil says to his crows, distracted trying to catch any part of his outfit that may be different. Phil notices him before he's able to say anything.
Phil glares at his crows, though there's no heat to it. "You fucking— you weren't lying! Stop trying to tell me shit, let me find it out on my own!" He places the basket (filled with exclusively avocados) down next to the tree and runs over to Missa, beaming.
"Hi there," he says, his voice soft.
Missa can feel his face flush a bit. "Hi, I, uh, gave myself a bit of a house tour, if you don't mind."
Phil laughs, and it's just as wonderful as the first time he heard it.
He pushes the skull mask, a permanent fixture of his attire, on Missa's face up ever so slightly, enough to give him the space to lean in a press a kiss against his lips.
It's a fleeting thing—gentle and quick, but more than enough to remind the man exactly what it feels like and to make his brain completely short circuit. Around them, the crows caw in a way that is almost certainly teasing. Phil flips them off without hesitation and Missa is simultaneously thankful and envious that he cannot understand what they say.
(He could ask, but does he really want to?)
"I could give you a tour around the house—and the island, actually—if you'd like. There are some things I could totally use your input on—oh! And we should probably grab your bed now," Phil hums, rattling off his stream of consciousness as he often does.
"Oh, yeah, I was going to ask. Why did you leave it in the…?" Missa gestures vaguely back towards their old, tiny home.
"I've just been calling it the shed." Phil quirks an eyebrow at him. "Also, I left it there because of respawning. I don't know where you have your spawn set currently, but I didn't want to break it just in case it was still here. Didn't want to leave you stranded at spawn if you accidentally died."
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, right.
He probably should've thought of that.
Phil laughs in spite of his clear attempts not to. "Did you think I was basically making you sleep on the couch or something?"
"No. No! It's just—" Missa sighs, "I don't know what I thought, honestly. I just, kind of…" He trails.
"Missa," Phil says. There's a seriousness—a sincerity—to his tone even with the amused smile on his face that reminds Missa why Phil is a safe space for him after all of these years. No matter how silly he feels that it's been so long and he still has these worries, Phil will be there to reassure him when he needs it.
"I'll tell you as many times as you need to hear it—if I had any issues with the way that we live our lives I would tell you." Another quick kiss. "And I've never said that, now have I? So stop freaking yourself out." He chuckles.
Missa feels a weight fall from his shoulders.
"Te amo mucho, mi vida," he murmurs.
Phil smiles.
It's the same fear every time.
An empty home. A quiet home. A home with all of the care drained from its walls.
It's the same, ridiculous fear every time.
"I love you, too. Now, let's go grab your bed, because our bedroom is uneven without it and it's making me a little bit crazy."
Missa laughs.
Two ships passing each other in the cover of darkness. Two ships meeting in their home port under an ocean of stars.