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Shinsou doesn't know Aizawa. His willingly accepted banishment to a farm for three months was a circuitous thing, a friend of a friend of his parents' heard from someone they work with, or some similar tale. It came down to a man looking for a hand for the summer and a kid who jumped at the chance to step out of his life for a while.
It's not a large farm, not the acres upon acres of crops he'd been imagining, but it's big enough; he learns that the walk from one end to the other is farther than his first impression suggests.
Shinsou arrives after sunset, having taken a bus to the city to meet up with Aizawa's nearest neighbor, who takes them nearly an hour out and drives off after only a wave at Aizawa, waiting on the porch. He watches Shinsou approach with a stare that's both blank and appraising, and Shinsou can't recall the last time he felt so nervous at someone sizing him up. He stands at the foot of the stairs and wonders if he made the wrong decision. He knows it won't be a vacation; it will be dirty, sweaty work, but his first impression of Aizawa is one of a hardened man weathered by life, stern and strict, prickly, harsh. His face looks accustomed to the exacting gaze he's leveling at Shinsou, and he wonders what he's signed on for, but Aizawa tips his head toward the house and says 'come on' in a quiet voice, and Shinsou follows.
The house is bigger than he'd expected for one person, decorated simply. Aizawa doesn't show him everything, just directs him to a spare room and gestures toward the bathroom and kitchen in a lazy way that tells Shinsou he's free to explore them. The kitchen is half of a large room, the other half serving as a dining room of sorts. There are a few shelves, some books, pens lying around suggesting Aizawa is used to losing them. He sees a picture of a man on the table in the corner and almost asks 'wow, who's the bombshell?' but then he sees the small box next to it holds a wedding ring and he knows. He wonders if Aizawa was always like he is now, or if the death of his husband changed him. He wonders how long it's been. Aizawa doesn't catch him staring, says that he's going to bed and tells him what time to be up and, after hearing that no, Shinsou's never done farm work before, tells him he should try to sleep as well. Maybe it should sound foreboding, coming from such a man, but it's stated quietly as Aizawa pads down the hallway. Shinsou follows his lead, but he's jittery after hours of traveling. He's too aware of every creak of the bed, the noises of the walls and floorboards, so much more noticeable out with nothing else around them. He's not from the city, but hearing the insects through the open window completely uninterrupted by cars passing by has a hypnotically stimulating effect, and he's awake far later than he should be.
He wakes bleary and confused to his alarm at an ungodly hour, and his summer begins.
*
Mornings are nearly silent, up before dawn, Shinsou watching Aizawa move around his kitchen, making them what Shinsou at first considers too much for breakfast, but he comes to be grateful for it; long hours of work leave him with a clenching growl in his stomach even when he downs all the eggs and toast Aizawa piles on his plate.
There's too much for Shinsou to learn beforehand, so he learns by doing. He learns that most of the early summer harvest is herbs, learns where and how much to cut. Aizawa will demonstrate on one then leave him to it, off to start his normal morning routine—there are a few cows, more chickens than Shinsou’s ever seen, several barn cats, all of which are put on edge by Shinsou's presence, unused to having anyone around but the solitary older man. It's always well past sunrise by the time Aizawa joins him, and the work quickly becomes routine. Shinsou learns that there's still so much planting to be done, learns how much work it is to dig those little holes over and over, sweating well before the hottest part of the day. He learns how important thick gloves are for the nettles that hide in the harmlessly soft soil, once Aizawa silently brings him a pair not even a few hours in. By the time they head in that first day, his knees ache, his shoulders are a giant knot of tension, his fingers protest moving, he's pink across the nose and neck despite Aizawa reminding him about sunscreen, and his thighs burn after kneeling then standing over and over, and he wonders just how muscled Aizawa is from doing this year after year.
Aizawa takes a long lunch break most days, inside the house, and Shinsou wonders if that's normal, or if he only allows himself the extra rest because Shinsou's there to pick up the slack. Sometimes he starts dinner, dumping leftover meat and vegetables into a crockpot, but sometimes he doesn't. Shinsou wonders if Aizawa naps instead on those days. He isn't old, but he has plenty of aches and pains, obvious even during the few times Shinsou lets himself watch. One day a limp, another day slowly and carefully opening and closing his fists and rubbing his fingers, another day scowling as he massages his neck. Shinsou wonders if it's just from all the work, or if he has a condition of some sort, or even if it has to do with his husband's death. Maybe there'd been an accident, maybe Aizawa had been there too.
Dinner is never anything that involved since neither of them has the energy. Aizawa asks about him, where he's from, about his friends, his family, about school, about his plans for the future, all in a tone that feels more like he's being investigated, like Aizawa should be writing his answers down in a small notebook pulled from his pocket, but Shinsou quickly learns that's just his way. He doesn't mince words, he isn't expressive when he doesn't need to be, but he's not unfeeling. He's not cold. He watches Shinsou when he answers, dark, kind eyes that say he isn't asking just to break the silence. So Shinsou talks, probably more openly than he does at home, around his friends. He finds it's easy to ramble when there's someone who's listening so completely. Aizawa never cuts him off, just eats and listens and watches, lets Shinsou exhaust the subject before he asks something more. Part of him thinks maybe Aizawa's lonely, maybe he's grateful to have someone there to interrupt the unending quiet in the house. He doesn't ask Aizawa anything at first, intimidated by his stoicism, but he's quickly put at ease by those dinners, by the calm way he greets the cows each morning with gentle rubs of their soft noses, by the unimpressed looks he shoots the chickens when they wander out to him in the field and pick at the harvest, and it's not a week before he ventures something as simple as how long Aizawa has lived there. He's surprised at first, hand faltering on its way to his mouth, but he doesn't begrudge him an answer. He doesn't speak as much as Shinsou, not nearly, but there's nothing to suggest the question was unwelcome. It becomes a nightly routine: Shinsou will talk, letting himself speak freely in a way he never has, then he'll ask Aizawa a single question. He always answers, never in much detail but completely enough that Shinsou isn't deterred. He learns that the farm is Aizawa's grandparents', but not how he ended up there when he grew up elsewhere. He learns that barn cats aren't usually so much like pets, that every one of the hens has a name, that Aizawa has a bad knee from an ornery goat ramming him at just the wrong angle, but there's one topic that he never even alludes to, and Shinsou doesn't ask.
*
There's a creek that borders one edge of the property. Shinsou likes to spend his breaks in the shade there, whenever he remembers to give himself a few minutes' rest. Sometimes he wades out into the water, drawn in by the smoothed rocks and the small fish he can nearly scoop up with his hands, but most days it's not worth having to stuff his wet feet back into his socks. The way Aizawa only glances at his uncomfortable gait and asks how the water was makes him think he's done the same plenty of times. It's the closest Aizawa's come to joking around, and Shinsou grins and says 'perfect.'
He thinks Aizawa's getting used to having him there. Relaxing, opening up, letting his guard down, Shinsou doesn't know the right words for it but there's something warmer in his voice, fonder, easier during those evening conversations. He looks more like he's sitting with familiar company, sounds more like he's talking instead of reciting information. Shinsou finds himself giddy with anticipation by late afternoon, always wondering what he'll discover that evening, what Aizawa will show him, if that night will be one on which Aizawa decides he's had a good day and gives Shinsou a beer and they sit on the porch and listen to the cicadas getting louder and louder as it grows darker. Aizawa talks more on those nights, whether by the beer, or that he isn't hurting so much, or by the cover granted by the darkness, or by all of it together. Shinsou sees him smile for the first time on one of those nights, nothing more than a slight twist of his lip, a softening of his face at some ridiculous comment Shinsou makes, but it's enough to make Shinsou tell himself there was no longer any point in trying to deny what he hadn't been fighting that hard to begin with.
He hunts for that smile, for the scant few seconds when Aizawa looks untroubled, not half so world-weary, and he feels electrified every time he's able to draw it out. He knows he's sitting closer to Aizawa on the porch, leaning in toward him at the table, pausing out in the sun whenever Aizawa pulls up his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, but he isn't rebuked, isn't given any indication that he's acting like an overeager puppy, not even when he finally asks, quietly, during a lull at the dinner table, 'how long has it been?' Aizawa freezes, staring at him with an intensity so sharp and sudden that Shinsou can't meet his gaze, instead looking down at his plate, but his eyes pause on the ring Aizawa still wears and flicker toward the corner, toward that picture of the beautiful man sitting on the porch railing, brilliant smile directed just above the camera. Aizawa continues to watch him, and when he takes another slow bite, Shinsou thinks he isn't going to get an answer, but then he hears, even quieter than he'd been when he asked, 'three years.'
Shinsou doesn't ask about him every night, sometimes too unwilling to risk shattering Aizawa's good mood, but he learns, slowly. Snippets about their life together. Shinsou asks him about how they fell for each other, about their wedding, asks anything he can think of that will get Aizawa to talk about love, his ulterior motive being the way he looks when he's caught up in those memories. It's not bittersweet, not longing or jaded. Aizawa is beautiful when he talks about his husband, shoulders for once free of tension as he looks out over the fields, beer bottle loose in one hand, leaned against the railing on the porch. The affection is obvious in his voice when he reminisces about proposing, about moving to the farm as newlyweds, and Shinsou is captivated. Aizawa knows, he must know, that there's more to Shinsou's questions than mere curiosity. There's more behind the way he sits so close, close enough they're just nearly touching. But he doesn't acknowledge it. So Shinsou doesn't stop.
*
Shinsou spends the night out by the creek sometimes. It's worth it, even if he wakes up with more than a few bug bites and has to trek back to the house for breakfast, because there's something that's both thrilling and serene about waking up out there, the water the only sound in that strange time when the nocturnal creatures have gone quiet but even the roosters aren't yet awake. It's on one of those nights out under the stars that he gives in, pants halfway down his thighs, fist tight and quick, panting, finishing with an image of Aizawa earlier that day, shirt dark with sweat and the water he splashed on the back of his neck, seared in his mind. He lies there, cooling air drifting over his stomach, sated half-smile plastered across his face, and moments later, the porch light in the distance turns off. He turns his head toward the house, just to see, even knowing that the open sky still won't give him enough light to know. But he wonders. He hadn't been loud, but he hadn't been silent, and he's learned how sound can carry in the still night air. So he wonders.
Every time Aizawa smiles in that furtive way he has, eyes flicking over to meet his, he wonders. Every time he turns the hose on himself and thinks he sees Aizawa watching, every time their fingers brush as he hands Shinsou a beer when they never did before, every time Aizawa strips off his shirt at the end of the day before they're even inside and Shinsou watches his tanned skin glisten as he follows behind. When Shinsou leaves the bedroom door open while he checks himself for ticks, in his underwear, palms skimming across bare skin, and wonders if he only imagines that Aizawa slows as he passes. When Aizawa leans back on his elbows on the porch, thighs spreading apart, his body open and tempting, and stares up at Shinsou, face half shadowed from the porch light.
Shinsou tells him, one night when they're two beers in and reluctant to go inside even if the mosquitos are feasting on them, about his ex parking his car in what they thought was an abandoned lot up until the flashing blue and red lights made silhouettes of them in the backseat. Aizawa gives him that little smile, shakes his head and says that cars are too cramped. Shinsou shrugs and says that beds are boring. Aizawa turns to look at him and waits until Shinsou looks back and sees the laughter in his eyes as he gestures with his beer toward the creek, toward the one twisted tree that Shinsou camps under some nights, where more than once he's gotten himself off with a breathless whisper of Aizawa's name. Shinsou laughs and doesn't bother wondering if it was an acknowledgement of his self-gratification or if Aizawa was saying he and his husband used to fuck out there by the water on hot nights. His heart races either way, and that night it's over too soon, he's emptying into his hand in what feels like seconds, his head too full of the images that come with wondering whether Aizawa preferred to give it or take it, whether he was the one laying out the blanket for his husband to splay on or whether he was the one on his back, mouth slack with pleasure, fingers scrabbling in the dirt, powerful thighs bracketing his partner's hips. He wonders if the glow from the porch in the distance means Aizawa's wondering about him too.
*
Summer's halfway point has come and gone; they have peppers to harvest and basil to plant. The farm's fruit trees had never flourished, not enough to be worth cultivating, but Shinsou sometimes takes the long way around to pick an early pear. It doesn't live up to any romantic ideas of biting into lush fruit plucked straight from the branch, not when it's too small and too tart, but it's still good. Aizawa watches him eat them and Shinsou feels a rush of satisfaction every time he manages to bite into one in a way that leaves juice trickling down his chin, even if all Aizawa says is that they'll taste better in a week or two.
The hot days are almost preferable to the muggy days, those when the sun doesn't try hard enough to beat out the clouds, peeking out at them for seconds at a time. The heat rises but the air stays damp, the morning dew never quite evaporates, Shinsou’s gloves are damp and uncomfortable and leaves he plucks from the plants stick to his fingers. The ground is just soft enough to be infuriating, halfway to mud, that much harder to shift. Shinsou sweats just as much but it's heavier, wetter, making the air so oppressively heavy it feels like he's panting for breath, and those days leave both of them achy and crabby, Aizawa late in returning from lunch and early to call an end to the day's work and rest his throbbing joints.
Aizawa is so long in coming back from collecting eggs on one of these mornings that Shinsou goes looking for him, finds feathers and blood and smashed eggs, finds Aizawa bent over twining wires back together from where they're rent open. He doesn't react when Shinsou approaches, says 'fox' and points out the ruddy fur caught on the wire when he asks what it was, says this will have to work until he can buy more, curses about having just driven into the city days ago, about not having heard the noise, about the jagged edges that stab into his fingers, sore and clumsy from the damp weather, the early hour. Shinsou tells him he'll do it and kneels to take over, and Aizawa stands, looks around at the hens, some perched on top of the pen, some wandering in and out of the barn, some strutting around Shinsou and eyeing him, some having made it onto the roof of the house, two of them still inside the pen, calmly unperturbed, warming their eggs. Aizawa starts to bring them in, to get them settled and counted before letting them roam, but they're on edge, their morning disturbed enough that they run from his grabbing hands even after he tosses feed out to distract them. Shinsou knows he shouldn't find it funny, knows Aizawa doesn't bother swearing excepting that one storm when it rained hard enough to tear apart more delicate plants, but he hears a whispered 'feathered fucking demon bird' and a bark of laughter is pulled from him, sharp enough to spook the chicken Aizawa's holding out of his grasp, its wings beating his face as it flees, and Shinsou is lost to laughter at his sputtering, even as Aizawa threatens to make him chase after them instead, because he's smiling too, bright as the flickers of sunlight trying to peek out from behind the clouds.
The smile fades quickly but it stays with Shinsou all day, making him glance over at Aizawa every time he pictures it, watching the set of his face, grateful he was able to drive off the annoyances of the morning. He's still thinking about him, face a mix of fondness and irritation as he cursed at chickens, when he's about to fall into bed, shirt tossed to the floor, one knee on the mattress, and sees Aizawa leaned in the doorway.
He doesn't speak, so neither does Shinsou. He watches the older man staring at him in the dim light of the half-moon through the window long enough that his heart starts to pound to the rhythm of the possibilities running through his head, good and bad. Aizawa steps over to him with the same assuredness as he does anything, stops just in front of him, still doesn't speak. Shinsou watches his eyes, his lips, his eyes again, swallows heavily, is embarrassed by how insanely obvious he's being. He wants to move, feels like he's bracing himself to bolt, then there's a hand on his waist and he inhales, pressing into it. Aizawa still waits, his hand an anchor, then leans in, lips skimming across his shoulder, in to his collarbone, pressing kisses as he moves, slow, so slow, up Shinsou's neck, lingering on his fluttering pulse, to his jaw, and Shinsou can't stand it anymore and turns his head to finally slot their lips together. His hand comes up to Aizawa's hair and holds him in place as Shinsou chases after the heat inside his mouth, chest already near heaving, kissing rough and fast until Aizawa pulls away enough to whisper 'easy' against his lips, and Shinsou lets out a breathless laugh.
Aizawa kisses him again, and Shinsou lets him lead, slow and soft, and feels hands sliding up his back, calloused palms pressing against him, pulling him close. He thinks his own hands are shaking because the rest of him must be, he must be vibrating as he wraps his arms around broad shoulders, lets himself be kissed so thoroughly, lets Aizawa dip lower to leave wet traces of his lips down the other side of his neck. Hands slide to his hips, leaving sparks in their wake, and he sucks in a breath to speak, but it comes out an aborted, confused noise he wants to cringe over.
Aizawa's hands leave him, hover close enough to his skin he can feel the heat, and he asks 'want me to stop?' so gently it's jarring how fast Shinsou's hands clamp on his shoulders. He says 'no,' says 'I've just never' and doesn't know how to finish it because he doesn't want to admit he's nervous, nervous and giddy and he wants Aizawa to fuck him so bad but doesn't know what he thinks about his lack of experience.
There's a huff of laughter against his cheek, not unkind, a whisper of 'it's alright,' another deep, wet kiss, and Aizawa's pushing him down onto the bed, carefully, even as Shinsou licks into his mouth like he's starved for it. Hips press into his and he gasps, rutting against the pressure, arms going around Aizawa's shoulders as he breathes hard through his nose, still unwilling to leave behind the feeling of a tongue sliding against his until Aizawa says 'slow down,' half command and half laughter. Shinsou forces himself to breathe deeper, forces himself to let go of Aizawa long enough to skim his hands down his sides and up under his shirt, hips jerking upward at the lost sensation when he sits up and pulls it off. He's seen Aizawa shirtless so many times by now, seen him shiny with sweat in far better light than this, but never with those eyes on his, never with the permission to touch, and he's grinning at the feeling of their bare chests together, at the corded muscle he feels under his hands at Aizawa's waist. A kiss to his lips, his neck, his chest, so slow and gentle he doesn't know if the noises he's making are from pleasure or impatience. Then Aizawa's hands are slipping his pants off, baring all of him, touching him, and everything blurs together.
There's a rough hand stroking him, fingers pushing inside, prickles of teeth on his chest, his hips, Aizawa spitting into his hand. There's one last pleading confirmation to a whispered 'this is what you want?' and then Aizawa is inside him and it's hot, so hot, so much. His nails are digging into Aizawa's skin, his breath catching in his throat, eyes clenching shut. Aizawa shushes him and Shinsou trembles as he slides home. He breathes out a shuddering 'oh' and then Aizawa is moving.
Hard, full and slow and steady, and Shinsou's clenching his jaw shut, turning his head to the side, wanting to stifle his moans, until Aizawa whispers 'don't hold yourself back' in his ear, voice unwavering, and Shinsou lets go at the feeling of lips sliding along his jaw. He sounds pathetic to his own ears, high-pitched whining, mewling, but Aizawa is pushing his thighs up and thrusting deep and long, again, again, again, and Shinsou barely registers the hand stroking him before he's finished, shaking, shouting, hands pulling at the sheets. Aizawa goes stiff against him, inhales sharply, hips jerking minutely, mouth falling open as he meets Shinsou's dazed eyes. There's a moment Shinsou wants to stay trapped in, both of them panting hard enough to drown out the crickets, then Shinsou's wincing as he pulls out. Aizawa apologizes, strokes his thigh when Shinsou squirms uncomfortably as he's cleaned up with a discarded shirt.
He's half afraid Aizawa's going to leave when he sits up, stares at the shirt, stares at Shinsou, breath still heavy, but he lets the shirt fall and lies down, on his back, letting Shinsou press against him, and even with their skin sticking together, even with his mind racing and the unfamiliar ache, Shinsou's asleep within minutes.
He wakes when Aizawa sits up, climbs out of bed. He blinks himself awake and checks his phone, collapses again. Aizawa tells him they should get an early start, that he's going to drive out later to replace the mangled chicken wire, and Shinsou feels something like relief for how nothing's changed.
They eat like normal, start out in the fields like normal, the only difference that Aizawa makes no moves to hide his glances at him. Shinsou knows it's likely because he's moving so stiffly, his thighs unused to the stretch they'd gotten and his lower back pulling uncomfortably when he bends, and he wonders if Aizawa's looks are fueled by concern or mirth. He basks in the attention either way, misses it during the few hours Aizawa is gone.
Dinner is quiet that night, Shinsou's fault because he always does most of the talking even if Aizawa's leading the conversation, and he's increasingly jittery as the sun sets and Aizawa still says nothing about the night before. They sit next to each other on the porch, his leg leaned easily against Shinsou's, and while he thinks that it'd be awkward if not for the cacophony of insects, anything he can think of to say is worse, so he sits and listens and feels jealous of how unshaken Aizawa is and wishes he were mature enough to seem so self-possessed. But he's not, he's a kid and he's tired and hot and drunk off the heady summer air, and maybe he's in love, he doesn't know, but he knows it feels different when Aizawa clasps his hand on his shoulder as he stands, a gesture that should be so familiar, and heads inside. Shinsou hums, hears the door open and close, feels cold where Aizawa had been beside him.
Aizawa has an unwavering personality that lets him go on as if nothing happened, but Shinsou doesn't. He stands, flicks off the light, passes by the guest room and stops at Aizawa's open door. That it's open should be enough to welcome him, but right now Shinsou's caught, wondering if this is how Aizawa felt the night before, sure of what he wants but hesitant to reach out and take it. Aizawa is sitting on the bed, glancing up at Shinsou, leaning over to plug his phone in, looking at him again, his face impassive but eyes fervid, and Shinsou walks over to him, kneels between his thighs because this, at least, he's done before, but Aizawa gently pulls him up, says 'come here,' pulls him onto the bed and on top of him and Shinsou still feels so naïve even like this, still feels lost in hazy pleasure while Aizawa so deftly takes him apart from underneath.
Aizawa doesn't slow him down this time, doesn't tell him to take it easy when he's so quick to get their clothes off and urge Aizawa between his legs again, just says 'like this' as he pushes Shinsou onto his front. He reaches into a drawer and Shinsou blushes, not from the glimpse of the bottle or the click of the cap, but from knowing that either he'd bought it that day, just for them, for this, or it had already been there and he hadn't wanted to leave Shinsou the night before even long enough to get it.
It's so much slicker and Aizawa spends so long coaxing embarrassing noises from him that Shinsou wonders if he intends to bring him off with just his fingers, but then he's empty and a hand is pushing his leg up, spreading him open, and Shinsou groans into the pillow at the hot, easy glide of Aizawa pushing inside him. He leans down, breath hot on Shinsou's neck, pace unwavering even as Shinsou tries to rock between him and the bed, even as he reaches under Shinsou's chin and turns his head so he can't muffle his sounds.
He stays in Aizawa's bed that night, thoughts racing, wondering which was his husband's side, lying there long enough to realize the window in there wouldn't catch the sun directly and that's why the picture is in the corner of the dining room, where it's lit up when they come in at the end of the day. Aizawa is asleep beside him and doesn't move when Shinsou presses close to him and sighs and tries to sleep.
*
They've set the pace for the summer. The days are quick in the morning, the acceptable temperatures sliding into exhausting heat too quickly, making the afternoons drag on. The work is still backbreaking, still soaking their shirts with sweat to the point the slightest breeze is cooling enough to pull sighs of relief from them. This new facet of them hasn't changed that. They're still dirty, they still smell, they're still cranky until they're freshly showered and sitting down to dinner, where they still talk about the mundane points of life, they still sit out on the porch until the sun truly sets. The days are no different.
But the nights are alive, crackling. Pressed close to each other, Shinsou forever impatient with the way Aizawa kisses him so completely, so slowly, even when it makes him melt, turn to putty in Aizawa's hands. He's helpless against the way those hands play him, make him lean into every little touch, chasing after them. He's more helpless yet with Aizawa thrusting into him, and he knows it's pointless to try and hold back the moans that burst out of him. He feels caught somewhere between innocence and obscenity, always rushing to get their bodies bared, wanton with desire in the newness of it all, but so often surprised by his own body, at what Aizawa can do to him, at how good it all is, how impossibly, unthinkably good. He's new enough to want to ask if it's always that good, but lewd enough that he doesn't want to bother speaking when there are too many better things his mouth can do.
*
He starts counting down the days until he leaves, even as he tells himself not to, even though it cuts him low every time he remembers, makes him want to start asking questions he knows he shouldn't.
One evening the clouds hold on until they're out on the porch, having been heavy and dark all day. The rain comes fast, starting at the far end of the property and sheeting toward them. It's not a storm, and Shinsou's grateful, because he remembers being shocked at how loud the thunder and the wind got out there with nothing to interrupt them, glancing up at the sky with disbelieving eyes. He'd flinched more then once at the peals of noise and felt all the more like the naïve city kid he'd thought Aizawa viewed him as. He hadn't known thunder could be that intimidating, that it could come so far before the rain and could only halt the insects for a moment before they started up again. He hadn't known wind could sound like a hurricane on its own.
But this is just rain, enough to make the porch light flicker, but most anything will make it flicker. They're half-covered, the roof not extending far enough to stop them from getting wet. Shinsou stands and steps out under the drops, just because he can, because weeks out here and he hasn't just stood there in the rain. It had always been an annoyance, the benefit of cooling him off outweighed by making the work harder, making the ground muddy, making him wonder if Aizawa would call it done and they'd be chased inside before they got half the day's work done. But they're not working now, and the rain's a little cold but not enough to send him back to shelter. He stands there for a moment, looks out over the land, looks up, looks down at the softening soil and kneads it with his feet like a child, sees movement and looks over at Aizawa standing as well and is floored by desperation.
Aizawa's looking up, squinting against the water, half smiling, and Shinsou wants him, wants this, wants for half a second to yell that he's in love even if he's not sure what that means, wants to forget that he'll be gone soon, to beg Aizawa for something more. But Aizawa looks at him then, face open and kind and he seems so young and it's maybe the first time Shinsou can truly say he looks happy, and Shinsou smiles back at him, wide and real, because how can he not?
*
A week until he goes home, and they carry on. Working, sweating, talking, drinking, fucking. In his bed, in Aizawa's bed, even out by the creek, where Aizawa kneels over him and opens himself up and sinks down and it's all Shinsou can do not to fall apart, fingers digging hard into Aizawa's hips, stunned into silence by the man moving on top of him, staring down at him with a weight that dares him to look away. Shinsou ignores whatever inside him is chanting that summer's almost gone and stares back.
All week he ignores it, some gnawing sensation reminding him his time is limited. He smiles in the face of it, laughs when he grinds against Aizawa, still sticky and high and open, and hears a mutter about not being a teenager anymore. Shinsou ignores the creeping feeling of being pulled where he doesn't want to go and grins with satisfaction when he turns the hose on Aizawa and he only glares and rolls his eyes. He talks unbidden about whatever subject he lights upon so his mind doesn't turn down the road it's been wanting to take, wanting to wonder how Aizawa lives with the emptiness of the place when every piece of the land carries echoes of his husband.
He ignores the part of him that wants to ask if he can come back next summer, a question that shouldn't hold so much meaning.
He ignores everything until his time is up, letting Aizawa fuck him the night before like there's nothing he wants to say. They sit out on the porch, the view so different when the sun is rising. He knows Aizawa should be with the cows, the chickens, and knowing he's putting it off to wait with him only adds to his desire to call them both out on their silence.
They see the cloud of dust that means Aizawa's neighbor is coming down the driveway, and Shinsou looks over at him. Aizawa is looking back, and at first Shinsou wants to call him stubborn instead of steady, rigid instead of unwavering, harsh instead of unyielding, wants to yell that he can’t possibly be so unaffected. But he's afraid he might start crying in the face of Aizawa's relentless calm, so he stares as long as he can, finally looks away when the truck is waiting and they both stand.
He grabs his things and stops at the bottom of the stairs, half-turns to face Aizawa, wants to speak but doesn't know what to say. 'Thank you' feels not just insufficient but immature, reducing everything to the level of a problem solved, a favor done. He stands there long enough to realize there's nothing to be said, lets his eyes fall away from Aizawa, climbs in the truck. The driver waves to Aizawa, a mirror of the beginning of things, and they’re driving away.
Shinsou tells himself not to look back but does it anyway, just once, before the house is out of sight, and sees Aizawa walking toward the barn. He turns back around, blinks against the dust coming through the window, and his summer ends.