Archive of Our Own

Bakugou tells him "fucking stop it, it's not even a road trip." He swats at the camera with his free hand, the other gripping the steering wheel. Kirishima laughs as he snaps another photo, just the blur of his raised palm.

"Hey!" He insists, "it's nice to have stuff to remember -"

"Just fuckin'-" Bakugou cuts himself off as he speeds up into a lane change, "be in the moment or whatever."

It makes Kirishima laugh - head tilted back and a glimpse of sun in his eyes. This is a feeling that Bakugou summons in him easily. A pure, sunlit joy. It feels like the air leaving his lungs as he laughs, the sun-bright sting of tears in his eyes. He laughs and relents in putting away the camera, shutting the glovebox lid firmly.

He sits back and rests his right hand on the centre console - fingers splayed, palm upturned, waiting. Bakugou finds it and presses their palms together. Fingers fall between fingers. They hold hands at a hundred kilometres an hour on a scenic highway.

When Kirishima blinks, he commits to memory the journey north as the sun in Bakugou's hair and the lingering grip of his hand on his. Glimpses of sun-scorched hillsides rush by. He draws breath and fills his body with the heavy afterimage of Bakugou's profile, pink of his lips against the disappearing blue of the sky beyond the window. Kirishima has a sun-drenched view but it doesn't burn him. Bakugou's fingertips leave nothing, no trace on the back of Kirishima's hand.

Still, his body is a vessel. He inhales and snatches a glowing and uncertain memory. It's cinematic, set to a thumping rock song struggling through the speakers. Loudly but also faintly - it's there, somewhere in his ribs - the sound of Moriuchi Takahiro's voice cradled in the long and lingering keen of an electric guitar.

*

Home for Bakugou looks like a tumble of green and brown and beige. Of bleached grasses and cropped rye. There's a sign out front that Kirishima doesn't get a chance to read as Bakugou spins the wheel and turns the ute onto the main trail of the property. He does it all wordlessly but it's so plain that this is it, this is home. Bakugou doesn't announce anything as he nudges the ute down towards the homestead, awash in the last golden moment of sun. Kirishima sees the painted white front - creamy wood panelling meeting the dusty surface of a pine deck. It looks storybook perfect to him and he likes it. He likes that Bakugou might have had some kind of almost perfect childhood.

Kirishima is eager to unbuckle his seat belt and climb out of the car. He stretches, letting out a long "ahhhh" of relief before Bakugou barks at him to fucking help.

Kirishima laughs as he steps over to the back and grabs the duffel bags Bakugou holds out. "Right, right sorry," he says as he follows Bakugou's lead towards the front door.

Which slams open so fast Kirishima yelps and drops the bags.

It's Bakugou's mother - undeniably - they look ridiculously similar. The same hair, the same fiery smile, and of course the same loud voice.

"KATSUKI!"

"SHUT UP HAG!"

Kirishima can't help his weary smile as Bakugou is dragged into an unwilling embrace. Mitsuki looks over at him over her son's shoulder and grins, "hope he's more touchy with you."

Kirishima blushes furiously as Bakugou pries himself out of his mother's arms, "oh my god, shut up."

But Bakugou takes his hand - just grabs it and places his fingers carefully - purposefully between Kirishima's. It's a firm grip and an intimate touch, the tender skin of their wrists brush as they walk. And it makes Kirishima grin uncontrollably, god he loves it when Bakugou is like this. When he's brazen, when he scowls and he swears but still he holds his hand like that all the same.

Kirishima is a weak man, and when he smiles up at Mitsuki with one eyebrow crooked and cheeks flushed pink, gosh she must see it too.

*

“Oh,” Kirishima murmurs as he stares up at the ceiling.

“What,” Bakugou grumbles, propped up on his elbows half hovering over him. He leans down and huffs a warm breath in the crook of Kirishima’s neck. Follows with a firm press of his lips, a lap of his tongue that forces a small shiver.

Kirishima sighs and runs a hand up the back of Bakugou’s neck, fingers through his unruly hair.

“What,” Bakugou repeats, leaning back.

Kirishima chuckles a little, turning a fraction to face Bakugou, “you’ve got glow in the dark stars.”

Bakugou rolls his eyes and returns to kissing him, beside his ear and two pecks down his neck, soft exhale rolling across his collarbone. His attention roams with the hand tugging up the hem of Kirishima’s shirt. “So what,” he murmurs as he presses his palm against the firm of his stomach, sweeping across to the tender skin of his waist. Kirishima can feel Bakugou’s smile against his cheek as he breathes out the first of many shaky exhales.

“It’s just - it’s cute -” he almost stutters as he feels Bakugou's palm against his hip, "- I had some as a kid too.”

“You want to talk about that while I do this?”

This turns out to be his hand slipping lower, yanking down Kirishima’s shorts and shoving past the loose fabric. A fraction of a squeeze of his fingertips and it makes him blush.

God, Kirishima hates him.

“No,” he manages, “but it’s not weird? You don’t mind? I mean I don’t but -”

“You talk too fucking much.” And Kirishima likes that look on his face, the dark tilt of his eyes, the scrunched brow that he can still make out in the dim lamplight. The brewing annoyance that Kirishima understands now as a frustrated need.

Kirishima grins when he reaches up to drag him down, palm against his cheek and fingers hooked under his jaw. He smiles into the kisses same as always, delighted over and over and every time that he gets to have this. This - the warm press of their noses, the shape of Bakugou’s cupid’s bow, the give of his lips against his own. The damp of an open-mouthed kiss, tongue slipping against his. “I love you,” Kirishima murmurs in the half a breath when he draws back, “I love you a lot.”

“I fucking know,” Bakugou tells him, fingers yanking at his pants, stretching the elastic of his boxer briefs as they go too. And he says it too, with a hand on his bare hip, “I love you too,” murmured in the small space between them.

Kirishima is certain he could listen to that forever - that lovely voice and the tender way it’s spoken, words with meaning and weight. Words that he used to turn over and over from every angle, words that would make his fingertips tremble and heart thunder. But now - now, it’s better because he doesn’t wonder at all about the depth of Bakugou’s love. His heart beats steady now when he hears those words, his fingers don’t tremble when he runs them along the dip of Bakugou’s tricep. Kirishima doesn’t try so desperately to measure the weight of those words anymore.

It’s enough that he knows he can find all the answers in their open-mouthed kisses and the brewing warmth of body heat. He finds comfort and joy in all that Bakugou demands of him - that he demands him.

And he knows now that he is so blessed. Blessed that Bakugou might let him peel away his brashness and bluster, slip it off his shoulders just as his hands run and follow the dip of his spine. Kirishima knows it now as a powerful thing, the knowledge that Bakugou wants him to touch him like this - fingers brushed across his ribs, pressed firm against the dimples of his lower back. And it’s a deep and dark and delightful thing too, to feel Bakugou kiss him deeper as he runs a hand up his thigh to grip at firm muscle and soft skin.

And god what a delight it is to listen to Bakugou growl as he bears down against Kirishima.

*

Kirishima notices a print of Gogh's sunflowers at the end of the hallway. There's a family photo on the TV console with what Kirishima assumes must have been the rural equivalent of mall Santa. A CD collection that is half Japanese half Western. Kirishima recognises some of the bands Bakugou listens to and one of Momoe Yamaguchi's live albums. His mum has one of her albums too.

In the morning, Kirishima follows Bakugou to the kitchen. He lingers at the fridge while Bakugou lays out a chopping board. It makes him smile just to stand in the kitchen in the translucence of the hour before sunrise and study all the little things tacked on under what must be a kilo of magnets.

Little things, like faded theme park tickets and Bakugou's university acceptance letter. A photograph of Bakugou, barely taller than the sheep. He has round cheeks and his hair is really just the same, just more of it, and it gets in his eyes. He looks like a brat - cheeky look in eyes and crooked smile.

Bakugou - in the flesh - brushes past him to open the fridge door. "What."

Kirishima shrugs and steps over to a bar stool. "You were a cute kid."

"Everyone's a cute kid," Bakugou replies. He steps across to the stove with a carton of eggs under his arm and stemmed tomatoes in his hand. Kirishima supposes he's a little right, and that they've grown up, shed the baby cheeks and run headfirst into danger. Bakugou has been called all manner of things up and down King Street but cute hasn't been one of them.

Kirishima still reckons he's cute though. He can't help grinning all silly even though his eyelids are heavy. It's too early, and it hurts a little to look when Bakugou switches on the light above the stove.

But it's a warm thing to look at, yellow light reflected in oil and the wet gleam of halved tomatoes, Bakugou wearing his mother's apron over his sleep clothes. He flicks on the stove and then the rangehood. Fans buzz to life, too loud for five in the morning. Kirishima wakes a little more to the noise and slides off the stool, wanders over the tiles to linger beside Bakugou. He watches silently as Bakugou adds the tomatoes and puts the lid on. The oil splatters, tomato juice bursting beneath the lid. Bakugou turns to look at him, blinking a little. "What?"

Kirishima takes it as an invitation to slide an arm around him, fingers finding grip at his waist. And Bakugou huffs a little, puts down the spatula and leans into Kirishima. "You're cute still," Kirishima can't help telling him. Still grinning.

"You're a dumbass."

"Awh, I'm not cute?"

Bakugou uncovers the pan and picks the spatula back up. Pushes the tomatoes around and flips them over. Red skin loosening.

"You're cute."

*

With dishes washed and the sun only just risen, Bakugou leads the way to the ute in a black tank top and trousers stuffed into his boots.

A single rumble of a 1999 engine shakes up the air and they're off, down the dusty main track of the farm. Bakugou winds the windows down and Kirishima leans out, lets the wind push at his lashes, whip at his hair. It's loud, the rumble, the grind of tyres over dry earth, but it's quiet too, it's just them and the earth and the rising run.

And the sheep, the hundred odd herd with their heads down, some curled up with woollen bellies against coarse grass.

Kirishima ends up leaning on the fence beside Bakugou. Their elbows touching, Kirishima looks forward and studies the sheep. Their little ears and their long noses and their coats, crusty and grey and brown. He wonders how it is they look so white and fluffy from a distance. It’s a silly thought, and it makes him smile.

Maybe it’s the kind of thing all first time visitors of the sheep think, because Bakugou tells him that they’re bright white underneath the grime. “I’ll show you sometime,” he says as he hoists himself up over the fence.

Kirishima scrambles up and follows, swinging his legs over. The nearby sheep startle, some get on their feet. He’s so close that he can feel the huff of warm breath against his bare arms. It feels wrong to speak any louder, so he speaks low, taking two quick steps to catch up with Bakugou, “when’s sometime?”

He shrugs, “tomorrow. There’ll be time.”

It’s a nice thought. That there’s time. Kirishima grins as he follows Bakugou through the sheep, through the salty musty smell of livestock and the blood-warmth of a hundred woollen creatures. It feels true then too, underneath the brightening sky and half a step behind the man he loves, that there’s time. They’ve got all day, and it feels like forever. Bakugou stops to point things out, explain that they’ve got to check on these dumbass sheep every morning because these fuckers are unpredictable and god knows which one has got its head stuck in the fence.

Kirishima laughs as they walk through, parting the sea of blinking, woolly creatures. It's easy, the breath just leaves him, a bubbling exhale. It's so easy when it feels like this - like they've got all day and they're not running out of the minutes. It's easy because Bakugou's right there, well within arm's reach, shoulders relaxed as he steps over sheep dung, going on a meandering patrol that he's done hundreds of times.

Kirishima's not sure he's even seen him like this. Jaw unclenched, a softness in his shoulders. He talks with his voice low, and reaches out with open palms to rub a firm touch over a ewe's head.

He tells Kirishima as the sun lifts clear of the hills that Delia - number 58 of the year of lambs marked 'D' - got lost in the sunflowers two summers ago.

Kirishima grins wide as he kneels for a closer look at Delia's funny face, her wide-set eyes and long nose. Woolly forehead and ears that look pink in the sun. He thinks about Bakugou before they met, on the cusp of eighteen and dressed in the same baggy trousers. Palms grimey and boots thudding hard and heavy downhill as he hastens to bring a stray sheep home.

Kirishima imagines him from a distance. A lone figure dark against the sunset horizon. The straw-haired son of sheep farmers.

Born king of the hill.

*

Kirishima's back aches. He's bent over the empty trough, scrubbing brush in hand. He heaves a sigh as he straightens up. “Every second day? You did this every second -”

“Yeah.” Bakugou’s still at it, tight grip on the edge of the trough while the other arm works at cleaning down the sides. The metal’s never going to gleam but it better get damn close. It needs to be clean enough to drink from. “Used to do it every day before high school.”

“Woah,” Kirishima murmurs on his exhale before bending back down to finish off the task at hand. “That’s amazing,” he says between the push and pull, every drag of the brush against the dull surface. And he means it completely - he’s always meant it through and through every time he’s told Bakugou that. You’re amazing, after football games, breathless at 2am, hauling a couch up five flights of stairs.

And he means it now too, hands sore and shoulders strained from pushing down on and scrubbing at the water trough. Kirishima is a visitor here, he’s being led place to place, a guest in the stretch of sun-dried hills and empty air. This is Bakugou's home, a place where dust dances in the light and sits in the creases of the wood panelled sheds. His hands are grimey and his boots never clean. The inland heat unyielding to the point that Bakugou keeps the windows of the ute rolled down and the AC off.

It's a place Kirishima starts to see in Bakugou - in his muscle and posture, in the strength of his shoulders that heave fertiliser and gallons of water. Shoulders that strain but also loosen.

Kirishima sees it and he starts to get it now - that this has always been Bakugou's life and it's never actually stopped. This is it - not university libraries or Oxford Street bars - but instead it's the mud on his trousers and the smell of livestock on his hands.

It's the sure and firm scrub of a coarse brush against the water trough, the tight grip of his fingers and the flex of aged metal as he goes. Their elbows knock as they work and it makes Kirishima think something fond.

The more he works, the more he desires. He clutches and feels the hard groove of the brush handle in his palm, edges against his fingers. He reaches and he feels the stretch of his arms and shoulders, the soreness of a back bent over too long. There is a want - some hard to place yearning in the back of his mind as he scrubs and lets the imprint of the world eat into his body a while longer.

*

Kirishima notices that the debris gets under his nails. Green, coarse particles beneath the thumbnail he uses to snap off the ends of the green beans.

He looks up from his task when Mitsuki asks about what he's studying. He answers eagerly, even as he wonders if this is something Bakugou would have told them by now.

Mitsuki grins wide as she listens. She asks him about how he is with livestock - with sheep. She laughs when Kirishima apologises and says that they haven’t done their rural rotation yet.

“They covered sheep in some of our intro courses, but y’know, it’s not enough to say I really know anything about sheep.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not testing you,” she says as she reaches for more green beans, “I don’t know that much ‘bout sheep either. We still call up the vet when they get sick.”

They cover some anecdotes - getting up at god knows what hour to check on pregnant ewes, how Mitsuki vowed after the first sheep they lost to not get too attached.

“How’d that go?” Kirishima asks, with the full knowledge that the Bakugous give all their sheep names.

Mitsuki laughs and shakes her head, “terrible. I cry every time.”

Kirishima admits that he’s scared of that. Of feeling too much for sick old dogs and rabbits with broken legs and failing hearts.

“Katsuki used to cry too.”

Kirishima stares at her, halved green beans in his slack grip, “he cried?” he repeats in a hush. It’s not that he doesn’t believe that Bakugou can cry - just that it seems somewhat unlikely - Bakugou crying over an old sheep put to rest.

Mitsuki hums as she considers her answer. “Well, not anymore. Not since our old dog died. Got all cried out.”

Kirishima wonders if there’s something more to that story as he sweeps the scraps into a metal bowl. He wonders if Bakugou would tell him if he were to ask.

*

The sun is low in the sky, the eucalypt shadows long when they pull up at the barn. The air is quiet until Bakugou tells Kirishima to watch as he climbs on the quadbike and yanks the cord three times. The engine rumbles to life, and Bakugou yells instructions over the noise.

There isn’t a lot to it, just like Bakugou had said, dumbasses can drive this thing. But Kirishima also doesn’t have a helmet, and it’s still his first time on a quadbike, so he practices loops and lines and sharper and sharper turns with Bakugou yelling into his ear as the sun sets.

They keep it up until the sky is two shades darker, a deeper and greyer blue. Kirishima leans out of the turn (“this isn’t a bike!” Bakugou had howled the first time he tried a fast turn and leaned the wrong way) as he angles the handlebars. The world spins a little, and he throws his head back and laughs and woops. And his voice carries so that the cockatoos in the faraway eucalypts chatter, beating wings and shaking branches.

Bakugou laughs in his ears too, pressed up behind him, arms around his waist, one hand clutched at his sternum. And Bakugou laughs, the sound shuddering through Kirishima’s body too. He laughs, and Kirishima thinks about how that’s a sound he never wants to stop hearing. It rings clear and booming, rising from a deep-down place.

Just like that, Kirishima puts tyre tracks into the dry paddock, tears up dry grass and earth to the sound of a rumbling, rattling engine and cackled laughter. His heart tremors too – in time with the exhaled breaths and heaving chest pressed against his back.

And again, he thinks that tantalising thought. That he'd like to hold onto this forever. If he could bottle it he would; paste a label on the curve of glass and push a cork into the neck. But he's only human, his body a living and dying thing. He can only keep these magical things in the unreliable stitching of memory.

So he looks up at the sky and calls out to the dusk moon. He howls and Bakugou laughs. Kirishima hopes he might remember forever how their voices sounded overlapped.

*

At dinner, Mitsuki asks where Kirishima’s planning on practising.

Kirishima shrugs and gives the practised answer of, “it’s too early to say. And honestly,” he says with a hand at the back of his neck, “I’ll go with whoever will take me.” He rattles off the same spiel - that market’s a little saturated, he’s not sure whereabouts in the city he wants to settle down yet either, so it doesn’t hurt to keep his options open.

Masaru wonders out loud if Toyomitsu is still looking for help.

Bakugou snaps then, slaps his chopsticks down against the table with a clatter. “Don’t.”

“Woah, dude what -” Kirishima starts, turning in his seat to face Bakugou.

“It’s too early to say, right.” Bakugou says it in a blunt tone that doesn’t match the crinkle between his drawn brows.

He’s right though, so Kirishima doesn’t press.

*

He asks later with toothpaste across his teeth and on his lip. It's cool, mint against his gums. He spits in the sink before asking, "hey, what was that?"

Bakugou stops brushing. He holds the toothbrush in place for a beat, staring ahead at Kirishima in the reflection. Another long second ticks past, and he bends down to spit and rinse before saying, "you're gonna stay in the city right. Didn't want the old man nagging you about hanging 'round here."

Kirishima rinses out his mouth and rinses his toothbrush. The bristles are rough and wet against his thumb. He frowns as he considers that. "I mean I haven't decided."

Bakugou snorts. Like, actually makes a face too. "Well you're not doing placement at Toyomitsu's."

Kirishima gets it. He knows that it's the logical assumption - and it's not even an assumption really, because they've talked about it lying in bed on blue-grey evenings. Kirishima's laid out the plan before: study hard, get a good internship and then a permanent place in a good suburb. It's so normal, he'd been embarrassed to tell Bakugou the first time. So he gets why Bakugou thinks that, and he's not wrong. "Ah, I guess."

So he lets it go.

Well. He tries to. He really does. He doesn't raise it between lazy kisses pressed on Bakugou's cheekbones and on the back of his neck. He manages to make it down the hallway to the bedroom before he steels himself and decides to just say it before his chance is past and his will lost.

"Are you coming back here? After uni?"

Bakugou is half prone, propped up on one elbow when he stills. He sits up again and brings his elbows to rest on his bent knees. That expression is back - the crinkle in his brow, the slight frown on his lips. He doesn't answer immediately, just gestures for Kirishima to get over there. "C'mere," he murmurs.

Kirishima complies, crawls over the sheets to sit beside him.

Turns out that's not what he meant. Bakugou reaches for his arm, another hand finding a place against his lower back. He drags Kirishima closer. Pulls until he's straddling his lap, bare thighs over his. Until there's only the smallest of spaces between their bodies.

Only then does Bakugou explain, "yeah. I'm coming back here."

And at first, Kirishima doesn't get it. "What - then," he forces himself to breathe before he keeps talking. Before he says something wrong. He's tense suddenly, a prickle of anxiety up his spine and sinking into his lungs with every shallow inhale. "Why'd you say that then. About where I'm doing placement?" Because it's obvious - if Bakugou's coming back here, and god he's a fool to not have realised - worse still, to not have even asked before now -

"Oi." Bakugou's holding him. Really holding him, one hand, fingers spread against his back, the other firm against the back of his neck, hair between his fingers. "Ei," he murmurs, "Ei," he tries again. "It's what you told me. That shouldn't change 'cos of what I want."

Kirishima thinks about that. It sounds right, in the way a lot of things sound right on paper. "I -" he stops again to huff a frustrated noise, "agh, but, but you just assumed. And I didn't know. Goddamnit -"

Bakugou brings him a little closer, tilts his head forward to meet his own so they bump foreheads, "oi dumbass, don't overthink it."

"I don't think it's overthinking."

Bakugou closes his eyes for a moment. Kirishima knows that look, even when up close and out of focus. He's trying really hard right now. This is a tough talk to have, he knows that too. "I just - it's not like I don't want to talk about this - it's just not a good time."

Kirishima hates it - not a good time, because that can be said for every difficult talk anybody has ever needed to have. It's never a good time for these things. He's about to protest when Bakugou drags him closer to lean his cheek against his chest.

"Ei, we need to get up at four. Fucking four. So please not now."

Kirishima doesn’t like it, that they’re negotiating something that really needs to be discussed now. But it’s a quiet summer night and his shins are pressed against soft, well-loved bedsheets. His bare thighs against Bakugou’s, an arm thrown over broad shoulders. Kirishima knows better than Bakugou - he’s never called his affection weakness - but sometimes it feels a little true, that he melts, that he’s too soft when Bakugou holds their bodies together. His frustration eases into displeasure too easily, because he wants is to reciprocate, to slip into grasping at what he wants, to kiss because he can.

And Bakugou’s right, it’s late, four is early. So he touches Bakugou’s cheek, his jaw, places a thumb behind his ear. He sighs as he runs a hand through his hair, pushes his bangs back, lets them fall back into place as his fingers run through over his scalp. “You better not be blowing me off,” he says, voice low.

Suddenly, he loses balance. Bakugou leans back, falls back on the bed, dragging Kirishima down with him. “Ha,” he breathes, “never.”

“You better,” Kirishima says, but it doesn’t sound like a threat.

*

As promised, the alarm goes off at four. Kirishima knows Bakugou is a morning person, but he isn’t prepared for this level of morning person. Bakugou doesn’t just reach across to shut off the alarm, he pulls his arm out from underneath Kirishima’s neck and kicks off the sheets. “Get up,” he says, way too loud for four in the morning. The sky is still dark.

Kirishima heaves a sigh as he wills himself to sit up. He’s still blinking in the darkness, looking for shadowy outlines and the pale of Bakugou’s bare skin. It comes to him then, in the brief in-between of sleep and the calling of worldly things, what they were talking about last night.

He watches, shoulders slumped and the rest of him unmoving as Bakugou finds a shirt and trousers. He moves with an admirable focus. Military determination in his limbs as he goes about readying himself for a day of work. Kirishima’s seen it before on Sunday mornings, gear packed and muscle tee tugged on in record time. No amount of alcohol seemed to affect his ability to make it to football training ten minutes early. Kirishima hadn’t known then, but it’s so clear now - glaring even - that Bakugou’s unbelievable ability to get shit done is in fact born from the demands of his home.

Home.

He’s been saying ‘home’ for a while now, and the meaning changes often. He says it after classes as he waves goodbye to his friends, says he’s going home. Home being a share house with a long, narrow hallway and an overgrown jacaranda tree out front. And then he meets Bakugou at a party during winter break, both of them ducking out for air in Kaminari’s front yard. After which, sometimes he says he’s going home after Friday night drinks, and by home, he means Bakugou’s dorm room.

So Kirishima gets it. He gets that home means different things at different times. It’s changed a lot for him, but it’s also stayed the same, because home is still down south, laced by wide, white beaches. He drives down and pulls up at a front yard bordered by rosemary plants. The screen doors let in flies. It's a place where he gets to hug his mother and wonder when he’s going to summon the courage to bring Bakugou.

And now, he slips his arms around Bakugou, presses up against his back while he brushes his teeth. They lean against a different sink. It’s unfamiliar to Kirishima, but he wonders that maybe for Bakugou, when he rests a hand against the ceramic, it feels familiar. A curve of seventeen years worth of memory pressed against his palm.

It’s early, so he doesn’t take himself very seriously when he wonders if maybe, when it comes to what he’d like their home to be, it could be somewhere he hadn’t considered before.

*

The sun inches up beyond the hills and Kirishima carves long arcs across grazing paddocks, engine rumbling at the back of the herd as the sheep pick their way up the main trail of the farm towards the shearing shed. He can feel the sweat across his brow, soaked into his headband tied on underneath his borrowed slouch hat. The morning heat multiplies across his shoulders and back. He wants to rest, to crawl into a shady spot beneath the long and spindly eucalypts beside the dry paddock.

But Bakugou is unceasing, hat tipped low as he goes, fearlessly over the uneven ground, throwing up grass and dust as he forces the dirt bike into a brutal turn. A stray ewe turns tail, heads for the rest of the flock.

Kirishima watches, helpless, certain that he is also victim to Bakugou's reckless confidence. He looks over his shoulder and feels like a kid all over again. He grips the handlebars of the quadbike and feels that he might as well not have any grip at all - he might as well be that reckless boy with dark hair, balanced precariously on an electric blue penny board rattling down a steep hill. Because it's just the same, the loss of control, the split second thrill, the foolish elation. And a fall, some kind of fall, a different one this time.

Different because it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt at all.

Instead, Kirishima inhales warm sunshine and the smell of earth as he slows to a stop beside the open gate. And when he turns to look, still seated on the idling quadbike, it doesn't hurt at all - not even with the sun in his eyes and hot wind flinging dust into the air.

Kirishima blinks and finds a clear vision of Bakugou striding towards him, bike abandoned on its kickstand, slouch hat in hand, dirt all over his trousers. Kirishima stares and he breaks, cracks a lopsided grin. Lopsided because Bakugou does that to him - just knocks the air and composure out of his body.

Bakugou and his wild hair, sweat on his shoulders, dark on his back. Bakugou, on whom the world has bestowed freckles and a fire-bright look of fearlessness in his eyes.

He yells, “Eijirou!” and it carries on the hot wind, sure and clear and certain.

And oh, is he helpless. Kirishima would like to hear that voice - and only that voice - call his name, shout his name up at the blazing blue sky, over and over, for as long as forever actually lasts.

And he'll answer that call every time. What's he to do but scramble off the quadbike, boots heavy on the ground. What's he to do but cross this potholed paddock and any mountain, any river, any damn ocean to rush towards him.

Him - Bakugou, the only man Kirishima has ever desired, the only one in the world for whom Kirishima has ever felt the frightening quicksand drag of want.

*

They trade in the bikes for the ute. Bakugou winds down the windows and drives with an elbow propped up, right hand loose and free. The air that rushes through the windows ruffles his hair, white-gold when the light hits, otherwise ashy in the shadows. Kirishima’s head spins. His boyfriend is a damned vision, nobody should be allowed to look so good, sweaty, clothes dusty, harsh light glaring across his features. But he does, he just does look that good.

Bakugou turns the wheel with one hand, pushing the ute up a narrower trail. It climbs over gentle hills and rumbles downhill. Gravel rattles below them, the wheels kick up dust in the rearview mirror.

And up ahead, Kirishima sees yellow shivering, fluttering in the breeze. Sunflowers. He gasps at the sight, immediately fumbling for his phone and leaning forward to take photos through the windscreen.

Bakugou mocks, “"you never seen flowers before?"

Kirishima huffs as he swipes through the three quick photos, “you know it’s nice, that’s why you’re bringing me.”

Bakugou doesn’t say anything, just wears that self-satisfied grin. Kirishima’s right. He stops the car, pulls up the handbrake and shuts off the engine parked on the track.

They step out onto the grass, sunflowers sprawling at the bottom of the hill. Bakugou has his hands shoved in his pockets, and he squints in the midday sun, hat abandoned in the car. “These sunflowers are a new thing. I told ‘em to give it a go last year.”

Kirishima stays quiet, because it feels like there’s more coming. He just steps closer, and brings an arm around him. Tugs Bakugou a little closer with a hand at his waist.

Bakugou frees one hand to grasp at his shoulder. “The sheep don’t make enough money. We can’t do the scale.” He sighs after he says all that and leans a little more on Kirishima. “Dad threw out his back last year and they’ve had to hire help for harvests. It’d be better if I came back.”

Kirishima nods. “But you want to come back in the long run. Not just to help out or something.”

“Yeah. It’s home.”

Kirishima keeps staring ahead. At the sunflowers swaying in the wind. Golden and bright. He wonders how much more lovely it would be to sit here as the sun sets. A peach-orange sky, the last rays of sunshine washing over the tall stalks. Mostly, he wonders if he’ll get to do that - sit on the scratchy grass in dirty boots and lean his weight on his arms. He’ll stand up when the sun disappears behind the hills and the grass will be imprinted, mottled red across his palms.

He thinks about it, doing all that, being here with Bakugou.

“I don’t expect you to want this,” Bakugou says, breaking the silence.

Kirishima drags his eyes away to look at him, a little fearful of what he’s going to find. It hurts enough to hear that - to hear a thinly veiled version of we might not work out. And it hurts mostly because it feels real and possible. Because Kirishima hasn’t had the chance to factor this in. He doesn’t have an answer for how what Bakugou wants is going to fit in with what he wants.

He wishes he did. Because then Bakugou wouldn’t look like that.

*

The return to a supposed normal is a little jarring. Kirishima doesn’t like how he feels a curl of discomfort, an unsettled feeling in his belly divorced entirely from his vegemite toast. But everything seems fine. Bakugou had kissed him all the same when they woke up, morning breath be damned.

Bakugou tips the pan and flicks it up, flings the sizzling onion and mushrooms back. He speaks loud over the whir of the overhead fan to deliver a crash course on the ordeal that is sheep shearing at five in the morning.

“Rumi’s coming ‘round soon to help move the sheep. You’re helping out the hag with sorting wool.”

“What are you doing then?”

Bakugou flicks his gaze up and a feral grin spreads across his face, “I’m shearing those fuckers.”

Kirishima hates how hot that is.

He hates it even more when they get down to the shed and get to work.

He’s distracted at first, following Mitsuki’s instructions dutifully. She points out the bins they sort the wool into, the broom to sweep up wool, where to drop the fleece for sorting. There’s a lot of information to take in, and when Bakugou plugs in his phone and queues up his punk rock playlist, Kirishima feels stressed.

Then Rumi calls out from outside that the sheep are ready and to get started. Bakugou pulls open a gate and leans in to grab a sheep by its front legs. Kirishima watches wide-eyed as Bakugou hauls the animal over the floorboards on its rear, positions it snug between his legs and grabs the shears. It’s so loud, but Kirishima can hear his own heartbeat over the pounding music and buzz of the shears.

He watches as Bakugou leans over and runs the shears down the front of the sheep, one arm supporting, hand pressed up its belly as the fleece falls away. It’s all long, smooth movements, slight adjustments as he moves onto the hind legs. The muscles in his arm flex as he goes, bent over, dragging the shears across skin. Kirishima faintly wonders what’s wrong with him - why does he like watching Bakugou shear sheep so much? This is work, he tries to tell himself, it’s work, it’s -

“Your boy’s a cutie, hey,” Rumi speaks, suddenly beside Kirishima. “Girls from his school used to come watch before they found out he’s gay.”

Kirishima opens his mouth to say something, but nothing intelligible comes out, just the start of a stutter before Rumi cuts him off with a knowing grin.

“Have fun looking but be useful, aye?”

Right. Be useful. Sort the wool. Don’t eyefuck your boyfriend. Got it.

*

They stop work for a lunch break, and Kirishima feels that he’s going to lose it if he doesn’t get his hands on Bakugou immediately. He thinks faintly that this is reminiscent of the first time he made it to second base at sixteen - when kids called things bases. And it's still the same - the messy desperation of a wet kiss, a hand roughly yanking up the hem of a shirt.

What’s different though, is that now he’s twenty-one, and desperately hoping that nobody noticed him dragging Bakugou into the sheep holding pens. And that’s new too - crowding his stupid hot boyfriend against the wall in front of thirty woolly animals.

“Fuck - Ei -”

He draws back to gaze upon Bakugou’s flushed cheeks, pink down across his collarbones too. Sweat drips down his temples. Kirishima searches in his eyes and finds no resistance. Nothing that says no, but he asks anyway, he always does. “Do you wa-”

He doesn’t get to finish speaking because Bakugou grabs him - yanks at his shirt and holds the back of his neck. Catches Kirishima’s bottom lip between his teeth.

His breath catches, hard tooth against the soft of his tender inner lip. Kirishima half-remembers to quiet his own gasp before he surges forward to meet Bakugou in a messy halfway. He’s lost in it, over eager and rapidly losing sense of his own strength. Kirishima grips at his bare hips, fingers digging in. He takes half a step forward, thigh between Bakugou’s legs, knee pressed against the wall.

Bakugou breaks the kiss, gasps as he pulls his head back - “fuck,” he hisses and reaches up to clutch at the back of his head. There’s a short clatter of hooves, sheep flinching away from them.

Kirishima reels immediately, drags him forwards, folds one hand over his, “shit, shit,” he stammers, “how bad -”

But Bakugou laughs. He laughs. It’s rough and short, a barking laugh from a dry throat. “Fuck,” he says again, but in between bright laughter. Kirishima sees tears in his eyes, but it doesn’t hurt to see. “We gotta stop,” he says, dropping his hands, “have to eat. And drink something.”

Kirishima sees through him though, sees the lingering reluctance. So he leans in, snatches another kiss.

He laughs when Bakugou fists the bottom hem of his shirt and hisses “keep it in your pants.”

*

Mitsuki tells Kirishima to go wash up when Bakugou’s on the last sheep of the day. “Thanks for helping out,” she says with a tired smile, “eight hours of this is no easy thing.”

Kirishima shrugs and says that of course he has to help.

It’s funny, that. Bakugou had never really said what this visit would be like. He hadn’t made any particular promises beyond seeing the sheep and meeting his parents. And in typical Bakugou fashion, he’d never actually asked - do you mind helping. No, they’d arrived, Bakugou had gotten out of bed the first day and Kirishima had followed.

Kirishima wonders now whether he should be bothered. Whether he is bothered. No, he decides.

He scrubs his hands at the metal sink outside the shed with the setting sun on his back and stray fleece clinging to his trousers. His shoulders ache and there’s an unyielding crick in his lower back that he’ll ask Bakugou to work later this evening. Sweat clings to the backs of his knees and he doesn’t want to imagine what smell is waiting in his boots.

These are objectively unsavoury things. Unpleasant things. He scrubs grit and dirt out of his skin and out from under his nails. He doesn’t notice it anymore, but he’s pretty sure he smells like the sheep.

But he doesn’t mind. He likes it, beyond keeping his body moving. He likes that he’s been able to catch a glimpse of the patch of earth that has carved itself into Bakugou. He realises now as he holds his palms unfolded under the water, suds slipping off, that he wants this. He’s wanted this all along. He wants to understand this inland sun that has freckled Bakugou's cheekbones and browned his shoulders. He wants to know the feeling of oven-hot air that sits heavy on his bare arms, just as it has weighed on Bakugou's skin his whole life.

He turns off the tap and wrings his dripping hands once, twice. Some of the water spatters in the sink, some of it misses, dots his thighs and darkens the dirt under his feet. Kirishima looks skyward as water drips off his hands and the music throbs from inside the shed. The buzzing of the shears has stopped.

Bakugou elbows Kirishima as he pushes past him to get to the sink. “What is it?”

A trickle of water slides down his wrist. “It’s beautiful here,” he says, breathless as he trails off.

Bakugou doesn’t speak as he scrubs his hands. The metal sink rumbles, a drum reverberating with running water.

Kirishima waits. He keeps watching the spindly eucalypts sway. The sun pierces gold in the gaps. He swallows, and his throat feels a little dry, his saliva thick.

The pipes gurgle as the water drains. Then Bakugou says, “yeah. It is.”

*

Bakugou tells him to go shower first.

So it’s just him for a moment, water running through his hair and down his neck, down his back. The frosted glass window glows a deep evening blue. He closes his eyes and tilts his face up into the spray.

He turns the water off to lather up. It’s something Bakugou mentioned on their first night. Kirishima had turned on the tap and kept turning it, confused as to why the water would splutter first and then run smooth. But the pressure never increased. He had turned the tap another rotation and the water ran steady. Bakugou squeezed past him, back against the glass of the shower stall to turn the tap back. “Not enough water,” he’d said, then reached for the soap. A non issue. Not important.

Now, Kirishima turns the bar of soap in his hands with the water off, and he wonders if that was something Bakugou had thought he wouldn’t want.

He frowns as he runs the suds over his shoulders, across his collarbones. He reaches around himself to get at his back, trying to scrub away an ache in his shoulderblades.

The door swings open and shuts. Kirishima glances over his shoulder to see Bakugou draping fresh towels on the rail. “Hey,” he says before reaching for the soap again.

Bakugou joins him after peeling off his clothes. He blinks at the sight. “Mate, we have water,” he’s grinning a little.

Kirishima shrugs and offers him the bar of soap before reaching to turn the tap back on to rinse. “It’s a waste to leave it on.” He feels a little exposed now, that it’s weird. Maybe he was overthinking.

His head’s still spinning with those thoughts, a little frantic, drifting from the here and now. But Bakugou interjects, he steps under the water beside him and reaches out to pull Kirishima close. There’s water getting into his eyes, so he closes them as Bakugou presses a firm kiss to his cheek, then dips down to leave one on his neck.

And then he turns the water off.

They pass each other soap and shampoo, bodies wet, the water off.

*

It’s familiar and it isn’t, washing dishes in the Bakugou’s kitchen.

It’s a deep sink. Kirishima’s never worked in a kitchen before, but he wonders if it’s commercial sized. It’s deep. It isn’t like the kitchens at home - his own is a double, but he struggles to wash fry pans and he’s always splashing water on the counter when he does the dishes. He’s washed dishes beside Bakugou at the dorms too, side by side, knocking elbows. He’d wipe plates clean while Bakugou bitched about the dorm kitchen. It’s fucking filthy, there’s no space for shit.

So this is different. The water pressure is weak, but the sink is deep. But it’s also the same, because it’s him and Bakugou, standing side by side, scrubbing and rinsing until the ceramic squeaks.

And when he looks across at Bakugou through the yellow light of the kitchen, he decides that it’s more familiar than it isn’t. Because it’s the space between them, that’s still the same. Bakugou doesn’t like how Kirishima places the dishes on the drying rack, he complains every time, just like now, but he lets him still. He grumbles “don’t tilt the bowl like that” and Kirishima doesn’t take notice. Just slots the bowl wherever he sees fit.

And Bakugou lets him.

It makes Kirishima a little giddy. It’s a silliness, it feels like a surge of feeling, full in his lungs right before he laughs. It brews in him in the sticky shared kitchen at uni, and it’s here too, tugging at the corners of his broad smile. And it’s layered, it’s complex and it isn’t.

Because they’re just washing dishes. They’ve done this so many times that there’s no negotiation anymore. And when Bakugou scrubs the last dish and squeezes the last of the suds out of the sponge, he slips the gloves off to step behind Kirishima. His hands rest against Kirishima’s stomach, squeezing slightly. Kirishima can count on it now, it’s a habit, a ritual. And maybe he’s noticing it now because it’s a different kitchen, a different sink, and Bakugou’s parents are still sitting at the dining table.

But Bakugou doesn’t give a damn. His affections slip out, tenderly but certainly, with intention.

Kirishima figures that of all the many things he might want for himself in the future, in whatever home is going to mean for him in ten years time, this is part of it.

Bakugou slaps his ass, firmly. The smack is loud. Kirishima yelps.

Mitsuki and Masaru look up on reflex and Kirishima keeps his gaze on the last bowl he’s rinsing. Determined to hide his spreading blush as much as possible while Mitsuki snorts and claps a hand over her mouth to muffle the rest of her laugh.

Yeah, Kirishima wants this too.

*

Kirishima wakes in the pre-dawn glow and finds his forehead pressed against Bakugou’s cheek. He blinks and Bakugou’s bare skin slides into focus, mottled grey in the faint light. He thinks vaguely that this is an in-between, he’s conscious but he isn’t. He’s in a dream-place, a half-real dimension where he matches his inhales and exhales to the rise and fall of Bakugou’s chest.

His skin runs warm right where their bodies overlap.

Kirishima lies still in silence, savouring the proof of them. That their bodies have reached across the cool gaps over the sheets in the dark of the night to find each other. He feels the flutter of breath that skims his cheek - Bakugou’s exhale. His breath is warm too, like a summer breeze seeping through the flyscreen. It makes Kirishima think a stray thought, barely-formed, that Bakugou is truly born from this wind-worn and sun-beaten place. He marvels at it too, that Bakugou - palms calloused, neck baked golden, shoulders dappled by a growing splatter of freckles as the summer marches on - he’s chosen to bring him home. Kirishima sighs and considers his blessings in warming daylight - to think that Bakugou has chosen to slot their fingers together, wind down the windows and tear down the highway north to bring him home.

Home, Kirishima wonders about that word, what it means to him, what it means to Bakugou.

When Kirishima thinks of home, he summons a foamy seaside. He recalls with brilliant clarity the faded reds and yellowed whites of surfboards leaned up at the back of the garage. He can hear it too, the chatter of seagulls overhead as he sits with warm fish and chips in his lap. And a thrumming undercurrent of it all, the smell of salt and the ever-pounding ocean against the shore, tides rushing out and back again, over and over.

It's a different smell and feel here. Inland, nestled amongst sun-scorched hillsides, it smells like hay, like plant matter. Kirishima gets off the quadbike to find his hands dusty. In the evenings, Kirishima has noticed that there's a smell on his skin and in Bakugou's hair when they lean against one another. It's on their clothes too - he catches a whiff when they undress. He realises now that it's the sheep. The woolly oils, the heavy, salty smell of life.

Kirishima blinks again, leaning his forehead a little more against the soft of Bakugou’s cheek as the ceiling sharpens slightly into better focus. He feels the morning glow a little warmer where it reaches his skin. Still, there is no sun in the sky, the air sits still and empty of cockatoo chatter and kookaburra cackle.

Kirishima looks up at the glow-in-the-dark stars above and knows that Bakugou is his chosen beloved to which he feels the steady pull of his devotion.

*

The sun is blazing, hot on his neck where they sit on the back of the ute, metal tray searing everywhere their shadows don’t reach. Bakugou digs out two bottles of cool water from the icebox.

They uncap and drink, silent.

Kirishima swallows and squints out at the sun-beaten paddock. The sheep flick their ears and blink slowly, lazily. Their coats have been sheared off. They look a lot smaller suddenly, more gangly with knobby knees. Kirishima points out some with uneven shaven lines. They look funny.

Bakugou tells him to fuck off, “like you can do better.”

Kirishima laughs. This is something he’s willing to surrender. “Hey,” he says, an earlier thought occurring to him now, “your mum said you used to cry when the sheep died.”

Bakugou looks at him, still squinting. Kirishima wonders if it’s actually a look of annoyance. Eventually, he looks away and says, “yeah. And then I stopped.”

Kirishima wonders if it’d be weird to ask why. He wants to know.

“I cried more when our old sheepdog died. I was fourteen.”

Kirishima stares. He hadn’t been expecting Bakugou to offer that up himself.

Bakugou taps his fingers on the metal surface, one finger after the other. “Haven’t cried since.”

Kirishima shuffles closer. Bakugou’s still staring ahead, unmoving. So Kirishima hooks an arm around him, finds the familiar curve of his waist to rest his hand. “Why,” he murmurs, almost whispers. He wonders what he’s stumbling into. Is he making a mess of things?

There’s a small smile on his lips when he answers. “‘Cos they lived well. We loved them hard and gave ‘em everything we could. Nothin’ to cry about.”

Kirishima sniffles, and he hates that his vision goes blurry so damn fast. Fuck.

Bakugou scrambles to hold him, drags him in close and crushing. And it just makes Kirishima heave and sob. He wants it to stop but this is not something he can will away. Bakugou murmurs, “hey, it’s okay” in his ear and Kirishima nods a little. He knows that.

Bakugou holds him until his breathing evens out and then gives him shit for wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “You’re fucking gross, Ei.”

Kirishima laughs, still shaky. “Thanks.”

Bakugou hums, cheek pressed against his. “Mhm.”

“I love you, Katsuki.”

“I love you too.”

Kirishima understands a fraction more now, how heavy those words really are.

*

The sun is barely risen and Kirishima’s awake, blinking up at the glow in the dark stars pasted on the ceiling.

So he turns in bed, sinks into his sleep-addled greed. He shuffles across, closing the empty spaces between them. He slides an arm beneath Bakugou’s neck and another over his waist, hand at his stomach to drag him closer. Bakugou stirs at the movement, huffs, groans a little but presses his body back against Kirishima’s chest and hips regardless. “What,” he mumbles, slurred.

Kirishima doesn’t answer immediately. He can’t, he’s suddenly incapable, a dumb smile across his face as he presses his lips against Bakugou’s bare neck. He doesn’t have words for this feeling.

He supposes that there is a word for it, and they’ve told it to one another before. But it doesn’t seem like enough, to just say I love you and be done with it. He gathers up Bakugou’s warm body, heavy with blood and bone and muscle. Slack with sleep. He squeezes a little more, wistful, hopeful that if he holds a little more, maybe Bakugou will feel it too. “I love you,” he tries, even as it doesn’t feel like enough.

He doesn’t know how to say it - that it’s gotten to a point where he loves like this. Where he’ll follow Bakugou over fences and ditches, into the musty shadows of sheds to fetch fertiliser. He follows willingly, eagerly, into sunflower fields and up steep hills buffeted by scorching wind. He knows that if he isn't careful, he might follow Bakugou anywhere.

And it should be frightening. It should be shocking, that he’s so willing to cast away the things he wanted a year ago.

But those are things he wanted. They don’t hold a candle to what he wants.

I want to be with you, he considers saying. I want a life together, he tries. It’s hard, finding the right words. Kirishima knows that it’s a weakness of theirs. Besides, it’s too early. He’s getting sleepy again.

I’ll go anywhere, he thinks, anywhere I can keep loving you.