The late summer air hung thick and golden around the porch, cicadas throbbing in the tall grass beyond the fence. Izuku sat cross-legged on the weathered boards, his back against the railing, watching Katsuki doze in the old porch swing with a glass of sweet tea sweating in his grip. Two months. Two months of this—the slow rhythm of mornings and evenings, of Eijiro's easy laugh echoing from the barn, of nights tangled in Katsuki's arms until neither knew where one body ended and the other began. Two months of nursing a man whose hands could still lift a hay bale one-handed, whose chest still heaved through farm work without a wheeze, whose only symptom was the occasional tremor in his fingers when he thought no one was looking.
"You're staring, kid." Katsuki's voice came rough with sleep, one crimson eye cracking open. "Again."
Izuku's cheeks burned but he didn't look away. "I'm allowed to look at my lover." The word still made his heart stutter—lover, like they were teenagers sneaking around a summer camp instead of grandson and grandfather in a farmhouse that creaked with secrets. "I was thinking."
"Dangerous." Katsuki took a slow sip of his tea, watching him over the rim. "What about?"
The question sat on Izuku's tongue like a stone he'd been rolling around for weeks. He'd asked himself a hundred times in the dark, lying against Katsuki's chest while the old man slept. What was he sick with? The doctor came once a month, took blood, frowned at charts, murmured things Izuku was never in the room to hear. The pill bottles on the nightstand had labels he'd memorized—lisinopril, metoprolol, something unpronounceable that Katsuki called "the heart one" and dismissed with a wave. But heart what? Heart failure? Heart disease? A defect he was born with? No one ever said, and Izuku had been too afraid to ask, too afraid that the answer would crack something open he couldn't close again.
"Papa." His voice came out smaller than he wanted. He pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. "What are you actually sick with?"
The rocking of the porch swing stopped. The silence that followed was thicker than the August heat, pressing against Izuku's skin until he felt sweat bead at his temples. Katsuki set his glass down on the arm of the chair, the clink of it against wood too loud in the stillness. His jaw worked like he was chewing on the answer, testing it for poison before he let it past his teeth.
"Cardiomyopathy." The word landed flat, clinical, a word from a doctor's mouth that Katsuki had clearly borrowed without making it his own. "My heart's enlarged. The muscle's weak. Some days it works fine." He tapped his chest with two fingers. "Some days it doesn't."
Izuku's throat closed. He'd expected something—he didn't know what. Something treatable. Something that would pass. Not a word that meant his grandfather's heart was slowly failing inside his chest. "For how long?"
"Five years. Maybe six." Katsuki's voice was flat, matter-of-fact, the same tone he used to discuss crop rotation or fence repairs. "They gave me three, when they first found it. I told 'em to fuck off." A ghost of a smirk crossed his lips, there and gone. "Been proving 'em wrong ever since."
Izuku's vision blurred. He blinked hard, refusing to let the tears fall, but they pooled anyway, hot and stubborn. "Why didn't you tell me?" The question came out cracked, a hairline fracture in his voice that he couldn't hide. "I've been sleeping in your bed for months. I've been—I've been taking care of you, and I didn't even know what I was—"
"Because it doesn't change anything." Katsuki leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his crimson eyes burning with something fierce and fragile. "I'm still here. I'm still breathing. And I'm still gonna spend every day I got making sure you know exactly how much I love you." His voice dropped, rough and raw. "The number don't matter, Izuku. The time we got matters."
Izuku's hands were shaking. He pressed them flat against the porch boards, feeling the rough grain bite into his palms, grounding himself in the physical world because the emotional one was spinning too fast to hold. "How long?" he whispered again. "Really."
Katsuki was quiet for a long moment. A bead of condensation slid down his tea glass and pooled on the arm of the chair. "The doctor says months," Katsuki said finally, the words falling like stones into still water. "I say I got longer than that. I got a reason to fight now." He reached out, calloused fingers finding Izuku's chin, tilting his face up until their eyes met. "And I ain't planning on losing."
The tears came before Izuku could stop them, hot and shameful, spilling down his cheeks in thick rivulets that splattered against the weathered porch boards. His chest hitched once, twice, and then he was moving—scrambling across the space between them like a child seeking shelter from a storm, his knees finding the worn wood of the porch swing, his body folding into Katsuki's lap with a broken sob that tore from somewhere deep and raw.
Katsuki's arms came up automatically, wrapping around Izuku's trembling frame, one hand finding the back of his head and pressing him into the warm curve of his neck. "Easy, kid. Easy. I got you." His voice was rough, but steady, the same voice he used to calm spooked horses in the barn. Izuku felt the rumble of it through his chest, felt the solid beat of Katsuki's heart against his own—that unreliable, failing heart that was killing him from the inside out.
"You should of told me." Izuku's voice came out muffled against Katsuki's skin, wet and furious, his fingers curling into the fabric of Katsuki's worn robe like he was trying to anchor himself to this moment, to this body, to the impossible reality of a man who looked forty but carried a death sentence in his chest. "You should of told me it was that bad. I've been—" His voice cracked, splintering into something childlike and desperate. "I've been sleeping in your bed. I've been letting you fuck me. I've been—I've been falling in love with you, and you didn't think I deserved to know you were dying?"
Katsuki's hand tightened in Izuku's hair, a grounding pressure, not enough to hurt but enough to hold. "I didn't want to scare you off." His voice was low, stripped of its usual gruffness, vulnerable in a way Izuku had only heard in the darkest hours of the night. "I been alone a long time, kid. Longer than you been alive. And then you showed up, all big eyes and shaking hands, and I—" He exhaled, a rough sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. "I got selfish. I wanted to keep you as long as I could."
Izuku pulled back just enough to look at Katsuki's face, his vision swimming through a film of tears. The older man's crimson eyes were wet too, glittering in the late afternoon light, and that crack in his armor—that raw, unguarded grief—hit Izuku harder than the diagnosis ever could. "Is there any hope?" Izuku heard his own voice, thin and trembling, a question he was terrified to ask but needed the answer to more than he needed air. "Any at all?"
Katsuki's jaw tightened. He looked away, at the horizon where the sun was beginning to bleed gold and orange across the treeline, and for a long moment the only sound was the cicadas and the creak of the porch swing under their combined weight. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, almost lost to the evening air. "There's one option. A transplant. New heart, if they can find one that matches." He let out a slow breath, his thumb tracing an absent pattern on Izuku's hip. "I’ve been on the list for five years, kid. They ain't found one yet."
The words landed like stones in Izuku's stomach, cold and heavy. A transplant. A chance—a thread of a chance—dangling just out of reach. He thought of the pill bottles on the nightstand, the monthly doctor visits, the way Katsuki's hands sometimes trembled in the morning before his coffee kicked in. Five years on a list. Five years of waiting for a heart that might never come. "Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered again, but this time the question had no edge—just a hollow, aching bewilderment. "Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Because it doesn't change anything." Katsuki's hand came up to cup Izuku's jaw, his calloused thumb brushing away a tear with a gentleness that made Izuku's chest ache. "The list is the list. I can't make 'em call faster. I can't make a heart appear. All I can do is live the days I got, and I'd rather spend 'em with you in my arms than watching you cry over something neither of us can control." He leaned in, pressing his forehead against Izuku's, their breath mingling in the warm, still air. "So stop crying, baby boy. I'm still here. I'm still breathing. And I'm gonna keep fighting for every second I get with you."
Izuku's fingers curled into the fabric of Katsuki's robe, knuckles white with the effort of holding himself together. The cicadas had gone quiet, or maybe he'd stopped hearing them—everything reduced to the warm body beneath him, the heartbeat he could feel against his cheek, the pulse of a man who was dying and had hidden it from him. But the diagnosis wasn't the only secret. His mother's name hung between them, unspoken, and Izuku felt it pressing against his ribs like a bruise. "Why now?" His voice came out raw, scraped clean of everything except the question. "Why did you ask Mom to send me here? After eighteen years of nothing?"
Katsuki's hand stilled on Izuku's back. The silence stretched, long enough that Izuku thought he might not answer, might let the question dissolve into the evening air like smoke. When Katsuki spoke, his voice was low, stripped of every defense he'd ever built. "Because I'm dying, kid." The words came out flat, factual, but Izuku felt the tremor in his chest, the way his ribs expanded too slowly around the admission. "And I thought—" He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "I hoped I could fix it. Before I went. Fix what I broke with your mom." A rough exhale, almost a laugh, bitter and self-deprecating. "That was a long shot and I knew it. But I had to try."
Izuku's throat tightened. He pulled back, just enough to see Katsuki's face—the hard line of his jaw, the way his crimson eyes had gone distant, staring at something Izuku couldn't see. "What happened?" The question came out smaller than he wanted, a child's voice in a grown man's body. "With you and Mom. I never knew. She never talked about you. Not once. Not even when she sent me here." He felt the words tumbling out, desperate and hungry for a truth he'd sensed his whole life but never been allowed to touch. "What did you do?"
Katsuki's exhale was slow, deliberate, the kind of breath a man takes before he does something he knows will break him. His hand slid from Izuku's hair to rest heavy on his shoulder, thumb tracing a meaningless pattern against the fabric of Izuku's cropped hoodie. The cicadas had started up again, their drone filling the space between words like a held note that refused to release.
"I'm a monster." The words came out flat, clinical, like he was reading someone else's diagnosis. "That's what it comes down to. I'm a selfish, pathetic excuse for a husband and a father, and I've been running from that truth for twenty years." He didn't look at Izuku when he said it. His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, on the bleeding gold where the sun was eating the treeline.
Izuku's fingers tightened in Katsuki's robe. He didn't speak. Couldn't. The word monster sat between them like a third presence, cold and waiting.
"Your grandmother—" Katsuki's voice cracked on the word, splintering along fault lines Izuku had never seen before. He stopped. Swallowed. Started again, slower, like he was pulling each syllable from a wound. "Tsuyu. She was sick. Cancer. Spread through her like wildfire, and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it." His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the stubble. "I watched her waste away for two years. Watched the woman I married turn into a ghost in her own body."
Izuku's breath caught. He'd never heard Katsuki talk about his wife. Not once. The name Tsuyu was a stranger's name, a footnote in a story he'd never been told.
"And instead of being there for her—instead of being the husband she needed, the father Inko needed—I acted like a goddamn pig." Katsuki's voice dropped, rough and raw, scraped clean of every defense he'd ever built. "I found someone else. Someone young and warm and alive, who made me feel like I wasn't watching my wife die in slow motion." His hand fell from Izuku's shoulder, limp at his side. "I cheated on her. While she was dying. While our daughter was watching her mother waste away in a hospital bed."
The words landed like blows, each one harder than the last. Izuku felt them hit his chest, felt the bruise spreading beneath his ribs. His vision blurred, but he didn't wipe the tears away. Couldn't. His hands were frozen, clenched in Katsuki's robe like the fabric was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
"Inko was the one who caught me." Katsuki's voice was hollow now, emptied of everything except the memory. "Walked in on me and—" He stopped. Shook his head, a sharp, jerking motion. "She saw everything. The excuses I made after that—they were bullshit. She knew it. I knew it. Your grandmother knew it too." His hands came up to cover his face, broad palms pressing against his eyes like he could block out the image. "Tsuyu died hating me. Inko hasn't spoken a word to me in twenty years. And I deserved every second of it."
The porch swing creaked as Izuku shifted, his body moving before his mind caught up. He pulled back, just enough to see Katsuki's face—the way his hands covered his eyes, the tremor in his shoulders, the raw, broken line of his mouth. He'd never seen Katsuki like this. Never seen the armor crack open to reveal the rot beneath.
"Why are you telling me this?" Izuku's voice came out thin, barely a whisper, lost in the drone of cicadas and the settling of the old house around them. "You could of—you could of lied. Said it was a fight. Said she was difficult. Said anything but—" He couldn't finish the sentence. The image was already forming in his head—a younger Katsuki, a woman dying in another room, the betrayal that must have cut through Inko like a blade.
"Because you asked." Katsuki's hands dropped from his face, and when Izuku saw his eyes, they were red-rimmed and wet, the crimson dulled with a grief that had been festering for two decades. "And because you deserve to know exactly what kind of man you've been sharing a bed with." His voice hardened at the edges, a fragile attempt at the old gruffness that crumbled before it could take hold. "I've been punishing myself for twenty years. Isolated myself on this farm, pushed everyone away, let myself rot in the guilt because I thought—" He let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. "I thought if I suffered enough, it might make up for what I did. But nothing ever will. Nothing ever could."
Izuku's chest ached. A deep, hollow ache that had nothing to do with the diagnosis and everything to do with the man in front of him—the man who had held him through the night, who had kissed him like he was precious, who had loved him with a desperation that made sense now in the worst possible way. "And now?" he heard himself ask, the words coming from somewhere outside his body. "Now that I know?"
Katsuki met his eyes, and the look in them was raw, unguarded, stripped of every wall he'd ever built. "Now I wait for you to decide if I'm worth staying for." His voice cracked on the last word, splintering into something broken and honest. "And I'll understand if the answer's no. I'll understand if you look at me and see the same thing I see when I look in the mirror." He reached out, fingers brushing Izuku's cheek, feather-light and trembling. "I just needed you to know. Before—before anything else happens. Before I let myself believe I could have this."
The tears were falling freely now, hot tracks down Izuku's cheeks that he didn't bother to wipe away. He thought about his mother—her silence, her distance, the way she'd never spoken about her father except to say he was ill and needed help. He thought about the years of isolation Katsuki had described, the guilt that had festered like an untreated wound. He thought about the man who had held him after the assault, who had promised to always take care of him, who had loved him with a fierceness that bordered on desperation.
And then he stopped thinking.
Izuku leaned forward, his forehead pressing against Katsuki's, their breath mingling in the warm evening air. His hands found Katsuki's jaw, rough beneath his palms, and he pulled him into a kiss—soft, trembling, wet with tears that tasted like salt and grief and something that might have been forgiveness. Katsuki made a sound against his mouth, something between a gasp and a sob, and his arms came up to wrap around Izuku's waist, pulling him closer, holding him like he was afraid he'd disappear.
The kiss deepened, slow and desperate, two broken people clinging to each other in the fading light. Izuku's fingers tangled in Katsuki's hair, ash-blond spikes that had gone silver at the temples, and he kissed him like he was trying to pour everything he couldn't say into the press of his lips. The cicadas sang on. The old house settled around them. And for a moment, nothing else existed except the warm body in his arms and the heart beating against his chest—that unreliable, failing heart that had hurt so many people and was still trying, desperately, to love.
The kiss shifted—deepened into something hungrier, something that had been coiled in Izuku's chest since the words fell from Katsuki's mouth like stones into still water. He swung one leg over Katsuki's thighs, settling into his lap, the rough fabric of the worn robe scratching against his bare thighs where his shorts had ridden up. His hands found Katsuki's jaw, holding him there, keeping him close as the kiss turned desperate, turned needful, turned into a conversation neither of them had the words for.
Katsuki's hands came up to grip Izuku's hips, instinctive, grounding, but his brow furrowed against the press of Izuku's mouth. "Hold on—" The words came out rough, muffled against Izuku's lips. "What're you—"
Izuku didn't answer. He rolled his hips forward, a slow, deliberate grind, and felt the answering heat beneath the thin cotton of Katsuki's robe—the familiar weight of him stirring, thickening, pressing up against the cleft of Izuku's ass through the layers of clothing between them. A shudder ran through him, electric and desperate, and he broke the kiss just long enough to gasp, "I need you."
"Izuku." Katsuki's voice was strained, his hands tightening on Izuku's hips, holding him still. "Eijiro could be back any minute. You know that."
Izuku's answer was to reach down, grab the hem of his shorts, and pull them off in one rough motion—denim and black lace thong tangled together, tossed somewhere into the gathering dusk without a second thought. The air hit his bare skin, cool and electric, and he was already reaching for the tie of Katsuki's robe, fingers clumsy with desperation. "I don't care." His voice came out raw, scraped clean of everything except the need. "I don't care if he sees. I don't care if the whole world sees."
The robe fell open. Katsuki's cock was already half-hard, thick and heavy against his thigh, and Izuku's mouth went dry at the sight of it—at the familiar weight of it, the heat of it, the memory of how it felt stretching him open from the inside. He reached down, fingers wrapping around the shaft, and guided it to where he was already slick and waiting, the head pressing against his entrance through nothing but wet heat and desperation.
Katsuki's breath caught. His hands found Izuku's hips again, not pushing him away but not pulling him closer either—a suspended moment, a held breath, a question hanging in the air between them. "Baby boy." His voice was rough, almost broken. "You sure?"
Izuku met his eyes. The evening light caught the crimson of Katsuki's irises, glinting with something raw and unguarded, and Izuku felt the answer rise in his chest like a wave breaking against the shore. "You're not a monster." The words came out steady, certain, cutting through the cicada drone and the creak of the old porch swing. "You're a man who made mistakes. A man I love. A man who's been punishing himself for twenty years for something that doesn't define him." He leaned in, pressing his forehead against Katsuki's, their breath mingling in the warm, still air. "I don't care what you did. I care about what you are now. And right now, you're mine. And I'm yours. And we don't have time to waste on guilt."
He sank down.
The stretch was a familiar ache, a homecoming, Katsuki's cock filling him inch by inch as his body opened to receive it. Izuku's head fell back, a broken moan escaping his throat as he took him fully, feeling the thick heat of him deep inside, the slight burn that melted into pleasure as his walls adjusted to the familiar invasion. The porch swing creaked beneath them, a rhythmic complaint that matched the pulse beating between Izuku's thighs.
"Fuck." Katsuki's voice was wrecked, his hands gripping Izuku's hips hard enough to bruise as he bottomed out, his balls pressing against the wet curve of Izuku's ass. "Fuck, baby boy."
Izuku's hands found Katsuki's shoulders, bracing himself as he began to move—slow at first, a rolling grind that dragged Katsuki's cock against every sensitive spot inside him, drawing a wet, obscene sound from where they were joined. "This is what we should of been doing," he gasped, his voice thin and desperate. "Instead of crying. Instead of—" He cut off, hips faltering as a wave of sensation rolled through him, his cunt clenching around the thick length buried inside him. "Instead of wasting time."
Katsuki's control snapped.
His hands slid from Izuku's hips to his ass, gripping the soft curves and pulling him down harder as he thrust up, a brutal, perfect angle that drove his cock deeper than Izuku thought possible. The porch swing lurched, chains groaning, and Izuku cried out—a sharp, desperate sound that dissolved into the evening air like smoke.
"You want it?" Katsuki's voice was low, animal, stripped of every wall he'd ever built. "You want your granddaddy to fuck you right here where anyone could see?"
"Yes." The word came out broken, Izuku's nails digging into Katsuki's shoulders as he rode the rhythm, his wet cunt gripping and releasing with every thrust. "Yes, yes, yes—"
Katsuki fucked him like he was trying to prove he was still alive. Hard and desperate, the porch swing creaking beneath them, the cicadas screaming their approval from the treeline, the last light bleeding gold across the horizon as they moved together in a tangle of sweat and need and something that felt terrifyingly like hope. Izuku's head fell forward, his forehead pressing against Katsuki's, their breath mingling in ragged gasps as the world narrowed to the heat between them, the stretch and slide and the wet sound of his granddaddy's cock working into his eager cunt.
"I love you." The words tumbled out of Izuku's mouth, broken and desperate, as a familiar tightness began to coil in his belly, building with every grinding thrust. "I love you, I love you, I—"
Katsuki's hand found the back of his neck, pulling him into a kiss that was all teeth and tongue and salt.
The kiss broke apart, gasping and wet, and then Katsuki's hands were on Izuku's hips, gripping hard enough to bruise as he set a brutal pace—pounding up into him with a desperate, animal rhythm that made the porch swing scream on its chains. Izuku's head fell back, a broken wail tearing from his throat as he took it, took every brutal thrust, his nails raking bloody lines down Katsuki's shoulders as the world narrowed to the stretch and slide and the wet, obscene sound of his granddaddy's cock slamming into his soaking cunt.
"That's it," Katsuki growled, his voice wrecked and guttural, "take it, take all of it, baby boy—" His hips snapped up, driving deeper, harder, the angle shifting until he was hitting that spot inside Izuku that made stars burst behind his eyes.
Izuku's hands found Katsuki's hair, gripping the ash-blond spikes and pulling, anchoring himself to something real as the pleasure built into a cresting wave that threatened to drown him. His thighs were shaking, his cunt clenching and fluttering around the thick length buried inside him, and he could feel the wet heat of his own arousal slicking their thighs, dripping down onto the rough fabric of Katsuki's robe.
"Papa, I'm—I'm gonna—"
The words dissolved into a desperate keen as the wave crested, broke, and Izuku's body arched, his back bowing as his orgasm tore through him like a hurricane. His cunt clamped down, spasming around Katsuki's cock, and he felt himself let go completely—a hot gush of fluid spraying from where they were joined, soaking Katsuki's groin, the robe, the porch swing beneath them. He kept coming, wave after wave, squirting hard enough that he heard it splash against the old wooden boards, a wet, obscene sound that seemed to echo in the quiet evening air.
"Fuck—fuck, baby boy, that's it, that's it—" Katsuki's rhythm faltered, his hips stuttering as he felt Izuku's release gush around him, felt the desperate clench of his cunt trying to milk him dry.
He drove in deep, one final brutal thrust, and held there, his body going rigid as he came—thick, hot pulses of cum flooding Izuku's womb, filling him so full that it leaked out around the base of his cock, a creamy white stream mixing with the puddle of Izuku's release on the porch swing.
Katsuki's hands trembled on Izuku's hips, his forehead pressing against Izuku's shoulder, his breath coming in ragged, broken gasps as the last of his climax emptied into his grandson's eager body. "Take it," he rasped, the words barely audible, "take all of it, baby—take everything I got—"
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The cicadas had fallen silent, or maybe Izuku just couldn't hear them anymore over the thunder of his own heartbeat. The evening air was cool against his sweat-slicked skin, and he could feel Katsuki's cum leaking out of him, sliding down his thighs in warm, wet trails. He was still impaled on his granddaddy's cock, still feeling the occasional twitch and throb of aftershocks deep inside him, and he never wanted to move again. His arms wrapped around Katsuki's neck, pulling him close, burying his face in the crook of his shoulder and breathing in the smell of him—sweat and musk and sex and something that felt like home.
Footsteps on the gravel path.
Izuku's eyes snapped open, but his body didn't move fast enough—didn't register the danger until it was already too late. The footsteps stopped at the bottom of the porch steps, and Izuku's head turned, slow and mechanical, like a nightmare he couldn't wake from. Eijiro stood there, his red hair catching the last amber light of sunset, his hand frozen halfway to the porch railing. His mouth was open. His eyes were wide, fixed on the sight before him: Izuku naked and dripping in Katsuki's lap, their bodies still joined, the evidence of what they'd done smeared across both their thighs and glistening in the fading light.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating, broken only by the distant caw of a crow somewhere in the treeline. Izuku felt his heart stop. Felt every muscle in his body lock, his breath caught in his chest like a physical blow. He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Could only sit there, impaled on his grandfather's cock, cum leaking down his thighs, while Eijiro Kirishima stared at them with an expression that shifted from shock to confusion to something that looked almost like understanding.
Eijiro's hand lowered, slowly, from the railing. His mouth closed, then opened again, as if he was trying to find words that didn't exist. Finally, he spoke, his voice rough and uncertain, stripped of its usual warmth: "...Pops." A pause. The cicadas started up again, a nervous chorus in the quiet. "I'll, uh. I'll give you two a minute."
With that Eijiro just walks past them into the house to start on dinner.