Chapter Text
“Son of a bitch!”
Katsuki grabbed his head, clutching where he’d just hit it against the open hood of his car. It throbbed with each beat of his pulse, and he knew he’d have a raging headache if he didn’t find some pain reliever before the day was done. Pulling his hand away, he grimaced at the small smear of blood on the pads of his fingers.
“Fuck,” he muttered, wiping them on his button-down shirt without thought.
Unfortunately, the searing pain blooming across his scalp was the least of his problems at the moment. All of his other issues could be rated from absolute worst to least worst, first and foremost being his fucking BMW sitting useless on the side of a middle-of-nowhere road.
He knew. He fucking knew he should’ve had it serviced before he left on this god-forsaken trip. But noooo, he’d been in a rush and thought everything would be fine. The past couple of times he’d driven it, it had slipped gears, which he now knew was not the nothing he’d convinced himself it was. Nope, it was definitely something. And while he could do general maintenance on his own car, he had no tools, no jacks, no anything. He barely had enough shit to change a damn tire.
“Shoulda brought the fucking Audi,” he seethed at the BMW, as if an inanimate object somehow gave a shit about his predicament. He was fucked.
Slamming the hood closed, he wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving black finger marks in their wake. “Shit,” he grumbled, trying to wipe off the marks though he knew they weren’t going anywhere. He could afford to buy more, but that wasn’t the point. It was the principle of the matter.
Was it necessary to kick the tire as he walked by to grab his shit? Hell no. But he did it anyway. It was only a fucking year old, but the piece of shit car broke down anyway.
He was supposed to meet Mitsuki tomorrow in San Antonio for dinner to finalize the plans, and now he wasn’t sure how that was going to happen.
Fucking Mitsuki. His mother.
The same mother he hadn’t talked to for months, not even when his father passed away unexpectedly two months ago, which he found out about through a voicemail. Sure, as usual, she’d been relentless in trying to call but he was a master at avoiding Mitsuki’s absurd attempts at communication. Normally when she called, it was for absolutely ridiculous reasons, like trying to hook him up with a designer she met, or trying to get his business to sponsor a golf tournament.
Or trying to get him to come home to visit.
Each and every time her contact popped up on his cell phone, he hit the bright red ‘Ignore’ button and let it go to voicemail. He didn’t have time for that shit.
But the one time he should’ve answered…
Even after Masaru’s death, she never stopped calling. Eventually she stopped asking how he was, probably knowing he wouldn’t tell her anyway. Instead, she sent emails and spammed his socials, trying to get his help or feedback in planning his father’s memorial service, but still, he ignored her.
No, he didn’t want to talk about it. No, he didn’t want to attend the service. And sure as hell no, he didn’t want to give a eulogy.
Except somehow, he’d been roped in to doing all fucking three.
Even now at the ripe age of twenty-six, he had to give her credit for using Deku as the way she finally got to him. She was truly a master manipulator, and there was no limit to how far she’d go to get what she wanted. Still, the only reason he really agreed was because of Deku.
‘Please, Kacchan, do it for my mom.’
He could still hear the pleading in his voice when he called last week. They’d never really gotten along all that great as kids, but as adults, their relationship was a far cry from what it had been. So, in a moment of weakness spurred by two glasses of bourbon, he relented. It was a low blow bringing Auntie Inko into it, but a smart one on Deku’s part.
So he gave in, but only because he’d decided to attend the memorial service in the suburbs of San Antonio, where Masaru was born and raised, before heading across the border for a long overdue siesta at one of his own resorts. His time in Texas would be short, thirty-six hours at most, and then he’d be on his way.
Never to return.
Now, however, the credit he gave his mother was long gone, along with what little patience and understanding he had left. The only thing keeping him from going ballistic right now was hearing his father’s voice in his ears.
‘Don’t use the sharpness of your tongue on the mother who taught you to speak.’
It was something Masaru repeated often when Katsuki was growing up, and it had rattled in his brain on more than one occasion since his death. He and Mitsuki - which is how he had referred to her for years - had always butted heads. From the time he was a young belligerent child, they screamed and yelled, feeding off of each other’s very evident anger issues. Whereas his mother should’ve set a good example, all she did was push him away. He supposed she loved him, but as a child with blatantly obvious emotional problems of his own, he needed stability and calm, not someone who was a mirror image of his own bad temper.
And now, standing at the side of the road? Now he strongly considered strangling his mother for getting him into this mess. If not for this wretched event, he wouldn’t be in this damn predicament.
Clearly, this was all her fault, even if she’d told him time and time again that he should fly instead of drive, but to him, being on long open stretches of highway was therapeutic. Well, outside of his frequent and unbridled road rage, but that only consisted of screaming inside his car and middle fingers and horns blaring.
He looked back in the direction he’d just come from. He had no idea what was ahead, but the closest town behind him was at least thirty miles.
“Fuck!” he yelled, followed by a sharp inhale and the tight clenching of his jaw as he tipped his head back and let the sun wash over his face. ‘Fuck’ summed it up perfectly.
To make matters worse, it was no less than ninety-five degrees outside with just as much humidity, which felt more like triple that in the blazing sun. He’d sweated through his clothes hours ago and was covered in grease from trying to figure out what was wrong with the car, and he probably stank to high heaven.
Could this fucking day get any worse? Now he needed to try to find someone to help him and he was even more behind schedule. With any luck, there’d be a rental car place up ahead and this would end up as nothing but a minor inconvenience.
Since he wasn’t sure if he’d even get back to his car before nightfall, he grabbed his backpack and filled it with a change of clothes, some of his toiletries in case he found a gas station bathroom, and his cell phone.
His fucking cell phone, which by the way was useless because apparently in podunk country, they didn’t believe in cell towers and he had no service. Zero bars. Un-fucking-believable.
It was pretty hard to call for a goddamn tow truck with no signal.
Once his bag was shouldered, he started down the road. His heels scuffed against the ground as he walked and every so often he’d kick a rock just to have something to break the monotony.
The car had shit the bed somewhere around two p.m., and by the time he figured out he wasn’t going to be able to fix it, it was after four. He was starving and thirsty as hell; the coffee he’d bought when he stopped at a rest area to piss was long gone.
Since it was the end of summer, the sun was hot and beating down on him for the first leg of his journey. The sunburn he could already feel biting at his pale skin was going to be a bitch, and his headache had only barely dulled.
But since stopping wasn’t an option, he trudged along, adjusting the straps on his backpack every so often, and ducking under the shade of a tree when he could. He knew tomorrow the parts of him that were bare would look more lobster than human, especially the back of his neck and his face.
When the sun started to sink toward the horizon and dusk was upon him, he started to get nervous. He hadn’t even seen a house at this point, just the long stretch of open country road. On the left, the side went up a mountain, full of thick brush and trees, and on the right, miles of open pasture, cordoned off with what appeared to be electric fencing for livestock.
If he was driving, it might be calming to drive through such a bucolic setting, no worries of cops or traffic jams. But being on foot elicited another feeling altogether. He might be a city boy, but he knew enough about the country that he did not want to be stuck outside come nightfall, prey for whatever creature needed a meal. Fuck that.
The only reprieve the setting sun brought him was minimal temperature decrease and some relief from the beating sun. However, the longer he walked, the heavier his feet felt and the slower his pace became.
He was becoming dangerously close to both exhaustion and dehydration. So much so that when he saw what looked like some dim street lights in the distance, he questioned if they were the hickville version of a mirage and he squinted as if to test his own eyes.
The lights remained, not disappearing no matter how much he questioned their existence. If he wasn’t so dead on his feet, he might take off running, but there was no fucking way that was happening.
Slapping yet another mosquito on the side of his neck, he was at least able to pick up his pace a little bit, motivated purely by the lights that were getting closer and closer.
When he finally dropped down a small hill and into what would barely be classified as a town, he immediately heard music. Not the heavy metal or rock tunes he preferred, though. Quite the opposite. The twang of a guitar and a matching drawl of a deep male voice quickly reminded him that he was in country music territory.
Super.
The streets, however, were empty. Not a soul to be seen in whatever ghost town he’d had the displeasure of setting foot.
He passed a few small businesses and the Post Office, seeking out the source of the increasingly loud music. Where there was music, there were people. Where there were people, there was a way back out of this goddamn town.
When he turned the corner, he saw it. A bar, from the looks of it, with a rudimentary sign in the window advertising a dozen chicken wings and a draft beer for eight dollars, which made Katsuki wonder if he was even still in the same country. Shit like that was triple the price in the city, if not more.
The neon sign in the window said ‘Open’, though the ‘O’ flickered every few seconds with an audible buzzing sound that kind of reminded him of those old bug zappers his grandpa had on the farm the couple times he visited when he was a boy. He was debating going in, standing on the sidewalk shifting from one foot to the other. There was no doubt he needed food and water, and unless he planned on sleeping in an alley, he needed to find out how to get his car towed and find somewhere to crash for the night.
Another glance around the darkened town affirmed that this was the only place he would find open this late at night - which wasn’t even late by city standards - but maybe a quick walk through the rest of the small town would clarify that.
After only taking about three steps away, the door swung open and a burly man with a dark brown cowboy hat came out, pulling a cigarette out of a pack in his hand and lighting it.
“Oh hey there, stranger,” he said, a big oddly welcoming smile on his face, which could be seen even through the bushy beard hanging down from his chin. His voice wasn’t much different from the one coming from the speakers inside the bar, deep with an unmistakable deeply southern accent. “You don’t look like you’re from round these parts, are ya?” As he took a big drag on what looked like one of those unfiltered brands Katsuki had only seen in old western movies, Katsuki looked at him a little closer, eyes narrowing slightly.
He was older and much taller than Katsuki, maybe 6’3” to Katsuki’s 5’10”, and husky with a big round belly that stretched the material of his flannel shirt against the buttons dangerously. But he had a kind face and a genuine smile that made the deep wrinkles next to his eyes deepen all that much more.
“My car broke down a few miles up the road,” Katsuki replied, hands shoved in his pockets and shoulders slightly hunched. He could feel the guy’s eyes looking at his sweaty, filthy appearance, and hoped that he didn’t look bad enough to be taken for some panhandling vagabond.
“S’fine, stranger, we don’t bite. Go on in, have a beer and some grub. Tell Hank behind the bar that Charlie sent ya in. He’ll hook ya up with something to eat. Everything’s closed up tight tonight, but Ei is always down at the garage bright and early in the mornin’ ‘fore the roosters even crow.” Taking another drag of his smoke, he gave Katsuki a nod, the wide brim of his hat dipping down and back up again.
“Alright,” Katsuki replied, nodding back, but he figured the missing dramatics of the hat made the action lose something.
Sidestepping the surprisingly friendly man, he pulled the heavy wooden door of the bar open and paused before going in and letting the door thunk closed behind him. He was hit with a rush of warm air and noise; loud chatter, music pouring from the speakers clearly hooked up to a jukebox, and a few others quickly assaulted his senses. The combination of smells made his mouth water. The immediately discernible things were fresh beer on tap, and something frying in the kitchen behind the bar.
After a quick glance around the joint, which was decently full considering it was a Friday night, he headed toward the bar. Once he’d let his backpack slide to the floor by his feet, he sat in the barstool furthest from the door. The pure relief his body felt from just that simple move was indescribable.
It didn’t take long for an older man, mid-fifties by Katsuki’s guess, to saunter down to his end of the bar, drying a glass with a white hand towel. Just as Charlie had done, Hank offered a kind smile, which, as before, Katsuki did not reciprocate. “You lost, son?” His eyes clearly took note of Katsuki’s look of disarray, and while his words didn’t exactly pass judgment, his narrowed eyes were borderline.
A sarcastic answer was on the tip of his tongue, but luckily his brain kicked in first and he realized if he ever wanted to leave this miserable town, he might not want to piss off the natives. “My car broke down up the road a few miles,” he started. He paused, trying to remember the name of the guy he met outside. “Oh, Charlie sent me in to see a Hank? Said the garage would open in the morning.”
“Ahh, I see,” the bartender said, setting the glass upside down in a row next to other clean ones. “Well I’m Hank, and if Charlie sent ya, then you just let me take care of you, ‘kay?” It only took a minute for the man to fill a pint glass full of ice water and set it in front of Katsuki along with a menu.
The smell of food wafting out from the back made his stomach grumble as it begged for him to eat, and as he perused the small menu, Hank left to go help another customer. They seemed to offer the same kind of cuisine he would’ve expected. Chicken wings, fries, quesadillas, nachos, and so on. There was nary a vegetable to be seen, and as much as that made Katsuki cringe, beggars can’t be choosers in this sort of situation.
“What can I fix up for ya,” Hank said, taking Katuki by surprise. How did such a big guy move so quietly?
“I’ll just have the spicy loaded nachos.” Sliding the menu across the bar, he picked up the water and downed half of it. It was warm in the bar, but not overly so, and Katsuki assumed there was some sort of air conditioning trying its best to keep up with the Texas heat.
“Comin’ right up, son. In the meantime, Open Mic night is about to start.” Hank jutted his chin toward the small stage area behind Katsuki, and he turned his head to follow his gaze. An older blond woman with a pink rhinestone-laden hat was sitting down on the stool with a guitar hanging from her neck as she adjusted the microphone.
Super. Now he had to listen to live music, because the shit coming from the juke box wasn’t bad enough. Maybe he should’ve just kept walking and seen how he fared with the predators…
It was fine. He’d just eat his food and try to find a place to stay. He’d be out of there in no time.
By the time the first woman was done with her song, Katsuki’s spicy nachos came out. Hank filled his water again, finally seeming to realize Katsuki wasn’t much of a talker and staying quiet, before heading down to the other end of the bar again.
The nachos were far better than the entertainment, so he was easily able to tune out the next two singers and focus only on every bite of decently spicy crunch. At least Texas was good for something. Somewhere along the way, a pint of amber-colored beer showed up in front of him when he clearly didn’t order one, and when he was about to question it, Hank just smiled.
“On the house, son, you’ve had a rough day.”
Truth be told, he’s had a rough few months.
Katsuki owned a line of popular vacation resorts that stretched down the west coast and into Mexico. He’d built the business with his own blood, sweat, and tears. Each new resort he built or acquired was a labor of love, relying heavily on, as much as he hated to admit it, the business savvy he’d learned by watching his parents his entire life. They were business owners since long before he was born, working their asses off to provide for him and build their future. Masaru had recently created a non-profit organization, finding a calling he could be proud of, and in turn, had taken to trying to involve Katsuki as well.
But Katsuki had dug his heels in, claiming to be too busy to take the time to meet with his father, shooting down every proposed time and place Masaru sent his way.
Two weeks later, he was dead. Hindsight really was 20/20, or so he’d found out the hard way.
For now, however, there was no use sitting here wallowing in self-pity. No amount of regret would bring his dad back. All he could do was look to the future and move on. Mourning was for the weak.
The singers changed a couple more times, just becoming background noise to Katsuki at that point. The beer was almost as refreshing as the water, and the stool gave his aching feet a chance to recover before he headed back out again.
When he was just about to ask for his bill and directions to the nearest hotel, a new voice spoke into the microphone.
“I know y’all know me, but in case ya forgot, I’m Eijirou and I’m gonna sing a little Trace Adkins for ya today,” the man behind Katsuki said. His voice was deep, complete with the drawl he’d already come to expect even in the short time he’d been back in this dreadful state. Katsuki wasn’t sure how it was possible, but the man’s voice came off as some odd combination of confidence and timidness. He didn’t even bother turning around, expecting this one to be just as lackluster as the rest of them.
When the guy started playing his guitar, Katsuki took another sip of his beer, then flagged Hank down to ask for the bill.
“You heading out? Do you have somewhere to go?” the man asked, pulling his guest check off the small order pad and sliding it across the bar.
“Gotta find somewhere to sleep so I can talk to the mechanic in the morning. Hope he’s worth a damn,” he muttered, sliding a twenty-dollar bill across the counter. “Keep it,” he said when Hank tried to give him his change.
With a raised eyebrow of questionable meaning, Hank said, “We have a little inn across the street, but-”
Katsuki held his hand as if to say be quiet, and froze, hand in the air.
The guy on the stage, whose name Katsuki had already forgotten, had started to sing the first few lines of the song. A song Katsuki knew by heart, having listened to it countless times in his life.
You're gonna miss this
The man’s voice wasn’t too different from Trace’s, honestly, but it wasn’t what he thought he’d hear after the man introduced himself. Gone was the half-tentative, half-courageous voice, replaced now with a deep timbre, velvety and smooth as it came from the depths of his chest almost like a purr.
You're gonna want this back
Setting the beer down, he started to swivel his chair around to get a look at who was behind the voice. The man he saw sitting on the stool strummed the strings of his acoustic guitar and leaned into the mic with his head slightly tilted when he sang. He had one boot on the rung so his knee could balance his guitar and the other tapped slowly with the beat on the dusty wooden floor.
His boots weren’t the showy kind that Katsuki sometimes saw in stores or magazine ads. No, these were worn. They were broken in and beaten down, with dirt in the cracks of the scratched-up leather.
He wore tight blue jeans and a flannel shirt with seams that stretched over what appeared to be unfairly large muscles, and a Stetson not unlike the kind Katsuki had seen on many other heads since walking into the bar. Though he couldn’t see much of his face, what looked like bright red hair peeked out from under the hat, coming down to about his shoulders. A silver chain hanging around his neck glinted in the dim spotlights hanging from the ceiling.
You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast
These are some good times
The lyrics that so easily flowed from the man’s mouth seemed to be directed right to Katsuki’s silently aching heart. The first time he’d heard this song was when he was eleven, standing in his dad’s garage, playing on the small AM/FM radio he kept on the workbench. It was soon after his grandpa had died, and Masaru went through a time where this song seemed to be on a continuous loop.
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
Even now, sixteen years later as he sat in a bar in the middle of nowhere, Katsuki could still smell the grease and oil in that garage, where spots and stains littered the floor from years of working on his or his mom’s vehicles. He could see the black stains on his dad’s jeans, not unlike the ones on his own right now, and the proud smile on his face as he showed Katsuki how to change the oil.
But you're gonna miss this
So many school nights and weekends were spent in that garage helping his dad until he hit his teen years… then he was suddenly too busy to help. He had better things to do, like hang out with his friends or go to the football games. Then when he graduated and left for college, there were parties and study groups and exams. He came home less and less, until he stopped altogether.
Tears started to burn the backs of Katsuki’s eyes as he thought, not for the first or last time, how the phone calls that had been weekly in college, turned to monthly, then a couple times a year until they stopped, too. Letters, postcards, emails even, all went unanswered.
Someday, he’d told himself. When things calm down, then I’ll go home and visit.
You're gonna miss this
Fuck. Now was not the time to let the burning grief that he’d buried and ignored for two months consume him. He’d done so well at pushing it aside and not dealing with it, like hell he was going to let one stupid song push him over the fucking edge.
You're gonna want this back
When a single tear broke past its barrier and rolled down his cheek, he swiped the back of his hand across it and looked back up again just in time to see the singer looking right back at him. The man sang the last few notes of the song without tearing his gaze away, even as his fingers pressed against the strings of his guitar to silence it.
Even as all the people in the bar erupted in cheers and clapping, some standing up and some tipping their hats. He was clearly popular in this little podunk town, and with a sigh, Katsuki couldn’t help but wonder what it’d be like if he was here under different circumstances. It didn’t matter, he thought.
Fuck this. Fuck today. Fuck everything.
The random handsome man singing in the bar would go on with his life, and Katsuki with his. As he stood, he grabbed his backpack and gave a ‘thank you’ nod to Hank as he headed out the door.
Once back outside on the sidewalk, he shouldered his backpack and stood there on the corner under the streetlight. There wasn’t another person or car in sight and the only sounds came from behind him in the bar.
For a moment, he let his forehead rest against the cool iron of the lamppost, eyes closing as he focused only on keeping his breaths steady. Counting in, then out again. If he could avoid yet another panic attack, especially when anybody could just walk out and-
“Hey, where ya runnin’ off to, cowboy?”
The voice called out from behind him, and he pulled his forehead off the post and turned around. It was the guy from the stage, whatever his name was, standing there under the yellow light, a grin on his face that was somewhere between mischievous and completely and utterly innocent. How did this guy keep putting off such differing emotions?
Bakugou didn’t make a move to walk away, even as the guy started walking toward him.
“Who’re you callin’ cowboy, cowboy?”
“You’re not from ‘round here,” the singer said. It wasn’t a question, but his words weren’t accusatory and the corners of his mouth quirked up. Still, Katsuki didn’t like the perceived implication.
“So I’ve been told,” Katsuki replied, eyebrow cocked with no smile to match. This was the third of three people he’d met since wandering into town that have reiterated the ridiculously obvious statement. When the guy stopped just a couple feet from him, Katsuki had to tilt his head up to look him in the face. He was just as tall as Hank. What the hell were they feeding people around here? Katsuki didn’t normally have a height complex, but damn.
The man chuckled, deep and throaty just like his singing voice, and it was warm and comforting. “You’re a long ways from home,” he said, as if Katsuki’s lack of Texan accent was lost on him.
“No shit, Sherlock. Listen, I don’t know what your fuckin’ deal is, but-”
“I don’t have a deal, man. You looked like you were about to puke when I was singin’, so I just wanted to see if it was my voice or Hank’s famous salsa that did you in.” Another chuckle rumbled his throat, making his Adam’s apple jump up and down a few times.
“I’m fine,” he said bluntly, voice slightly sharper than he intended. “I just need a fucking hotel or somewhere to stay so I can go see whoever this Ei person is at the garage in the morning. I just…” he breathed out the rest of the air rather than forming them into the words his brain tried to supply. There was no need to spill his frustrations onto someone he didn’t give two shits about and would never see again.
“Ahh well, ya see, there’s an inn right over ‘cross the street there, but it’s late and they’re closed up for the night,” the singer said, hand raising to the back of his neck.
“Of fucking course it is,” Katsuki replied. He shook his head, pulling his gaze off to the side as his mind tried to go through what options he had left.
“But ya see, I just happen to know the owner. Lemme go see her and see if she won’t do me a favor.” With a wink, he walked past Katsuki and toward the inn
Not that he would’ve argued, because at that point he was absolutely screwed without whatever favor this guy was calling in. Minutes ticked by slowly, and Katsuki yawned a few times as he waited. Between the time in the sun, the long walk, and the beer and nachos making his belly happy, he was beyond exhausted.
So when the crunch of boots on asphalt caught his attention, he looked up to see the same smiling face. “Is that bag all ya need? She’s fixin’ you up a room right now.” How the hell was his smile so bright when it was pitch fucking black outside? His brow furrowed, but he nodded and followed the singer back across the street.
Rather than going in the front door, which likely led to a lobby of some sort, they headed around the building. It appeared to be an old Victorian house that had, at some point, been converted into an inn. They rounded the corner and went in through a back door. After climbing a set of stairs, they met a woman who was just coming out of one of just a few rooms on the second floor of what appeared to be an old remodeled house.
With long black hair that cascaded down her back, a tanned complexion, and deep brown eyes, she was the exact opposite of Mitsuki. He wasn’t sure where in his mind that comparison even came from, but she had such a motherly look to her.
“Oh howdy!” she said, smiling wide despite the late hour of the night. “I didn’t have a chance to do a full freshen, but the bedding is clean and so is the bathroom. Breakfast starts at seven downstairs if ya want.”
With a nod to Katsuki and a lingering look at the singer, she made her way back down the steps, presumably to wherever she was sleeping when he woke her up.
“Well, there ya go!” the singer said, stepping to the side so Katsuki could get into the room. “I best be off, I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”
“Yeah, well, thanks or whatever. Just hope the asshole mechanic knows what the fuck he’s doing so I can get the hell out of this shithole state.” Should he have said it? Probably not. But the events of the day had made him grumpier than normal and what little filter he normally had was long gone.
“Right, well good luck with that asshole mechanic then,” he said with a grin, walking backwards a few steps before turning and heading out. His boots hit each step with a thunk and Katsuki stood there and listened until he heard the back door close.
Once inside the room, he realized it wasn’t near as bad as he thought it would be. It smelled clean enough, and when he went in to get a shower, there were even little soaps and shampoos like he kept in the rooms of his own resorts.
The grease staining his hands gave him a struggle, but he was able to get most of it off as he stood in the pounding spray of the warm water. The inn might be decent, but there sure as hell wasn’t an air conditioner, and he cursed under his breath as he started to sweat again right out of the damn shower. His options were limited, especially since his one change of clothes for the next day would have to suffice until he got back on the road to San Antonio.
Fuck this damn trip.
Those were his last thoughts, because within a minute of when his head hit the pillow, he was out cold.