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Bakugou dreamt of paint, and a fuck ton of it. He was surrounded by bottles and tubes and brushes and cups of muddy water and smeared over canvases. It surrounded him, the colors and smells of acrylic engulfing his senses.
Damn that Eijirou, his dreaming self muttered through his teeth. He looked around and, yup, sure enough he was in the middle of the art store Kirishima had dragged him to six times in one week for more stupid paint. Though instead of the regular metal shelves and shiny concrete floors, the entire thing was made of paint, like some shitty abstract Van Gogh art piece that he was existing within.
If he didn’t know better, the abstractness of his surroundings was the only thing that gave away that this was, in fact, a dream.
Hobby Lobby was practically Kirishima’s second home with how much he visited, dumping his extra money into probably every single tube of paint the store carried, as well as every distinct type of brush and sponge and whatever-the-fuck-else his artist’s heart needed. Bakugou would never understand how one person could need so much paint, and hardly produce a single completed canvas.
Whatever.
It wasn’t that he minded, it was just annoying that his fiance’s hobby had followed Bakugou into his dreams.
Bakugou’s dream self wandered around the painted store. The colors swirled around him and over one another. Sometimes they would mesh and make a muddy green or brown that reminded Bakugou of the water he’d seen Kirishima dip his brushes into over and over again until it was nearly black, during the times he was so into his painting as he bent over a canvas that he hardly glanced at the water and forgot to change it.
“...kugou…”
Bakugou looked up, searching for the source of the sound.
“Hey. Bakugou.”
It was definitely Eijirou’s voice; the blonde picked up the pace around the store in search of him.
“Katsuki.”
Bakugou grumbled as his eyes drew open; immediately he buried his head into the nearest pillow and tried to go back to sleep. “Go away, shitty hair.”
“C’mon, man,” Kirishima said, shaking the blonde by the shoulder. “I got something to show you.”
“The fuck time is it?”
“Like seven. Almost eight. C’mon, get up.” He shook the blonde again. “Bakugou.”
“Leave me alone, dumb hair, ‘m fucking sleeping.”
“Don’t make me drag you out of bed by the ankles,” Kirishima warned, voice laced with amusement.
Bakugou shot up, glaring daggers at the redhead at his bedside. “Touch my feet and you die,” he hissed.
Eijirou laughed—an infectious sound, though Katsuki would jump off a cliff before admitting just how much he liked it—just as the blonde was focusing in on the other, giving him a once over.
“Why the hell are you covered in paint?” he muttered. Eijirou’s face was smeared and dotted with different colored splotches, his shirt and sweatpants in much the same state. Even his hair held some specks of blue and white where most of it still stuck up, though several strands had lost the fight and were now hanging over his forehead, still stiff with gel. “Did you even sleep?”
“Nope.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see,” Kirishima said, reaching for his hand with one that was smeared in more colors than Katsuki could probably ever name. “C’mon.”
“Can it not wait like, two more hours?” Bakugou muttered, tugging back on Kirishima’s hand, trying to pull him down onto the bed. “You gotta fucking sleep, idiot.”
“I will, Katsuki, promise. But first,” Eijirou pulled back, “I have a surprise for you.”
“Surprises are fucking dumb,” Bakugou said.
“Not this one.” Kirishima’s smile was almost cocky now (or as cocky as Kirishima could get), like he knew for sure that whatever shit he had up his sleeve was something worth waking up at the asscrack of dawn for.
After another minute of sleepy glaring on Bakugou’s part, he finally gave in to that red gaze and kicked his feet off the edge of the bed. “Fine, but it better be good.”
“Promise it is,” Kirishima said again. “But you gotta close your eyes.”
Katsuki almost fell back onto the bed. “Are you fucking kidding me.”
“Nope. It’s part of the surprise.”
“Why the fuck am I marrying you again?” Katsuki sighed as Kirishima maneuvered around him. Just before a set of warm, familiar, paint-splattered hands settled over his eyes, Bakugou felt Eijirou’s torso press against his back.
“‘Cause you love me,” Kirishima said simply, pushing him toward the bedroom door. “And ‘cause I love you. Duh.”
“Fuck you, shitty hair,” Bakugou hissed affectionately.
“Maybe later,” joked Kirishima. Fortunately his reflexes were good enough (as well as Bakugou’s behavior being predictable enough) for him to jerk his hands out of the way before Katsuki could reach up and bite one of his fingers. Laughing, he said, “Hey, man, you’re gonna ruin the surprise.”
If Bakugou had any more snide remarks, he kept them to himself as he was coaxed somewhere that smelled like paint, paint, paint. The acrylic aroma nearly had him sneezing and he swore if he didn’t love this shit for hair so much he would’ve yanked his hands away and retreated back to bed.
“The fuck did you do, spill paint everywhere?”
“Close, but not quite,” Eijirou said. “Ready?”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Bakugou blinked irritatedly into the sudden light as Kirishima’s hands withdrew from his eyes and slid down to his hips instead. At first Bakugou’s surroundings made little sense; he was in a room he barely recognized, staring at a wall he’d never seen before.
Well, of course he’d seen it before—it was in his own house—but he’d never seen the fucking masterpiece that now decorated it entirely, top to bottom and left to right; every square inch of the once white wall was covered by something that only Kirishima’s hands could’ve created.
Against the sky alight by the setting sun were the silhouettes of skyscrapers, in front of them a body of water blurrily reflecting the scene behind it. The sky faded from orange to blue to black the higher up it went, the buildings dotted with white to illuminate their windows. It was a simple painting, but every little detail was there and in perfect array, shadows and reflections glinted off the rippling water. Even the moon—the sliver of its crescent hanging in the right corner was reflected in the water. A few stars dotted in at the very top in an otherwise completely clear sky.
“Sooo?” Kirishima asked, chin resting on Bakugou’s shoulder, the grin never having left his face. “Whaddaya think?”
“It… doesn’t suck,” Bakugou said in a soft voice, one Eijirou had only heard him use once or twice in the years the two had known each other—one that had his insides fluttering in delight, because the last time he’d heard that voice was two months ago when Katsuki agreed to marry him.
“Aww!” Kirishima nuzzled into Bakugou’s neck. “I’m glad you like it, babe.”
“So did you do this all last night or what?”
“Nah, it’s taken me a couple weeks. I just stayed up to finish it last night.” Suddenly, Kirishima lifted his head. “Wait, you sayin’ you had no idea?”
Bakugou crossed his arms, scowling at the painting he couldn’t take his eyes off of. “No,” he grumbled, the word practically inaudible.
“Really?” Kirishima beamed. “I thought you’d at least be a little suspicious.”
Bakugou harrumphed. “I dunno, I guess I thought you were doing commissions or someshit.”
“Nope. Did this all for you.”
“Hmph. What for?”
“‘Cause.” Eijirou turned Katsuki around toward the window and pointed at the guitar sitting peacefully in its stand, right in the corner next to Bakugou’s leather stool and aluminum music stand. “I’m gonna turn this into a music studio for you, and I figured you should have something to inspire you.”
“You think your dumb art is what inspires me?” Katsuki said.
“Nah, man, I know that’s me, but this is for when I’m not here.”
When Bakugou said nothing, Kirishima continued in a quieter tenor, “We can paint back over it if you wanna.”
Katsuki turned and grabbed Kirishima by the face, wrapping his hand underneath his jaw and squishing his cheeks forward. “Paint over it and I’ll push you off the balcony.”
Kirishima only had a second to smile again—a very squished smile—before Katsuki kissed him, short and rough but very sweet. Kirishima’s following chuckle petered out into a yawn after Bakugou released his face.
“Man, ‘m tired,” he mumbled past it.
“No shit?”
Kirishima draped himself over Bakugou’s shoulders, leaning most of his weight into the other. “Carry me to bed,” he mumbled. “I stayed up all night for you.”
Bakugou’s hands clasped onto Eijirou’s shoulders with the instinct of shoving him off—one that was ingrained in him whenever he was touched but had been working on suppressing since the two of them started dating. Clearly, old habits died hard.
“Take yourself to bed, shitty hair. Not like I asked you to stay up till the asscrack of dawn.”
“Awww,” Kirishima drawled, “but I did it for you, babe.”
Katsuki grumbled irritably. “You’re a pain in the ass, Kirishima.”
“But you love me,” the redhead sang sleepily into the blonde’s shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah,” Katsuki sighed. With that he knelt down just long enough to wrap an arm around the back of Kirishima’s knees and hefted him up onto his shoulder. Eijirou yelped in surprise as he was lifted, instinctively grabbing at the back of Bakugou’s shirt.
“This isn’t what I meant, man!” he shouted, squirming.
Katsuki felt himself grin. “Be more specific next time, then,” he retorted.
Kirishima’s face was flushed by the time Bakugou lowered him into their bed, his hair even messier than before. Still, he grinned, reaching up for a fistful of Katsuki’s shirt to pull him down for a kiss—not as rough as Bakugou’s from before, but holding the same kind of passion. Bakugou grunted at the sudden impact, his hands fumbling to catch himself but ending up molding against Eijirou’s chest anyway, causing them both to sink into the mattress.
Kirishima ended up smiling into the kiss, letting his arms find their way around Bakugou’s slender waist as the blonde broke their lips apart. He pressed his face into Bakugou’s shoulder, not minding a single bit that the other was literally laying on him.
“Guess what, Katsuki?”
“What, dumb hair?” Bakugou asked, eyes shut.
“I love you, like, more than the whole world.”
“...I know, idiot.” Katsuki’s fingers tangled in the stiff hair at the crown of Eijirou’s head, his own head tucking down closer to the other’s at the same time—a simple gesture, but it was his way of reciprocating the feeling, and Kirishima loved his way of telling him he loved him without words.
“And, uh, the painting—“
“You’re welcome, babe.”