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Billy Gibson can't believe this is his life now: walking for hours on end, breathless, sweaty and sleepless. He feels the muscles in is legs aching, he had a cramp earlier that morning but that didn't stop the march, the straps, tight on his chest with the weight he carries, don't help him keeping balance.
They've been out since dawn, rocky terrain under his feet. The early hours had been cold, now the sun is high and he's sweating. In this landscape everything is against him. There are no breaks nor pauses, at least not until lunch time, he's tried to get them to stop but nobody wants to hear his pleas. There's only a strange unnatural silence around them. Billy sighs, wonders if he's ever going to make it alive, to go back home in one piece, the only thing left is for him to focus on is his breath.
"Christ, Billy" Solomon blurts, turning back towards him "it's only been an hour. And this is the EASY path"
"I know" Billy answers irked, he doesn't want to start this conversation again.
"Last month you dragged us to see Cats and I didn't say a thing" Sol starts the conversation again, but at least slows down. "This month we do ONE thing that I like and you only complain"
"MY thing didn't drain all of us physically and psychologically. And you said you liked it!" Damn Solomon Tozer and his gym addicted brain that doesn't appreciate art.
"Come on, it's not that bad" Cornelius reaches up to them, "it's a good chance to take a break from the pollution of the city and for us to connect with nature"
"Has Sol paid you for this ad?" Billy snorts.
"I mean it" Neil says, a little offended that Billy could think someone can convince him to do anything. "When was the last time you heard birds singing uh?" he raises an eyebrow, "Constantly worrying about material things and bills..."
Cornelius is impossible to reason with when he starts these sermons.
"...Stepping away from it will give you some prospective"
"Thanks" Sol agrees, not that he proposed a nature trek to get away from the grind and capitalism. Tozer likes exercise and woods and getting up before dawn to drive an hour just to exercise in the woods.
Billy can't win. There's going to be no break. "How much longer is it then?" he sighs.
"Depends on how fast we go" Sol sprints ahead.
"Just another hour I think" Cornelius stays next to him and waits for Billy to move first. "But I think once get there, there's going to be a pretty view. You could take a few pics" he smiles softly.
It takes them more than an hour to get to the camping area. There is a nice view from it, the hills in front of them are green with the sun shining high above them. If they stay until dawn the sky will turn orange and the hills dark, and that will be a pretty picture.
"Guys, I'm starving" Neil whines watching his boyfriends getting the blanket out of Solomon's bag and painstakingly slowly spreading it on the grass.
"God, give us a minute"
"You can help if you want to it to be faster"
Cornelius instead remains sat on a very comfortable log, if they'd brought a tent they could've spent the night there, light a fire (he knows the sign banning fires in the zone are for amateurs, which he's not), cook something with it, taste something genuine for once, unaltered real food they would hunt by themselves. Then they would keep warm by cuddling together. Cornelius would sleep in the middle (like he does in their bed at home) and the clean air would welcome them in the morning.
No phone signal, no people, no pressure. They could be the realest version of themselves.
He takes off his shoes and when the blanket is ready he sits on it, legs crossed, he sinks an arm in his bag and touches around for their lunch boxes. Slowly, pretending there's nothing there. The others sit next to him. Sol has the time to get the water out his bag and fill three glasses.
"Oh, stop it already" Billy sighs and stretches his arm to get the lunch out himself. He should have known better. It's a trap. Neil bites his bicep.
"Ouch!"
Sol laughs. "He said he was hungry"
Solomon had made sure the lunches were a good proportion of protein (even Billy's silly vegetarian alternative) and carbs. He brought electrolytes and dissolved them in the water they drank along the way. Then, just in case, he carried a few sugar bags and protein bars. From a dietary standpoint they were good, more than good actually. From an I'd-love-to-finish-this-meal-with-a-dessert point of views instead, he hadn't thought so far ahead.
Neil fights a fly over his last bite of lunch and slaps his tight to kill an imaginary bug. When he's finally done he voices Tozer's thoughts.
"I have to do everything in this relationship" Billy smiles and more skilled than a magician presents them with a small marvel: Cornelius favorite snack, an overly sweet and processed small cake.
Cream and strawberries said the package, it tasted nothing like that, not even of their artificial taste. But Neil liked them, said he grew up on them and that they used to be cheaper before some big corp bought the original business, so he started stealing them ever since. Hopefully this line of protest would make them fail soon and they'll stop poisoning waters around the world. They agree to buy from local businesses and small brands, still Billy turned white as a ghost when he and Hickey walked out of the store and the blond revealed his crime.
They went grocery shopping separately ever since and Neil forbid them to buy the snacks. He would have taken care of it himself. Billy didn't want to know more about the matter.
Cornelius surprise at his favorite dessert turns in fact into a silent question, one brow raised, asking if Billy had really sold his morals over a snack.
"It's from your secret stash" Billy clarifies and Neil smiles flattered, happy.
Then once again Gibson takes another sweet out of his bag, Sol's favorite, a chocolate and caramel bar, which to avoid any drama with his boyfriends comes from only ethical sources. He doesn't care about brands as long as the food tasted good.
Billy had just gained himself two pairs of grateful eyes and two big sweet kisses when he finally gets out a snack for himself.
The air is warm, their bellies full and the grass soft. Kissing and cuddling and pointing at clouds, drowsiness glides over them.
Billy and Sol hold hands on Cornelius' chest, their heads half on his shoulders, half on the pillows Billy carried in his bag.
Neil caresses their hair and when the chats naturally fades he pauses and grabs the book he always carries with him. He starts reading out loud.
It isn't one of his usual stories, there's no ambiguously detailed crime, no murders... no sex! It's actually a strangely wholesome story about mice building cute little houses out of boots and twigs and small trinkets they found around. It's so warm and cozy Billy and Sol share a worried glance, up until they start connecting the details in the background: the other animals running away and not migrating, the fires and sounds in the distance that aren't the birds celebrating springs.
"Nooo!!" Billy complains when it starts to be obvious that civilization is coming for the mice.
"Don't do it" Sol helps, suddenly the survival of a few imaginary rodents wearing hats and eating meals out of buttons has become very personal and very important.
"Please!"
Cornelius laughs, genuine and warm. He admires his boyfriends' worried stares.
"If it goes on like that, I don't want to hear the rest"
"Okay, okay" Neil smiles and kisses his boyfriends' foreheads before the outrage makes them leave. He closes his notebook and tosses it aside. "I'm glad you got passionate about it" he kisses them again and stays silent brows raising and relaxing until his mind conceives a satisfying ending for both parties.
The colony of rodents moves, they have to leave behind their favorite tiny shirts and the giant flower they use as forniture. It's sad but they all make it alive.
It must be one of the first time Neil tells a happy ending, not an ambiguous one. The mice build everything back up again and go on living their lives.
There's a sigh of relief coming from both of his boyfriends.
"You happy now?" Neil asks.
The answer comes in form of kisses and by the quality and amount it seems his men are satisfied enough. Well, he doesn't want to put a limit on how much he can make them ecstatic.
"Billy!!" Solomon calls, "We're leaving."
"I'm almost done" it took him a while to get the right saturation for the pictures, but the golden hour rewarded him with the prettiest light.
Neil took pics under his direction and when Billy's new profile picture came with just the right angle, Billy managed to also get some artistic photos of his boyfriends. One could even make it as a new lockscreen. Cornelius hated having pictures taken and forbid Billy to ever post his face on social medias (acting like a secret spy since day one) but in the end he agreed on posing only if Billy kept it between them.
"I don't want to hear you complain if you sprain your ankle in the dark" Sol calls again.
"Yeah, and this damn place is filling with bugs" Neil slaps his own neck.
The path downhill is easier and the drive home faster than in the morning.
Hickey is the first to shower.
"When did you take this one?" Solomon appears from behind Billy's back. In the picture Tozer sits on a log, face in the sun, a flower behind his ear.
"When you were talking about edible plants to eat in case of getting stranded in the woods"
"You always talk about eating plant based." Sol kisses his cheek. "And" he whispers in Billy's ear "I liked Cats, by the way. It didn't made sense, but I liked it"
Gibson is about to make a brief explanation of the plot when Cornelius gets out of the bathroom brows frowning. "You see this?" he point at a reddened spot on his back. "Do you think it's a spider? Will it get infected?"
Solomon studies the bite, pinches it softly between his fingers, "It'll pass. Give it a couple of days, tops" he kisses the spot.
"Oh, I have a cream for those" Billy says. Neil won't stop complaining for days.