Hiking Fail

            “No, Ben, we already hiked ourselves out /today/!” Eli complained. He put his feet up into Ben’s lap, pressing his toes into his stomach demandingly until Ben started to rub one of his feet. “We went /all/ over the place, Ben. Up into the woods and stuff and down by the lake and up the cliff! I don’t wanna go tomorrow. I wanna just swim or something. Can’t Keiran and I just stay here and you and Lee can go hiking?”

            Keir nodded tiredly, stretching out over Lee’s lap on the couch across from Ben and Eli. “Yeah, pleeeease? My feet hurt and my back hurts and my /bum/ hurts,” he whined, looking up at Lee imploringly. Lee made a face at his lover, wrinkling his nose up and Keiran squirmed. “I fellll!” he filled in. “Can we just stay here tomorrow? Please? Please? We’ll be good!”

            Ben sighed. “You can stay here, but we’re not just hiking around here,” he warned them. “We’ll be driving to actual hiking trails, up into the mountains. Probably be gone early in the morning and back late tomorrow night,” he told them. Eli shrugged a little bit, although he wasn’t sure he wanted both the Tops to leave them alone if it was going to be all day.

            Keiran, however, thought it was a marvelous idea. “Okay. We’ll be okay, right Eli? We’ll sleep in and we’ll go swimming and we’ll walk Chester. I don’t wanna climb a mountain, Lee. I’m too little for that. You guys go.”

            Ben moved onto Eli’s other foot. “Alright. You can stay,” he agreed, looking up at Lee who nodded his assent. “But you have to help us get our things packed up tonight so we’re ready to go in the morning,” he compromised. Keiran nodded readily.

            “What do you need?” he asked, already squirming out of Lee’s lap to gather the necessary items.

…

            “Got everything?” Lee asked as Ben helped him load the SUV with their bags. It was a little past six-thirty in the morning; they’d been up since six. Eli and Keiran were still sound asleep in the cottage. Ben put their packs in the back, followed by their lunches.

            “I believe so. I left Keir and Eli a note and a set of keys and both our phone numbers as well as my parents’ number, in case anything happens. They’ve got food and my car and pretty much anything else they need. And thanks to them, we didn’t have to pack last night,” he added with a grin. Eli and Keiran had packed everything for them while they’d started the fire the night before. Ben had just had to make their lunch in the morning and they were set to go.

            Lee climbed up into the passenger side, letting Ben take the wheel. He took a sip of his travel mug full of coffee, closing his eyes as Ben backed out of the lane and headed up the dirt road to join the mountain road, glancing in the rearview one last time before the cottage disappeared from sight.

They’d be fine, wouldn’t they?

…

            Eli woke Keiran at noon, bounding into the bedroom with a happy shriek and flopping on top of him in the big bed. “Up! Get up!” he squealed, shaking him awake. Keiran kicked him off with a laugh.

            “They’re /gone/! We’re here alone!” Eli squealed. Keir giggled and crawled out of bed.

            “What should we do first? Swim? Shower? Breakfast?” Keiran asked, tugging shorts on over his boxers. Eli shrugged. “Breakfast,” he decided, and Keir followed him to the kitchen to go through the cupboards.

            “We should go get junk food,” Eli announced. “There’s nothing good here,” he said. Keiran nodded and snagged Ben’s keys from on top of the note, ignoring the paper underneath.

            “To the store, then?” he suggested, and Eli easily followed him.

…

            They’d made it to the base of the mountain before noon and Ben suggested stopping for lunch so they wouldn’t have to lug their lunch things up the mountain paths. They’d made it to the hiking trails just after eight-thirty, after two hours of driving. Lee had fallen asleep on the way, his sweater tucked around him as he reclined his chair, trusting Ben to follow the map.

            When they’d arrived, they’d sat and drank their coffee, quietly organizing their things before they hefted their bags and started off. It had taken them four hours on the trails from the road up through the woods and finally to the mountains. The trails had been fairly good, mostly clear and dry after the summer heat.

            Lee checked the time on his phone, showing Ben when he asked the time. “I’ve got no signal,” he lamented after he’d swallowed his bite. “I hope nothing happens; they’re not gonna be able to reach us up here.”

            Ben sipped his water bottle. “Well, they should be fine. As long as neither of them tries to cook, nothing bad can happen,” he teased. Lee grinned at that. “True.” He sighed and stretched as he put his hat on again and searched through his bag for sunscreen.

            When he didn’t find any, he started disassembling his bag for a more thorough search. “Did I leave mine behind?” he asked Ben. “I guess Keiran kept ours.”

            Ben shook his head a little bit. “No, I left mine for the boys,” he said, searching his bag to be sure. “I don’t have my bugspray either,” he told Lee. “Or my extra water.” Lee groaned. “Shit. I’ve got water; it should do us. But its getting hot out,” he mourned.

            Ben nodded faintly, putting his lunch things away. Lee followed suit, and they left the bag in the little clearing, taking Lee’s extra water bottles and dividing them up – so that both men had one extra plus whatever they had left from their first ones.

            By two, they’d made it a far distance up the mountain through the paths. Ben had suggested going back, thinking it might be too hot but the sky had darkened and it had cooled a little as they climbed. It rained a bit and they took shelter under a stand of trees, continuing upward when it let up.

When they got close to the top, however, the sun made a reappearance and Lee ran out of water. It was /hot/ and Ben felt a headache coming as he took his hat off and swiped a line of sweat from his forehead. Lee squatted in the dirt, looking back the way they’d come.

He was burned, Ben noted. All across his back and shoulders – he had taken his shirt off after the rain; it’d been soaked through – as well as his chest and face. Ben made a face and offered the older man his water bottle and they shared the last bit of it.

“We’re gonna have to go back,” Ben said. It was at least three hours back down, without water. And then a four-hour hike back through the woods to the road and a two-hour drive back to the cottage. They were looking at eight hours before they could get home, which, if they started now, would take them to just around midnight.

“We’re screwed,” Ben muttered hopelessly. Lee stood, swaying a little. “Well, we can’t sit around here. If we can make it down to the bottom, we left water there with our lunch things, right?” he asked, pressing the heel of his hand to his eyes. Ben groaned; it was still a three-hour trek down!

“Yes. We’re gonna have to,” he agreed. Lee hefted his bag with a quiet hiss of pain and they started back down the mountainside.

…

            “Ugh, Eli, I don’t think I could eat another bite,” Keiran moaned, pushing the empty bag of chips away from himself. Eli giggled and hiccupped at the same time, which he found infinitely amusing and he broke into loud laughter. Keiran giggled a little himself, rolling off the couch.

            They had picked up mountains of junk food from the local store – four bags of chips, dip, nacho-ingredients, six different kinds of candy, twinkies, ho-hos, passion flakes, ice cream, an assortment of pop and Keiran had convinced the store owner to order them two pizzas to be delivered to the cottage.

            They were stuffed. Empty wrappers and packaging were strewn everywhere. They’d shared the pizza with the dog, despite wanting to eat a whole large pizza each. Keiran had insisted they go swimming and they’d recklessly dived for a few hours off the cliffs that lined the water’s edge, took Chester on a /long/ walk – which was really nothing but they were going to tell Lee and Ben an exaggerated tale.

            It was nearly seven by the time they crashed, their stomachs past the point of fullness and feeling sick. Eli crawled over to Keir and pushed his head into his stomach, yawning.

            “We should clean up,” he said, knowing Ben and Lee would be back at some point and not happy about their junk food fest. Keiran groaned however and Eli decided he was right – that was too much work right now – and he snuggled into his side and promptly fell asleep.

…

            Lee was looking worse as they descended and Ben wished he had packed their bags, not Eli and Keiran. Stupid. They shouldn’t have trusted them with that. The whole time they’d been packing, they’d only whined about how long it was taking and why wasn’t the fire ready?

            He stepped down one of the numerous rocky slopes, trying to go carefully since it was slippery from the rain. He turned to warn Lee but the older man had already descended behind him and slipped, losing his footing and crashing down some two or three feet to the rocky path below, slamming both knees hard into the rocks. Ben heard a crunch followed by Lee cursing, rather loudly.

            “Fuck. Ow,” he groaned, shifting off his knees with an open hiss of pain. Both knees were scraped open, one far worse than the other. Ben dropped to his knees and Lee looked up at him.

            “I just landed on my glasses,” he practically wailed and sure enough, when Ben looked more closely, his glasses were broken under his knee, bits and pieces of the glass all stuck in his skin.

            “Shit,” Ben agreed.

            Lee scooted back away from the glass and tried to pick the bits from his knee but it was bleeding pretty badly and he was shaking, hot and tired and in pain. “Best part of this stupid hiking trip, I have to say,” he complained, “I can’t even /see/.”

            Ben helped him up carefully, squatting to pull out as much of the glass as he could. Lee toed the broken frames with a sigh, squinting into the distance. It was getting dark.

            “We have to keep going,” Ben said apologetically and Lee only nodded and started out for the path once more, going a lot more slowly now and not refusing Ben’s help as his energy flagged. He was achy and sore and his sunburn was killing him; he was bleeding and tired and he felt like throwing up. And he was all but blind.

            /Never/ again was he going to entrust Keiran with /anything/.

…

            It was nearly ten when Eli woke up and figured they’d need to clean. He tidied everything fairly quickly, doing a good job of hiding all the evidence. Keir helped a little but mostly he just lazed about. Eli did manage to get him to start a fire in the little woodstove and they curled up on the couch to wait for their Tops to return.

            A little after midnight, Eli was worried and a little bit scared. Keiran had cried for a good hour before he’d fallen asleep against Eli but Eli was trying to hold out. A few tears escaped him when he heard howling in the distance and he squirmed closer to Keiran – who had been lying with his head on Eli’s chest on the couch.

            He wasn’t going to go into hysterics. He /couldn’t/. How could he work himself up without Ben there to bring him back down again? He took deep shuddering breaths, feeling panicky despite his best efforts. How could Keiran /sleep/ at a time like this? Bears were probably eating Ben and Lee as they sat there, doing nothing!

            The more he thought about it, the worse it got until he was sobbing loudly, breath coming in loud gasps. He felt his chest tighten and his tears wouldn’t stop and he just felt /bad/. Keiran woke up and told him to shut up but when Eli couldn’t even form a coherent sentence and choked on his sob, Keiran became concerned.

            “Eli, shush. Nothing’s wrong with you,” Keiran tried to scold, but Eli only cried harder. “B-Ben! Keir, K-Keir, Ben and and out there and bears and and and and m’scared!” he wailed, gagging dramatically. Keiran gagged a little himself, thinking Eli was going to puke and he tried to calm him down, to no avail.

            Eventually he just called for an ambulance and sat across from Eli on the couch. Eli was having trouble catching his breath and he kept gagging and almost throwing up and Chester was barking loudly and all Eli wanted was Ben to be alive and safe and not being eaten by a bear.

…

            Lee couldn’t sit comfortably in the SUV. Ben cranked the AC, sitting in the rapidly cooling car, drinking. He knew he couldn’t complain – Lee was so much worse than he was – but his head was /pounding/. He started the car and headed for the cottage. It was just past ten-thirty.

            It took longer to get home than Ben had expected. He had to stop more than once, Lee limping away from the car to throw up. He still had no signal on his cellphone out here. Lee was practically passed out in the backseat by the time he pulled into the cottage around twelve-thirty.

            He hadn’t been expecting sirens and flashing lights. He was out of the car and in the cottage in seconds. Keiran was sitting frozen on the couch, eyes on Eli, who was being manhandled by two paramedics towards the door, one trying to force an oxygen mask over his mouth.

           

            When he saw Ben, he sobbed gratefully and sank to his knees, wriggling loose of their grip. Ben pushed through the paramedics and collected Eli into his arms. Eli took huge gulping breaths as Ben soothed him, trying to force him to match his breathing. It took a while but Eli eventually calmed, letting Ben take control of the situation.

            Lee stumbled in, looking about in obvious confusion. One of the paramedics forced him to sit while he cleaned up his cuts and bandaged his knees. Keiran crawled over to squeeze his hand gently, concerned and confused.

            By the time Ben got the ambulance and police to leave, it was well past one. Eli was clinging to him, refusing to let him go. Lee had passed out in bed finally when Ben had ordered Keiran to take him there; he was naked to his boxers and Keir had liberally applied aloe vera lotion to his burnt skin.

            Keir had promptly curled against him, holding his hand tightly as he too fell asleep, his stomach still so full.

            Eli sniffled pathetically, clinging to Ben in his lap on the couch. He couldn’t seem to stop crying, despite Ben’s best efforts.

            “Y-you took /so/ long, Ben. So long. I thought, I thought you’d been e-eaten! By bears. And Keiran told me to shut up and I couldn’t s-stop crying, Ben! You shouldn’t s-scare me like that! I’m just /little/! I was soo soo scared, Benny.”

            Ben hooked him close and Eli subsided into his arms, hugging him tightly. He closed his eyes, listening to Ben’s easy breathing and the familiar beating of his heart in his chest and he sighed, feeling safe.

            “Ben, Ben, Ben, you won’t go away again, right? You won’t go hiking again, ever, right? Right?” he asked quietly, voice hitching. Ben sighed, kissing his hair.

            “Well, maybe some other time we might. But we’ll be taking you guys with us. And we’ll be the ones to pack our bags,” he added, patting Eli’s hip. Eli hiccupped, nodding. “Its Keir’s fault. He didn’t think we could fit everything,” he whined. Ben rubbed Eli’s back.

            “We don’t pin the blame on others,” he reminded him quietly. Eli flushed and looked down, nodding. “You’ll both be punished, I’m sure. Once Lee gets over his bout of heat stroke, anyways.” Eli sniffled sadly, nodding again slowly. Ben hooked him close and scooped him into his arms to take him to bed. He felt something under his foot and set Eli down to investigate.

            It was a forgotten ho-ho wrapper. Eli’s eyes widened and he looked at Ben, mouth opened. “Uh, that really was Keiran’s fault!” he shrieked – although it had been his idea in the first place – and took off running for the bedroom.