did you maybe get any inspo for a cubs hiking or camping fic while on your trip👀👀
Have some Cubs fun in the evergreen Canadian forest! (And some contemplative Tremzy)
Credits to @lumosinlove !!
“Honey, slow down, we’re almost ready.”
“But I’m excited, peanut!” Finn bounced on his toes. “I’m so fucking ready.”
Logan shook his head and grabbed a small white bottle from his bag. “Non, you’re not, ici.”
Finn dutifully stood still as Logan rubbed sunscreen over his face, finishing with a gentle pass of his fingers on Finn’s cheeks. Logan kissed where his fingers had been and stood back down on his heels. “Bien. Okay, let’s go.”
Finn spun around and began walking quickly toward the trailhead, whistling as he went. Leo and Logan stood and watched him for a second before looking at each other with amused smiles.
“Do you think we should just let him run ahead?” Leo asked as he took Logan’s hand.
Logan shrugged. “Maybe. But then it’s not a date.”
“Honey, we’re basically dating a puppy, we’ve gotta let him run.”
Logan laughed and leaned into Leo’s side for a brief moment. Leo winked and kissed the side of his head before letting go of his hand. “C’mon. I have a feeling this hike isn’t going to be a lovely stroll with him around.”
They met Finn where he was waiting by the trailhead, greeting another group of hikers in broken, enthusiastic French. Logan and Leo said a polite ‘salut’ as well before they turned to Finn. He was grinning at them proudly, hands looped through the straps of his backpack like a little kid going to school. It made Logan’s heart melt just a little to see him there, in the Canadian forests he’d loved as a child, as a teenager, as a yearning and confused college student. It warmed Logan even further when Leo stepped into his sightline as well. He was so comfortable here, with his charming self and his perfect French. Logan could tell it made him happy when people were impressed and asked where he was from. He would answer them with a proud and slightly sheepish smile, and Logan could watch forever as his eyes lit up thinking of New Orleans.
Leo snapped one of the straps of Finn’s backpack. “Slow down there, speedy. Your boyfriends need to catch up with you.”
Finn just looked up at him gleefully. “I’m just so excited.” He turned Leo around and nudged him forward. “I think you should go first.”
“What?” Leo said, tripping slightly over a root as he began to walk up the sloped trail. “Why? You’re way faster.”
Finn shrugged. “No reason.” He reached for Logan as well. “You, too, baby.”
Logan shook his head at Finn fondly. “I know what you’re doing.”
Finn’s grin was the lovely and mischievous one Logan adored. “I know you know.” He nudged his chin towards Leo. “But he doesn’t.”
Logan turned to look at Leo, who was now a little further up the trail, and ran his eyes up and down his long, lean body. He smiled. “Si beau.”
“Mhm.” Finn leaned around to press a quick kiss to his cheek. “C’mon, can’t let sunshine get too far ahead.”
They followed Leo up the trail. Despite his long legs, he didn’t hike particularly fast. He liked to take in the nature around him and stooped to touch moss or examine leaves frequently. Every now and then, too, he’d hum when he found a particularly interesting leaf. He’d even brought the identification book Logan had got him at a local shop in Rimouski, with all of the local flora and fauna. Leo smiled every time he found a match and nodded satisfactorily. Logan found it incredibly adorable.
After the fifth time they’d stopped to examine a leaf, Leo sighed on a steep section and turned to look at Finn. “Are you sure you don’t want to go ahead, sweetheart? You’ll be able to move a lot faster.”
Finn shook his head fondly. “No, baby, I want to walk with you.” His eyes turned playful. “Plus, walking behind you has its advantages.”
Leo looked confused for a second, eyes narrowed, before he rolled them with a blushing grin. “You’re staring at my ass, aren’t you?”
“Oh, absolutely. And Lo’s.” He emphasized his statement with a loving pat on Logan’s butt. “I gotta say, it’s a nice view.”
Logan laughed. “The view is at the top!”
“That view’s overrated. I prefer this one.”
Logan couldn’t take it anymore. He turned and planted a kiss right on Finn’s lips. They were both sweaty in the humid August heat, but Logan still loved the smell of him, all mixed up with the scents of the woods. He pulled away after a moment and flicked Finn’s cheek gently. “You’re so weird.”
“And yet, you love me.” He gave Logan’s butt one more soft pat, then looked up the trail at Leo, who had bent to look at something on a rock. “You ready sunshine?” he called.
“Look, I found a newt!” A pause. “Oh, he’s so cute, come see!”
Finn caught Logan’s eye. “We’re looking at a cute newt right now, actually.”
Leo just shook his head, but Logan could see his cheeks were red. “No, I’m serious, come see!”
Logan and Finn looked at each other, smiling widely before answering Leo’s call.
Their hike continued as such. Leo would stop every now and then to look at something interesting he found, and Logan and Finn would listen as he murmured under his breath while he flipped through the tiny book. Eventually, they reached where they could see the top, and Finn bounded ahead, pressing smacking kisses to their cheeks on the way. By the time they got there, Leo and Logan found him sitting on a rock, bag of trail mix already in hand munching while looking at the view. When they turned around, he smiled widely. “Oh, look! The view has arrived!”
Leo laughed and went to sit beside him, snatching some trail mix for himself. While they were talking, Logan took a look at the view. He’d been up here dozens of times: with his sisters, his parents, his high school friends. It was a beautiful view, all rolling evergreen hills and endless sky, even so close to the city. The air was fresh and crisp, and he inhaled against the memories.
There was one summer weekend in college he came up here with his former high school teammates, all slightly hungover from a reunion party in late May, to watch the sunrise. He remembered some of them had brought their college girlfriends with them. Logan and a boy named Riley, who he hadn’t been close with but was nice enough, had been the only ones without girlfriends. Someone made a joke, saying they should kiss, and Riley had been so nervous red had shone through on his brown cheeks. Logan had told them to knock it off, giving his teammate a nudge, and that was that. But Logan had been hoping they couldn’t hear how fast his breathing was, how his heart had been about to pump out of his chest. In that moment, his gaze had landed on one of his teammate’s girlfriends, who had bright red hair and lots of freckles. He had to excuse himself to go lie down on a rock, alone.
He felt two arms wrap around him, and two hands appeared to unclasp the buckles on his backpack and ease the straps off his shoulders. “You okay, sweetheart?”
Logan nodded. “Ouais. Just- thinking.”
Leo hummed. He set Logan’s bag down and rested his hands on Logan’s hips. “You wanna talk about it?”
“Non, mon amour, not right now. I’ll tell you later.”
“Okay.” Leo kissed his shoulder. “You hungry, honey? I made us BLTs with that homemade mayo sauce you like.”
Logan smiled. He wrapped Leo’s arms fully around himself. “Ouais, merci. Sounds good.”
Leo squeezed him tightly before letting go to lead him over to where Finn was watching them. He had his phone out and was looking at something. “Look,” he said, showing it to them. “Got my new lockscreen.”
Logan bent down to peek at it and smiled. Leo really was much taller than him; Logan never noticed that he had to look up that much to smile at him. “Can you send it to me, please, rouge?”
“Already did, babe.” Finn chucked his phone down onto his bag and reclined a bit with a sigh. “This is the life, man.”
“Glad you like it, sweetheart,” Leo said. He was shuffling through his own backpack. “You hungry? Want a sandwich?”
Finn squinted at him in the bright sun. “You’re so cute, always making sure we’re well fed.”
“Well, we just exercised for two hours in the sun! I just don’t want you to get dizzy on the way down or-”
Finn just cupped his face and interrupted him with a kiss. “It’s a good thing, baby. I’d love one of your BLTs.”
Leo nodded, a little grin on his face. “That’s what I thought.”
They ate their sandwiches under a shaded section of rocks at Leo’s insistence, facing the view as the sun began to dip just past noon. Finn sat through Logan rubbing more sunscreen on him before he waggled his eyebrows and pulled a bag of M&Ms out of his backpack. “Peanut M&Ms for you, peanut!”
The colored sugar dyed their tongues different colors. Finn only ate the green ones in an attempt to ‘become a leprechaun’, as he so called it, which left Leo and Logan with a myriad selection. Logan let the sweetness settle over his tongue, followed by the crunchiness of the peanut, for a moment. He watched as Finn insisted Leo throw one into his mouth. Finn caught it, to no one’s surprise, and he leaned over Logan’s head to press a smacking kiss to Leo’s cheek in victory. When his eyes landed on Logan, they were contemplative. “What’s up, Lolo?”
Logan shrugged. “Just thinking.”
“Yikes, you feeling okay?”
Logan tried to look unimpressed. “That is getting old.” He leaned into Leo’s thigh that was touching his own. A sigh escaped him. “I once came up here during summer in college. With my high school teammates.”
“Oh?” Leo’s eyes were questioning, but he was still smiling for Logan. “Did you have fun?”
“Ouais, I guess.” Logan looked out at the view. How could something once so normal to him feel so uncomfortable now? “We all got drunk at a party, then decided to climb up for the sunrise. I don’t know why, it was awful. We were so hungover.”
Leo laughed. “You know, sometimes I forget you both had a wild side.”
“Had?” Finn looked offended. “We’re still perfectly wild.”
“What, with your nine-thirty read-aloud story time?”
“You love story time!” Finn scooched over and threw his right leg over Logan’s, leaning in to pinch Leo’s bicep. “And you’re wild too, peanut.”
Leo snorted. “In the kitchen, maybe.”
“In other places, too,” Finn replied with a sharp grin.
That made Logan take in a sharp breath. The memory of what his teammates said to him throbbed against his skull like it was trying to escape. Everything he felt back then, the yearning, the want, the shame, suddenly felt so close he could taste it. He wondered if this weight on his chest would ever lift, if he would ever stop being surprised and in awe of the beautiful life he got to live with Leo and Finn. He both wanted it gone and wanted it to press down against him harder, until all he could do was sink into the feeling of their bodies around him.
“Lo?” Leo asked, dipping his head to whisper in Logan’s ear. “You okay sweetheart?”
“Ouais,” Logan said. He cleared his throat. “Ouais, it’s just… mais, the day, when I came up here with my teammates?” He looked for their confirming nods before continuing. “Everyone came with girlfriends. Except me and another guy. Some of the others- well…”
Finn’s face suddenly appeared in his sightline. Logan was so grateful they were the only ones at the top. “They… implied some not nice things about us. Said we should’ve done some stuff together.” He heard Leo suck in a breath from beside him. Finn’s eyes bored into his own. “And then one of my teammates had a girlfriend with red hair. And freckles.”
Finn, for once, didn’t say anything. He just cupped the back of Logan’s head and brought it to his shoulder, holding him there. He smelled like sweat, and summer air, and Finn, and Logan gripped his hip as he breathed him in. Finn kissed the side of his head, letting his lips rest there, and Logan felt something in himself begin to heal.
“Lo,” Leo said softly. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
Logan ducked his nose into Finn’s neckline one more time before sitting up. “Non, non it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, what they said, but I am. I’m okay.” He turned to face Leo and kissed him softly. “I’m so good.”
“Good,” Leo whispered against his mouth. “That makes me happy.”
Logan smiled. “Ouais.” He pulled back to look at Leo. “Are you happy?”
Leo softened. The light reflected off his curls and his white teeth as he smiled. He was beautiful always, but especially when he looked at Logan like that. Like he was his. “Yeah.”
“Bien.” He turned his body slightly to settle with his back to Leo’s chest, grinning as Leo let out an amused laugh. Logan reached his hand out to tangle his fingers with Finn’s. “Are you happy?”
Finn’s brown eyes were golden in the summer sun. He looked like a figment of every one of younger Logan’s dreams. “More and more every day.”
“Bien,” Logan said again. He kissed Finn’s fingers then caught his eye with a challenging look. “Race you down.” Then he grabbed the trash leftover from their lunch, stuffed it in his bag, and stood to begin jogging down the trail.
“Oh no you don’t, ten!”
“Will you two please be careful? I don’t want you to fall!”
Logan smiled as their laughter and footsteps followed him. He spared one look behind him to catch the view and his boys against it before picking up his pace and running down the mountain.