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“I can’t believe you convinced me to do this, you fucking twat.”
Izzy watched the building in the distance grow larger as they approached, grumbling along with the roar of their old, beat-up truck. Jack looked over at him, bathed in the early morning sunlight shining in through the windshield. He was wearing his usual grin, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on Izzy’s thigh. He gave it a squeeze, patting it a few times, nearly vibrating out of his skin with excitement.
“Come on, babe! It’s gonna be so fun!”
Izzy huffed, mouth twisting to hide the smile that tugged at his lips at Jack’s excitement, determined to stay grumpy for a bit longer.
Jack had hauled him out of bed at 5am, chipper and talking a mile a minute while Izzy struggled to gain his bearings, stumbling through his morning routine in a daze. The moment he came out of the bathroom, Jack had shoved a thermos of coffee in his hand and dragged him out of the apartment and down to the garage where their truck sat. They didn’t have much use for it in the city, with both of their jobs and any grocery shopping within walking distance. Jack had run his hand along the old red paint, chipping off to reveal rust in a few places, greeting his “old girl” in a fond voice. Then he looked at Izzy, hollering at him about how Jolene had been sitting idle too long and to hurry up and hop in or they were gonna be late.
Izzy had climbed in and immediately fallen back asleep, waking up only long enough to scarf down the two Egg McMuffins Jack had ordered for him in the McDonalds drive-thru and to refill his thermos with the swill they called coffee. He woke up at 7:30, finally sufficiently rested, listening to Jack sing along to Toby Keith and feeling the familiar rumble of the truck in his bones.
He sat up from where he had slumped down on the bench seat, feeling his back twinge in response. He reached for the thermos, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Jack snatched it from his hand, taking a swig himself before handing it back to him.
“Morning, Handsome! You get all your beauty sleep?”
Izzy took a drink, grimacing at the burnt flavor and rubbing at the muscle of his shoulder, trying to work out a kink that had formed while he slept.
“Would have been better in a fucking bed. How much further?”
Jack smiled, at least having the good sense to appear sheepish as Izzy scowled at him.
“‘Bout 30 minutes out. Figured it would be better to get there early before too many people crowd the place.”
Izzy sighed, knowing Jack was right. Izzy would have hated this even more if they got there during the busiest time of the day. But he wasn’t about to let Jack know that he knew Jack was right. He crossed his arms and settled in to sulk until they arrived.
Jack chuckled, reaching over and wrapping his hand around the far side of Izzy’s neck, pulling him in to plant a wet kiss on his temple. Izzy shoved him off, already softening around the edges when a new song began playing through the speakers. Jack whooped, punching the roof of the cab, his shit-eating grin growing even bigger as he looked at Izzy.
“It’s our song, baby!”
Izzy glowered at Jack as the intro played, horrified even at the thought.
“This is not our fucking song, Jack! Don’t even joke–”
But it was too late. Jack cranked the volume knob all the way up, serenading Izzy with a truly appalling rendition of ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ Izzy blustered, trying to ignore Jack but falling for the put-upon country accent hook, line, and sinker. His cheeks flushed pink, betraying him, when Jack tipped his ‘Girls Gone Wild Film Crew’ trucker hat at him. He turned quickly, staring resolutely through the windshield for the rest of Jack’s performance, doing a piss poor job of keeping his smile contained until the song was over.
He looked at Jack’s cheeky grin, set in his handsome face like a precious stone set in a ring. His own face felt hot, flustered as he always was by Jack. He watched Jack turn the radio back down and choked out a mostly-joking “I’m divorcing you for that.”
Jack shot him a wink, reaching over and pulling Izzy’s hand to his lips with an easy confidence. “Not a chance, Handsome. You’re stuck with me for life.”
Izzy grumbled, letting Jack link their fingers together, fighting unsuccessfully to hide the smile that tugged at his lips. “Yeah, I am.”
The rest of the drive went by, filled with half-hearted bickering about Jack stealing sips of Izzy’s remaining coffee, as if he needed the caffeine. He was already keyed up, his excitement increasing steadily for weeks, ever since Izzy agreed to this trip. The bar was adequately staffed for once, and Alma was on a break for school so Jack was free to take a much needed two-week vacation, knowing that Alma could hold down the fort while he was gone.
He’d been talking about going camping for years, almost as long as Izzy had known him. There was always a part of Jack that was stifled by the city, as much as he had built a life there for himself. He was a country boy at heart, had grown up playing in creeks and hiking around mountains, hunting and fishing and whatever else people did when they were in the middle of nowhere.
Izzy wasn’t like that. He liked the hustle and bustle of the city, liked the noise and the knowledge that there were too many people for anyone to care about anyone else’s business. It was a different kind of isolation from the country, but one that Izzy knew all too well. The idea of camping never appealed to him, sleeping on the ground with no access to running water didn’t sound particularly pleasant when most places had hotels.
But he loved Jack, and wanted to make him happy, and Jack had been working himself to the bone for months. So Izzy finally gave in, telling Jack to pick a destination, knowing he would never forget the way Jack’s face lit up or the way he kissed him afterwards.
So here Izzy was, still skeptical, but mostly content, watching his husband drive Jolene into the Bass Pro Shops parking lot, giddy as a little kid on Christmas morning. He chugged the last of his coffee as Jack pulled into a parking spot, the radio and the truck falling silent as he cut the ignition. It didn’t take more than a moment before Jack was out of the truck, bouncing on his toes as he waited for Izzy to climb out. The shirt he was wearing today said ‘YOU CAN GO TO HELL, I’M GOING TO TOYOTATHON.’ Izzy took a deep breath, steeling himself as he eyed up the frankly enormous log cabin in front of him and climbed out of the truck into the bright morning sunlight.
Jack paused his impatient fidgeting for a moment, watching Izzy squint and pulled something from his back pocket. It was a baseball hat. Jack uncreased the brim from where he had been sitting on it, shaping it in his hands before plopping it unceremoniously onto Izzy’s head.
“Got this for you, babe. You always forget your sunglasses at home.”
His smile was bright, mirth shining from his eyes as he grabbed Izzy’s hand, tugging him towards the entrance. Izzy grinned, warmed by Jack’s thoughtfulness.
“Yeah, well if someone wasn’t always rushing me through the door before I get a chance to fully wake up I wouldn’t forget shit like that.”
Jack laughed, mouth opening to give a rebuttal when he stopped dead in his tracks, eyes widening comically.
“Holy shit, Iz. They’ve got canoes. We should get a canoe. Why don’t we have a canoe? Let’s get a canoe!”
“Jack, I mean this with the utmost love but what the fuck would we do with a canoe?”
“We could take it on the river!”
“At the bottom of the Grand Canyon?”
Jack huffed, seeming to get the point, mouth twisting like he just ate something bad.
Izzy smiled fondly, tugging Jack out of his stupor. “C’mon, Jack. Maybe we can get a pool floatie or something.”
Jack perked up again, hand squeezing Izzy’s as they walked under the eaves. “The ones with the cup holders, right?”
Izzy pulled the door open, letting Jack go inside first. “Of course, love.”
Jack gasped and Izzy could understand why. The whole store was made to look like a forest, big fake trees and taxidermied animals on almost every surface. And it was fucking huge. Jack took off immediately, running to the nearest display.
“Look at this place, Iz! Oh, man. Take a picture of me and this marmot!”
He was like a kid in a candy store, and Izzy was happy to follow him around the store and take pictures of him with just about every single species of animal in the continental United States. Seriously… it was a lot. “Iz! It’s a mountain lion!” “Look at how big that fucking moose is!” “Iz, Iz, Iz! They got fucking fishtanks, baby! Fuck yeah!” “Are you sure the bison is in focus?”
Izzy even got in a picture, handing off the phone to Jack who stretched his arm out to get a selfie of them with a grizzly bear. He wouldn’t realize until several hours later when they were back in the truck and he was looking through the pictures that his hat said ‘MILF In Training.’
It took a while for Jack to come down from the thrill of being near so many taxidermied animals but eventually they were able to backtrack their way to the front of the store. Izzy gathered a cart while Jack pulled a notepad from his back pocket and started flipping through the pages, mumbling under his breath. “Oh man, this place is fucking awesome.”
Izzy smirked, basking in Jack’s enthusiasm while he waited for him to get his bearings. Jack looked up at the signs hanging from the ceiling, checking them against the many pages he was flipping between before he smiled widely at Izzy.
“Ready, babe? I got everything we need on this list! This trip is gonna be so fucking legendary.”
Izzy smiled, feeling a zip of Jack’s excitement begin to grow in his belly, gesturing at him to lead the way. “I’ll try to keep up.”
Jack all but ran away, forcing Izzy to really kick it into gear to match his pace. “I was fucking joking you twat!” But he laughed anyway, hearing Jack list everything they would need and the best way they could move through the store to get it all. He had a single-minded focus that Izzy had rarely seen, and had obviously taken this trip very seriously if he had that many pages of notes and lists to reference. Izzy watched him work, following dutifully behind as he tossed camping chairs, and propane canisters, and a flashlight, and an entire stove apparently (“It’s for camping, Iz!”), into the cart.
He had swindled a pen from one of the Bass Pro workers, turning up the charm to 11 and had been marking off the list as they went, eyebrows furrowed in focus as their cart steadily filled up. It took a while, with them traversing almost every aisle and part of the store until eventually they stopped at the tents. Jack marked something off on the notepad and turned his eye to the display wall, scanning them efficiently. Izzy looked at the wall wearily, noticing how thin the bottom of each tent looked, the lack of padding and how small they all seemed to be. He grimaced, holding the feeling in, determined to be a good sport when Jack laced their fingers together and tugged him to the far side of the wall. He pointed up, towards the top.
“That one, Iz. What do you think?”
The one he was pointing at looked weird, even weirder than all the other ones on the wall. There was the usual tent shape but there was a second part that seemed to hang off the end, making the entire bottom of the tent uneven.
“Umm, Jack, that one? Why does it look like that? What about one of those?” He pointed at the rest of the tents, noting their even bottoms.
Jack grinned, pointing at the tent again. “It goes on the truck, Iz! Then you don’t gotta worry about sleeping on the ground! We’ll just hook it up around the truck bed and it’ll just be you, me, Jolene, our air mattress, and a double wide sleeping bag, baby!” His grin was bright and self-satisfied as Izzy took in the tent again, picturing how it would look over their old, beat-up truck bed. He squeezed Jack’s hand, feeling tender at Jack’s thoughtfulness and nodding.
“Yeah, Jack. That one’s perfect.”
Jack pressed a quick kiss to his cheek before running off to find someone who worked there to get them the tent from the back. Izzy waited by the cart, looking over all the stuff in the nearly full cart, feeling more and more optimistic about the trip by the minute. He could picture it now, curling up with Jack in the tent as the night air got colder, not having to worry about waking up at a certain time or when they would have another shared moment. They could just spend time together, uninterrupted, for the first time in years.
Jack came back then, wrestling a huge box under the cart before beginning to lead Izzy back to the front of the store to check out.
“Okay, babe. That’s everything on my list. You need anything before we go?”
Izzy smirked. “We already got just about one of everything in the store, Jack. Let’s get out of here so we can get home and pack up.”
“Fuck yeah! Can’t wait to be on the open road with you! We gotta make a playlist while we pack!”
Izzy stepped up to the register, beginning to unload their packed cart onto the conveyor belt. Jack deftly slipped a novelty keychain of a Big Mouth Billy Bass in his pocket before sidling up to the cashier and hitting her with his most charming grin, pulling his wallet from his back pocket and slapping their credit card down on the counter.
Izzy listened to them chat as he loaded the full bags back into the cart. It took a while; they got a lot of stuff. Izzy smiled as Jack talked about their trip with abandon, already seeming to have the whole thing planned out, to the excitement of the cashier who confirmed that the Grand Canyon was a beautiful destination and they had all the stuff they needed to make it a great trip.
They paid and began to make their way out of the store; Izzy pushing the cart and Jack hauling the heavy tent box over his shoulder, sliding his free hand into the back pocket of Izzy’s jeans as they walked.
After a short detour around the entire parking lot (“How could you fucking forget where we parked, you twat?!”), they made it back to Jolene (“Sorry, babe. I was blinded by the light of Bass Pro. Can you blame me?”) and loaded up their many, many bags and boxes into her truck bed.
When the last of the bags were tucked away and Izzy was walking back from the cart corral, Jack reached into his pocket and tossed Izzy the keychain. “Hey, got you this.”
Izzy caught it, feeling an easy smile spring to his lips, though he couldn’t resist a bit of his usual sarcasm. “For me? You really shouldn’t have.”
Jack kissed his temple as Izzy reached into his pocket, already working the keychain onto the ring of his keys. “Thank you, Iz. That was fun. I’m glad you came.”
Izzy basked in the affection, letting the feeling swell in his chest before he turned his head and captured Jack’s lips in a quick kiss. “Yeah, It was. Don’t fucking get used to it though.”
Jack laughed joyfully, shoving Izzy towards the end of the truck, giving him a light slap on the ass and turning to the driver’s side door.
They climbed in and Izzy immediately shut his eyes, overstimulated from the four fucking hours he had spent looking at camo print, taxidermy, and hunting rifles. Jolene rumbled to life and Jack made his way back out onto the road, heading towards home. Izzy could tell he was itching to say something, could feel the excited tension in the air, even with his eyes closed. He waited, wanting to see how long Jack could sit in the silence. He lasted about three minutes before he broke, voice breaking up the quiet.
“What do you say we get home and try out this air mattress, babe? Think it can handle us?”
Izzy smirked, eyes still closed as he reached out to thread their fingers together.
“That depends on if you got the heavy duty one or not.”
Jack chuckled, pressing his lips to the spade inked between his fingers and thumb. “I got the toughest one they had, baby.”
Izzy laughed, bright and loud. “Then I’d say it’s maybe got a fighting chance of surviving the trip in one piece.”
Jolene rumbled comfortably around them as Jack revved the engine, taking them home to start their next adventure.