Chapter Text
Kevin walks in a daze, putting one foot in front of the other with such success he doesn’t even realize he forgot to pick up Arnold until he is already halfway back to the Mission Hut. He keeps walking, thinking on the impossibility that it’s not even midday and he feels like he’s been steamrollered and then put through an industrial tumble drier.
Whenever he lets himself probe cautiously, a chaotic tangle of emotions is roiling around his stomach. Nabulungi insistence he tells Connor about all the things his instincts are yelling at him not to talk about, ever again, rolls through his mind, over and over again.
The Hut comes into view and anxiety spikes, welling up his throat and clutches his insides. He tries to take a deep breath; it comes out shaky. He clenches his jaw and tries with all his might to empty his mind. He just can’t face Connor. All he wants desperately, is to spend the rest of his mission doing what he came to Uganda to do – something incredible, something that will go down a legend in Mission history.
He certainly has no intention to fall in love. Especially not with his District Leader. His very male District Leader.
Oh God.
Kevin vaguely notices he makes some kind of sound, it comes out strangled. He realizes he is clamping his jaws together so hard his teeth are actually beginning to ache.
Deep breath. He can do this.
Deep breath. The Hut will be empty.
Deep breath. He will go straight to the shower; cleanse himself of this nightmare.
Somewhat rejuvenated, he covers the last meters to the Hut, determinedly ignoring the way his knees threaten to give out under him as he steps up to the door.
“Hello…?” He calls out cautiously.
There is no reply. Kevin releases the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. The iron grip his anxiety has around his ribcage slackens slightly.
He gingerly makes his way over to the stairs, but the Hut indeed seems quiet and deserted. Picking his way upstairs, he feels something like hope, for the first time during this horror show of a day, that maybe, he might escape this unscathed after all. Somehow.
Then, as he crosses the landing and reaches out for the handle on the bathroom door, said door flies open.
Kevin yelps, scrambling backwards and barely avoids falling down the stairs by grabbing onto the banister.
On the other side of the door stands – of course, who else – Connor, mouth wide and almost comically round. His eyes, though, are red, and his eyelashes have wetly lumped together.
For a moment, they just stare at each other, Kevin too mortified to even think.
Connor recovers first.
“Just where do you think you’ve been?”, he demands, angrily rubbing at one of his eyes. “Do you have any idea… everyone is out looking for you, we’ve been worried sick!”
“Yeah, I can see how hard you’re looking”, Kevin throws back, an ugly lump settling in the pit of his stomach. Of course, Connor doesn’t care about him. Kevin has known that all along.
Connor only gapes incredulously. “Just how thick is that skull of yours? I’ve told you…”
“Actually”, Kevin cuts in, getting angrier now. “Yesterday you told me you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. You even swore!”
Kevin is building up steam now and it feels so good to let out the ugly, caustic thing that’s been eating away at him. “You only care that I’m not injured, so your precious District won’t be ruined. You don’t give a shit about me!”
His chest is heaving, he can’t even imagine what he looks like but if it’s anything like the murderous look in Connor’s eyes, it’s probably terrifyingly deranged.
“How can you even say that?” Connor gasps. “How…? I’ve done nothing but care, and respect your boundaries, even though…” He cuts himself off with a bitter little laugh.
“Even though what? That I’m weak? That I’m just that pathetic?” Kevin feels nauseous, but he can’t stop himself from pushing off the banister, closing in on Connor. “You don’t think I’ve noticed how you suddenly don’t give a… give a damn about me when I’m not endangering some mission operation?” He’s right up in Connor’s face now, shouting at him.
Red splotches are growing on Connor’s cheeks. He’s breathing hard, hands opening and closing at his sides, clutching at air. “You”, he spits. “Are without a doubt the most thick-headed, self-centered, insensitive buffoon I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet!”
Kevin sees Connor’s lips moving, knows they are forming words, but he can’t make them out. All he can see is the little dip in the middle of Connor’s upper lip and without having told his body to do it, he’s moving again, his hands slamming on either side of the door, Connor caught between them.
“Elder Price… What? Kevin?” Connor is frozen in place, eyes wide with shock. He swallows audibly when Kevin crowds closer. Kevin doesn’t know what he’s doing but when Connor opens his mouth, he just keeps moving, absently noting how Connor’s eyes have gone impossibly wide. Connor’s gasp for air is a cold gust on his lips and before Connor can say anything, do anything, Kevin grabs his face and crashes his lips to Connor’s.
Connor goes absolutely still. Kevin notes, in a moment of detached clarity, that he’s probably about to be punched in the face. Then Connor makes a little noise at the back of his throat and his lips come alive against Kevin’s.
Kevin’s brain short-circuits, as he belatedly realizes he has no idea how to kiss someone, has never really even consider it. But Connor’s lips are insistent on his and invites him to move along with them. As if on auto-pilot, his mouth falls open and then Connor’s tongue is touching his and Kevin’s brain freezes again. It is so intimate, so alien, that he feels as though he ought to want to retreat to safer ground. But Connor moves so gently, coaxingly, that Kevin can’t help experimentally sliding his own tongue back along Connor’s and oh. Kevin’s stomach does a rolling forward-thing, sending heat everywhere and it’s so unexpected he can’t hold back the moan before it’s already out. He immediately feels embarrassed, but Connor just sighs back into Kevin’s mouth which sends a new pulse of warmth through him.
He realizes he wants to make Connor sigh like that again.
He tries moving his lips like Connor does, with the same sort of gentle, yet firm tugs, but just ends up biting Connor’s lip. Connor gasps and Kevin curses himself and his non-existent kissing skills when Connor, not drawing back like Kevin expects him to, takes Kevin’s lower lip between his, softly mouthing on it, which feels amazing, and then, unexpectedly Connor sinks his teeth in and that sends pleasure coursing through him like a lightning bolt.
Overwhelmed, Kevin breaks the kiss, looking down at where he has Connor pressed bodily into the door, thumbprints on Connor’s cheeks and Connor all flushed, lips pink and parted and his eyes… Kevin bows his head, can’t look into them without feeling his entire face heat up and it’s like suddenly, all at once, the latest turn of events catches up to him.
Releasing Connor, he retreats, his back hitting the shower wall. Which of course makes him remember all the times he’s tried, and failed, not to imagine Connor in the shower. And now he’s… pressed Connor against a door. And kissed him. He is never asking Nabulungi’s advice again.
“Kevin?” Connor’s voice sounds thoroughly wrecked and does things to Kevin’s insides which makes him squeeze his eyes shut, in the vain hope that it might all just go away. “Are you alright?”
“Will you just stop asking me that?” Kevin hisses, sinking to the floor and crosses his arms over his head.
“You know what, Elder Price?” Kevin looks up between his arms, finding Connor looking down at him with a face that couldn’t scream out of patience any louder if it tried. “You don’t get to say that to me anymore. All I’ve tried to do, ever since we met, is make sure you’re alright. I care about you, so much that it frightens me. And every time you’ve pushed me away, despite how much it hurt, I tried to tell myself it was for the best. That you would never want me the same way I wanted you anyway. But then…” Connor touches his lip, as if he still can’t quite believe it and something inside Kevin gives a twang of want to hold Connor close again.
“Are you saying…” Kevin says slowly.
“What, Elder Price?” Connor says exasperatedly. Kevin wishes he would say Kevin. “That I’ve wanted to kiss your stupidly handsome face since the moment we met? That I almost did, in front of all the Elders at that? That I wanted to give you all the time in the world, if even there was even the slightest chance of… this?” He gestures vaguely to the space between them. “Yes. Yes and yes. And now, I don’t know.”
“You don’t know”, Kevin repeats stupidly, his stomach sinking through the floor even though he can’t even begin to process this turn of events. It’s all too much.
“I don’t know”, Connor says. “I thought I might, but I have no idea how you feel. And I’m suspecting more and more that you don’t either. And that will only”, he takes deep shuddering breath,” leave us both very hurt.”
“I dreamt about you”, Kevin says dumbly.
“When?”
“Last night.” It begins to dawn on Kevin why this was maybe not the best course of action.
“You mean, your nightmare…?” Connor looks even more hurt.
“No! Well, it, kind of. But that’s not, all”, Kevin manages.
“I don’t follow.” Connor says flatly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Well, I couldn’t help it! Arnold said I had to think about you, so I did and then I dreamt and it’s not my fault my brain turned us into hell dream.”
Connor’s head snaps up. “You mean you dreamt… about this?”
“Yeah”, Kevin mumbles. “Well, there were demon teeth. They were not as nice as yours.”
His face grows hot when he realizes that he just admitted he liked it when Connor… He doesn’t have time to finish the sentence in his head because then Connor is all up in his space again, his hands gently tugging at Kevin’s arms. Connor’s stupid warm hands… which have always made him feel safe. Regardless of whether he’s been suffering from heatstroke, hypothermia or acute case of almost-falling-down-tree. So he lets him and is met with Connor’s kind gaze.
“Kevin”, Connor says, finally. “I need to know. You don’t have to have everything sorted out, Heavenly Father knows I haven’t, but… are you going to push me away again?”
“No,” Kevin says, having to swallow around a lump that’s suddenly in his throat. “Not unless you want me to…”
“I think we have established now that I very much do not want that, haven’t we?” Connor says, arching an eyebrow.
And Kevin’s heart, the traitor, thuds hard in his chest and he reaches out and grabs Connor by the neck. With a yelp Connor falls onto him and Kevin’s lips land on his ear instead of his mouth. Going by the way Connor sighs into him, that apparently wasn’t all bad.
Kevin gathers all his courage, pushing the small ugly feelings telling him he will never be able to have something like Connor, that it’s sin and he should push him away, as far down as he can and says: “I’ll try.”
Connor seems to understand because he squeezes Kevin close to him and for the moment, Kevin lets himself believe everything is going to be alright.