Testament

Connor was hysterical.

It wasn't that Kevin didn't understand why. He did. He understood why better than he ever wanted to understand why. It was why he was standing there with his thumbnail to his mouth and his eyes darting around the hotel room, desperate to find anything else they could focus on than the boy a foot away who was rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying his best not to let the tears show, but miserably failing, the way he always did at covering up things that were as much a part of him as his own name or his social.

"I---" He stopped before he started. Then, again, "It's not like---" And he fell silent. What was he supposed to tell Connor? What could he possibly say that would make things better?

It wasn't like he could undo so many years of--- well, he didn't want to call it 'brainwashing', since it seemed too harsh a word, but to be honest, that's what it was.

"You're not broken or anything," he attempted.

It didn't really help. Connor was still trying to breathe and Kevin was at a loss. He dimly recalled that he sort of really didn't give a shit about the whole no-caffeine thing, he was going to fucking drink that coffee the hotel provided in the morning whether he felt like it was wrong or not.

It was such a stupid thing to think about, but this whole situation was kind of stupid.

He said it. Out loud.

Connor did burst into tears this time. Ones that were halfway in between quiet and loud, enough not to bother the neighbors in the other suites but that Kevin could definitely hear him crying and couldn't just ignore. Not like he wanted to anyway.

"Y-Y-You don't know," he managed to get out. "You d-don't understand. Not like I d-d-do."

He buried his head into his folded arms.

"Hey," Kevin said. "Hey, stop it. Don't be like that. How do you know I don't know?"

There was a miserable sniffling from the other boy, who by now had shoved his face into the crevice made by his folded arms and knees drawn up to his chest. As Kevin lowered himself to the floor he noticed that Connor's shirt was all sitting wrong and the top button was undone. Not like he would have expected him to look impeccable considering they weren't out in public, but Connor took such good care of himself even behind closed doors that it was a little disarming to see.

"Maybe I do know," Kevin continued in a pause between Connor's crying.

He really didn't care anymore, to be honest. It was almost midnight and he was tired and it had been a long day and to be entirely frank it had been a long life and he was only twenty years old. Was this how it was all supposed to happen? He didn't think so. He had reached such a state of apathy about the entire situation that whatever happened by now could happen and he would barely bat an eye at it. Hence why he was here in a hotel room with Connor McKinley, who was breaking down because of the god damn homosexual feelings he'd been bottling up for who knows how god fucking damned long.

He didn't believe for a second that being gay was something that you chose.

Who the fuck would choose this life?

Who the fuck would choose to be miserable on a hotel floor feeling like you were fucking broken.

He took Connor's wrists very gently. His own fingers weren't as long as Connor's but Connor's wrists weren't as wide around as Kevin's, so it all worked out. Gently he began to pry the other's arms from underneath of him, and Connor had no choice but to lift his head and blink with starry, pain-filled eyes at the other Mormon.

The corner of Kevin's mouth lifted up into what was almost a smile. Verging on one. "You're not gonna be able to breathe if you keep this up, you know?"

Connor nodded miserably. Everything he did was done miserably by this point. He felt like the world's most fucking used car. Vomit on the flooring and dried cum on the leather seats. He'd have let anything happen to him and taken it without a word.

"I'm going to unbutton the rest of your shirt. So you can breathe. Okay?"

Both of them knew it wasn't so that he could breathe. Or that wasn't the main reason anyway.

He let him, anyway, though. His arms slowly came down and Kevin's fingers began working at the second button--- and the third. And the fourth. There was a black undershirt underneath; Connor was too out of it to make a clever joke and Kevin was too moony to. Once the button-down had become an unbutton-down, Kevin made a motion with his eyes and Connor raised his arms, letting the other pull it off his body, and revealing thin, pale arms that seemed to almost shake with anticipation.

This was the part where one of them was supposed to say "we shouldn't". And then the other would be like, "no, it's okay," and amidst a hell of a lot of confusing feelings they'd make out, and they'd realize that it was so right. That everything had to be so right even if it was so wrong.

Instead, Connor said in a very even voice that made no sense with how much he'd been crying, "If you go any farther, you're raping me."

"What---" Kevin stopped there, sitting back against the opposite bed, eyes betraying the desire he'd been holding back to place his mouth against Connor's and claim it as his own. "What--- I mean--- you just---"

"What, I just--- led you on, or something?" What the fuck was this? What the fuck was this? What was happening? The misery was still there in Connor's eyes. God. Fuck. Damn it. What the hell was happening here? "You're ridiculous, Elder Price. Do you know how many highschool boys go on the news and---"

"Asshole!" This time Kevin didn't hold back. He shoved Connor so hard that the boy's head would have made a horrible cracking sound if there was anything for it to crack against, but since he was sitting down all there was was the mattress. Kevin reached for a second as if he was going to drag Connor to him and kiss him, then stopped halfway and shoved him in the chest again. This time he was the one tearing up and the lump in his throat beginning to make itself known. God, he hated him. He hated Connor. He'd never hated anyone as much in his whole life. Well, he felt like that right now, anyway.

He brought one fist to his nose, wiping at it, maybe subconsciously hoping Connor had hit him back. It wasn't as easy to be angry at someone who had just taken your shoving like a goddamn pussy. "You wanted it," he seethed, aware of how much he sounded like every fucking rapist in existence. But this was different. This was different. "You wanted it. And I wanted it," he suddenly admitted. Not that he was too surprised, but it was surprising to be saying it out loud.

"I know," Connor was saying now, the calm broken, those pretty eyelashes rimming eyes that seemed to bore a hole down into the floor. "I know, I know. Can you please just come here?"

Kevin did. He moved over and Connor repositioned himself and let Kevin's head rest gently in his lap. He stroked the other boy's hair--- cried a little, but that was okay--- hummed every worship song he knew and counted silently every tile in the ceiling of that stupid hotel room he never wanted to see again. The stupid hotel room and his stupid homosexual fucking self and the stupid undershirt he still had on that he liked to wear because when he took off his button-down at the end of the night sometimes he could catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, lithe and skinny and revealing in all the right places, and count the vertebrae on his back when he was still leaned over, and watch the fabric hug him where it was supposed to, and he looked so good. And he didn't care about vanity. What a stupid thing to make a sin; to love yourself. He did. He loved the fucking broken mess that he was, and he loved the idea of being in love with the boy in his lap, and he loved how his fingers didn't shake when he stroked Kevin's hair, like it was all just practice. All of it just practice, or a rehearsal, or something, for a life that wasn't spent in a stupid hotel room with Connor trying his best not to burst into tears once again.