Chapter Text
At the slight rustling of the pile of clothes on the floor, Kevin sends the wooden broom sailing down, missing the rat just by an inch as it scurries under his bed. Arnold lets out another high-pitched squeal and launches himself across their dorm, bracing himself by the door.
Kevin grimaces and tightens his grip on the broom, planning on giving his roommate only a passing glance until he notices the blood gushing from Arnold’s nose, “Uh, Arnold, you got a little something right there…”
Arnold covers his nose and sighs dejectedly, “This always happens when I’m nervous.” Kevin huffs a laugh, but it dies in his throat as he watches the thick, hairy rodent waddle out from under his bed and moves directly towards Arnold.
“Arnold, don’t move.” Kevin readies his weapon and tries to walk as casually as he can toward it without raising suspicion.
Arnold sucks in a breath, demanding in a whisper, “Kevin, kill it.”
Kevin shuffles closer to it, broom raising in the air, “Wait.”
“Kevin, he’s looking right at me.” The rat slinks closer to him, its beady red eyes locked on the heavy-set man, “Do it.” At this point, wet blood has painted his entire mouth, but the man is too petrified to wipe it off.
“Not yet.” Kevin looms over it, broom poised over his head. Just as the rat reaches the tips of Arnold’s toes, Kevin brings the broom down, hearing a disgusting crunch of bone.
Only the rat doesn’t die. Rather, it lets out a deafening roar and simply accelerates its pace, zipping towards Arnold. The man screams and jumps forward in an attempt to dodge the attack, his body smacking into Kevin and sending both men down to the floor.
Crushed under Arnold’s weight, Kevin can only meekly push against him, “Get off.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Arnold raises his head up and grimaces down at Kevin’s white shirt, “Sorry about that, too.” He follows the other’s gaze only to find his shirt is now drenched in the blood from Arnold’s nosebleed, making him look like some extra in a low-budget slasher movie.
“This was my last clean shirt.” Kevin shoves Arnold off of him and gets up, looking around their dorm room. Unfortunately, the rat is nowhere to be seen, probably nursing the bruise on his back and planning to nibble their toes off in their sleep as revenge.
“I told you we needed to go straight-up nuclear on this thing.” Arnold reminds him, “Hitting it with a broom would be like hitting Godzilla with a flyswatter!”
Kevin huffs, “Let me go ask the RA for warheads then.” Glancing around, he picks up the first wrinkly shirt he sees and goes to strip his blood-soaked top off.
“Whoa, not so fast!” Arnold halts, ripping the clean(ish) shirt from his grasp, “Remember the last time I asked Kony for help with that huge draft in our dorm?”
A chill runs down his spine, “Unfortunately, with vivid detail.”
“Exactly,” Arnold gestures to his dirty shirt, “We’ll need all the sympathy we can get.”
“Yeah but—“
“Kevin, I think you can handle not being the Belle of the Ball for five seconds.”
He sighs, rolling his eyes, “Fine. But you have to stay here and keep an eye on that thing.”
“You’re leaving me alone with him?” Arnold looks around worriedly, “But I can hear him plotting, Kevin. He’s trying to isolate us.”
Kevin gives him a suffering look, “He’s a rat, Arnold—not Michael Meyers. Besides, I’m just going down the hall. The RA probably has like rat poison or something, right?”
“Just don’t be surprised if you find me roasting under a fire with an apple in my mouth like a dead pig!” Arnold calls after him, missing the way Kevin rolls his eyes as he shuts the door behind him.
:: - ::
Only a few minutes later, Kevin is walking back to his door with a rusted machete in his hand, the gruff words of “Just give it a good whack. It works better than any mouse-trap I’ve ever tried” ringing in his head. Wielding a broom is one thing; waving around a pointy piece of metal is something completely different. He’ll have to ask Nabulungi to come over and take care of it while he and Arnold cower in the corner. Certainly not the manliest route to go, but hey, he’s not kidding himself by pretending to be the pinnacle of masculinity. As Arnold so endearingly reminds him from time to time, the sheer size of his assortment of hair products has already disqualified him.
“Kevin Price!” An unfamiliar voice calls behind him, making Kevin pause right before he reaches his door. He turns around to face the stranger, a bemused greeting poised on his lips. But then he catches sight of the man’s red hair and blue eyes, and the recollection hits him like a semi-truck.
It’s been weeks since that night at the party, but the stranger’s blue eyes have yet to leave his mind completely. The thought of Connor has always came up idly—the quirk in the redhead’s mouth bombarding his mind in the middle of brushing his teeth, the way his pitch would heighten in confusion interrupting Kevin’s routine of chores, the huff of a laugh appearing once again just as he’s on the precipice of sleep at night.
He never imagined he would see him again. After all, they go to a pretty big public college. Kevin hardly sees people with his major outside of classes, much less some stranger who he’s never seen in his entire life until then.
“Hey,” Kevin says with a confused smile, “What are you—“ He trails off at the sight of Connor’s weird facial expression. Instinctually, his free hand goes up to fix his hair, but then he remembers the machete in his other hand and his white shirt covered in blood.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh no, it’s fine,” Kevin blurts out, his face heating up, “This isn’t any of my blood anyway.” Which, he realizes as soon as those words leave his mouth, doesn’t make the supposed circumstances seen any better.
“I’m not a serial killer or anything.” Kevin assures him, “You just caught me at a really bad time.”
“It seems like it’s always a bad time with you.” Connor jokes though he can’t seem to take his eyes off the blood-stained shirt.
“So,” Kevin doesn’t remember his tongue being this thick in his mouth, “Do you live here? I’ve never seen you around here before.”
“No, I don’t,” Connor holds up a binder, “I’m just here to drop off my notes for a kid in my Political Science class.” He pauses, distracted again, “So are you going to explain yourself further or do I have to take your word on the whole serial killer thing?” His laugh is tinged with nervousness. Kevin wants the floor to swallow him whole.
“Funny story,” Kevin tells him, “You see, I—“ He’s cut off by the muffled scream of Arnold and their dorm door busting open. Arnold, the lower part of his face covered in blood, runs screaming into the hall, the only coherent words coming from his mouth being “Kevin Price.” He trips over his own feet and crashes into the adjacent wall, hitting his head and knocking himself unconscious.
From the opened door, the fat rat waddles into the hall, practically daring any of them to make their move. Without even thinking of the horrified man in front of him, Kevin raises the machete and drives it into the rat’s middle section, essentially cutting the rodent in two.
Kevin looks up and finds Connor’s wide eyes pinned on him. He just gives him a helpless smile, “Sorry you had to see that.”
:: - ::
“You look terrible.” Connor informs Arnold, whose face is cleaned of blood but is now being nurtured with a large bag of ice.
Arnold lets out a weak chuckle, “You should see the other guy.”
“Kony wanted the body,” Kevin tells them, “I didn’t ask what for. He actually looked proud of me.” A small smile worms its way on his face despite his best efforts.
Connor side-eyes him, demanding, “Are you preening?”
Kevin drops his smile, flushing in embarrassment, “No.”
“Kevin has a bit of a praise kink.” Arnold mockingly whispers to Connor, “It’s a little weird. You get used to it though.”
“Um—Okay,” Connor stutters, seemingly unable to think of what to do with that piece of information, “I’ll—uh, keep that in mind.”
“I do not.” Kevin jabs an elbow into Arnold’s ribs, relishing his yelp of pain.
“So,” Connor diverts the line of conversation, “Are you—Well, I guess I mean were you both Mormons?”
“Mission companions,” Arnold gleefully declares, swinging an arm around Kevin’s neck and pulling him down to his height, “We’ve been by each other’s side ever since.” He pauses, “Hey, how did you know we were Mormons?”
“Kevin mentioned it the first time we met.”
“I did?” Kevin racks his brain but most of that interaction is hazy, “And you remembered?”
“Well, I mean,” Connor shrugs, a shy smile on his lips, “You were kinda hard to forget.” His face flushes as soon as the words leave his mouth, and he apparently feels the need to add hurriedly, “You know, because of the puke and all.”
“You’re the guy he hurled on!” Arnold exclaims, albeit completely unnecessarily, “Oh man, Kevin was mortified when he woke up that morning. He’s not much of a party animal.”
“Neither am I.” Connor confesses, “The girl who hosted it is in my theater group. She wanted me to stop by at least for an hour.” He clears his throat, “Anyway, I was asking because I actually used to be a Mormon, too. It blew my mind that there were others out there.”
“Small world.” Arnold agrees, “So were you kicked out or did you leave?”
“Arnold.” Kevin hisses, needling him again.
“It’s alright,” Connor assures, sighing, “I left. The Church and I had different…opinions on something, I guess you could say.”
“You mean that you figured out it was all horse-shit?” Kevin gives him a lopsided smile, “Welcome to the club.”
“We should start a club!” Arnold pushes, “For ex-Mormons. It can be called…the Club of Arnold.”
“You already have a new religion named after you,” Kevin snorts, smiling a little, “Don’t be greedy.” Connor laughs, and Kevin didn’t know that someone could miss a sound so much despite only having heard it once before. Cutting his eyes over to look at him, he’s surprised to find the redhead’s gaze already on him, a mixture of bemusement and elation written on his face.
All his life, Kevin has never really had friends. Growing up, he was devoted entirely to his quest of being the best Mormon ever, so all his peers were considered threats or just means to ends. Even in Uganda, he felt isolated from the other Elders, his newfound cynicism driving a wedge between them. College hasn’t been any different, him collecting an assortment of acquaintances that barely go beyond the infrequent study session before exams. Looking back, his only friends have just been Arnold and Nabulungi, and that’s always been fine by him.
But looking at Connor McKinley, Kevin feels like he could actually see him being called a friend—eventually, anyway.
Their moment is interrupted by Connor’s phone buzzing with an alert.
“Oh my,” Connor whispers, “I’m late to dance practice. Can you guys drop this binder off at Andrew Gad’s dorm?”
“No sweat, Man.” Arnold says dismissively, half his face obscured by the ice pack, “We’ve shown you that we’re nothing if not completely competent.”
Connor hesitates and gingerly gives the binder to Kevin, “Don’t cover it in blood, please—or vomit.”
“That’s actually asking a lot of me,” Connor reaches back for the binder, but Kevin laughs and slaps his hands away, “I was kidding, Connor. Jesus Christ. I can handle it.” Kevin politely ignores the skeptical look Connor blatantly gives him.
“I’ll see you guys later—probably.” Connor takes off immediately, furiously typing on his phone and looking vaguely panicked.
“You probably will,” Kevin calls after him and then adds quietly, “Because God hates me, after all.”
“Do you think that the rat’s ghost will haunt our dorm now?” Arnold wonders aloud, breaking Kevin from his pathetic melancholy episode.
Kevin grimaces, “Please don’t bring that up again. I think I need to be blessed by a priest after committing that level of ruthlessness.”
“You know, it’s kinda funny,” At Kevin’s furrowed brow, Arnold clarifies, “The first time you met that guy, you vomited all over him. The second time, he thought he caught you murdering someone—and then you did—“
“That ‘someone’ was a rodent and it was self-defense!” Kevin interjects sullenly.
“I wonder what’ll happen the next time you two meet.” He muses, smiling mockingly at him.
“Probably my death,” Kevin answers him in dead-pan, “Fingers-crossed on that one.”