Chapter Text
Kevin and Jack Price were a package deal. Always had been and always would be. Born just two years apart, they were so alike that most thought they were twins. They were the best thing to have happened to Scott and Hope Price, and neither of them were ever allowed to forget it.
It was sometimes strange, being one of the only Mormon families to not have three hundred million children; whenever Jack asked why it was just the two of them, the answer was always something about fertility problems and how his parents had been blessed with everything that they needed.
Not that he would change anything about their family. He was very happy to only have one brother. He didn’t need someone else to compete against. It had always been painfully obvious to Jack that Kevin was the golden child: he never failed a class and never ended up in detention. He volunteered at Church charity events even though he was already on the soccer team and probably proysletised more than Joseph Smith himself did.
Yes, Kevin Price was the glowing example of what a good Mormon boy should be like. And Jack was the glowing example of what an average Mormon boy should be like. It wasn’t as though he didn’t try: he went to Church, proysletised as much as he could and memorised as much scripture as his brain would allow. He just wasn’t quite his brother: he was failing miserably in physics, didn’t bother trying out for the soccer team and never volunteered in Church because who has the time?
It was a mark of how strong their relationship was that this never tore them apart. Though Jack could not lie and say that there weren’t moments when constantly living in Kevin’s shadow didn’t get to him.
“You’re much better with girls than I am anyway,” Kevin would say after a bishop sang his praises and completely ignored Jack.
“That’s because your conversational skills only stretch as far as preaching,”
“Yeah. I’m sure that’s the reason I don’t have a girlfriend,”
“No, it’s because you’re not as good looking as I am,”
“Are you sure ‘good looking’ is the best way to describe you, pal?”
“Whatever. At least I don’t think I’m more important than Joseph Smith,”
“Oh, screw you,” Kevin said, shoving his shoulder.
“Idiot,”
“Moron,”
Jack had known that something was wrong when he heard raised voices from the kitchen; a sound usually unheard in the quiet peacefulness of the Price household. He was sitting at the dining room table and struggling through a history essay. It was in moments like this when Jack needed Kevin. His older brother was always on hand when he needed help with his homework. And he almost always needed help with his homework.
He stared at the closed door of the kitchen for a moment, wondering if he should investigate, but then his phone lit up with the notification “HISTORY ESSAY DUE TOMORROW!!” and he decided that some things were more important than others.
He just wished that Henry VIII hadn’t felt the need to have so many wives.
“Jack, can you come in here please?”
Wondering what on Earth he could have possibly done wrong, Jack (happily) left his history essay alone and joined his parents in the kitchen. He frowned slightly at the sight before him; his mom was dabbing tears out of her eyes and his dad was leaning against the wall, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Um...I don’t know what I’ve done but I’m...sorry?”
“No, it’s not you, darling,” his mother said, and he felt a wave of relief wash over him, “We just got off the phone with your brother,”
“With...my brother,” Jack repeated as though he had never heard of such a thing, “why? I thought the first phone call wasn’t for another three weeks,”
“Usually, it isn’t but...” Scott sighed, “Look, kid, there’s no easy way to say this. Kevin’s been excommunicated from the Church,”
Jack snorted, “Yeah, OK. Kevin, who wrote his book report about the Book of Mormon in fourth grade has been excommunicated,”
“We aren’t joking, son,”
“Dad, don’t be ridiculous! He’s never done anything wrong in his life!” Jack exclaimed, “there’s no way that Kevin would have been excommunicated! You must have got it wrong,”
“We’re not lying to you, sweetheart. He really has been excommunicated. His entire mission has,” Hope says gently.
Jack slowly sat down on a stool at the counter, his mind working at one million miles and hour to try and work out how Kevin of all people could have been excommunicated.
“Is he - is he coming home, then?” Jack asked, a hopeful note in his voice.
Scott sighed, “We asked him to but...he said he’s staying. He’s under the impression that they can still do good work over there. Something about the district leader being convinced he can somehow get funding for them to last two years,”
“He didn’t even want to go to Uganda in the first place!” Jack snapped, “he didn‘t want to go to Uganda and he despised his mission companion! Why’s he suddenly all up for staying?”
“We don’t know,” his mom told him, still wiping her eyes, “he said that he has nothing here. I’m sorry, Jack, I know you’re missing him,”
“No, I’m not,” Jack said angrily, jumping out of his stool, “he can stay in Uganda for the rest of his life for all I care,”
“Jack-“
“If he really thinks that he has nothing here, fine! He doesn’t! If he doesn’t want a brother, I don’t care!” Jack yelled, “am I dismissed?”
“Jack, we really should talk about this,” his dad said, “there’s a lot to discuss.”
“Can I go?” Jack repeated, “there’s nothing to talk about. I don’t want to talk about him,”
“Yes.” His dad said resignedly, “and don’t...don’t worry about going to school tomorrow. Take the day off. We’ll talk to school,”
Jack took care to slam his bedroom door shut before throwing himself onto his bed. Groaning, he rolled onto his side and was immediately confronted with the picture of him and Kevin that sat on his bedside table; it was from their trip to Disney World. Kevin had been 9 and Jack had been 7. They were stood arm in arm in front of the castle with stupid Mickey Mouse ears on their heads.
He stared at the picture for longer than was probably necessary until the tears came. Furious at himself for crying but even more furious at Kevin for being so stupid, he snatched the frame off the table and shoved it in a drawer.
Out of sight, out of mind.
Jack had been enjoying a particularly depressing Saturday evening when Kevin rang him for the first time after almost a year. His mother was insistent that he spoke to his brother, and fixed him with that glare that only moms seem to be able to do. The one that quite plainly says - if you don’t do what I ask you to do, you’ll be sorry.
He took the phone off her with a sigh and held it to his ear.
“What?”
“Hey, buddy,”
“What do you want Kevin?”
“I miss you, dude,”
“I thought you didn’t have anything here?”
The line crackled slightly as Kevin sighed.
“OK, so you’re angry at me,”
“How observant of you,”
“Look, Jack, I didn’t mean to get excommunicated. Africa is - it’s weird, man. I mean, I wouldn’t change it for the world but it’s...it’s changed my life. It’s changed how I look at everything. If you were here, you’d understand what I mean.”
“So you’re telling me that if I was there, I would happily turn my back on my family? I don’t really think that’s the sort of place I want to be, Kev.”
“I’ve not turned my back on you!” Kevin exclaimed.
“It was my birthday last week,”
This was met with silence and Jack tutted, rolling his eyes at the ceiling.
“Shoot, Jack, I’m sorry. I didn’t - things have been crazy out here and it just slipped my mind. We’ve had so many baptisms and I’ve barely slept or had anytime to myself and-“
“Whatever, Kevin, forget it.”
“Well, you’re 18 now, aren’t you? So you’ll be on your mission soon! You must be excited, right?”
“Yeah, I’m really excited to not go on my mission”,
“What?”
“The MTC have recommended that I don’t go on my mission. So I’m having a lot of fun going to BYU,” Jack snapped.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to go to BYU,”
“I didn’t,”
“Jack, I really am sorry,”
“OK,”
“Are you gonna forgive me?”
“I’ll leave that up to Heavenly Father, even if you don’t believe in Him anymore,”
Throwing the phone against the wall didn’t make him feel any better. It just left him with cracked wallpaper and unrelenting anger at his own brother.
An unfortunate development in Jack's life was that he had started praying to Heavenly Father and asking to be struck down. It had yet to happen and Jack felt strangely betrayed. His girlfriend thought this was unhealthy and liked to tell him at every opportunity.
“You don’t get it because you’re not Mormon,” is how he would justify it.
Liz would then just roll her eyes at him, “See, that is one thing that no one told me about being non-Mormon at BYU: no one will ever listen to my advice because I “don’t understand Mormons”,”
“I barely understand Mormons!”
“I feel like this less about Mormons as a whole and more about Kevin,”
“Not everything is about Kevin!”
“Of course it isn’t,”
Only, everything did seem to be about Kevin. So much so that his mom actually asked him to take time out of his studies to go and visit him in Uganda for six weeks.
“No. No way,”
Hope sighed down the phone, “Jack, please, he’s really struggling out there,”
“You always say that! You always tell me that he’s struggling but then never tell me what he’s struggling with!”
“Please, Jack. He’s missing home,”
“Tell him to come home then,”
“He wants us over there. All of us,”
“I don’t want to go,”
“What if we invite Liz as well?”
“Seriously?”
“Why not? She’s a lovely girl,”
Jack was silent for a moment as he chewed his lip, weighing up the pros and cons in his mind.
“Fine,” Jack said finally, “but I want the window on the seat on the plane,”
“You’ll have to fight your father for it,”
“-and for some reason, school has agreed to let me miss two weeks of the new semester to be there!” Jack said angrily, taking his anger out on his notebook by stabbing it with his pen, “I don’t even want to be there! I mean, I barely want to be here!” he added, glaring around the library, “Why can’t I ever do what I want?”
“I know, it sucks,” Liz sighed, “I wish you didn’t have to go,”
“‘Cause you’re gonna miss me so much?”
“No, because I’m gonna be who you complain to when you get back!”
“That’s not true. I’ll complain to you when we’re there,”
“When we’re there?”
Jack grinned, “Mom and dad said you can come with. If you - if you want to, obviously,”
Her eyes lit up, “Oh my gosh! Yes! I’d love to go!”
“Really?” Jack asked, “because I don’t know how fun it’ll be,”
“The only thing that won’t be fun is the flight time. It’ll probably take like 30 hours to get there, you know,”
Jack groaned and put his head in his hands, “I just want the Lord to strike me down,”