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Kevin Price’s hair is too long, and it feels like somehow, it’s Connor McKinley’s responsibility to do something about it.
It isn’t that Kevin’s hair looks bad — not by any stretch of the imagination, because it’s Kevin. It’s outgrown, sure, and he can’t brush it back into that pushed-back style he’d been so accustomed to when they’d first come to Uganda, slick with gel with one disparaging loose lock of hair — but Kevin still looks good. When he runs or bends down or does anything, really, his hair falls in front of his chocolate-brown eyes in a heavily distracting manner, and it hangs loosely below his ears, a beautiful mess.
Okay, maybe Connor thinks this is his responsibility because he can’t stand another day of seeing Kevin like that. Boys could only have outrageously attractive friends and say nothing for so long.
“Kevin,” says Connor, knocking on the already open door of Kevin and Arnold’s room. Nabulungi is round — hands hooked around her knees, painting Arnold’s nails. She’s already done Kevin’s; a glossy pale blue. Periwinkle. Kevin holds his hand up to his face and wiggles his fingers. “Oh, hello, Naba.”
“Connor!” Nabulungi greets cheerfully, waving at Connor, and grabbing Arnold’s wrist to wave his hand as well. His nails are a startling shade of neon pink. “Do you want your nails done? I have this lovely shade of grey I think you’d like—“
“Not today,” says Connor and thinks sacrilege, sin, girly. He shakes it off. “I was hoping to borrow Kevin, actually.”
“Oh, gosh,” murmurs Kevin, “What do you need me for?”
Connor smiles at him. “Don’t sound so scared.”
“It could be anything—“
“Don’t stress your pretty head over it,” says Connor and Kevin’s eyebrows raise, “I mean — it’s not bad. I was going to offer to cut your hair.”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” asks Kevin.
Arnold grins at him. “Buddy, it’s sooo long.”
“You didn’t say anything,” says Kevin.
“I did,” remarks Nabulungi, patting him on the head fondly, like a dog. “But you didn’t want to listen.”
“You think I’m a fashion faux pas anyway, I just thought it was another thing of yours.”
Connor looks between all of them and gestures towards the door. “I mean, if you don’t want it cut, it’s fine,” he says, “But my mom worked in a hairdresser's when I was seventeen and she took me along to sweep the floors — I won’t say I know what I’m doing, but it’s better than your other option.”
His mother had worked for one long summer, when the McKinley’s couldn’t get by on their lives being ‘cheap and cheerful’ until his pa had finally managed a promotion and then she’d quit. She’d loved that job. But it wasn’t what good Church women were supposed to be doing, working, not what good Godly women with capable husbands were supposed to be doing anyway.
“Gotswana,” answers Nabulungi before Kevin asks, “He uses these gigantic scissors I think are supposed to be used for shearing sheep.”
“I won’t take my chances with that,” says Kevin, “Alright, McKinley. Do your worst.”
Connor tiptoes into the room and hooks his hand around Kevin’s wrist, guiding him out and away. Nabulungi waves at him again as he closes the door and then starts giggling. His face flushes red because he knows exactly why.
Connor plants Kevin down on a chair in the kitchen, and drapes a towel over his shoulders, a washing cloth in his lap. Kevin blinks up at him as Connor looks down, trying to judge how much hair he’s going to have to take off, what length to go for. It’s a struggle. Kevin is so so hard to look at when he’s like this — when it’s just the two of them — when he’s all brown pretty eyes and moles and a slight smile curving his lips, like he’s amused before Connor has even said a word.
“You do know what you’re doing,” says Kevin.
Connor jolts. “I mean, just about.”
“If you make me bald,” Kevin says it like a threat, “Then we are never gonna talk again.”
“I’m not going to make you bald.”
“I mean, it’s not that I don’t trust your capabilities. I also just think that you might accidentally slip and—“
“I’m not going to accidentally make you bald.”
“You’re always saying I need to be brought down to earth,” Kevin is making a problem out of nothing. He probably finds himself so funny. Connor hates that he actually is. “If you ruined my good looks you’d be doing that.”
“The ever-humble Kevin Price,” jokes Connor and doesn’t think about Kevin’s smile, “You’d look fine bald.”
“You’re really making me think you’re going to bring out Gotswana’s sheep-shearers.”
“Oh em gosh,” sighs Connor, “Just sit still and let me cut your hair. I have other, better things to do with my day.”
Kevin looks a little hurt, and Connor wants to say he’s lying, but he bites his tongue. He can’t say that all he wants to do with his day is be with Kevin, or that enjoying this, in itself, was a small miracle, so he stays silent and reaches for the scissors.
“I didn’t mean that,” he says as he starts to snip at the first little fringes of Kevin’s hair, sending dark umber curls falling to the floor. “If this takes up the entire evening, it’s just fine by me. All I have to do is paperwork.”
“But you love paperwork,” says Kevin, crookedly smiling.
“I do not.”
“You talk about it all the time,” Kevin points out and jolts slightly and Connor cuts off slightly too much hair but it’s fine, Kevin doesn’t notice. “At least five times today already.”
“I complain, Kevin. There’s a difference.”
“You enjoy it secretly,” Kevin says and Connor has no idea why he’s dragging this out. He settles for flicking Kevin on the nose to shut him up which doesn’t work at all – Kevin jerks his head forward and bites at Connor’s finger, and Connor yelps even though no contact is made.
“Elder Price,” he says, in his best district leader voice, because what, “If you keep that up my scissors may just slip.”
“Sorry,” says Kevin, not sounding sorry at all.
“Stay still and be good,” Connor says absentmindedly, and doesn’t miss the way a blush crawls across Kevin’s face.
The thing is: Connor is horrendously in love with Kevin. Not from the moment Kevin walked through the door, because that would be ridiculous. But he’d thought he was handsome, and then at a closer look in the light, painfully gorgeous. Then Kevin had opened his mouth and ruined things.
But after the Mess, as Connor diplomatically likes to call it in his notes and correspondence and grovelling apologies, Kevin had – changed. It hadn’t been the overnight process Kevin had probably seen it as; he’d still been egotistical and self-enclosed and snide. But he’d gotten kinder and softer around the edges with every passing day and he’d started smiling more and not just at his own brilliance – when Nabulungi had first started visiting and had befriended each and every one of the other elders in turn, when he’d cooked a particularly delicious meal, when Mafala had clapped him on the back and said he was proud of what he was becoming. Then more and more and more and then he’d started smiling at Connor and then Kevin Price hadn’t just ruined things, he’d thoroughly destroyed Connor’s life.
Connor isn’t doing anything about it, of course.
Not because he doesn’t think Kevin might be interested. Not because he’s turning it off, because he isn’t. But just because he is so, so violently scared of what might happen if he does do something.
He’s happy with flirting just-so and pushing boundaries just-so but actually telling Kevin how he feels – it’s a step too far, something Connor can’t even comprehend. He hasn’t entirely processed that he’s gay and he hasn’t entirely processed that he’s trying to be okay with that – actually actively telling Kevin Price, the Kevin Price, that he was the object of his affections and Connor was in love with him – he can’t even imagine it.
He can settle for this, though – friendship, and his fingers in Kevin’s hair, teasing out the knots.
Like this, like this: Kevin is more gorgeous than ever – quiet, trying not to distract Connor or simply just staring into space, looking up and turning his head obediently whenever Connor asks him to. He is slowly, slowly becoming the boy who Connor was warned about – the boy who’d almost appeared promised by God to lead them to the successful completion of their mission – but not at the same time. His skin is more deeply tanned, his smile less perfected and more easy-going and his hair bleached-just by the sun.
Connor can’t take his eyes off him.
Which is why he screws up.
He leans forward and he is literally just finishing Kevin’s haircut when Kevin smiles at him, sudden and bright and it is a real smile because Connor sees just the faintest hint of teeth, sees the curve of Kevin’s dimples and it’s for him and it’s a stupid excuse but that smile alone makes Connor jolt and close the scissors.
An excessively large chunk of hair falls to the ground. Connor stares after it, frozen.
Kevin’s smile drops. “What’s wrong?”
Connor laughs nervously. “Oh, uh, nothing.” He leans over Kevin and starts frantically trying to rearrange his hair, trying to cover up where there is now a huge chunk missing, and – “Just! Styling! Like my mama used to!” He laughs again.
“Okay, now you’re being weird.”
“You’re weird,” says Connor, and flicks over a swoop of hair, and – gosh darn it to heck, he is sooo screwed.
Kevin frowns. “Can I see? Is it done?”
“Almost,” says Connor, and laughs again.
“I wanna see it,” Kevin declares, and snatches for the mirror resting on the side. Connor is quicker – he dances past Kevin and grabs it and wriggles out of the way again. “Connor! McKinley! Let me see my hair, let me see – oh my gosh, you made me bald, let me see–”
Kevin is laughing, somehow, even though Connor has definitely messed up his haircut (not that Kevin knows that) and laughing and laughing. Connor shakes his head and jumps up onto the couch, which makes an almighty creaking sound underneath his weight. “No,” he shouts down, and can’t decide if he’s upset or flustered that he and Kevin still don’t really have a height difference like this. “You’re not bald.”
Kevin’s hands go flying to his head and he smooths down his hair and he is just so breathtakingly pretty that all Connor can do is stare at him – he’d thought Kevin Price was handsome with his collar buttoned and his tie straight but Kevin Price relaxed, wearing a t-shirt and laughing with his head thrown back is someone, something else entirely. Connor recovers his senses just in time to yank the mirror away as Kevin goes running straight at him.
Connor ducks down on the couch and clutches the mirror close to his chest, then rolls over when Kevin starts grabbing for it with pincer-hands. He’s lying flat on his back like a crab staring up at the ceiling and wondering if this is some taunting nightmare. Then he’s being pinned down to the couch by Kevin and Connor forgets how to breathe.
Kevin is just – heavy and Connor knows that he’s built well, that he does stupid manly-man things that Connor hasn’t ever really cared for like lifting heavy weights and throwing them at walls, but it’s one thing to see that and one thing to feel that all over him, a wonderful terrifying pressure keeping him close to the couch, mirror still in his hands. Connor goes to grip his arm to shift him away and when he feels the muscle there he might just whimper, a sound he’s desperately not proud of but can’t be avoided.
“Connor,” says Kevin and his voice is low and almost throaty in his ear, “Give me the mirror.”
“No,” says Connor, because once again, district leader, and he is not allowing himself to be pushed around by Kevin Price (well, verbally: but like this – that was an entirely different kettle of fish) and he is especially not letting Kevin see how much he’s messed up his hair. “Get off me, what are you doing–” but he’s starting to laugh nervously despite himself.
Kevin grabs for the mirror again. He’s also on the couch now, framing Connor in just-so with his body, hands on the fabric, face far too close to Connor’s for comfort. Connor dares to make eye contact, and Kevin blinks at him. Like he’s waiting for something.
He’s close enough that Connor can count out every eyelash, every mole (eight), a tiny scar just above his jaw, the bones in his neck. The faint puff of his breathing blows against Connor’s cheek, in-out-in-out. Stutter, stop, start. It’s quick, quicker than usual, and when Connor looks at Kevin again, he seems –
Nervous, undoubtedly, Connor hasn’t ever seen Kevin Price shy before, ever, but if he had to guess, this is what he would look like. He’s just staring and looking down at Connor, like in a trance, like in a dream. Connor’s had dreams just like this before and he’s wondering when the hellfire is going to start warming his back, when he’s going to start screaming.
“Connor,” says Kevin soft as anything, “What did you do to my hair?”
“I uh,” Connor has to tell him, “Might have taken off. A bit too much.” His words aren’t coming out right. He swallows around them. “Sorry.”
“Why,” asks Kevin, and he’s closer still.
Connor breathes out the truth. “I got distracted.”
Kevin smiles. It’s a Kevin smile that Connor recognises: he’s gotten good at telling them apart, the self-serving missionary-boy smile which doesn’t meet his eyes and the smile he gives Elder Neeley when he’s being annoying and the wide-wide grin he gives Arnold every day and the slip of a smirk he throws Connor over his shoulder when Kevin thinks he’s being cute and Connor thinks he’s being an annoying brat. This one is knowing, watching, waiting. But mostly, more than anything else, knowing – clean-cut, I see right through you.
“Now what did you get distracted by,” asks Kevin.
Dear Lord. This is like every single one of his dreams rolled into one. His mind goes blank. He wants to say you, always you, just decide if you’re going to burst up in flames or kill me or kiss me. But he can’t – his throat closes up around the words and he swallows and he stares and Kevin–
Kevin leans closer still and Connor looks, looks, looks right at his lips, still smiling, still smirking. “Connor?” and that smile drops, his dark eyebrows draw in together, all lost-dog confused, “Is this–” he’s hovering and he’s nervous and if this is happening, if this is really happening, Connor doesn’t want Kevin to doubt that he wants this, wants him.
Connor nods, barely perceptible, a tiny little movement when he wants to shout yes, yes, if you’ll have me and Kevin is all over him all of a sudden and he’s kissing him.
The first thing Connor thinks is warm because Kevin is – the press of his body where he’s pushing him backwards into the couch cushions, his skin, his lips and the second thing Connor thinks isn’t a thought at all, but just an illegible fuzz of feeling in between his ribcage. Connor is careful to close his eyes though he really wants to see Kevin – but it’s enough feeling him, the gentle way his hand curls up to rest just below Connor’s hip, like he’s scared to touch, like Connor could break, the way he feels in one movement like they’re entwined.
Kevin moves again, moves them slightly so Connor is more propped against the cushions than being a motionless huddle, and guides a hand to Connor’s jaw as he kisses him again. Connor knows sin, knows it in and out, and this is positively sinful, the slide of Kevin’s mouth, the way they’re both breathing, the little sighs and –
Connor realises that his brain has been offline and he hasn’t moved. He needs to change that.
He grabs for Kevin’s shirt and pulls him closer, and Kevin falls against him, and he’s in his lap just about and they’re still kissing, and Connor doesn’t think he could stop if he tries. He’s forgotten wholly what they were doing in the first place, why he’s on the couch, why there’s a mirror lax in his hand, and –
He moves away from Kevin to say, “Is this just so you can take the mirror?”
Kevin blinks at him. His face is flushed and his lips are kiss-swollen and his pupils are big and blown out. “What?”
“The mirror,” says Connor, remarkably in control of himself for a boy who’d just had at least three of his Kevin Price related fantasies fulfilled, “Was that just so you could take it?”
Kevin shakes his head. “I actually, uh, forgot that was why I was on top of you.”
“Oh,” says Connor, and reaches to put the mirror down. Then he feels for Kevin’s hair, musing it just so – he gives a little tug, just to see what Kevin does (he groans, and Connor smiles to himself) – then nods. “You know, it’s not as bad as I thought it was.”
“Well,” says Kevin, and he sounds like he couldn’t care less, “That’s good then.”
“Mmm-hmm,” murmurs Connor, and kisses him again.
“Actually,” says Connor, some time later, trying not to worry about how he is possibly going to explain away the state Kevin has left his neck in to the other elders, yet still smiling like a cat with the cream, “I don’t think I did a bad job.”