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“I still don’t know why you’ve come to me for advice,” says Kevin.
Arnold rolls his eyes as far back as he dares. “Because you’re the most qualified to give it, dumb-dumb.”
“Actually, that’s not true,” Kevin argues. “Literally any of the villagers. Elder McKinley–”
“I’m not asking your boyfriend for romantic advice when it concerns his best friend.” Arnold crosses his arms. Isn’t that obvious? “Besides, you’re my bff. And that means you gotta help me.” He pauses. “Bff means best friend–”
“I know what bff means,” mutters Kevin. He sighs, deeply. Rests his hands lightly on his knees and leans forward. “Fine. Fine. Fine! What do you want to know?”
Arnold unfolds his arms, and rubs his hands together, almost gleefully. He thought he’d have to spend more time wearing Kevin down. “Um. Okay, so – how do I actually get in a relationship and then how do I stay in a relationship and how–”
“I am so not qualified for this–”
“You’re in a relationship,” says Arnold.
“You were in a relationship,” points out Kevin. “Surely you know how you got into that one?”
“Um, I baptised her and then asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend and she said yes and then like, three weeks later, she told me that she actually was in lesbians with her friend.” Arnold pauses gravely. “She didn’t say she was in lesbians, I said that. I just forgot the word.”
“I don’t think there’s a word for that,” says Kevin.
“Do you hate lesbians?”
“No?” Kevin narrows his eyes. “No. Arnold. I do not hate lesbians.”
“Oh, that’s good then. It’s against the Book of Arnold to hate lesbians. Apart from the bit which says that if ye commit evil deeds you will be turned into a lesbian, which I think actually is a bit homophobic. Should I change that?”
“No, because that got the evil warlord to leave us alone.”
“I know, but it’s redundant and also I think Elder Butt-Fucking Naked would be happier if he was a lesbian so really being turned into a lesbian is a good thing? So I probably should change it.” Arnold pauses. "Butch Fucking Naked."
“You read too many of the Facebook posts that Nabulungi sends you,” Kevin mutters.
“Actually, she’s started sending me Tumblr posts.”
“That sounds like a disease and also probably even worse.”
“Do not even say that.”
“Jeez, jeez, okay,” Kevin holds up his hands. “Does this mean we can stop talking about relationships–”
“No! Because I still need your advice!” Arnold chirps. “Look, I just need to work out how to start the conversation. Or how to drop hints.”
Kevin shakes his head. “The number one thing you should not do is drop hints.”
“No offence, buddy, but that sounds dumb.”
Arnold doesn’t know why he’s trusting Kevin so heavily with this. Probably mostly just because he’s in a happy stable relationship, but also because they are best friends and Arnold would trust Kevin with just about anything in the whole wide world. Especially his feelings for one of their fellow missionaries. Especially that.
“Trust me,” says Kevin. “It worked for me.”
“You didn’t drop hints to Connor?”
“No,” Kevin shrugs, “I mean, I didn’t realise I had a crush on him until he kissed me. So you’re already doing better than me.”
“I don’t think your advice will work for me,” says Arnold. “All I know how to do is be obvious.”
“Play dumb, then. Like –” Kevin waves a hand. “Ooooo, Elder Poptarts, could you spare a poptart for little old me?”
Arnold squints at him. “I’m not saying that. And I don’t want him to spare his Poptarts, he only gets like one box a year.”
“You make him sound deprived.”
“It’s in his name, he’s probably missing them.”
“Connor told me that he doesn’t even like that nickname–”
“He doesn’t?” Arnold’s mouth downturns mournfully. “I say it like – six or seven times a day.”
Kevin’s brow furrows. “Maybe you should talk to him more.”
No, no way. Absolutely not. “No because then my palms get real sweaty and I forgot how to speak proper English and all I can do is stare at his tie.”
Kevin watches him for a moment, and Arnold feels as though he’s said something wrong. He feels like that mostly every day, though, so there’s nothing new there. “That’s kinda gay,” Kevin says apprehensively.
“I know that,”
“Yeah, but I forgot it wasn’t just me and Connor who thought gay things like that.” Kevin coughs. “I think you should just be yourself. You know. Do whatever you did to get Nabulungi to like you.”
“I just called her by the wrong name like twenty-five billion times–”
“Exactly!” Kevin clicks his fingers together. “Why don’t you come up with a different nickname for Elder Thomas. Then it can be like, your thing.”
“I mean,” as ideas go, it’s not a dreadful one, “I could.”
“You so could,” Kevin smiles at him, encouraging. “There you go. There’s my grand advice. Ta-da.”
“Thank you so much,” says Arnold, and finds he genuinely means it.
“You’re welcome,” Kevin replies. “Now, could you – if you don’t mind – Connor wanted to come in here in a bit and help me – um, pick a tie.”
Arnold glares at him. “Are you sexiling me?”
Kevin at least has the decency to blush. “Maybe a little.”
“You’re so shameless,” mutters Arnold, but he clears out.
He started liking Elder Thomas maybe the first day they were in Uganda, though he didn’t really realise it at the time.
It had just been his bright, eager smile as they’d arrived, and the stupid joke he’d made about his nickname. Arnold had found it probably too funny, and it had shown. And then the sad story he’d told them all about his sister – all of it, everything about it, had just made Arnold feel weirdly soft about Elder Thomas – Elder Poptarts – Chris – whoever, whatever. Then after that and after everything finished with Nabulungi, Arnold realised more and more things. Like how Chris started talking about terrible sitcoms at great, rambling length and cut himself off after only a minute or two like he was scared nobody was listening, or how he styled his hair differently on Sundays, or how his cooking was somehow always mysteriously burnt but still weirdly tasty. Like how funny he found Friends and how he’d watch it with Arnold and laugh along with the background track, or how he wore different patterned ties and seemed to colour-coordinate them with Elder McKinley, or how strongly he felt about the placemats being set in a particular way. Like how he always lined up the cultlary neat and straight, and how he decorated the mission quarters with little doodles on scraps of blue-tacked paper, and how he always had time to listen to Arnold ramble about nothing. He was – interesting. And Arnold loved interesting people, especially when, after spending more and more time with them, they revealed more and more little, harmless quirks. It was no wonder he’d developed such a terrible crush.
Only Kevin knew about it, and Nabulungi a little bit, but Arnold knew that he was absoutely terrible at keeping secrets and even worse at lying about them. It was only a matter of time before the truth would come out: when it did, Arnold wanted it at least to sound purposeful. Hence why he’d asked Kevin for advice.
He was lucky to have such a good best friend.
“You are not being serious right now,” says Connor McKinley.
Chris picks awkwardly at a scrap of fabric on the collar of his shirt. They’ve been knitting all morning, and there are funny tufts of material all over the kitchen, and now his clothing, apparently. “Why do you think I’m not?”
“You told me you’d never even considered being gay,” Connor says. They’re sitting on their beds, turned to the side, facing each other, and to Chris it feels like the setup to a really awful sleepover. “Especially not gay for Cunningham.”
“Why are you saying his name like that?”
“I’m not–”
“It’s not a slur. He’s a prophet, or something. You should talk about him–”
“Oh my gosh,” sighs Connor. “I’m not listening to you wax poetry about Arnold Cunningham. Just – whatever it is you wanted – what is it you wanted?”
“Relationship advice,” says Chris eagerly.
“Relationship advice,” repeats Connor. “Lord, give me strength.”
“I haven’t asked you to scale a mountain,” tuts Chris, “Or fight a warlord, it’s a relatively simple–”
“I know it’s relatively simple, it’s just–” Connor laughs. It’s a weird, bitter laugh. “Surreal. I guess. Being asked for gay dating advice on a Mormon mission to Uganda.”
“I’m sure weirder things have happened on missions,” says Chris, and Connor gives him a long look that seems to say are you being serious right now. “Okay, this is probably the weirdest Mormon mission ever, but out of everything I don’t think it’s the gay dating advice you should feel weird about.”
Connor laughs again, and it’s a proper laugh this time. “Very true,” he says, and leans forward a little. He drums his fingers nervously on his knees, which is a gesture Chris recognises from Elder Price more than anyone else, which is weird to think about. “Right. What do you want to know. And before you ask, I’m not doing the birds and the bees talk with you–”
“I know how gay sex works, Connor,” says Chris dryly. He hadn’t only ‘accidentally’ read Playboys. “You can leave that part out.”
“Thank God. Anyway.” Connor clears his throat. “What do you want?”
“How to actually get in a relationship, I guess,” Chris says.
Connor sighs deeply. Too deeply. There’s a far-off, pensive look in his eyes, and Chris almost wants to wave a hand in front of his face to see if he’s still with them. “I literally cannot help you with that.”
“You are in a relationship,” Chris points out. “You’ve been in a relationship. You managed to bag Elder Price.”
“I don’t like it when you say his name like that, you’re saying it the same way I’d say Judy Garland or Lady Gaga–”
“He literally was a celebrity in the district before he arrived, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”
It was true: the weeks before Elders Cunningham and Price had arrived, they’d printed out pictures of the new missionaries and scattered them around the mission quarters. There had been eager conversation about why Elder Price was just so special; every update after the pair had been given their assignments had talked at length at how good Elder Price was, how much he was going to turn things around. Chris could remember Connor talking about Elder Price endlessly before bed, almost as a self-soothing tactic – when Price gets here, we’ll turn things around, when Price gets here, we’ll start getting those baptisms. Chris had privately thought Price wouldn’t live up to the hype, and he’d been correct. Still, it was funny to talk about the neurotic, intense, weird missionary like he was a celebrity instead of just being the district leader’s boyfriend.
“If he ever finds out about that, then we won’t ever be able to pull his ego back down again,” Connor mutters. “But yes. I suppose you’re right. I did bag Elder Price.”
“You sound pleased with yourself.”
“I mean, I am,” says Connor. “It wasn’t entirely easy. He is, objectively, the most dense man on the planet.”
“Oh,” says Chris, “Arnold can be a little like that. I kept trying to hint the other day during movie night that he could fall asleep on me but he just got me a pillow instead. Which was sweet of him but also – please.”
“So do you think he likes you?” says Connor, and without waiting for an answer, goes, “I think he does.”
Chris eyes him. “What makes you say that?”
“He doesn’t stop staring at you, and also Elder Price told me.” Connor shrugs. “Sorry, I got told to keep it a secret, but I’m not putting up with watching what I had to go through from the backseat. It was a torturous month and I’d rather you go into trying to woo him with all your cards on the table.”
Chris feels a little dizzy. “Are you sure?”
“I mean, I would hope so,” says Connor. “So – here’s my advice. Be as obvious as physically possible. Leave him with absoutely no room for confusion.”
“So I should just tell him,” says Chris.
“Please. It’ll save me from needing more heart medication when I’m elderly.”
Chris presses his lips together. “I’m not stressing you out that much.”
“Tell that to my heart medication in twenty years time,” says Connor, and stands up. “Is that all the advice you need? It’s just – I told Kevin I’d help him with. Uh. Something.”
“You’re not subtle at all,” Chris says, wrinkling his nose. “Also, ew.”
“Stop being homophobic, Poptarts,” sing-songs Connor, rumaging through his bedside drawer to find something, tucking it into his pocket. “Or I’ll tell Cunningham.”
“I’m not being homophobic–”
“The Book of Arnold does not allow homophobia, you’re–”
“I’m leaving,” declares Chris.
“No, stay here,” Connor smooths down the front of his shirt. “I’ll send Arnold in to talk to you, if you want. Or else you won’t ever tell him and I cannot stress this enough you need to tell him. Like ripping a Band-Aid off a wound.”
“Fine, fine, fine,” says Chris before he can think better of it and Connor clears out of the room with a smile. Chris is left alone with his thoughts and they’re hard to organise. He’s usually better at this, at compartmentalising, at piecing together erratic thought-streams and putting them into boxes that make sense. He’s stopped crushing those boxes, which is good. Though he’d forgotten how much it is to feel everything.
The whole thing with Arnold doesn’t really make much sense to him, which is what most books, movies and TV shows tell him is normal for being in love. Chris gets most of his understanding and his worldview from watching things, reading things, learning about how he needs to live his life through the medium of fictional characters. Not so different to Mormonism, really.
It doesn’t make much sense but it makes more sense than most of what he’s seen in Uganda, which makes him think it’s something worth pursuing. If Kevin and Connor weren’t already together, he’d feel more apprehensive about it, but they’ve already ticked the box of being a gay Mormon missionary couple in love in Uganda so he’s less scared about having to stand out. And Arnold is – Arnold is.
At first, he’d thought it was jealousy.
Arnold was so capable of just being himself. Chris has grown up being told to just be himself which had never made much sense to him: when he’d let himself do that, his parents had gotten mad at him. When he’d lined up the plates and the glasses and the silverware on the table before dinner that had been wrong. When he’d spent twenty minutes washing his hands before his sister’s wake that had been wrong. When he’d spoken about his sister at church like he was mourning her, like it wasn’t an accepted fact that she was in a better place, that was wrong. Being himself was not the thing to be. Instead he’d fallen into the quips and gags of shows and tried to adopt some of that for himself, the easy humour, the easy smiles. He’d gotten quite good at copying.
Then Arnold had arrived, and Arnold was so, so himself. Nothing about that boy was ever filtered; Chris knew whenever they spoke, he was talking to Arnold Cunningham, just Arnold Cunningham, no bells, no whistles. It made it easier for Chris to just be himself as well, to say things the way he saw it, to be blunt and honest and not have someone snap at him. But more than that, he’d started watching Arnold. To this day he still hasn’t stopped.
It’s his smile, first of all. Eager and wide. And his sense of humour, the ridiculous way he carries each and every story, the anecdotes, the relation of every single life event back to Star Wars or Star Trek. At first, Chris had almost resented Arnold. Like: how dare you be so okay with being this weird? He was like that too, but he didn’t make a big deal of it. He hid it, because he knew it made other people uncomfortable, and ever since his sister died, Chris Thomas couldn’t afford to let people down. Then he’d stopped resenting Arnold. It had taken too much energy. Instead, he’d become fixated on the uneven way he spread peanut butter and jelly on toast or the ridiculous nicknames he gave to everybody and the way he acted out every single movie they watched together.
It doesn’t make much sense, any of it. Chris is learning to accept that things can not make sense and still be a good thing.
He’s broken out of his racing thought process by a knock on the door. Chris stares at his hands for a moment before replying. “Come in,” he calls.
Arnold opens the door. “Hiiiiii,” he says, drawing the word out. “Con-bon said you wanted to talk to me.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“What, hiiiii?”
“No, Con-bon.”
“Oh, he loves it,” says Arnold. “I’m trying to get Kev to call him that too.”
“How does… how does Elder Price feel about that?”
“Oh, he hates it. He thinks it’s demeaning.” Arnold shrugs. “I keep telling him there’s nothing wrong with petnames, but he won’t be swayed.”
“I think Elder Price is lying to you,” says Chris, “Because I’ve been in the other bed whilst he’s whispered sweet nothings to Elder McKinley.”
“Gossip?” Arnold shuffles closer. “What did he sayyyyy?”
“Sweetheart, honey. Sugarlump. Honeycakes.” Chris stares pensively ahead. Overhearing those conversations was decidedly the worst part of his day, or maybe his entire life. “It’s awful.”
Arnold frowns. “Are you homophobic?”
This is what he means about Arnold: 0 to 100 before he even gets the chance to catch his breath. “Only about Kevin Price,” Chris jokes, and hopes Arnold sees the humour in it.
Arnold starts laughing, only it’s more of a snort. Chris curses himself for how down bad he is, because there’s butterflies swirling in his stomach at the sound and he can feel his face flushing. “Good, ‘cause I feel the same.”
This would be a weird conversation to have if they were both straight, Chris reflects.
“Anyways,” says Arnold. “What did you want to telllll meeee, Elder Oreo?”
Hello. What. Excuse me?
“Excuse me?”
“Elder Oreo,” Arnold shuffles his feet. “Do you not get bored of being Poptarts?”
“I mean, kinda,” says Chris, “But when have you ever seen me eat Oreos?”
“I haven’t, but I trialled like fifty different nicknames before I walked in here and they were either really boring or really stupid. Like, I’ve seen you eat brown bread and rice like sixty-seven times but Elder Rice is a terrible nickname. Like, that’s just someone’s name. And then I started thinking of other things I associate with you but I think if I called you Elder Playboy that would be classified as harassment and I couldn’t just call you Elder Thomas because that would be soooooooooooooo boring. So. Elder Oreo.” Arnold pauses, and for whatever reason, does jazz hands. “Elder Budgie could also maybe work. Don’t you have a pet –”
“Back home, yeah,” says Chris, trying to find a gap in Arnold’s ramble. “It was my sister’s.” He thinks about it for a moment. “Please don’t call me Elder Budgie.”
“Elder Cheerios?”
“Um–”
“Elder Microwave.”
“What’s that–”
“Elder –”
“You could just call me Chris,” says Chris.
Arnold’s eyes widen. He nods, slowly. “I could just do that.” He waits a second. “Chris.” He sounds far, far too pleased with himself.
“There you go,” says Chris.
Arnold clears his throat. “What did you need me for, anyway?”
Chris sucks in a deep breath. Oh. Dear. Here we go, he thinks. He visualises a Band-Aid slapped over a wound and pictures yanking it right off. Like the opposite of turning it off, kind of. Turning it on. Actually, no, he doesn’t like that. Ew.
“So,” he says. “I have something to tell you.”
Arnold launches himself at the bed and sits down heavily. He folds his arms, leans forward, looks expectantly up at Chris. Chris squints at him. “What are you doing?”
“You sound really miserable. Is it – bad news?”
“Oh my gosh, no.” Chris shakes his head. Before he can think better of it, he goes to sit down next to Arnold. It’s what a movie protagonist would do, he thinks, before taking a leap of faith (not really) like this. Maybe that shouldn’t be his standard for romance. “Not bad news. I mean, maybe. Depending how you react.”
“Weird,” Arnold wrinkles his nose, “Hit me.”
Chris fights the urge to punch him in the shoulder (weird) and instead swallows the butterflies in his throat. “So,” he says again. “You know how–” nope, not the way he wants to go with this. “So basically I–” also bad. “Kevin Price is gay.” Oh. Terrible. What is he talking about?
Arnold nods sagely. “Very true.” He raises a brow. “Is that what you wanted to tell me? Because I did know that. Actually kinda intimately, he is not quiet at all when he–”
“WOAHHHHH,” squeaks Chris. He doesn’t know why he’s overreacting: he’s probably heard worse. “I mean. No. I meant more – Connor also is, and you know. Other elders are. It’s probably a bit of a statistical abnormality.”
Yeah, he’s officially lost the plot.
“This is what you wanted to talk about?”
“Maybe you should add it to the Book,” says Chris, and desperately grasps at how to fix the conversation. Just tell him, he thinks. Band-aid. Rip it off. “There’s a lot of us. Being gay. In Uganda.”
Arnold looks at him, and there’s an uncomprehending blankness in his gaze. “Maybe?”
“There are,” says Chris, and he feels as though he’s talking like he’s had a lobotomy. “I’m doing this wrong,” he ends up saying.
Arnold pats his shoulder. “Take your time,” he says kindly. Chris wonders if he’d be saying that if he knew what he was having so much trouble saying.
“Basically.” Just say it, band-aid, rip it off – “I’m. Being gay in Uganda.”
“Whatttttttttttttttttt.” Arnold slowly swivels his head to stare at him, and Chris feels boneless, breathless, at the look in his eyes. “Who with?”
Oh Lord. He really isn’t getting it.
Chris isn’t very good at making bad decisions. He gets about halfway into the bad decision (smoking a joint at his high school prom; stealing Connor’s fancy fountain pen set to prove a point) before going ohhh wait nope and running in the other direction (calling the police to tell them he’d broken the law and also he was dying; returning Connor’s pens in tears) and vowing to never do such a stupid thing again. He’s terrible at making bad decisions, but making a bad decision and following through with it seems to be the only thing he can do to get this through Arnold Cunningham’s head.
He grabs Arnold’s face. Probably too hard – Arnold looks like a startled pufferfish where Chris’ hands are framing his cheeks, and Chris relaxes his hold slightly before leaning in. He gives Arnold a second to push him away, and he doesn’t, and that’s the only warning he gives before he kisses him gently.
It lasts barely a second, maybe two. Chris is yanking away and saying, “Well there you go that’s what I was talking about–” when Arnold grabs his tie and pulls him into a proper, actual, good kiss.
“Not bad news at all,” says Arnold when he pulls away.
“Depending on your perspective,” says Chris, slightly breathless.
“Not bad news,” murmurs Arnold, and goes to kiss him again.
“So our advice worked,” says Kevin a day or so later.
Arnold looks up from the book he’s reading. Chris is asleep in his lap, and snoring. It’s oddly charming. “Your advice?”
Kevin shrugs. “Obviously. Connor and I knew that you wouldn’t be able to coordinate yourselves organically so we tried to prime you best we could and then shove you into a room together.”
“So you didn’t actually sexile me?”
“No, I did. I just also helped you get a boyfriend,” Kevin smiles at him, weirdly benevolently. “See? Great advice.”
“Is Kevin bragging again?” calls Connor from across the room. “What he isn’t telling you is that it was my idea.”
“It was a collab–”
“I’m fairly certain it was my suggestion–”
Arnold snorts, and smiles fondly at Chris. “Yeah. Sure. It worked.”