"Oh, you had the hell dream… was I in it?"
Elder McKinley doesn't think much of it when Price blushes deeply- from what he's seen of him, he blushes rather a lot for someone so outwardly self confident. He stammers out a half-baked excuse, something about doing chores (McKinley will always let someone go if they say they're doing chores, it's one of his weaknesses), and walks away quickly. McKinley had assumed that'd be the end of it- it was more of a joke than anything else, anyway.
But the flush returns with a vengeance every time they so much as talk for a week straight, and it's getting concerning.
McKinley confronts him- he has to. He prides himself on running a tight ship, as it were; Price is still studiously avoiding him, and (speaking as his mission commander), that will certainly not do.
"Elder Price-"
He's quite sure that Price had not noticed McKinley follow him out, but now he's gotten him cornered by the trash bins. The elder jumps about a foot in the air.
"You are ignoring me." It's a statement, not a question. Price blushes deeply, again. McKinley frowns. "Is this about your hell dream? I know they're a touchy subject, and I won't bring it up again if that's what you want."
"Uh-" He looks mortified, but sighs, shoulders slumping. "Yeah. You were in my hell dream. I'd rather not talk about it."
Mckinley smiles pleasantly. "Of course, elder. Just checking." He waits for a moment, hands clasped in front of him, but he doesn't look like he's going to say anything more.
"How do you turn it off?" asks Price quietly, just as McKinley turns to go. He pauses.
"Turn what off?"
"Everything. Feelings, emotions, the dreams… everything."
Connor sighs, hitches his dropped grin up again before turning back around. "Oh, I'm afraid the dreams don't turn off. Believe me, I've tried. As for the rest- lock it up in your mind. Put everything into a box, as it were, and don't let it open for anything."
"Lock it all up? In one box?" Prince sounds skeptical. "Won't it burst at some point?"
"Of course not," says McKinley tetchily. "It's just a metaphor. Build whatever container you want."
"But won't any container break open eventually? I mean, you can't just put everything in one box and expect it all to fit-"
"It does," snaps Connor. "I've been doing this since I was six- I assure you, it's never 'burst'."
Elder Price is watching him with an odd look in his eye. Pity? "Maybe it's about time, then."
He sucks in a sharp breath before schooling his expression into its normal placid smile. "Don't be silly, Elder Price. Shall we go inside?"
He's still looking at him with that off expression, but he nods.
—
It happens nearly a month later.
He's at breakfast, just buttering a piece of toast, and he drops it. It's fine, he's done this before- obviously. It's fine.
But he can't stop staring at it, and something wells up in his eyes, and he's whispering things like "Ohhell, oh hell, oh hell" even though he is not supposed to say that, he's not.
The others freeze, conversations dying out but he doesn't care- he doesn't care about his toast, either, not at all, but now there're tears streaming down his cheeks and his hands are shaking where they're pressed over his eyes and his mouth.
"Elder McKinley?" asks a tentative voice, which jolts him back into reality (or, at least, it stifles the words falling from his lips). When he doesn't respond, besides lapsing into another round of tears, they shuffle silently from the kitchen.
He spends the rest of the day curled under his blankets, staring blankly at the wall (even though he has work to do) and that night his hell dream is so bad that he knows he's woken everyone else with his screams, even if they're too polite to mention it.
—
Conner doesn't cry, ever, because he doesn't.
He has his tears locked up somewhere, shoved way down in the corner of the box. It was one of the earliest things to be turned off; his father and his constant muttering on how real men don't cry andreal men don't-
Real men don't do the things that Connor does, is what he means, but all he can do is lock down the things he can fix.
And now he keeps crying, at everything, like his body's trying to make up for all the times it hadn't before.
Maybe it's because the hell dreams have gotten worse- so much worse it's amazing that Connor ever thought he had it bad. In his dreams, they throw stones at him, now, they say horrible things, they burn him, they hurt him-
They being the other elders. They being his family, really- or as good as he's got, what with disappointed parents and siblings old enough they're already out of the house. (They being Elder Price, with his sweetly concerned eyes and impossible sadness when he finds Connor whizzing madly about at three in the morning because he has to clean this, and he has to reorganize the papers on the desk (and why not the entire desk, while he's at it? And if he has all that done, why not the living room besides?), and he has to open close open close open close openclose the cupboards until he's sure something's going to break.) (Himself or the cupboard? He doesn't know.) (He'd though he'd locked that away too.)
—
"Elder McKinley, don't you think it's time to go to bed?"
Price is standing in the doorway, because obviously he is, listening to the steady squeak-thump squeak-thump squeak-thump of the cabinet over and over and over again.
"Of course," he says, smiling brightly. "I just have to finish up."
"Finish what?"
And Connor's face crumples, just a little bit, because he has no idea what he has to finish. His smile stays firmly in place. "This. I'll go back to bed in a minute." In thirty minutes. In an hour. In the morning, he'll go back to bed, and pretend to sleep, and get up with a thousand half-thoughts in his head because they're all escaping now and tearing him apart.
"McKinley…" he's right there, with his sleep mussed hair and pretty blue eyes and jawline dusted with stubble, unreadable expression on his handsome face-
No. Stop.
His leg muscles give out, and he collapses to the floor with his head buried in his hands. He taps his toe and counts the beats, frantically, trying to get his breathing under control because it's all coming back now, all the teasing and all the disappointed looks and when his father screamed at him that he doesn't want a son who dresses like a freak-
"McKinley, we're all worried about you-"
His head snaps up. He's lost count, again, and he's tapping his toes like a metronome, and "It's fine! I'm fine! I'll just turn it off. I'll just-" his voice catches on a sob, on a whimper, on the horrible realization that he's burst open and he can't gather the pieces back together. "Please go away."
"Mc-"
"Please." He's so tired.
Price sighs, shuffles his feet. "Alright, if you really want me too." And then he waits, like Connor's going to change his mind. (He's not.)
He starts to whisper out loud, with the dull beat of his toes on the wood floor. "One, two, three, four, five, six…"
He's at 183 when he finally hears him leave.
—
It's so hot and Connor's so dizzy.
He's not been sleeping- how could he?- and he's not been eating- he's nauseous, horribly so- and he's just trying to keep his head up and nod along with Elder Cunningham with a smile on his face, and-
has it always been this hard?
He realizes he's swaying when his shoulder bumps into Poptart's own.
"Sorry," he mumbles, and does his best to right himself. Oh, he really does feel unwell.
"And the Jedi master finally defeated the Death Eaters…"
His words are drowned out by a thick, heavy buzzing, pulsing in Connor's ears, and he stumbles again, this time backwards. Cunningham pauses, glancing over. Connor stands, teetering for a moment- he feels awful, he feels awful-
And he collapses, unconscious before he even hits the ground.