By some miracle — or maybe out of necessity, because he was close to passing out during the day and it was getting really hard to function — Connor does start to sleep better after his talk with Elder Cunningham.

The hell dreams don't stop abruptly, as a part of him had hoped they would. Realistically, though, it does make sense that nineteen years of internalized homophobia wouldn't go away just because a single person briefly tried to validate his feelings. But the nightmares do start to shift into something less painful, even if they do become somewhat more … awkward. Sometimes, after waking abruptly, he even manages to fall back into unconsciousness for a few more hours before everyone gets up to start the day.

He is rarely forced to confront the Devil himself anymore, deep in his shadowy lair of medieval torture and desperation. For this, Connor is infinitely grateful. The two have become far too well acquainted — Satan has learned, over the course of thousands of nearly-identical nights, just how to push at his jagged edges to get him to crack further.

What do you want to do to him, Connor? What would you do to any of them if you had the chance? That voice is soft and velvety as it whispers suggestions, and in a way, that's worse than if it were rough and coarse. The things it says almost sound … well, they still sound wrong. But less wrong. More like drinking coffee than killing someone or renouncing the Lord.

Sometimes, when Connor's breath hitches or he squirms, Satan raises an eyebrow and leers at him dangerously. Would you rather they did things to you, boy? Can you imagine that? What it would feel like?

No. Yes. Of course not. Honestly, Connor has no idea anymore. He does know he doesn't want Satan to touch him, though — either with that angry knife thing he's been eyeing up as he runs his fingertips along Connor's cheekbones, or with something far worse. A lot of the time Connor really doesn't want to be touched by anyone anymore.

Sometimes he wonders if he's still stubbornly gay or if this pale, empty existence is simply what it's like to become straight Or, maybe, he's now something that's neither, something that's even more broken.

He never has time to ponder this very long, though, because Satan gets antsy when without a weapon for too long and then everything hurts again and he can't think about anything else. More often than not he jolts awake when it becomes too much to bear, sweating and panting and, apparently, audibly yelling. He really doesn't feel like he deserves this. Don't you? He tries his best, makes conscious decisions not to sin every single day. Is this really the best way to deal with this, to make him—

Yes. No. Could anyone really know?

But now he's rarely tortured anymore, thank Heavenly Father, at least not in the same way. He hasn't been back to that dingy, echoing dungeon in a few days, hasn't seen the threatening glint of antique weaponry or heard the heavy footfalls of Satan stomping down the stone corridor. Instead, he finds himself in in a simple, empty room most nights, usually alone, at least for the start.

Yes, at first he's alone, and for a moment, he allows himself to relax. That's usually when Kev- when Elder Price shows up.

Except it's not Elder Price — not really.

This creature has the same perfectly-slicked hair, the same sculpted body beneath the starched white shirt and pants that … okay, those are definitely tighter than they are in real life. There are other subtle differences as well. His eyes gleam brightly with undisguised malice, his mouth twists cruelly, and his eyebrows, so expressive on the real boy, never seem to move. The effect is a flat, unfeeling caricature that fills Connor with … well, feelings he can't really explain.

Worse still, the Not-Elder Price likes to get close to him — like, really close. Connor can feel little puffs of air at his neck, fingers ghosting over his arms, deceptively gentle. He struggles not to lean into it, because he doesn't want this, he can't, but he usually fails.

And this time, Connor can't even honestly say he's completely dreading whatever comes next.

Still, he usually closes his eyes at this point, and tries not to think about why this particular Mormon is haunting his dreams — but he can feel the sharp fingernails raking across his skin and the teeth scraping against his throat, and the Not-Elder Price's hot breath across his cheek as he whispers look at me and lowers his weight onto him completely. He still jolts awake in shock from the contact — but at least the sounds he's making this time aren't panicked screams. (They might be harder to explain if the others hear him, though.)

He's never quite able to make the call as to whether the Not-Elder Price or Satan is actually the worse nighttime visitor, but he sometimes gets a vague feeling that the former might turn out to be more uncomfortable in the end. He could always escape Satan by waking up; now, he's not so lucky.

Honestly, though, he's just glad to be past the weird intermediate period — nights where he was stripped and held over flames and lashed with the whiplike tails of angry demons, all while the other elders stood by and watched. Elder Price was always at the front of that group, too, and he always had this blank, contemplative look on his face. At least there's less outright pain (and nudity, praise the Lord) involved now, and with the cold expressions this new apparition makes, Connor can cognitively separate it from the real Kevin Price that he has to face every day.

Not that this separation usually stops him from responding in the dream.

Are you really so repressed that any kind of affection, even that, from him, is appealing to you? he asks himself desperately when he wakes up.

Apparently, the answer is yes. Connor isn't sure what that means, or what to do about it, so he changes his boxers and avoids Elder Price as much as politely, humanly possible. He pretends that he has everything completely, totally under control — like a leader. Like a good Mormon. Like someone who isn't slowly developing a weird, sinful attraction to one of the boys he's meant to be protecting, a boy who is already clearly uncomfortable in this place, who gets less sleep than Connor does, and who can't completely hide the fact that being around other people sometimes leaves him pale and shaking. He won't be the person who makes this — whatever this is — worse, who pushes Elder Price over the edge and causes him to flee to somewhere safer. Whatever else Connor's struggling with, he knows this: he needs Elder Price to stay.

Desperate to keep his new problem from ever coming to light, he quickly finds that the saying fake it till you make it has more merit than he previously thought. In the end, no one — no one — is better at acting than Connor McKinley, after all. So life goes on, and for a few days, he can almost pretend that everything is actually getting better.

One thing that actually does get better is that Connor sleeps now, at least some. And with his improved quality of rest comes a new alertness he hadn't known he was missing, along with an increased awareness of how the other elders are coping with their new reality. He's not exactly thrilled with what he observes — without strict rules, the elders descend quickly into disordered, almost-laughable chaos. But no one is doing anything bad enough for a serious reprimand, either, and he feels that it's important to keep morale high at a time like this. So he refrains from lecturing them as much as he can, and tries to lead by example.

Elder Cunningham — their new, self-proclaimed "prophet," who's taken on such a mythical aura that Connor can't even scold him anymore without feeling sacrilegious — has taken to disappearing on long, unchaperoned adventures with Nabulungi. Elder Schrader writes home at least once a day, refusing to take a break to wait for a response or even for the earlier letters to be properly mailed, motivated by both fear that his parents will be horrified by his actions and confidence that they'll forgive him anyway. Elder Zelder found a tiny chameleon just 500 feet from their hut, and is (unsuccessfully) trying to teach the reptile to fetch, much to the bemusement of Nabulungi. Elder Davis is attempting (much more successfully) to teach the village children "yo mama" jokes. And K- Elder Price is avoiding his parents' phone calls. It takes Connor a few days to realize, but once he does he's astounded he didn't see if before.

He doesn't say outright that he doesn't want to talk to them. In fact, on the somewhat rare occasions that he talks with the others, he seems without fail to express how much he misses his family, misses home in general.

But when they call, he's inevitably busy. Sometimes he's just a few feet down the road on the way to the market, as though he left when he heard the phone ring. Sometimes he's in the bathroom, or praying with a new convert, or running with a pair of pants he just spilled a spoonful of sauce on to the river to rinse them out. Once he even managed to get stuck in a tree, and told Elder Neeley to promise his parents he'd call back as soon as he figured out how to detach his shirt from the branch.

He never did. Call back, that is. Not that Connor was watching, or staring at the sliver of skin that appeared thanks to the absence of temple garments, but he did happen to notice.

All the while, Elder Price continues to grow paler despite the bright Ugandan sun, and though Connor fills his plate a little higher than the others at mealtime, he seems to be losing weight, too. Maybe it's just the change of environment, the shift from a lavish American diet. Not everyone immediately feels at home during their first mission.

But somehow, Connor thinks it's something deeper, something darker than that. As district leader, it's his job to find out what it is. But, more than that — he wants to help because he wants to see Elder Price smile again, wants to see him connecting with the other elders and enjoying his time here. He wants this tension to go away, and he wants it to happen soon.

He corners Elder Price in his room one afternoon, moments after an unanswered phone call that he just hadn't seemed to hear. "I thought you missed your family," he says upon entering. "I thought you couldn't wait to talk to them."

(He doesn't waste much time on pleasantries, not because he's frustrated with Elder Price, but because he's worried what he might accidentally say if he gets too friendly these days.)

"I do," Elder Price says shortly, almost sharply. He lays back on his bed and casually arranges an arm over his face.

Connor throws up his hands helplessly, despite the fact that Elder Price can't see him. "So why won't you answer the phone when they call?"

Elder Price remains silent and still.

"Look, I picked up when your mom called yesterday," Connor says gently, sitting down on the corner of the bed. It only takes a split second for Elder Price to sit up and lean away, curling his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on his knees.

"Oh," he says after a moment, trying way too hard to speak in a calm tone and achieving something flat and robotic instead.

"She was scared something is wrong," Connor tells him, frowning at his behavior but not commenting on it. "She didn't even mention the whole excommunication thing, if that's what you're afraid of. Maybe you expect your parents to be angry — I know a lot of us did — but that shouldn't stop you from reaching out." He smiles nervously — his own parents certainly hadn't been thrilled, but putting off their conversation definitely wouldn't have helped. "You're going to have to eventually."

He has his "district leader" voice on now, the authoritative tone he uses when he has to say something he knows the others don't necessarily want to hear. He's not trying to be impersonal right now, though. He just really, really needs Elder Price to listen.

But once again, Elder Price doesn't speak, and there's no way to know if he's hearing what Connor is saying.

So he keeps going, because he's sure he's capable of eventually persuading Elder Price to see some sense. His ability to relate to people is one of the reasons he was chosen for district leader in the first place. "I know it's hard to face what's happened — that you weren't the Super Mormon everybody thought you'd be. Maybe that's partially on me — I should never have treated you like your only purpose here was to singlehandedly turn the mission around. But—"

"Don't you ever wonder why I find you people hard to talk to?"

Connor's mouth shuts with a snap. Elder Price's voice is almost angry, and his eyes are suddenly filled with something dark. He glares at Connor as he sits curled on the bed, waiting for him to answer.

Connor thinks about it for a moment, and he realizes that he hadn't, really — he'd just assumed that Elder Price was used to better friends and better accommodations and conversations with people who understood who he was and where he came from. He'd figured that Elder Price would be able to talk to them once he overcame these expectations and realized that they were his only option … but suddenly, he's not so sure. Should the elders have been doing something differently, made an effort to seem more welcoming?

"Um …"

"It's because you all think I'm some insufferable, egotistical narcissist who's convinced I can't do anything wrong. I can tell you don't like me, you know. It's really— I can just tell."

Connor gasps. "Elder Price, we don't think that at all!" Maybe they think he acts that way, sometimes. But the real Elder Price, under his bravado — the boy who sits with the village children and reads them stories long after his voice has gone hoarse, who volunteers to take the annoying, strenuous maintenance jobs here at the hut so the others can go out and preach and get the glory of a new convert themselves — is selfless, caring, and, humble. Connor sees this easily now, and he'd assumed that the other missionaries do too.

"Really?" Elder Price scoffs. "'Super Mormon'?"

Connor shakes his head. He had never intended that to be taken as an insult. "I only meant that— when you came here, you were so—"

"I know," Elder Price says. " Trust me. I was a real dick."

"No!" Connor doesn't really know what he's trying to say, but he is sure he's not capable of calling Kevin Price something so uncomplimentary. Sure, there were moments in the beginning where he was annoyed by his self-assured personality, but only because he was pretty much jealous of the other boy's ability to appreciate himself. "Elder Price, you were— you were so confident, I guess. And now you're … well, you're really not."

Elder Price slumps a little on the pillows, though he keeps his knees clasped to his chest. Connor doesn't know what he expects to happen next — that he'll admit what's bothering him? That he'll scoff at Connor's concern and send him away?

Instead, he bites his lip a little and says softly, "I thought I asked you to call me Kevin."

"Kevin," Connor says immediately, and then he says it again, because while he's been forcing distance between them by calling him "Elder Price," this feels so much more natural. It feels … nice.

"Yes, Connor?"

Connor blinks — he hadn't really had a conversation in mind when he said his name. Also, Kevin's posture is more relaxed suddenly, and they're sitting closer on the bed — so Connor is finding it a little hard to concentrate.

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" he asks finally. Might as well finish what he came in here to do. "Maybe it will help."

"Why are you so sure something's wrong?" Kevin asks. Hesitantly, like he doesn't want to know the answer.

"You don't seem happy anymore." Connor shrugs. "I can tell you're suffering here, and if there's anything we can do to make this better …" He doesn't know how else to offer his support, but hopefully Kevin gets the point.

Kevin sighs a little, like he's thinking it over. While he does, Connor makes a point of not pressuring him by staring at him — instead, he looks around the room, trying to make Kevin as comfortable as he can.

He hasn't really been in here since Kevin and Elder Cunningham moved in, and as he studies the small space around the two tiny beds, he can tell that not much has changed. With their suitcases stolen upon arrival, they hadn't really held onto much to fill up the space. There are now two threadbare quilts draped on the bottom half of the beds. A few unmatched socks lay on the floor. And there, in a ziplock bag stuffed under the rickety nightstand—

"Is that your Book of Mormon? On the ground?"

Connor isn't mad, even though that's definitely disrespectful and probably against the rules. He thinks it's kind of funny, actually, given everything that's happened here. But the change in Kevin is instantaneous and scary. He stiffens again, and his expression turns dark and angry.

"Okay," he says in a low, dangerous voice. "Okay. You want to talk? You think I'm suffering?"

Connor squints at him, confused by the sudden shift in the mood. "I—"

"What do you know about suffering?" he snaps. "So you're different — so you're gay — well there are plenty of gay Mormons, and they're doing fine. There are gay Mormons featured on the Church website." His voice is harsher than Connor's ever heard it before, and it's enough to send chills dancing down his spine. "Stop being so dramatic about it."

Connor unconsciously moves backward, and suddenly he's standing several feet away from the bed. Where in the world did that come from? "I don't know what you're—"

Kevin sneers at him, and Connor wants to collapse at the bitterness pouring off of him in waves. "Still turning it off, then? How's that working out for you?" He laughs, a cold, terrible sound. "Because it sure as hell isn't working for me."

It feels like there's something in Connor's throat, he can barely talk, but he feels like he has to try. People lash out when they're angry, and he knows there's a reason Kevin is angry now, even if he refuses to tell him. What Kevin said was unexpected, and it was horrible, but it just means that he's hiding something worse.

"What … what are you trying to turn off?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Kevin hisses.

Connor can't take this anymore. He stands, frozen in place, not quite looking at Kevin but not quite able to leave, either. Even though Uganda is full of bugs and heat and disease and angry warlords, he's somehow been treated with nothing but respect since he got here. He's started to believe that he deserves better.

Apparently it's not so hard to revert back into his old, fragile self.

"Are you crying?" Kevin asks incredulously, a note of regret in his voice.

"No," Connor sniffs, turning away. He can't believe himself. Next his nose will get all runny, then his face will turn bright red, and then everyone will know, for the rest of the day, that he's broken down. He is such a— God, why does he do this?

"You are," Kevin says quietly, reaching out but stopping short of contact. "Elder McKinley — Connor — I— I didn't—"

Connor steps further away. It takes him only a moment to catch his breath.

"My parents made sure I was sent to one of the most homophobic places on the planet, and I still, after all this time, can't quite reason out if it was meant to help me or just get rid of me for good." He says this in a rush as soon as he can, without turning around. "You're not the only one going through something here, Elder Price." Then he leaves, closing the door softly behind him.

He almost swears he hears a quiet sob from the other side before he retreats down the hall to his room.