Chapter Text
Kevin pressed his fingers to the glass of the narrow window, his lips involuntarily stretching into a smile at the sight in front of him. Red, yellow, orange, all flashed before him in a bright display of colour and sound. His breath clouded the window pane, and he nudged his brother, Jack, turning to grin at him.
“Jack, isn’t this just so-“ he started to say, before the door was flung open and a very angry Mrs Price came storming into their cramped room.
“Kevin Benjamin Price!” she yelled, “Jack Craig Price!”. She was definitely begin loud enough to wake up their neighbours. Kevin flinched at the loud noise.
“Mum, I, we were just-“ he began to apologise before being cut off.
“No, Kevin, I don’t want to hear it.” His mother says abruptly. Kevin’s ears turn red, and his eyes water slightly. Suddenly, his fluffy red Mickey Mouse Christmas socks seem very interesting.
“Why aren’t you two in bed?” she questions. Because we could hear the fireworks. They reminded me of something from Orlando, and I know that it’s against Heavenly Father’s plan, and that I shouldn’t. He lays out temptations for us to resist, but it just-
“It is-“ she looks past the Disney posters and the towers of books, only ones his dad said they could read, and up to stick on stars and their Toy Story themed clock, “almost 10pm!” she screeches.
Next to him, Jack also seems fascinated by his space patterned slippers. Kevin looks up, and immediately squirms under his mother’s gaze. She raises and eyebrow at him, part sceptical, part angry. Her hazel eyes pin him to the spot.
He opens his mouth and then closes it again immediately. With the corners of his usually bright smile turned down at her disregard for him. He gestures to the window, where the display is still in full swing.
His mother shakes her head, sighing. “Jack, Kevin, I know that this time of year can be exciting, but you know you must be in bed by this hour. You both know what scripture says.” Kevin nods, embarrassed. He’s normally so good! His knuckles turn white with how hard he grips the waistband of his mismatched pyjama bottoms. He looks to the sky (mentally, his gaze is still fixed on Mickey’s darned smiling face. Can’t he read the room?) and sends a quick prayer to Him that his mother is in a good mood, and won’t be too harsh.
He can hear the pick-scratch, pick-scratch of Jack’s cuticles being slowly eviscerated next to him, a habit that his mother often chastises him for. A voice in the back of Kevin’s mind whispers that you know what’s going to happen, Kevin, and he does know. It will be like the donut, he can feel it. He looks up. His mother’s eye twitches cartoonishly. His brother’s head is bowed low.
Swivel-swivel, swivel-swivel. Twitch-twitch, twitch-twitch. Pick-scratch, pick-scratch.
After the longest silence Kevin thinks he’s ever felt, and tension that could be cut with a knife, his mother snaps. “Right.” She says, a bitter coldness to her voice that they all know means the punishment will be bad. “Two weeks, both of you. Grounded.” , she delivers, as casually as if she were asking for an iced lemonade, or maybe a hot chocolate.
Next to him, Jack’s shoulders shake, and Kevin bites back a strangled sound he’s never supposed to make. His mother turns. “I hope seeing some- some degenerate fireworks was worth it, boys. Now get into bed, and if this happens again then it will only be worse for you, okay?” she smiles sweetly, but her voice is harsh as she steps around the door and leaves.
Kevin swallows heavily and squeezes Jack’s hand, knowing as the eldest he has to do something, at least to make him feel better. Jack looks up, green eyes red-rimmed and painful-looking. Kevin forces a watery smile and helps him into his bed, before clambering onto the lower bunk. He remembers when the fought over that, and wishes it was still that easy. As he wraps the characters from Tangled around him, he feels warm. With the shame and the fear. But, he knows it will only get worse from there.
He wakes up in the pits of Hell for the second time in his life.
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Connor slips on his fleece-lined gloves that he’s brought specially for today. They are pink, his favourite colour. His smile stretches farther across his face when the doorbell rang, the merry tune his mother had chosen ding-donging through the McKinley home. “Connor, sweetheart! Can you grab the door please?” she calls from the kitchen, where she’s cooking dinner for his three sisters.
But he’s already there, throwing open the door excitedly to the face of his best friend, Steve Blade. He’s smiling slightly awkwardly, but still effortlessly handsome. Connor can see why the girls in his class like him. His stomach does a funny flip, and his ecstatic grin only widens.
Steve’s dark hair sticks out a little ungracefully from his green woolly hat, and he nervously thumbs the pockets of the matching waterproof coat. “Hi Connor!” Steve smiles excitedly. His ears are red from the cold, and Connor’s turn the same shade at his excitement. “Steve,” he greets, waving slightly. He internally cringes at the action.
His mother appears behind them, seemingly out of nowhere. Connor jumps a little. ”Well Connor, are you ready to leave yet?” Mrs McKinley asks. He nods, and his mother smiles, placing a hand on his shoulder semi-protectively. Her blond hair swings about her shoulders, as she tells them; “Don’t talk to any strangers, okay boys? And Connor, make sure you’re back before ten, alright a stór?”
Connor nods wordlessly. He’s never been out alone before, let alone at night, and he can’t help but be slightly nervous. He toes on his trainers, and reluctantly lets his mum plant a kiss on his freckled cheek. Steve pats his shoulder, all bro-like, and he waves at his sisters who are sat around the dinner table. He shoots his mother a quick smile, and then they’re outside.
The smell of petrichor that permanently hangs around at this time of year is stronger than usual, or maybe he’s just paying more attention than normal, and the bite of the autumn air that Connor can feel through his yellow coat and jumper makes him want to step back inside, step back into the comfort. He looks longingly back past Steve to his home, number sixty seven.
Steve must be able to sense his unease, because his orange-clad hand takes Connor’s. The simple touch feels like the fireworks they’re looking for. Connor turns his head instinctively to look at Steve. “Where are we going, anyway?” He asks, and Steve smiles at him softly, the shy type of smile he only uses on the girls in their Primary 5 class, and now, apparently, Connor.
“It’s not too far now, Con, just a place where my ma used to take me when I was younger, y’know?” Connor smiles and shakes his head slightly. “That’s cool, but I can’t really relate” he says, and when Steve gives him an odd look he elaborates, “I’ve never seen the fireworks before; my deirfiúr, Niamh, used to be terrified of them, she’d hide under her bed like a cat,” he chuckles lightly at the memory.
Steve smiles politely at the anecdote, his cheeks red from the cold. They look at each other, and it feels oddly private for two nine year old boys, out on a street in Kinsale, late at night. Connor coughs, shattering the moment like a hammer to a window. Steve flinches, slightly, but looks away from Connor and seems to realise where they are. He breathes out in wonder. “We’re here,” he grins.
Connor looks up, and his eyes widen in wonder. It’s beautiful, where Steve has taken him. A clearing, packed with other sightseers in their winter gear. Despite the bustle of the crowd, the place takes his breath away. It’s magical, almost, like something from one of the fantasy films he’s not really supposed to watch. Framed by trees and hedges, messy like Steve but controlled like Connor, the bare branches of weeping willows that had long since lost their leaves finishing it.
“It’s beautiful,” he says, hushed as Steve smiles secretively and pulls him in by the hand. The sky is glittering like a million nebulas, and Connor knows it will only get better when the crowd goes quiet and a woosh rips through the calm air. The reds, yellows, oranges of the display snatch his breath from his lungs sharply. The gathering oohs and ahhs, and so does Connor, until he feels eyes on him. He tears his gaze away from the neon lights that look like heat lamps, in the cold, and looks at Steve.
Steve smiles at him, his shy, only for girls-and Connor, he thinks-smile, and the light dances across his face, shining on the little pockmarks, indentations and imperfections that Connor never sees in the day, illuminating his dark eyes, so brown they shine black.
Connor can feel something dancing in his chest, right were the heart resides, but when Steve leans in close and whispers in his ear, “Ceapaim go bhfuil mé i ngrá leat,” Connor pushes him away.
And he runs.