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“So, answer me this,” Jesper slurred, after they’d called it a night at 2 a.m. and switched off the Xbox. Kaz’s eyesight was a little fuzzy as he watched Jesper set down his beer bottle on the carpet among the litter of other empty vessels that surrounded his recliner.
“Hmm?” Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was the late hour, but he was feeling warm and generous. Jesper could ask away.
“So, I get why you and Inej haven’t…” And Jesper made some vaguely obscene gesture with his hands that had Kaz slitting his drowsy eyes.
“How would you know if we haven’t?” he accused. Jesper rolled his eyes as he picked up his beer again.
“Dude. I’m your roommate. I have ears.” He took a healthy swig.
Kaz felt instantly defensive. And also kind of squiggly. The ratty old chair beneath him did not feel exactly stationary at the present moment.
“Uh?” he huffed, vaguely aware that everything was coming out of his mouth like a question and yet somehow powerless to stop it, “I have a car? And Inej has a dorm room? And hotels exist? And you don’t have the ears of God–?”
“Kaz, Kaz, bro, my guy–” Jesper was waving a hand at him to try to make it all stop. “It is not a big deal, man. You have trauma, she has trauma, don’t do it ever if you don’t want to – asexuality is totally a valid thing and a spectrum and stuff–”
“I’m not–”
“It’s fine, Kaz!” Jesper cut him off with a hand to his socked foot that kind of made Kaz want to kick him in the face. “Whatever you are is just fine!” Or shove his smelly sock into his nose, that would work, too.
“Jesus Christ. Is there a question I can answer to put an end to this horrifying conversation?”
“Yes! God. I’m sorry.” Something in Jesper’s voice indicated that he truly, genuinely was, in all his drunkenness. “The point is, you obviously like each other a lot. You’re obviously physically attracted to each other–”
“Remember when you asked me to let you know when you drank to the point of socially unacceptable weirdness? Well, I should have said something like an hour ago.”
“Why won’t you kiss her, man?!” Jesper exclaimed, in a sudden burst. “She wants to kiss your face, and you want to kiss her face, so what is going on?” And because Kaz was dumbfounded to the point of speechlessness at the absolute audacity, Jesper found the space to keep going: “It’s been like six months of watching two endangered birds perform the slowest mating dance–”
“What the fuck?” There really was nothing else to do but laugh now, and Kaz heard himself wheeze. Oh, well. There was no salvaging dignity at this point.
“The fate of the species is at stake, bro!” Jesper asserted, passionately, as if spurred on by Kaz’s rasping laugh.
“I am not a bird, you fucking nightmare.” Kaz pinched the bridge of his nose, even as laughter shook his whole body.
“I stand by the metaphor!” Jesper insisted. “Plus–” and here he sobered up a bit. Swallowed as his eyes opened and shut in a lazy blink as he formed his next words. “Look, Inej is my friend, too, ok? It matters a lot to me that she’s happy.”
“It matters to me, too?”
“You should’ve stopped drinking like an hour ago, too, man. All your sentences are questions.”
“Well, that’s on you at this point.”
“She’s getting worried that you might not be all that into her!” The words sort of unfurled out of Jesper in a rush like he’d yanked the ripcord on a parachute.
Kaz was left freefalling.
“She told you that?” He knew the answer - he wasn’t sure why he asked. Too much beer, not enough blinking. His eyes and his throat and his sense of reasoning had dried up all at once.
“I know it’s not true,” Jesper said, earnestly. “But my reassurances only go so far–”
“I thought we were good.” Kaz’s voice sounded distant in his own ears. “We have a routine–”
“Mm. Sexy.” Jesper nodded. Kaz really was going to shove his socks up this kid’s nose.
“She’s been traumatized, asshole,” he growled. “Nazyalensky said predictability is important–”
“I will not argue with you there,” Jesper conceded. “Just…” But his voice trailed off in an echo as he coyly raised the beer bottle to his lips.
“Just what?” Kaz prodded at him with his foot.
“You-could-stand-to-add-a-little-romance-to-your-routine,” Jesper said, as fast as he could, then threw his hands up. “There I said it.”
“You definitely said it.”
From his recliner, Kaz sat back and glowered. He lifted his own beer to his lips as he considered a thousand ways to make this busybody pay for overstepping. Maybe strap an airhorn to his desk chair. Or hide alarm clocks around his room, each set for an hour apart. Then hack his Facebook and change his birthday every week. And then–
Jesper kind of had a point, though. That was annoying. And the alarm clock thing would surely backfire. Kaz took another long swig of beer. It was warm. It made him feel generous. Jesper’s thick eyebrows were raised nearly to his neatly-trimmed hairline, his silvery blue eyes wide, as he waited in nervous anticipation of what could possibly come next after dropping this bomb. Maybe that was punishment enough.
“Is there anything else you want to say?” Kaz asked, at long last, the beer sloshing in the bottle when he gestured with it.
“Well, I mean,” Jesper scratched at the back of his neck, rolling his eyes to the ceiling, “you haven’t actually answered my question.”
This fucking guy. Kaz blinked one long, slow, disbelieving blink in his direction.
“You want to know why I haven’t kissed Inej yet?”
“Because I care about Inej! And you! And the fate of the species!”
“I really don’t know what level of drunk we need to be at to do this, but I assure you, we are not there yet.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just. I feel like. Like, if I knew, then maybe I could help troubleshoot the problem. Scientifically. Like an over-dedicated zookeeper with no social life.”
“I really hate this analogy.”
“Too bad. Wylan and I have been using it for months. It’s a thing now.”
Kaz could only bury his head into his hand with an exasperated sigh.
But the thing was…this had been plaguing him actually. Kaz hated to admit it, but thoughts of Inej’s lips, the gentle soft curve of her cupid’s bow, the way she slipped that bottom one between her teeth sometimes when she was hard at work – Christ, they’d completely bewitched him. He’d been thinking of kissing her for months. Longer than that, if he was being honest, which was easier to do when beer was plentiful and morning was still a long way off.
There were many reasons why he hadn’t, of course, chief among them had been his own visceral reactions to someone else’s skin touching his without warning and the onslaught of memories that touch could uncover. Disturbingly, his regular visits to Nazyalensky’s office had actually helped a great deal with that, though Kaz hated to admit it out loud. He hadn’t wanted the appointments to work at first, honestly – hadn’t wanted the answer to have been so painfully obvious and basic. But the allure of holding a hand, or even just being able to sit in a crowded bus without feeling like fainting – that’s what drove him to just try. He didn’t have to be perfect, Inej had assured him, he just had to try. Try the tools the psychiatrist offered, the breathing exercises and the trauma recall and the desensitization, the whole deal.
The first six months of it had been hell. Pure hell. But one day, about six months in, he’d been in an Economics class, handing a pen back to the classmate who’d dropped it, and it wasn’t until after he’d settled back in his chair that he’d realized their hands had touched for a moment during the pen transfer – and he’d felt nothing. It had been as easy and thought-free as breathing. He hadn’t even registered the moment. He could’ve cried on the spot. He couldn’t be bothered to take notes for the rest of class.
He spent the rest of that evening with his fingers laced through Inej’s, palm to palm, wrist to wrist. When she pointed out that their hands were getting sweaty, he just switched hands. There. Fixed, he’d said. She’d stifled a laugh against his shoulder. It was a perfect night.
It wasn’t always that easy. But it was getting easier all the time.
Kissing, though. Kissing was another matter entirely. Kissing involved many things holding hands did not. Skill, mainly. Which required experience. And experience honed intuition, Kaz knew, which was also vital – because before kissing happened, you had to know kissing was wanted in the first place. Kaz had none of these things, a fact he was painfully aware of whenever he looked at the heart-shaped curve of Inej’s cupid’s bow and wondered How do I get from here to there? And he did not like that feeling, not one bit.
But was he prepared to utter these mortifying truths to his deranged zookeeper of a roommate? Under normal circumstances, definitely not. But they had just wrapped up a trust-fund senior’s midterm research paper on human evolutionary biology, which had nearly murdered them both, but had raked in enough cash to completely cover next month’s rent. Kaz kind of owed him one.
So, with a heavy, reluctant sigh, he shoved the footrest down on the recliner and hauled himself to his feet, pushing his unsteady weight onto the cane he’d left resting next to him. The world pitched a little as Jesper asked: “Where are you going?”
“I need something stronger to drink first,” he grumbled on his way to the kitchen.
The liquor was above the fridge, and Kaz took down two shot glasses along with a half empty bottle of kvas. Slammed both down on the counter and then unscrewed the bottle as Jesper followed him in, an amused smirk creeping over his face. Liquid glugged generously as Kaz filled the glasses.
“Now we’re getting the party started,” Jesper grinned.
“These are both for me,” Kaz retorted, ignoring Jesper’s drama queen comment as he downed both shot glasses.
“Ok, I’m sorry I asked,” Jesper sighed, hands out in surrender. “No need to get self-destructive–”
“I’ve-never-kissed-anyone-before.” The confession spewed out of Kaz like vomit, and he wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to vomit for real after. Thankfully, a kvas-flavored burp was the only thing that followed.
To his surprise, though, Jesper’s expression softened, even despite being on the receiving end of what was surely a super gross burp. He leaned against the kitchen counter, hands in his pockets.
“That’s ok,” he shrugged. “Lots of people don’t like kissing–”
Kaz winced, rubbing his eyes. He wasn’t getting it still.
“No. It’s like.” He sighed, fumbling for the words. “I don’t remember kissing. I don’t remember kissing anyone ever. Or being kissed. By anyone. I don’t know – do you see what I’m saying?”
Jesper’s dark brows were furrowing together, grappling to understand.
“Anyone?” he repeated. “Not even like your mom or –? Oh.”
Realization was starting to set in – Kaz could see it dawning in Jesper’s widening grey eyes. The thing they didn’t talk about, the thing Kaz explicitly labeled Off Limits. The Very Sad Thing.
“Yeah. Oh.” Kaz nodded, knowingly. (A little sloppily.) “I mean, I probably was kissed sometimes. Before. But there’s like a block and I don’t–I don’t remember–”
“Hey. Hey.” His hands still in his pockets, Jesper twisted to gently bump him with an elbow, like that was going to jostle Kaz out of it. The concern on his face was deepening. “That’s ok. That makes sense. You don’t have to try to remember–”
But the kvas was making Kaz’s face very warm and all the words very slippery.
“But it bothers me, though?” he spilled. “The not-remembering. Like I should know if I like kissing. I should know what kinds of touch feel nice. I should know that, but I don’t. That’s–that’s–people don’t want to be kissed by people who don’t even know if they like kissing.”
Jesper shrugged again, his head cocked to one side.
“I think Inej does,” he pointed out. He seemed to mean it to be helpful, but all it made Kaz want to do was rip his own hair out.
“That is so much pressure,” he spouted, hands in his hair. Wow, he really was saying a lot of things, wasn’t he? He couldn’t stop now, now that the dam had been broken. “That is so much pressure to put on a person who doesn’t even remember kissing–”
And then Jesper said it.
“I’ll kiss you,” he offered. “Would that help?”
He’d said it as carelessly as if he was offering to take out the trash.
For a moment, Kaz started to laugh, but it got stuck somewhere in his throat. He was supposed to say No right away, he knew that. He was supposed to say No, and they’d do another round of shots and then someone (probably Kaz) would barf in the toilet and they’d sleep this whole thing off. He was supposed to say No.
But instead, what came out was:
“I don’t think Wylan would like that very much.”
Jesper pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“I’ll text him to check,” he said, holding out the phone. “Would that make you feel better?”
Kaz just made some weird fumbling noise in his throat. Where were his words now? What was happening?
“You are putting too much pressure on yourself about this,” Jesper was saying. He placed his hands on Kaz’s shoulders like he wanted to give him a good shake. “Kisses don’t have to be sexual, Kaz. I kissed Helvar at our last game night, and you don’t hear anybody freaking out over that.”
At that, Kaz almost staggered.
“I’m sorry - you did what?” he spluttered. Jesper remained unperturbed.
“Our Spin The Bottle game night – the one you and Inej dipped out of,” Jesper clarified. “Pretty much everybody kissed everybody. It was just silly fun.”
Kaz wasn’t about to say it out loud, but that was the moment that changed everything. Like hell was he going to be outdone by Matthias fucking Helvar. If Helvar was kissing Jesper for a silly fun time, so was Kaz.
“Fine.” Kaz squared back his shoulders and braced himself. “Do it.”
“Do what?”
“Kiss me. Kiss me like you kissed Helvar.”
“Oh my God, ok ok ok–” For the first time since this exchange began, Jesper sounded giddy and drunk as he unlocked his phone and tapped out a few sentences on its screen. “I gotta text Wylan first. This is very exciting.” He gave a sloppy gesture towards Kaz’s phone in his own pocket. “Text Inej,” he ordered. And Kaz did as he was told.
With that out of the way, Kaz stood in front of Jesper, straight-backed and rigid, like a soldier going off to war. Jesper sighed at the sight as he sidled up to him, smirking with his thumb against his bottom lip. It was a nice bottom lip, Kaz noticed for the first time. Like Inej, Jesper also had a gentle-looking mouth – or perhaps that was just the way mouths looked when kissing was on the table.
The two of them stood nearly nose-to-nose at equal heights when Jesper said:
“I’m sorry if I got under your skin with the kissing Inej thing, man. I won’t do this if you don’t want me to.”
Kaz almost deflated.
“What do you mean? I said–”
“Kiss you like Helvar, I know,” Jesper rolled his eyes and sighed. “I just…I don’t know. I’m standing here now, and I don’t know if I want to kiss you like that.”
“What the fuck, man?” Kaz held back the urge to punch him in the arm. It seemed counterproductive to his current agenda. “What’s that supposed to mean?” (But seriously, was he not kissable??)
“Kissing Helvar was just for a stupid game,” Jesper explained. “But you…like, you’re this kid who didn’t get enough affection. You should have had all kinds of people kissing you long before this. So I guess, I don’t know…now this feels like a big responsibility. Like you need to be kissed in such a way that you can remember long after this that kissing is safe and good. I don’t wanna like – fuck you up even more.”
Every word sucked the wind out of Kaz’s sails. He was an even bigger disaster than he’d ever imagined. He felt his shoulders sag, and he took a step back. This was stupid – so, so stupid. Best to go to bed now, while they were still friends and could continue managing living together after this. Just forget it, he started to say.
But Jesper caught him by the arm. Took a step into the space between them.
“This is not how I kissed Helvar,” he said, and lifted his silvery eyes. “But I think this is how you should be kissed.”
And gently he framed Kaz’s face with his large hands, his gaze soft and sorrowful.
“I am sorry for what happened to you,” he murmured, his voice earnest despite his drunken slur. One of his thumbs brushed against Kaz’s sweaty cheekbone. “People should have been there for you. People should have loved you better.”
And then he leaned in – Kaz stilled, hardly daring to breathe. Panic threatened his throat, his chest, his eyes, every inch of his limbs – but Jesper moved slowly, as if he understood. No sudden movements.
And so, with heart-breaking tenderness, Jesper carefully tilted Kaz’s head down just slightly. Then bent his own head. And then, ever so softly, pressed his lips to Kaz’s forehead, as gentle as a mother’s kiss.
The surprising sweep of emotion that followed took Kaz’s breath away. Something warm swallowed him from head to toe. Without understanding why, his eyes began to sting and he bit the inside of his lip to keep it from trembling. He was motionless still, but for an entirely different reason than before. He wasn’t bracing himself now. He just simply didn’t want to move.
Kaz had had many thoughts about kissing, mostly about the mechanics of doing it well and right. But in this moment, he understood something new. The mechanics mattered little when the intention was honest and genuine, when what you wanted someone to know was simply I love you and I want to make all this better for you.
Kaz had to wipe the corner of his eyes with his sleeve when Jesper pulled away. He cleared his throat.
“I’m very drunk,” he explained, and Jesper laughed, their foreheads bumping together while he still held Kaz’s face in his hands.
“You and Inej are going to be ok,” Jesper assured him, his hands dropping to Kaz’s shoulders. “Kiss her or don’t, whatever – I’m really sorry I brought it up.”
“I think I will, though,” Kaz confessed, because why not. No reason to hide anything from Jesper anymore. “When the right opportunity presents itself.”
Jesper grinned.
“Probably not tomorrow, though,” he said, and gestured to Kaz’s general dishevelment. “Wash this off first.”
“Solid advice.”
“Anytime. Here for you.”
And the thing was, Kaz realized as he stared at his ceiling that night, he truly believed that. Most people in his life came and went. But this much he trusted: Jesper Fahey wasn’t going to be one of them.