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It happened way too fast, a single peck on the lips.
Kim exhales through his nose softly, touching Jean's face with his gloved hand.
It should feel like something earth-shattering. Groundbreaking. The best of the 57th was kissing him, and it threatened to actually…
Jean stiffens. He looks sideways, his face unbearably flushed.
He doesn't like it, he realises. He doesn't like it at all. He wants out. He needs to get out of there.
It's not that Kim is a bad person, or he doesn't like him, or he doesn't want him anywhere near, it's just...
It's wrong. It feels wrong.
Jean feels like he's going to throw up.
Uneasiness pools into his stomach, hot, oily.
He thought he was going to like it, somehow, but he didn't.
It's the same as all the times when Rada kissed him. He doesn't feel anything, still, and the horror of this realization dawns on him.
He purses his lips instinctively, gasps, takes a shaky step back, hand rubbing on his lips vehemently.
Jean doesn't look up, but he knows Kim is disappointed. Kim hates this, maybe even more than Jean hates this.
But when Jean's eyes meet Kim's, he realises that he's just confused. Worried.
"Did I do something wrong?" Kim tries, carefully. He wants to touch Jean's hands, he wants to, Jean feels it. But he doesn't, scared to agitate him even further.
Jean must look like a mess, his wrist still rubbing on his mouth idly, pale irises unfocused.
He should have known better. Why did he let this happen in the first place? He didn't want this. But, somehow, he thought --
Well, if Kim wants this, he should want the same by proxy. So, he let it happen.
He let it happen and it made him feel sick.
"Jean?" Kim calls out again, a tinge of timid concern entering his tone.
He doesn't want this. He doesn't want to be there.
He should say something, anything, or he ends up looking like an even bigger idiot than he is.
"I don't ..." Jean's breath hitches in his throat, and he almost bites his own knuckles. "...Can we not?"
It comes off surprisingly meek and hushed. Like he's a child about to be scolded.
Jean feels disgusting. He wants to tear his skin off.
His legs can't hold him any more, and he feels himself sink down to the ground.
His eyes catch a flash of an orange bomber jacket following his downfall.
Still not touching him. Respectful.
Does he even deserve respect, after backing down like this?
Kim didn't say any of it, never dared to, but Jean knew -- Jean just knew he loved him. *Loved*, not in the way Jean is used to loving someone.
It was something completely out of his reach this time.
Just like with Rada. Rada, a beautiful fatality in his life yet to be destroyed even more.
Jean's thoughts spiral back to Harry, to his silly shenanigans, to sharing a bed.
Not in the way that made Jean uncomfortable, or made him question anything. It just felt natural. Obnoxiously sentimental, too, but natural.
Harry somehow knew that Jean doesn't like all those things he likes. Doesn't even like talking about them. So, when Harry was drunk out of his mind and clinging onto Jean for dear life, Jean just accepted it.
It felt normal. Even grounding, to hold his partner in his arms, so he could live another day.
But - never this. It was never this. Harry, even drunk out of his mind, always knew better that to violate his personal space.
The difference is Harry somehow knew about the way Jean's mind worked. Kim doesn't. Therefore, it's not his fault.
So this - something happening between Jean and Kim - felt alien. It felt out of place.
Maybe Jean just wanted to try and feel "normal" again. Like he was just the same as everyone else. Just so Kim could be happy, perhaps. And Kim *is* happy, he knows this - Kim is happy just *existing* in a close proximity to Jean.
Instead, he sits squatting down and stares forward blankly, hand flying to cover his mouth once again.
What is he, a highschool boy? What's gotten into him? He's not embarrassed by the act itself, he's just...
Do people actually like doing this? All the time?
"I won't do anything you don't want to," Kim mutters, impossibly soothing to Jean's grating mind. "I'm sorry."
That brings out a rush of nervous laughter out of Jean's system, he exhales in a soundless bout of shaky giggles.
"Don't be fuckin' sorry, you didn't do shit." he spits, uncharacteristically venomous. "It's fine."
"It's not." a beat. "Can I touch you?"
Jean just nods, exasperated by his body going rigid on command once Kim's gloved hands touch his.
He belatedly realises Kim basically peels his scarred hands off his face, Jean's nervous grip almost bruising. The lieutenant just holds his hands quietly, rubbing a careful thumb against Jean's knuckles.
"Sorry," Jean starts, feeling Kim's chiding glare on him. He presses on, nonetheless, "I should have warned you that I don't really-"
"That's fine. I shouldn't have acted so impulsively in the first place. That's unlike me."
That's unlike Kim because Kim actually loves him. He loves him in a way Jean could never understand.
It makes Jean's skin crawl. Not the silent confession itself, but the fact that Jean doesn't feel anything similar in return.
Has never felt. Towards anyone. There wasn't going to be "the right person", because all "the right people" actually knew how to love.
Jean didn't. Jean won't ever know.
He wants to apologise again, but it would make him look even more mortified
At least, he thinks, Kim understands.
"You're a… A good person. You deserve better, you know.”
“I know it's not about that.” Kim chews on the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. “It's something else. What is it?”
Jean feels he's being interrogated, although he knows it's not true.
Kim deserves to know, so he just lets himself speak up.
“I've never, you know *loved* anyone like… ugh..” His hands twitch instinctively to scrub at his face, but they lay still in Kim's grasp, so he resorts to scratching his beard on his own shoulder. “Like lovers do. You know, those couples? I don't feel shit.”
That's childish, and dumb, and a million different things all at once. But Kim doesn't laugh. Kim isn't someone who would ever laugh at something like that, but still…
“I see,” Kim says, not unkindly. Jean dares to give him a quick glance, and there's something akin to mirth in the glint of the lieutenant’s glasses. “I was afraid you just didn't like men.”
Jean scoffs.
“I don't like anyone, lieutenant,” the title makes the younger man cringe. Is it appropriate to continue calling Kim by rank after.. All of this? “You see, I'm a very *unlikeable* person. The one who doesn't give a shit.”
“That's definitely not true.”
“Well, go figure. Either way, I should have told you, perhaps. So we could..” Jean sighs, clicks his tongue. “Avoid looking like two dumbasses about it.”
Then again, how do you even *tell* something like that to a person who’s seemingly in love with you?
Another embarrassing thing was that Jean couldn’t even tell that Kim was in love with him. That was… A whole other can of worms, because Jean should have *known*, somehow.
He thought they were just getting better at working together. While technically true, it wasn’t the only reason Kim liked working with him.
In the end, Jean is just an idiot, no matter how you look.
“That’s fine. I can handle ‘looking like a dumbass’. It’s not important right now.” Kim’s hands continue soothing Jean’s when, all of a sudden, Jean’s fingers twitch again as he recoils like a wounded dog.
Jean’s hurting him. A wise, wise man being fooled by someone who can’t make himself return something as simple as a kiss.
“I’m hurting you,” Jean parrots his own thoughts, “Because I don’t feel the same. And you’re an amazing officer, so don’t take it personally, because it’s not your..”
“Sure. I’ll be just fine, Jean.” He won’t. Jean won’t. They will avoid each other for the next couple of weeks after this, making excuses to go on breaks early.
Jean knows he didn’t mean to hurt Kim. Jean has never meant to hurt anyone. Yet he still does, a broken clockwork that tells the time just the same.
The cogs are there, the mechanism works just fine, but everyone, *everyone* can tell that he’s broken. Kim can tell.
Jean hopes Kim can find someone who can actually love him. Hell, he can name a few candidates for that role. Kim is a smart, hard-boiled detective, and to think that he was still searching for someone to reciprocate his feelings was…
“It’s still awful, I’m sure.” Jean can’t know it, can’t know the feeling of someone not loving him back, because it’s always *him* who does all the damage. He still feels bad.
“Then it’s awful for you too.” Kim smiles sadly. “I guess we all have our faults.”
Jean swallows.
“Yeah… Okay. This was stupid.”
“Stupid as hell.” Kim admits, adopting a lighter tone. “And I feel like I should apologize for being so brash, once again.”
“You’re okay. I just don’t do this… *Kissing* shit. You know?”
Jean can almost swear Kim is *this* close to laughing.
“Clearly I don’t know, given my actions. I just hope I didn’t remind you of any, khm… Experiences that you wished to not have remembered.”
Jean thinks of Rada, her tearful face when he told her he didn’t love her the way she did.
Jean thinks of kissing her, absentmindedly, just as a way of saying goodbye.
“I’ll live.” He dusts off his trousers and stands up. “This was a shitshow for sure. Should we, uh, do literally anything else?”
Kim studies Jean’s face for a long minute, chestnut eyes attentive.
“We should. To make things a little less awkward.”
“Coffee, then?”
“Alright.”
They will talk more later. Or, they won’t talk about this at all.
Jean doesn’t believe this, but maybe it could all still turn out fine.