Alien Force. This story is a result of my pondering why Kevin doesn't ask Gwen out in "All That Glitters". Spoilers through that episode. Gwen/Kevin. Its unbetaed, so if you see an error, please let me know. It's a one-shot, so enjoy it as is!

Dedication… I'm dedicating this to Karashi, whose story "Maybe" partially inspired the tone. Go read it, it's good!

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or have any rights whatsoever to them. Please don't sure me.

Don't Push Him

Of course he likes her.

Of course he's interested. He's pretty sure that anyone between the ages of 10 and 30 with a Y chromosome would be interested.

But interested is not the same as going to act. Kevin Levin is pretty sure that acting would be a pretty bad idea at this point.

You see, he doesn't have a lot of experience at being human. Even BEFORE he became that weird mix of genetics at the age of 11, he wasn't very good at it. He doesn't know much about how humans are supposed to act.

That extends very much to relationships. This whole "friendship" thing, where your friends actually have your back and aren't trying to stab you in it, is very new to him. Luckily, the Tennysons seem to have plenty of practice, so they're giving him a learning curve.

But girls and dating and all that? Still very much foreign territory to him. He's pretty sure he's going to be very bad at it. A relationship requires actual admittance of caring and outward affection. It requires a lot of things Kevin doesn't know how to do. It requires love.

He knows his learning curve is going to have to be a lot larger when he attempts any type of romantic relationship. He's going to screw it up real badly before he ever learns to get it right. And he finds he doesn't want to screw it up with Gwen Tennyson.

You see, he does like her. He would even go so far as to admit he cares about her. So he really doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't want to make her cry, and he knows he will. He will screw up because he doesn't know how to be human, with human empathy and compassion. While most people seem to be born with at least a bit of that in them, Kevin's pretty sure he wasn't. He's never been very good at anything, besides hate and causing pain, and even those he had to learn.

No, he doesn't want to learn on Gwen, because she means more than that to him. She shouldn't have to go through all the pain and heartache with him as he learns, because she doesn't deserve that. She deserves the very best that he can be (and he doesn't think that, at the end of the day, even that is very much, or enough, for her).

Part of him very much wishes he found some other girl first, some girl he could practice on and mess up. What he doesn't know is that the man he is turning out to be would never get involved with a girl he didn't care about, and he'd never want to mess up a girl he cared about. Where he got his chivalry, no one quite knows, but it is there.

But still, this is Gwen Tennyson, and he knows, if he ever wants to act on his wants, he has to find a way to not screw it up. He has to learn some more before he'll take that chance. And he needs to find out who he's going to be first.

If there is anything in the universe Kevin trusts the least, it's himself. He's never been a good person, and it's only very, very recently he's been a mediocre one. If anyone had told him at 10 he'd be a genetic monster at 11, he'd never have believed them. If they had told him at 12 at 16 he'd be hanging out with Ben and hitting on his cousin, he'd have laughed in their face. He's smart enough now that he knows he has no idea what kind of person he will be at 17, let alone 20 or 30 or 70. He knows what he's capable of, and he knows that it's much worse than the vision he saw of Kevin 11,000. But he is still unsure if he is capable of being something better. At 11 he wouldn't have thought so. At 16 a tiny bit of hope has sprouted, unwittingly, in his heart.

Regardless, he isn't going to try anything with Gwen until he knows. She doesn't deserve to learn to care about him only for him to turn into a monster in the end. No matter how things turn out for them, he doesn't want that kind of regret on her. He needs to be as sure as he possibly can that he has the possibility of becoming something, someone, worthwhile before he could let her waste her time on him. She deserves better. He's not going to take her innocence and trust and betray it if he can help it.

So, yeah, don't push him.