These were the moments. The moments that any bullshit of the past finally got dropped. KinnPorsche finally climbing over the hurdle of 'how do you really feel and is this just posturing or am I special?' and VegasPete breaking each other down into base versions of themselves on purpose so that there is no where left to hide.
These kisses were the moment that everything just stopped. All of it. And the only thing that mattered was making each other understand -- and these weren't their first kisses either, so what makes these kisses the kisses.
The fact Pete and Porsche take the reins is the biggest thing. The heirs surrender that brief moment of power to the ones they love and everything falls into place.
Up until this moment, Kinn has been holding onto control even when he thinks he hasn't been. He's been arranging and moving the world around Porsche to figure out his own obsession with this man and in the process almost lost him so many times he's lost count. He slept with him and then punished him because of Kinn's own weakness. Berated him. Tried replacing him. Tried begging for him back. Handcuffed and lost in the woods he still operated as the head of the family. He pushed for Porsche to talk about himself, dictating their conversation to satiate his own curiosity like Porsche was some puzzle he needed to solve before they were rescued.
Even before that kiss he was still trying to tug on Porsche's leash. Telling him he has to leave because it's what he wants (and though he's trying to do the right thing he's still doing it by attempting to lord his control over what Porsche wants--because that's what everyone expects from him right? To be in control. To make the choices?). And it hurt to send Porsche away, sure, but Kinn's whole job is to make the shitty decisions that no one else will. Everyone looks to him to do it. His brothers, his father, the half of Bangkok he controls, why not Porsche too.
But nope. In that moment Porsche gives him something no one else has ever been able to give him, not any of his lovers and certainly not Tawan, he gives him a chance to be absolved of responsibility. Porsche owns the weakness, just for that one moment, to give Kinn what he wants and knows he won't take for himself. Which of course, opens Kinn's eyes to what matters so much to him about his terrible bodyguard.
The fact that Porsche doesn't see weakness in this. He doesn't see pitfalls or the dangers of loving each other or even the small chance of it all going wrong. Porsche lives as he feels and he feels love and wants Kinn to feel it too. Kinn who has and likely would have spent his whole life taking guarded steps around real emotions had Porsche not shown up wearing his heart on his sleeve proudly.
Porsche takes control, and shows Kinn the benefits of letting go for once.
And then we have VegasPete.
Similar in nature, Vegas has been raised in Kinn's shadow. He doesn't know how to love without it hurting because that's all he's ever been shown. His father beats him, reminds him daily that he is worthless, that he can't do anything right. He knows he's easy on the eyes but uses himself as a weapon rather than as a person who is capable of giving and receiving pleasure.
This man has never experienced sincere love and that's only because it terrifies him. Because he thinks love comes in the form of bruises and the impression of the family ring on his cheek. He doesn't want love for himself, but he knows how to simulate it enough that he gets by on manipulating those around him. Tawan, to some extent Porsche, and Pete is supposed to be no different. He calls Pete a pet because that's what other people are to him, that's all they can be. Anything more and he risks losing more pieces of himself, the fragments of his identity that he's barely holding onto with blood soaked fingers because everyone else has already taken the rest.
Vegas doesn't know who he is if he's not the villain. It's a role he was pushed into and he stayed there because it gets him results the way trying to be the good guy never does.
So when Pete arrives, he does what he always has done with the people in his life. Breaks them. Or he tries.
I don't think Vegas ever planned to seduce Pete, not really. I think he wanted to hurt him, and the traditional ways of doing that didn't seem to be getting the desired results because Pete was broken long before Vegas got his hands on him. I think Vegas wanted to push buttons, and, again, he knows he's hardly an unattractive man, he's not above stringing people along and breaking their hearts for his own gain.
He wanted Pete to be disgusted with him. He says it. Often. "You think I deserve this," he puts words in Pete's mouth about how pathetic his life is, because that's all Vegas knows about himself. That's the image that has been constantly reinforced throughout his whole life.
And when Pete won't reinforce it? When Pete reaffirms that the world isn't black and white like Vegas thinks. That good and bad are subjective. That Vegas is HUMAN. He goes to the last resort he knows to truly make Pete hate him--he tries to talk sweet and sexy so that Pete will push him away and call him disgusting.
Only, Pete doesn't. Pete, in parallel to Porsche, takes Vegas' weakness from him and shoulders it. Vegas states later that he thought he was a freak for a long time, and this is Pete taking that from him. Because Vegas can't be a freak if Pete kissed first.
Vegas can't be the monster if Pete is the one coaxing him to take what he needs. He can't be the bad guy if Pete is handing him the ropes and trusting that he will be taken care of.
The reason these kisses, and the parallel they have with each other, hit me so hard is because it's all about weakness.
It's about the two heirs having spent their whole lives beating themselves with a stick, a stick that's labelled 'love', as if to remind them how much it can hurt.
Then here come Pete and Porsche to take the stick from them, and show them how to use it as a weapon.
It's about weakness, and how with the right person by your side, a weakness can become a strength.