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“Do you have any idea how sexy you are like this?” Even says, teasing, and wrapping his arms around your waist while he cuddles up to your back. His dick isn't yet hard against your ass, but you can feel him smile against your cheek when he leans in to give you a kiss, so you know it's more of a general statement of appreciation, rather than one of intention.
You'd love it if that didn't settle a small part of your heart that wasn't just startled by Even's sudden appearance but by his words.
Still, you love the way he feels wrapped around you and so you smile back, to yourself, and curl your body into his. It almost feels like the warmth of the bed is still clinging to him and like this he can wrap you up as cosily as any duvet.
At the same time, like instinct, you become aware of what you're wearing – black boxer briefs and a large hoodie you genuinely can't remember originated from whose closet – and that what with how you've just rolled out of bed you probably look like every cinematic morning-after fantasy you've ever seen. Not that many of those are eighteen year old boys, but the point still stands. It'd probably appeal to Even, to see you here in the sunlit kitchen like that.
“Do I?” you ask, playing along.
Even hums pleasantly.
“Like my own private movie moment.”
Nailed it.
And yet.
If this were a movie, this would be the scene where the camera focuses on the other person, and the audience can see something on their face that the happily-in-love character can't. This would be where the music cue changes, or a smile falls, or the colour goes just that bit cooler. Where the conflict starts brewing but one of the parties involved has no clue their world is about to change.
It feels wretched, being that person who starts the conflict. It feels like lying. It feels like you know Even's going to bleed out on the floor, and you know the knife is in your hands. And whether you speak up or don't will only make the difference of whether he runs into it by accident or you stab him knowingly.
You can't see any path forward that doesn't involve stains that won't wash out all over the fabric of your relationship, so you abandon the eggs in front of you on the stove for a moment and turn around to burrow into his arms. He laughs at first when you wrap your arms around his waist and push your face into the crook of his neck. He laughs and wraps you up and kisses your hair and says “good morning” in that fond voice of his.
The thing is you love him so much. Butterflies-in-belly, can't-help-but-smile-when-you-do, baby-you-light-up-my-world-like-nobody-else type love love him. The whole nine yards. The past year and a half with him has been the best of your life for a lot of reasons only tangentially related to him, but at the very centre of your happiness there's him. And there's no one else you want there either. Sure, you're only eighteen blablaba you know all that. But for right now you're not ready to lose him.
And the knife feels so heavy in your hands.
You cling to him harder, just to prove to yourself that he's still here and you haven't lost him yet, and feel him shift his weight.
His hand strokes up and down along your spine once and he holds you a little more tightly too.
“You okay?” he asks, still mostly fond.
You should be okay. You're out here in his aunt's cabin – across the lake from Eva's mum's, funnily enough – alone for a few days over Easter. The sun's out and the bed was cosy and Even is showering you with attention. By rights, you should be more than okay. If you just nod, it'll be fine.
You shake your head.
“Bad dream?” he asks, because that happens sometimes. You dream something that disturbs you and get up to make breakfast to remind yourself that this is life, and that is not.
You shake your head again.
“Okay,” he says.
He lifts one of his arms and you hear the click-click-click of the knob on the old stove being turned back down until it's off. Then he wraps you up more fully than before, a proper hug now rather than just his arms around you. Like he's really trying to be that cosy duvet you want to cocoon yourself in.
For a bit it feels like you might cry, but then he sways you side-to-side a little, just gently, and the urge recedes. In its stead it leaves a sort of heaviness that hangs on to your heart and drags it down into your stomach.
“Is it your mum?” Even asks carefully. “Did something happen?”
You shake your head again.
“No, everyone's fine,” you say, muffled by how you don't want to open your eyes and crawl back out of the safety of his hug.
You can feel him sigh and hear the relief in it.
“Okay,” he says again and doesn't ask you anything else.
He just holds you until you start to feel silly and pull away. And even then his arms come away from your back over your shoulders, touching you still, his fingers wrapped around your arms and stroking down both of them firmly to give your hands a squeeze before he reaches up to cradle your face.
Worry is spelled out over every one of his features when you look at him. The wrinkle of his brow and the confusion in his eyes as he looks at you.
You bite your lip against the tears welling back up and reach up to hold on to his wrists.
“I love you,” you say and watch his face crumble. Briefly, you wonder what you look like to him, and then he's folding you back into his arms.
“Baby,” he says, presses kisses to your cheek, your hair, your ear, wherever they may land. “Isak. I love you too. So much.”
You let him kiss and soothe you until he settles again and just holds you.
“Are you okay?” he asks then, a lot smaller. “Are you… ill? Or…?”
You huff a breath halfway between a laugh and desperation before you know it, but.
“No,” you say, decisively. “No, I'm okay too.”
You are, in the way he's asking.
He sighs with palpable relief this time, his whole body expanding with it, and presses another firm kiss to your head.
“Okay,” he says. “So, what… what can I--?”
“I think I need to talk to you,” you say and pull back, because you need to be able to look at him when you have this talk.
Even nods, and looks at you, trying to find some sort of hint on your face. You try to smile at him because this isn't supposed to be the kind of talk that makes things worse, or end, but you don't know. You certainly don't want that, but it's not just up to you, is it.
He smiles back at you, with his kind eyes more than his mouth, and takes your hand, leading you through to the living room so you can sit on the couch. You're glad you're not going to have this talk in the bed. You don't want it hanging around you there, and you don't want the bed around while you have it either.
“Are you cold?” he asks when you sit down, looking down at your bare legs. He's in joggers and a hoodie himself, but he's already reaching for the throw blanket on the armrest on his side of the sofa and offering it to you.
You're not, really, but you don't mind the thought of a literal security blanket either. It's soft and it's something to hold on to. So you spread it over your legs and shift until you realise you're not going to be comfortable no matter how much you try, and then you sigh. You wanted to look at Even, but now you find you can't.
It's just that you don't know where to start. Here is this kind, warm, gorgeous boy that you love, who thinks you're funny and smart and sexy and who loves you, and you have to find the words to tell him--- Tell him that when you think “gorgeous”, you think “funny” and “sweet” and “clever” and “dependable”. And, yes, soft hair and blue eyes. And yes, even his hands holding you and his lips kissing you, but you never think sexy. You never-- you don't--
“You can tell me anything, Isak,” Even says, and you see his fingers curl in on themselves like he wants to touch you but holds back. You're grateful for it, because you're not sure you want to be touched right now, but it's also what you fear – that he'll feel like he can't touch you anymore.
“I think I don't want to have sex,” you say.
Even doesn't say anything for long enough that you look up to check on his reaction and he's just-- stunned. Staring at you with his face slack, but when he meets your eyes it slowly transforms into a smile that sends your racing heart into a tailspin of confusion.
He barks a laugh.
“Jesus fucking shit, I was afraid you were breaking up with me,” he says. “Isak it's okay if you don't feel like--”
“No,” you say, a little more forcefully, because you knew this would happen, you knew there was no way he could intuit that you meant never, really not just not right now, because having a sex drive is a basic human urge, one that everyone experiences, but you just-- don't.
“Never, Even,” you say, staring him down until his smile slips off his face.
“But,” he says, shoulders hunching as he shrinks in on himself. “We've had...”
Loads of sex.
You have.
You didn't mind.
Even pales.
“Did I-- force---?”
“No!” you interrupt him again, forcefully, and this time you reach over to grab his hand.
“No, Even, you've never done anything I didn't want you to.”
You've always said 'no' when you really didn't want his touch like that and he respected it every time. It's just that not telling him why you said no has increasingly felt like lying.
You stare into his eyes until he seems a little less afraid, but there are so many questions there and all you can think is that you don't have that many answers. You don't really understand it yourself, but you think of the knife in your hand and the way you're holding him close even now. You need to try, at least.
“It's not that I think it's disgusting or anything,” you say. “I just-- I don't-- I forget. About it. That it's a thing that people-- do.”
“How can you forget?” Even asks, and you know he's not trying to accuse you of anything, but you bite your lip anyway, clinging to his hand. He's clinging back just as hard. “Isak, we have sex at least once every week.”
“Yes, but...” you concede, letting the rest of the sentence hang in the air.
Even is incredibly good at hiding his emotions, actually. His thoughts. He has far more of a poker face than you do, but he lets you in more often than not, and you can practically watch him think back through the last months and come to the conclusion it felt too cruel to point out.
“Because of me,” he says. “Every time, because--”
“I like--” you rush to assure him, because you don't want him to believe this stupid idea of him forcing you for even just a second, but you stumble over the next word anyway. There's a knife in your hand, but you can't tell if the knife is your facts or your lies. Or both.
“I like being with you,” you settle on.
He looks at you like he's trying to figure out if you're lying, and you give his hand a shake.
“I like when you touch me,” you go on. “Even when it's… like that.”
“But you don't-- want it?” he asks, clearly confused.
You can't blame him. How can you like but not want something, after all.
“You know how when you watch a movie that makes you cry you feel better afterwards, somehow?” you say after a moment's pause.
He nods, brows furrowing like he's not following. You can't exactly blame him for that either. None of your two in the morning googling about sex has every made it sound anything like this.
“It's kind of like that, for me,” you say.
“Sex is like crying for you?” he asks, looking about two seconds away from asking you about force again.
“Not like the crying, like the-- the release, you know? There's something in your head or wherever and you don't really know what it is, but crying gives it an outlet and afterwards you feel-- better.”
You look at him, and he looks at you, but he's not saying anything now. Maybe waiting for more explanations.
“And you like it,” you add, but it was evidently the wrong thing to say, because he flinches and you can feel his hand twitch like he wants to pull it away from yours.
“Right?” you ask, stubbornly holding on to his hand even though yours is going clammy with sweat and it must be gross, and too tight. Your fingertips are white from the pressure, but you don't want to let go of him. “It feels good for you?”
You look at him until he nods, a jerky, small movement he seems to regret almost immediately.
“But it's not like that at all for me,” he says, like he's not sure you understand that.
You smile. This part, at least, you're pretty sure you understand.
“I know,” you say. “You like what it feels like. Touching, and kissing, and fucking. You like the getting there.”
“And you don't,” he says. When you don't refute him, because you don't, not in the way that he does, he shakes his head to himself a little.
“I like that you like it,” you offer.
“You know what I like the most about it?” he asks urgently, bites it out almost, with his brow furrowed and his jaw tight.
This time, you don't think you understand, so you shake your head.
“I like that you like it, too,” he says. “Well, I thought you did. That I could touch you and give you-- pleasure. But apparently I can't!”
“I don't mind,” you say helplessly.
He huffs a humourless laugh.
“That's not—”
Good enough. That's not good enough.
Oh, how could you have missed that your knife is double-edged. That this is a murder-suicide.
“I'm sorry,” you say, but when you go to pull your hand back, it's him who holds tight.
“No, don't be sorry, it's not---” he says, but doesn't seem to know how to go on.
He looks at you and you look at him and then he sighs.
“Can you just explain? From-- I don't know. From the beginning?”
You nod, and take a shaky breath, plucking a bit at the blanket with your free hand as you start to talk.
“So, with-- girls,” you say, because you don't know where else to start. “I never really got it. Why all the boys were so fascinated with them and with their bodies and such. I just couldn't really understand why sex would make anyone giggle or blush or-- it's just bodies. Just reproduction. I thought I was missing something, you know? Like everyone knew something I didn't.”
Even nods a little, even though you know he was one of the giggling ones. One of the ones chasing girls around the courtyard for kisses they wanted to give and pretended they didn't because that's what they were supposed to do.
“And then, when Jonas-- I thought, 'oh, maybe this is it' but. That wasn't really it, either, you know? That was such a mess and it wasn't even all-- it's nothing like how I love you,” you say, and it suddenly feels imperative that you repeat it. “I love you. I do, I promise.”
The way Even's face melts into something softer at it tugs at the weight on your heart and lifts it for just a fraction of a moment. For as long as it takes him to reach out to touch your face like he always does and halt. Like he's not sure he's allowed.
“Please,” you say and reach up to take his hand and put it on your face. “I've never not liked it when you touched me.”
His thumb rubs over your cheek carefully, a shy imitation of the natural affection he usually gives.
“I just like it differently than you. I like it because it shows that you like me. It feels good. Comforting.”
“But when we-- have sex,” he says, more haltingly than he ever has, like even the word could hurt or offend you, “it feels--?”
“It's the same, sort of,” you say. “I like that you liked me that much. I like that you're touching me. And I do have orgasms, even if I don't think they feel the same for me as for you, but. Fuck, Even, you've seen me come.”
He grins for the first time, an involuntary, quick thing.
“An orgasm isn't-- I just don't understand,” he says, gently.
You sigh.
“I don't really, either,” you say. “It was so much easier with you at first, you know? I loved you so much and I wanted to be close to you all the time, and usually we'd take off our clothes and orgasms happened, and it was so much better than anything I've ever done with a girl that I thought I finally got it. It's not that I'm-- broken or something, I'm really just gay.”
“You're not broken,” he says, immediately, frowning again. Always and still trying to soothe any and all of your hurts.
“You're-- I mean, are you ace?” he asks then.
You shrug.
Asexual. It feels like you shouldn't be as okay as you are with him touching you sexually, if you were. Researching it has been confusing, to say the least, but you're probably at least a lot closer to it than you are to not being it.
“I'm not sex-repulsed,” you say. “I don't think it's disgusting or anything, it just also doesn't really do anything in particular for me.”
“Except release,” Even says.
“Yeah. Sometimes it's just good to do something to get rid of all that mess in my head, but if you're not around then I don't really wank, for instance. I just go for a run or clean or something.”
“Sex with me is like scrubbing the toilet,” Even deadpans, and you can't help but roll your eyes, another light flutter trying to lift your heart back into its place in your chest.
“It's not you, it's me, baby,” you drawl, and it pulls a real laugh from him, if only a short one. Your heart flutters a bit more
Then he sighs, and your heart sinks again.
“But you-- you initiated it. Often,” he says.
“Yeah. I thought wanting to be close to you, liking you as much as I do, must be the same thing as wanting to have sex. I just thought that must be why people have sex. I couldn't figure out why else, and I'd never felt it before,” you say. “I used to memorise it, you know? What people think is sexy, so that I wouldn't forget and no one would notice that I didn't feel it.”
“With girls?”
“Yeah. That it's supposed to be tits and waists and legs,” you say. “I didn't feel like I had to do that with you. I wanted to be close without having to remind myself that, fuck I don't know. You're tall or whatever.”
He huffs another laugh.
“Stellar review, Isak, thanks.”
“Fuck off, I do think you're handsome,” you say. “It just doesn't make me want to rub our genitals together, it makes me want to cuddle.”
He smiles softly and you slowly lean in to press your foreheads together, brush your nose against his. It always makes him smile, that. A little bit indulgently, like the smile he has for small fluffy animals, but you don't think you mind that comparison so much. You wouldn't mind curling up in his arms like a kitten and letting him pet you to sleep. It sounds pretty brilliant, actually.
“I like cuddling,” he says.
He does, too. You know he's not lying about that.
“So do you just never want to have sex again?” he asks.
You shrug.
“I don't mind doing it with you, I just need you to understand that it's not the same for me as it is for you, and that probably quite often I won't want to do it.”
He bites his lip, staring at you. He likes sex, you know that. Even is a sensual person. He likes food and he likes touching things and likes everything that stimulates his senses. The absence of that, you know, he associates quite strongly with his depressive episodes.
And he likes making his partner feel good, he's told you that before today as well. The fact that he can't do that for you is-- not nothing.
“I like you more than I like sex,” he says. He looks like he believes it, and you try to believe him too.
“I like you more than I don't like sex,” you say.
He smiles and shakes his head at you.
“How do you know?” he asks. “How do you know it's not just-- I don't know.”
“Conditioning?” you suggest.
He shrugs but nods too.
It's a testament to how much you love him, actually, you think, that you worked it out at all.
“You know earlier, when you came in the kitchen and asked if I know how sexy I am?” you say, and watch him flinch again.
“Fuck's sake, Even,” you say, a little exasperated, but your heart aching with how much he tries to be what you need. “If you got your dick out right now and got off looking at me I'd only mind because we're in the middle of a conversation, okay? I'll tell you when you do something I don't like.”
He bites his lip on a grin, and nods carefully.
“Okay,” he says. He looks like he's trying to believe you too.
“Okay,” you say and give a little nod before you go on. “Well, the thing is, I don't. I don't think about it. But like I said, I used to always keep a running tally in my head, you know? What's sexy, who am I meant to be reacting to in what way and such. But around you I just don't think like that.”
Maybe you should have led with that, because he stares at you like it's some sort of revelation.
“I'm just me around you, and at some point I realised that I never really… want to. Not in the way you seem to.”
“At some point?” he asks, and you hear the when underneath it.
“Last fall,” you say, and try to pre-empt any more guilt by going on, “but, Even, I needed to work it out first, okay? I needed to have some time where I just thought it through.”
He nods again, and takes a good half a minute before he says “okay” again.
“So, what do we do?” he asks then.
You think of the knife in your hand and wonder if you've cut either one of you yet. There's a lot less blood than you'd feared.
“I don't know,” you say. You don't. You barely know what you want to do, other than to be with him and be happy. “Figure it out as we go?”
He smiles.
“Minute by minute?” he suggests, and reaches out to run fingers through your hair. He's watching you a bit more closely, but at least he didn't shy away from it this time. You've had half a year, it's only fair you give him time too.
You nod and smile at him, wait for him to smile back.
“Can we just cuddle in this minute?”
He snorts and springs forward so much faster than you anticipate that you yelp loudly as he knocks you backwards.
“'Can we cuddle' he asks,” he teases and presses a quick kiss to your cheek that makes you grin, your heart suddenly racing but at least not as heavy as before. “It's like you don't even know me. I'm the cuddle master.”
“Uh, fuck you? That's clearly me?” you tease him back, wriggling around and kicking the tangled blanket from your legs until you can face him and press a firm kiss to his mouth. Sometimes there's nothing else that expresses quite how much your heart is trying to climb out of your mouth and into his to rest inside his chest forever.
“We'll see about that, won't we,” he challenges, and wraps all of his long limbs around you like he's some sort of octopus, even if he's another four limbs short. It doesn't feel like that at any rate. It feels warm, and sweet, and safe. The way it always feels.
So you move around a bit to be more comfortable, look at him, and tip your chin up, waiting for him to kiss you.
“Don't do this if it's just for me,” he says.
You sigh.
“It's for me. I like kissing you,” you say. “And it's not that simple anyway.”
He sighs too, and still doesn't kiss you, so you lean up and give him another kiss. Short, and chaste, but sweet. Like one of the million pecks he likes giving you before he moves in to kiss you with his mouth open. You don't see why there's anything wrong with compromise here when there isn't elsewhere.
“Minute by minute,” you remind him.
“And in this minute, we'll kiss?” he asks.
“In this minute, we'll kiss,” you confirm.
You do.
He moves down and kisses you, and you kiss him back, and in the second minute he relaxes into it. He lets you lead, and you keep going for another minute until your stomach growls. You spend the next minute laughing and the thirty after that with breakfast. Then you stop counting.
Maybe, if you're very, very lucky, you're not holding a knife at all.
The End