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Why so many places, why does one day cling to another? Why does a night's blackness drain into the mouth?
... Were you to ask where I come from, I would have to talk with shattered things, with all too bitter tools, with massive festering beasts, now and then, and with my grief-bitten heart.
Even wakes up when the bedroom door slips softly shut.
He blinks into the darkness. His arm reaches across the mattress without any conscious thought, always searching for the warmth of Isak's body. He finds nothing. Through the fog in his head he surmises that he's just in the bathroom. There are weights pulling at his limbs, trying to meld him with the mattress, his eyelids already snapping closed again with relief. He sleeps.
Except Isak doesn't come back, and when he slips back into wakefulness for a moment some indeterminable amount of time later, he feels confusion spike through him, fleeting and followed with fear, and worry, tinges of panic flickering at the edges of his mind. It's enough to throw off the blanket of sleep, along with the duvet, and he pulls himself out of bed feet first, leaving the lamp switch behind and treading softly through the dark apartment.
He checks the bathroom first - nothing - the kitchen - no one - before he sees the open latch on the balcony door from across the room. The microwave display helpfully informs him in luminescent green numbers that its 3:47. He can't think of a single reason why Isak would be out on the balcony in the middle of an Oslo autumnal cold front at 3:47 in the fucking morning. He crosses to the door anyway, the plexiglass revealing nothing to him but his own dishevelled, sleep sprung face, and pushes it open softly.
Their balcony is narrow and long, with the far edge hanging out over the edge of the roof, where the lawn chairs that Even's parents had gifted them are arranged in a loose circle. Isak is sitting in the one closest to Even, the one that faces away from the door and out over the railing, his knees drawn up so that Even can see them over his shoulders. He opens his mouth to whisper his boyfriend's name, feeling like the quiet of the early morning is too total to break with his voice, but the soft "Isak" dies in his throat in the next millisecond.
Was that-?
Yeah, it was. Fuck.
Isak's shoulders hitch up, once, twice, three times in a row, small successive shudders like he's laughing at something - except his hand comes up to cover his mouth, Even can see it from where he's standing, and despite it he still hears the cracked whimper that turns the air around him to ice.
Iask's fucking crying.
Even feels like he's just had a bucket of water dumped over his head. He stands there, one foot still inside, the warm air from the heat pump swirling around his legs as it fights against the frigid night air, and flounders like he's just been swept under a breaker and is trying to figure out where the fuck the surface is to find his next breath.
Meanwhile, Isak leans forward slightly in his chair, and his other hand comes up to clutch at his own hair like he's trying to rip it out, and he keens, long and quiet, before gulping in shuddering breaths, his whole body trembling with violence. He's so obviously trying to be quiet but Even can hear everything in the 3AM stillness and he still has no fucking idea what's going on, but the boy he loves is in pain and that thought makes it easy to step forward, leaving the door open, electricity bill be fucked.
He reaches Isak in five long strides and crouches down at his side, one hand coming to sit at the back of his neck as at the same time he whispers, "Isak?"
Isak startles slightly, his eyes meeting Even's, and fuck - he can't see much in the faint moonlight but Isak's eyes are shining with tears, the tracks on his face shimmering, all the way down his neck to his chest and disappearing into Even's old Wu- Tang t shirt. He looks for a second or two like he's ready to jump straight off the balcony just to escape, his eyes wide and clearly panicked at being caught out, and then on instinct Even puts his other hand on Isak's cheek and wipes his thumb across it, and Isak's face crumples.
"Shhhhh". Even doesn't know what else to say. He just hushes Isak and pulls his head into the crook of his shoulder, holding his face with all the delicacy his hands are capable of. Isak fucking sobs, and it sounds like it's being ripped out of him with tongs, harsh and guttural and devastating. Even feels his own eyes watering as Isak's mouth opens against his collarbone in a silent scream, the air audibly scraping out of his throat.
"Shit, Isak... it's okay. Baby, it's okay, it's all right, you're okay," Even whispers, feeling more bewildered than he ever has. Isak's just crying harder, his whole body shaking, one hand clutching Even's shoulder in a vice grip and the other still in his own hair. Even has no idea what the fuck is going on, why Isak is crying like he's at his own mother's funeral when Isak has never even shed a tear in front of him before. He waits for Isak to calm down, to say something, but he doesn't stop, just keeps keening low and soft, cutting off every ten seconds to drag in huge, shaky gulps of air before starting again. He's still so quiet - Even's used to big, noisy histrionics the way Sonja or his mum would, but Isak's still crying like he doesn't want anyone to hear him, even though Even clearly can. He takes the hand that was holding the back of Isak's head and starts up smooth, slow circles on his back instead. His knees have already gone stiff and locked up in the cold, his toes bent uncomfortably and freezing on the concrete, but he barely thinks of these things beyond acknowledging their existence.
Time trickles on - some nocturnal warbler is crooning in the distance, a police siren fades in and out from far away. Even doesn't know how long it's been - maybe two minutes, maybe ten - but eventually Isak grows quiet. He draws in air and actually holds it, then lets it out in a slow but steady exhale. Then he pulls away suddenly, and the cold air hits the damp spot on Evens' shoulder from Isak's tears and makes him shiver.
HIs boyfriend is swiping at his cheeks, his neck, wiping the tears off on his shirt and looking anywhere but at Even.
“Isak-”
“I’m sorry” he blurts out. “Fuck, I just - I didn’t - I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” His voice cracks and he’s still not looking at Even and Even has just about had enough bewilderment to last a lifetime but he tries to keep his voice gentle when he says, “Isak, what happened?”
He closes his eyes for a moment and then he finally looks at Even and fuck, he looks like he’s two cones deep his eyes are so red.
“Can we not?”
“What?”
“Let’s just - let’s just go back to bed, yeah?”
Even just stares at him. Isak looks up, starts to extricate himself from Even’s hold and turn towards the door. “Fuck, Even, you left the door open! It’s letting the heat out.”
Even just stares at him.
Isak’s…. Nervous?
Isak falters when he realises Even isn’t following him inside. “Even?”
Even blinks. Suddenly, he's angry that Isak is trying to brush this off like it doesn't matter. “I'm sorry, but what the fuck are you trying to do?”
Isaks mouth falls open. “I don’t - what the fuck do you mean, what the fuck am I trying to do?”
They’re both still half whispering like they’re in some church of pre-dawn, and it’d almost be a little funny if it really fucking wasn’t.
“Are you seriously gonna act like this -” and Even gesticulates wildy to indicate nothing in particular - “didn’t just happen?”
Isak’s jaw sets, and Even knows he’s just fucked any chance of further conversation.
“I don’t wanna fucking talk about it, yeah?” he bites in a low voice. In the same breath he swivels and walks inside. Without closing the door.
Even’s still crouching on the concrete next to Isak’s chair, and he suddenly feels like a colossal idiot.
Isak lies facing the wall, his back to the door. His face is still hot and itchy from the salt; his eyes fucking sting and he can feel the sick swirling of embarassment in his gut like it’s a physical thing.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck.
He can’t believe he just let Even see him like that.
He can’t believe he just let anyone see him like that.
He feels split open and raw, vulnerable and exposed like someones’ just opened up his chest and left it gaping.
Things is, Isak knows that he’s practically got a reputation for apparent stoicism. No ones’ ever seen him cry besides his mother, and he’s pretty sure the last time that happened he was nine.
He’s never known how to tell anyone that he’s also pretty sure he cries more than anyone he knows.
Isak doesn’t know exactly when it started, this shameful feeling, this need to hide. All he knows is that sometimes out of nowhere he feels like he’s being dragged into a black pit, and before he knows it he’s crying so hard he can barely breathe. Always silently, always privately, always alone, always wiping off his face and sitting in the bathroom until the redness fades and he can go back to whoever is waiting and act like nothing ever happened.
He thinks sometimes that maybe it has something to do with the days when his parents would fight; with him, with each other, or worst, the times his mother would lie there, blank, while his father screamed at her. His head would fill with blood and the tears would start without his permission, and all he felt was that he couldn’t burden his mum with his problems, and his dad wouldn’t care.
So crying became another secret, something he did alone, something he never told anyone about or sought comfort for. How could he tell anyone anyway, when he didn’t know why the fuck he was breaking down in the first place? Whenever someones’ crying the first question anyone asks is why, because there’s always a reason, except Isak never had a reason. He just had these moments where melancholy would descend like a great fucking stormcloud and leave him completely bereft.
All the times he’d been a shoulder for Jonas, or Eva, or Even, he somehow felt happy to be there for them whilst at the same time wondering how they could ever be so vulnerable with him. Never could he imagine letting anyone see him with every defense down, at his lowest, even Even.
And now Even had, and he had sobbed into his fucking shoulder for ten straight minutes and then tried to act like nothing had happened, and he knew Even wasn’t gonna fucking buy it, but he really just wished he could fall asleep and wake up with no memory of the last half hour.
Except now he could hear the swish click of the balcony door closing, and the soft tread as Even made his way back to the bed. Isak gave in to his first instinct and froze where he lay like an animal in headlights, some tiny, dumb, prehistoric part of him hoping that stillness might translate to invisibility and save him from the impending emotional overhaul. He heard Even sigh and then the bed dipped behind him, creaking into the silence, and there was Even’s hand, stroking a short path down his shoulder.
“Isak, please.”
He said nothing.
Suddenly Even was shifting, the bed creaking even more, until he was lying right behind Isak’s curled back, the cold tip of his nose bumping against the colder nape of Isak’s neck.
“Isak, if you don’t want to talk about it right now… then I get it. But can you say something?”
Yeah, he could do that. He owed Even that much, even if right now the shame burned through him with the kind of voraciousness that makes him want to hide away for the rest of his life.
“I’m sor-”
“Don’t apologize”
Isak huffed, amused despite himself.
“Sorry, just - you really don’t need to apologize for crying, Isak. It’s okay”
And see, Isak would tend to disagree, but Even sounds so sure and so persuasive that he lets the words convince him, just a little. So he tries again.
“Thank you. For that. I mean - outside. And I am sorry for, you know, getting mad at you.”
“It’s okay” Even hums, his hand sliding down around Isak’s waist and flattening against his sternum. "I technically got mad at you first, so I'm sorry too." Isak relaxes back into his embrace without thinking.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“It’s - it’s nothing, really.”
Isak can practically hear Even’s frown taking shape.
“Okay, tell me to fuck off if you want, but it really didn’t seem like nothing”
Isak knows that he has no hope of leaving the conversation there, that if he doesn’t get it out and done with now then it will hang over them until he does. He turns over slowly, delicately within Even’s embrace, until he can meet the muted glint of his eyes in the early morning darkness and touch the tip of his nose to Even’s.
“Hi” he says.
“Hi” Even replies, and he can hear his smile taking shape in that one syllable.
Isak takes a breath. “I’m not.. deflecting, when I say it’s nothing. It’s just that it really is… nothing?” He waits for Even’s reply, but he seems intent on him now, silently letting him muddle through the mess of thoughts in his head. So he takes another breath and tries to let them out.
“I guess… shit always just gets pent up, over so much time, and then it crashes down out of nowhere like that, and I really, really hate crying in front of people, I never do it, but sometimes when I’m up late like tonight I just get so fucking… melancholy for no reason, like everything bad or sad that’s ever happened to me starts banging around in my head all at once, and I have to get it out somehow so that happens, but I never wanted anyone to see it because it feels.. I don’t know” he finishes lamely, catching a breath.
Even just hums again, and brings a hand up to muss with Isak’s hair in the gentle way he has that always makes Isak feel so fucking loved, so treasured. But he still can’t bring himself to admit the truth of it, that he’s ashamed of his pain, so terrified of being that intensely vulnerable in front of anyone else. That letting himself cry feels akin to baring his entire ugly, misshapen soul to someone, and that every instinct insists that doing so will somehow make people love him less. He can’t say it to Even, because he knows Even will talk himself blue telling Isak that none of that is true, and that in spite of that Isak will still believe it.
So he takes another deep breath, and just says, “I’m fine. I really am fine. It wasn’t anything in particular, I just… have to vent sometimes, and that’s how I do it, and I don’t like bothering anyone else with it. But I promise, really, I’m okay now.”
Even’s hand stills in his hair.
“Isak…”
He seems lost for words for a moment.
“I was really worried about you. And shit, I cry infront you heaps, I go through full blown depressive episodes with you right there. I guess I thought you never cried because you were… fucking well adjusted, I don’t know, but... you should, I mean, I thought you knew I would always be there for you too if you needed me.”
Isak shakes his head, feeling guilty out of nowhere. “It’s not that I don’t think I can come to you, it’s just… I can’t. I just can’t, I don’t know why.” He’s suddenly exhausted, so he shuts his eyes and buries his head underneath Even’s chin, as if he can hide there.
“Okay” Even says softly, soothing, “it’s okay.”
Isak whispers into the soft skin that stretches over Even’s collarbones. “I love you. I’m sorry. I promise I’m okay.”
Even just holds him, runs a comforting path with his palm down Isak’s back like he’s calming something skittish and wild. He whispers back, “I love you. You don’t have to be sorry.” He sounds sad now, but Isak doesn’t have any words left in him to try with, so he just winds himself further into Even’s embrace, hoping that all the sadness and pain and bullshit can leech by osmosis from Even into him, that he can convey through touch alone everything he’s never had the courage to say.
“I love you, Isak.”
Isak keeps his eyes shut tight.