Work Text:
FREDAG 20:43
The flat is blessedly empty when Isak gets home - Eskild is out partying somewhere, and Linn never bothers him anyway. He left Even’s house within ten minutes of finding out about his girlfriend, Sonja. He should’ve known, really, that he didn’t have a chance, that Even was straight, but if there’s one thing Isak is good at, it’s getting his hopes up.
His phone is still buzzing like crazy - he knows his boys are mad at him, but the tight feeling in his chest ever since he heard “And this is Sonja, my girlfriend.” is just tightening and tightening the more he thinks about trying to explain himself.
Isak switches his phone off and throws it on his desk. He manages to get his shoes and jeans off, and his music player on, before collapsing on his bed, somehow exhausted. He’s fucked up again.
The near-constant buzz of pissed-off messages from his friends being missing somehow makes the guilt clenching his stomach feel even worse. Whatever CD he had last been playing is something chill, and slow, and perfect for making Isak feel like absolute shit because the lyrics are all about longing and the English voice singing croons out,
“secrets I have held in my heart,
are harder to hide than I thought,
baby, I just wanna be yours” and Isak’s crying, when did that happen. He doesn’t want to be someone who cries over boys - even Eskild doesn’t cry when a boy fucks with him, and he’s… gay gay.
Isak sniffs hard, sits up, and takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t work. His eyes are refusing to dry, so he just wraps himself up in his duvet and wills himself to calm down.
Even hasn’t even fucked him over, though, and that’s part of the not-problem. All he did was invite Isak back to his place, and smoke with him. Maybe it was Isak who read too much into the situation - was Even flirting with him or is Isak just desperate? For all the shit he gives Magnus, Isak knows he’s twice as bad.
Except Magnus isn’t ashamed of what he wants, Isak thinks bitterly.
With Even, everything felt right in a way that it didn’t with girls - every moment of eye contact had felt so much more intense, had given Isak butterflies. Every gentle touch or accidental brush had tingled against Isak’s skin and warmed him from the inside out. Somehow, Even had completely captivated him in the space of two face-to-face conversations and a few moments of Isak staring at him across a school room. While they had been smoking on Even’s windowsill or making awful toasties, it had truly felt like they were the only people in the world.
Isak wishes they were. Even wouldn’t have a girlfriend, and Isak wouldn’t have let his friends down. Again.
“Fuck,” Isak whispers to himself. It’s not fair that he feels like this, after such a short space of time. He shouldn’t want Even so badly right now, he should be happy with Emma, and he should be happy being friends with Even. But Even is the prettiest boy he’s ever met and Emma is really annoying and fuck, how did it get like this.
Maybe Isak could pretend to be just friends with Even. He could still hang out with him, he doesn’t have to fuck up someone else’s relationship - the coil of guilt in his stomach twists itself into another Gordian knot at the memory of Eva and Jonas last year - but Isak’s never been one for having crushes that he can just ignore. In less than two weeks he’s gone from “hey, he’s kind of attractive” and fallen straight into the crushing ocean of “oh no, not again.”
The CD switches off and Isak is left in a dark, silent room, alone.
He squeezes his eyes shut and tries desperately to fall asleep and not think.