Chapter Text
When Isak got to the facility the staff seemed happy to see him, which was nice he guessed. Kind of weird; he’d never expected that to be part of his life. Then again, there was a lot of shit in his life that he hadn’t expected so maybe he should just stop trying to plan.
“Hi, Isak.” One of the nurses gave him a quick hug on her way past and his heart warmed a little.
“Hi, Lise.” Isak smiled back. “Have you seen my mum around anywhere?” He knew all her usual haunts but it would be a lot faster if he knew where to go straight away.
“Last I saw her she was looking after her little patch of flowers. Heaven knows how they’re still alive in this cold!” Lise laughed before she went off to do whatever it was the nurses here did all day. Isak took a deep breath, trying to ignore the uncomfortable tingling of anxiety in his lower stomach, and went out back to the garden.
Sure enough, his mum was bent down on her knees over her little patch of flowers. Her jeans were faded and she was in a jumper that Isak had memories of her in dating back as far as he could remember. It used to fit her but, in the last few years, she had started to look small and frail in its folds. Isak liked to think it was just the jumper getting stretched out in the wash after all those years rather than the way his mother’s illness ravaged her body as well as her mind.
“Mama?” He said carefully as he walked over to her, not wanting to startle her. She looked up and gave him a smile, but he could see the tiredness on her face. It always took her a while to get back on her feet after an episode, so he wasn’t particularly surprised.
“Isak! It’s so good to see you.” She got up from her flowers and pulled him into a hug, and for a moment everything else melted away and it was just Isak and his mama and her comforting earthy scent.
“Hi, mama.” He hugged her as tightly as he dared, not wanting to crush the tiny woman his mother had become. “I was worried about you. Are you feeling a bit better today?” He sat down with her on one of the benches and she covered his hands with her own.
“I’m tired, but I can see clearly.” She promised. “They said that you’d been phoning; is everything alright?” Isak squirmed a little under her gaze and looked around the garden. There weren’t many other people crazy enough to be outside for longer than they needed to be when it was almost November, but there were more people around than Isak would like for this private conversation.
“Things are really good, but I wanted to talk to you about something?” Isak fidgeted nervously and tried not to think about how badly this could go. Coming out to his religious mother a few days after she’d recovered from a psychotic episode, what the fuck was he thinking?
“Let’s go inside.” Marianne patted his hand before getting to her feet and Isak followed quickly, letting his mother lead the way back inside and up to her little flat. They weren’t anything fancy, but they were more than enough for Marianne: a bedroom, a small living area and a kitchenette. Isak had thought she’d miss having her own bathroom or a proper kitchen when they first moved her there, but she always seemed happy enough with her space.
Maybe because it was 100% hers and she didn’t have to deal with Isak’s dad being there.
One day, though, he was going to get her home.
“Would you like a drink?” She offered, opening up her fridge. “There’s juice, or water, or squash.” She rattled off. Isak knew better than to ask where her kettle was; he hadn’t been expecting to see it considering how bad her episode seemed to have been. He’d have to have this conversation sans-coffee.
“Water is fine.” He smiled, sitting himself down on the sofa and trying to act like his heart wasn’t going double time in his chest.
“So,” Marianne exhaled as she sat opposite him on the armchair. “What do you want to talk about, baby?”
Now or never, Isak thought. His hands were shaking around his glass; he could see the ripples of his anxiety in his water and he hoped that his mum was too far away to notice them.
“I’m gay.” Isak blurted out, unable to keep the words contained inside himself any longer. He didn’t even try to analyse the look on his mum’s face before more words were pouring out. “I know you believe in God, and that the bible isn’t exactly pro-pride, but I’m gay and I hope that doesn’t upset you or str-”
“Isak, stop.” She interrupted him, pushing off from her seat and pulling him into a hug. Stunned, Isak let the words die in his mouth and he sat awkwardly in his mother’s embrace. She was hugging him; that had to be a good thing right? Or was it a so long nice knowing you sort of hug?
“Say something.” Isak choked out after she didn’t say anything else, unable to quiet his mind down.
“Isak.” His heart was in his throat as he watched his mum sit back to look at him. “Baby, there isn’t anything that could make me love you any less.” His hands shook as she covered them with her own, and all he could think was how weathered her hands were from years of gardening.
She gave him a conspiring look before looking around her small flat.
“You’re probably the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.”
That was when Isak started crying.
It wasn’t like he was bawling his eyes out on her sofa or anything, but tears did slip out before he could stop them and it took a few desperate gulps of air before he could calm himself down enough to control himself. He wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his hoodie, still trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, and gave his mum a shaky laugh when she wrapped her arms around him again.
“You’re my son, Isak; nothing is ever going to change that.” Marianne promised. All Isak could do was nod and press closer, emotionally dazed from how well his coming out had gone.
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Marianne asked after a minute of Isak sniffing quietly against her neck. Her old mating mark was still there; faded and scarred and there for all the world to see that the alpha who mated her had also left her.
“Sort of.” Isak gave his eyes one last wipe and sat back against the armrest on his side of the sofa. Marianne mirrored his position and signalled for him to keep talking.
Here goes nothing.
“I met a guy.” Isak began, not sure how else to explain it.
“Okay.” He could see his mum trying to suppress a smile, and it reassured something that he hadn’t even realised was wound tight in his chest. “What’s his name?” She prompted when Isak struggled to think of what else to say.
“Even. He’s in the year above me at school. He’s- he’s an alpha.” Isak faltered over the words, not sure how his mother would react to them. After all: an alpha had turned both their lives upside down.
“I see.” Marianne replied carefully.
“What do you think about that?” Isak swallowed, waiting to hear the words he had already thought a thousand times. That alphas were all a bad bunch, that it would never work between him and an alpha, that an older male alpha was probably the last thing Isak needed in his life when he was coming up to a crucial time in his education.
His mum didn’t say any of that.
“I think there’s probably a lot more to him than just being an alpha.” When she saw the shocked look on Isak’s face she laughed, making Isak’s stomach clench with emotion at how well she looked. “Were you expecting me to say that all alphas are evil and that no son of mine will go near one?”
“Well…yeah.” Isak answered, dumbfounded.
“I know your dad wasn’t a great example of an alpha-”
“He wasn’t even a mediocre example.” Isak interrupted flatly. He could never pass up an opportunity to bad mouth his father, even if talking about him did leave a bad taste in Isak’s mouth.
“He wasn’t always like that.” Marianne shook her head, but they both knew it was a losing battle. Isak would be resentful towards his father for leaving them both when they needed him most for the rest of his life.
“We’re not talking about your father, though, are we? We’re here to talk about Even.” Hearing his mother say his boyfriend’s name cracked some of the chassis around Isak’s heart.
“We are.” Isak nodded. “Sort of. I just- we’re sort of dating now. It’s not been going on long.” He added, not wanting his mum to think that he’d been keeping this from her for ages.
“Is he good to you?” Isak could see a seriousness in her eyes that he couldn’t remember seeing for years.
“He is. Our first date he took me Nordmarka and he brought all this food that he’d made and we just talked for ages. He’s really good to me.” Isak couldn’t help but smile, but his mum still saw straight through him.
“But you’re hung up that he’s an alpha.” She finished for him, and Isak felt the shame prickle up the back of his neck.
“Yeah.” He had to physically bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself adding dad messed me up pretty bad about alphas, but he was pretty sure his mum could read between the lines and hear the words he didn’t say.
“It’s tough.” She nodded. “Alphas can be a handful.” Isak blushed hard at that and he had never wanted a black hole to suck him out of existence more than he did when his mum gave him a disbelieving look.
“Boys; always thinking with what’s in their pants.” She shook her head and Isak was ready to shrivel up and die.
“Alphas are an emotional handful.” His mum looked at him pointedly and Isak’s desire to disappear from the earth grew tenfold. “They can be very protective or possessive, even territorial, about their partners. And they can be so persuasive. Especially if their partner is an omega; it’s like they always know how to butter you up to get you to agree with them. Your dad got me to agree to so many things that I thought were stupid or a bad idea just because he was so charming about it.”
That was exactly what terrified Isak.
“I don’t want to spend my life being manipulated by someone, mama.” Isak didn’t think that should be something that had to be explicitly stated, but there he was.
“Does anyone? A lot of omegas persuade their alphas to do things they don’t necessarily want to do because they know how to soften up their partners too. It works both ways, Isak.” Marianne pointed out.
“I know, mama. I just- I don’t want him to end up being like dad, I guess. Or like those alphas who harass people on the street.” Isak rubbed his hair in frustration. Words had never been his forte; he had never been good at expressing himself. He knew he was probably coming off like a complete prick who was just writing Even off because of his exquis presentation, when that’s not what was happening.
The truth was that Isak had been burned so many times before – sometimes by people who didn’t even realise they were hurting him – that he wasn’t sure if he had it in him to be burnt again.
“You know, when you were growing up there were times when I thought you’d be an alpha.” At that, Isak’s mouth fell open. “You can be so stubborn and headstrong, and you’ve always been driven. But then you could also be so soft and sweet and emotional, and you’ve always been such a homebody and so family-orientated. For a while I thought you’d present as an omega, like me.”
Isak’s blood ran cold, but he forced himself to chuckle.
“Turns out you were wrong on both counts, because I’m a beta.” The words tasted like ash in his mouth, but he forced them out anyway.
“That’s what I’m trying to say. People are so complex; we can’t just narrow them down to their genetics and how they present. Look at you, Isak: you’re a beta, but you’re also a good student, and you’re smarter than your dad and I put together, and you hold down a job, and you’re so curious about everything, and you love that loud music, and you hate broccoli but you like cauliflower even though there’s hardly any difference between them. None of the things that make you you come from being a beta, just like I’m sure none of the things that make Even Even will come from him being an alpha.”
Had his mum always given such good advice?
“Was it hard to date an alpha?” Isak asked after he took a minute to think about his mum’s words.
“Sometimes. Sometimes he was the most boneheaded stubborn schmuck I’d ever met. But then there were times when he looked after me like no one else ever could or exhilarated me like nothing in the world had ever done.” Marianne sighed, and Isak felt bad for asking. “It was a rollercoaster, but most relationships are. I don’t think hom-ex genes have anything to do with it; human relationships are turbulent too.”
Isak wasn’t sure if that was comforting or not.
“I know it’s hard, but to really give a relationship a chance you need to be open to getting hurt.” Marianne reached over and squeezed his hand, but Isak felt a vice tighten around his heart at her words. The thought of being hurt by Even distressed him more than he was comfortable to admit.
“No one wants to be hurt.” She acknowledged. “But when you open yourself up to someone and they take you for who you are, there’s just no greater feeling. You’ll never know if you don’t try, though, baby. If you spend your whole life being safe then – sure – nothing bad will ever happen to you, but neither will anything good.”
Isak hadn’t expected this visit to his mum to involve so much raw honesty.
“If you could go back and never meet dad, if you could avoid all the ways he hurt you, would you do it?” Isak wasn’t sure what possessed him to ask that question, but for some reason the answer felt deathly important to his decision about everything.
“Not for a second.” His mum shook her head, looking completely at peace with her answer. “Apart from anything else, I wouldn’t have you.” She gave him a smile and Isak had to do his best not to tear up again.
“Not sure if I’m worth all that.” Isak laughed shakily, but his mum shook her head.
“There are a lot of moments with your father I wouldn’t trade for the world, and a lot of lessons that I’m glad I learned, but if I was given the chance I wouldn’t undo the choice that brought my beautiful boy into the world.” She leaned across and kissed the top of his head.
“All this deep talk has made me tired. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Isak suddenly realised that this talk was probably as exhausting for his mum – freshly recovering from a bad episode – as it was for him, and he felt awful for dragging it out for as long as he had.
“No, mama; get some rest. Thank you for everything.” He hugged her tightly, clinging onto these moments when she was lucid and recovery felt like a real possibility.
“Go get ’em, baby.” Marianne hugged him tightly before finally letting him go. They exchanged a quick goodbye, because Isak could see that his mum needed a nap, and then he was leaving the facility with his mind buzzing.
His mum had definitely given him a lot to think about, but her words about living life too safely had struck something deep inside him.
He took his phone out of his pocket when he got to the tram stop and pulled up his thread with Even.
Isak (19.07)
I want to spend the weekend with you
He watched the message send and felt a surge of surety that he was doing the right thing. He wanted to live his life, not just endure it.
He was done playing it safe.