Chapter Text
October 14th, 2016
23:39
The music subsides as Even lowers the volume of the box, and someone clears their throat, everyone feeling that the natural ending of the hangout has closed in on them. What was planned as a pre party turned into this: just catching up with a few drinks, ultimately no one really feeling like going out anymore.
“Well, we’ll get going, then,” Eskild, one of Sonja’s friends from work announces. Elise, another friend, agrees.
Sonja puts on a smile and pretends she’s sad they’re leaving already, though she is everything but. Even tells them they can stay for longer if they like, but it’s only out of politeness, and they all know it.
Sonja gets up to give both of them a hug after they’ve put on their shoes and coats, while Even stays on the couch, a bottle of beer in one hand and the other making a passive, waving motion at their departure.
Sonja sits back down onto the couch when they disappear into the hallway, and Even’s arm snakes around her in response. She leans into it, resting her head on Even’s shoulder and sighing inwardly. There’s a wine glass still on the table, half drunk and hers, but she doesn’t really feel like finishing it anymore.
Sonja feels a rush of relief flow through her body as the door finally closes, her friends all going home. It leaves her alone with Even, something she has been yearning for ever since she noticed his eyes sticking to the boy in the room for the first time.
It’s someone she never met before, a boy called Isak. He didn’t talk much while he was there and left quite early, but when he was still there he felt a little off, maybe.
Shaken, out of place.
What she did get to know about him is that he’s a second year at Nissen, the school Even has just transferred to. Freshly seventeen and a biology oriented student; seemingly not a devoted student but not a bad one either. A bit of a tough guy, or in any case pretending to be. Not entirely unlike Even.
The reason he was there wasn’t incredibly clear to Sonja; he needed Even to buy him beer for a pre-party, but didn’t leave until about nine o’clock; and why was he waiting around at Even’s place then, anyway?
Maybe it’s different for the kids these days, Sonja thinks—feeling a little ridiculous at the distance she’s putting between herself and a boy that was born just two years later than her—, but in her experience, pre-parties tend to start earlier than that.
The more alcohol you get in at home, the easier it is to get the party vibe going and the less money you’ll want to spend on drinks from outside; not to mention the boy obviously not yet being allowed to buy anything.
He did look quite disconcerted, picking up and putting down his phone a lot, so maybe the plans went south. Sonja doesn’t know, but she doesn’t particularly care, either.
What she does care about is Even’s seemingly unwavering attention for him. Sure, he’d showered Sonja in kisses when she told him about her achievements at work, praised her in all sorts of ways, to the point where it was a little ridiculous. But that’s just what Even likes to do.
Once Sonja was settled and everyone was nursing a drink, including Isak, there wasn’t a single time where Sonja looked at Even and his eyes weren’t stuck to the boy. Isak, in turn, seemed to steadfastly be avoiding her boyfriend’s gaze.
After about an hour of Isak awkwardly sitting around in Even’s room, hardly engaging in the conversation that had been going on because really, there hadn’t really been a place for him to insert himself into it, he left.
Even seemed abnormally disheartened by this.
After all, from what it seemed they had spent the entire afternoon together, and Sonja wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t noticed the smell of weed in Even’s clothes and the sight of already emptied beer bottles when she arrived here.
To her, it had seemed like they’d had quite enough fun already; now it was her turn. She wonders what it is about, this sudden connection.
Now, Sonja is not someone who likes to get ahead of herself, especially not when it comes to Even. Or maybe especially not when it comes to letting Even know about it; he hates it when she’s worried about him, hates it when she analyzes his actions, when she looks out for signs.
Ever since Even’s diagnosis a while ago, preceded by one of the most terrifying series of events of both of their lives, Sonja can’t help but see a sign in everything. A sign of his next episode, his next breakdown. A sign that everything is going to shit again.
What happened with Mikael, and especially after that, shook both of them to the core, threw them off kilter. And Sonja sometimes feels guilty for feeling so many things about it, because Even in turn seems like he doesn’t, even though it happened to him first and foremost.
Even waves it away when she tries to talk about it, insisting on his well-being, and from what Sonja hears from his parents, has not yet agreed to any type of therapy offered to him; he just takes his meds, but even with those he violates the conditions that are not drinking and not smoking.
Sonja wants so badly to believe that he is doing okay, and sure, he’s at least doing a lot better now than he used to be. He has friends at Nissen and he goes to class and, from how he talks about it sometimes, doesn’t think the place is half as bad as he’d thought it would be.
But the truth is that Sonja has realized Even tries his best to hide his feelings from her, embarrassed, maybe, even though she’s been here from the start. From before he was even dealing with it.
Maybe that’s the point. Sonja and Even have known each other since they were 14, a much more carefree time. Even wishes he’s still the person he was back then, not chained to medication that makes him feel like a shell of himself on bad days. He hates that he’s turned into this before her eyes.
He hates that he’s turned into this before his own eyes, without being able to do anything about it.
Only after the fact did Sonja find out it has always been a fear of his; to end up like his aunt June, a woman who means the world to him but is now living on the other side of the world because the Oslovian landscape, the Norwegian landscape invoked too many bad memories of her episodes inside of her.
And so, Even just doesn’t talk about it at all, gets pissy when Sonja does try.
That’s what Sonja thinks the reason is, anyway. It’s what keeps her up at night, just like those early years do. She is constantly picking apart certain moments and wondering, was this not an indication? Shouldn’t I have paid better attention?
Sonja does it, or rather, it happens to her, even though she knows that a lot of the things she’s thinking about as ‘indications’ could have happened to anyone. She’s just so on guard, she can’t help but be.
He almost killed himself, for God’s sake.
The most important person in her life. She would give the world to be able to avoid anything like that ever happening again.
And Sonja knows that she goes too far sometimes, that she tries to micromanage what he does and that, at times, he really resents her for it. She knows it’s bad, was even advised not to do it by the people at the hospital.
And yet, it’s so fucking hard. It’s like she can’t fully function anymore when she doesn’t know what’s going on with him, can’t breathe as much as she needs to when he pushes her attempts at gauging his well-being away as if it’s unimportant.
So Sonja, against her better judgment, just has to ask. Just has to test the waters, try and make sure and this won’t be Mikael all over again.
Sonja nuzzles her nose into Even’s neck a little, to which he responds in an appreciative nod, taking a sip from a beer he probably shouldn’t be drinking.
Sonja had been in such a good mood because of her job that she decided to let it slide, before she got overrun by concerns again, however inane they may be. By then it seemed petty and looking for a conflict to ask him to stop drinking, so she hasn’t.
“So, who was that boy?” Sonja asks into Even’s neck, pressing a kiss there when the last word leaves her lips. Even is silent for a few seconds, but gives way to the question after a few seconds and another sip.
“Isak, from school. We met at Kosegruppa, it’s a revue thing. Someone he knows hosts it, but he didn’t really seem interested, so we bolted and talked a little. Well, and he was here for the beer.”
Sonja decides not to make a comment on the fact that Isak, in fact, did not leave with said beer. Again, Sonja: you don’t know this boy. Who knows what happened to the plans, right?
Sonja instead raises her eyebrows at the fact Even is apparently interested in the revue, having shown zero enthusiasm for the entirety of russefeiring since he got to Nissen, and not when he was still at Elvebakken either.
Something called ‘Kosegruppa’ also doesn’t sound like something he’d be particularly interested in.
Sonja nevertheless decides to let it slide. She was in the revue all three years and had an amazing time there, and he is new at school, after all. He didn’t get to have a normal russ period at Elvebakken, so why should she now nag him about this?
It’s probably fine. And making friends is only good, isn’t it?
Sonja kind of resents herself for getting so worked up about small stuff like this. It makes her feel bad that she apparently doesn’t trust Even enough to take care of himself, that the first thing she thinks of when a new boy enters his life is the worst thing that ever happened to him.
The worst thing he ever did to himself.
How is Even ever supposed to lead a normal life like that? If the people around him, if she, his girlfriend, isn’t able to see him for the person he is behind the disease, then who is?
How is he ever supposed to think of himself as a normal, functioning person of society, when apparently no one else can?
Sonja is just too worried, that’s all. She’s too worried and it makes her sick, but she’ll do her best to get rid of it, to return to their life before the first episode as much as possible. They’ll get through this, they will.
She and Even.
Even the possibility that this Isak had something to do with Even going to the revue meeting in the first place, that the ‘interest’ in the revue is instead interest in him… Sonja pushes it out of her head.
It doesn’t seem like it makes sense, since Isak apparently didn’t want to be there himself. And he’s gone now, anyway.
Sonja is finally alone with her boyfriend, and she thinks she should just enjoy it now, not worry about things before she has a reason to worry. She should avoid being so on guard all the time, both for his happiness and for her own.
“Hm,” she says. “Are you friends, then?”
Even shrugs, rubbing her shoulder with his hand. She can feel the warmth of it on the skin beneath her shirt, radiating through the thin fabric. “I don’t know, we haven’t talked that much.”
Sonja decides to leave it. Enough talk about Isak, or anyone else. It’s time for them. She takes the half finished bottle of beer out of Even’s hand, and for a split second he looks displeased by it, before he realizes what she’s about to do.
Sonja turns her body toward her boyfriend’s and takes one side of his face in her hand, rubbing her thumb along his jaw, feeling the slight prickle of hairs that have grown back between the last time he shaved and now.
He’s so incredibly gorgeous, Sonja almost can’t stand to actually look at him. She closes her eyes and connects their lips, him receiving her as if she were a lover returning home from a long, uncertain journey.
They’re wrapped in each other’s arms as far as that’s possible on the couch, his hands on her back, pressing down a little on the clasp of her bra. It’s clear what he wants.
Sonja, in turn, places her hand tactfully on his thigh, high enough to make her own intentions clear but low enough not to actually make him feel anything yet.
Even stops the kiss to grin, her unspoken question answered by his hand against her shoulder, pushing so she reclines into the couch. He moves himself then, hanging over her, and kisses her again.
Sonja’s hands are in his hair, her whole body is filled with sparks, with buzzing energy, with love. The doubts have evaporated.
She is his; he is hers. And that’s it.
They will be fine.