Chapter Text
Isak meets Even Bech Næsheim on New Year’s Eve when he is seventeen and a half years old.
He doesn’t mean to; but isn’t that how these stories usually start?
When Jonas drags him to a Bakka party yet again — “for Magnus, bro, he’s still embarrassed he struck out with Vilde” — Isak doesn’t complain, because he knows it’s useless. If anything, at least, the anonymity of it means that he can avoid Emma. They haven’t spoken since the Christmas Kosegruppa party, when Isak finally ran out of excuses to take her to bed, and proceeded to embarrass them both because he couldn’t even stay hard long enough to fuck her. He’d claimed it was the condom (or the vodka), but the damage had been done.
He can’t really look her in the eye anymore.
So he goes along to this Bakka party to ring in 2017, and he doesn’t wear any gloves, but he keeps his hands to himself every time a guy brushes past him, his own casually shoved into his pockets.
The party is no different to any other Isak has been to. No warning that Isak’s world is about to tip on its axis. Isak sips at his beer and listens to Magnus strike out over and over, while Mahdi and Jonas mingle, their bare hands brazen in the sea of long sleeves and covers.
Isak just watches, and wishes he were anywhere else.
Across the room, Jonas looks for all the world like he has nothing to worry about. He’s good at this stuff: the picking up girls and the smoking weed, and not worrying about what anybody else thinks. Perhaps it helps that he can touch whoever he likes, in theory, and not think about what could happen.
Jonas has a bond.
Even if he and Eva aren’t together right now — “the bond can’t fix everything,” he said, when Isak asked — he has one, and he’ll never have another. He can touch whoever he likes, without it being a big drama. Or so he says.
Privately, Isak thinks it’s a bigger deal than Jonas lets on. Not being with Eva, even though they’re irreversibly tied together. They have the rest of their lives to figure it out, Isak supposes, but he doesn’t understand how Jonas can want to touch anybody else, or be okay with the fact that Eva does. Not when he can feel everything she does, feel it every time Chris puts his hands on her, feel the rise and crest of her cries when someone else fucks her. Isak knows that Jonas rarely shuts her out, even when it would hurt less to do so.
Some days Jonas smokes too much, and Isak wonders if he’s doing it on purpose.
Sometimes Isak wonders why the universe gave Jonas a bond, if he’s so willing to let it wither away.
Isak would never admit it out loud, but sometimes he dreams about it. Someone else in his head when he feels completely alone; someone else’s heartbeat to steady his own. A connection to somebody that is real and strong and unbreakable—someone to be more than family, who can never really leave.
He just doesn’t believe he’ll ever have it.
Not everyone gets a bond, of course. More than half the population, even, never know what it’s like. But Isak, in particular—with his proclivities, he thinks, the odds seem stacked against him.
Still, around boys, Isak keeps his hands to himself.
Everyone knows that you’re not supposed to touch people you’re not ready to be bonded to. Isak can’t remember a time it wasn’t instilled into him, like instinct. Bonds rarely happen with kids— and even when it does people consider that kind of cute—but once you’re a teenager, though—it’s everywhere. The mixed messages from parents, the lectures at school, the way every stranger turns into a potential ever-after. There’s the hesitance to touch, and the desire too, warring with what your parents tell you and what curiosity says.
People touch anyway, because touch is touch and people are hungry for it. These days, that’s considered normal enough.
Isak has touched girls, and he has kissed those girls, but even before he does so he knows he’s not their soulmate. He only touches girls, and lets everyone think that means he’s bold, wants them enough to take a risk.
He’s the only person who knows he’s risking nothing. If Isak bonds, he already knows it won’t be a girl.
So he drinks the shit beer Eskild buys him, and smokes Jonas’s weed, and presses his body as close as he can to whichever girl seems the most charmed, because that’s what he’s supposed to do, and it’s the closest thing he’ll have to closeness. People just about accept boys who like boys when there’s a bond involved, but to come out without one? Isak knows it’s a thing people do, but it’s braver than he knows how to be, right now.
He’s never met anyone who made him think it would be worth it.
—
In the dying hours of the year, sitting slumped on a sofa between Magnus and Mahdi, the last thing Isak is expecting is to meet anyone. But the room clears a little as midnight closes in, people wandering out to the roof with sparklers and sparkling wine, and Isak looks across and locks eyes, just for a moment, with the most beautiful boy he has ever seen.
But then the Boy opens his mouth, and the spell is broken.
“I think, you know, even if I had a soulmate, I wouldn’t want to meet them,” the Boy says, and he must be talking loudly, drunk or something, because Isak can hear him even across the room. “I want to choose someone for myself. I think that’s the romantic part.”
“Stop him before he goes on about Romeo and Juliet again,” the Boy’s friend scoffs. Isak’s eyes track the movement as a blonde girl at his side rolls her eyes, sloppily kisses the Boy on the cheek.
“Even is a romantic,” she says. “Nothing wrong with wanting to choose for yourself.”
“He just thinks romance should end in tragedy” the friend says, and Even grins big, the brightest thing Isak has ever seen, but Even doesn’t deny it.
Even. Even. Even.
Isak repeats the name over and over in his head, feeling foolish even as he does so—he just can’t help himself. Isak watches as Even turns his head to capture the girl’s lips in a kiss, fisting his hand in her short hair. Even’s tongue slips into her mouth, and their friends groan, turning away, but Isak can’t.
He’s not for you, the little voice in Isak’s head tells him, and then Even’s eyes flicker open, landing on Isak’s again, even as his mouth moves.
Isak leaves the room, and inside his pockets, his hands curl into fists.
—
There’s a girl at the party who won’t stop looking at Isak—dark-haired, tiny, eyes rimmed in thick makeup—and Magnus won’t stop talking about her until Isak finally agrees to go over. He finishes his beer in one long chug and makes his way to her, placing a careful hand on her wool- clad elbow just to watch her shiver. Girls like this, Isak has learned. Touching like this, over their clothes, how it feels so close to what’s forbidden. But the girl isn’t wearing gloves either, so she’s either looking to bond or bold enough not to care, and that’s trickier. He has to play the part: flirt a little, his hand slipping down until it nears the exposed skin of her wrist.
When their hands finally touch, she gasps, but her gaze turns wicked when skin touches skin without incident.
“Shall we go somewhere quiet?” She asks, and Isak looks over her shoulder to see Even watching, his bright eyes unnervingly amused. She steps in close, trailing a slow hand down his belly, and Isak doesn’t miss the way her gaze flickers down to his mouth.
Isak feels uneasy.
“I have to—” Isak says, backing away, and her face falls but Isak tries not to notice. “Bathroom,” he blurts, and without looking at Even, he pushes down the hallway, hands in pockets, and barricades himself inside.
When he locks the door, everything seems quieter, even the noise inside his head. Isak splashes cold water on his face, and lets his head thump against the mirror, feeling the cool glass against his cheek for a while
His mind whirs, reels, buzzes. Isak hates this part of drinking.
Pulling back, Isak frowns as he stares at his reflection.
The person that stares back is unfortunately familiar: drunk Isak, pupils huge, face clouded by self- loathing and fear. He doesn’t want to touch this girl again, but he doesn’t know what to do. Pretend to get ill, he supposes. Leave the party, and hope that he can excuse himself in the morning.
He hasn’t decided what to do, but when he finally opens the door, the decision is made for him. On the other side, a blur of blonde hair and grey hoodie stumbles forwards, hand raised as if to knock.
As he falls, Isak unthinking lifts his hands to push him back.
And then Isak’s hand locks around his wrist, and everything goes black.
—
When Isak opens his eyes, everything is too bright. Too much. He’s lying on the bathroom floor, and there’s yelling all around him. Mahdi and Magnus hover nervously beside him, just out of reach.
“Jonas!” Mahdi shouts, fighting to be heard over the crowd. The music isn’t playing anymore, Isak realizes, but everything feels far too loud. “Get in here, buddy!”
Isak tries to ask what happened, but his head hurts too much to think.
Magnus reaches out to touch him, but Mahdi yanks him back, just as the burning brand of his fingertips scorch Isak’s arm. Squeezing his eyes shut again, he’s aware of the way his heart is racing, the waves of panic warring with confusion and—fuck. He leans into the body at his side, breathing heavily through his nose, and wills himself not to throw up. It helps, somehow, to press his nose into the skin of Even’s neck (beautiful Even!), to surround himself in him, and Isak can’t even think straight enough to wonder why...
Except, then, Even stirs, and recoils back in horror.
The second their bodies separate, Isak’s stomach rolls again, and he groans, low and unhappy.
“What the fuck?” Even asks, and Isak fills with dread as he starts to understand what must be happening. His whole body aches, like he’s regrown his limbs overnight, stretched out muscles he never knew he had.
Isak knows, in that moment, that his life has just been turned upside down.
“You bonded,” Even’s girlfriend confirms, and the pity in her eyes doesn’t go unnoticed. “Try not to move.”
“Fuck,” Even says again, and Isak feels it down to his toes, how Even is so viscerally shaken by the news.
Isak pulls himself up, until he’s sitting in an upright position, his back against the wall of the room. Next to him, Even shifts instinctively, until the bare skin of his forearm glances against Isak’s wrist.
He curses under his breath, and Isak tries to get himself under control. It’s too much.
Jonas arrives seconds later, clothes rumpled and eyes wide. A girl follows behind him, lipstick smeared comically around her mouth. Any other time, the sight might be funny, but Isak is too busy trying to breathe to laugh. Is this how Even feels, or is it him? Isak can’t tell, can’t separate them right now, but he feels on the razor’s edge of panic. It isn’t supposed to feel like this, he thinks distantly. It’s supposed to be the best moment of his life.
Instead, it feels like his life is over—and fuck, that’s surely not his own thought. His stomach rolls, and Isak inhales sharply, silently counts to ten.
“Issy,” Jonas says, and Isak shakes his head, miserable.
“Gonna be sick.”
From the way Even groans beside him, he thinks he may not be the only one. Isak sees the little circle around them expand a little at that. Mahdi disappears completely, exchanging a worried look with Magnus. His gloves are on now, Isak notices. How fucking typical.
“We need to get you home,” Jonas says, paying no mind to Isak’s inner turmoil. His gaze fixes on Even, appraising and wary all at once. “Both of you.”
Madhi returns just in time for Isak to throw up into the toilet bowl, Even following suit into Mahdi’s offered bucket.
Happy fucking new year.
—
He barely remembers being bundled into a car, Jonas’s worried face pressed against the glass of the window. He doesn’t remember giving his address; only that Eskild opens the door and Isak and Even stumble into Isak’s room, facediving into the covers.
For the next twelve hours, Isak sleeps, but his dreams are not his own. When he wakes up, it’s to the feeling of another person beside him, physically and otherwise.
He can’t even explain it. It’s like some tiny piece of soul found a gap in Isak’s, and now presses against his own, catlike, touching him all over as it maps the shape of him. Isak has no idea what kind of dreams Even is having now, but he thinks they must be good ones.
This is real. The thought comes to Isak, sudden and unbidden, and for a moment he can’t help the glimmer of excitement that builds in him.
“Wow,” Isak says out loud, looking over the boy next to him.
He’s so fucking beautiful.
“Hi,” Even says when he wakes, and Isak swallows hard before he says it back, because the moment feels heavy. He’s not sure what the etiquette is, for his first day with his bondmate.
“Do you have food?” Even says next, and that’s as good an answer as any.
In the kitchen, Even makes eggs with sour cream, and Isak gets flashes of calm from him as he stirs them in the pan. He feels the shiver of cold as Even steps out of the shower—some of the worst minutes of his life, letting go of Even long enough to turn away and not look, while his stomach rolls and he feels the phantom touches of Even soaping himself up.
He starts to think, by mid-morning, that despite what Even said at the party, everything is going to be okay. They haven’t talked at all, though—mostly because they don’t need to, Isak thinks. Between the hangovers and the emotional whiplash, Isak is too exhausted to say much at all, and Even feels the same. They can’t bear to be apart, but Isak feels to awkward to acknowledge it, so they sit there, instead, Evens’ feet under Isak’s legs on the sofa.
They stare at the television screen, watching some minute by minute footage of the Oslo to Bergen train until Isak starts to feel queasy. He looks at his phone instead, but that doesn’t help much—all he has are messages from the boys, and he’s not sure he’s ready to answer them.
Mahdi: How are you today bro?
Jonas Noah: Are you feeling ok? Let me know if you want me to bring you anything
Magnus: OMG I JUST WOKE UP AND REMEMBERED
Mahdi: Wait for it
Magnus: YOU BONDED TO THAT HOTTIE
Isak takes a deep breath before replying, trying not to look at Even as he does so.
Isak: All good boys talk soon
He isn’t, but he doesn’t know what else to say. None of them have mentioned that Even is decidedly male. None of them have mentioned that only an hour before they bonded, Even was loudly denouncing soulbonds to the entire room.
At his side, Even makes an uncomfortable noise, and Isak turns to look at him.
“I hate this show,” Even says, and Isak feels the flash of frustration coming off of him. It’s big— too big to be about the dumb TV show, but Isak isn’t sure what it is.
He didn’t know bonding would be this confusing.
He always thought that when you bonded, that was it. You had somebody who understood you at the most fundamental level. Maybe it’s because it’s so new, but this bond feels precariously fraught.
“Okay,” Isak says, but Even shakes his head.
Any positivity Isak had been feeling about the bond evaporates. It’s like the floodgates open, as he looks into Even’s eyes.
“Before you ask, I don’t want to talk.”
“I wasn’t going—”
“Yes you were,” Even says, then gestures towards his head, eyes narrowed. Like Isak is a liar.
“What, like you can read my mind?” Isak asks, narrowing his eyes. His gut churns, for a moment, and he feels something uncomfortable settle under his skin, pernicious.
Who the hell does this guy think he is? How dare he imply that Isak is lying like he knows anything about who Isak is, or—
Wait, why is he so angry?
Belatedly, Isak realises that the feeling isn’t his own.
He slows his breathing, tries to focus on his own self—he dredges up the cool mask of indifference he usually puts on for girls at parties, and that seems to help. Like he’s safe from the fire of Even’s thoughts.
Even exhales, slowly.
“I can hear you already,” Even admits. “Little bits, here and there.”
And—fuck. This is moving fast.
“Okay,” Isak says, slowly. “I can’t hear you yet.”
Even nods, and rubs absently at his arm. As Isak watches, he feels the ghost of it prickle against his own skin, and Even stiffens.
“You can feel that?” He asks, and Isak nods.
“Here and there,” he echoes, and Even squeezes his eyes shut.
The panic that wells up in him is scary, Isak thinks. The crest of it that Even is riding—it threatens to pull Isak under for a moment, and he can’t help it. He closes his eyes too, and there it is, Even’s presence within him beckoning. He follows the thread of it, like a trail of breadcrumbs through a garden of thorns, until the feelings surround him—Even’s fear, and his anger, and then deeper, something that feels like longing, then guilt, then—
I can’t do this, Even says, and Isak reacts on instinct, before he can even recognize that Even isn’t speaking aloud. He reaches out.
It’ll be okay, he thinks, dredging up all the optimism he can, trying to soothe Even’s fears, and—
“Get the fuck out!” Even bursts out, loud and harsh. Isak feels it like a shove, tumbling out of Even’s consciousness and into his own, and when he opens his eyes he expects to be on the floor, but there he is on the kollektiv sofa, Even standing in front of him.
Isak doesn’t know what just happened, but he knows instinctively that he’ll pay for it.
“Sorry,” he starts, but Even shakes his head.
Isak feels the pull of him, where they aren’t touching—but more than that, he feels Even’s disgust, washing over him until he feels the shame burn his cheeks.
“I don’t want a bond,” Even says, rubbing his own head. “The sooner you accept that, the better.”
—
In the darkness of the night, Isak can see every inch of Even next to him. Not quite with his eyes —but an awareness. He wonders if it’ll always be this way.
They lie beside each other in Isak’s bed, because Even’s is still a single and Isak has plenty of space. It’s still early, barely a day since the bond took form, but Isak can feel it tightening around them, an elastic band winding tighter and tighter. Once it settles, they’ll be able to stretch it without it snapping, but right now, Isak can barely stray a metre from Even without a dull throbbing starting up behind his eyes.
They haven’t spoken a word, out loud, since Even said he didn’t want a bond, but the thoughts are still there. Isak hears them, now, loud and clear. Not all, but enough to be miserable.
“Do you want to sleep?” Isak asks, and Even huffs. He looks like he wants to turn away, but Isak feels the flash of guilt as Even takes in the hopeful look on Isak’s own face. Isak doesn’t know what feelings Even is getting from him, but Even’s own come thick and fast, sitting uncomfortably in Isak’s chest as he tries to make sense of them. With the lights off, it’s easier to focus on the sensations, but they feel bigger.
Big and bright and blazing.
“I want you out of my head,” Even says, and Isak can feel his residual anger like heartburn. It takes his breath away.
He can’t apologize any more than he has already. Even knows he’s sorry.
“I didn’t choose this,” Isak says, but he knows even as he says it that he might have. Given the chance, he might have picked Even, of all the people he could have bonded to. Because Isak wanted a bond.
Even scoffs, and Isak’s eyes prickle in embarrassment as he gets a wave of pity across the bond.
“We have to make this work though,” Isak says. “Maybe we could make some rules?”
“Rules?” Isak can hear the skepticism. Feel it. He’s not sure which it is.
“Like, things we can and can’t do,” Isak says. Anything that will stop Even from acting like Isak has signed his death warrant. “We have to stick together for a while, so.”
Even appraises him in the darkness, and Isak lifts his chin, tries to project confidence. Finally, Even sighs, and Isak can feel himself exhaling along with him.
“We don’t need rules,” Even says, “Just, please don’t go that far again. I can’t....”
“Okay.” Isak bites his lip, because he doesn’t want to repeat that experience. “Okay. Can we just... call a truce?”
Even is quiet for a long moment, then he clears this throat.
“Truce,” he says, and in the darkness, his hand finds Isak’s. Shakes it. Lingers, then pulls away.
Isak doesn’t want Even to hate him, is the thing. They’re bonded, now, and they need to make the best of it, especially for as long as it takes to settle.
“Once we can separate again, it’ll be fine,” Even tries. “I can go back to my girlfriend, and you can go back to...”
Pretending to be into girls at parties, Isak doesn’t say, but Even’s mouth twitches, like he hears it anyway.
Fucking awkward.
“Yeah. Okay,” Isak says out loud. He tries not to be embarrassed.
So much for true love and soul bonds.
“Look, it’s just... nothing personal,” Even says. He tries to meet Isak’s eyes, but Isak shrugs. He knows that, at least. Isak heard his rant at the party. Everybody did.
“I said it’s chill.”
“But you don’t feel chill, though,” Even frowns.
“... I mean, I get it,” Isak tries. He really doesn’t understand Even's adamance, but he knows he has to accept it. Not everybody wants a soulbond. He’s sure Even has his reasons.
Even sighs again, like Isak is being unfair.
“I don’t want to be stuck with someone forever. Not if it isn’t my choice.”
“I think you always have a choice,” Isak interjects, and Even falls silent for a moment.
Isak has no idea why he said that.
He waits, wondering if Even is going to blow up at him again.
Down the bond, he feels nothing but tension. Slowly, it builds, then dissipates, as Isak exhales.
“What do you mean?” Even finally says, voice coloured with curiosity.
Isak meets his eyes, now, and tries not to lose himself in them.
“Well, we get to choose what the bond means to us, right?”
“Okay?” His confusion would be clear even if they weren’t psychically bound.
“So, like. We could be friends, if that's what we choose.”
It sounds alright, at least. They’re bonded. A friendship would be better than nothing, surely?
“It’s just...” Even says, and he tails off. Isak closes his eyes once more, lets the formless buzz of Even’s thoughts surround him, and carefully doesn’t prod at them.
For a moment, it’s almost comforting. Like intimacy.
“I can feel it,” Even says, carefully. “How disappointed you are.”
Fuck.
Isak’s eyes fly open. He can’t help it—the shame that wells up in him. Because it’s true. He wanted it. This gift from the universe, this thing he has always secretly dreamed of having...
Isak feels like a cruel trick has been played on him, to get the very thing he’s always wanted with somebody who doesn’t want it back.
“I’m sorry,” Isak says, honestly. He’s not sorry for the way he feels, but he’s sorry Even has to feel it too.
He can do better.
The thing is, Isak has probably read more about the science of bonding than he has any other thing. The theory of it just isn’t something he’d expected to need to practice. But he wants to protect himself, and Even wants him to stay away, and Isak is afraid.
When Isak’s eyes are shut, he can feel it growing. Even’s mind, pressed up against his own so close that it feels suffocating, for a moment.
So he gives it a go.
The books all say to build a wall, in your mind, but it’s all that Isak can do to pull back—to retreat enough that Even’s guilt and confusion no longer turn his stomach. It hurts to do so for more than a second, a throbbing headache starting up beneath his temples, and Isak grudgingly allows the band to tighten again, pulling his mind and Even’s together once more. For a brief moment, his thoughts are his own, Even’s simply a dull hum.
And now, they’re back full force.
Isak’s head hurts, and he knows Even feels it. He closes his eyes again, focuses on the place inside himself that isn’t his own. He presses his mind against Even’s for a moment, lets it soothe him, until Even clears his throat.
“Just don’t wait for me fall in love with you,” Even says into the darkness, and Isak feels the truth of it ring through him, clear as a bell.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he says, more quietly. “But it wouldn’t be good for either of us.”
“Okay,” Isak murmurs. He doesn’t know what else to say.
Even turns over at that, pulling the covers up to his neck.
“Goodnight,” he says, and Isak echoes the sentiment, headache still pounding behind his eyes.
He says nothing about Isak’s mind, still curled around his own, and so Isak closes his eyes, and focuses on the warmth of him.
Tonight, he'll take what he can get.