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English
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Part 14 of SKAM Fic Challenge August 2020
Stats:
Published:
2020-08-16
Words:
584
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
14
Kudos:
15
Bookmarks:
2
Hits:
186

Are We in Too Deep to Take It All Back (Can You Feel It Fading Too?)

Summary:

“You wanna pick the next album?” Sonja asks. Her voice echoes around Even, feels like it’s a million miles away. Like she’s inside his head talking to him instead of beside his side, laying atop his bunched up sheets. (She always gets too in his head, always stays there no matter how much he tries to push her out and free up space. Space that should automatically be his, not hers. Space that instead, he has to fight for.)

Notes:

For thirty one days, I'll be writing and posting SKAM fics inspired by the prompts listed here. These fics will be anywhere from 100-1,000 words approximately, will be for different characters and relationships, canon and non-canon, within the original Norwegian SKAM universe. All fics will stand alone. Check out the prompt list and let me know if you have any ideas for what you'd like me to write on a specific day!

Day 14 Prompt: Vinyl.

Title comes from the song "I Like It When You Love Me" by Oh Wonder.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The vinyl has been spinning for at least forty five minutes. It’s something soft and acoustic, hopeful and cheery and nice. Sonja just picked it up at the record store today on her lunch break, snagged it in the sale section for sixty three kroner. Just for him, she’d told Even after peppering a kiss onto his temple in the doorway of his apartment, her knit bag falling down her shoulder. She’d let herself in before he even got home, brewed him tea, and made a point of taking his meds down from the medicine cabinet and leaving them out on the counter, a nonverbal reminder. She always thinks she’s sly with things like that. She never is. (And it’s fine, really, Even gets how she’s trying to help even though it comes across as a bit like babying, and he would have let it go, he really would’ve, but then she commented in quiet, casual passing that she hoped the music would lift his spirits. Even thinks she should know him well enough after all these years to know that it’ll do the exact opposite now.) 

     “You wanna pick the next album?” Sonja asks. Her voice echoes around Even, feels like it’s a million miles away. Like she’s inside his head talking to him instead of beside his side, laying atop his bunched up sheets. (She always gets too in his head, always stays there no matter how much he tries to push her out and free up space. Space that should automatically be his, not hers. Space that instead, he has to fight for.)

     “No,” Even replies, lurching out of his stupor only to sit up against the rickety bed frame. “You can.” 

It’s weird to be on his bed together like this. He used to think of it as their bed. They haven’t touched each other in a long time, haven’t made love, haven’t even fucked. The most they do is kiss, and even that’s not quite the same lately. Not quite enough. (Even dreams of more, of different hands atop his, and he hates himself for it. Hates himself even more.)

Sonja goes back to the record player, the bed squeaking and swaying with her movements. Even smells her perfume — Chanel, something fancy but nice, something that Even bought her for Christmas once. Twice, maybe. (He can’t remember anymore. He should. He knows he should.)

     “You’re not gonna tell me not to scratch it?” 

In Sonja’s hands is “The Dark Side of the Moon,” a 1973 original, Even’s first album, his favorite. (Even thinks it’s probably for the best she didn’t pick up the one next to it, a later Pink Floyd album that she’d gotten him for his birthday once. He can’t remember what year that was, either.)

Even gives her his best attempt at a chuckle. He’s always finicky when it comes to his music, always overly cautious when anyone else handles his most prized possessions, but today he just smiles at her. Hopes she can’t see the sadness seeping through it. 

     “I trust you,” he says, and it’s true. He does. He doesn’t think that’s enough to keep them afloat, though. (In fact, he knows it isn’t.)

When she kisses him, two songs into the album, right when the chorus kicks in, Even barely feels anything at all.

So this is what it feels like, he thinks when she gives up, breaks away, twists to face the wall instead of him. The very beginning of the end.

Notes:

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