Work Text:
The clock reads 3:17 in the morning, but for Theo, it could be 6 in the afternoon and it would also make sense to him. His head is pounding and his throat is as dry as the desert outside the window. He hasn't had a proper meal in at least two days and he's absolutely not counting the stolen bag of chips Boris snuck inside his oversized jacket earlier in the day at the supermarket.
Vodka on an empty stomach is not a brilliant idea, but no matter how many times he has come to confirm this, he doesn't seem to learn. They don't seem to learn.
He pushes his face into his pillow and is immediately attacked with the intense smell of chlorine. His hair probably smells exactly like that as well. He sighs as he reaches the floor where he last left his glasses in an attempt to try and sleep and puts them on.
Theo turns around and finds Boris in the same position he has been for the past hour: crossed legged, against the bed frame and reading his third poetry book this week. Some Polish author that Theo gave up on trying to pronounce correctly. Popper is on his usual place, sleeping peacefully between Boris' legs and the sight is so familiar that Theo can't help his slowly growing smile to reach his tired eyes. Also, it doesn't help that the light from the lamp on the bedside table makes Boris' freckles on his cheeks and nose look like glitter. Theo swears he is magic magic magic. From time to time, Boris' lips will curl into the tiniest smirk, proof that whatever he's reading is either fucking stupid or quite thoughtful and beautiful. Theo is still trying to decipher the difference.
He doesn't know for how long he has been staring at Boris, but suddenly, he's closing his book and placing it to the floor quite ungracefully. Popper is startled by the sound of it and decides to migrate to the end of the bed right next to Boris' feet.
He lazily gets inside the covers and turns his whole body towards Theo. They are both mirroring each other, faces half illuminated, half hidden by the yellow lamp light.
“Not tired Potter?”, Boris asks mid yawn. His hair is sticking out in every direction, like a dead spider turned around on top of his head. And yet, somehow, he looks strangely beautiful. Theo's personal enigma.
“My head…hurts a little”, Theo whispers, “your stupid mix.”
Boris just lifts his eyebrows and smirks. “I remember you asked me to make something that will make you forget your own name”, he says proudly. Because intoxicating themselves has always felt like a competition, like everything else they did together.
“Whatever”, he shoots back at him. Theo pulls the covers up to his shoulders and sniffles a shiver. The air conditioner inside his room sometimes feels colder than the freezing New York winds in January. It's okay though, because Boris is so close to him that it’s kind of easy to forget about it.
They are just looking at each other. It should be weird, it should be filled with words, this silence between them. But every time it happens, and it happens more times than any of them will ever be able to count, Theo feels like they are molding their own bones to fit together more tenderly. As if this physical closeness would mend the insides of their hearts and minds. It’s stupid, Theo thinks. It's quite delusional. But he wouldn't be surprised if someone cuts Boris' skin, the exact same wound would appeared on Theo's own body. Since they've met each other Theo feels like he stopped belonging only to himself alone. It terrifies him.
“Is the book any good?”, Theo manages to say after what feels like hours.
Boris places a lock of hair from his face behind his ear and looks to the window behind Theo's face.
“It's alright I guess, some words I can't translate.” he sighs, “But I understand enough.”
Theo hums. Boris is looking anywhere but him now.
“They are love poems mainly, very repetitive”.
Silence again.
“I never seem to understand what they are trying to say”, Theo blurts out. It's out before he realizes what he just said. His words rest between their faces sitting on the pillow they are sharing.
Boris looks a bit lost. His eyes now searching for Theo's.
“Huh?”
“I mean-“,Theo tries, “poets, authors, when they talk about love and big things like that. A part of me gets it. But then, at the same time, I feel like I don't? Why use big metaphors and exaggerated language when, like, the feeling in itself is big enough without any other help?”
“It wouldn't sound as beautiful”, Boris smiles sadly. It's always a spectacle, Theo thinks, to see Boris so affected by literature. To watch this boy, this strange strange boy, be so devoted to it. Because God help anyone that believes Boris is anything but a surprise within a surprise within a surprise.
Theo keeps looking at him and continues: “Not everything has to though”
“What does it feel like for you?”, Boris asks, eyes wide.
“What do you mean?”
“Love, Potter, what is it?”, he wants this answer.
And it’s like Theo's brain has never felt this lucid before, because right in front of his eyes he sees Boris' dirty shoelaces on the floor of his bedroom. He hears him crying of laughter half delirious, half boy, over a dirty joke Theo said. He sees Boris only in his boxers trying to solve a math problem on their unmade bed on a Sunday afternoon. He feels Boris's arms around him, holding him so tight he might break after a nightmare so real Theo feels he's inside the wrecked museum all over again.
It’s Boris, Boris, Boris. And he know his eyes are saying it too. After all, he knows how to read his too.
“It’s….It’s uh”
Boris’ hand is on Theo's cheek and Theo knows for sure that a love poem will never be able to replicate this feeling, this single moment, ever. He looks sad, so sad. Theo wants to scream until his throat hurts. Please let's go back to us bickering, us punching each other, anything but this, Theo thinks.
“Goodnight Potter”, is what Boris final words are.
And with that, he turns around, reaches with his bony, pale arm to the lamp switch, and all at once, darkness surrounds them.
***
Antwerp is dead silent. Snow falls in slow motion and the movement makes Theo sleepy from where he's sprawled on the couch next to the huge widow panes. The glass of wine he’s currently drinking also helps, he supposes.
Boris' barely audible melody travels from the tiny kitchen to Theo’s ears and almost too violently he’s 14 all over again in Las Vegas, trying to decide which movie to watch in the living room at 2 am in the morning. Boris would be in the kitchen making tea for both of them and singing his obscure rock bands. Theo would never say it out loud, but Boris’s voice will always make his mind go silent.
He hears Boris’ steps coming towards him with another bottle of wine and the stupidest grin on his face.
This night is for toasting Potter, and no pouts are allowed-no no no, if you don’t accept this I will cry again and neither of us are ready to witness that again. Yeah, exactly. I thought so.
It’s been a couple of hours since they’s arrived to Boris’ apartment after their whole Amsterdam odyssey, and all they’ve been doing is talk and talk and talk. They are like a dam finally exploding. They are making floods with their words and for once in a very long time, Theo doesn’t feel empty after sharing.
They talk about Boris’ time in Las Vegas with Xandra, about Theo’s years as a college student, about Boris endless trips around the world. They are children again, sharing stories under the covers.
Boris is sitting next to Theo now, facing him, arm draped over the back of the sofa and he’s listening closely to whatever Theo is babbling, like he can’t miss a single word of it.
“So yeah I guess I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would”
Boris just smiles at him. Not the dirty, almost cruel one, but the honest, bashful one. He looks so young and something in Theo cracks.
“What are you thinking about?”, Theo questions him.
“Oh nothing at all, just think it’s hilarious how a couple of days ago we we’re performing a whole Opera in that Amsterdam’s hotel room and yet here we are, talking about your boring school days like nothing ever happened. Hey! I’m not complaining, you really needed to loosen up a bit”
“Shut the fuck up”, Theo rolls his eyes with the tiniest smile on his lips. The truth is, he feels like the entire world in no longer on his shoulders. He feels almost free. Almost.
“Sweet sweet Potter, your tenderness was the thing that I missed the most”, Boris says before taking a long sip of his wine.
“I missed your broken English”, Theo spits out quietly, it was supposed to only be a thought. So much force and yet so little warning.
Boris’ eyebrows shoot up as he slowly puts down his glass on the table in front of them.
“Huh?”, he asks shyly.
Theo continues in a rush, desperately trying to make sense of whatever his brain wanted to say out loud for god knows why: “I don’t know, the way you could remember words like 'ambivalent' and ‘inexorable' but stopped in the middle of a sentence because you couldn’t get ‘smooth’ out of your mouth. How you read books so long and complicated like it was nothing.”
“Oh that”, Boris scoffs with a small smile on the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah that. Stuff like that, honestly forget it.”, Theo mumbles. He looks anywhere but Boris’ eyes. Coward, coward, coward.
“But more too?”, Boris asks, his voice tiny and vulnerable, “more things that you missed, no?”
The petition was so pure, so devoid of mocking, unlike how their conversations had been for the last couple of hours that this time Theo doesn’t even hesitate: “Of course”.
It is a while before either of them speak again. The muted tv light casting blue lights all over their bodies. They are in their own moonlight.
“You know when you left, the morning after I woke up I remember feeling like shit”, Boris looks lost in the memory, “I fell asleep in your bed and walked down the stairs expecting you to be in the kitchen trying to make a breakfast with two stale breads and a half empty bottle of milk, like you always tried”
“And then it hit me.”, he stopped for a couple seconds, trying to find the right words. “You were gone far far away and I was alone all over again”
Silence. The dull sound of the wind outside the window.
“You know”, Theo starts, “even years after we last saw each other I would wake up in the middle of the night fully expecting you to be next to me asleep on a couch or my bed.”
It’s out and gone.
“I thought I was always going to miss you”, Boris whispers, the volume going lower and lower with each word, “I guess I was right”
“Boris…”
“But now that doesn’t matter. Here we are again, against all odds”, he’s smiling now and The knows he’s doing the same.
“We are”, he confirms.
Why does silence with Boris feels like it’s own wild beast? Why does it feel like they're confessing everything with their mouths shut? One, two, three sips of wine. An ambulance siren passing by the window.
Boris has that look again. The one that Theo knows no matter how many years they get to know each other, he will never be able to fully wipe all the pain away. It’s the look of sorrow, of mourning , and if Theo’s honest with himself, he much rather get punched in the face than being looked at like that.
Why can’t he never do what he truly wants? Why does he feel like he never deserves the things that make him happy? Could it be so easy to just simply do whatever the fuck he wants?
“I’m going to do something Boris and you can punch me in the face afterwards if you want to ok?”, Theo says a little out of breath. He’s doing this.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean Pot-“
Theo’s mouth is on his and he’s pretty sure his entire body is going to disarm into pieces one by one. Theo Decker is kissing Boris Pavlikovsky and for a couple of seconds all the cracks and rough edges make sense.
The kiss is late night talks between grey smoke in a too cold bedroom in the middle of the desert. It’s secret laughter during classes when the teacher is giving them dirty looks over their shoulder. It’s feeling at the top of the world high high high going up and down in those solitary swings that feel like their names are carved on them. It’s Theo holding Bori’s chin still while putting a damp towel on his forehead and quietly studying his face, the truthest thing he knows. It’s Boris eyes searching for Theo’s whenever something funny is happening on the tv and he can’t wait for his smile to make an entrance.
Their lips slide together, slow at first, tentative. It’s too much and nothing at all. Boris moves his hand to the back of Theo's head bringing them closer closer closer. Theo lets out a heavy breath through his nose, letting his jaw go slack and Boris deepens the kiss.
They feel each other's smiles into the kiss and they pull off, their foreheads touching and it feels so easy, so natural.
Theo still hasn’t opened his eyes and Boris just kisses him on his cheek, then the other one, his chin, his temple and as he places his lips, butterfly wing like, on his nose, Theo lets out the most gentle laugh Boris has ever heard from him. How can a person be so beautiful and so tragic to look at?
“No punching then?”, Theo whispers, playing with the end of Bori's shirt.
“Sometimes you are so stupid.”, Boris says while caressing Theo’s cheekbones. “дурний”
Slowly, very slowly, Theo's eyes turn sad and Boris knows exactly where his mind has gone. He can't let that happen. He needs to know.
“I’m not saying goodbye again Theo. I’m done searching for you everywhere I go. It’s over. I promise.” It's the realest thing he has ever said.
Theo is smiling now. He believes him. He does.