Work Text:
Theo’s been back in New York for almost a year when the new book comes out. It’s all he’s been hearing about at school- despite all his classmates’ newfound teenage insistence on ambivalence at all times, they make no attempt to hide their excitement about this; there are posters in the hallways promoting book clubs to recap and “prepare”. People- girls, even- who Theo has never spoken to lean across desks to ask him genially if he’s excited.
He finds it all makes him feel a bit sick.
The new volume comes out in July, shouts the sign in the bookshop window. He gazes at it blankly until the cashier has to clear her throat to get his attention. He buys his books and leaves, avoiding eye contact with the bespectacled boy on the poster behind the glass.
Even Hobie asks about it. “I imagine you’re just buzzing about it with everyone else.”
“Um,” Theo avoids his eyes. “Not really, I guess.”
“I’d think that’s the sort of thing you’d be jumping to read. I suppose it’s not as intellectual as your tastes, though.” He doesn’t mean anything by it, but Theo still feels a sting of indignation.
“I’ve read them.”
“But you don’t like them?”
“No, I do. I just... I don’t want to wait in line.”
It isn’t a lie, exactly. Theo does like the books. A lot. The most recent one came out while he was at the Barbours, but Andy showed no interest (“A bit gauche.”) and Theo didn’t have the energy nor the heart to push the matter.
He’d ended up reading it, though. In Las Vegas.
One afternoon, someone had flicked the lens of his glasses and spit some fake sounding spells at him. Abracadabra, alakazam.
Theo swatted his hand away. “Not that it matters, but they don’t sound like that.”
“Eh?”
“The spells,” Theo winced at how nerdy he must sound, “They don’t sound like that in the books.”
“I never read them.”
“Well- don’t call me that again until you do.”
Boris shrugged and headed out the door without a word.
Theo ran after him. “Where are you going?”
“What do you expect me to do?” he called over his shoulder. “Call you ‘Theo’?”
They laughed their way onto the bus and to the shopping center. Theo kept watch while Boris, accustomed to stealing thin paperbacks, made a scene of stuffing the giant books into his clothing. “Those things are too big, you’ll never hide them.”
“Hush, Potter. Need to focus.”
They’d waltzed out, huge rectangular blocks jutting obviously out of their jackets; the sharp-eyebrowed clerk definitely noticed but didn’t seem to care enough to stop them. As soon as they were outside, they burst out in guffaws, so hard the books tumbled onto the sidewalk.
Boris spent the next week shut up in Theo’s bedroom, not going to school, barely eating, sitting on the bed with his back against the wall and a book propped up against his knees. Every time Theo came in, his head shot up in a flurry of dirty curls.
“He is a werewolf!”
“Who?”
“The professor!”
“You didn’t see that coming?”
“I- You expected that? Bullshit, Potter, you’re lying. You did not expect this, you are not so smart as that.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“Fuck you! The rat is a man, Potter. You’re saying you knew the rat was a man?”
Theo rolled his eyes and sat down beside him. He read along out of the corner of his eye, until he felt Boris’ spindly hand pull his head gently down to rest on his shoulder. They read like that comfortably until the book was done, occasionally stopping to make comments, or jokes. Boris would pose predictions, but before Theo could start to confirm or deny them, he’d throw a hand up- “Wait! Don’t tell me!”
When they finished, it was well past midnight.
“You going to school tomorrow?”
“School? After that? Nie, never. Not till I’m done.”
“Okay,” Theo smiled. “Me neither.”
Theo liked the routine: reading with his head on Boris’ bony shoulder, smoking cigarettes, laughing loudly. The newest book, the one that had come out during his time at Andy’s, that Theo hadn’t read, was the longest. A deep blue hardcover that they leaned over for two days, neither of them knowing what may happen next.
“How to pronounce her name again?”
“Um-bridge.”
“Umbridge. Fucking cunt. Hope he kills her.”
Save for moments like those, they were quiet. So quiet, even Xandra noticed. There was a halfhearted knock before the door opened and she slipped inside with her arms crossed.
“What are you two doing?” she asked suspiciously.
“Reading,” Theo replied.
She narrowed her eyes. “Reading.”
“Yeah.”
“There’s only one book.”
“We’re reading it together.”
“It’s quiet in here.”
Theo nodded slowly. “...We’re reading.”
She clearly thought they were up to something; she glanced around the room, chewing her gum, before squinting at them both again and leaving. As soon as the door shut, they fell over on top of each other, howling with laughter. “What is she thinking? We are running world’s quietest crime ring?”
They reached the end of the book that night. Boris closed it and lit a cigarette as they both stared at the opposite wall.
“But he was good man, wasn’t he? Sirius?” (Pronounced, by him, as Sy-ree-us).
“Yeah, he was.” Theo turned away. He tore his eyes away from the wall and tried to ignore the pit that sprung up in his chest a hundred pages or so ago.
“These books, they don’t kill good men, I thought.”
“I guess- I don't know. I guess they do now.”
Boris leaned back thoughtfully. “Is a shame.”
“Yeah.” Theo stared down at his hands. They sat in silence. Uncomfortable, Theo was about to stand up and put music on, or reach for the cigarette, when Boris said:
“You’re sad.”
“What?”
Boris peered at him somberly. “That made you sad. The end.”
“Shut up.”
Boris looked unconvinced.
“It’s just a book,” Theo added.
“No such thing,” blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. He paused serenely. “...It was a nice thought. Even though he had to live with so terrible people, he had his godfather. He’s being hunted, killed, whatever, but at least he knows- ‘Good. Someone out there loves me.’ I see why this makes you sad.”
Theo stared at him. Sometimes, he swore, Boris could read his mind.
He looked sideways at Theo. “You don’t feel that way anymore.”
”What way?”
”Like people love you.”
This was usually the kind of conversation they only had while trashed, under the stars, protected by the knowledge that one or both of them would forget it the next morning. Theo still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even want to shake his head no, in case he might cry or something else despicable like that.
“You shouldn’t feel this way, Potter. Like there is no one.” Boris shrugged. He fiddled with the cigarette. Quietly, simply, he said: “Is not true.”
There was no weight to it; he said it like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Like it was a given.
Theo was trying to formulate a response, or find something to do other than sit here and talk about grief, and his mother, and what Boris meant by love anyway, but he was saved by Boris jumping off the bed and turning to face him.
“There are films!”
“Yeah,” Theo forced himself to smile, “Two.”
“Then we are sitting here moping... why?”
Half a year later, Boris took a night off from Kotku to sneak into the movies with Theo. At the climax, the rat transformed and Boris punched him in the leg. “No way you saw this coming. чушь собачья.”
“I never said I did.”
“Oh? Potter, y-“
They got shushed by the cranky lady sitting in front of them. It, like most everything else, only made them laugh.
Theo passes by the bookstore on a hot July day, and stops at the line of people stretched out onto the sidewalk. He’s across the street, but they’re so loud it’s like they’re shouting in his ear.
Most of them are young, his age or less, and they’re almost all wearing smiles. The ones who aren’t are gritting their teeth with anticipation, or else are parents who’d like very much to be anywhere else.
Theo wonders if he should get in line. If he should wait two hours for the book, go home and read it, and then- what? Talk about it to who?
He thinks (as he does too, too often) about what Boris is doing right now. Does he know what’s happening today, why every teen in the world except them is lining up to drop twenty bucks? Maybe he’s actually among them, but Theo finds it hard to believe. Wherever he is, Boris is too busy to be bothering with lines for children’s books. Sheep, he’d call them. Most likely, he’ll wait a few weeks and pilfer it under his coat, like he’d done with the last five.
When Boris finally reads it, propped up against his knees, will he think of a head leaning on his shoulder? Will he miss it? Or will he just move on?
Theo keeps walking. He decides to ask Hobie if he can buy a new pair of glasses.