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“You know,” Boris began, elbows resting on his knees. “You are a strange boy.” He took a long swig from the last bottle of beer.
Theo glanced at him drunkenly. “‘M not a boy, Boris.”
He watched Boris, who quirked an eyebrow.
“I’m a man.”
Boris fell back onto the roof, laughing hysterically and clutching his sides.
“What?” Theo listed his head to his shoulder in mock confusion, but he was giggling too.
“Yes,” Boris cried, “you are man, and it is going to snow tomorrow!”
Theo whacked him sluggishly in the side. “Shut up!”
Boris giggled. “You are just a boy, Potter.”
Theo scoffed. He leaned back onto the roof, the shingles gently scraping at his elbows. He looked up at the late night? no, early morning sky. The light was dull and grey, save for the square, yellow glow from his bedroom window behind them. “Although I wouldn’t mind some snow tomorrow.” Theo took a drink from the Stolichnaya bottle in his hands, grimacing.
“Nah,” Boris replied, shaking his head slightly. “Too cold.”
They slouched in easy silence for a few moments. After another swig of beer, Boris wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spoke up again. “Yah, you are just a silly boy. Stupid boy.”
Theo whipped around to face him. “Say that again?”
“You are a stupid, crazy boy,” Boris repeated simply, grinning in delight at the indignant look growing on Theo’s face. “But—“ Theo lunged at him, arms flailing, but Boris dodged away—“slushat, listen, you idiot!”
“I’m not crazy!”
“If you weren’t, Potter—shut up! If you weren’t crazy, you wouldn’t be my best of friends.”
Theo paused. “Boris, you don’t have any other friends.”
Boris flicked the side of Theo’s glasses, rolling his eyes dramatically. “Well, you don’t have to be so rude about it.” He winked, and something fluttered quietly in Theo’s chest. He shoved his glasses back into place, pushing the feeling away. The vodka really did strange stuff.
“But really,” Boris was saying, “you are the most wonderful of friends, you know.”
“Oh,” Theo said. “Oh.” His voice dissolved hazily into the darkness around them.
He could feel Boris watching him out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, you’re my best friend too.”
Boris shook his head, matted curls bouncing gently. “You don’t have to say it just because I did.”
Theo glanced at him. “What? No, I—I meant it. I mean it. You’re my best friend, stupid.”
Boris raised a curious eyebrow. Theo rushed on. “I’ve never met someone like you before. Ever. And you’re just, you’re so different, but like, good different, you know?” He took a quick gulp from the bottle, wiped his mouth, continued. “You’re way cooler than I could ever be, and so freaking smart, and funny as hell. And—okay, I don’t know if this makes any sense, but sometimes you just—you make me want to cry.”
Boris nodded thoughtfully, chewing on a fingernail. “Because you’re depressed, Potter.”
Theo ignored him, plowing on. “Because, God, I don’t know. Like, you just say the stupidest things or just smile all huge and push your stupid hair out of your face and I just—yeah.” He trailed off for a moment, trying to regain his train of thought. Boris was still quiet. “But it’s not sad crying. It’s more like when you’re laughing really hard and you can’t breathe crying, or, I don’t know, something like that. You—you make me forget what it’s like to be sad.” He finished weakly, for some reason nearly gasping for breath.
Boris’s eyes were on him again. “Potter.”
Theo looked up at him.
Boris gave him a smile—an odd, almost sad smile. “What did I say? You’re crazy.”
Theo glanced down at his sneakers, thinking quietly.
“You make me crazy.”
Theo didn’t know what to say to that. He traced his finger down the vodka bottle, drawing a smiley face in the condensation.
“Now give me the good bottle, moya lyubov. My turn.” Boris reached for the bottle.
Theo lifted it out of his reach. “In English, and maybe I will.”
Boris, still groping for the bottle, made a strange noise. He paused.
“What does it mean, Boris?”
Boris gave a crooked, hesitant smile. “Means, ah...means dumbass, lyubov.”
Theo grinned. “Okay, moya lyubov,” he replied, butchering the pronunciation. He passed the bottle to Boris, who ran a hand through his hair distractedly and took a long swig, nearly tilting the bottle upside down. He swallowed hard, cheeks flushed pink. “You make me crazy, Potter. Crazy.” He passed Theo his beer bottle.
“You’re crazy!”
“You’re crazier!”
Theo stood up abruptly, bottle still in hand as he slipped haphazardly down the shingles. Boris leapt up behind him, grabbing his arm and steadying him. “Christ, Potter! Durnyy!”
“There’s a song that goes like that, Boris,” Theo started. “Cecelia...you’re making me crazy...!”
Boris slugged him clumsily in the side. “Not how it goes, dumbass.”
“Yeah?” Theo challenged.
“Cecelia,” Boris sang. “You’re breaking my heart, you’re shaking my confidence daily!”
Theo was shaking with barely-contained laughter. “Shut up! The neighbors are gonna hear!”
“What neighbors?” Boris giggled. “Cecelia...! Come on, Potter! Oh, Cecelia!”
Boris slung an arm around Theo’s shoulders, and he joined in, shouting at the top of his lungs. “I’m down on my knees, I’m begging you please to come home!”
Theo was laughing so hard that he could barely breathe, and there were tears in his eyes—the good kind, the Boris kind.
They sang the next verse, stumbling over the words but belting them all the same, up and out into the cool, gray, early-morning sky.
Theo, still weak with laughter, grabbed the bottle from Boris’s outstretched hand and finished it off in one huge gulp.
Boris nearly doubled over with glee as Theo coughed and spluttered desperately for breath, the vodka burning his throat. They tumbled further down the slant of the roof, dangerously close to the edge, but Boris’s arm was still steady around Theo’s shoulders, and the vodka was still fiery in his chest—only maybe it wasn’t the vodka, maybe it was just the feeling of Boris, out on the rooftop singing his mother’s old music, with a hand on his heart in the dawn of a new morning.
The tiny pinprick stars were flickering away, and the edge of the horizon was glowing orange-yellow-gold. The sun was coming up. Everything was warm and beautiful and crazy, and as Boris looked down at him with a beaming smile of his own, Theo realized dizzily that he was the happiest he’d been in a long, long time.
“Jubilation, she loves me again, I fall to the floor and I’m laughing!”
He reached up to ruffle Boris’s hair, and Boris let out a wild, sunny laugh that seemed to go on forever, dancing away and away and away, out into the desert morning.