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There's not much to do when you live in the middle of nowhere.
Theo supposes that why they spend so much of their time drunk, high, or both. It's easier to have fun doing absolutely fuck all when you're brain is working separate from your body, out on it's own little altered plane of reality. Everything is more colourful, or maybe it's black and white. There's patterns in your peripheral as the world bends and sways around you, like branches of young trees caught in the wind. Theo's limbs are detached and floating away in the breeze, his left arm carried down to Panama as his right foot leaves for Alaska. He thinks he can see the shape of his own abstract wonder blooming amidst the clouds in the sky, watches as his train of thought careens absent-mindedly in front of his half-lidded eyes.
It's a Friday afternoon, or maybe it's Sunday morning. Theo isn't quite sure. Either way, the sun is closing in on the horizon - be it east or west - but the air is warm and the sparse clouds are puffy and the sky is still blue (or maybe it's green - Theo can't quite remember which way round his colours go, but he knows it's one of these two options. Unless it's red, but that's a whole other matter entirely that he's not willing to consider). It's a lazy time of day, whenever it is, golden air shifting in the faintest breeze as Theo tries not to fall asleep. He's lying on his back on the paving stones of his yard, and the slabs are so hot under his skin, shirt and shoes nowhere to be seen as he bakes his body as well as his brain.
Boris is next to him, also on his back but upside down, their feet pointing in opposite directions. Their eyes would line up if they turned to look at one another. Theo can feel some of his flyaway curls against his cheek, and feels a momentary urge to reach up and run his fingers through Boris' tangled hair. But thinking about moving is draining enough, so he is content to simply lie and think about what it would be like if he did.
There's several bottles sitting empty in a row, barely a metre from where they have collapsed, and the ashy remains of a few shared blunts ground into the stones next to them. Theo watches the light refracting through the glass, the pale shadows they cast transfixing him. He can hear water, lapping languidly. Is it coming from the bottles?
“No тупица, we are by pool.” Boris slurs, and Theo is jolted into focus by the sudden speech. He hadn’t realised he’d been speaking aloud. Maybe he hadn’t, come to think of it. Maybe Boris had just read his mind. Said boy groans, sounding like he’s fucking Atlas, trying to lift the sky, and rolls onto his side to face Theo. “I’m am not- what is word? телепатический... telepath? I am not mind reader, Potter, you are just off your shit. You are talking. Have been talking bullshit for hours now.” Theo knows this is utter crap because they haven’t even been out here for one hour yet (he thinks), and he means it when he says it out loud this time. Boris goes to hit him, but his arm must be as heavy as Theo's feel because it drags slowly and gives out halfway to Theo’s face, flopping down over Boris’ eyes instead.
They lie like this a little longer, silent bar their soft breathing. Theo swears he can hear a bird, somewhere out in the desert. A little golden bird with a red-and-black face, calling for something in a reedy sweet voice. What is it calling for? It sounds lonely, and Theo wishes he could understand birdsong, or at least find the muscles in his mouth and get them to sing back. But he's too exhausted. The bird's whistling fades out, and his short lived desire to move fades with it.
"Ugh, I am so tired Potter, do not taunt me." Boris mumbles, rolling again and onto his face, his shoulder now pushing into Theo's temple. But Theo doesn't know what he's on about because he hasn't said a word, and he's certain of that this time. Boris must be imagining things, must be stoned out of his fucking mind. He feels a bit like laughing because, fuck, they both are.
With Boris pressing into his head, he becomes suddenly aware that he does not know where his glasses are. Theo frowns, the thought nagging at his mind. He cannot stand the unanswered question, and it gets louder and more incessant the longer he wonders. He finally resolves to go and find them, but getting up sounds like so much work. If only there were a way to get from one place to another without getting up...
And now there's an idea forming in his intoxicated mind, sparked by Boris, and Theo starts to smile. What a smart idea, how practical and ingenious of him! If his arms weren't dead weight at his sides, he would pat himself on the back. Theo begins to roll.
For maybe a minute, he is thoroughly impressed with himself. Yes, it took a bit of time to build up to the roll, but it’s miles better than walking. God, lying down and getting places: he really has the best of both worlds here. And then he goes to turn from his side onto his back, and the floor disappears.
There isn't really enough time for Theo to process what's happening. He's falling through space, and his brain is just blank. Then he hits the water and he gasps on reflex, and waves are washing over him. The weak chlorine stings his open eyes, his lungs are drowning, and the fatigue has been shocked out of his limbs and replaced with a burning need to find air. He desperately fights to make it to what he thinks is the surface, only he's going the wrong way and hits his head on the pool floor. It doesn't really hurt, but it causes a hot second of panic before he finds himself floating again, and he struggles to speed up the process. And then he finally bursts from the water, flailing limbs and loud wheezing, trying to blink the chemicals out of his eyes.
It takes a moment for him to reorient himself, and when he calms down a bit he can hear howling. Theo's head whips around, gaze landing on Boris who is crouched now at the edge of the pool, toes jutting out over the water. His eyes are scrunched up and his head is thrown back with how hard he's laughing. "My god, Potter, you are an idiot. Fuck, this is the funniest thing I've seen all day." Theo scowls at his snickering, cheeks burning, and swims slowly over. His head is feeling much clearer for that shock; not to the point of sobriety, but just enough for him to move, to think. And Boris is off his guard - eyes still shut and head still fuzzy - so it isn't hard to wrap a wet hand around his skinny ankle and tug.
The resulting splash is large enough to hit the bottles.
Theo was just lucky enough not to be landed on, but it doesn't make much of a difference because within seconds Boris is resurfacing and scrabbling desperately in an attempt to cling to something, to hold himself up. Instead he latches onto Theo and drags him down again.
It's not really peaceful, not with Boris clawing at him and a torrent of white bubbles obscuring his vision, but it's like pressing a reset button. Every time he's submerged he feels his head stop spinning and his thoughts grow a little more lucid. And a concerning one of these lucid thoughts is the one that rises every time Boris nail's catch on his skin, or his wild eyes meet Theo's, or his dark hair drags across his face and make his heart stutter. It's a thought nearly tangible, and that makes Theo shrink back in fear. He pushes it aside and pushes himself up, up to the surface and the drug-addled air.
"You are such a shit, potter!" Boris explodes when he catches up, finally gets the hang of treading water and keeping himself afloat. His face is screwed up in unjustifiable frustration (yes Theo pulled him in, but it's not like they haven't done worse to each other before; besides, he was sort of asking for it), and water drops cling to his lashes. It's an odd thing to notice, Theo thinks to himself, but it's hypnotic. Boris is going off on a tangent, words a little jumbled and way too much Polish thrown in for him to understand anything but his name (Boże, pieprzyć cię Potter! Utopię cię, dupku), but his fingers are still wrapped around Theo's forearm tight enough to bruise. The point of contact is the only thing Theo can focus on, the burn of skin-on-skin, and so he ignores Boris' protests and pushes him under again.
The next time they're at the pool, they're coming down from one of the shittiest highs of Theo's life.
Boris had somehow found the world's worst weed, but it hadn't stopped them using every last gram of it as they fucked around with a rusting roundabout and squeaking swings. It had given Theo a splitting headache, and he'd spent most of the short high with his eyes squeezed shut and his face buried in his knees as he tried not to throw up. He was unsuccessful in this endeavour, and they decided to go back to his empty home earlier than they usually would.
The air in the house had been stuffy, and Popchyk had been unbearable, doing laps of the room and barking like crazy for absolutely no reason. So Theo had opened the door to the back yard, walked over to the pool and watched as a streak of white left the house and bolted out into the open desert. Theo isn't too worried about this: he always comes back for food, and there's no-one around that would be interested in taking the tiny dog. Even if they did it would probably be for the best- there's no way he's getting the proper diet living with two teenage druggies and their absentee parents.
So now Theo sits and stares into the water of the pool, lit green from below and dead still. His right leg is crossed, and his left is hooked over it and dangling over the side, his foot a hair's-breadth from the surface. The arms of his glasses are rubbing behind his ears, but he doesn't move to take them off, hands gripping tight where they're braced against the coping.
The evening is quiet now, a sort of careful stillness that would be so easy and awful to break. The moon is a thin curve against the velvet blue of the sky, and the circumference of the horizon is still green where it stretches around the desert's edge. Orange light spills out of the house at his back and onto the surface of the pool. His reflection in the water is too dark for him to make any of his features out, but not so dark that he doesn't see another figure creeping up behind him.
"You're fucking awful at being stealthy." He says, turning his head to look at Boris. The other boy rolls his eyes and walks a little faster to where Theo is, collapsing down next to him in a motion too fluid and graceful for someone so lanky. Boris is all skin and bone and malnutrition, Theo realises. The pool lights catch on his cheekbones and make him look a little alien in their tinted shine, the heights and hollows of his face enhanced past familiarity. Theo feels his headache coming back as he stares, and so he turns his face back to the water below.
"Hey, where did you find that weed from earlier? I swear that crap was the nastiest thing you've ever given me." He murmurs as softly as he dares, breaking the silence between them but scared to kill the peace of nightfall. Boris laughs, a muted noise that's more of an amused exhalation than anything, and knocks his bony shoulder against Theo's. "Hm, does not matter Potter. I will not be getting anything from there again, was truly the worst shit I've ever taken." Theo nods in agreement, and the conversation is extinguished quickly.
Theo can't think back to the last time he and Boris just sat together. Not sitting and drinking, or sitting and talking. Just sitting, silent but comfortable in their company. In fact, he doesn't think they've ever been quiet like this around each other, not unless it's enforced by teachers or tainted by highs. It's nice. Nice to just exist in a moment, a space in time, just him and Boris by the pool and Popchyk out somewhere in their desert. Of course, silence can also bring excessive noise into the mind.
Theo finds himself focusing subconsciously on the rise and fall of Boris' shoulders, the subtle flutter of his lungs under his ribs. He can hear the even flow of his breathing, and the quiet hum of whatever tune he has stuck in his head. When he sneaks a glance he sees that Boris has his eyes closed, eyelashes brushing against the pale skin of his cheeks. It dominates his thoughts, the way his hair falls in careless rings over his shoulders.
This time it's intentional when Theo pushes himself into the pool, a way to escape.
Like before, it clears his head, erases his thoughts. The water welcomes him, wraps cold arms around his body and pulls him down into the depths. He feels it lift his glasses and tug them into some unknown corner, but for the moment he doesn’t care.
After a minute he feels himself becoming buoyant, feels himself drifting away from the floor. Theo spins in the water, trying to keep his head under longer even though the bubbles are pushing him up for air. Eventually though, he has to stop fighting, his lungs complaining, and so he lets himself float.
Boris is standing up now, looking down at the pool and Theo swimming around in it. He takes a few steps back, and Theo doesn’t need to be told what’s coming next. He moves as quickly as he can to the side, and just in time. Boris runs and flings himself at the water. The splash covers Theo, and he lets it pull him under again, pull him towards where Boris is sinking.
If he ignores the blurriness of his vision, the irritation of his eyes, it's almost beautiful under the water. Boris is facing him, curls lifted and drifting around his head like a halo, current playing strange patterns over his face. And isn't it amazing how a single second can be stretched, dreamlike, with a realisation?
Boris' eyes are open and bright, brighter than the moon or the LEDs. It feels like a dare, the way he looks at Theo when they resurface. The water clings to them both, runs in rivulets down their faces, and Theo lifts his hand to try and brush it away. He’s beaten to it.
The press of Boris’ thumb against his cheek, the gentle swipe of his fingers over his eyes- it’s something soft, so much softer than anything he’s come to expect from his friend. He knows Boris is capable of tenderness, has seen it in brief flashes in between waking and sleeping, at one am when he’s hunched over the seat of a toilet and emptying his stomach, or when he’s curled on the floor and shaking violently as he comes down from a high. He knows the way they tangle together at night, comforting and grounding and scared of what their brains will conjure in sleep. But he’s not used to it as a lucid action, as something they let themselves be outside the influence of drugs or fatigue.
The dare still burns in his eyes when Theo looks at him, but he’s scared. Boris hand has come to a stop, fingertips resting lightly against the curve of his jaw, and it’s too much. Theo is scared, he’s a coward, and although he knows now that he wants this, wants to push forward and accept the challenge, he forfeits.
“I can’t see shit. I need to find my glasses.” He sinks back under the water, and tries not to think about how he can still feel the phantom touch of Boris’ fingers against his face.
Theo wakes up sweating.
It’s a bad night, he had known it was going to be a bad night before he’d even had a chance to sleep. But still the nightmare had caught him off guard in that way that it always managed to, even now, over a year after the bombing.
Automatically - instinctually - he reaches out for Boris, like he would reach for a lifering if he was drowning, seeking out the warm comfort of another body, the arms that will wrap around and hold him close, hold his head above the terrors of his memory. But his fingers brush against cold sheets. He’s gone, and Theo feels himself slipping back into his head, into the fear. Where is he? Where has he gone? Has something happened?
Desperately Theo tries to shake the plaguing questions off, struggling not to give in to the fear. Maybe he had his own nightmares, maybe he got up for water - or vodka, more accurately - and will be back in a minute if Theo just waits. But he can’t lie still and expect his mind to quiet. He’s agitated, unsettled. He has to move.
He slips out of bed, his feet hitting the carpet soundlessly. The air is warm for a desert night, but colder than the bed had been, so Theo shivers at the temperature change. He seeks out something heavier to wear, but his patience and vision is limited, not to mention his choices are practically non-existent. By some miracle he finds a loose jacket, so many sizes too big for him. It’s Boris’ clearly, the way it hangs off his frame and swallows his thighs an obvious indicator that it was made for someone taller. Theo buries his face in the collar; it smells like earth, like desert sand and cigarette smoke and chlorine.
Theo side steps around a sleeping Popchyk and walks slowly, silently, down the stairs. It’s dark: the only light in the house that’s on is a weak kitchen lamp. Theo stands in the doorway, blinking, too tired to do anything more than a quick scan of the room. He’s about to head back up when he notices that the door’s ajar. Theo walks out to the patio.
Boris is already in the water, floating face-up and peaceful. His eyes are closed, like he’s sleeping, and his hair is splayed out in a cloud around his head. His skin is pale under the starlight, rise and fall of his chest heavy and alive, and there’s something alluring about the way the two am air has settled over the desert. In the scrub, crickets chirp.
It makes Theo scared to see him like this, relaxed and open, his soul bared and no-one but Theo around to see it. Intentionally unguarded, unveiling something so delicate and fiercely protected. Usually, this would be enough for Theo, too much to handle. This would be where he turns back around, satisfied that Boris is ok, and heads back inside to bed and to bad dreams. But tonight is unique. Tonight Theo has already pushed away his fear once, and he now he wants to do it again. He takes a deep breath and walks towards the pool.
His approach is quiet, but on a night like this it’s impossible not to be heard. The water amplifies the vibrations of his steps, and Boris’ eyes open lazily, half-lidded gaze finding it’s way to Theo. Their eyes lock, and Theo stops by the lip of the pool, fidgets with the sleeves falling over his hands and trailing by his knees. Boris' voice is honey, smooth and thick with the early hours, and Theo nearly misses what he's saying, so focused on the soothing sound of the words falling from his lips.
“Nice night out, Potter. Good for swimming. Придружи ми се?” He doesn’t need a translation to know what Boris is asking. His heart flutters a little, but apart from this Theo just feels calm, senses almost dulled by the night. He sheds his jacket easily, and slides feet first into embrace of the pool.
The water feels like relief, soothing the restless energy in his muscles. He welcomes it’s hold, falls limp and boneless as it swaddles him in it’s folds. Eyes shut, mouth parted, bubbles brushing against his skin as they rise. It’s peaceful in the deep, weightless and still. But then there’s something solid, warm and firm winding around his waist and tugging.
He’s pulled from the water, head breaching the surface and allowing raw gasps to break the silence. Theo coughs, throat rough. He must have been under for much longer than it felt. Blindly, he runs his hands over skin, grips tight to his float. He blinks sharply, dispelling the clinging droplets from his eyes.
It’s Boris, of course. His arms ring Theo’s waist and hold him up, hold him close. He’s grinning, but there’s an edge, some spark of worry in the corner of his eye. It startles Theo, the genuine concern that his friend is trying to hide from him. “Trying to drown, Potter? Going to have to try a little harder if you want me to let you leave.” He says, voice low and laughing.
Theo tries to play it off, roll his eyes, but there’s something too pointed and real about this moment. Instead, all he can do is stare. He seems to be doing a lot of that recently.
After a minute his breathing evens, and he can feel Boris arms loosening subtly from around him. It takes everything in him to stop from gripping tighter, wrapping himself around Boris and begging “Don’t.” He lets him let go, pull away and then drift back again like the draw of the tide, and they sink back down together.
And there's something sharp about Boris, something uncomplicated about the way he presses his hands against Theo's chest under the water. His hands are burning hot, so different from the cool current of the pool, and Theo's a little scared that he might resurface to find their impression branded for eternity on his skin. But then again, Theo’s done with fear for tonight. So he holds him closer, running his fingers up the length of Boris’ forearms and back down again, curling them loosely around his wrists.
They swim lazily, if it can really be called swimming. It’s more like bobbing, settling like stones against the floor of the pool and running hot hands over cold skin, surfacing only to fill their lungs with air. Rinse and repeat.
And when their fingers start to prune, their toes shrivel like raisins, they drift over to the trough and hang on like sloths, so close that their foreheads are practically pressed together. Their breath mingles, a little laboured from how much they’ve deprived themselves of it tonight, but that’s ok.
And because tonight is without fear, Theo doesn’t pull away when Boris palm comes up to cup his face, fingers dancing over his jaw. He mirrors the action, hand that isn’t latched onto the poolside fitting against the curve of his cheek. Nothing to be scared of.
And Theo doesn’t need to remind himself again when their heads tilt together. It’s new, the way that their lips fit when they’re sober, when they mean it. But sometimes, he thinks, new doesn’t have to be something he’s afraid of. So he closes his eyes, and welcomes the change.