Will has never felt more calm in his life. If his brain disintegrated and reformed as a cloud, this is probably what it would feel like. Thoughts flow slowly and drift away without him even fully realizing that he’s had them, and his muscles are so relaxed that he’s pretty sure he’s melting into Boris’s mattress.
Boris on the other hand, is someone that gets more chatty when high. He’s been monologuing for several minutes about something that Will’s brain can’t quite grasp onto. Sometimes he thinks he remembers to nod, but he can’t find it in himself to worry much about it.
The only unpleasant part is that his mouth is dry. Desert dry. His tongue is sticking to the roof of his mouth and his throat clicks when he tries to swallow, and it makes him want to gag.
“Boris,” he says. “I’m thirsty.”
He gets a thumbs up in return before the other boy shuffles out of the room.
Will drifts back into his relaxed state for what feels like an eternity, aware of his body in a way he’s never been.
Soon, Boris returns with two beers and presses one into Will’s hand, and he drinks it greedily, the taste absolutely divine in his parched mouth. He sets the near empty bottle on the floor just as Boris flops next to him on the bed, and they both turn on their sides to face each other. His friend’s eyes are small and bloodshot, his smile wide. Will vaguely wonders just how he looks when Boris traces a finger along his cheek and mutters something.
“What are you saying?” Will asks.
“I say beautiful boy.”
Something about that makes Will giggle—a genuine giggle—and he slaps his hand over his mouth to stop it.
“No,” Boris is trying to pry his hand away, “don’t hide your laugh from me. Is wonderful sound.”
Will lets his arm fall only to bunch his fingers up in the fabric of the other boy’s shirt. He stares at him for a moment, taking in the line of his jaw and the deep color of his eyes.
“I like you,” Will whispers, the words just falling out, not even needing courage, simply passing as a thought. Boris’s smile grows.
“I like you,” he says in return, leaning forward to nuzzle their noses together.
It’s so sweet, and Will’s heart feels so full.
Did Mike ever make him feel this way? Full of electricity and alive? He tries to think back, past all the heartache and the pining and finds himself coming up short.
“What are you thinking?” Boris queries.
And Will doesn’t want to say that he’s thinking about Mike, not when they’re together like this, so he shrugs.
“Is this Mike of yours, yes?” he says this gently, without a hint of judgement.
“How do you always know?”
“You get a look on your face. Almost sad.”
“Oh…”
“Is okay, William. If I didn’t have practice, I would do same thing with my Theo. Some people, even though they make you feel filled with…something, they can also make you unhappy.”
Will chews on his lower lip for a moment, aching with the idea of Boris being unhappy, ever. At home, or with Theo, traveling or with friends. Boris is capable of such boundless joy, and Will thinks he deserves to feel that freedom always.
“Will you tell me about him? Theo?” Will asks, still feeling hesitation even through his high.
Boris cups his hip with one of his hands and knocks their knees together as he intertwines their legs.
“My Theo was…different,” he sighs. “So experienced in suffering. Sometimes I wonder, if we had not both been so lonely, would we have gotten so close so fast? I do not know. There was a bombing in New York a few years ago, and he was in it. His mother died. Without her he became…what is the word…” he mutters something before grasping onto “ghost.”
Will clenches and unclenches his fist in Boris’s shirt, enraptured by his words, and Boris mimics the gesture on his hip.
“He lived with his father, not a good man. He was much like me. Nobody to worry about what he was doing or where he was going. Together we drank and we smoked and all sorts of things. We had fun. But when we did those things, drank too much, I mean, we would do other things too. Kiss and such. And he never wanted to talk about it.”
Boris’s voice takes on a mournful tone, his eyes casting downward like he either can’t stand to look at Will, or can’t bear to hold onto the memory of Theo.
“I gave him my whole heart, but he refused to look at it. And sometimes…sometimes I think this is okay. But sometimes I hate it too.”
“Where is Theo now?” Will asks. “Still in Vegas?”
“No. His father died, driving drunk in the desert. He went back to New York. Asked me to run away with him. I almost went, too. But I just…could not. I was afraid. And almost every day since, I have felt regret in some way. I miss him.”
“I am so sorry, Boris,” Will murmurs.
He looks up then, catching Will’s eyes in a hard stare.
“Do not be. If I had gone, I would not have come here. I would not have met you.”
Not for the first time, Will is enraptured by the feeling of how easy it would be to love Boris. His heart is beating heavy in his chest, his palms collecting sweat despite the artificial calm clouding his mind. He finds himself wanting to tell the other boy everything—about Mike, about the move, about the Upside Down. But he knows that he can’t, for his own safety. If Owens or the government found out, he has no idea what would happen to Boris. Deportation would likely be just the beginning of it.
“What are you thinking?” Boris asks.
“Just how much I trust you,” Will says.
That makes him smile, a soft gentle thing that makes his eyes light up like the stars past midnight.
“There are things…things I wish I could tell you…but I can’t. Not because I don’t want to, but because I legally can’t. It’s the whole reason we moved to California in the first place. Like, something bad happened, and the government got involved, and we had to sign all these papers saying we’d never talk about it. And we can’t break that agreement, or else bad things could happen. I just…I want you to be safe, Boris.”
Boris squeezes his hip again, and Will is learning to love the feeling.
“I knew you were hiding something,” he says. “Too quiet to have not seen bad things. I understand.”
Will is so relieved he could cry with it.
“It would be so easy for me to love you.”
It tumbles out of his mouth like a prayer, all heart and feeling and Boris breathes it in like air. He tangles their legs together even tighter, pulls Will even closer, until their noses are brushing again, and Will can see every freckle and every eyelash.
“So, love me,” Boris says softly. “And I will love you.”
Will can’t help it; so overcome with feeling and warm emotion, he pushes forward and presses his lips to Boris’s, and it feels every bit like coming home. Boris sighs gently and holds him tight, kissing back with quiet enthusiasm.
“Boris,” Will breathes.
“Nyet,” he says against his mouth. “If we are together, then I am your Borya.”
“Borya…”
Boris rewards him with a hard, open-mouthed kiss, and Will nearly whimpers at the heat of it. The hand at his hip releases to wrap around his waist, pulling him until they’re close enough to be one person, and Will releases the other boy’s shirt to wrap around his back.
Will has never held another person so intimately, or been held by another, and experiencing it is making him feel joyous and floaty in the greatest of ways, and as Boris’s tongue slips past the seam of his lips, he has the realization that he can live this way now. Giving and receiving affection. With his boyfriend.
And for the first time in a long time, Will is undeniably happy.
