lab rat blues (the goldfinch)

[patrokla]

so i was thinking about how lab rat blues is a boris/theo song, and the reason goes something like this:

they’re drunk one evening in boris’ room, maybe a few weeks after theo blacked out and showed boris the painting. boris keeps thinking about it, because it’s worth a lot of money, but also he’s fucking thrilled at the fact that theo, who has this increasingly tarnished innocent shine, has been carrying around this stolen painting - this huge secret crime - for years. he’s delighted by it, in the way that it can be delightful to learn new things about people whom you thought you knew absolutely.

and so they’re drunk and lying on his bed, which never became their bed in the same way that their bed at theo’s house did, because despite larry and xandra’s many flaws boris knows they’ll never stumble into the house in the middle of the night and try to beat anyone to death. and he’s watching theo, who’s very earnestly talking about tolkien or something, and he’s drunkenly animated and absently petting popchik. objectively he’s scrawny and starting to look like boris in the way that boris is a poster child for parental neglect and the sort of moral depravity that the reform movements of the late 19th century went on about.
and boris is watching theo, and he’s thinking:

I saw you. I saw your hair.
I could spend the rest of my life in there.

and he’s drunk as well, although less so than theo, maybe because he holds it better or maybe because he makes sure to drink less, on the nights that theo gets a certain look and boris knows exactly how it might manifest. but it’s not like he goes around worrying about theo 24/7, because christ, who has that kind of time, and he’s not the type to do that anyway. theo’s unsettling urge to try and get run over by nonexistent traffic is just one facet of him. right now there’s another one catching boris’ eye: theo’s unstoppable desire to be right all the time (in this case, to be right about the superiority of the lord of the rings to some sci fi novel boris has been reading).

I saw you and I sank into your eyes.
I'm not going to apologize,

and boris doesn’t much care to defend his own book, but he can and will go to the mats over what he believes is tolkien’s overly simplistic moral universe. but tonight he’s content to lay back and watch theo ramble. he could watch theo do just about anything, and theo interests him in a way that perpetuates itself. here’s theo, who makes him tea and sleeps next to him, and who has witnessed some of his bloodiest moments in a way that makes boris feel not weaker for having his wounds acknowledged, but obliquely comforted. and here’s theo, who has stolen a painting, who has kept it secret from most of the world seemingly through the grace of god rather than any particular talent in secret-keeping.

because you with your own hands,
made the whole world.
You can't fool me, I'm on to you now.

the truth of it is that he’s never had anyone like theo in his life, no one even remotely like theo. like most people, he’s spent his life fundamentally alone on some level, and he’d expected things to continue that way until - well, possibly forever. his life has not lent itself to more than the shallowest of camaraderies, the slack bond shared between people who get fucked up together. but theo’s grabbed him, reinvented him, loved him in a way he didn’t know he could experience. theo is trapped, much like him, and hurt in both similar and different ways, but there’s more to it than just being stuck in the same foxhole. there’s kindness and love without the sense of impermanence that boris has felt in papua new guinea, in karmeywallag, in every place he’s left behind - there’s a life to be lived here (or anywhere), with theo. boris can feel it.

Because you, with your own hands,
created everything.
You can't fool me, I'm on to you now.

and the thing that surprises boris, that truly surprises him, is that for all of the ways that theo is so clearly afraid of the world, he’s also a tenacious motherfucker. sure, he tries to kill himself, but only when blacked out, and in the mornings he waits out the hangover and drags boris to school and carries out whatever act of petty theft they need to feed and entertain themselves for the night. for everything he’s gone through, boris thinks he must be entitled to the occasional bolt of despair. god knows boris would likely be worse in theo’s situation. because theo had had a good life, a mother who loved him and didn’t drink, and then he’d lost it all. boris has never had anything to lose, and so whatever predicament he finds himself in can only be a lateral move at worst.

Yeah, I saw you, but you saw me first.
Living water to quench my thirst.
And you tell me quiet down,
but I have no doubt.
I know what you're all about.

and yes, there are things theo does that irritate boris. see: his stance on tolkien, and his own moral universe. see: the way he gets prickly if boris won’t trashtalk larry and xandra. see: the way he gets too concerned by boris’ bruises sometimes, which will fade, inevitably, and don’t need half the attention that theo gives them. see: how boris doesn’t know how to get this through theo’s head, that to worry over something is to prolong the healing process, and often does nothing to lower the risk of infection. see: the blackouts, and the times that he thinks theo is only pretending to blackout. see: not the way that theo lets boris hold him in the dark. but see: the way theo refuses to acknowledge that embrace in the morning.

Because you, with your own hands,
made the whole world.
You can't fool me, I'm on to you now.

in boris’ bedroom, theo has caught on to the fact that boris is really just staring at him now through his hair, and he lowers his hands, defensive impulses absolutely useless, and says, “stop fucking staring at me,” but he’s smiling, doesn’t really mean it, doesn’t care how boris looks at him when they’re alone. he grabs the bottle of vodka and sprawls down next to boris, and boris hooks an arm around his neck in a ploy to grab the bottle from him, and in a ploy to keep theo close to him. there’s a life to keep living here. he doesn’t want to lose it. the ceiling light filters in red through the sheets, and theo’s hair shines a dull gold. and boris doesn’t want to lose it.

Because you, with your own hands,
created everything.
You can't fool me any more.
I'm on to you now.