#post-antwerp boreo

[taylorswiftshipsbyler]

what if Boris is secretly an Olivia Rodrigo fan

[weltonreject]

I’m not saying post-vegas (but before the 8 year gap) is boreo buT OH CONSIDER POST-ANTWERP NVM SCRATCH THAT PRIOR THOUGHT

oh i will scratch ANY thought in favor of considering post-antwerp (or more rather in antwerp) boreo. the thought of them flying back from europe changed men. theo returning to this perfectly formed life and just being like “actually i take it all back”???? boris finally planting his feet and making roots rather than moving all around because why would he need to-- he’s found theo again! the two magnets have snapped together again!

BUT they can only get together-- restoring the way they used to be-- if they go through all of that shit together. the sitting in boris’s apartment in antwerp watching a christmas movie is the intricate ritual, kids. that’s the moment... doing heroin ‘pops’ with your man on christmas day after committing a murder but also returning priceless art to rightful hands... peak romance nothing else considered thank you.

[softlegs]

Chapter 9 🖤

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29051040/chapters/71903838

Art by @zebonifer

[foundmywei]

Boreo Fanfic Recs

Here are my favorite boreo fics, I will be updating this as I read more. Enjoy!

(last updated on 12/05/23)

Masterpost

sunday morning (and i'm falling) by thenewgothicromance

post-canon

(11,424 words | Not Rated | Chapters: 1/1)

“How long will he be staying with you?” Mrs. Barbour asks him one evening, when he mentions that Boris will be picking him up after dinner.

“I’m not sure,” he tells her, keeping the details, as always surrounding Boris, as vague as possible. “Just until he figures something else out.”

Mrs. Barbour clicks her tongue at him.

“You have such a kind heart, Theo. Be careful you don’t let him take advantage of you.”

you are my sweetest downfall. by punkrockdog

post-canon

(22,530 words | General Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)

There's nothing wrong with sleeping with his best friend of almost ten years on a regular basis.

If Theo tells himself this enough, he might start to believe it.

a symphony of love in several movements. by theweakestthing

post-canon

(29,364 words | Mature | Chapters: 5/5)

It reminded him of the version of Musée Rodin’s The Kiss that sat in the Tate’s collection, pockmarked and scarred from sitting in a parlour among soldiers during the war, but still standing as a testament to the carnal desires of two lovers. Twisted around each other, hands on the bed between them, their positions almost exactly mirrored that of the sculpture. The thought that together they could be a work of art pushed Theo forward.

Alternatively titled: Theo Decker needs to get his shit together.

the red sun by thefinnkinnie (orphan_account)

vegas era

(2,705 words | Not Rated | Chapters: 1/1)

Theo slid his tongue across his lower lip, considering the choice. Sober, he would be safe. These thoughts in his head, about Boris, about feeling for the first time since the museum, they would disappear, tucked away in some fold of his mind, and Theo could sink back into his soft non-existence. He was nearly there anyways, close enough he could taste the gray on his tongue like cotton balls. It would be so easy.

And yet.

something in a major key by boxedblondes

post-canon

(7,454 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)

“Why the fuck is it so busy?” Boris asks some hours later, twinkling lights a messy rainbow swirl around them, late December cold starting to eat a hole through Theo’s less-than-ideal camel’s-hair coat.

“It’s four days until Christmas, you idiot,” Theo says. “You should have had your weird holiday epiphany like a month ago.”

sound formed in a vacuum may seem a waste of time (it’s always been just the same) by theparadigmshifts

post-canon

(3,750 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)

The year after Amsterdam, Theo follows his conscience; Boris follows Theo.

Neptune by pavlikovskyslittlebird

post-canon

(40,202 words | Mature | Chapters: 14/14)

Post Amsterdam, canon divergent, book and movie references.

Theo tries to figure things out while buying back the changelings.

"I must be a poster child prodigy

Thread by thread I come apart

If brokenness is a work of art

Surely this must be my masterpiece

I'm only honest when it rains

If I time it right, the thunder breaks

When I open my mouth

I wanna tell you but I don't know how

I'm only honest when it rains

An open book, with a torn out page

And my inks run out

I wanna love you but I don't know how"

Neptune-Sleeping at Last

Selling a Fake by argylemikewheeler

post-canon

(35,522 words | Explicit | Chapters: 3/3)

Theo didn’t fly home right away; he stayed in Antwerp and together, he and Boris flew back to New York. They start over, two troubled teenagers all over again. They’ve replaced scorching Vegas summers with chilling New York winters. It was never about the place anyway.

They’re together-- they’re something-- but Theo still struggles to be open to strangers passing by.

(PLUS an extended part two/epilogue to give us more comforting boyfriends and less internalized homophobia for Theo!)

overlap by rosekings

Antwrep

(12,886 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)

“Promise me you’ll come. Eventually. Just…come see me. Sit still with me for a while.” He holds back everything else he wants to say. Get a place with me. Run the shop with me. Laugh and make dinner with me. Let me wake up next to you every morning and not have to worry if I’m never going to see you again.

“I promise.” Boris says it like it was already obvious, something that didn’t even need to be said. “Of course I promise.”

You're coming back and it's the end of the world by BalalaikaPattycake

post-canon

(89,940 words | Mature | Chapters: 17/17)

We spent hours joking and laughing at the bar over a bottle of vodka, our heads together, just like we had done as boys. Trying to convince myself that the only reason I was holding my hand on his shoulder, giggling in his ear, my face mere inches away from his, was because otherwise he wouldn't hear me over the music, even though he was the one doing most of the talking. I had been drinking considerably less than normal over the past few months, so it didn't take me long to start feeling disoriented and weirdly courageous, the mass of people around me blending into each other, becoming unidentifiable like droplets of water in an ocean, with only Boris standing out as a steady beacon of light.

Set after the book ends, Theo and Boris meet again after a year and half.

And Nothing Has Changed by WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch

Amsterdam

(8,361 words | Mature | Chapters: 1/1)

“Potter, maybe you have one more drink and then try and tell me you are ‘not in the mood.” He raised a hand again, but before the waitress saw, I grabbed him by the leather-clad forearm and pulled his hand back down.

“Boris, I'm engaged.” I tried again in vain to make him understand the significance of that.

“Sure, but you are here with me, drinking with me, and you are going to get to know some very good girls with me.” I hadn’t realized, but somehow his fingers had ended up laced with mine.

___

Boris and Theo's first night in Amsterdam they wind up in a bar and Boris can't seem to get off the topic of how unfair it is that Kitsey is cheating. Boris thinks Theo should have his own extramarital fun too.

To quote Donna Tartt, "matters progress"

to remember your mouth, how it tasted true by nosecoffee

post-canon

(6,422 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)

(i don’t smoke except for when i’m missing you)

*

Theo got it into his head that the cigarettes would start the chain reaction that would send them to early graves if they weren’t careful, all spouted into the darkness of Welty’s room, while Boris perched on the windowsill.

And yet, he had grinned and put out his cigarette on the ashtray there, and said, “Then of course I will stop.”

Which was so lovely at the time. It was significantly less lovely when he found Boris smoking in the bathroom three days later.

Repression is just a Love Language Best Ignored (Looking at you, Decker) by Lemonyfreshness

post-canon

(92,031 words | Mature | Chapters: 16/16)

It's a year after "The Incident," as what Theodore Decker liked to call it, that one strange turn of events in which his childhood best friend had come to reconvene and it had been interesting to say the least...But now he was back in the real world. And broke. And high out of his mind. And depressed as ever. Theodore Decker isn't one to naturally listen to reason but maybe he will when once again his morally-grey best friend with attachment issues comes back to save the day. Or at least try in his own way. Wish him luck.

Find Other Muses by deadspy

post-canon

(38,844 words | Explicit | Chapters: 6/6)

Theo folds and unfolds the old postcard from Boris. GREETINGS FROM KANSAS! it reads, same as it always has, but now it just feels like a taunt.

Ten years after Amsterdam, Theo and Boris find themselves, and each other, in the most unlikely of places.

philophobia. by theweakestthing

post-canon

(36,292 words | Mature | Chapters: 11/11)

philophobia [ fil-uh-foh-bee-uh ]:

(n.) (from Greek "φιλέω-φιλώ" (love) and "φοβία" (phobia)) the fear of falling in love or being in love. The risk is usually when a person has confronted any emotional turmoil relating to love. This affects the quality of life and pushes a person away from commitment. A negative aspect of this fear of being in love or falling in love is that it keeps a person in solitude. It represents certain guilt and frustration towards the reaction coming from inside.

Theo knows what the problem is, but that doesn't mean that he's going to do anything about it.

Little Bird by redborya

Amsterdam

(19,376 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 6/6)

With The Goldfinch retrieved (and returned) Theodore Decker is left in Amsterdam wondering where to go and what to do from there. It seems simple enough at first. Return to New York, marry Kistey, and continue on his life as he had before. Boris, however, suggests the complete opposite.

The Before, After, and Forever by makkachincrossing

post-canon

(13,893 words | Explicit | Chapters: 4/4)

“The attack at The Met… That wasn’t the first explosion it had survived.”

“No?”

“No, a gunpowder factory exploded nearby Fabritius’ studio, killing him and destroying nearly all of his paintings,” I took a breath, unsteady. “But The Goldfinch… The Goldfinch survived.”

A hand on my shoulder. Long fingers, a firm squeeze, grounding me to earth. “You survived too, Potter.”

I looked to him, eyes aching behind my glasses.

“Life exploding around you. You survived. You, too, are Goldfinch.”

corrina, corrina by curlymcclain

(12,821 words | Mature | Chapters: 1/1)

canon-divergence, boris follows theo to new york

Seeing him here, in New York, surrounded by the deep browns and golds of Hobart and Blackwell, is so alien to me I have to repress the urge to pinch myself like a child would after a dream. It looks incorrect, him standing here. Like someone has taken a pair of scissors to my memories of him, cut him out of his rightful place on the abandoned playground, and pasted him sloppily into a corner of my life where he doesn’t belong. Has it only been a few weeks? It feels like ages longer, like it’s been a decade, like we’re different people trying to see what exactly we liked about each other so much way back when.

But then he says it again- “Potter.”- and that feeling vanishes as quickly as it arrived.

“You came,” I say dumbly.

He gives a cheery smirk that I don’t believe. “Promised I would.”

fragile (that much he could admit) by successsionhbo

(12,592 words | Explicit | Chapters: 1/1)

post-canon

Theo has been having nightmares after his trip to antwerp. Boris comes for a visit

heaven help the fool by BucketofWater

(12,140 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 2/2)

vegas era + post-canon, soulmate AU

He knew why. He wished that he did not but deep down he knew. They both did, at one point or another. Maybe not in words, but it was between them all the same. The way that they knew that the sky was blue and how the sun-warmed sand burned like fire. Theo loved Boris and perhaps, although he was a fool to believe it, maybe Boris loved him a little bit too.

Alternatively: the soulmate au in which every significant person in your life leaves a smudge of colour on you.

I've got the story of us written (on my skin) by Thegoldenfnch (I_write_fanfiction_sometimes)

(18,017 words | Mature | Chapters: 5/5)

all eras, soulmates AU

My mother didn’t like to talk about the marks. I still don’t know if it’s because hers had all failed her (her first love didn’t love her back, her life-friend died, and her Life Partner, well, Dad didn’t believe in soulmates) or if it was for some other unknown reason. Maybe she just couldn’t answer the questions I’d asked, like why mine were all the same. After I was around eight I stopped asking, and by the time I was ten I’d stopped telling people. They never seem to know what to say. It was only when I got older —after my mother died, but before my dad came back— that I realized why. People never know how to react to what they view as a tragedy. 

------

or: No one talks about soulmarks, Theo is in denial about many things (as he usually is), and Boris never says the things that actually matter

A retelling. Now with soulmarks.

a study in inevitability by EdieFalcoRising

(14,523 words | Explicit | Series - 3 works)

post-canon

One time Theo leaves, one time Boris leaves, and the one time they make it work.

And twice more our paths crossed through the night by liminalweirdo

(2,506 words | Mature | Chapters: 1/1)

Antwrep

Takes place immediately after the end of the novel, in Boris's flat in Antwerp. Theo muses on the things they did as teenagers, and the tension between them finally reaches its breaking point. Almost.

I'm not living/I'm just killing time by lolneptune

(19,359 words | Explicit | Chapters: 3/3)

post-canon

Of course he had seen the journals. Pages and pages of rambling accounts, an encyclopedia. How could I have hidden it from the one living person who knew me?

So cruelly you kissed me by liuniverse

(4,096 words | Mature | Chapters: 1/1)

post-canon

The biggest problem with the two of us had never been whether or not we knew that we loved each other, but rather whether or not we would choose to be with one another.

Even after Boris and Theo start sleeping with each other, they struggle with talking about what they are and their feelings. Well, until an incident of jealousy forces them to.

a spring memorandum by yowler

(42,706 words | Mature | Chapters: 4/4)

WWII AU

In the dark where no one can see, Boris presses his lips to the thin knot of scar tissue over Theo’s wrist. It’s a request; for forgiveness, for absolution, for something neither of them has a name for.

“But you are alive,” he says, “you idiot.”

  (Theo and Boris meet during the war.)

the letter in the drawer by shamefulshameless

(4,136 words | Teen And Up Audiences | Chapters: 1/1)

post-canon

Before he left Amsterdam, Boris found an envelope with his name on it. He’d wanted to open it in Antwerp, but he was so caught up in it all- his wound and Theo’s illness and the high and the movies, all of it so strangely different and yet exactly the same as when they were kids- that he put it out of his mind. He didn’t want anything to interrupt them. Now, it’s like the envelope has expanded in size, every day growing bigger and bigger and threatening to crack his bedside table in two. He doesn’t know what’s stopping him, but whatever the letter contains, he knows Theo doesn’t want him to know about it. It could be nothing- there’s always been so much innocuous bullshit that Theo keeps to himself for no good reason. Or it could be something. It could be something that Boris would be content staying oblivious to. There are lots of things like that.

Uncle Francis to the rescue by liuniverse

(32,582 words | Mature | Chapters: 8/8)

post-canon

“Oh! By the way, how is your man doing?”

I blinked, confused. "My what?"

"Your man? About 5'9, dark curly hair, gorgeous green eyes, looked vaguely European…?"

"Excuse me?" He couldn't mean…

"You know, the guy who whisked you away from your engagement party?" Mr. Abernathy raised an eyebrow suggestively.

Or, how Francis accidentally ended up becoming Theo's unofficial uncle and got involved in the stupidest love drama of the 21st century when all he wanted was to learn some juicy gossip.

[clownwzrd]

i’m thinking too hard about boreo yes it’s all lowercase im GAY

with boris you can tell he’s grown from his childhood, not a lot but you can tell. he has the same energy he did, it’s just more refined and serious at times. he’s matured, and he’s sexy lets not forget the sexy part. with theo he’s pretty much just the same 13 year old boy in fancy expensive clothing and virtually a whole foot taller, and in all honesty he’s even more repressed than when he was as a child.

this is mostly due to ptsd: he’s been stuck in his childhood for a long time, reliving his mother's death and unable to let go pretty much at all, i’m not going to invalidate that. also boris has trauma too– obviously– he’s just less affected by it in a certain way, because let’s be real they’re both really broken, just differently. 

make it TENDER now: the only real way either of them can get better is if they have each other, because they understand each other in ways other people wouldn’t get them. boris needs to get better as much as theo. way more below because i accidentally got too into this

 mmm i think one of the main downfalls of the movie is that it paints theo as far too self absorbed; of course he is but he also cares a large deal about the people around him. as much as he wallows in self pity he would literally (and has) kill(ed) for boris, and i genuinely think if he had to relive his life just to get to boris he would.  i see a lot on how much boris loves and cares for theo but not enough on theos emotions, maybe because they’re more complex? well not really its just all really repressed; ffs he thought that saying goodbye to people he cared about was gay when is he going to admit any of his genuine feelings for boris. 

i’m not sure if i got sidetracked or not but yeah– they need each other to get better. i think after amsterdam and antwerp and all those things they manage to convince each other and themselves that they need to get better, stop doing hard drugs, get therapy. they finally work through their trauma and in the end they live together happily, it takes a while though. it takes them ages to sort out their own issues (real life not emotional) and move on with their lives. but they do end up doing it, they’re finally (mostly) happy in the end of it all. once they work through stuff, and acknowledge as far as they go they’re still not 100% okay yet, won't be for a while or maybe ever. the whole point of working through trauma is acknowledging you’re not okay, but still making an effort to get better with the right help.

im going to stop before this gets longer than it needs to be but thanx for reading my boreo trauma ramblings this started as a post making fun of theo for being a 6′ 13 year old in bespoke suits

[ladyweasels]

so i just posted part one of a boreo fic i’ve been working on for MONTHS now on ao3.

here’s the summary: ”From Australia to Antwerp, Boris' life appeared to any skepticist as nothing but a made-up story. Having a dead mother and deadbeat father was a common enough occurrence, but having lived in nearly a dozen countries before the age of fifteen was something that raised a few eyebrows. Surely that brevity—that fleeting acceptance—wasn’t good for him. A no-attachments kind of life was no way to live. In just over a decade, he’d gone from an impoverished thief, starving and suicidal, to a well-dressed businessman, clean-shaven and sharp-tongued. Boris couldn’t be held down, even now, surely not by anyone or any thing or any place."

check it out if i wanna? https://archiveofourown.org/works/23959690

[bisansastarks]

whomst would like to discuss boreo having phone sex post Antwerp pre theo not being a repressed freak. 

[mandarinastronaut]

different anon but i was wondering if you could go further into why you think boreo stay together and what the romantic moment at the apartment in antwerp was? ive finished the book and while i personally like to think they stay together ive always struggled to find any evidence that they do.

First I have to say that the ending, in my opinion, is poorly written. It feels like an afterthought, and the disconnect from Theo makes you feel he’s no longer the one talking to you, but Tartt herself is. It’s rambly, confusing, and messy. It’s the part of the book that made me feel unsure as to what Tratt’s intent with boreo was, if it was only queerbait, or if she left it up for interpretation merely because she didn’t want the controversies of having an explicitly queer book. Either way, Boris is almost completely forgotten, and so is his and Theo’s relationship. 

That being said, you could interpret that it’s Theo’s fault, rather than Tartt’s. He doesn’t want the reader to know what happened after Antwerp, so he just leaves it, leaves Boris, out. After all, he is still the same extremely unreliable and messy narrator we’ve grown to love since the very first pages of the novel. 

Theo tells us very little, and very briefly, about his time in Antwerp. This is suspicious because he and Boris must’ve shared some important moments there, since this is straight after Amsterdam and also the last time Boris is mentioned. It’s very obvious that he doesn’t want us to know what happened there. But luckily we can make an educated guess.

Tartt relies very heavily on symbolism in her work, and this book is no exception. Drugs are probably the main tool she uses in tgf, besides the painting. Boris, for example, symbolizes everything Theo thinks, or is supposed to think, is bad and unhealthy. He symbolizes drugs, criminality, wildness, freedom, queerness, vulnerability, and so on. So let’s analyze the Antwerp scene.

“Do you ever think about quitting? I asked, during the boring part of It’s a Wonderful Life, the moonlight walk with Donna Reed, when I was in Antwerp watching Boris with spoon and water from an eyedropper, mixing himself what he called a ‘pop’. 

Give me a break! My arm hurts!…”

“…Well, big stigma and fear, I understand. Me–honest, I prefer to sniff most times–clubs, restaurants, out and about, quicker and easier just to duck in men’s room and do a quick bump. This way–you always crave it. On my death bed I will crave it. Better never to pick it up. Although–really very irritating to see some bonehead sitting there smoking out of a crack pipe and make some pronouncement of how dirty and unsafe, they would never use a needle, you know? Like they are so much more sensible than you? 

Why did you start?

Why does anyone? My girl left me! Girl at the time. Wanted to be all bad and self-destructive, hah. Got my wish.

Jimmy Stewart in his varity sweater. Silvery moon, quavery voices. Buffalo Gals won’t you come out tonight, come out tonight.

So, why not stop then? I said.

Why should I?

Do I really have to say why?

Yeah, but what if I don’t feel like it?

If you can stop, why wouldn’t you?

Live by the sword, die by the sword, said Boris briskly, hitting the putton on his very professional-looking medical tourniquet with his chin as he was pushing up his sleeve. 

And as terrible it is, I get it. We can’t choose what we want and don’t want and that’s the hard lonely truth. Sometimes we want what we want even though we know it’s going to kill us. We can’t escape who we are…” (862-863)

a lot to unpack there oh boy

Boris is injecting himself with heroin. It’s one of the most amazing sensory pleasures one could experience, and it’s often compared to sensual pleasures; orgasms. He says he’ll crave it on his death bed. This very brief moment they share is intimate, and isn’t completely what it seems to be on the surface. Yes, they are talking about literal drugs and addiction, but they’re also addressing the feelings they have for each other–Boris will crave the sexual feelings he has for Theo, but also the strong emotional bond they share (love), and ultimately, Theo as a whole. 

Boris says he began because a girl left him, and if I remember correctly, this was after Theo left Vegas (I’m pretty sure I’m correct, bc I really don’t remember Boris doing it back then, but correct me if I’m wrong). Theo left him completely and utterly alone, and that’s when he started. The timeline matches, so it’s plausible, if not likely.

Boris explains he doesn’t want to stop. So what if it’s bad? So what if it’s a sin? So what if it’ll kill me? In the words of Achilles (from The Song of Achilles) I wouldn’t stop. And Theo says he understands. He says two very suggestive and convenient lines; we can’t choose what we want, we can’t escape who we are. I’m sure I don’t even have to breakdown the subtextual meaning behind that, it’s so blatant.

And this whole conversation’s happening while the famously acclaimed romantic scene from It’s a Wonderful Life plays in the background. Tartt deliberately chose a cinematic masterpiece of a romance scene for this conversation. And if that doesn’t create enough of a romantic atmosphere for the scene, this does. You see, the moon is an occurring symbolic tool in tgf. Theo’s mother told him to look up at the moon when he felt homesick, Boris is quite literally the moon as his Islamic name Badr means moon, and at one point Theo asks Boris if the moon looks the same everywhere, to which Boris of course replies yes you fucking idiot. So adding this very specific movie sequence where James Stewart promises to lasso the moon for Mary, is not a coincidence. @zombiebowlcut has a separate post regarding this, so here’s that!

Theo’s final monologue is about having a heart that cannot be trusted, about wanting things you shouldn’t want, not having the yearning to conform to conventional social constructs, not getting to choose your own heart, not getting to choose the person you are, and finally about how to confront this, if you should stuff your ears with wax like Kitsey, or if you should embrace it like Boris, throw yourself headfirst and laughing into the holy rage calling your name; if you should live inauthentically or authentically. And Theo chooses the latter. He’s done with crime, since he’s finally unchained from the painting. He’s buying back the fake antiques, and he’s not getting married to Kitsey. The only thing missing from Theo’s truth is his sexuality, and furthermore Boris. And that, is why I believe you can interpret they end up together in the end.

[weltonreject]

THE FACT THAT I DIDN’T EVEN MENTION WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT FDFVIVVJFJN (futile devices. Theo flies home alone. But like dw Boris will be showing up at the workshop in a week or two like ‘yeah no not again’) BTW HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUDE (or like future birthday idk idk bro)

aksjdas you didn’t BUT i vibed with you!! i got you!! i was THERE i UNDERSTOOD. in true theo fashion, nothing needs to be verbalized i just simply ~understand~

many things though. first, futile devices??? ouch okay wow. “And I would say I love you, but saying it out loud is hard” HELLO??? which was, of course, OUCH???? second, the concept of post-antwerp, boris coming back suitcase in hand like: “oh! Are not going to get away so quick, Potter! Ships passing no more. Both anchored in same spot. I come aboard.” And Theo’s in his sleep clothes still like... “Uh, Uh... s-sure?” But really, of course, he wants to say OH thank god you’re back. OH that’s so... Like, they’re both grown men but the reunion would feel so child-like. the relief would be almost a regression? permission to pick up where they left off and try and gather and rewrite the years they spent alone... brb i’m upset

and THANK YOU! my birthday is on wednesday technically, but the wishes are well appreciated thank you so much!! x

[bisansastarks]

have we considered the fact that boreo are so emotionally dense post Antwerp they’d start fucking and just not talk about? STILL.