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fuzzy_paintTitle: All Our Errors On Repeat 3/5
Fandom: The Social Network
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Mark/Eduardo
Warnings: Some sexual content.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Word Count: ~37,000
Summary: After Eduardo signs off on the dilution and walks away from Facebook, Mark gradually realizes that he's stuck in an unstable time loop. Not only does he have to figure out how to stop waking up in his Kirkland dorm room, three years ago, but he has to rebuild Facebook while remembering things that never happened and deal with the fact that Eduardo has known about this all along. Not that it really matters: Eduardo leaves and he leaves and he leaves, every single time.
A/N: Special thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
becca_radcgg for the beta. Written for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
thesocialbbang challenge. Master Post
Check out the amazing art and fanmix byanysomething.
Code slips easier from his fingers, but Mark’s thoughts fall away even easier.
There's a part of Mark that can't acknowledge what's going on. Can’t process it, really. His brain balks and fights it, compartmentalizes it so he doesn’t have to think about it. It’s easier that way; he knows perfectly well that’s how he deals with problems.
Except it's stupid to ignore what's right in front of his face.
"What are you working on, man?"
Mark looks up to see Dustin braced against the door frame, like he’s done any number of times before, like he’ll do later in Palo Alto, catching Mark with his fingers hovering uselessly over his keyboard in a rare moment when he’s helplessly unguarded.
Eduardo froze the account.
It hits him hard enough that it’s like experiencing it for the first time, like it’s actually happening right now, that vacuum of thought and rationality. But Dustin’s face is open, expecting nothing. It stays like it is, no flash of pity or worry or some emotion Mark doesn’t want to identify.
"Not much," Mark says, shutting his laptop and powering down his desktop. "Want to get lunch?"
~
Three days later, after another morning of bright sunlight and Eduardo’s algorithm, they accidentally meet in the middle of Harvard yard. Mark's wearing jeans, and he remembered his socks - the cold wind cuts, and even Mark, who rarely pays attention to the weather, feels it. Eduardo frowns, one hand shoved in the pockets of his thick coat, something grey and woolen.
"Seriously?" Eduardo says. His fingers are wrapped tightly around a coffee cup, pink from the cold except where his knuckles are white. "I don't think I saw you this much when we were friends. You have to stop doing this."
"Would that make you feel better?"
He sighs, and Mark wants to shake him, or hit him even, because he’s tired of that. Eduardo isn’t allowed to do that, feel superior or something, like he’s a world weary asshole and Mark’s the idiot.
"Is this the part where you say 'too bad' if I say yes?"
“I think it’s the part where you stop acting childish.”
“I’m childish,” Eduardo says. Then, almost to himself: "All I had to do was disappear. Jesus."
Mark frowns, watching him, waiting for him to continue, but Eduardo stays silent, staring at a point past Mark.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, Mark. It doesn't mean anything."
"You're being cryptic."
"No shit."
Mark feels a little like a kicked puppy, despite the ridiculousness of the comparison - he is a little offended by it, his traitor brain - he feels like it, always coming back to Eduardo even when Eduardo seems hell-bent on leaving.
Even when he's here, it's like he's gone. And Mark feels caught. It’s stupid, but his entire body is tense, just because Eduardo’s looking at him like that, flat-eyed and bored.
"You said you'd stay," Mark says.
"At Harvard. Not in your dorm room." Eduardo says. He rubs at his forehead with his thumb. “I don’t cater to your every whim anymore, Mark.”
"You're just going to avoid me," Mark says, trying to decode it. "What's the point of staying if you're not gonna be around?"
"I'm staying," Eduardo says pointedly, "Because I'm tired of dealing with all your bullshit when I leave."
"Right," Mark says. "Because it's so different when you're here. That doesn't make any sense."
"How does any of this make any sense?"
Mark presses his lips together tightly. It's true. None of this makes any sense.
Still.
“You’re doing this to spite me. Why?”
Eduardo stares at him, incredulous, and he takes a drink from his cup almost absently, like he’s too flabbergasted to do anything but the mundane.
"Wow,” he says when he’s brought the cup away from his mouth. “Do you even remember anything? You cut me out of your company. You ambushed me with it. Again and again and again, no matter what I did. Why would I want to spend any more time with you than I have to?”
Mark scowls. "I didn't ask you to stay because I missed you."
"Believe me, I never thought that." Eduardo smiles, a crooked, ugly thing. He turns, walking away.
Mark calls after him, “What about Chris and Dustin? I thought you were friends with them.”
Eduardo's posture softens, just for a second - Mark ignores the burn in his chest - but then he says, tossing it over his shoulder casually. “Emotional blackmail, Mark?"
“I know it’s surprising.” Mark says. “I know you think I don’t feel emotions.”
“I was going to say that I should have expected it,” Eduardo says, mild. “You’re not a robot, Mark. You’re better at it than most people realize.”
"Is that why you tried to take it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Nine," Mark says. "You came to me, and you said-" He remembers this, even if he doesn't remember anything else about it, Eduardo coming to his dorm room and shutting the door behind him, taking away Mark's computer. "-you said, 'I have an idea.'"
"Yeah," Eduardo says. "And you still cut me out. Isn’t that funny? Facebook wasn’t even yours, then, and I still got screwed."
~
Chris answers the door because Dustin can’t be assed to get up off the couch.
“Hey guys,” Eduardo says, all easy smiles, like he’s actually happy to see them.
Mark’s hands are flat on the keyboard, mashing the keys. There’s a long line of nonsense sprawling out on his screen. It’s getting longer. Chris says something and Eduardo laughs. Grins, even, teeth and dimples, ducking his head like a kid.
Mark swallows. He cuts his eyes away and types. It’s meaningless, a random string of words and symbols that won’t have functionality.
“Sorry I didn’t come by sooner,” Eduardo says in the other room. “I’ve been busy.”
He selects all and deletes everything. All of the code, the entire file, even the entire folder. He opens a new file and starts new, picking out the keys with forced deliberateness, but he can’t block out the chatter. It sets his teeth on edge. He digs through his desk drawer.
“What are you working on?” Eduardo says.
Mark fumbles his headphones, jerking upright. Eduardo’s looking over Mark’s shoulder. He doesn’t touch Mark. He used to touch Mark, a hand on his shoulder, between his shoulder blades, squeezing the nape of his neck.
It was distracting. Mark’s glad he doesn’t do it anymore.
Mark frowns at his computer screen, at the blank file. “Don’t pretend to understand what I’m doing. I could try explaining it to you, but you’d just be lost.”
Eduardo snorts. Mark can feel him back away, and suddenly, he can’t stand it anymore.
Mark spins his chair around.
“You never understood it,” he says. “You never understood any of it. Advertising? And you wonder why I cut you out. You were a shitty CFO and you would’ve ruined it. Facebook is too important to be ruined and you, you always wanted to pull the plug.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. “I know.”
Mark blinks. He sits back in his chair. “What?”
“You’re right. I didn’t understand it.” Eduardo’s looking at him with half-lidded eyes; he looks as bruised as Mark feels. “Not the first time or the second time or even the fourth time.”
“Did you get it the ninth time?” Mark asks, spitting it out. His chest is tight, hands clenched on his knees.
“It’s everything,” Eduardo says then, suddenly. He sits down on the edge of Mark’s bed. He stares straight ahead. “To you, Mark. Facebook is everything. Believe me. I got the message.”
Mark never prided himself on the ability to pick up social cues – and Eduardo’s right about one thing. He’s better at it than most people realize. He just doesn’t care very much – but he likes to think he used to be able to read Eduardo pretty well.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Eduardo’s shoulders curl in. He says, “I think you’re spending too much time with Sean. You’re just as paranoid as he is.”
“I haven’t been spending any time with Sean,” Mark says. “Why are you avoiding my questions? If you know something-“
"You know, I tried not giving you money. And-" Eduardo flips his hand, holding it palm up, wrist resting on his knee. "You know it's funny? I just kept giving it to you, before I knew I had to. Like I didn't know better, like I thought-"
In the silence, Eduardo lets his hand fall to gravity, dropping against his leg. His fingers tap a pattern on his knee; Mark watches them, trying to figure out the beat.
He knows it’s a memory going in this time, staring at the curve of Eduardo’s spine as he roots through the refrigerator - don’t we have any food? - and the look Eduardo gives him when he glances over his shoulder, catching Mark staring, spears through Mark’s chest.
“You guys coming?”
Mark jerks, but he can’t pull his eyes away from Eduardo. Eduardo who stares right past him. Eduardo who doesn’t look at him like that, who never looked at him like that. Mark’s face flushes; he’s trying to pull the memory back, to dissect it and figure it out, but there’s no context.
“Caribbean night, man,” Chris says.
“It’s time to party,” Dustin says at the same time.
Mark turns back to his computer abruptly, shaking his head to clear it. “I’m trying to work.”
“You, my friend, are a lazy hermit,” Dustin says, pointing at him. “You’re never going to get the complete college experience this way.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Eduardo says, mild and anything but pleasant. He claps Dustin on the shoulder, pushing him through the door. “Mark’s trying to reinvent the college experience.”
Mark looks up, and there’s a moment; he sees Eduardo, dressed in his stupid hat and stupid shirt, but he’s also in a suit, and also dripping rainwater all over the carpet, and there he is, lazing in a lawn chair by the pool in Palo Alto.
He shakes his head, blinking rapidly. He’s put his palms to his forehead, pressing inward.
“You okay?” Eduardo. His voice is soft, close.
No. No, it’s not. Eduardo's voice isn't anything. Eduardo isn’t even looking at him. Eduardo is leaving.
Mark pulls his hands away from his face and glares, but he says, “Don’t go.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you to go.” Mark says. “I need, I asked you to stay.”
”Are you serious? No. Not for all the second chances in the world would I sit in your dorm room,” Eduardo says. He’s wearing his stupid Caribbean Night shirt; Mark’s just realized.
“I didn’t realize I was here for your entertainment,” Mark says sharply.
Eduardo pulls on his jacket. “And I’m not here for yours.”
Mark grabs his wrist. The edge of Eduardo’s watch digs into his palm, and there’s a flash of something hot, burning, right down his spine, but it’s gone a second later.
“I-“ Mark says. “I want.”
“What do you want,” Eduardo sounds hoarse, distant. He stares at the far wall; his wrist shifts under Mark’s hand, and he says, I can’t do this anymore, all dark eyes, shadowed by the crappy lighting.
“Last chance Mark-a-roni,” Dustin says, popping his head in and breaking the moment. Mark lets go of Eduardo. “To shake your pasta-maker with your Jewish brethren.”
“There’s something wrong with you,” Mark says, watching with horror and abject fascination as Dustin sort of… wiggles his hips.
“That,” Dustin says. “Is completely subjective.”
Mark turns back to his computer. He touches the keypad to wake it up, and then he takes a minute to read his code.
It takes another minute to understand it.
“Okay,” Mark says, shutting the laptop forcefully. “But only if you. Stop. That.”
Dustin drops his shoe.
“…Okay?”
Eduardo says, “What?”
Mark ignores both of them, shoving his feet in his flip-flops.
~
There is a loop of Niagara Falls. He can’t believe he forgot about that.
~
It’s twenty degrees out. It’s freezing. Mark curls his fingers in his hoodie, hunching in.
“You made it longer than I thought you would,” Eduardo says, coming up the stairs.
“I know that loop of Niagara Falls is there. I know it’s there and I came anyway,” Mark says.
“That really bothers you.”
“Of course it does.”
He touches the bricks behind him. Lays his palm flat against the rough surface and closes his eyes. “I tell you about Facebook here.”
Eduardo’s watching him oddly. He’s wearing longer sleeves under his stupid shirt, and longer pants.
“I keep remembering things,” Mark says. “About you. And me.”
Eduardo’s cup hits the ground, splashing that disgustingly sweet punch everywhere. He picks it up, head bowed. “What sort of things?”
“I don’t know.” He burrows his hands deeper in his hoodie pocket, tangling his fingers together, and he looks at his feet. “Do you remember- Is that happening to you too?”
“No,” Eduardo says, straightening, empty cup dangling from his fingers. There’s about ten seconds of silence, then: “It took me a couple of times waking up to realize what was going on, but I always knew. I always-“ Eduardo gestures with the hand holding the plastic cup. “Yeah.”
“I’m the only other one?”
“That I know of,” Eduardo says. “Six billion people, Mark. I haven’t met them all.”
Mark wishes Eduardo hadn’t spilled his punch everywhere – and that it was spiked. He could use a drink or three right now. “It certainly seemed like you tried,” Mark says quietly. And then: “I started remembering because you went to New York.”
“I always go to New York,” Eduardo says.
“No. You told me you were leaving Harvard right here, and. And Singapore.”
Eduardo is silent for a while, watching Mark carefully. Mark forces himself to meet his gaze; he lifts his chin a little, keeping his face blank.
“I had to leave,” Eduardo says. “Doing this, being here. It was… getting hard.”
“Is that why you tried to take Facebook?”
Eduardo looks away. “It was worth a shot,” he says. “I thought I had to convince you not to go through with the dilution. I was stupid enough to think I could.”
“Is that why you left? Leave.”
Eduardo frowns at him. Mark says, “I’m curious.”
“It’s part of it.” Eduardo is unreadable, closed off with dark, flat eyes. He remembers those, too, and ink stained fingers from his pen at the depositions, a cheap bic. He’d chewed on the end and the ink had leaked out. He couldn’t get it off for days.
“I’ll let you know how the rest of the party is,” Eduardo says.
“You said that,” Mark says. “The first time.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. And looks at Mark expectantly, warily - it was probably a diversity thing - and Eduardo shifts, uncomfortable. He looks away, and Mark remembers the deposition table, how Eduardo had looked when he’d talked about this moment, the raw anger and brittle sense of betrayal.
You weren’t right for the company, he thinks, but Mark looks at his feet. He says, “Did you really make all that money on tuna?”
Eduardo snorts, shaking his head. "Yeah," he says, but Mark's too busy staring to pay attention. There's a hint of a smile, one that Mark almost remembers, one that he thinks he should.
Eduardo's through the door before Mark can do anything about it.
~
Mark walks home alone, later. He ducks the Winklevii, and most of the people wandering around campus, the hacky sack players and the guy that always plays Vivaldi on his violin until three am in the morning.
Halfway back to his dorm, he stumbles on the curb, feels that familiar jolt hit his stomach, and the world -
Mark opens his eyes to bright sunlight, and once the spinning subsides, he’s up and smearing grease marker across the window.
~
“What did you do?” Eduardo says, leaning against the door frame. The top two buttons on his shirt are undone, baring the hollow of his throat. He has his bag hooked over his shoulder. Behind him, his coat is draped neatly over the back of the couch.
Mark leans back in his chair, pulling his eyes up to Eduardo’s, away from his throat.
“Why is it always something I do?” Mark says.
“Because I know I didn’t do anything.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Dustin asks, leaning around Eduardo.
“Nothing,” they say. They look at each other for a good few seconds – Mark frowns, but Eduardo snorts into his hand - and then they both turn away quickly.
“Okay,” Dustin says slowly, using his ‘you’re all crazy’ tone, one Mark’s a little startled to realize he recognizes. “Right,” he says in the same voice. “I get it, private party. I’ll just be going then.”
“You do that,” Mark says, and when Dustin is gone, Mark looks at Eduardo. “Did you ever tell anyone?”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. His hand lifts a little, coming away from his side, like he’s saying Dustin or Chris or the random guy on the street.
Mark has no idea.
Eduardo rubs at his mouth, looking away. “I even told you, once or twice.”
“How’d that work out?”
“It didn’t, really.”
Mark nods. If Eduardo had come to him first, if he’d said something, well. Mark probably wouldn’t have paid attention.
"You should code." Eduardo readjusts the strap of his bag and straightens. He runs his hand through his hair, his other on his hip, all awkward angles that Mark has a hard time looking away from.
“You should stay.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says.
“It’s easier,” he says, fingers still on his keyboard. “When you’re around.”
It is, though Mark won’t say how much. He’s already stepped far away from where he’d like to be, said more than he’s comfortable with. He hates feeling this flushed, sweat on his forehead and clammy hands.
Eduardo exhales loudly, not quite a sigh, and pushes his fingers through his hair again. “Fine,” he says flatly, dropping his bag and retreating to the couch.
Mark frowns, sitting up straighter. "You're staying here?"
Eduardo turns his head, a slight pull at the corner of his mouth. "I said I was, Mark.”
“You could pretend to be okay with it.”
Eduardo returns his frown. “Don’t expect a miracle, Mark,” he says, voice flat, but he stays.
~
It’s not really a pattern, or an arrangement, really, but Eduardo comes over. Eduardo stays.
Mostly, they’re quiet. They barely look at each other, never head on, but occasional side glances that don’t last more than a second or two. Mark keeps himself busy with his computer, playing a game: how much can he get done before he can’t stop himself from glancing at Wardo?
It seems like he’s doing it on purpose, but Eduardo rarely pays him much attention.
Sometimes, they talk.
“Maybe it’s not about us,” Eduardo says, responding to Mark for once, turning a page in his book. Eduardo reads a lot of books, a lot more than Mark remembers. He’s always reading, curled up on the couch or Mark’s bed or sprawled in a chair.
Sometimes, Mark watches his reflection in the screen of his computer, making out the blurry features of his face and studying the furrow of his brow, the movement of his mouth as he reads, like he’s struggling with it a little, shaping the words as he goes.
“We’re the only ones that remember,” he says.
“Just because your world consists of Red Bull and your computer,” Eduardo says, eyes still on his book. Mark wants to throw it out the window, “doesn’t mean everyone else’s does. Hundreds of very important, consequential events could be happening right this very minute and guess what. It’s not about us.”
“I’m CEO of Facebook,” Mark says.
“Bitch,” Eduardo says, looking over the top of his book. It’s warm, almost- almost amused, and Mark looks at the floor to hide the curl of his mouth. “Facebook doesn’t even exist yet.”
Eduardo opens his book again, finding his spot. He says, almost absently, “That wasn’t the first time I went to New York. Or the first time I left,” and then pauses, clearly thinking about something. He puts the book back down, half curl to his mouth. He says, warmth gone, “You’d be so pissed. If it was about me and not you.”
That jolts a memory, and Mark knows it’s a memory, a real one, because he’s at Harvard. He’s at Harvard and Palo Alto is thousands of miles away, and his laptop is safe beneath his fingers, completely whole, and Eduardo is too engrossed in his book.
Mark’s laptop is safe on his desk, and there haven’t been any papers to sign. Sean Parker isn’t off to the side, asking about the chicken.
“It really wasn’t about the Phoenix,” Mark says.
“Bullshit,” Eduardo says, turning a page.
~
Mark leans forward and stares at the black screen, long after his computer has gone to sleep. Eduardo’s on his bed, curled on his side, one leg propped up, and a book nestled in the crook of his elbow. The shadows are dark on Eduardo’s face, obscured by the reflection.
He pushes away from his computer, spinning in his chair. He overshoots, hitting his knee against the side of his bed, jolt of pain spiking up and down his leg. Ignoring it, he gets up, and he sits next to Wardo’s knee. Mark’s hands rest on his thighs. He turns his head, but keeps his body facing forward.
“What are you reading?”
“Aleksandr Pushkin,” Eduardo says, not looking up. “He’s a Russian poet.”
Mark frowns and pulls at Eduardo’s book. He only gets a glimpse before Eduardo pulls it away. It’s not written in English.
“You read Russian,” Mark says flatly. “Russian poetry.”
Eduardo shrugs, noncommittal. He’s still reading, or trying to, brow furrowed and finger tracing along the lines of words. “Something to do,” Eduardo says. “And it’s more difficult than straight prose.”
“Russian poetry,” Mark says. “Why.”
“I closed my eyes and pointed at a map.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Mark,” he says, in that voice he has, his you think we should shut it down voice. “You do this enough, and eventually.” He sighs. “Eventually, you have to find things to keep you occupied or you’ll lose your mind.”
Mark’s eyes drift to his computer screen, blank and black and empty of everything it should be.
Eduardo pushes himself up, shifting his legs into a more comfortable position. His knee brushes against Mark’s back. Mark doesn’t move.
“What’s this about?”
“I can’t keep doing this,” Mark says. He looks at his hands. They’re clean, no ink from a broken pen, no grease marks from the algorithm. No memory ever comes from his clean hands. “Are they getting shorter? I haven’t been to California in a long time.”
“I,” Eduardo says. He slips his finger in his book as a placeholder, and then rests it on his thigh. “I don’t know.”
Mark frowns. “You’re the expert.”
Eduardo shakes his head. “I’m hardly the expert,” he says, pulling his book further into his lap.
“Clearly.“
“Nice, Mark. It’s not like I could go check out a book for this. And then there’s the fiction. Which story do we pay attention to, which book has the best answers, how is this helpful-“ Eduardo’s eyes flicker up. “We don’t all spend our days wired in and ignoring the world around us. Not all of us are you.” Eduardo looks back at his book. “No one’s like you.”
Mark’s fingers flex – for his keyboard, he realizes. He wants his code, but the thick, sinking pit in his stomach tells him it won’t do any good. “I suppose you could just go to New York and pretend to earn your daddy’s respect,” he says, tucking his fingers around the seams of his pockets. To contain them, keep them from dancing nervously across his thighs.
“That’s not- that’s not why I go to New York.”
“Really?” Mark says. “Fooled me. I thought you went for challenge. Or is it really about the numbers?”
Eduardo puts his fucking book down, actually takes his hand off it.
A point, Mark thinks. Then he wonders when he started keeping score. And why he can’t tell who’s winning.
“Mark. I invested in tuna.”
“So? People need to eat.”
"I always make a lot of money, okay? Every time we do this, I, I get really, really rich." Eduardo puts his legs over the side of the bed, hands hanging between his knees, book sitting next to him. “I don’t even have to try.”
“I’m sure that sucks for you,” Mark says.
“I don’t have to do this,” Eduardo says, getting to his feet. He shoves his book in his bag and his arms into his jacket. He doesn’t zip it up. Just slings his bag over his shoulder and walks right out of Mark’s room.
~
He’ll be back.
~
“Lunch,” Chris says, propped against the doorframe.
Mark nods without looking up, already shutting down his computer.
~
“Hey, Marky-Mark,” Dustin says, sitting on the edge of the desk in the CS lab. “So there’s this girl in your-”
“You should ask her out,” Mark says, pressing his fingers against his temple. He hits refresh again. And again.
“What?”
“Stephanie,” Mark says. “You should just go for it.”
“How did you- You think she’ll say yes?”
“I think I don’t care as long as you stop bothering me.”
“I knew I was your favorite,” Dustin says.
Mark snorts and lays his head down on his arms. He waits for the bolt of inspiration. He remembers how it felt, sprinting across campus through the snow, code scrolling in his mind, terrified he was going to lose it.
He’s not going to lose it; it’s not even there.
~
Eduardo stays away so long that Mark looks at the calendar, and realizes.
It’s February.
It’s-
Facebook-
Shit –
The sunlight burns his eyes and he’s tangled in the sheets, kicking, struggling. He can’t get loose, he can’t sit up. Mark tumbles to the floor, feels the jolting up his knees before it happens. He remembers it. His palms are scraped raw by the carpet, Mark thinks, god, not again. He can’t do this again, but Mark starts crawling to the door, shuffling across the carpet. The couch isn’t much help getting up, but Mark shoves to his feet, shaking arms and strained breathing. He makes it down the stairs, wobbling with each step and then he’s tripping, hands stuck in his hoodie pocket, he can’t even catch himself, just falls –
He falls out of bed. He thinks about staying there, on the floor, but he can’t. He can’t, so Mark gets to his feet and bolts out of his room, down the hall and out into the cold, pushing past someone at the door. He’s running down the sidewalk, snow and concrete cold on his bare feet, biting at his skin. Mark pushes forward, stumbling blindly and there’s Eduardo, Mark gulps in air, sharp in his lungs –
– No –
There’s Eduardo, in the sun, sprinting up the street, appearing as shaky as Mark feels. Drunk, he realizes, fighting the clutch of fog in his brain, watching Eduardo, he looks drunk.
They nearly miss each other, skidding on the slick pavement, hands slipping down arms, but then one of them gets a firm grip, and they tumble into a side street where there are fewer people, but fuck them, fuck.
Mark presses Eduardo against the side of the building. Neither of them is steady enough to stay upright and Mark holds on to Eduardo’s shirt, balling his hands into fists, so hard it hurts. He focuses on Eduardo’s bony shoulder tight against the middle of Mark’s chest.
He closes his eyes and wills the spinning to stop, the blurring to fade and let Mark see again, breathe again. Relax. Slow down.
Breathe.
Bit by bit, his vision starts to settle, and he realizes that they’re wrapped up together, legs fitted together, Eduardo’s fingers are tangled in the edge of Mark’s hoodie pocket and Eduardo’s leaning against the hand Mark has on the wall. If he turned it, it’d be nestled in his lower back.
Mark shifts; Eduardo’s eyes snap to his, dark and shocked.
Mark licks the roof of his mouth, then his lower lip.
“I can’t go through that again,” he says, hoarse. “I can’t.”
Eduardo lets his head drop back to the wall. His eyes are fixed on the sky. Mark can feel the rapid rise of his chest, pressing against his own.
Eduardo’s dorm is closer.
Besides, even though they won’t be back for hours, he’s too raw to deal with Dustin and Chris, layers peeled too far back; they wouldn’t understand. As a general rule, Mark doesn’t really touch people. Not even Wardo, who used to touch him more than anyone else, except maybe Mark’s mother, but Mark won’t let go of him, not even when they’re locked inside and he slides to the floor with his back against Eduardo’s door.
He tugs until Eduardo sits down next to him. He tucks his free hand into the pocket of his hoodie, curling in on himself. His head feels heavy, his muscles ache, and his stomach is still sour. His sweatpants are wet, almost halfway up his calves, and they cling to his skin.
His voice cracks when he speaks. "You said it's happened before."
Eduardo seems to curl even further in on himself. Mark moves his hand upward until his knuckles are pressed against the inside of Eduardo’s elbow.
Eduardo shrugs, arms draped loosely over his knees. Then he pulls his arm away from Mark. "Yeah. It-" He says, getting to his feet, slowly like it hurts to move. Then he picks up an envelope from the floor, right in front of Mark's feet. He turns it over in his hands, thick creamy white paper, and then tosses it on his desk.
He misses.
"Nice shot. What a great display of athleticism."
Eduardo just looks at him. He sighs and sits on the edge of his bed, hands dangling between his knees.
Mark waits for his heart to slow, and he stares at the envelope that fell under the desk chair.
“I can’t go through that again,” he says, not looking up. “We have to get out of this.”
Eduardo rolls on his back, one leg bent at the knee, the other dangling over the side of his bed. He tells the ceiling, “If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”
Mark swallows around nothing and says even less.
He's still sitting there hours later, back pressed against the wall. His stomach grumbles, but Mark ignores it. Eduardo sits on his bed, head tipped back. His eyes are closed; he might be sleeping.
There is no memory here. It feels like there should be. He tries to pick at it, the loose strands, hints of something that never happened, but Mark lacks the context, the source code.
The thing is, he’s done the research and he’s thought about it – how could he not think about it? He’s ripped up the check and got money from an alternative revenue source and convinced Eduardo to stay, but everything they change it, it doesn’t do anything for them.
Eduardo breaks the code, Eduardo goes to New York when he shouldn't, Eduardo travels around the world when he should be in New York. Eduardo stays in Harvard, and Mark still wakes up in his bed, time after time, scalded by bright sunlight.
Mark licks his lips. They're chapped. "What if we didn't change anything?"
Eduardo opens his eyes. "What?"
“The first day. I remember.” Mark says. “I think it’s getting worse. You said it’s happened before. What if, what if changing things is counterproductive to what we actually want? What if the more we change the worse it gets?”
“Why would we be going through this if everything was supposed to be exactly the same anyway?” Eduardo shifts, bringing his arm up. He rubs at his forehead with his thumb. He says, “You’re acting like there’s an actual reason for any of this.”
“I remember how things are supposed to go,” Mark says. He forces himself to look at Eduardo’s face, drawn, tired. “I know when things are wrong. Everything feels wrong.”
“I know. I know that bothers you but I-“ Eduardo sits up. He runs both his hands through his hair, leaving it in strange tufts. “I stopped thinking there was a way out of this a long time ago.”
“You ever think you gave up too easily?”
“Sometimes,” Eduardo says. “I don’t know what else I could have done, though.”
“What would it hurt to try this?”
“Mark.”
Mark lifts his chin. “Wardo.”
Eduardo looks away first. He says, “I don’t think I can go through it again. The whole thing. Mark, I-” He’s said it before, Eduardo sitting in a booth, finger tucked inside his mostly empty shot glass, words raw and broken. Mark drops his eyes to his lap, fingers twisting inside his hoodie pocket.
“We’d have to reset,” he says. “Start from the first day we wake up.”
Mark swallows, closing his eyes against the feeling building in his chest, the memory just before he wakes up in his room and the sunlight cuts his eyes. When he wakes up in a different bed, far away from Harvard, Mark’s going to brick up any window in sight.
“Write me a check,” Mark says.
Eduardo gets up and goes to his desk. Mark follows, watching as he digs in the top drawer, stepping on the envelope on the floor. He pulls out a pen and his checkbook, and Mark watches him write it out with cramped, rigid letters.
It’s like signing the settlement papers. Eduardo’s hands shook then too, and Mark couldn’t look away. Mark can’t tell if it’s real.
Eduardo keeps his eyes on the check when he hands it to Mark, watching as he takes it and tears it in two. Mark’s eyes are on Eduardo’s face, and –
He wakes up in the bright sunlight with a thick tightness in his throat.
Mark closes his eyes and tries to block it out. He fumbles for his phone and hits speed dial.
Eduardo answers, bleary and hoarse. “That sucked,” he says.
“I don’t remember what I’m supposed to do next,” Mark admits. He curls up on his side, bringing his knees up.
Eduardo laughs, raspy and not quite right. “You still went to class in those days,” he says.
“Fuck,” Mark says.
Eduardo laughs again. It’s still off.
So he waits to start coding, suffers through his classes – he’s pretty sure he skipped every now and then, even though Eduardo suggests otherwise.
how did i ever sit through this
you still thought harvard was important
my naivety is embarrassing
I think youll live
see you after class
not today
He gets that stupid note - u dick - and leaves class, but this time he’s fumbling with his phone as soon as he’s out of the door.
“Wardo-“
“Mark?”
Mark looks up. It’s the Winklevii, just like the first time. “Are you Mark Zuckerberg?”
He frowns, gesturing to his phone.
“We can wait,” one of them – Tyler? Cameron? says. Mark nods absently, turning to block them out.
“You're not-“ he says into his phone; the words stick in the throat. "-coming over?”
Eduardo’s sigh is heavy. “Why would I? Mark, you're going to code. You don't need me there.”
It's easier when Eduardo's there, but Mark can't say that. He doesn’t know how often he has to keep saying that until Eduardo gets it. But it’s hard to think about – it makes him think about code, and Mark.
It’s easier not to.
~
“Facebook isn’t a dating site,” Mark says. He’s still stinging from the meeting with the Winklevii and Narendra in their bike room; he’s been through it already, and Mark knows that it’s his code, whatever they claim later.
He can’t fight the knee-jerk reaction, still as strong as it was then, to their plan to rehabilitate his image. He doesn't want it. Or need it. Settlement and farm animals aside-
He hasn't thought about Erica in a while. It's strange. There's almost a hint of something, Facebook blue, but it's gone before he can peel it apart and study it.
Eduardo pauses in the doorway. He sets his bag on the floor by Mark’s desk. “I know that, Mark,” he says, frowning and it’s like sitting in that deposition room, Eduardo on the other side, stumbling over his words as he defends Mark.
“Why did you testify for the Winklevii?”
“I was subpoenaed,” Eduardo says, digging through his bag. When he straightens, he’s holding his stupid book of Russian poetry, a blue paperback, brand new, but Mark’s seen it when it’s falling apart.
“I didn’t know that,” Mark says.
“Yeah, I know.” Eduardo’s thumb rubs against the corner of his book, riffling the pages. He looks away, towards Mark’s computer.
“How's it going,” he says, leaning forward, bracing one hand on the desk, almost like he's boxing Mark in, trapping him with the heat of his body. Then Eduardo reaches out and touches the computer screen. Fingerprints are a bitch, but Eduardo’s brow is furrowed, his eyes are intent, and suddenly, there it is: I learned to code for you, a memory of a bar and Eduardo’s dark eyes, and Eduardo is reading code, slowly, like a first-grader sounding out the letters, or like his damn Russian poetry, but he’s, he’s-
“Mark?”
Eduardo is staring at him and Mark is staring back, and really, there’s only one logical action Mark’s brain can come up with.
He takes Eduardo’s face in his hands and kisses him. Eduardo has a soft, warm mouth, open in shock, and Mark can’t breathe. He can’t breathe because it’s almost like he remembers this, except he’s never. They’ve never done this before, but-
Eduardo turns his head. Mark makes a sound, protesting, and he tries to chase his mouth, but Eduardo puts his hand on Mark’s chest and pushes him away.
His chair rolls back easily, but Mark leans forward, intent.
“No,” Eduardo says, backing away. He bumps into the door frame, corrects himself, and keeps going. “No.”
Mark half stands, pushing his chair away. It catches on the carpet. Eduardo just keeps going, fumbling with the doorknob, shaking his head.
And then he’s gone.
~
Mark knocks on the door, and then he sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket, hiding the black marks on his fingertips, evidence of the half-smeared algorithm on his window. Mark's toes are cold. His flip-flops are wet. He keeps forgetting to put socks on. He wants his computer, to wire in and lose himself in his code. Facebook's code. A few students shuffle past him in the narrow hallway, but they otherwise ignore him and he mostly ignores them.
Just like last time, except Mark actually notices them, a boy and girl, both blondes, who are always carelessly happy, flushed and smiling. He looks away.
For a second, when Eduardo opens the door, Mark forgets to be pissed. He forgets because he’s in a bar, a club, some place loud and alive, music obnoxious and the beat too fast for his heart to keep time. Eduardo is amused then, not looking at Mark like he is now, irritated and closed off; he’s sitting straight backed in his chair, but his arm is draped behind Mark, warm along his back. He’s smirking lazily at Sean.
Now, Eduardo braces himself against the door, frowning. His shoulders bracket the opening, leaving little space for Mark to see into his room.
"You can’t leave," Mark says.
Eduardo’s mouth is a hard line, and his eyes are cool, distant,
“Chris told me. You’re leaving,” Mark says. “You can't leave.”
“It worked out fine without me here,” Eduardo says. “You’ll be fine.”
"You need to stay," Mark says. "You haven't tried this before. You change things-"
Eduardo opens the door a little more, revealing more of his body. "You're so sure this is going to work," he says. "All because you thought of it first. Of course Mark Zuckerberg can't be wrong."
Mark tucks his hands in his hoodie pocket. His mouth thins. "I need you here," Mark says. “Facebook is-“
"Mark," Eduardo says, like Mark's not keeping up. "Was I ever really necessary to Facebook?"
Mark opens his mouth.
"Except for the money?"
There are so many things wrong with that, so many things. He went to Eduardo because Eduardo was his best friend. He told lawyers once; he wanted to do it with Eduardo. He remembers saying it. Eduardo knows how little money means to Mark. And now, with the memory of how Eduardo tastes still fresh in his mind, Mark wonders if this is something he’s been missing for a very long time.
"That's what I thought," Eduardo says. He shuts the door in Mark's face.
Mark blinks, staring at the door, startled.
Then he raises his fist and knocks.
The aching thing in his chest hasn't gone away since Eduardo fled Mark's dorm, and Mark wants it gone. It gone and Eduardo to stay. Kissing him was somehow familiar, in the way a lot of the memories he doesn't remember are. There aren't any, not really, not that he suspects aren't simply fantasy.
Mark wanted it, he knows that, like he wants Facebook, like he wants code.
He keeps knocking until Eduardo jerks the door open.
His jaw is set, and his eyes are flinty. "Mark."
"Eduardo," Mark says, just as sharp, just as irritated. They stare at each other. Mark's shoulder twitches, and he tilts his chin up. "Gonna run away again? You're so good at it."
"Gonna be an asshole again? You're so good at it."
"You shouldn't leave," Mark says.
Sighing, Eduardo leans his forehead against the door frame. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"Probably not, no," Mark says. Then: "Is this really because I kissed you?"
"If I stay," Eduardo says, eyes closed, voice rough, and ragged around the edges of his words. "You will never do that again."
"I won't," Mark says, cool. "Believe me, I won't."
~
Mark sits back in his chair and stares at his screen. He yawns into his hand, and fights to ignore the way his eyes keep drifting over to the couch, where Dustin and Chris and sometimes Eduardo hang out.
He actually prefers not going to lunch when Chris asks, or letting Dustin convince him into more thematically incorrect AEPi parties, or having Eduardo read Russian poetry – when is he ever going to use that? – in his bed.
In his bed.
It’s relieving to finally be able to put a name to this thing Mark has about Eduardo. Mark knows he misses a lot of social cues; he can’t be bothered to learn them and doesn’t have patience for people that speak cryptically, but he’s a little surprised he hadn’t picked up on this sooner.
All those times he’s stared at Eduardo’s hair or his knees or his wrists suddenly make a lot more sense.
It’s not exactly ideal, thinking about kissing him whenever Mark sees him, colored bitter by Eduardo’s evident disinterest. There was Erica for a long time, longer than he likes to admit, but he shut that out and focused on Facebook, like he needs to now. Besides, if this works, after the settlement, Eduardo’s just going to walk away, leave like he’s been doing whenever he can.
And this ridiculous thing can end.
He codes: deliberate, mind-numbing, forced.
~
“This isn’t really doing things the same,” Eduardo says. “Why are you here?”
Mark’s eyes linger on the way Eduardo’s fingers curl around his bottle. He shrugs, looking away, across the bar towards Dustin and Chris.
“You have to be miserable,” Eduardo says.
He is. He’s spent every second itching for his computer, his code, but Mark knows that as soon as he goes back, he’ll stare at the screen until his vision starts to blur, until he fits his hands around the edges of his laptop and thinks about slamming it into the desk. Just another thing he doesn’t need Eduardo for.
“Every second,” Mark says. Then, frowning, he adds, “I went out.”
“When I forced you,” Eduardo says.
“Not always.”
Eduardo raises an eyebrow. “Mark.”
“I don’t think one night is going to change anything,” Mark says. “Besides. I know Facebook’s code-“
“thefacebook,” Eduardo says. “It’s thefacebook right now.”
“I know the code. And I remember the problems I had the first time. It’s not going to take me as long. And I’m. I need a break,” he says, “I’m just taking it outside of the dorm.”
Eduardo looks like he doesn't quite believe him, eyes wide as he drinks more beer. The curl of his fingers is almost mocking.
Mark shrugs and looks away. There are too many people here, the press of bodies too close, the noise too loud, crowding out the thin thread of code. It feels lodged in his brain, stuck, and he can't pry it loose. He could leave, and he wants to, but then Eduardo would win. Mark is thoroughly against that.
At his side, Eduardo jerks, bumping into Mark, elbow digging into his side.
Mark turns and scowls, blinking when he sees Eduardo's face.
"Everything the same," Eduardo says, looking a little wild around the eyes.
"That's what we said."
Eduardo shakes his head, fingers white around his beer bottle. "I can't."
“This could be the only way out of this. Maybe you enjoy reliving everything – but hey, when was the last time we actually made it to the settlement? When was the last time we made it to summer?”
Eduardo shakes his head. “I can’t date Christy again.”
Mark rolls his eyes. “I know you think dating her is unpleasant-“
“Understatement.”
“Do you think I miss dealing with two simultaneous lawsuits? ”
Eduardo pulls at his hair with both hands, flattening it on one side. “Mark. She set my trashcan on fire. In my bed, Mark.”
“You said this might not be about us. Maybe it’s about Christy. Maybe dating you is significant enough in her future that disregarding it completely alters everything.”
Eduardo’s look is sharp. “Gee, you say that like you actually mean that.”
Mark shrugs, unrepentant. "Not like I've had the pleasure."
~
A week or so later, they do get drinks with Christy and Alice and-
Mark hadn’t forgotten about this part, the bathroom and the blowjobs, but he’s a little stunned afterward, thinking about Eduardo and Christy, but mostly about Eduardo. It still burns a little, when Mark lets it, thinking about how easily he said no, how he ran away after Mark kissed him, and wanted to keep going. To New York. Maybe further.
Eduardo nudges his side, nodding toward her table. “You’re supposed to go apologize to Erica.”
Across the room, she’s smiling; one of her friends holds her chair, she grins at her over her shoulder, and Mark remembers a friend request that’s still unanswered, might never be answered. “I don’t apologize to her,” Mark says.
Eduardo sighs. He doesn't flinch or look away. He just looks at Mark, a dip at the corner of his mouth.
Mark stares back.
“Guess I should have figured that,” Eduardo says, finally.
~
It’s almost easier, when Mark gets out to California. It’s easy to let the communication breakdown, his ties to Wardo slipping through his fingers. It’s easier not to have to look at him and feel the burn of rejection.
The excitement of Palo Alto is contagious. The energy of this house, with the interns and Dustin – who still thinks Facebook is the coolest thing ever – spurs Mark on. He’s coding, not quite wired in but focused enough that he keeps at it for longer and longer. Half an hour, an hour, maybe even two.
He’s starting to remember why he lives and breathes Facebook; he’s thinking about the features he can roll out when all of this is over, when he’s not waking up in Kirkland, sunlight too bright, Eduardo’s algorithm on the window. The possibilities- that’s what he misses the most.
So when Sean says, “Where the hell is Eduardo?” Mark shrugs and remembers all the reasons why he cut him out in the first place.
He pulls his fingers away from his keyboard one night, but it’s not a shock. He’s been thinking about getting up and going to bed for a few hours now, so he doesn’t jump when Sean touches his shoulder.
Sean says quietly, close and careful like Mark’s going to spook. “You should take a break. You’ve been at it for nearly thirty hours.”
Mark nods and doesn’t fight it when Sean steers him away from his laptop, reassuring him that Dustin’s wired in and taking care of everything. He lies in bed and stares into the darkness, but he doesn’t sleep.
Eduardo’s coming tonight. He’s waiting on the tarmac right now at SFO. Mark hasn’t seen him in months. What Eduardo wants, what Eduardo’s always wanted, is a mystery confounded by all the things Mark can’t remember, and he’s realizing he doesn’t really care.
But when Eduardo shows up, dripping water all over the carpet, voice angry but eyes exhausted, tired, and raw, Mark’s heart flips, gut clenching. Sean’s voice is mocking in the background, telling Eduardo about the Peter Thiel meeting, and-
Peter Thiel? Yeah, I’ve heard of him. I own twelve percent of his company.
Mark blinks. Eduardo doesn’t say it, but he did once. He wonders how he managed to cut Eduardo out that time.
“Wardo,” Mark says, and they step into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.
“You really don’t like him,” Mark says.
Eduardo rubs the bottom of his mouth with his thumb, blinking water from his eyes. “I like him more than I used to,” he says. “I think we were almost friends once. It was- really bizarre.”
“I bet,” Mark says.
Eduardo sighs, wiping the rainwater off his forehead. More drips down from his hair, but he just tips his head back against the wall.
“He really helped this company out.”
“I know. I just-“
“What,” Mark says when he falls silent.
Eduardo shakes his head. “I need to get out of these clothes.”
Mark nods and follows Eduardo into the room. He frowns, like he’s about to tell Mark to get out, get lost, but Eduardo just shrugs out of his jacket. He lays it neatly over the back of a chair.
It’s irritating. Looking at him and thinking, very clearly, yes, I want him, and knowing that Mark will never be able to do anything about it. Eduardo’s made himself very clear, black and white. Mark thinks it’d be better, if he could sit at his computer and code, maybe it’d be like before when he could distract himself with code and lines and Facebook, and he was much better at lying to himself.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” Mark says.
Eduardo doesn’t even look up, unbuttoning his shirt. “Yeah, that happens. It passes. Mostly.”
“Did you really own twelve percent of Peter Thiel’s company?”
Eduardo pauses, fingers on the last button, mouth slightly open. His eyebrows furrow. “Yeah, once.”
“I cut you out,” Mark says, not even questioning it.
“Yeah.” Eduardo strips off his shirt, hooking it over the doorknob, and digs through Mark’s drawers for a clean one. His back is turned, showing the stark line of his spine. Mark’s mouth is dry; he looks away.
“I wouldn’t change it. If all the variables where the same, I don’t think-“
“I know, Mark,” Eduardo says, sounding tired but not incredibly angry. “I know.”
~
Mark codes in his room, away from everyone except Eduardo, away from the noise and the chatter and the probably underage girls, the booze, the drugs, everything.
It should help him wire in, but it doesn’t. Nothing really helps, not Red Bull or Red Vines or lots of sleep.
Next to him, Eduardo is leaning back against the headboard, reading. Mark watches him out of the corner of his eyes. His book is in English, but the words are blurry. His eyes are gritty, exhausted, and the fourth time he yawns, Eduardo gets up.
“What are you doing?” Mark asks, frowning.
Eduardo tucks his book into his bag. “I have to freeze the accounts tomorrow.”
“I. You don’t have to.”
Eduardo sighs, and runs his hands through his hair. It’s already a mess, flat in some parts, sticking up in others, and he says You want investors, I’ll get you investors, just don’t. Do this, Mark. Don’t-
Mark has enough experience by now to tell a memory from real life, but it helps that Eduardo turns to him, looking exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, and says, “We’re doing everything the same, remember?”
Mark bites his lip, holding back the do we have to petulant and too revealing, and also because it’s their best bet. He’s sure of that.
He nods and turns back to his computer before Eduardo slips out the door.
~
“You’re a dick and I’m pissed at you for freezing the accounts,” Mark says flatly.
“Objectively speaking, you can't really blame me for missing any underlying meaning in this conversation. I'm exhausted, and pissed, and terrified and Christy just set the bed on fire. Also. You rarely speak in code, and I never expected these levels of manipulation from you.”
“You need to fly out so I can kick you out of the company.” A beat, then: “I wouldn't set your bed on fire.”
~
Eduardo files the suit, just like he’s done however many times before - he’s getting served, he’s staring over a deposition table at his best friend and his dark eyes, dark circles, there’s ink on his fingers when he’s about to sign a different sort of paper, not his legal pad, yellow paper and covered in meaningless doodles.
White, crisp, straight lines, like code, and –
Mark fights the spin in the room, the blur in his eyes, the lurch of his stomach. He curls his fingers into fists, holding the pen tight between his fingers. It’s almost painful; he wonders if he could snap it with just a little more pressure. There are teeth marks on the bottom from where he’s chewed on it. He runs the pad of his thumb over it once, twice.
The pen clatters on the table; Mark looks up and meets Eduardo’s eyes and he can’t breathe.
He shoves away, pulling away from his lawyers’ hands, disapproving glares, the protests from around the table.
“Jesus, Mark,” Eduardo says, but Mark walks right out of the room. He fights the blur in his vision, blinking through the fisheyed distortion, and when he gets to the bathroom, he’s seeing double in the mirror. He’s pale and drawn, exhausted, and –
And Eduardo grabs his wrist. Everything comes back into focus. There’s only one of him in the mirror, only one of him in the room.
This is here, this is now, and Mark feels anchored.
“What is your problem?” Eduardo says, practically spitting it.
“I don’t want to sign it.”
“You don’t want to sign it.”
“No. This is pointless.”
Eduardo throws his hands up, letting go of Mark’s wrist, but he takes it again when everything blurs. “We did this because you wanted to. You wanted this, Mark. You said, ‘what can it hurt,’ and I’ve always had a really hard time saying no to you. You always knew that and I always- even though I don’t want it, I always do it. You’re- “
“What do you want?” Mark says. He’s angry, bright and burning,
“What do I want? Mark you don’t care about what I want,” Eduardo says, tightening his fingers. “I gave you everything, Mark, and it means nothing to you. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what’s going on in your head.”
“I want- You didn’t come to California,” Mark says.
“California.” Eduardo stares at him, and then he lets go, the world blurring a little around the edges. They’re close now. Mark thinks he can actually sense the reset coming.
“California,” Eduardo says, words sounding stretched. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious,” Mark says. “I needed you here, and you-“
Eduardo curls his hand into a fist. Mark tenses, waiting for the blow, remembering a time that isn’t real anymore, a loop when Eduardo did hit Sean, laid him flat in the bullpen of Facebook and walked away –
Eduardo kisses him.
Mark stands there, still, for a second, but then he makes a sound, a hideously embarrassing sound. He tilts his head back. Eduardo cradles the back of his scalp, carding his fingers through Mark’s hair, thumb rubbing meaningful circles behind Mark’s ear.
The kiss slows until it’s just the press of Eduardo’s mouth against his, until he pulls away altogether, still holding Mark’s face in his hands. Mark tilts his head, tries to get more, but Eduardo pulls away, pushing Mark back.
“I went to California,” he says. “It was the eight- ninth time. I did everything right. Gave you the money. Investment instead of ads, everything you wanted, and then, we even-“ Eduardo stops, runs his thumb over Mark’s lower lip.
“You stole my company on the ninth time,” Mark says.
“I didn’t tell you about this. Why would I tell you about this? We even. I did everything right and you still-“ Eduardo backs away. He lets go of Mark. Everything gets cold, blurred, distant. “I don’t even know how you did it. Legally, I mean. I had Gretchen look over everything before I signed it, there weren’t any loopholes. And-“
“Wardo.”
“I can’t. Go to California, Mark. I can’t do that again. Do you have any idea what it’s like, to give you everything I have and it’s still not enough?” His eyes are dark, and Mark’s mouth is dry, rush of blood loud in his ears. Eduardo says, “I stopped caring that you- I stopped- I can’t do that again. I can’t.”
The door opens. It’s Sy. He looks between them, pissed.
“We shouldn’t be talking,” Eduardo says, stepping back even more. “Just sign the papers, Mark.”
~
Mark doodles in his legal pad, writing half-assed lines of code. He doesn't remember what it's like to be wired in, to feel the clack of keys under his fingers rather than hear them, with only the slow, steady beat of his heart as a marker of time.
He can't look up.
But he does, and Eduardo, Eduardo-
Mark wakes up in bright light.
Part Four
Fandom: The Social Network
Rating: R
Pairing(s): Mark/Eduardo
Warnings: Some sexual content.
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Word Count: ~37,000
Summary: After Eduardo signs off on the dilution and walks away from Facebook, Mark gradually realizes that he's stuck in an unstable time loop. Not only does he have to figure out how to stop waking up in his Kirkland dorm room, three years ago, but he has to rebuild Facebook while remembering things that never happened and deal with the fact that Eduardo has known about this all along. Not that it really matters: Eduardo leaves and he leaves and he leaves, every single time.
A/N: Special thanks to
becca_radcgg for the beta. Written for the thesocialbbang challenge. Master PostCheck out the amazing art and fanmix by
anysomething. Code slips easier from his fingers, but Mark’s thoughts fall away even easier.
There's a part of Mark that can't acknowledge what's going on. Can’t process it, really. His brain balks and fights it, compartmentalizes it so he doesn’t have to think about it. It’s easier that way; he knows perfectly well that’s how he deals with problems.
Except it's stupid to ignore what's right in front of his face.
"What are you working on, man?"
Mark looks up to see Dustin braced against the door frame, like he’s done any number of times before, like he’ll do later in Palo Alto, catching Mark with his fingers hovering uselessly over his keyboard in a rare moment when he’s helplessly unguarded.
Eduardo froze the account.
It hits him hard enough that it’s like experiencing it for the first time, like it’s actually happening right now, that vacuum of thought and rationality. But Dustin’s face is open, expecting nothing. It stays like it is, no flash of pity or worry or some emotion Mark doesn’t want to identify.
"Not much," Mark says, shutting his laptop and powering down his desktop. "Want to get lunch?"
~
Three days later, after another morning of bright sunlight and Eduardo’s algorithm, they accidentally meet in the middle of Harvard yard. Mark's wearing jeans, and he remembered his socks - the cold wind cuts, and even Mark, who rarely pays attention to the weather, feels it. Eduardo frowns, one hand shoved in the pockets of his thick coat, something grey and woolen.
"Seriously?" Eduardo says. His fingers are wrapped tightly around a coffee cup, pink from the cold except where his knuckles are white. "I don't think I saw you this much when we were friends. You have to stop doing this."
"Would that make you feel better?"
He sighs, and Mark wants to shake him, or hit him even, because he’s tired of that. Eduardo isn’t allowed to do that, feel superior or something, like he’s a world weary asshole and Mark’s the idiot.
"Is this the part where you say 'too bad' if I say yes?"
“I think it’s the part where you stop acting childish.”
“I’m childish,” Eduardo says. Then, almost to himself: "All I had to do was disappear. Jesus."
Mark frowns, watching him, waiting for him to continue, but Eduardo stays silent, staring at a point past Mark.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, Mark. It doesn't mean anything."
"You're being cryptic."
"No shit."
Mark feels a little like a kicked puppy, despite the ridiculousness of the comparison - he is a little offended by it, his traitor brain - he feels like it, always coming back to Eduardo even when Eduardo seems hell-bent on leaving.
Even when he's here, it's like he's gone. And Mark feels caught. It’s stupid, but his entire body is tense, just because Eduardo’s looking at him like that, flat-eyed and bored.
"You said you'd stay," Mark says.
"At Harvard. Not in your dorm room." Eduardo says. He rubs at his forehead with his thumb. “I don’t cater to your every whim anymore, Mark.”
"You're just going to avoid me," Mark says, trying to decode it. "What's the point of staying if you're not gonna be around?"
"I'm staying," Eduardo says pointedly, "Because I'm tired of dealing with all your bullshit when I leave."
"Right," Mark says. "Because it's so different when you're here. That doesn't make any sense."
"How does any of this make any sense?"
Mark presses his lips together tightly. It's true. None of this makes any sense.
Still.
“You’re doing this to spite me. Why?”
Eduardo stares at him, incredulous, and he takes a drink from his cup almost absently, like he’s too flabbergasted to do anything but the mundane.
"Wow,” he says when he’s brought the cup away from his mouth. “Do you even remember anything? You cut me out of your company. You ambushed me with it. Again and again and again, no matter what I did. Why would I want to spend any more time with you than I have to?”
Mark scowls. "I didn't ask you to stay because I missed you."
"Believe me, I never thought that." Eduardo smiles, a crooked, ugly thing. He turns, walking away.
Mark calls after him, “What about Chris and Dustin? I thought you were friends with them.”
Eduardo's posture softens, just for a second - Mark ignores the burn in his chest - but then he says, tossing it over his shoulder casually. “Emotional blackmail, Mark?"
“I know it’s surprising.” Mark says. “I know you think I don’t feel emotions.”
“I was going to say that I should have expected it,” Eduardo says, mild. “You’re not a robot, Mark. You’re better at it than most people realize.”
"Is that why you tried to take it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Nine," Mark says. "You came to me, and you said-" He remembers this, even if he doesn't remember anything else about it, Eduardo coming to his dorm room and shutting the door behind him, taking away Mark's computer. "-you said, 'I have an idea.'"
"Yeah," Eduardo says. "And you still cut me out. Isn’t that funny? Facebook wasn’t even yours, then, and I still got screwed."
~
Chris answers the door because Dustin can’t be assed to get up off the couch.
“Hey guys,” Eduardo says, all easy smiles, like he’s actually happy to see them.
Mark’s hands are flat on the keyboard, mashing the keys. There’s a long line of nonsense sprawling out on his screen. It’s getting longer. Chris says something and Eduardo laughs. Grins, even, teeth and dimples, ducking his head like a kid.
Mark swallows. He cuts his eyes away and types. It’s meaningless, a random string of words and symbols that won’t have functionality.
“Sorry I didn’t come by sooner,” Eduardo says in the other room. “I’ve been busy.”
He selects all and deletes everything. All of the code, the entire file, even the entire folder. He opens a new file and starts new, picking out the keys with forced deliberateness, but he can’t block out the chatter. It sets his teeth on edge. He digs through his desk drawer.
“What are you working on?” Eduardo says.
Mark fumbles his headphones, jerking upright. Eduardo’s looking over Mark’s shoulder. He doesn’t touch Mark. He used to touch Mark, a hand on his shoulder, between his shoulder blades, squeezing the nape of his neck.
It was distracting. Mark’s glad he doesn’t do it anymore.
Mark frowns at his computer screen, at the blank file. “Don’t pretend to understand what I’m doing. I could try explaining it to you, but you’d just be lost.”
Eduardo snorts. Mark can feel him back away, and suddenly, he can’t stand it anymore.
Mark spins his chair around.
“You never understood it,” he says. “You never understood any of it. Advertising? And you wonder why I cut you out. You were a shitty CFO and you would’ve ruined it. Facebook is too important to be ruined and you, you always wanted to pull the plug.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. “I know.”
Mark blinks. He sits back in his chair. “What?”
“You’re right. I didn’t understand it.” Eduardo’s looking at him with half-lidded eyes; he looks as bruised as Mark feels. “Not the first time or the second time or even the fourth time.”
“Did you get it the ninth time?” Mark asks, spitting it out. His chest is tight, hands clenched on his knees.
“It’s everything,” Eduardo says then, suddenly. He sits down on the edge of Mark’s bed. He stares straight ahead. “To you, Mark. Facebook is everything. Believe me. I got the message.”
Mark never prided himself on the ability to pick up social cues – and Eduardo’s right about one thing. He’s better at it than most people realize. He just doesn’t care very much – but he likes to think he used to be able to read Eduardo pretty well.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Eduardo’s shoulders curl in. He says, “I think you’re spending too much time with Sean. You’re just as paranoid as he is.”
“I haven’t been spending any time with Sean,” Mark says. “Why are you avoiding my questions? If you know something-“
"You know, I tried not giving you money. And-" Eduardo flips his hand, holding it palm up, wrist resting on his knee. "You know it's funny? I just kept giving it to you, before I knew I had to. Like I didn't know better, like I thought-"
In the silence, Eduardo lets his hand fall to gravity, dropping against his leg. His fingers tap a pattern on his knee; Mark watches them, trying to figure out the beat.
He knows it’s a memory going in this time, staring at the curve of Eduardo’s spine as he roots through the refrigerator - don’t we have any food? - and the look Eduardo gives him when he glances over his shoulder, catching Mark staring, spears through Mark’s chest.
“You guys coming?”
Mark jerks, but he can’t pull his eyes away from Eduardo. Eduardo who stares right past him. Eduardo who doesn’t look at him like that, who never looked at him like that. Mark’s face flushes; he’s trying to pull the memory back, to dissect it and figure it out, but there’s no context.
“Caribbean night, man,” Chris says.
“It’s time to party,” Dustin says at the same time.
Mark turns back to his computer abruptly, shaking his head to clear it. “I’m trying to work.”
“You, my friend, are a lazy hermit,” Dustin says, pointing at him. “You’re never going to get the complete college experience this way.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Eduardo says, mild and anything but pleasant. He claps Dustin on the shoulder, pushing him through the door. “Mark’s trying to reinvent the college experience.”
Mark looks up, and there’s a moment; he sees Eduardo, dressed in his stupid hat and stupid shirt, but he’s also in a suit, and also dripping rainwater all over the carpet, and there he is, lazing in a lawn chair by the pool in Palo Alto.
He shakes his head, blinking rapidly. He’s put his palms to his forehead, pressing inward.
“You okay?” Eduardo. His voice is soft, close.
No. No, it’s not. Eduardo's voice isn't anything. Eduardo isn’t even looking at him. Eduardo is leaving.
Mark pulls his hands away from his face and glares, but he says, “Don’t go.”
“What?”
“I don’t want you to go.” Mark says. “I need, I asked you to stay.”
”Are you serious? No. Not for all the second chances in the world would I sit in your dorm room,” Eduardo says. He’s wearing his stupid Caribbean Night shirt; Mark’s just realized.
“I didn’t realize I was here for your entertainment,” Mark says sharply.
Eduardo pulls on his jacket. “And I’m not here for yours.”
Mark grabs his wrist. The edge of Eduardo’s watch digs into his palm, and there’s a flash of something hot, burning, right down his spine, but it’s gone a second later.
“I-“ Mark says. “I want.”
“What do you want,” Eduardo sounds hoarse, distant. He stares at the far wall; his wrist shifts under Mark’s hand, and he says, I can’t do this anymore, all dark eyes, shadowed by the crappy lighting.
“Last chance Mark-a-roni,” Dustin says, popping his head in and breaking the moment. Mark lets go of Eduardo. “To shake your pasta-maker with your Jewish brethren.”
“There’s something wrong with you,” Mark says, watching with horror and abject fascination as Dustin sort of… wiggles his hips.
“That,” Dustin says. “Is completely subjective.”
Mark turns back to his computer. He touches the keypad to wake it up, and then he takes a minute to read his code.
It takes another minute to understand it.
“Okay,” Mark says, shutting the laptop forcefully. “But only if you. Stop. That.”
Dustin drops his shoe.
“…Okay?”
Eduardo says, “What?”
Mark ignores both of them, shoving his feet in his flip-flops.
~
There is a loop of Niagara Falls. He can’t believe he forgot about that.
~
It’s twenty degrees out. It’s freezing. Mark curls his fingers in his hoodie, hunching in.
“You made it longer than I thought you would,” Eduardo says, coming up the stairs.
“I know that loop of Niagara Falls is there. I know it’s there and I came anyway,” Mark says.
“That really bothers you.”
“Of course it does.”
He touches the bricks behind him. Lays his palm flat against the rough surface and closes his eyes. “I tell you about Facebook here.”
Eduardo’s watching him oddly. He’s wearing longer sleeves under his stupid shirt, and longer pants.
“I keep remembering things,” Mark says. “About you. And me.”
Eduardo’s cup hits the ground, splashing that disgustingly sweet punch everywhere. He picks it up, head bowed. “What sort of things?”
“I don’t know.” He burrows his hands deeper in his hoodie pocket, tangling his fingers together, and he looks at his feet. “Do you remember- Is that happening to you too?”
“No,” Eduardo says, straightening, empty cup dangling from his fingers. There’s about ten seconds of silence, then: “It took me a couple of times waking up to realize what was going on, but I always knew. I always-“ Eduardo gestures with the hand holding the plastic cup. “Yeah.”
“I’m the only other one?”
“That I know of,” Eduardo says. “Six billion people, Mark. I haven’t met them all.”
Mark wishes Eduardo hadn’t spilled his punch everywhere – and that it was spiked. He could use a drink or three right now. “It certainly seemed like you tried,” Mark says quietly. And then: “I started remembering because you went to New York.”
“I always go to New York,” Eduardo says.
“No. You told me you were leaving Harvard right here, and. And Singapore.”
Eduardo is silent for a while, watching Mark carefully. Mark forces himself to meet his gaze; he lifts his chin a little, keeping his face blank.
“I had to leave,” Eduardo says. “Doing this, being here. It was… getting hard.”
“Is that why you tried to take Facebook?”
Eduardo looks away. “It was worth a shot,” he says. “I thought I had to convince you not to go through with the dilution. I was stupid enough to think I could.”
“Is that why you left? Leave.”
Eduardo frowns at him. Mark says, “I’m curious.”
“It’s part of it.” Eduardo is unreadable, closed off with dark, flat eyes. He remembers those, too, and ink stained fingers from his pen at the depositions, a cheap bic. He’d chewed on the end and the ink had leaked out. He couldn’t get it off for days.
“I’ll let you know how the rest of the party is,” Eduardo says.
“You said that,” Mark says. “The first time.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. And looks at Mark expectantly, warily - it was probably a diversity thing - and Eduardo shifts, uncomfortable. He looks away, and Mark remembers the deposition table, how Eduardo had looked when he’d talked about this moment, the raw anger and brittle sense of betrayal.
You weren’t right for the company, he thinks, but Mark looks at his feet. He says, “Did you really make all that money on tuna?”
Eduardo snorts, shaking his head. "Yeah," he says, but Mark's too busy staring to pay attention. There's a hint of a smile, one that Mark almost remembers, one that he thinks he should.
Eduardo's through the door before Mark can do anything about it.
~
Mark walks home alone, later. He ducks the Winklevii, and most of the people wandering around campus, the hacky sack players and the guy that always plays Vivaldi on his violin until three am in the morning.
Halfway back to his dorm, he stumbles on the curb, feels that familiar jolt hit his stomach, and the world -
Mark opens his eyes to bright sunlight, and once the spinning subsides, he’s up and smearing grease marker across the window.
~
“What did you do?” Eduardo says, leaning against the door frame. The top two buttons on his shirt are undone, baring the hollow of his throat. He has his bag hooked over his shoulder. Behind him, his coat is draped neatly over the back of the couch.
Mark leans back in his chair, pulling his eyes up to Eduardo’s, away from his throat.
“Why is it always something I do?” Mark says.
“Because I know I didn’t do anything.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Dustin asks, leaning around Eduardo.
“Nothing,” they say. They look at each other for a good few seconds – Mark frowns, but Eduardo snorts into his hand - and then they both turn away quickly.
“Okay,” Dustin says slowly, using his ‘you’re all crazy’ tone, one Mark’s a little startled to realize he recognizes. “Right,” he says in the same voice. “I get it, private party. I’ll just be going then.”
“You do that,” Mark says, and when Dustin is gone, Mark looks at Eduardo. “Did you ever tell anyone?”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. His hand lifts a little, coming away from his side, like he’s saying Dustin or Chris or the random guy on the street.
Mark has no idea.
Eduardo rubs at his mouth, looking away. “I even told you, once or twice.”
“How’d that work out?”
“It didn’t, really.”
Mark nods. If Eduardo had come to him first, if he’d said something, well. Mark probably wouldn’t have paid attention.
"You should code." Eduardo readjusts the strap of his bag and straightens. He runs his hand through his hair, his other on his hip, all awkward angles that Mark has a hard time looking away from.
“You should stay.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says.
“It’s easier,” he says, fingers still on his keyboard. “When you’re around.”
It is, though Mark won’t say how much. He’s already stepped far away from where he’d like to be, said more than he’s comfortable with. He hates feeling this flushed, sweat on his forehead and clammy hands.
Eduardo exhales loudly, not quite a sigh, and pushes his fingers through his hair again. “Fine,” he says flatly, dropping his bag and retreating to the couch.
Mark frowns, sitting up straighter. "You're staying here?"
Eduardo turns his head, a slight pull at the corner of his mouth. "I said I was, Mark.”
“You could pretend to be okay with it.”
Eduardo returns his frown. “Don’t expect a miracle, Mark,” he says, voice flat, but he stays.
~
It’s not really a pattern, or an arrangement, really, but Eduardo comes over. Eduardo stays.
Mostly, they’re quiet. They barely look at each other, never head on, but occasional side glances that don’t last more than a second or two. Mark keeps himself busy with his computer, playing a game: how much can he get done before he can’t stop himself from glancing at Wardo?
It seems like he’s doing it on purpose, but Eduardo rarely pays him much attention.
Sometimes, they talk.
“Maybe it’s not about us,” Eduardo says, responding to Mark for once, turning a page in his book. Eduardo reads a lot of books, a lot more than Mark remembers. He’s always reading, curled up on the couch or Mark’s bed or sprawled in a chair.
Sometimes, Mark watches his reflection in the screen of his computer, making out the blurry features of his face and studying the furrow of his brow, the movement of his mouth as he reads, like he’s struggling with it a little, shaping the words as he goes.
“We’re the only ones that remember,” he says.
“Just because your world consists of Red Bull and your computer,” Eduardo says, eyes still on his book. Mark wants to throw it out the window, “doesn’t mean everyone else’s does. Hundreds of very important, consequential events could be happening right this very minute and guess what. It’s not about us.”
“I’m CEO of Facebook,” Mark says.
“Bitch,” Eduardo says, looking over the top of his book. It’s warm, almost- almost amused, and Mark looks at the floor to hide the curl of his mouth. “Facebook doesn’t even exist yet.”
Eduardo opens his book again, finding his spot. He says, almost absently, “That wasn’t the first time I went to New York. Or the first time I left,” and then pauses, clearly thinking about something. He puts the book back down, half curl to his mouth. He says, warmth gone, “You’d be so pissed. If it was about me and not you.”
That jolts a memory, and Mark knows it’s a memory, a real one, because he’s at Harvard. He’s at Harvard and Palo Alto is thousands of miles away, and his laptop is safe beneath his fingers, completely whole, and Eduardo is too engrossed in his book.
Mark’s laptop is safe on his desk, and there haven’t been any papers to sign. Sean Parker isn’t off to the side, asking about the chicken.
“It really wasn’t about the Phoenix,” Mark says.
“Bullshit,” Eduardo says, turning a page.
~
Mark leans forward and stares at the black screen, long after his computer has gone to sleep. Eduardo’s on his bed, curled on his side, one leg propped up, and a book nestled in the crook of his elbow. The shadows are dark on Eduardo’s face, obscured by the reflection.
He pushes away from his computer, spinning in his chair. He overshoots, hitting his knee against the side of his bed, jolt of pain spiking up and down his leg. Ignoring it, he gets up, and he sits next to Wardo’s knee. Mark’s hands rest on his thighs. He turns his head, but keeps his body facing forward.
“What are you reading?”
“Aleksandr Pushkin,” Eduardo says, not looking up. “He’s a Russian poet.”
Mark frowns and pulls at Eduardo’s book. He only gets a glimpse before Eduardo pulls it away. It’s not written in English.
“You read Russian,” Mark says flatly. “Russian poetry.”
Eduardo shrugs, noncommittal. He’s still reading, or trying to, brow furrowed and finger tracing along the lines of words. “Something to do,” Eduardo says. “And it’s more difficult than straight prose.”
“Russian poetry,” Mark says. “Why.”
“I closed my eyes and pointed at a map.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Mark,” he says, in that voice he has, his you think we should shut it down voice. “You do this enough, and eventually.” He sighs. “Eventually, you have to find things to keep you occupied or you’ll lose your mind.”
Mark’s eyes drift to his computer screen, blank and black and empty of everything it should be.
Eduardo pushes himself up, shifting his legs into a more comfortable position. His knee brushes against Mark’s back. Mark doesn’t move.
“What’s this about?”
“I can’t keep doing this,” Mark says. He looks at his hands. They’re clean, no ink from a broken pen, no grease marks from the algorithm. No memory ever comes from his clean hands. “Are they getting shorter? I haven’t been to California in a long time.”
“I,” Eduardo says. He slips his finger in his book as a placeholder, and then rests it on his thigh. “I don’t know.”
Mark frowns. “You’re the expert.”
Eduardo shakes his head. “I’m hardly the expert,” he says, pulling his book further into his lap.
“Clearly.“
“Nice, Mark. It’s not like I could go check out a book for this. And then there’s the fiction. Which story do we pay attention to, which book has the best answers, how is this helpful-“ Eduardo’s eyes flicker up. “We don’t all spend our days wired in and ignoring the world around us. Not all of us are you.” Eduardo looks back at his book. “No one’s like you.”
Mark’s fingers flex – for his keyboard, he realizes. He wants his code, but the thick, sinking pit in his stomach tells him it won’t do any good. “I suppose you could just go to New York and pretend to earn your daddy’s respect,” he says, tucking his fingers around the seams of his pockets. To contain them, keep them from dancing nervously across his thighs.
“That’s not- that’s not why I go to New York.”
“Really?” Mark says. “Fooled me. I thought you went for challenge. Or is it really about the numbers?”
Eduardo puts his fucking book down, actually takes his hand off it.
A point, Mark thinks. Then he wonders when he started keeping score. And why he can’t tell who’s winning.
“Mark. I invested in tuna.”
“So? People need to eat.”
"I always make a lot of money, okay? Every time we do this, I, I get really, really rich." Eduardo puts his legs over the side of the bed, hands hanging between his knees, book sitting next to him. “I don’t even have to try.”
“I’m sure that sucks for you,” Mark says.
“I don’t have to do this,” Eduardo says, getting to his feet. He shoves his book in his bag and his arms into his jacket. He doesn’t zip it up. Just slings his bag over his shoulder and walks right out of Mark’s room.
~
He’ll be back.
~
“Lunch,” Chris says, propped against the doorframe.
Mark nods without looking up, already shutting down his computer.
~
“Hey, Marky-Mark,” Dustin says, sitting on the edge of the desk in the CS lab. “So there’s this girl in your-”
“You should ask her out,” Mark says, pressing his fingers against his temple. He hits refresh again. And again.
“What?”
“Stephanie,” Mark says. “You should just go for it.”
“How did you- You think she’ll say yes?”
“I think I don’t care as long as you stop bothering me.”
“I knew I was your favorite,” Dustin says.
Mark snorts and lays his head down on his arms. He waits for the bolt of inspiration. He remembers how it felt, sprinting across campus through the snow, code scrolling in his mind, terrified he was going to lose it.
He’s not going to lose it; it’s not even there.
~
Eduardo stays away so long that Mark looks at the calendar, and realizes.
It’s February.
It’s-
Facebook-
Shit –
The sunlight burns his eyes and he’s tangled in the sheets, kicking, struggling. He can’t get loose, he can’t sit up. Mark tumbles to the floor, feels the jolting up his knees before it happens. He remembers it. His palms are scraped raw by the carpet, Mark thinks, god, not again. He can’t do this again, but Mark starts crawling to the door, shuffling across the carpet. The couch isn’t much help getting up, but Mark shoves to his feet, shaking arms and strained breathing. He makes it down the stairs, wobbling with each step and then he’s tripping, hands stuck in his hoodie pocket, he can’t even catch himself, just falls –
He falls out of bed. He thinks about staying there, on the floor, but he can’t. He can’t, so Mark gets to his feet and bolts out of his room, down the hall and out into the cold, pushing past someone at the door. He’s running down the sidewalk, snow and concrete cold on his bare feet, biting at his skin. Mark pushes forward, stumbling blindly and there’s Eduardo, Mark gulps in air, sharp in his lungs –
– No –
There’s Eduardo, in the sun, sprinting up the street, appearing as shaky as Mark feels. Drunk, he realizes, fighting the clutch of fog in his brain, watching Eduardo, he looks drunk.
They nearly miss each other, skidding on the slick pavement, hands slipping down arms, but then one of them gets a firm grip, and they tumble into a side street where there are fewer people, but fuck them, fuck.
Mark presses Eduardo against the side of the building. Neither of them is steady enough to stay upright and Mark holds on to Eduardo’s shirt, balling his hands into fists, so hard it hurts. He focuses on Eduardo’s bony shoulder tight against the middle of Mark’s chest.
He closes his eyes and wills the spinning to stop, the blurring to fade and let Mark see again, breathe again. Relax. Slow down.
Breathe.
Bit by bit, his vision starts to settle, and he realizes that they’re wrapped up together, legs fitted together, Eduardo’s fingers are tangled in the edge of Mark’s hoodie pocket and Eduardo’s leaning against the hand Mark has on the wall. If he turned it, it’d be nestled in his lower back.
Mark shifts; Eduardo’s eyes snap to his, dark and shocked.
Mark licks the roof of his mouth, then his lower lip.
“I can’t go through that again,” he says, hoarse. “I can’t.”
Eduardo lets his head drop back to the wall. His eyes are fixed on the sky. Mark can feel the rapid rise of his chest, pressing against his own.
Eduardo’s dorm is closer.
Besides, even though they won’t be back for hours, he’s too raw to deal with Dustin and Chris, layers peeled too far back; they wouldn’t understand. As a general rule, Mark doesn’t really touch people. Not even Wardo, who used to touch him more than anyone else, except maybe Mark’s mother, but Mark won’t let go of him, not even when they’re locked inside and he slides to the floor with his back against Eduardo’s door.
He tugs until Eduardo sits down next to him. He tucks his free hand into the pocket of his hoodie, curling in on himself. His head feels heavy, his muscles ache, and his stomach is still sour. His sweatpants are wet, almost halfway up his calves, and they cling to his skin.
His voice cracks when he speaks. "You said it's happened before."
Eduardo seems to curl even further in on himself. Mark moves his hand upward until his knuckles are pressed against the inside of Eduardo’s elbow.
Eduardo shrugs, arms draped loosely over his knees. Then he pulls his arm away from Mark. "Yeah. It-" He says, getting to his feet, slowly like it hurts to move. Then he picks up an envelope from the floor, right in front of Mark's feet. He turns it over in his hands, thick creamy white paper, and then tosses it on his desk.
He misses.
"Nice shot. What a great display of athleticism."
Eduardo just looks at him. He sighs and sits on the edge of his bed, hands dangling between his knees.
Mark waits for his heart to slow, and he stares at the envelope that fell under the desk chair.
“I can’t go through that again,” he says, not looking up. “We have to get out of this.”
Eduardo rolls on his back, one leg bent at the knee, the other dangling over the side of his bed. He tells the ceiling, “If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”
Mark swallows around nothing and says even less.
He's still sitting there hours later, back pressed against the wall. His stomach grumbles, but Mark ignores it. Eduardo sits on his bed, head tipped back. His eyes are closed; he might be sleeping.
There is no memory here. It feels like there should be. He tries to pick at it, the loose strands, hints of something that never happened, but Mark lacks the context, the source code.
The thing is, he’s done the research and he’s thought about it – how could he not think about it? He’s ripped up the check and got money from an alternative revenue source and convinced Eduardo to stay, but everything they change it, it doesn’t do anything for them.
Eduardo breaks the code, Eduardo goes to New York when he shouldn't, Eduardo travels around the world when he should be in New York. Eduardo stays in Harvard, and Mark still wakes up in his bed, time after time, scalded by bright sunlight.
Mark licks his lips. They're chapped. "What if we didn't change anything?"
Eduardo opens his eyes. "What?"
“The first day. I remember.” Mark says. “I think it’s getting worse. You said it’s happened before. What if, what if changing things is counterproductive to what we actually want? What if the more we change the worse it gets?”
“Why would we be going through this if everything was supposed to be exactly the same anyway?” Eduardo shifts, bringing his arm up. He rubs at his forehead with his thumb. He says, “You’re acting like there’s an actual reason for any of this.”
“I remember how things are supposed to go,” Mark says. He forces himself to look at Eduardo’s face, drawn, tired. “I know when things are wrong. Everything feels wrong.”
“I know. I know that bothers you but I-“ Eduardo sits up. He runs both his hands through his hair, leaving it in strange tufts. “I stopped thinking there was a way out of this a long time ago.”
“You ever think you gave up too easily?”
“Sometimes,” Eduardo says. “I don’t know what else I could have done, though.”
“What would it hurt to try this?”
“Mark.”
Mark lifts his chin. “Wardo.”
Eduardo looks away first. He says, “I don’t think I can go through it again. The whole thing. Mark, I-” He’s said it before, Eduardo sitting in a booth, finger tucked inside his mostly empty shot glass, words raw and broken. Mark drops his eyes to his lap, fingers twisting inside his hoodie pocket.
“We’d have to reset,” he says. “Start from the first day we wake up.”
Mark swallows, closing his eyes against the feeling building in his chest, the memory just before he wakes up in his room and the sunlight cuts his eyes. When he wakes up in a different bed, far away from Harvard, Mark’s going to brick up any window in sight.
“Write me a check,” Mark says.
Eduardo gets up and goes to his desk. Mark follows, watching as he digs in the top drawer, stepping on the envelope on the floor. He pulls out a pen and his checkbook, and Mark watches him write it out with cramped, rigid letters.
It’s like signing the settlement papers. Eduardo’s hands shook then too, and Mark couldn’t look away. Mark can’t tell if it’s real.
Eduardo keeps his eyes on the check when he hands it to Mark, watching as he takes it and tears it in two. Mark’s eyes are on Eduardo’s face, and –
He wakes up in the bright sunlight with a thick tightness in his throat.
Mark closes his eyes and tries to block it out. He fumbles for his phone and hits speed dial.
Eduardo answers, bleary and hoarse. “That sucked,” he says.
“I don’t remember what I’m supposed to do next,” Mark admits. He curls up on his side, bringing his knees up.
Eduardo laughs, raspy and not quite right. “You still went to class in those days,” he says.
“Fuck,” Mark says.
Eduardo laughs again. It’s still off.
So he waits to start coding, suffers through his classes – he’s pretty sure he skipped every now and then, even though Eduardo suggests otherwise.
how did i ever sit through this
you still thought harvard was important
my naivety is embarrassing
I think youll live
see you after class
not today
He gets that stupid note - u dick - and leaves class, but this time he’s fumbling with his phone as soon as he’s out of the door.
“Wardo-“
“Mark?”
Mark looks up. It’s the Winklevii, just like the first time. “Are you Mark Zuckerberg?”
He frowns, gesturing to his phone.
“We can wait,” one of them – Tyler? Cameron? says. Mark nods absently, turning to block them out.
“You're not-“ he says into his phone; the words stick in the throat. "-coming over?”
Eduardo’s sigh is heavy. “Why would I? Mark, you're going to code. You don't need me there.”
It's easier when Eduardo's there, but Mark can't say that. He doesn’t know how often he has to keep saying that until Eduardo gets it. But it’s hard to think about – it makes him think about code, and Mark.
It’s easier not to.
~
“Facebook isn’t a dating site,” Mark says. He’s still stinging from the meeting with the Winklevii and Narendra in their bike room; he’s been through it already, and Mark knows that it’s his code, whatever they claim later.
He can’t fight the knee-jerk reaction, still as strong as it was then, to their plan to rehabilitate his image. He doesn't want it. Or need it. Settlement and farm animals aside-
He hasn't thought about Erica in a while. It's strange. There's almost a hint of something, Facebook blue, but it's gone before he can peel it apart and study it.
Eduardo pauses in the doorway. He sets his bag on the floor by Mark’s desk. “I know that, Mark,” he says, frowning and it’s like sitting in that deposition room, Eduardo on the other side, stumbling over his words as he defends Mark.
“Why did you testify for the Winklevii?”
“I was subpoenaed,” Eduardo says, digging through his bag. When he straightens, he’s holding his stupid book of Russian poetry, a blue paperback, brand new, but Mark’s seen it when it’s falling apart.
“I didn’t know that,” Mark says.
“Yeah, I know.” Eduardo’s thumb rubs against the corner of his book, riffling the pages. He looks away, towards Mark’s computer.
“How's it going,” he says, leaning forward, bracing one hand on the desk, almost like he's boxing Mark in, trapping him with the heat of his body. Then Eduardo reaches out and touches the computer screen. Fingerprints are a bitch, but Eduardo’s brow is furrowed, his eyes are intent, and suddenly, there it is: I learned to code for you, a memory of a bar and Eduardo’s dark eyes, and Eduardo is reading code, slowly, like a first-grader sounding out the letters, or like his damn Russian poetry, but he’s, he’s-
“Mark?”
Eduardo is staring at him and Mark is staring back, and really, there’s only one logical action Mark’s brain can come up with.
He takes Eduardo’s face in his hands and kisses him. Eduardo has a soft, warm mouth, open in shock, and Mark can’t breathe. He can’t breathe because it’s almost like he remembers this, except he’s never. They’ve never done this before, but-
Eduardo turns his head. Mark makes a sound, protesting, and he tries to chase his mouth, but Eduardo puts his hand on Mark’s chest and pushes him away.
His chair rolls back easily, but Mark leans forward, intent.
“No,” Eduardo says, backing away. He bumps into the door frame, corrects himself, and keeps going. “No.”
Mark half stands, pushing his chair away. It catches on the carpet. Eduardo just keeps going, fumbling with the doorknob, shaking his head.
And then he’s gone.
~
Mark knocks on the door, and then he sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket, hiding the black marks on his fingertips, evidence of the half-smeared algorithm on his window. Mark's toes are cold. His flip-flops are wet. He keeps forgetting to put socks on. He wants his computer, to wire in and lose himself in his code. Facebook's code. A few students shuffle past him in the narrow hallway, but they otherwise ignore him and he mostly ignores them.
Just like last time, except Mark actually notices them, a boy and girl, both blondes, who are always carelessly happy, flushed and smiling. He looks away.
For a second, when Eduardo opens the door, Mark forgets to be pissed. He forgets because he’s in a bar, a club, some place loud and alive, music obnoxious and the beat too fast for his heart to keep time. Eduardo is amused then, not looking at Mark like he is now, irritated and closed off; he’s sitting straight backed in his chair, but his arm is draped behind Mark, warm along his back. He’s smirking lazily at Sean.
Now, Eduardo braces himself against the door, frowning. His shoulders bracket the opening, leaving little space for Mark to see into his room.
"You can’t leave," Mark says.
Eduardo’s mouth is a hard line, and his eyes are cool, distant,
“Chris told me. You’re leaving,” Mark says. “You can't leave.”
“It worked out fine without me here,” Eduardo says. “You’ll be fine.”
"You need to stay," Mark says. "You haven't tried this before. You change things-"
Eduardo opens the door a little more, revealing more of his body. "You're so sure this is going to work," he says. "All because you thought of it first. Of course Mark Zuckerberg can't be wrong."
Mark tucks his hands in his hoodie pocket. His mouth thins. "I need you here," Mark says. “Facebook is-“
"Mark," Eduardo says, like Mark's not keeping up. "Was I ever really necessary to Facebook?"
Mark opens his mouth.
"Except for the money?"
There are so many things wrong with that, so many things. He went to Eduardo because Eduardo was his best friend. He told lawyers once; he wanted to do it with Eduardo. He remembers saying it. Eduardo knows how little money means to Mark. And now, with the memory of how Eduardo tastes still fresh in his mind, Mark wonders if this is something he’s been missing for a very long time.
"That's what I thought," Eduardo says. He shuts the door in Mark's face.
Mark blinks, staring at the door, startled.
Then he raises his fist and knocks.
The aching thing in his chest hasn't gone away since Eduardo fled Mark's dorm, and Mark wants it gone. It gone and Eduardo to stay. Kissing him was somehow familiar, in the way a lot of the memories he doesn't remember are. There aren't any, not really, not that he suspects aren't simply fantasy.
Mark wanted it, he knows that, like he wants Facebook, like he wants code.
He keeps knocking until Eduardo jerks the door open.
His jaw is set, and his eyes are flinty. "Mark."
"Eduardo," Mark says, just as sharp, just as irritated. They stare at each other. Mark's shoulder twitches, and he tilts his chin up. "Gonna run away again? You're so good at it."
"Gonna be an asshole again? You're so good at it."
"You shouldn't leave," Mark says.
Sighing, Eduardo leans his forehead against the door frame. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"Probably not, no," Mark says. Then: "Is this really because I kissed you?"
"If I stay," Eduardo says, eyes closed, voice rough, and ragged around the edges of his words. "You will never do that again."
"I won't," Mark says, cool. "Believe me, I won't."
~
Mark sits back in his chair and stares at his screen. He yawns into his hand, and fights to ignore the way his eyes keep drifting over to the couch, where Dustin and Chris and sometimes Eduardo hang out.
He actually prefers not going to lunch when Chris asks, or letting Dustin convince him into more thematically incorrect AEPi parties, or having Eduardo read Russian poetry – when is he ever going to use that? – in his bed.
In his bed.
It’s relieving to finally be able to put a name to this thing Mark has about Eduardo. Mark knows he misses a lot of social cues; he can’t be bothered to learn them and doesn’t have patience for people that speak cryptically, but he’s a little surprised he hadn’t picked up on this sooner.
All those times he’s stared at Eduardo’s hair or his knees or his wrists suddenly make a lot more sense.
It’s not exactly ideal, thinking about kissing him whenever Mark sees him, colored bitter by Eduardo’s evident disinterest. There was Erica for a long time, longer than he likes to admit, but he shut that out and focused on Facebook, like he needs to now. Besides, if this works, after the settlement, Eduardo’s just going to walk away, leave like he’s been doing whenever he can.
And this ridiculous thing can end.
He codes: deliberate, mind-numbing, forced.
~
“This isn’t really doing things the same,” Eduardo says. “Why are you here?”
Mark’s eyes linger on the way Eduardo’s fingers curl around his bottle. He shrugs, looking away, across the bar towards Dustin and Chris.
“You have to be miserable,” Eduardo says.
He is. He’s spent every second itching for his computer, his code, but Mark knows that as soon as he goes back, he’ll stare at the screen until his vision starts to blur, until he fits his hands around the edges of his laptop and thinks about slamming it into the desk. Just another thing he doesn’t need Eduardo for.
“Every second,” Mark says. Then, frowning, he adds, “I went out.”
“When I forced you,” Eduardo says.
“Not always.”
Eduardo raises an eyebrow. “Mark.”
“I don’t think one night is going to change anything,” Mark says. “Besides. I know Facebook’s code-“
“thefacebook,” Eduardo says. “It’s thefacebook right now.”
“I know the code. And I remember the problems I had the first time. It’s not going to take me as long. And I’m. I need a break,” he says, “I’m just taking it outside of the dorm.”
Eduardo looks like he doesn't quite believe him, eyes wide as he drinks more beer. The curl of his fingers is almost mocking.
Mark shrugs and looks away. There are too many people here, the press of bodies too close, the noise too loud, crowding out the thin thread of code. It feels lodged in his brain, stuck, and he can't pry it loose. He could leave, and he wants to, but then Eduardo would win. Mark is thoroughly against that.
At his side, Eduardo jerks, bumping into Mark, elbow digging into his side.
Mark turns and scowls, blinking when he sees Eduardo's face.
"Everything the same," Eduardo says, looking a little wild around the eyes.
"That's what we said."
Eduardo shakes his head, fingers white around his beer bottle. "I can't."
“This could be the only way out of this. Maybe you enjoy reliving everything – but hey, when was the last time we actually made it to the settlement? When was the last time we made it to summer?”
Eduardo shakes his head. “I can’t date Christy again.”
Mark rolls his eyes. “I know you think dating her is unpleasant-“
“Understatement.”
“Do you think I miss dealing with two simultaneous lawsuits? ”
Eduardo pulls at his hair with both hands, flattening it on one side. “Mark. She set my trashcan on fire. In my bed, Mark.”
“You said this might not be about us. Maybe it’s about Christy. Maybe dating you is significant enough in her future that disregarding it completely alters everything.”
Eduardo’s look is sharp. “Gee, you say that like you actually mean that.”
Mark shrugs, unrepentant. "Not like I've had the pleasure."
~
A week or so later, they do get drinks with Christy and Alice and-
Mark hadn’t forgotten about this part, the bathroom and the blowjobs, but he’s a little stunned afterward, thinking about Eduardo and Christy, but mostly about Eduardo. It still burns a little, when Mark lets it, thinking about how easily he said no, how he ran away after Mark kissed him, and wanted to keep going. To New York. Maybe further.
Eduardo nudges his side, nodding toward her table. “You’re supposed to go apologize to Erica.”
Across the room, she’s smiling; one of her friends holds her chair, she grins at her over her shoulder, and Mark remembers a friend request that’s still unanswered, might never be answered. “I don’t apologize to her,” Mark says.
Eduardo sighs. He doesn't flinch or look away. He just looks at Mark, a dip at the corner of his mouth.
Mark stares back.
“Guess I should have figured that,” Eduardo says, finally.
~
It’s almost easier, when Mark gets out to California. It’s easy to let the communication breakdown, his ties to Wardo slipping through his fingers. It’s easier not to have to look at him and feel the burn of rejection.
The excitement of Palo Alto is contagious. The energy of this house, with the interns and Dustin – who still thinks Facebook is the coolest thing ever – spurs Mark on. He’s coding, not quite wired in but focused enough that he keeps at it for longer and longer. Half an hour, an hour, maybe even two.
He’s starting to remember why he lives and breathes Facebook; he’s thinking about the features he can roll out when all of this is over, when he’s not waking up in Kirkland, sunlight too bright, Eduardo’s algorithm on the window. The possibilities- that’s what he misses the most.
So when Sean says, “Where the hell is Eduardo?” Mark shrugs and remembers all the reasons why he cut him out in the first place.
He pulls his fingers away from his keyboard one night, but it’s not a shock. He’s been thinking about getting up and going to bed for a few hours now, so he doesn’t jump when Sean touches his shoulder.
Sean says quietly, close and careful like Mark’s going to spook. “You should take a break. You’ve been at it for nearly thirty hours.”
Mark nods and doesn’t fight it when Sean steers him away from his laptop, reassuring him that Dustin’s wired in and taking care of everything. He lies in bed and stares into the darkness, but he doesn’t sleep.
Eduardo’s coming tonight. He’s waiting on the tarmac right now at SFO. Mark hasn’t seen him in months. What Eduardo wants, what Eduardo’s always wanted, is a mystery confounded by all the things Mark can’t remember, and he’s realizing he doesn’t really care.
But when Eduardo shows up, dripping water all over the carpet, voice angry but eyes exhausted, tired, and raw, Mark’s heart flips, gut clenching. Sean’s voice is mocking in the background, telling Eduardo about the Peter Thiel meeting, and-
Peter Thiel? Yeah, I’ve heard of him. I own twelve percent of his company.
Mark blinks. Eduardo doesn’t say it, but he did once. He wonders how he managed to cut Eduardo out that time.
“Wardo,” Mark says, and they step into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.
“You really don’t like him,” Mark says.
Eduardo rubs the bottom of his mouth with his thumb, blinking water from his eyes. “I like him more than I used to,” he says. “I think we were almost friends once. It was- really bizarre.”
“I bet,” Mark says.
Eduardo sighs, wiping the rainwater off his forehead. More drips down from his hair, but he just tips his head back against the wall.
“He really helped this company out.”
“I know. I just-“
“What,” Mark says when he falls silent.
Eduardo shakes his head. “I need to get out of these clothes.”
Mark nods and follows Eduardo into the room. He frowns, like he’s about to tell Mark to get out, get lost, but Eduardo just shrugs out of his jacket. He lays it neatly over the back of a chair.
It’s irritating. Looking at him and thinking, very clearly, yes, I want him, and knowing that Mark will never be able to do anything about it. Eduardo’s made himself very clear, black and white. Mark thinks it’d be better, if he could sit at his computer and code, maybe it’d be like before when he could distract himself with code and lines and Facebook, and he was much better at lying to himself.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” Mark says.
Eduardo doesn’t even look up, unbuttoning his shirt. “Yeah, that happens. It passes. Mostly.”
“Did you really own twelve percent of Peter Thiel’s company?”
Eduardo pauses, fingers on the last button, mouth slightly open. His eyebrows furrow. “Yeah, once.”
“I cut you out,” Mark says, not even questioning it.
“Yeah.” Eduardo strips off his shirt, hooking it over the doorknob, and digs through Mark’s drawers for a clean one. His back is turned, showing the stark line of his spine. Mark’s mouth is dry; he looks away.
“I wouldn’t change it. If all the variables where the same, I don’t think-“
“I know, Mark,” Eduardo says, sounding tired but not incredibly angry. “I know.”
~
Mark codes in his room, away from everyone except Eduardo, away from the noise and the chatter and the probably underage girls, the booze, the drugs, everything.
It should help him wire in, but it doesn’t. Nothing really helps, not Red Bull or Red Vines or lots of sleep.
Next to him, Eduardo is leaning back against the headboard, reading. Mark watches him out of the corner of his eyes. His book is in English, but the words are blurry. His eyes are gritty, exhausted, and the fourth time he yawns, Eduardo gets up.
“What are you doing?” Mark asks, frowning.
Eduardo tucks his book into his bag. “I have to freeze the accounts tomorrow.”
“I. You don’t have to.”
Eduardo sighs, and runs his hands through his hair. It’s already a mess, flat in some parts, sticking up in others, and he says You want investors, I’ll get you investors, just don’t. Do this, Mark. Don’t-
Mark has enough experience by now to tell a memory from real life, but it helps that Eduardo turns to him, looking exhausted, dark circles under his eyes, and says, “We’re doing everything the same, remember?”
Mark bites his lip, holding back the do we have to petulant and too revealing, and also because it’s their best bet. He’s sure of that.
He nods and turns back to his computer before Eduardo slips out the door.
~
“You’re a dick and I’m pissed at you for freezing the accounts,” Mark says flatly.
“Objectively speaking, you can't really blame me for missing any underlying meaning in this conversation. I'm exhausted, and pissed, and terrified and Christy just set the bed on fire. Also. You rarely speak in code, and I never expected these levels of manipulation from you.”
“You need to fly out so I can kick you out of the company.” A beat, then: “I wouldn't set your bed on fire.”
~
Eduardo files the suit, just like he’s done however many times before - he’s getting served, he’s staring over a deposition table at his best friend and his dark eyes, dark circles, there’s ink on his fingers when he’s about to sign a different sort of paper, not his legal pad, yellow paper and covered in meaningless doodles.
White, crisp, straight lines, like code, and –
Mark fights the spin in the room, the blur in his eyes, the lurch of his stomach. He curls his fingers into fists, holding the pen tight between his fingers. It’s almost painful; he wonders if he could snap it with just a little more pressure. There are teeth marks on the bottom from where he’s chewed on it. He runs the pad of his thumb over it once, twice.
The pen clatters on the table; Mark looks up and meets Eduardo’s eyes and he can’t breathe.
He shoves away, pulling away from his lawyers’ hands, disapproving glares, the protests from around the table.
“Jesus, Mark,” Eduardo says, but Mark walks right out of the room. He fights the blur in his vision, blinking through the fisheyed distortion, and when he gets to the bathroom, he’s seeing double in the mirror. He’s pale and drawn, exhausted, and –
And Eduardo grabs his wrist. Everything comes back into focus. There’s only one of him in the mirror, only one of him in the room.
This is here, this is now, and Mark feels anchored.
“What is your problem?” Eduardo says, practically spitting it.
“I don’t want to sign it.”
“You don’t want to sign it.”
“No. This is pointless.”
Eduardo throws his hands up, letting go of Mark’s wrist, but he takes it again when everything blurs. “We did this because you wanted to. You wanted this, Mark. You said, ‘what can it hurt,’ and I’ve always had a really hard time saying no to you. You always knew that and I always- even though I don’t want it, I always do it. You’re- “
“What do you want?” Mark says. He’s angry, bright and burning,
“What do I want? Mark you don’t care about what I want,” Eduardo says, tightening his fingers. “I gave you everything, Mark, and it means nothing to you. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what’s going on in your head.”
“I want- You didn’t come to California,” Mark says.
“California.” Eduardo stares at him, and then he lets go, the world blurring a little around the edges. They’re close now. Mark thinks he can actually sense the reset coming.
“California,” Eduardo says, words sounding stretched. “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious,” Mark says. “I needed you here, and you-“
Eduardo curls his hand into a fist. Mark tenses, waiting for the blow, remembering a time that isn’t real anymore, a loop when Eduardo did hit Sean, laid him flat in the bullpen of Facebook and walked away –
Eduardo kisses him.
Mark stands there, still, for a second, but then he makes a sound, a hideously embarrassing sound. He tilts his head back. Eduardo cradles the back of his scalp, carding his fingers through Mark’s hair, thumb rubbing meaningful circles behind Mark’s ear.
The kiss slows until it’s just the press of Eduardo’s mouth against his, until he pulls away altogether, still holding Mark’s face in his hands. Mark tilts his head, tries to get more, but Eduardo pulls away, pushing Mark back.
“I went to California,” he says. “It was the eight- ninth time. I did everything right. Gave you the money. Investment instead of ads, everything you wanted, and then, we even-“ Eduardo stops, runs his thumb over Mark’s lower lip.
“You stole my company on the ninth time,” Mark says.
“I didn’t tell you about this. Why would I tell you about this? We even. I did everything right and you still-“ Eduardo backs away. He lets go of Mark. Everything gets cold, blurred, distant. “I don’t even know how you did it. Legally, I mean. I had Gretchen look over everything before I signed it, there weren’t any loopholes. And-“
“Wardo.”
“I can’t. Go to California, Mark. I can’t do that again. Do you have any idea what it’s like, to give you everything I have and it’s still not enough?” His eyes are dark, and Mark’s mouth is dry, rush of blood loud in his ears. Eduardo says, “I stopped caring that you- I stopped- I can’t do that again. I can’t.”
The door opens. It’s Sy. He looks between them, pissed.
“We shouldn’t be talking,” Eduardo says, stepping back even more. “Just sign the papers, Mark.”
~
Mark doodles in his legal pad, writing half-assed lines of code. He doesn't remember what it's like to be wired in, to feel the clack of keys under his fingers rather than hear them, with only the slow, steady beat of his heart as a marker of time.
He can't look up.
But he does, and Eduardo, Eduardo-
Mark wakes up in bright light.
Part Four
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Date: 2011-09-27 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-27 11:02 pm (UTC)