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fuzzy_paintTitle: All Our Errors On Repeat 4/5
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.
Mark’s brain feels charred, scarred raw, his mouth tastes awful, and there’s a ringing, right in the middle of his temple.
It takes him a moment to place it. It’s not his brain. It’s his phone.
He reaches for it, knocking something to the ground in the process. There’s a loud clatter, the sound of something cracking, the sound of a laptop smashed against a desk, but Mark ignores everything except his phone, staring at the screen.
Wardo.
He thinks about letting it ring, letting the voice mail pick up, hitting ignore; Eduardo can leave a message if it’s that important, but Mark drops his head back on his pillow. He closes his eyes and answers the phone.
“I’m leaving,” Eduardo says, wavering like he’s demanding a question, like Mark is his boss - which, in a manner of speaking, he is, was, and Eduardo doesn't care.
Mark feels too raw to protest.
“Where are you going?” A pause, silence, and Mark frowns. He rubs the grit from his eyes. His vision is blurred and unfocused and he thinks he’s seeing double, but he can’t quite tell. “I'll find out anyway,” he says, shifting into a more comfortable position.
Eduardo sighs, and Mark can hear him thinking over the silence.
Finally, he says, “Singapore, I think. New York first and then. Yeah.”
“Okay.” Mark lays his forearm over his eyes. He’s so tired. “Okay.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says, quiet, and Mark presses his phone tight against his ear, skin sweaty and flushed, holding it there long after Eduardo hangs up.
~
Three months.
They average three months, providing Mark codes Facebook and Eduardo gives him the startup cash, sliding that nondescript manila envelope under his door. Three months, renting the servers to going live, and then Mark’s world starts to blur around him, sometimes only a little, in the corners of his eyes, and sometimes it’s so bad everything turns into colored blobs.
Each time they start over, Mark wakes up the sunlight and Eduardo's stupid algorithm and hours upon hours of empty code locked in his head, most of it hidden even from himself.
It's not horrible. It could be worse. Mark does other things in this spare time - his hours and hours of spare time. He hangs out with Dustin and Chris and sometimes Sean, working through the idea of apps that Facebook could one day support, if they ever get out of this, if Mark ever wakes up and doesn't see black marker on his window. He pushes through his CS problem sets, the ones he started to ignore the first time around, when Facebook was everything, when he lived and breathed the code, reworking it in his brain even when he was asleep.
He doesn’t do that much now.
Dustin and Chris usually avoid the subject of Eduardo, and Mark is learning how to get them off track and keep them there. He's never felt the need to explain anything to anyone before, not his actions, not FaceMash, and not the dilution, and it's just easier, not having the need to figure out a way to talk about this.
But he thinks about it.
He thinks about it, when his fingers idle on the keyboard, when he can’t even make himself turn on his computer, sitting on his bed and wondering how long it's been going on, this thing - he won't name it even though it’s there, always in his head where code should be - about Eduardo.
Sometimes, usually when he’s peeled open and raw, right after waking up to sunlight that is too bright, Mark closes his eyes and tries to pick apart the memories. It’s not like he can just pull them up whenever he wants to – he’s never really wanted to before – but there are flashes of moments, of Eduardo looking at him, smiling or laughing or simply just looking. Like he’s happy, amused, some emotion Mark’s never seen on Eduardo’s face before.
The last one, the one he can’t identify, usually makes Mark’s mouth go dry. This is when he rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and lays back down, twisting so the sunlight is out of his face, vowing to code later.
Sleep fights him.
“Lunch?” Chris says, a few hours later, and Mark thinks about burrowing under the covers, pulling his pillow over his head, but he gets to his feet, untangling himself from his sheets.
He gets to his feet and he follows Chris out of their dorm, bleary-eyed and mostly silent the entire way.
Dustin’s already in the cafeteria, meal half eaten. He has one of his textbooks open on the table next to his tray, but he’s paying more attention to his phone then to his homework. He looks up, grinning, when they join him.
“Eduardo’s gone,” Mark says, prompt, like he always does when he comes to lunch with them on the first day. He sets his own tray down and starts to eat. Slowly, though, pushing it around for a long moment. His lunch might smell good, but his stomach is still twisted up in knots, still uneasy and waiting for the world to blur.
Chris looks up sharply. “What?”
“He had an opportunity in New York,” Mark says. “He went after it.”
“Doing what?”
Mark shrugs. He starts picking apart his bread. He’d rather not have this conversation, but it’s easier when they find out from him and not some other source. This way, they won’t nag, and Mark can ignore it a whole lot easier.
He’s half listening to them when the topic shifts, trying to think more about code than anything else. By now, Dustin and Chris have to be used to how distracted he is. It’s his default setting. They know that.
It’s Mark that’s forgotten.
Mark doesn’t leave the cafeteria until Chris and Dustin do, even though he’s lost the thread of their conversation a long time ago.
~
He's in a bookstore, wandering around the aisles aimlessly. He's never had the urge before, and he doesn't want it now. He misses focus. The books are all in neat rows, which Mark likes. Their covers are shiny, reflecting the bright lights from above. He's in the history section - World War II - but the only books he's really interested in would be under fiction.
Science fiction. Fantasy, maybe. He can't bring himself to go over there. There won't be answers, just more impossibilities that won't work. More questions than anything.
He turns the corner; the languages section is only two rows down.
They see each other at the same time.
"Erica," he says. She's frowning, holding a book. He can't see the title, but it's a paperback, with a blue matte cover. She's about as happy to see him now as she was that night with Christy and Alice.
"Mark."
He hasn't really thought about her lately, or at all really, too caught up in reliving days he's already suffered through. Facebook too, and. And Eduardo.
She starts to leave, push past him and continue on her way.
"I'm sorry," Mark says, surprising himself.
Her face doesn't soften, but she does pause, half turned away.
He shrugs, tucking his hand in one of his jean pockets. "You should be proud of that. Not many people get an apology from me."
Erica crosses her arms. It should look awkward or defensive, especially with the book she's still holding, but it's hostile. Even Mark can read that. "For showing a bit of humanity that's secondhand to most people?"
"I was drunk and angry," he says. "And stupid. I don't always. I'm not a nice person."
“No, Mark, you’re not.”
He blinks, but not at her. He’s at a deposition table, but this time Eduardo is sitting next to him. He doesn’t say anything, but Mark feels the gut punch of Eduardo’s shock, the loss when the hand on his knee suddenly feels heavy and then slides away.
He’s always known that, played the asshole when he didn’t have to, and he. He thinks about Eduardo. He always thinks about Eduardo. The memories are about him; which is ridiculous and statistically improbable because Eduardo never came to California. Post the point that Mark left Boston, he only saw Eduardo a very slim percentage of the time.
The memories of Dustin and Chris and Sean are faint, easily ignored, rarer and less demanding of his attention. He doesn’t know why. It’s starting to piss him off.
“If it makes you feel any better, you should know that it's going to cost me millions of dollars," Mark says. Hidden in his pocket, he cracks one of his knuckles. "And lots of shares in my company in a few years.”
“What?”
“People are probably going to sue me, and.” He shrugs. “Likability.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erica says, exasperated. "I'm glad you're showing signs of maturity. I really am, Mark, but I have to go."
Mark watches her go, feeling curious. He wonders what it would have been like to go through this with someone else, anyone else.
~
A lot less dramatic, he thinks. A lot less like being kicked in the chest every time he wakes up. A lot less like losing everything, losing Facebook and Eduardo both.
Epiphanies suck.
~
This time, when the world resets around him, Mark isn't sick. His stomach stays steady, but his head hurts, throbbing insistently in his temple, matching the beat of his heart. He pulls the shades, hiding the algorithm, and sits in the dark for a while, head resting against the cool plaster on the wall.
When he gets up, finally, an indeterminable time later, he pauses at his desk, fingers lingering on the power button of his monitor. He fits his feet into his flip-flops instead and heads for the door.
Eduardo is on the other side, holding that manila envelope of his.
Mark holds onto the doorknob, like it will steady him. "I didn't plan this," he says, feeling ridiculous and hating it. "This wasn't on purpose."
Eduardo nods. He holds out the envelope. Mark stares at it before he takes it. It feels heavier than normal, which is illogical. It's in his head. It's probably his headache, playing tricks on his perceptions.
"When did you find out?" he says, eyes fixed firmly on the clasps that hold the flap down. They're crooked, haphazardly folded.
He raises his eyebrows. Mark clears his throat. Clarity might get him the answer he wants, but Mark finds that he can't speak.
Eduardo puts his hands in the pocket of his coat. "You were being sued by the Winklevosses," he says. Mark has no idea how he made the connection. "Their lawyers had the papers. Somehow. It was a tactic to degrade your character."
"I guess it worked," Mark says. "Though I think I would have preferred the farm animals."
Eduardo snorts; Mark looks up in time to catch the hint of amusement around his mouth, but it's gone soon after.
“You’re leaving again?” It’s a needless question, completely unnecessary, and Mark bites the inside of his cheek to contain himself. He doesn’t know when he started to feel that silence needed to be filled.
“I’ll come back,” Eduardo says, gentle in a way Mark hasn’t heard in a long time. Eduardo’s gaze flits away, and Mark realizes how tired Eduardo looks. How tired Mark feels, drained like he hasn’t slept in days.
Eduardo seems to take Mark’s silence as disbelief, or an accusation. “Eventually,” he says. “Leaving is worse than staying.”
Mark nods; he says nothing as Eduardo walks away. Then he shuts the door behind him, dropping the envelope on the floor.
~
Mark crashes Google, twice.
After the first time, he holds his pillow to his face, breathing heavily, fighting the well of panic in his chest. Now he knows: it’s just Facebook he can’t code.
He can't wire in, but he can code when he forces it, except when it comes to Facebook.
It takes him longer the second time, almost the full three months. The third time, he’s barely finishing the final few lines of code on the program he’s written, completely new, fresh, and his vision blurs, until he can’t see his own fingers, until the world smears and then he can’t even feel them at all.
Mark starts hanging a sheet over his window, every night, so when he wakes up, he'll know. Dark or light, has he started over?
Mark learns Japanese.
He looks into islands for sale, just because.
Buying a girlfriend is technically illegal, mostly a hassle, and Mark doesn’t have the money. Finding one is even less appealing; he’s not interested in doing all that work only to have to do it all over again in case he actually likes her.
Or him, apparently.
Mark has no time for ninety percent of the people he meets, so.
He takes classes in physics and business and literature; half the time, he leaves early, annoyed, irritated. When he doesn’t, he’s barely paying attention. He’s frustrated.
Mark picks up a book on learning Russian at the bookstore - he’s not trying to run into Erica, but it wouldn’t be so bad to see her again. Back at his dorm, he decides that he’s being too sentimental; he lets it collect dust in the corner of his room.
Each time, every single time, he codes Facebook slowly, in half hour increments, in ten minute time spans. Sometimes, he opens the code and does nothing at all, touching his keyboard only when his computer tries to hibernate.
And Eduardo leaves and he leaves and he leaves.
~
"It's about taking what you want," Sean says.
Mark plays with his drink. Appletini. If Sean’s noticed that Mark isn’t drinking anything, he hasn’t said. He never says.
"Not always," Mark says, thinking about waking up and waking up and waking up. Eduardo’s apartment is only ten minutes away. He’s not sure what he’s going to do, but Mark’s probably not going to go there. Not tonight, not with Sean’s buzzwords fresh in his mind, Facebook’s true potential trapped in his head.
Sean launches into another of his grand metaphorical tales because this Sean, this Sean isn't his Sean, isn't the Sean of Palo Alto who nudged Mark to bed because Wardo wasn't there to do it, who recognized when to push and when to back off, who understood more than Mark did about what it meant to cut Eduardo out.
Sometimes, Mark thinks they’re all different, each memory of everyone he knows, like they’re different because Mark‘s different. Mark remembers how pointless all of this is. He’s done it before. It’s always the same; everyone is always the same.
Mark only half listens to Sean’s story. Maybe he will go out to California this time, if he makes it that far. There's something jubilant about California, some energy that he’s been missing for ages, a countless number of loops that he’s done this, come out to New York, sat at this very table. Even the very idea of Palo Alto makes him sit a little straighter, itching for his computer.
It’s ultimately fruitless; Mark’s felt this dozens of times since he started remembering, and every time, every single time, it peters out as soon as he sits at his desk, fingers restlessly idle on his keyboard.
He could ask. He could say, what would you do?, but he already knows what Sean would say.
“I’m in love with him,” he says instead, just to see.
Sean stops mid grand gesture, raised arms a little awkward, suspended in the air like that. “…Roy Raymond?”
“No. Eduardo. My CFO. It’s complicated,” he says, straightforward about this even though Sean’s looking more than a little off-balance. “Or at least, I must have been once, and I think I remember being in love with him. Even if I don’t know if I am right now.”
“Uh-”
“I’m reliving the same few years. I know it’s pretty far-fetched, but it’s true. Four months from now I’ll open the front door and you’ll be there. After Dustin breaks the chimney.” Mark gets to his feet. “You put Facebook on two continents,” he says. “I really appreciate that. And you’re there when I needed Eduardo. I appreciate that as well.”
Sean’s looking a little shell-shocked, eyebrows up. Mark ignores it. “I don’t know how to get out of this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he says. It’s relieving, a little, to finally admit this, to the world, to himself, this thing that Eduardo’s known all along.
“Crazy genius,” Sean says. “Okay, not entirely what I was expecting, but-” He glances around, then he leans over the table. “Are you high? Because if that’s what you need to-”
“I’m killing Facebook,” Mark says. Then he clenches his teeth, grinding them a little. He doesn’t mean it, not really, because Facebook is as much a part of him as he is a part of it, but he says it again, “I’m killing it,” and he waits and waits and then -
Mark wakes up. Mark wakes up. Mark wakes up.
Persuading Larry to let him in has never worked for Mark in the past, so he takes his chances and waits outside. Eduardo has to come by eventually. He always lives in this building, and Mark knows he's in New York - though he's mostly stopped tracking Eduardo's movements except when he's drunk and alone in his dorm without Dustin and Chris to distract him. They’re the only thing that works, lately.
Pedestrians walk by with purpose, striding along with their lives while Mark watches, stagnant in his. Like everything else, like code and Facebook. It rarely goes live anymore. Three months is a long time and the party is lame. The guests are hugging the walls and making their excuses, leaving. It's not even eleven yet.
The party that never ends because it never gets past the first awkward hour anymore. This isn’t what he wanted to build. Facebook is supposed to be more than that; Mark is supposed to be more than that.
It’s getting late, night starting to settle, but Eduardo sees him right away, even in the glare of artificial lights. His shoulders tense, and he glances toward his door. Eduardo sighs, visible all the way from Mark's location, and then he jerks his head toward the sleek glass doors. After a moment, Mark follows him.
Larry gives him a very obvious perusal over the dip in his newspaper, but he says nothing. Not his job, of course.
The entire elevator ride is silent except for the ding each time they pass a floor. Mark leans against the back wall; Eduardo stands toward the front. His reflection in the doors is blurred slightly, from a distortion in the metal or the way the light hits it.
It’s like another world, this Eduardo whose face is obscure, hidden away, like a secret Mark’s never going to get to know.
Mark scowls and looks away, down to his feet. He’s being ridiculous. This thing has made him ridiculous.
He tucks his hands in his pockets and keeps his mouth shut until Eduardo lets them in. "You like this place," he says.
Eduardo shrugs, dropping his keys in a dish on a table by the door. "I like the view." He pulls off his coat, a thick woolen thing, and hangs it in the closet. "And it comes furnished."
Eduardo crosses over to the kitchen; Mark follows, watching as he digs out a tray of ice cubes, popping a few out and dropping them into a glass, a sharp clink each time he adds one.
"You want one?" Eduardo says. The bottle's label is obscured by his hand; it's a dark liquid, brown-red, and Mark shakes his head. Eduardo pours himself some, and then he takes the glass and goes to stand in front of the windows. He sticks his free hand in one of his pockets.
Mark leans against the window next to him. He lets his eyes linger on Eduardo's profile; then he turns his gaze toward the room when Eduardo drinks. It's the same as the last time Mark was here, the clean sharp lines of the furniture, free of clutter. There isn’t a mess of papers on the coffee table, but there are dishes in the sink.
Despite that - and Mark’s admittedly limited knowledge of home decor - it feels hollow, empty. Sterile. Nothing grows here, not ideas, not greatness. It’s middling, despite the view.
"Why do you keep coming back here?"
"It's always vacant," Eduardo says. "And it's familiar. I like that about it."
"So much for changing things," Mark says. “Or not changing them.”
It almost earns him a smile, but Eduardo drinks, and any trace of it disappears.
He has no idea what’s going on in Eduardo’s head or why he let him up here when Mark’s only been in this apartment once that he remembers; Mark almost sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket, but then he pushes up his sleeves instead, fidgeting as the silence gets longer.
Outside, it starts raining.
"You can wire in if you want," Eduardo says suddenly. Mark follows the gesture to the hallway. "My computer's probably crap, but you only really need a keyboard, right?"
His eyes stay on the dark pit of the hallway for a beat, two. It offers no sympathy, no inspiration.
Mark puts his hand on Eduardo’s glass. Eduardo lets him take it without struggling. Mark drinks, and then takes another one to chase the burn. Then he curls inward, just a bit, resting the glass against the middle of his chest.
When he speaks, it's hoarse, and he isn't looking at Eduardo. He can't. But he curls his fingers in the pocket of Eduardo’s slacks, knuckles resting against his hipbone. "I can't wire in," he says. "I haven't been able to- It's been a long time. I think. Since I started remembering."
Mark’s heart thuds twice against his chest; Eduardo just looks at him for a long moment. Then he takes the glass back and finishes it. He sets it on the nearest surface, a bookshelf. He cups Mark’s face with one hand. Face burning, Mark tilts his head back, heart in his throat.
Eduardo’s thumb traces over Mark’s cheekbone. Once, twice, and pauses halfway through a third. Then he lets his hand drop; he pulls away. He gets another drink.
Mark tips his head back against the window, listening to the patter of rain against the glass behind him.
Eduardo comes back and stands near him; his eyes are focused on the outside, away from Mark.
He could reach out and touch him. He could, maybe.
But he doesn’t.
~
Mark hasn't slept. He's sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. It's darker in the hallway, except for the glow of the city creeping in from the outer room and the light shining under the crack of Eduardo's bedroom door.
He thinks about knocking. He balls his hand into a fist like he's preparing to do just that, and maybe Eduardo will look at him with eyes that aren't tired or flat, and maybe he'll step aside and let Mark in. Maybe he'll pull Mark in, a honeyed invitation on the curve of his mouth. Or maybe he'll sigh and run his fingers through his hair, and he'll tell Mark to go back to bed.
Mark stays where he is, knees drawn up to his chest, thinking about Eduardo's elbows. It's a memory, or a fantasy, and Mark hasn't slept more than a few hours in the past three or four days. He can't tell them apart anymore, reality and what he wants.
When he does get up, it's to go into the kitchen, away from Eduardo's door, and open the fridge. He's not hungry, but he stands there, staring blindly into it, cool air numbing him.
He's supposed to meet Sean tomorrow, go for drinks and the Sean Parker Variety Hour, and he's never minded before. Sean's a fuck up, sure, but he's good for Facebook. He's good for the only thing that works out in Mark's life, and sometimes, meeting Sean makes everything feel like it's stretching out to accommodate his presence in Mark's life, in Mark's company, and it's longer before Mark wakes up feeling like his brain is smeared across the front of his skull.
He’s not sure if it’s an illusion or not.
In the morning, the smell of coffee wakes Mark up, coupled with the sun shining in through the windows. It's dimmed by clouds. His skin sticks to Eduardo's couch, damp with sweat. He's still in his jeans; they feel grimy and smell a little rank.
Eduardo is looking out over the city. He's already dressed in slacks and one of his shirts. He's not completely done up, immaculate like always, but it's close enough that he seems untouchable.
"Why do you even bother anymore?" Mark says. He rubs his chin, and then his eyes.
Eduardo shrugs, eyes fixed on the window. His hands are curved around a white ceramic mug, the cheap, impersonal kind from Target or Walmart.
Mark feels brittle and raw, and when he sees Eduardo, sleepy-eyed and sporting one of Mark's t-shirts, hair in impossibly ridiculous tufts, he closes his eyes until it fades away.
Eduardo’s still standing in front of the window when he opens them. "I'm supposed to meet Sean tonight," he says.
"I thought I was the one that never asked for what he wanted.”
"I don't want you to come with me," Mark says. He's not lying, either. It's easier, when Eduardo's not in the same room as Sean, when Mark doesn't have to deal with the hostility and sort out the memories from reality at the same time.
Eduardo nods. He still hasn't looked at Mark. It's stupid to want it, to want Eduardo's eyes and his smile when he's made it clear that Mark will never get either. But Eduardo has all the memories that Mark covets, the flashes of Eduardo lazing in the sun, of bleary eyed mornings, of shared triumph of creating their company.
Was that what it was like between them?
“So we got together.”
It’s fascinating the way Eduardo’s entire body stiffens. “Mark,” he says, like a warning, like a plea.
“We were together, and I cut you out.” He tugs on his jeans. The denim is rough against his skin, grimy and starting to smell. He shrugs, not looking up. “I always cut you out. You’ve said it yourself. That’s just the way it is.”
Eduardo makes a noise, an incredulous sound.
Mark pushes to his feet, glaring. Eduardo hasn’t turned around.
“I was protecting Facebook.”
“Why do we always talk about this?” Eduardo asks the window and not Mark, tired and annoyed.
“We’ve never had this conversation.”
“We always have this conversation. This is the only conversation we ever have anymore.”
“You seem pretty hung up on it-”
“I’m not the one bringing it up. Think that should tell you something.”
“You want me to apologize? I don’t think that’s going to get us out of this.”
“No Mark, I don’t want your apology.” Eduardo finally turns around. He looks tired, dark smudges under his eyes, and surprisingly, jerking Mark awake, a little angry. “I was your best friend. Your best friend. I thought that counted for something at least. But it never does with you, does it?”
“I was protecting our company-”
“I was in love with you.” He laughs, short and sharp. “You know what gets me? I wasn’t the first time. You were my friend, but I didn’t love you then. And then this happened, and then it happened again, and then I was,” he says. He tips his head back against the glass; he’s still holding that white mug. It’s real and it’s not, the look on his face, the same one he wore in the handful of days before the settlement. Each time. Every time. “Then I was.” He straightens, drinks from his mug, and then sets it next to his glass from last night, still on the bookshelf. “I have a meeting,” he says.
“A meeting. You’re going to a meeting.”
Eduardo sighs, rubbing his forehead. “What am I supposed to do? I tried sticking around, I tried leaving; I gave you everything. I gave you nothing. I don’t know how to fix this, and neither do you, Mark. I want to get out of this, but I don’t know if I care anymore.” He hesitates, eyes focused on some invisible spot on the wall. “I don’t know if I care anymore.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Eduardo shakes his head, eyes closed. “You can show yourself out,” he says, picking his keys out of that bowl by the door. “Or stay, I guess. I’m leaving in the morning.”
Then he’s gone.
~
Mark returns to Harvard - he wakes up in Kirkland and bright sunlight - and lets Dustin pull him out of the dorm to AEPi parties. Mark drinks, but blurry staggering drunkenness reminds him too much of when the world resets and resets and resets again, so he only lets it get that far when it’s really bad, when he only makes it days, sometimes only hours like the last time.
But he drinks, something cloyingly sweet and unidentifiable, and he blames the alcohol hidden in the punch, he blames the irritating loop of Niagara Falls though it’s not that party at all.
"We are going to have an awkward conversation," he says when they get back to the dorm. Chris is at home for the weekend; Mark supposes he's always gone home this weekend, but he's never really noticed before.
Dustin eyes him warily, but he sits down next to Mark on the couch, a good foot between them. They both stare at the black screen of the TV.
"He thinks we need emotional distance," Mark says. His fingers dig into his knees. He tries to relax them, rubbing his palms over his jeans.
"What," Dustin says. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Eduardo." Mark says. "Like it's my fault. I'm not the one with the excess emotions. I'm not the one that has the issues. I can't even remember what happened. Maybe he's, what if he's lying about it?"
"Lying about what?"
“I wanted him to be part of this company,” Mark says. “CFO. I knew I need the money, and I could have gotten it from anyone else, but Wardo's my best friend."
Turning his head was a mistake. Dustin blinks at him, bleary, and then he grins, that slow awful grin that tells Mark he's going to regret this. Not that he isn’t already; spilling his guts is not how he would chose to spend an evening, but he’s drunk enough.
"He's the CFO of your heart."
"I hate you," Mark says flatly. "I hate you so much."
Dustin snorts, shifting down to rest his head against the back of the couch. He tilts his head up, grinning brightly. In contrast, Mark hunches down, rounding his shoulders. He wishes he'd taken more of that too sweet alcohol from the party, snuck it back to the dorm somehow. Or they hadn't pre-gamed the last of the beer from the fridge before leaving earlier.
Dustin's knee knocks against his, just once, and lightly.
Mark frowns and shifts away.
"You know it's okay, right?" Dustin says earnestly. "I don't care. It's totally cool that you're into dudes."
Mark gets off the couch and locks himself in his room.
~
If being at Harvard is like sleepwalking through life, California is almost like waking up. Mark sits in front of his computer and he actually codes. It’s slow, and frustrating, and often feels like he’s not getting anything done, but he codes.
There’s so much to catch up on, so many things to do. He’s hired an extra intern, right from the start, and if anyone thinks it’s weird or not the way it should be, they’re not here to comment.
He forces himself to stay at it; it doesn’t always work, thoughts drifting, slipping away from him all the time, but sometimes. Sometimes it does, sometimes he looks up and it’s been an hour, maybe two, and he didn’t even realize it. Sometimes, it’s almost like wiring in.
It’s not wiring in. It’s time loss, and that’s not what he misses. He’s supposed to be more focused than anything when he’s wired in; he’s supposed to remember the lines of code that he’s using to build something great, piece together the half-formed ideas in his head through letters and symbols, but it’s a blur, all of it, a fog in his brain obscuring his own mind.
Mid-summer, he’s halfway through a line of code, innocuous, stupid, meaningless all by itself, and he’s hit with that strong, angry sense of déjà vu.
He makes a disgusted noise, pulling his hands away.
Dustin gives him worried eyes from the other side of the kitchen table, a nearly empty bowl of Cocoa Puffs in front of him. The chocolate dust rims the inside; the left over milk has turned brown.
Mark pushes his computer across the table and pillows his head on his arms, nose pressed against the corner of his elbow.
“This Eduardo thing’s really got you busted up. I knew you were close, but-“
“I don’t need you playing Yenta,” Mark says, muffled by the curve of his arm. They’ve had this conversation before. Probably not this timeline, though; he’s having a hard time keeping them straight lately, all blurring together. Inevitably, none of them actually mean anything anyway. Except when he forgets that Dustin is a meddling jerk. He presses his face further into his elbow. Then he adds, “You’re worse than my mother.”
“I like your mother,” Dustin says. He nudges Mark’s foot under the table. “It’s cool, you know. I’m totally here for you.”
Mark can tell he’s grinning, just from the sound of his voice. He gets up, ignoring the long loud scrap of his chair against the floor, and takes his computer to his room, shutting the door behind him.
He plays solitaire for a bit, losing more often than not; he’s not paying attention, thinking about writing code until it’s late, well into the night. His eyes feel like they’re burning, gritty with exhaustion. In the dark, his hand finds his phone. He winces against the light of his screen, too bright when the only other light comes from the crack under the door.
After dialing, he holds it to his ear; he closes his eyes and waits.
“You think it’s a constant?”
He hears a shuffling noise, then: “Mark, it’s three am,” Eduardo says.
“Do you think it’s something that needs to happen? You always make a lot of money. I always cut you out even if it’s over tuna.”
Eduardo sighs and for a long time, nothing fills the silence between them.
His eyes drift shut; his breathing evens out.
“You wouldn’t change it,” Eduardo says. Mark jerks awake, sitting up and rubbing his forehead. “You wouldn’t no matter what.”
“I know that,” Mark says, because it’s the truth. He shifts on his back, resting his free hand on his stomach, waiting for Eduardo to break the silence again.
He’s so tired.
“You thought it was best,” Eduardo says, sounding as worn out as Mark feels. “I don’t know why I was so convinced New York was the right thing, why I wouldn’t come out the first time. But I was and you- in your own way, you thought it was best.”
“I was protecting Facebook. But Wardo, I wanted you with me. The first time, I wanted-” It’s easier than he thought it would be, darkness shielding him from the reality of what he’s doing, a thing he’s said many times before but feels like too much of a confession now. “And you. You didn’t listen.”
“No,” Eduardo says. “No, I didn’t.”
He remembers: a hallway, bad lighting, and yellow staining the walls. Yelling an d the sense that they’re not having the same conversation at all. Mark’s used to that. He’s used to having two, sometimes three, different conversations with other people. Most can’t keep up, but Eduardo did better than anyone - or maybe Mark took more time to let Eduardo catch up, figure it out.
Mark tightens his grip on the phone. “How long do you think we can keep doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark closes his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
“Yeah. More or less.”
“This is stupid,” Mark says. “I want you out here.”
“Mark-” Eduardo sighs.
“I want you out here. Eduardo, I.” Mark closes his eyes, remembers looking at his feet, a Red Vine in his hand, saying this: “Eduardo, I need you.”
“You don’t.” Eduardo sighs again. The corner of Mark’s mouth slides down. “You never did. That’s the problem.”
“I think you’re scared. This is too much for you, isn’t it?” Then, helplessly, pitifully - but he’s exhausted enough, feeling punch-drunk enough. He’ll hate himself in the morning, embarrassed and horrified; Mark knows this, but right now it doesn’t matter. “This isn’t about Facebook,” he says, words thick in his throat. “Come out. I want you to come out. You can- you can read me Russian poetry, and I’ll-” He manages to swallow the rest of the sentence, stop himself from offering morning blowjobs and -
What is wrong with him?
There’s nothing but the deafening silence, and Mark wonders when Eduardo started saying now. Or if he’s been saying no all along and Mark just never paid enough attention to realize it.
“Mark,” Eduardo says. “Don’t. Don’t do this to me.”
Mark frowns, tight line of his mouth. He hangs up and drops his phone by his bedside table and goes to get his computer. He’s standing in the middle of his room, holding it - it’s the same make as the one Eduardo broke, the same exact computer - and his room is suddenly too small.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Dustin says, frowning. His empty bowl has been pushed to the side, computer open in front of him.
“I had an idea,” Mark says, short, but when he sits down and opens his computer, there’s nothing.
He doesn’t code.
~
He spends days out by the pool, wearing ridiculous sunglasses that make him think of Eduardo - long tan limbs sprawled out on the grass, arm crooked over his eyes, mouth curved up, headphones blocking out the sound of Mark’s fingers on his keyboard - and generally avoiding everyone.
Sean Parker sets up a meeting with Peter Thiel. Mark can’t find any enthusiasm for it; California has lost its zeal, its drive: the entire reason for even coming out here in the first place.
But then, most people don’t expect much excitement from him anyway, so they thankfully don’t make that big of deal about it. They let him sink into his code as best he can.
The first time, he remembers that, how awesome the possibility of an angel investment felt, like watching the site go live for the first time, Eduardo’s eyes bright even though he didn’t understand any of it - Mark hadn’t realized that then, and now, when Eduardo does, when Eduardo knows code, and probably gets it better than ever, well.
Mark’s not used to actively dwelling on anything. So when Sean comes to him, when Peter Thiel asks about Eduardo, Mark nods, listening.
“He’s not here for the company,” Sean says, slouched in his seat, wrist braced at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel. “I’m not saying that you should do it, Mark. I’m saying you should think about it.”
Mark says nothing, staring out the window.
“Hey, I’ve never even met the guy. And yeah, it kinda sucks, but he’s not-”
He’s feeling belligerent, stubborn, angry. He thinks about a time when he said, “I’m in love with him,” and Sean stumbled for a way around the awkward confession in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
“He’s my best friend,” he says instead, eyes on the traffic on his side of Sean’s car.
“I know, buddy. But you can’t let that cloud your business decisions. You asked him to come out, didn’t you? Where the hell is he?”
Mark shrugs.
~
He could call Eduardo. He could tell him that he’s being kicked out, that Sean’s pretty insistent about this, and Sean’s here, so.
It’s mostly a lie; it was always Mark’s decision.
And what would it matter, anyway? It’s not going to change a thing. Eduardo would probably sigh and ask, why are you telling me this?
And he’s not going to call Eduardo again; Mark’s over doing anything that mortifyingly humiliating again.
So he drinks. He drinks and he eats ridiculous amounts of sugar; he mixes the two of them together, a foul tasting beverage that sours in his stomach. It makes his world go blurry, like right before it starts to shift, return to that algorithm and the sunlight. It cuts through his skull like knives, like the hangover he’s going to have tomorrow.
In the morning, afternoon, whatever, Mark wakes up hung over and still pissed. He glares at both interns in the kitchen. They fade away, silent, except for when Eric trips over some dirty clothes on the floor and hits his hip against the edge of the table, nearly knocking Sean’s coffee out of his hands.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Sean says. He grins over his mug. It probably isn’t full of just coffee.
Mark scowls. He yanks open one of the cupboard doors, letting it bang loudly, and digs out the Cocoa Puffs. They’re Dustin’s - the black sharpie says 'touch on pain of death' - but Mark’s the only one with access to the Eduardo Saverin Foundation, so.
He eats the cereal right from the box, sticking his hand in and shoving whatever he can pull out into his mouth.
“Gross, man,” Dustin says, walking in from the hallway. “I don’t know where your hands have been.”
“Yeah. You probably don’t want to eat from that anymore.”
Mark drops the cereal box. It's visceral, the sudden shock, and it's like the first time, but only stronger, heart beating right into his chest.
“Hey,” Eduardo says, carefully neutral.
“I,” Mark says. “When-”
Eduardo hooks a thumb toward the door. “Just now.”
Mark nods.
Then he steps over the box on the floor, Cocoa Puffs crunching under his feet.
Eduardo tastes clean, like rainwater, even though he's completely dry. His mouth is warm, and the flash of a memory shows Mark what Eduardo’s tongue is like, licking at his lower lip, slipping inside.
Mark steps in closer, pulling Eduardo’s face down, tilting it for a better angle, and then Eduardo’s dufflebag slips from his shoulder, hitting Mark in the knee. Mark jerks and pulls away, and his heart feels like it’s going to jump out of his chest, break through his ribcage, and he wants. He wants-
“What,” Sean says, “just happened.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, you wanna talk to me alone for a minute, writing it off, ignoring the entire thing.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t.
He drops his bag on the floor. He steps forward.
He kisses Mark back, hands cupping his face, fingers slipping back into Mark’s hair.
“Mark and Wardo sitting in a tree,” Dustin sings, off-key and boisterous, laughing. Mark chases after Eduardo’s mouth when the kiss ends, but Eduardo holds him back. “Get a room, guys we don’t want to see that.”
Eduardo touches his mouth, thumb slipping over the edge of Mark’s lower lip. “Wanna talk to me alone for a minute?”
“Wait.” Sean says. “Seriously-”
Mark’s face heats, almost unbearably so, and he pulls Eduardo’s wrist, tugging him toward the hallway.
Dustin catcalls.
Mark kicks the door shut behind him and keeps moving toward his room, because if he stops, this is going to disappear, he’s going to wake up and it’s all going to be a dream, a memory of something he never had.
But Eduardo’s pressing up against him, hot against his back, hands curled around his hips. He walks them forward, shuffling, nose buried against Mark’s neck, the simple slide of his mouth on Mark’s skin.
He starts pulling up Mark’s shirt to get to his waist, finding the button on his jeans and working it open, easily because the buttonhole is worn and frayed.
“Wardo-” Mark says.
Eduardo pushes him to the bed, crawling after, straddling Mark’s thighs. He tugs his shirt over his head, not even pausing to care about his buttons, or any wrinkles, dropping it on the floor. Then he crawls over Mark, hands and knees and just looks down at him for a long moment, unreadable.
Mark reaches for him, jerks him down.
Making out with Wardo is possibly one of the best things ever. Mark could do this, Mark wants to do this. This is the sharp clarity he’s been missing for months - years? - and it’s almost the comfort of familiar, everything he needs.
Eduardo reaches between them, tugging at Mark’s zipper, straight to the goal. Mark’s too far gone to think about why Eduardo changed his mind, too eager to stop and think. He’s arching his hips, helping Eduardo pull his jeans off, untangle them from Mark’s legs.
Especially when Eduardo mouths at Mark’s neck, and then slides down over his collarbone, down his chest. He reaches Mark’s bellybutton the same time his hand palms Mark through his underwear; Mark jerks, his hipbone catches Eduardo in the chin.
Eduardo makes a sound, amused, turned on, something, and keeps going. His mouth slides over Mark’s stomach. Mark’s clutching the sheets, twisting his hips but Eduardo has him pinned, hands on his hips, holding him there.
Mark reaches for him, tangles his hand in Eduardo’s hair, soft and ridiculous as always. No product, but for a split second, he remembers it, having his hand in the thick strands, sticky from gel or whatever Eduardo uses. He remembers looking up in the bathroom and seeing the bottle.
His chest feels turned inside-out, the memory inlaying over reality.
“Wardo,” he says, “Wardo-“
Mark wakes up in Kirkland.
Part Five
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. Mark’s brain feels charred, scarred raw, his mouth tastes awful, and there’s a ringing, right in the middle of his temple.
It takes him a moment to place it. It’s not his brain. It’s his phone.
He reaches for it, knocking something to the ground in the process. There’s a loud clatter, the sound of something cracking, the sound of a laptop smashed against a desk, but Mark ignores everything except his phone, staring at the screen.
Wardo.
He thinks about letting it ring, letting the voice mail pick up, hitting ignore; Eduardo can leave a message if it’s that important, but Mark drops his head back on his pillow. He closes his eyes and answers the phone.
“I’m leaving,” Eduardo says, wavering like he’s demanding a question, like Mark is his boss - which, in a manner of speaking, he is, was, and Eduardo doesn't care.
Mark feels too raw to protest.
“Where are you going?” A pause, silence, and Mark frowns. He rubs the grit from his eyes. His vision is blurred and unfocused and he thinks he’s seeing double, but he can’t quite tell. “I'll find out anyway,” he says, shifting into a more comfortable position.
Eduardo sighs, and Mark can hear him thinking over the silence.
Finally, he says, “Singapore, I think. New York first and then. Yeah.”
“Okay.” Mark lays his forearm over his eyes. He’s so tired. “Okay.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo says, quiet, and Mark presses his phone tight against his ear, skin sweaty and flushed, holding it there long after Eduardo hangs up.
~
Three months.
They average three months, providing Mark codes Facebook and Eduardo gives him the startup cash, sliding that nondescript manila envelope under his door. Three months, renting the servers to going live, and then Mark’s world starts to blur around him, sometimes only a little, in the corners of his eyes, and sometimes it’s so bad everything turns into colored blobs.
Each time they start over, Mark wakes up the sunlight and Eduardo's stupid algorithm and hours upon hours of empty code locked in his head, most of it hidden even from himself.
It's not horrible. It could be worse. Mark does other things in this spare time - his hours and hours of spare time. He hangs out with Dustin and Chris and sometimes Sean, working through the idea of apps that Facebook could one day support, if they ever get out of this, if Mark ever wakes up and doesn't see black marker on his window. He pushes through his CS problem sets, the ones he started to ignore the first time around, when Facebook was everything, when he lived and breathed the code, reworking it in his brain even when he was asleep.
He doesn’t do that much now.
Dustin and Chris usually avoid the subject of Eduardo, and Mark is learning how to get them off track and keep them there. He's never felt the need to explain anything to anyone before, not his actions, not FaceMash, and not the dilution, and it's just easier, not having the need to figure out a way to talk about this.
But he thinks about it.
He thinks about it, when his fingers idle on the keyboard, when he can’t even make himself turn on his computer, sitting on his bed and wondering how long it's been going on, this thing - he won't name it even though it’s there, always in his head where code should be - about Eduardo.
Sometimes, usually when he’s peeled open and raw, right after waking up to sunlight that is too bright, Mark closes his eyes and tries to pick apart the memories. It’s not like he can just pull them up whenever he wants to – he’s never really wanted to before – but there are flashes of moments, of Eduardo looking at him, smiling or laughing or simply just looking. Like he’s happy, amused, some emotion Mark’s never seen on Eduardo’s face before.
The last one, the one he can’t identify, usually makes Mark’s mouth go dry. This is when he rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands and lays back down, twisting so the sunlight is out of his face, vowing to code later.
Sleep fights him.
“Lunch?” Chris says, a few hours later, and Mark thinks about burrowing under the covers, pulling his pillow over his head, but he gets to his feet, untangling himself from his sheets.
He gets to his feet and he follows Chris out of their dorm, bleary-eyed and mostly silent the entire way.
Dustin’s already in the cafeteria, meal half eaten. He has one of his textbooks open on the table next to his tray, but he’s paying more attention to his phone then to his homework. He looks up, grinning, when they join him.
“Eduardo’s gone,” Mark says, prompt, like he always does when he comes to lunch with them on the first day. He sets his own tray down and starts to eat. Slowly, though, pushing it around for a long moment. His lunch might smell good, but his stomach is still twisted up in knots, still uneasy and waiting for the world to blur.
Chris looks up sharply. “What?”
“He had an opportunity in New York,” Mark says. “He went after it.”
“Doing what?”
Mark shrugs. He starts picking apart his bread. He’d rather not have this conversation, but it’s easier when they find out from him and not some other source. This way, they won’t nag, and Mark can ignore it a whole lot easier.
He’s half listening to them when the topic shifts, trying to think more about code than anything else. By now, Dustin and Chris have to be used to how distracted he is. It’s his default setting. They know that.
It’s Mark that’s forgotten.
Mark doesn’t leave the cafeteria until Chris and Dustin do, even though he’s lost the thread of their conversation a long time ago.
~
He's in a bookstore, wandering around the aisles aimlessly. He's never had the urge before, and he doesn't want it now. He misses focus. The books are all in neat rows, which Mark likes. Their covers are shiny, reflecting the bright lights from above. He's in the history section - World War II - but the only books he's really interested in would be under fiction.
Science fiction. Fantasy, maybe. He can't bring himself to go over there. There won't be answers, just more impossibilities that won't work. More questions than anything.
He turns the corner; the languages section is only two rows down.
They see each other at the same time.
"Erica," he says. She's frowning, holding a book. He can't see the title, but it's a paperback, with a blue matte cover. She's about as happy to see him now as she was that night with Christy and Alice.
"Mark."
He hasn't really thought about her lately, or at all really, too caught up in reliving days he's already suffered through. Facebook too, and. And Eduardo.
She starts to leave, push past him and continue on her way.
"I'm sorry," Mark says, surprising himself.
Her face doesn't soften, but she does pause, half turned away.
He shrugs, tucking his hand in one of his jean pockets. "You should be proud of that. Not many people get an apology from me."
Erica crosses her arms. It should look awkward or defensive, especially with the book she's still holding, but it's hostile. Even Mark can read that. "For showing a bit of humanity that's secondhand to most people?"
"I was drunk and angry," he says. "And stupid. I don't always. I'm not a nice person."
“No, Mark, you’re not.”
He blinks, but not at her. He’s at a deposition table, but this time Eduardo is sitting next to him. He doesn’t say anything, but Mark feels the gut punch of Eduardo’s shock, the loss when the hand on his knee suddenly feels heavy and then slides away.
He’s always known that, played the asshole when he didn’t have to, and he. He thinks about Eduardo. He always thinks about Eduardo. The memories are about him; which is ridiculous and statistically improbable because Eduardo never came to California. Post the point that Mark left Boston, he only saw Eduardo a very slim percentage of the time.
The memories of Dustin and Chris and Sean are faint, easily ignored, rarer and less demanding of his attention. He doesn’t know why. It’s starting to piss him off.
“If it makes you feel any better, you should know that it's going to cost me millions of dollars," Mark says. Hidden in his pocket, he cracks one of his knuckles. "And lots of shares in my company in a few years.”
“What?”
“People are probably going to sue me, and.” He shrugs. “Likability.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erica says, exasperated. "I'm glad you're showing signs of maturity. I really am, Mark, but I have to go."
Mark watches her go, feeling curious. He wonders what it would have been like to go through this with someone else, anyone else.
~
A lot less dramatic, he thinks. A lot less like being kicked in the chest every time he wakes up. A lot less like losing everything, losing Facebook and Eduardo both.
Epiphanies suck.
~
This time, when the world resets around him, Mark isn't sick. His stomach stays steady, but his head hurts, throbbing insistently in his temple, matching the beat of his heart. He pulls the shades, hiding the algorithm, and sits in the dark for a while, head resting against the cool plaster on the wall.
When he gets up, finally, an indeterminable time later, he pauses at his desk, fingers lingering on the power button of his monitor. He fits his feet into his flip-flops instead and heads for the door.
Eduardo is on the other side, holding that manila envelope of his.
Mark holds onto the doorknob, like it will steady him. "I didn't plan this," he says, feeling ridiculous and hating it. "This wasn't on purpose."
Eduardo nods. He holds out the envelope. Mark stares at it before he takes it. It feels heavier than normal, which is illogical. It's in his head. It's probably his headache, playing tricks on his perceptions.
"When did you find out?" he says, eyes fixed firmly on the clasps that hold the flap down. They're crooked, haphazardly folded.
He raises his eyebrows. Mark clears his throat. Clarity might get him the answer he wants, but Mark finds that he can't speak.
Eduardo puts his hands in the pocket of his coat. "You were being sued by the Winklevosses," he says. Mark has no idea how he made the connection. "Their lawyers had the papers. Somehow. It was a tactic to degrade your character."
"I guess it worked," Mark says. "Though I think I would have preferred the farm animals."
Eduardo snorts; Mark looks up in time to catch the hint of amusement around his mouth, but it's gone soon after.
“You’re leaving again?” It’s a needless question, completely unnecessary, and Mark bites the inside of his cheek to contain himself. He doesn’t know when he started to feel that silence needed to be filled.
“I’ll come back,” Eduardo says, gentle in a way Mark hasn’t heard in a long time. Eduardo’s gaze flits away, and Mark realizes how tired Eduardo looks. How tired Mark feels, drained like he hasn’t slept in days.
Eduardo seems to take Mark’s silence as disbelief, or an accusation. “Eventually,” he says. “Leaving is worse than staying.”
Mark nods; he says nothing as Eduardo walks away. Then he shuts the door behind him, dropping the envelope on the floor.
~
Mark crashes Google, twice.
After the first time, he holds his pillow to his face, breathing heavily, fighting the well of panic in his chest. Now he knows: it’s just Facebook he can’t code.
He can't wire in, but he can code when he forces it, except when it comes to Facebook.
It takes him longer the second time, almost the full three months. The third time, he’s barely finishing the final few lines of code on the program he’s written, completely new, fresh, and his vision blurs, until he can’t see his own fingers, until the world smears and then he can’t even feel them at all.
Mark starts hanging a sheet over his window, every night, so when he wakes up, he'll know. Dark or light, has he started over?
Mark learns Japanese.
He looks into islands for sale, just because.
Buying a girlfriend is technically illegal, mostly a hassle, and Mark doesn’t have the money. Finding one is even less appealing; he’s not interested in doing all that work only to have to do it all over again in case he actually likes her.
Or him, apparently.
Mark has no time for ninety percent of the people he meets, so.
He takes classes in physics and business and literature; half the time, he leaves early, annoyed, irritated. When he doesn’t, he’s barely paying attention. He’s frustrated.
Mark picks up a book on learning Russian at the bookstore - he’s not trying to run into Erica, but it wouldn’t be so bad to see her again. Back at his dorm, he decides that he’s being too sentimental; he lets it collect dust in the corner of his room.
Each time, every single time, he codes Facebook slowly, in half hour increments, in ten minute time spans. Sometimes, he opens the code and does nothing at all, touching his keyboard only when his computer tries to hibernate.
And Eduardo leaves and he leaves and he leaves.
~
"It's about taking what you want," Sean says.
Mark plays with his drink. Appletini. If Sean’s noticed that Mark isn’t drinking anything, he hasn’t said. He never says.
"Not always," Mark says, thinking about waking up and waking up and waking up. Eduardo’s apartment is only ten minutes away. He’s not sure what he’s going to do, but Mark’s probably not going to go there. Not tonight, not with Sean’s buzzwords fresh in his mind, Facebook’s true potential trapped in his head.
Sean launches into another of his grand metaphorical tales because this Sean, this Sean isn't his Sean, isn't the Sean of Palo Alto who nudged Mark to bed because Wardo wasn't there to do it, who recognized when to push and when to back off, who understood more than Mark did about what it meant to cut Eduardo out.
Sometimes, Mark thinks they’re all different, each memory of everyone he knows, like they’re different because Mark‘s different. Mark remembers how pointless all of this is. He’s done it before. It’s always the same; everyone is always the same.
Mark only half listens to Sean’s story. Maybe he will go out to California this time, if he makes it that far. There's something jubilant about California, some energy that he’s been missing for ages, a countless number of loops that he’s done this, come out to New York, sat at this very table. Even the very idea of Palo Alto makes him sit a little straighter, itching for his computer.
It’s ultimately fruitless; Mark’s felt this dozens of times since he started remembering, and every time, every single time, it peters out as soon as he sits at his desk, fingers restlessly idle on his keyboard.
He could ask. He could say, what would you do?, but he already knows what Sean would say.
“I’m in love with him,” he says instead, just to see.
Sean stops mid grand gesture, raised arms a little awkward, suspended in the air like that. “…Roy Raymond?”
“No. Eduardo. My CFO. It’s complicated,” he says, straightforward about this even though Sean’s looking more than a little off-balance. “Or at least, I must have been once, and I think I remember being in love with him. Even if I don’t know if I am right now.”
“Uh-”
“I’m reliving the same few years. I know it’s pretty far-fetched, but it’s true. Four months from now I’ll open the front door and you’ll be there. After Dustin breaks the chimney.” Mark gets to his feet. “You put Facebook on two continents,” he says. “I really appreciate that. And you’re there when I needed Eduardo. I appreciate that as well.”
Sean’s looking a little shell-shocked, eyebrows up. Mark ignores it. “I don’t know how to get out of this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he says. It’s relieving, a little, to finally admit this, to the world, to himself, this thing that Eduardo’s known all along.
“Crazy genius,” Sean says. “Okay, not entirely what I was expecting, but-” He glances around, then he leans over the table. “Are you high? Because if that’s what you need to-”
“I’m killing Facebook,” Mark says. Then he clenches his teeth, grinding them a little. He doesn’t mean it, not really, because Facebook is as much a part of him as he is a part of it, but he says it again, “I’m killing it,” and he waits and waits and then -
Mark wakes up. Mark wakes up. Mark wakes up.
Persuading Larry to let him in has never worked for Mark in the past, so he takes his chances and waits outside. Eduardo has to come by eventually. He always lives in this building, and Mark knows he's in New York - though he's mostly stopped tracking Eduardo's movements except when he's drunk and alone in his dorm without Dustin and Chris to distract him. They’re the only thing that works, lately.
Pedestrians walk by with purpose, striding along with their lives while Mark watches, stagnant in his. Like everything else, like code and Facebook. It rarely goes live anymore. Three months is a long time and the party is lame. The guests are hugging the walls and making their excuses, leaving. It's not even eleven yet.
The party that never ends because it never gets past the first awkward hour anymore. This isn’t what he wanted to build. Facebook is supposed to be more than that; Mark is supposed to be more than that.
It’s getting late, night starting to settle, but Eduardo sees him right away, even in the glare of artificial lights. His shoulders tense, and he glances toward his door. Eduardo sighs, visible all the way from Mark's location, and then he jerks his head toward the sleek glass doors. After a moment, Mark follows him.
Larry gives him a very obvious perusal over the dip in his newspaper, but he says nothing. Not his job, of course.
The entire elevator ride is silent except for the ding each time they pass a floor. Mark leans against the back wall; Eduardo stands toward the front. His reflection in the doors is blurred slightly, from a distortion in the metal or the way the light hits it.
It’s like another world, this Eduardo whose face is obscure, hidden away, like a secret Mark’s never going to get to know.
Mark scowls and looks away, down to his feet. He’s being ridiculous. This thing has made him ridiculous.
He tucks his hands in his pockets and keeps his mouth shut until Eduardo lets them in. "You like this place," he says.
Eduardo shrugs, dropping his keys in a dish on a table by the door. "I like the view." He pulls off his coat, a thick woolen thing, and hangs it in the closet. "And it comes furnished."
Eduardo crosses over to the kitchen; Mark follows, watching as he digs out a tray of ice cubes, popping a few out and dropping them into a glass, a sharp clink each time he adds one.
"You want one?" Eduardo says. The bottle's label is obscured by his hand; it's a dark liquid, brown-red, and Mark shakes his head. Eduardo pours himself some, and then he takes the glass and goes to stand in front of the windows. He sticks his free hand in one of his pockets.
Mark leans against the window next to him. He lets his eyes linger on Eduardo's profile; then he turns his gaze toward the room when Eduardo drinks. It's the same as the last time Mark was here, the clean sharp lines of the furniture, free of clutter. There isn’t a mess of papers on the coffee table, but there are dishes in the sink.
Despite that - and Mark’s admittedly limited knowledge of home decor - it feels hollow, empty. Sterile. Nothing grows here, not ideas, not greatness. It’s middling, despite the view.
"Why do you keep coming back here?"
"It's always vacant," Eduardo says. "And it's familiar. I like that about it."
"So much for changing things," Mark says. “Or not changing them.”
It almost earns him a smile, but Eduardo drinks, and any trace of it disappears.
He has no idea what’s going on in Eduardo’s head or why he let him up here when Mark’s only been in this apartment once that he remembers; Mark almost sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket, but then he pushes up his sleeves instead, fidgeting as the silence gets longer.
Outside, it starts raining.
"You can wire in if you want," Eduardo says suddenly. Mark follows the gesture to the hallway. "My computer's probably crap, but you only really need a keyboard, right?"
His eyes stay on the dark pit of the hallway for a beat, two. It offers no sympathy, no inspiration.
Mark puts his hand on Eduardo’s glass. Eduardo lets him take it without struggling. Mark drinks, and then takes another one to chase the burn. Then he curls inward, just a bit, resting the glass against the middle of his chest.
When he speaks, it's hoarse, and he isn't looking at Eduardo. He can't. But he curls his fingers in the pocket of Eduardo’s slacks, knuckles resting against his hipbone. "I can't wire in," he says. "I haven't been able to- It's been a long time. I think. Since I started remembering."
Mark’s heart thuds twice against his chest; Eduardo just looks at him for a long moment. Then he takes the glass back and finishes it. He sets it on the nearest surface, a bookshelf. He cups Mark’s face with one hand. Face burning, Mark tilts his head back, heart in his throat.
Eduardo’s thumb traces over Mark’s cheekbone. Once, twice, and pauses halfway through a third. Then he lets his hand drop; he pulls away. He gets another drink.
Mark tips his head back against the window, listening to the patter of rain against the glass behind him.
Eduardo comes back and stands near him; his eyes are focused on the outside, away from Mark.
He could reach out and touch him. He could, maybe.
But he doesn’t.
~
Mark hasn't slept. He's sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. It's darker in the hallway, except for the glow of the city creeping in from the outer room and the light shining under the crack of Eduardo's bedroom door.
He thinks about knocking. He balls his hand into a fist like he's preparing to do just that, and maybe Eduardo will look at him with eyes that aren't tired or flat, and maybe he'll step aside and let Mark in. Maybe he'll pull Mark in, a honeyed invitation on the curve of his mouth. Or maybe he'll sigh and run his fingers through his hair, and he'll tell Mark to go back to bed.
Mark stays where he is, knees drawn up to his chest, thinking about Eduardo's elbows. It's a memory, or a fantasy, and Mark hasn't slept more than a few hours in the past three or four days. He can't tell them apart anymore, reality and what he wants.
When he does get up, it's to go into the kitchen, away from Eduardo's door, and open the fridge. He's not hungry, but he stands there, staring blindly into it, cool air numbing him.
He's supposed to meet Sean tomorrow, go for drinks and the Sean Parker Variety Hour, and he's never minded before. Sean's a fuck up, sure, but he's good for Facebook. He's good for the only thing that works out in Mark's life, and sometimes, meeting Sean makes everything feel like it's stretching out to accommodate his presence in Mark's life, in Mark's company, and it's longer before Mark wakes up feeling like his brain is smeared across the front of his skull.
He’s not sure if it’s an illusion or not.
In the morning, the smell of coffee wakes Mark up, coupled with the sun shining in through the windows. It's dimmed by clouds. His skin sticks to Eduardo's couch, damp with sweat. He's still in his jeans; they feel grimy and smell a little rank.
Eduardo is looking out over the city. He's already dressed in slacks and one of his shirts. He's not completely done up, immaculate like always, but it's close enough that he seems untouchable.
"Why do you even bother anymore?" Mark says. He rubs his chin, and then his eyes.
Eduardo shrugs, eyes fixed on the window. His hands are curved around a white ceramic mug, the cheap, impersonal kind from Target or Walmart.
Mark feels brittle and raw, and when he sees Eduardo, sleepy-eyed and sporting one of Mark's t-shirts, hair in impossibly ridiculous tufts, he closes his eyes until it fades away.
Eduardo’s still standing in front of the window when he opens them. "I'm supposed to meet Sean tonight," he says.
"I thought I was the one that never asked for what he wanted.”
"I don't want you to come with me," Mark says. He's not lying, either. It's easier, when Eduardo's not in the same room as Sean, when Mark doesn't have to deal with the hostility and sort out the memories from reality at the same time.
Eduardo nods. He still hasn't looked at Mark. It's stupid to want it, to want Eduardo's eyes and his smile when he's made it clear that Mark will never get either. But Eduardo has all the memories that Mark covets, the flashes of Eduardo lazing in the sun, of bleary eyed mornings, of shared triumph of creating their company.
Was that what it was like between them?
“So we got together.”
It’s fascinating the way Eduardo’s entire body stiffens. “Mark,” he says, like a warning, like a plea.
“We were together, and I cut you out.” He tugs on his jeans. The denim is rough against his skin, grimy and starting to smell. He shrugs, not looking up. “I always cut you out. You’ve said it yourself. That’s just the way it is.”
Eduardo makes a noise, an incredulous sound.
Mark pushes to his feet, glaring. Eduardo hasn’t turned around.
“I was protecting Facebook.”
“Why do we always talk about this?” Eduardo asks the window and not Mark, tired and annoyed.
“We’ve never had this conversation.”
“We always have this conversation. This is the only conversation we ever have anymore.”
“You seem pretty hung up on it-”
“I’m not the one bringing it up. Think that should tell you something.”
“You want me to apologize? I don’t think that’s going to get us out of this.”
“No Mark, I don’t want your apology.” Eduardo finally turns around. He looks tired, dark smudges under his eyes, and surprisingly, jerking Mark awake, a little angry. “I was your best friend. Your best friend. I thought that counted for something at least. But it never does with you, does it?”
“I was protecting our company-”
“I was in love with you.” He laughs, short and sharp. “You know what gets me? I wasn’t the first time. You were my friend, but I didn’t love you then. And then this happened, and then it happened again, and then I was,” he says. He tips his head back against the glass; he’s still holding that white mug. It’s real and it’s not, the look on his face, the same one he wore in the handful of days before the settlement. Each time. Every time. “Then I was.” He straightens, drinks from his mug, and then sets it next to his glass from last night, still on the bookshelf. “I have a meeting,” he says.
“A meeting. You’re going to a meeting.”
Eduardo sighs, rubbing his forehead. “What am I supposed to do? I tried sticking around, I tried leaving; I gave you everything. I gave you nothing. I don’t know how to fix this, and neither do you, Mark. I want to get out of this, but I don’t know if I care anymore.” He hesitates, eyes focused on some invisible spot on the wall. “I don’t know if I care anymore.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Eduardo shakes his head, eyes closed. “You can show yourself out,” he says, picking his keys out of that bowl by the door. “Or stay, I guess. I’m leaving in the morning.”
Then he’s gone.
~
Mark returns to Harvard - he wakes up in Kirkland and bright sunlight - and lets Dustin pull him out of the dorm to AEPi parties. Mark drinks, but blurry staggering drunkenness reminds him too much of when the world resets and resets and resets again, so he only lets it get that far when it’s really bad, when he only makes it days, sometimes only hours like the last time.
But he drinks, something cloyingly sweet and unidentifiable, and he blames the alcohol hidden in the punch, he blames the irritating loop of Niagara Falls though it’s not that party at all.
"We are going to have an awkward conversation," he says when they get back to the dorm. Chris is at home for the weekend; Mark supposes he's always gone home this weekend, but he's never really noticed before.
Dustin eyes him warily, but he sits down next to Mark on the couch, a good foot between them. They both stare at the black screen of the TV.
"He thinks we need emotional distance," Mark says. His fingers dig into his knees. He tries to relax them, rubbing his palms over his jeans.
"What," Dustin says. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Eduardo." Mark says. "Like it's my fault. I'm not the one with the excess emotions. I'm not the one that has the issues. I can't even remember what happened. Maybe he's, what if he's lying about it?"
"Lying about what?"
“I wanted him to be part of this company,” Mark says. “CFO. I knew I need the money, and I could have gotten it from anyone else, but Wardo's my best friend."
Turning his head was a mistake. Dustin blinks at him, bleary, and then he grins, that slow awful grin that tells Mark he's going to regret this. Not that he isn’t already; spilling his guts is not how he would chose to spend an evening, but he’s drunk enough.
"He's the CFO of your heart."
"I hate you," Mark says flatly. "I hate you so much."
Dustin snorts, shifting down to rest his head against the back of the couch. He tilts his head up, grinning brightly. In contrast, Mark hunches down, rounding his shoulders. He wishes he'd taken more of that too sweet alcohol from the party, snuck it back to the dorm somehow. Or they hadn't pre-gamed the last of the beer from the fridge before leaving earlier.
Dustin's knee knocks against his, just once, and lightly.
Mark frowns and shifts away.
"You know it's okay, right?" Dustin says earnestly. "I don't care. It's totally cool that you're into dudes."
Mark gets off the couch and locks himself in his room.
~
If being at Harvard is like sleepwalking through life, California is almost like waking up. Mark sits in front of his computer and he actually codes. It’s slow, and frustrating, and often feels like he’s not getting anything done, but he codes.
There’s so much to catch up on, so many things to do. He’s hired an extra intern, right from the start, and if anyone thinks it’s weird or not the way it should be, they’re not here to comment.
He forces himself to stay at it; it doesn’t always work, thoughts drifting, slipping away from him all the time, but sometimes. Sometimes it does, sometimes he looks up and it’s been an hour, maybe two, and he didn’t even realize it. Sometimes, it’s almost like wiring in.
It’s not wiring in. It’s time loss, and that’s not what he misses. He’s supposed to be more focused than anything when he’s wired in; he’s supposed to remember the lines of code that he’s using to build something great, piece together the half-formed ideas in his head through letters and symbols, but it’s a blur, all of it, a fog in his brain obscuring his own mind.
Mid-summer, he’s halfway through a line of code, innocuous, stupid, meaningless all by itself, and he’s hit with that strong, angry sense of déjà vu.
He makes a disgusted noise, pulling his hands away.
Dustin gives him worried eyes from the other side of the kitchen table, a nearly empty bowl of Cocoa Puffs in front of him. The chocolate dust rims the inside; the left over milk has turned brown.
Mark pushes his computer across the table and pillows his head on his arms, nose pressed against the corner of his elbow.
“This Eduardo thing’s really got you busted up. I knew you were close, but-“
“I don’t need you playing Yenta,” Mark says, muffled by the curve of his arm. They’ve had this conversation before. Probably not this timeline, though; he’s having a hard time keeping them straight lately, all blurring together. Inevitably, none of them actually mean anything anyway. Except when he forgets that Dustin is a meddling jerk. He presses his face further into his elbow. Then he adds, “You’re worse than my mother.”
“I like your mother,” Dustin says. He nudges Mark’s foot under the table. “It’s cool, you know. I’m totally here for you.”
Mark can tell he’s grinning, just from the sound of his voice. He gets up, ignoring the long loud scrap of his chair against the floor, and takes his computer to his room, shutting the door behind him.
He plays solitaire for a bit, losing more often than not; he’s not paying attention, thinking about writing code until it’s late, well into the night. His eyes feel like they’re burning, gritty with exhaustion. In the dark, his hand finds his phone. He winces against the light of his screen, too bright when the only other light comes from the crack under the door.
After dialing, he holds it to his ear; he closes his eyes and waits.
“You think it’s a constant?”
He hears a shuffling noise, then: “Mark, it’s three am,” Eduardo says.
“Do you think it’s something that needs to happen? You always make a lot of money. I always cut you out even if it’s over tuna.”
Eduardo sighs and for a long time, nothing fills the silence between them.
His eyes drift shut; his breathing evens out.
“You wouldn’t change it,” Eduardo says. Mark jerks awake, sitting up and rubbing his forehead. “You wouldn’t no matter what.”
“I know that,” Mark says, because it’s the truth. He shifts on his back, resting his free hand on his stomach, waiting for Eduardo to break the silence again.
He’s so tired.
“You thought it was best,” Eduardo says, sounding as worn out as Mark feels. “I don’t know why I was so convinced New York was the right thing, why I wouldn’t come out the first time. But I was and you- in your own way, you thought it was best.”
“I was protecting Facebook. But Wardo, I wanted you with me. The first time, I wanted-” It’s easier than he thought it would be, darkness shielding him from the reality of what he’s doing, a thing he’s said many times before but feels like too much of a confession now. “And you. You didn’t listen.”
“No,” Eduardo says. “No, I didn’t.”
He remembers: a hallway, bad lighting, and yellow staining the walls. Yelling an d the sense that they’re not having the same conversation at all. Mark’s used to that. He’s used to having two, sometimes three, different conversations with other people. Most can’t keep up, but Eduardo did better than anyone - or maybe Mark took more time to let Eduardo catch up, figure it out.
Mark tightens his grip on the phone. “How long do you think we can keep doing this?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark closes his eyes, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “We’ve had this conversation before.”
“Yeah. More or less.”
“This is stupid,” Mark says. “I want you out here.”
“Mark-” Eduardo sighs.
“I want you out here. Eduardo, I.” Mark closes his eyes, remembers looking at his feet, a Red Vine in his hand, saying this: “Eduardo, I need you.”
“You don’t.” Eduardo sighs again. The corner of Mark’s mouth slides down. “You never did. That’s the problem.”
“I think you’re scared. This is too much for you, isn’t it?” Then, helplessly, pitifully - but he’s exhausted enough, feeling punch-drunk enough. He’ll hate himself in the morning, embarrassed and horrified; Mark knows this, but right now it doesn’t matter. “This isn’t about Facebook,” he says, words thick in his throat. “Come out. I want you to come out. You can- you can read me Russian poetry, and I’ll-” He manages to swallow the rest of the sentence, stop himself from offering morning blowjobs and -
What is wrong with him?
There’s nothing but the deafening silence, and Mark wonders when Eduardo started saying now. Or if he’s been saying no all along and Mark just never paid enough attention to realize it.
“Mark,” Eduardo says. “Don’t. Don’t do this to me.”
Mark frowns, tight line of his mouth. He hangs up and drops his phone by his bedside table and goes to get his computer. He’s standing in the middle of his room, holding it - it’s the same make as the one Eduardo broke, the same exact computer - and his room is suddenly too small.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping,” Dustin says, frowning. His empty bowl has been pushed to the side, computer open in front of him.
“I had an idea,” Mark says, short, but when he sits down and opens his computer, there’s nothing.
He doesn’t code.
~
He spends days out by the pool, wearing ridiculous sunglasses that make him think of Eduardo - long tan limbs sprawled out on the grass, arm crooked over his eyes, mouth curved up, headphones blocking out the sound of Mark’s fingers on his keyboard - and generally avoiding everyone.
Sean Parker sets up a meeting with Peter Thiel. Mark can’t find any enthusiasm for it; California has lost its zeal, its drive: the entire reason for even coming out here in the first place.
But then, most people don’t expect much excitement from him anyway, so they thankfully don’t make that big of deal about it. They let him sink into his code as best he can.
The first time, he remembers that, how awesome the possibility of an angel investment felt, like watching the site go live for the first time, Eduardo’s eyes bright even though he didn’t understand any of it - Mark hadn’t realized that then, and now, when Eduardo does, when Eduardo knows code, and probably gets it better than ever, well.
Mark’s not used to actively dwelling on anything. So when Sean comes to him, when Peter Thiel asks about Eduardo, Mark nods, listening.
“He’s not here for the company,” Sean says, slouched in his seat, wrist braced at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel. “I’m not saying that you should do it, Mark. I’m saying you should think about it.”
Mark says nothing, staring out the window.
“Hey, I’ve never even met the guy. And yeah, it kinda sucks, but he’s not-”
He’s feeling belligerent, stubborn, angry. He thinks about a time when he said, “I’m in love with him,” and Sean stumbled for a way around the awkward confession in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
“He’s my best friend,” he says instead, eyes on the traffic on his side of Sean’s car.
“I know, buddy. But you can’t let that cloud your business decisions. You asked him to come out, didn’t you? Where the hell is he?”
Mark shrugs.
~
He could call Eduardo. He could tell him that he’s being kicked out, that Sean’s pretty insistent about this, and Sean’s here, so.
It’s mostly a lie; it was always Mark’s decision.
And what would it matter, anyway? It’s not going to change a thing. Eduardo would probably sigh and ask, why are you telling me this?
And he’s not going to call Eduardo again; Mark’s over doing anything that mortifyingly humiliating again.
So he drinks. He drinks and he eats ridiculous amounts of sugar; he mixes the two of them together, a foul tasting beverage that sours in his stomach. It makes his world go blurry, like right before it starts to shift, return to that algorithm and the sunlight. It cuts through his skull like knives, like the hangover he’s going to have tomorrow.
In the morning, afternoon, whatever, Mark wakes up hung over and still pissed. He glares at both interns in the kitchen. They fade away, silent, except for when Eric trips over some dirty clothes on the floor and hits his hip against the edge of the table, nearly knocking Sean’s coffee out of his hands.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Sean says. He grins over his mug. It probably isn’t full of just coffee.
Mark scowls. He yanks open one of the cupboard doors, letting it bang loudly, and digs out the Cocoa Puffs. They’re Dustin’s - the black sharpie says 'touch on pain of death' - but Mark’s the only one with access to the Eduardo Saverin Foundation, so.
He eats the cereal right from the box, sticking his hand in and shoving whatever he can pull out into his mouth.
“Gross, man,” Dustin says, walking in from the hallway. “I don’t know where your hands have been.”
“Yeah. You probably don’t want to eat from that anymore.”
Mark drops the cereal box. It's visceral, the sudden shock, and it's like the first time, but only stronger, heart beating right into his chest.
“Hey,” Eduardo says, carefully neutral.
“I,” Mark says. “When-”
Eduardo hooks a thumb toward the door. “Just now.”
Mark nods.
Then he steps over the box on the floor, Cocoa Puffs crunching under his feet.
Eduardo tastes clean, like rainwater, even though he's completely dry. His mouth is warm, and the flash of a memory shows Mark what Eduardo’s tongue is like, licking at his lower lip, slipping inside.
Mark steps in closer, pulling Eduardo’s face down, tilting it for a better angle, and then Eduardo’s dufflebag slips from his shoulder, hitting Mark in the knee. Mark jerks and pulls away, and his heart feels like it’s going to jump out of his chest, break through his ribcage, and he wants. He wants-
“What,” Sean says, “just happened.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, you wanna talk to me alone for a minute, writing it off, ignoring the entire thing.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t.
He drops his bag on the floor. He steps forward.
He kisses Mark back, hands cupping his face, fingers slipping back into Mark’s hair.
“Mark and Wardo sitting in a tree,” Dustin sings, off-key and boisterous, laughing. Mark chases after Eduardo’s mouth when the kiss ends, but Eduardo holds him back. “Get a room, guys we don’t want to see that.”
Eduardo touches his mouth, thumb slipping over the edge of Mark’s lower lip. “Wanna talk to me alone for a minute?”
“Wait.” Sean says. “Seriously-”
Mark’s face heats, almost unbearably so, and he pulls Eduardo’s wrist, tugging him toward the hallway.
Dustin catcalls.
Mark kicks the door shut behind him and keeps moving toward his room, because if he stops, this is going to disappear, he’s going to wake up and it’s all going to be a dream, a memory of something he never had.
But Eduardo’s pressing up against him, hot against his back, hands curled around his hips. He walks them forward, shuffling, nose buried against Mark’s neck, the simple slide of his mouth on Mark’s skin.
He starts pulling up Mark’s shirt to get to his waist, finding the button on his jeans and working it open, easily because the buttonhole is worn and frayed.
“Wardo-” Mark says.
Eduardo pushes him to the bed, crawling after, straddling Mark’s thighs. He tugs his shirt over his head, not even pausing to care about his buttons, or any wrinkles, dropping it on the floor. Then he crawls over Mark, hands and knees and just looks down at him for a long moment, unreadable.
Mark reaches for him, jerks him down.
Making out with Wardo is possibly one of the best things ever. Mark could do this, Mark wants to do this. This is the sharp clarity he’s been missing for months - years? - and it’s almost the comfort of familiar, everything he needs.
Eduardo reaches between them, tugging at Mark’s zipper, straight to the goal. Mark’s too far gone to think about why Eduardo changed his mind, too eager to stop and think. He’s arching his hips, helping Eduardo pull his jeans off, untangle them from Mark’s legs.
Especially when Eduardo mouths at Mark’s neck, and then slides down over his collarbone, down his chest. He reaches Mark’s bellybutton the same time his hand palms Mark through his underwear; Mark jerks, his hipbone catches Eduardo in the chin.
Eduardo makes a sound, amused, turned on, something, and keeps going. His mouth slides over Mark’s stomach. Mark’s clutching the sheets, twisting his hips but Eduardo has him pinned, hands on his hips, holding him there.
Mark reaches for him, tangles his hand in Eduardo’s hair, soft and ridiculous as always. No product, but for a split second, he remembers it, having his hand in the thick strands, sticky from gel or whatever Eduardo uses. He remembers looking up in the bathroom and seeing the bottle.
His chest feels turned inside-out, the memory inlaying over reality.
“Wardo,” he says, “Wardo-“
Mark wakes up in Kirkland.
Part Five
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-08 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 01:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-09 10:07 pm (UTC)I can't handle this.
I love you
no subject
Date: 2011-09-10 12:21 am (UTC)♥
no subject
Date: 2011-09-10 06:44 pm (UTC)I'm really curious to see how this ends. And I really hope they end up getting to third base. /shot
no subject
Date: 2011-09-10 07:01 pm (UTC)I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-27 09:18 pm (UTC)you're breaking me.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-27 11:03 pm (UTC)