Blueprints To A Second Chance

When they’re done, Eduardo smiles and tips them anyway. The movers nod their heads and smile back. Eduardo wonders if they know who he is, what this house is responsible for. He sighs as he walks in, the air anew with the must of cardboard, before he grabs the kitchen scissors and tears open the first box.

He unpacks for most of the day, because he’s in a t-shirt and jeans and California weather is not as bad as he might’ve projected it to be, once upon a time. He has a lot more to do—drag all his things to work tomorrow, handle insurance, make sure his assistant back in Singapore can tie up the loose ends well enough. It’s not that he doesn’t trust her, it’s just that he can’t foresee a future where he’ll need to go back—doesn’t want to see that future—but he had a life there, once, even if it had changed ages ago.

Most of his things go into what used to be a guest bedroom: his clothes, memorabilia, toiletries in the bathroom that comes with it. He leaves his box of dvds and books in the living room and shoves his kitchenware into the cupboards into their respective cabinets. After a moment he realizes it’s still only enough for one, so he vows to drag Mark’s ass to the department store over the weekend so they can make more things other than soup and pasta and cereal.

There’s an office room across from Mark’s, which before now had been the most used room in the house. Eduardo unloads most of his office supplies there, along with a picture of him and his family, and a picture of his friends from college. He angles it, smiles at it under the sunlight. He drags some of the books from the living room box in here, the business ones and the current fiction one he’s working on, old files that he’s always been taught to hold onto. Afterward he’s sweating, so he makes himself lunch before continuing the job.

The sun dips below the skyline as the day goes on. His phone has been suspiciously quiet, though Eduardo is certain that’s because he’d said yesterday, I bet that you can’t go a full day without getting bored and texting me, and Mark likes to pretend that he has self-control—and genuinely does like competition—so he’d taken that bet. Eduardo hadn’t reminded him in the morning in case Mark would cave early and watch Eduardo’s entire dvd collection with him, but evidently Mark hadn’t needed it; he gets bragging rights if he wins, which Mark always needs more of, apparently.

Anyway, it’d been mostly so that Eduardo could actually unpack the whole day, instead of getting sidetracked by some snide text of Mark’s complaining about a meeting or something or other, because then Eduardo would just sit on a box for five hours and rattle off banter without being productive. Heaving a box closer to the shelf, Eduardo decides that the bet had been a good idea.

Mark’s day technically ends at five o’clock, but the earliest he’s ever come back (to Eduardo’s knowledge, anyway) is nine p.m., and that had only been when his CFO forcibly shoved him out. Today, however, he gets back at five thirty, eyes bright as he walks into the house.

“I won,” he says, because of course that’s the first fucking thing he says when he comes home.

Eduardo rolls his eyes and walks over to him. “Yeah, yeah, okay,” he says, grinning. “Wanna help me unpack stuff from Harvard?” He’d kept that box untouched in his office, waiting for Mark to get back.

Mark tips forward on his toes, leaning in a bit. “Yeah,” he says, after a moment. “Alright.”

They walk side by side up the steps to Eduardo’s new home office. Their hips and the backs of their fingertips brush four times.

Mark walks in, taking in the shelves lining the walls of which Eduardo has mostly filled, the desk and chair in front of the window. They’d selected the furniture together, meaning that Eduardo would pick something and ask for Mark’s opinion, which was more than often an, “mmm.”

“Did you already start?” Mark asks, gesturing to the photo of himself and Chris and Dustin on Eduardo’s desk.

Eduardo laughs and shakes his head. “No, that was from my office in Singapore, remember?” he says.

Mark frowns. “Why don’t you put it in your new office then?”

“I already have a picture of us there, Mark, I don’t need another picture of you.” Eduardo opens the Harvard box, taking out a crewcut sweater (he never understood the point of buying more than one piece of college paraphernalia, but every time Mark bought one for one of his sisters he bought one for himself, too) and some old binders. He throws those away without opening them.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” says Mark, bending down to assist him. “Having more pictures of me.”

Eduardo scoffs and looks up. Mark’s eyes are dancing, teasing, happy; but there’s something earnest about them, too.

“I didn’t take you to be so vain,” Eduardo comments, and the scowl that he gets in return is worth it.

They unload the Harvard things easily because there’s not much: mostly notes and things Eduardo has to throw away, though he does keep the sweater. Mark tells him to put it on but Eduardo says it’s too warm for that. So Mark slips it on instead.

They fall into their nightly rhythm, which consists of Eduardo cooking dinner and Mark attempting to help, though mostly he just stands around and complains about his day since he wasn’t able to during the actual daytime. Eduardo can hear the cheer in his voice, though, as monotone as it is. Mark wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t like it. Eduardo supposes there’s not much to dislike when you’re CEO of your own company, but sometimes the technicalities and semantics are too much for Mark, he just wants to sit down and do what he likes, and Eduardo flicks the spatula with the oily parts of the stir fry at him and says, oh, it must be so hard, being the founder of Facebook.

Mark rolls his eyes but his only response is, “yeah, you were one too.” Eduardo returns to the pan with a small smile on his face.

They eat and Mark complains about how spicy it is. Eduardo calls him weak. Mark dares him to eat an entire hot pepper so Eduardo does, and then has to practically dunk his head in cold milk to quell the burning. Mark laughs, but gets him a glass of water when he’s done. Afterward, they go to the living room and sprawl on the couch together. Eduardo takes the remote and flips to Real Housewives at its usual hour, while Mark complains about consumerism and settles next to him. He doesn’t try to change the channel though, because Eduardo knows that Mark is no better than he is with reality tv.

Or Mark likes the way that his head nestles against Eduardo’s arm and his side is pressed warmly on Eduardo’s chest, too much to try to move. But Eduardo likes that, too.

*

Eduardo catalogues his feelings about Mark in three separate ways, when he thinks about it. But it all blends together, because he is not a different person when he’s with Mark, and Mark is not a different person when he’s with Eduardo, and when they’re together he does not separate himself from himself from himself; Mark says, “Wardo,” and Eduardo knows that he means him.

But there is Mark when they’ve decided to order takeout, and Mark tries to foot the bill, and Eduardo says no. Mark’s face pulls into this pained expression that Eduardo doesn’t know if he enjoys or feels guilty for, because it’s nice to know that Mark can make a face like that, can feel things like that. Even though Eduardo has seen it so many times since months ago, he can’t get tired of it, because it’s been four years waiting and sometimes all of this is so new, still, even though it isn’t. So there is category number one: the way Eduardo’s chest seizes, and flips, and he almost lets Mark buy him dinner.

Then there is category number two, when it is late night running and Eduardo burying his nose in his bed, adjusting to the time difference and trying to get to sleep. He could play Snake on his blackberry but those are bad habits, and he’s prided himself on being a master of having a routine. He rolls over again when he hears a snuffling at the door, and then it’s creaking open, a mop-headed figure standing in the shadows.

Eduardo mumbles, “Mark,” and sounds more asleep than he really is. Mark shuffles over to him, stopping at the edge of the bed, the fabric of the comforter fumbling between his fingers.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Mark says. His voice is clear, but there’s a certain edge to it that Eduardo knows back from college that he’s tired.

“Yeah?” says Eduardo, sitting up a little. “Neither could I.”

Mark climbs onto his bed, apropos of nothing, sitting on his knees. Eduardo could never manage that position; it always hurt his shins. Mark picks at a hem on Eduardo’s comforter again.

“Sometimes,” Mark says. His voice is breathier now. “I forget that you’re here.”

Eduardo smiles slightly, even though he’s pretty sure Mark can’t see it in the dark. “In my bed?” he says.

Mark shakes his head.

Eduardo wants to make a silly comment about him being in Mark’s house. But then Mark says, “With me again,” and his words say, the United States, California, Facebook. Eduardo isn’t a part of Facebook the way he used to be because—well, he isn’t. But in Mark’s mind, he knows he might as well be.

So Eduardo says, “Come here,” and Mark does and Mark isn’t a hugger but he doesn’t complain when Eduardo wraps his arms around him, buries Mark into his chest. Mark whispers, can I sleep here tonight, and Eduardo is exhausted and happy and says sure. Tonight he curls around Mark’s back and holds him like Mark is a flame that he doesn’t want to put out; some other nights Mark is wrapped back around him, carefully, like Eduardo is cupped in his hands and he doesn’t want to spill a drop.

Eduardo does not forget that he’s here. It feels like stepping into a dream sometimes, because he spent the better part of the last four years in New York City, hating Palo Alto, hating California, the west coast. He spent the worst part of the past several months in Singapore, convincing himself that he was right and wrong, over and over again. Every nerve ending in his body clung to the ridiculous hope, not just for Mark but for himself, to be okay, to want to be okay again.

They play basketball every day because Mark has a basketball hoop—they have a basketball hoop, for some godforsaken reason. It doesn’t really mean much because Mark is short and terrible and Eduardo isn’t that great himself, but it makes them both laugh and once they accidentally set the sprinklers off and Mark moaned while Eduardo tried to shove Mark’s face into his wet t-shirt. They play horse and Mark actually manages to win a few times. Eduardo ruffles his head and Mark says you make me feel like a little kid and Eduardo says good.

“I don’t understand why I have this thing,” Mark says, one day, and it’s a conversation they’ve had before. A lot of conversations feel like that, but Eduardo never complains; every day with Mark is new anyway, everything they say to each other is new. It’s like rebuilding a fallen tower from memory.

“An incentive for you to come outside more,” Eduardo replies. He bounces the basketball against the blacktop and shoots. He misses.

Mark snorts. “Basketball isn’t exactly my favorite sport,” he says, though he manages to catch the ball with ease when Eduardo bounces it to him.

Eduardo gestures to him and grins. “See? Natural talent, right there. I’m sure the more you play, the better you’ll get at it.”

“Yeah, right.”

Mark rolls his eyes and aims for the hoop himself. He misses, too. He fires it back to Eduardo, who just barely manages to catch it.

“Maybe I’ll leave business,” Eduardo says seriously, bending down and aiming. “Maybe I’ll go for the fields and become an NBA star.”

“Pretty sure they don’t play basketball in fields,” says Mark, as Eduardo shoots again.

He makes it this time, whooping and waving his hands in the air. Mark smiles, says, “You look ridiculous.” Eduardo jumps and bounces the ball across to him, and Mark just stands and watches until it slowly pops over to him.

“O!” Eduardo says victoriously, making an O with his left hand.

Mark says, “We’ve been playing for a half an hour already.”

*

Mark gets home late today, so they miss the Real Housewives of Atlanta and watch Survivor instead, which is fine. The grosser stuff makes Eduardo’s skin crawl, but Mark laughs meanly while people on tv freak out, so it’s okay. Mark makes himself more comfortable at Eduardo’s side, nosing at the sleeve near his armpit, curly hair pressed against Eduardo’s chest. On other Survivor days when Eduardo falls so much into California that he begins to come home late, too, he’s the one pressing his cheek onto Mark’s shoulder, into his arm, feeling the thump thump beneath his chest. None of this is new—long ago at college Eduardo had wondered if Mark was as cold as he looked, but he’s as warm as any other human being in the world.

There are days when he doesn’t come home, because he has meetings in Los Angeles, or San Diego, or sometimes takes the time to drive all the way out to Utah (even though really, who the fuck lives in Utah?), because he likes long drives, better than long air flights at least. On these days he tries to drive home but it’s just too much, and he books a hotel and thinks about texting Mark that he’ll be back the next afternoon, but falls asleep on the hotel bed before he can take out his phone.

In the morning, before his alarm, he wakes up to over thirty new text messages and four voice mails, all from mostly the same number. They’d been sent between the hours of two a.m. and six a.m., and a new text comes in just as Eduardo turns his phone on. He sighs and taps out a quick apology.

He comes back home in the afternoon, surprised to see Mark’s car in the driveway. Eduardo wonders if there’s an emergency, and walks in through the garage, unlocking the back door precariously.

“Mark?” he calls. Mark is not in the kitchen, where their newly bought dining set is—Mark had told him the story of interviewing Sheryl at her house because he didn’t have a table, and Eduardo had sought out for him to buy one immediately. Eduardo glances to the living room, but Mark isn’t there either.

Then footsteps are noisily clambering down the stairs and Mark appears in the foyer, wearing what looks like yesterday’s clothes. The smile on Eduardo’s face fades when he sees that Mark’s eyes are red-rimmed, and there are dark shadows under them.

“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asks, walking over to him, concerned.

Mark’s voice is clipped when he says, “You didn’t come back yesterday.”

Eduardo pauses, staring at him. “I know,” he says. “I texted you sorry.”

“I,” Mark takes a deep breath. “I need you to come home.”

Eduardo blinks at him. “Sorry?” he offers, again. “I’m home now, I—”

“No, I meant for the future.” Mark’s words come rushing out fast and he’s not meeting Eduardo’s eyes, staring somewhere above his right shoulder. “I want you to come home.”

Eduardo rubs his forehead. He’s beginning to form creases there, too many for a man his age. “I’m sorry,” he says, not sounding it this time, “but I’ve got work, you know, sometimes I can’t—”

“You can,” Mark interrupts.

Eduardo frowns, walking closer to him. “Mark,” he says. “What’s this all about?”

Mark closes his eyes. He exhales loudly again.

“I told you,” he says. “I just want you to come home.”

“And I am home,” says Eduardo. He takes Mark’s face in his hands, cupping him lightly. “I’m home now, okay? Were you worried?”

“No,” Mark says, shortly.

Eduardo lets his hands fall.

“I don’t want you out so late,” says Mark.

Eduardo scoffs, turning on his heel now. His anxieties have been pushed back now, with something that feels like anger, and this is it, category number three. “What are you, my mother?” he says, spinning around to glare at Mark. “It’s my work, you know I have work, god, sometimes you spend all night at the office, too—”

“If it bothers you,” says Mark. “I can stop doing that.”

Eduardo rolls his eyes, because he knows that wouldn’t happen. His chest twinges a little at the thought, but it’s trumped by the fact that Mark can get so lost in his work that he won’t look up until it’s six in the morning and he wouldn’t have realized how much time has passed.

He doesn’t say that, though. Eduardo says, “This isn’t about me, it’s about you. What’s the real problem, Mark? Why are you so—” He gestures with his hands, the creeping feeling from the depositions coming back to him. The you’re better off without him, it’s a good thing that he’s gone, and he’s never going to be half as sorry as you want him to be.

It must show on his face. Mark panics and blurts out, “I’ve said it to you so many times, I need—I want you out here, I don’t want you to leave again.”

Eduardo shoves a hand in his hair and looks at Mark. “You realize,” he says, “that your possessiveness is really ineffectual when we both have jobs that require traveling?”

Mark bites his bottom lip. He nods.

Eduardo sighs and goes over to him again. He hadn’t noticed it before, but Mark’s wrists are shaking, close to his fingers. Eduardo reaches down and tangles them together, bumping his forehead against Mark’s.

“I meant to text you last night, anyway,” he says to Mark. “I was just too tired. But I—I promise—” and he swallows, because this is heavier than 600 million, heavier than dilutions and lawsuits, maybe “—I won’t actually leave—leave you. Again,” he adds.

Mark nods but he whispers, “Okay,” and bumps his forehead back. Then, “oh god we’re standing too close,” and Eduardo giggles, “yeah, we are,” but neither of them move or try to back away.

This is category three, a five on the richter scale that Eduardo doesn’t want to bring to an eight, a nine, a ten. This is the day after the settlement when Eduardo is packing for Singapore for the first and last time when he gets a Facebook message from a user he would never have the heart to block, and he’d only visited the site to see his name on the masthead again. The message had said I’m really, really sorry and I really messed up and Maybe I was a little jealous and Can we be friends again? and I’ll give you as much money as you want. Eduardo had laughed because no amount of money would get him to be friends again, and after days and weeks of not knowing how to respond, he finally said You acted out and the response was immediate, I did and then I love you, clear as day.

I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to say that in person before over Facebook, Eduardo had sent, and pretended his fingers didn’t itch to say more, to check his laptop every hour for a reply. And things weren’t that easy, but even on his flight halfway across the world he thought of that I love you, at Singaporean nightclubs he thought of that I love you, every day at work and before lunch and after falling asleep he thought of that I love you, and it was an I miss you that wasn’t good enough for Eduardo to return—but he didn’t have the heart to not, anyway.

This is category three, when dulled fury turns to nostalgia, and rage is immature but love isn’t. Eduardo doesn’t want to leave Mark, today, tomorrow, a year from now, ten years from now, even when he remembers how much he hated storming out. He thinks of the (not so) stupid I love you on the website they created; he thinks of nights in the living room with Real Housewives flashing on their faces; he thinks of basketball mornings and spooning while listening to Mark mumble the Iliad from against his chest.

Eduardo thinks of the house they are building together, from the pieces they had before, growing higher and higher. He doesn’t know what’s at the top, but he and Mark will get there, won’t let the other fall.

search

tags // categories // advanced filtering options

© 2009-2026 aroceu

There are 298 fics here, with a total of 1,636,168 words.

The most recent fic was posted on 21 Jan 2025 @ 1:47 pm.

credits & faq // documentation // contact // to top