Even though the light is mostly shrouded by the covers, it doesn’t obstruct the light in Eduardo’s eyes – bright, hurt. Not like when he’d answered what had your shares been diluted to – that had been dull and old. This is new, like Mark has done something to fuck him over all over again.

When they get home, it’s quiet. Not like they expect otherwise, though – it’s been years since the first house at Palo Alto, and second, and now it’s four years later and they’ve got this condo in Los Altos and it’s been difficult. Of course it’s hard for them to go through their days without seeing each other, but it would be even harder if they didn’t – the glances in the morning are brief, the “how was your day” over dinner is stilted, and the crawling into bed, absent kisses that are sometimes forceful (from either of them), falling asleep both together and apart, it’s all enough.

Today there’s a higher tension. Mark can feel it thrumming under his skin, electricity threatening to crackle if he didn’t pin it down soon enough. Eduardo drops his briefcase on the parlor floor and goes upstairs to shower without one glance back. Mark doesn’t blame him; the past few days they’ve been going home separately, but today Eduardo had gone to the car and stalled for hours, and Mark had waited, waited, waited for as long as he could last until he couldn’t anymore, and though it was past midnight when he arrived at the parking lot, he expected no less to see Eduardo still in the car, upright in the driver’s seat, for him. He hadn’t even been asleep. Mark wonders if he’d napped at least once that whole time. The silent drive back had been the longest twenty minutes of his life.

Mark listens to Eduardo shower. Eventually the faucet turns off and the shower curtain opens. That’s his cue to get up from the living room sofa and go to bed, so he does. He strips and changes into his pajamas pretty quickly, before Eduardo even arrives. He burrows himself under the blanket so only the tip of his nose is peeking out, and thinks blankly over today – over oops and did you know you were signing your death certificate and point zero three percent.

Before, it would’ve made something gnaw at him – not guilt, no, because when he thinks about it, in terms of Facebook, it makes sense. When he thinks of it in terms of himself and Sean Parker, it makes sense. Before, there would’ve been something new, something that sounds a little like sympathy and Eduardo.

But before would’ve been before all this, if Eduardo had never moved out in the first place, at the very last second, too late to run away. Now it’s dull, a sharp jab on the side, and it’s returned today: like digging nails into a bruise that had never fully healed.

Mark is thinking and not really paying attention when Eduardo steps into the bedroom, one towel around his waist, the other drying his hair. He stops short at the sight of Mark, who jerks back into reality and stops thinking, too. He stares at Eduardo. Eduardo stares back.

Eduardo sighs and puts his towel on the dresser, scrubbing absently at his eyes. The bags under his eyes weren’t there earlier today – he must not have napped in the car, Mark concludes. He looks big and defensive and vulnerable, and for the first time Mark wants to wrap his arms around Eduardo. Nuzzle his nose in his neck, against his cheek. Say all the things he doesn’t mean, has never said, all the things that Eduardo wants him to say.

Eduardo climbs into bed with the towel still around his waist. He’s barely under the covers until Mark is leaning toward him, and Eduardo flinches – but he doesn’t quite pull away as their lips meet, Mark’s a little chapped and Eduardo’s bitten and wet from his shower. Eduardo presses back by only a hair so Mark pushes against him, taking his hand out from under the covers and placing it at the back of Eduardo’s head. Eduardo lets out a low whine. Mark feels him squeeze his eyes against Mark’s face.

“Mark,” Eduardo breathes, in the gap between them. He’s whispering into Mark’s mouth and even though the light is mostly shrouded by the covers, it doesn’t obstruct the light in Eduardo’s eyes – bright, hurt. Not like when he’d answered what had your shares been diluted to – that had been dull and old. This is new, like Mark has done something to fuck him over all over again.

Mark runs a finger down his cheek and Eduardo closes his eyes, lets out a shuddery breath. “Wardo,” Mark says, and his voice is hoarse. It hadn’t been earlier, but he hasn’t said much since Marilyn Delpy had left him in the conference room, which was over five hours ago.

Eduardo rolls over on his back. Mark’s finger drifts away from his face. “I’m so tired,” Eduardo murmurs. Mark can sympathize. It’s emotionally exhausting to live with someone who’s suing you for half a billion dollars; Mark can only imagine what it’s like on the other side.

Mark leans in again, but this time Eduardo doesn’t pull away. Mark kisses at the concave of Eduardo’s neck, presses his lips against the back of his ear, runs his teeth along the juncture between his chin and jaw. Eduardo doesn’t react much, but Mark can feel his legs shift against the covers, so he knows he’s not doing anything wrong. He pushes himself up and kisses Eduardo on the mouth again. Eduardo hardly complies, but Mark slips his tongue against Eduardo’s, anyway, trying to lick away the sleep, the pain, the grudge and bitterness until they can fall into each other and be Mark and Wardo again.

It’s not that easy. Eduardo finally, finally puts his hands on Mark’s arms and it’s hard and wonderful – but then he’s shoving Mark onto his back, straddling Mark’s hips, tugging his fingers into Mark’s curls and thrusting his tongue against his. Mark lets out an embarrassing moan and Eduardo rucks his hips against his – his second moan is louder, deeper in his throat. Eduardo tugs at his hair and rolls his hips with purpose, like he’s trying to torment Mark, and Mark is a red, needy, helpless mess under him.

“Mark – Mark – shit,” Eduardo is muttering, and then he’s just letting out a train of, “Mark, Mark, Mark,” and it’s between their kisses and terrible as Eduardo’s teeth get sharper and sharper, scraping along Mark’s bottom lip, sucking and sucking and even when Mark moans, “That hurts,” Eduardo doesn’t seem to care, in fact goes harder. Mark’s erection is so fucking hard against his stomach and his insides are tumbling torturously and Eduardo keeps pulling at his fucking hair like he wants Mark to whine about hurting again.

Eduardo’s nails dig into a sensitive part of his scalp and Mark winces. “What the fuck, Wardo,” he says, pulling away and glaring, eyes stinging from the pain.

“Sorry,” Eduardo says, not sounding sorry at all, because that’s what he is, fucking passive aggressive, and Mark hates it. He doesn’t, really, because he’s passive aggressive too, and when it was at Harvard it was kind of funny because they’d get into fights about stupid shit and never resolve it, just throw underhanded remarks at each other until one would break down and laugh because he’d have to commend the other at being just as much of a child as he is. Now it’s not like that; now it’s more like Eduardo being gone for most of the day and depriving each other of sex until the one day in the month when one – when both would accidentally cave, and then suddenly there are lawsuits and deposition tables and having to see Eduardo sitting closer to the fucking Winklevii on the other side of the table, than to him.

Mark tries to show him up by pressing his fingers into Eduardo’s waist, but that just makes Eduardo chuckle. The outline of his erection is against Mark’s thigh and Mark wants to touch it so badly, wonders if Eduardo wants him to give in and touch it, wonders what he’d gain if he didn’t and wait for Eduardo to ask, or not do anything at all. But that train of thought disappears when Eduardo slips his tongue into Mark’s mouth the same time he grabs Mark’s ass, squeezes it. Mark cants his hips up, desperately, and then realizes he’s been played.

“Jesus fuck,” he mutters against Eduardo, who is snaking his mouth down, biting at Mark’s neck like some kind of fucking vampire. Mark shivers, anyway. “What do you want me to do, Wardo?”

Apparently that’s the right – wrong? – thing to say, because Eduardo pulls back, wide-eyed, like Mark has never said anything like that before. Okay, so maybe Mark hasn’t, and now the first time he has is apparently during the prelude of them having sex right after the depositions. But whatever. He’s much more concerned about the numerous hickies his neck will spout overnight and the questions from Dustin and Chris he’ll have to face tomorrow.

“God, Mark.” And Eduardo actually lets out a laugh, carding a hand through his hair, which has gotten bigger and drier since they’d started making out. Mark is annoyed and presses his lips into a thin line, but Eduardo doesn’t seem to care. “You just – ”

He bends down to suck at Mark’s neck again, while snaking his hand into Mark’s pajama bottoms, and, okay, Mark can’t protest to that. He whines and for the billionth time rolls his hips up, but Eduardo shifts and the friction is gone. Mark growls, but Eduardo merely kisses at the places his teeth had dug into Mark’s skin, then pulls away, the heels of his palms hard on Mark’s chest.

“This was the hardest week of my life,” Eduardo says, and at some point his towel had slipped off so he’s naked and his boner is angry and red and Mark is trying to stare between it and Eduardo’s face. “And after all this, you asked me what you want me to do? Is this a trick question?”

“Wardo,” says Mark, because he’s staring at Eduardo’s cock now, openly. He wants to put his mouth on it so badly.

Eduardo doesn’t let him finish. “And you know all about tricks, don’t you,” he says, and Mark’s eyes have to snap to his face again. It’s kind of like a slap on the cheek, but Eduardo would never physically harm him, even if he’d break Mark’s laptop at his feet, even if he’d press his knees against Mark’s thighs and not let their cocks touch.

Mark bites his lip, even though it’s swollen and probably red, like Eduardo’s are. “I’m going to settle,” he tells him, because there’s nothing else to say.

Eduardo laughs. It’s empty in the air. “Of course you’re going to settle,” he says, and then he’s hovering above Mark again, all up in his space, and Mark is terrified and so, so hard. “It’s the only way you can keep your fucking dignity – keep me – ” and a hand slips up Mark’s shirt, pinches at a nipple, too tight.

Mark’s eyes go watery again but this time he doesn’t look at Eduardo with a pathetic expression on his face. Eduardo rubs a knuckle and squeezes his nipple again, and Mark just pants and helplessly presses his thighs up.

“I gotta finger you,” Eduardo says.

Mark would laugh if a) that didn’t sound appealing at all, and b) Eduardo’s fingers weren’t long and elegant, brushing back up against Mark’s chest like he just knows what his fingers do to Mark. Mark simply nods and then he’s being flipped on his back, having his pajama bottoms yanked down, hearing the pop of the lubricant, feeling a fingertip trace at his entrance. He whimpers and grips onto a pillow, tight. Eduardo is teasing him, the slick finger running along the smooth of Mark’s ass cheeks. Mark curls himself down, pressing his ass further up in the air, trying to get Eduardo in and good.

He feels Eduardo’s other hand spread him apart. Mark whimpers. “Christ,” he mutters, because Eduardo is still torturing him, only the millimeter of his finger barely touching the rim of his asshole, before drawing back again. Mark is quivering and his knees are sore. “Eduardo – Wardo – ”

“Do you want to ask for it?” Eduardo asks. His voice is thick but he continues talking anyway. “Or are you going to expect me to just give it to you, because you say so, just like those nineteen thousand dollars?”

Mark turns around to glare at him but Eduardo is glaring just as fiercely back. His eyes are bright and shimmering. It occurs to Mark, for the first time, that maybe having sex right after the depositions is a bad idea. That them ever having sex, being here at all, was a bad idea. It makes Mark swallow and suddenly there are more important things right now than having Eduardo’s finger inside him.

But then Eduardo does thrust his finger in him, kind of rough and dry from the teasing but still so good. Mark cries out and forgets about would’ves and could’ves and should’ves, and Eduardo is licking under his finger and taking him out and then back in again, smoother this time, gliding in rhythm. Mark gasps against the pillow and rocks his hips back into him, so that Eduardo is fucking him at a steady pace, until he draws it out and then there’s two fingers, three, pressed to the knuckle and hot and tight and Mark could really, really come – until Eduardo brings his other hand around and holds Mark at his balls, full and pressing back his orgasm. Mark positively screams into his pillow.

“You’re greedy,” Eduardo is saying, “you’re so greedy, jesus fuck you’re so hot, you want this, huh, you want me this bad, why didn’t you say something, why didn’t you just tell me, why didn’t you listen, think about me – ”

“Please, please, please,” Mark babbles against the pillow, but Eduardo has pulled his fingers out and when Mark turns around he sees that there’s more than just tears in Eduardo’s eyes now. There’s anger, and the hurt, from all those years ago, from today. They’ve welled up and are burning into him, like a scab that won’t go away, and Eduardo’s wet and dirty fingers are fallen to his side and his kneeling and his cock is still so dark and Mark feels twisted lust and exasperation and – maybe underneath everything, sorrow, but Eduardo is sitting up and crying on their bed and his cock is so, so hard.

Mark sits up, pulling at Eduardo’s knees with a hand. Eduardo complies, extending them across the bed so they bump against Mark’s pillow. “Wardo,” Mark says, and he drags Eduardo’s thighs apart. He gets into his space. Eduardo stares up at him.

Mark guides Eduardo into him and Eduardo doesn’t help at all. It’s at a bad angle and Mark is tense, trying to settle Eduardo into him. The wetness of Eduardo’s cheeks gets on Mark’s shoulder as he tries to focus, breathe, get his hands on Eduardo’s angles. He remembers the first time he’d touched Eduardo’s bare skin, with wonder and awe at the roughness, never seemed to go with the tenderness in Eduardo’s gaze. Now it’s fitting, and Eduardo is to the hilt deep in him and, oh, pressed against his prostate, and the heat at Mark’s spine skyrockets so fast he nearly blacks out.

“Jesus, Mark,” Eduardo says. Mark opens his eyes again. Eduardo’s eyes are still wet and wide, but he rolls his hips ever so slightly, adjusting the angle. This time it’s better and harder against Mark’s prostate. Mark whimpers.

“Fuck – fuck, Wardo,” Mark says, and tips his head back, soaking up the pleasure and energy. Eduardo is fucking into him, and his grip on Mark’s hips tighten, and then he’s thrusting into him in earnest, not making Mark do all of the work anymore, shoving himself balls deep into Mark with every thrust. Mark tilts forward again, only to meet Eduardo’s eyes.

It’s – like, shit, Mark has only seen Eduardo cry a handful of times, and he hates it when people cry. He doesn’t know what to do. Tears are streaming down Eduardo’s cheeks and his gaze burns hard into Mark’s, like he’s trying to say, look at this, look at what you’ve done to me, and Mark can’t look away. He hates it, but Eduardo is full on crying as he stares at Mark, then buries his face into Mark’s shoulder, and Mark’s insides are yanked with want and hatred and the smallest, smallest amount of regret.

“I’m sorry,” falls out of his mouth, and he’s not really thinking about it, and Eduardo isn’t really listening, but Mark can’t stop himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s blubbering against Eduardo, and then Eduardo sobs and the shoulder of Mark’s shirt is so wet as his fingers scrabble at Mark’s back, nails blunt and hard, making Mark moan out against him. Eduardo pulls back; his eyes are big and red because he’s an ugly crier, and he bites his lip and Mark kisses him and Eduardo’s nails dig into him, arcs down his back and then down on his shoulder, so hard that Mark can’t control his hips anymore and it’s all Eduardo, fucking him so, so hard. Mark can hear his sobbing as he does and he whispers another, “Sorry,” into Eduardo’s ear and Eduardo comes in him, thick and hard.

Mark groans, feeling his orgasm rising, threatening to tip at any second. Eduardo brings his face back, and his face is twisted and dirty. Mark kisses at the stains on his cheeks. Eduardo closes his eyes and his lower lip trembles. He’s soft inside of Mark, but Mark fucks himself down anyway, murmuring, “I’m sorry,” over and over again until he comes, rising up his spine and falling half-heartedly, remorseful and unsatisfied.

They pant against each other for a few minutes, or maybe fifteen. Eduardo’s hands haven’t moved against Mark’s shoulders and even though they’re numb now, there are going to be delightful bruises all over him tomorrow. It’ll be hard to focus.

Eventually Mark picks himself up off Eduardo’s lap, crawls back into bed and pushes himself under the covers. Eduardo joins him, all the while not looking at him. Before he turns out the light, Mark can see that the back of Eduardo’s neck is still red, and he’s panting a little still, either from the crying or the fucking or the – emotion, that thing. Mark wants to crawl over to him and kiss everything away, but instead he shuts off the lamp.

Eduardo is the only one who knows he’s a cuddler. Mark curls on his side, knuckles against Eduardo’s arm, because he doesn’t know how much he’s allowed to touch now, allowed to grab. Eduardo breathes loudly. Mark waits.

Eduardo says, “How much of that did you mean?”

“The – ” Mark is more tired than he thought. Though he shouldn’t be surprised, given how draining that sex was. “What?”

“What you said,” Eduardo says. “Earlier.”

“During the depositions?” Tiredness brings out the worst in Mark.

Eduardo huffs. “No, just – just now,” he says.

“Wardo,” Mark says sleepily. “I said a lot of things. And they were mostly the same things.” Sorry is much harder to articulate when Eduardo’s cock isn’t inside him.

He hears Eduardo clenching his jaw, and the familiarity of it makes Mark smile into the pillow a little. “Yes,” Eduardo snaps. “How much of – Did you mean it?”

Mark hums and wraps his fingers around Eduardo’s left arm, the one slung next to him. Eduardo tenses, but then he shifts, too – toward Mark, so that they’re facing each other. They can barely see each other in the dark room, but Eduardo’s eyes manage to gleam, anyway. Maybe he hasn’t stopped crying.

“Even if you did,” Eduardo says, barely a whisper, “it doesn’t solve everything.”

Mark shrugs. “I didn’t think it would,” he says. He gets a little closer because he thinks he’s allowed, and when Eduardo doesn’t pull away, he lifts his chin against Eduardo’s shoulder, buries his nose into Eduardo’s neck.

Eduardo doesn’t say anything, but Mark’s pretty sure he hears a sniffle. “Do you want to solve everything?” Eduardo asks, voice hesitant like he’s not sure what he wants the answer to be.

Mark just runs a hand down Eduardo’s back, because he’s not sure how to answer, either. “Go to sleep, Wardo,” he says, and waits as Eduardo’s breathing evens out. He pans his hand down Eduardo’s back, listening to the shallow puffs against his neck, and loving the sound of Eduardo drifting away. So Mark drifts away, too.

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Should’ve Gone Home

by aroceu

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© 2009-2026 aroceu