Rating:

Teen

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

The Social Network

Relationship:

Eduardo/Mark

Tags:

harvard era, kissing, seven minutes in heaven, smoking, weed

Stats:

Posted on:

2017-02-15

Words:

6,222

The suite is beginning to smell. Mark can tell, even though if he were sober he would actually be able to smell the stench. Right now, his head is just a fuzz, and his eyes go back and forth between the bowl being passed around, short bursts of Chris and Dustin’s laughter, and Eduardo leaned back in the sofa chair, golden under the yellow light.

Dustin nudges the bowl into Mark’s hand. “Yo,” he says.

“Yo,” Mark says back, automatically. Dustin laughs but Mark ignores him, instead wrapping his lips around the glass end and taking a short hit. He doesn’t have much of a tolerance, so he knows to pace himself.

Chris doesn’t either, but he comes at Mark when he’s done and says, “Gimme,” all bright-eyed and eager. Mark hands him the pipe and Chris cleans the mouthpiece, because Mark is kind of messy and Chris is a neat freak anyway, before sucking in quickly. He goes immediately to blow out the smoke, but ends up failing and kind of coughing anyway.

Dustin laughs.

Mark snorts, and Eduardo covers his own smile with his hand. “Nice going Chris,” Dustin says.

“Here,” says Eduardo, and reaches to take the pipe from Chris. Chris goes, “Wait, let me try again,” whining sort of, but Eduardo plucks it out of his hands easily.

He takes his own hit without wiping off what could be Chris’s spittle—and Mark feels a flare of jealousy suddenly, stupid-feeling but intense all the same—bleary-eyed and practiced. Mark remembers how deft Eduardo had been when Dustin had brandished his pot for the first time last semester, catches of anecdotes here and there about Eduardo’s old high school parties. Yet Eduardo is here in the Kirkland suite, hanging out with Mark and the rest of his roommates. Well, Chris and Dustin are Eduardo’s friends, too.

Eduardo sucks in deep, unflinching, then takes his lips off and blows perfect smoke rings out. One at a time, small but thick, fading into the air.

He turns and blows one in Mark’s direction, and it hits Mark right in the face. Mark scrunches his eyes and waves it away as the rest of them laugh.

“Fifty points!” Dustin crows, which Mark ignores.

“You got smoke in my eye,” he complains, though it’s not entirely true. Now he can just smell it, strong in his nostrils. It’s a little better when something in the back of Mark’s head reminds him, it’s from Eduardo’s mouth, but he ignores that and keeps the petulant frown on his face.

“Sorry about that,” Eduardo says, not sounding at all sorry. “Want me to get it out for you?”

Mark says, “Ugh, just give me the pipe,” because he doesn’t want Eduardo looking at him too long like this, and also, it’s just had Eduardo’s mouth on it. It’s not like Mark hasn’t done this before, swapping spit over a bong with Eduardo, but it’s Eduardo.

Mark grabs for it the same time Eduardo hands it to him. They barely meet halfway, fingertips brushing, and Mark jolts a little to make sure that his hand is secure on the glass.

“There,” Eduardo says when Mark draws it back.

“That could’ve ended badly,” Dustin chuckles.

Mark ignores them all and takes another hit. Maybe it’s too soon, because immediately he gets that out of body experience he only gets when he’s nearing his limit, and he draws back and suppresses a cough. Dustin takes the pipe from him and Eduardo says, “You okay?” Mark nods and gets up from the couch.

The room swims around him but he pretends like it’s nothing. His laptop is on his desk in his side of the suite, and Mark grabs it before coming back to the common room. Chris is poking Eduardo and saying, “Move, I wanna sit down,” and Eduardo is laughing, “There’s a whole empty couch over there,” since Dustin is taking a hit and dancing to the radio that he had put on earlier.

Chris whines, “I wanna sit in this chair. It’s my favorite chair.”

“I didn’t know you had a favorite chair,” Eduardo says, but he moves out of it anyway, going over to the couch. Mark sits next to him and pretends like it’s nothing, propping his feet up on the table. Eduardo nudges his hip with his own. Mark ignores him.

“We should do something fun,” Dustin says eagerly.

“We are doing something fun,” Mark says without looking up. He opens emacs on his computer; his vision blurs and he scrubs at an eye for a moment.

Eduardo leans over his shoulder. “What are you working on?” he asks.

“You’re on your computer, you nerd,” says Dustin. It doesn’t mean much coming from him considering he just had a calculus midterm and was the only person in his class to have gotten a perfect score on it. “I mean something fun for real.”

“A program for classes,” Mark mutters. He still hasn’t asked Eduardo about his schedule next year yet. “You can put in your classes and see what your friends are taking.”

“Is this fake fun then?” Chris inquires.

“That sounds useful,” Eduardo says, watching Mark’s computer screen. It makes Mark self-conscious, but also he wants Eduardo to see him at work. “Is this the design?” He points to the web browser.

“Fun is a social construct,” Dustin declares. “Hey, we should play truth or dare!”

“No,” Mark says immediately to Dustin. Then to Eduardo: “Most of it. It’s placeholder.”

Eduardo draws back and nods. “It looks really good,” he says. “Is it going to be ready by next semester?”

Mark shrugs. “By the end of this weekend, I hope,” he says. He’d only just started this week, but he’s been wired in for the most part, anyway. And procrastinating on homework, most of which he doesn’t care about, aside from his OS class, where each assignment takes sixteen hours to do but at least they’re interesting and fun.

Eduardo looks impressed, so Mark considers his mission accomplished. Whatever his mission was.

Dustin clicks his tongue. “Why are you no fun?” he says to Mark.

“Because I’m not a social construct,” Mark says immediately.

Beside him, Eduardo actually lets out a snort this time.

Dustin says, “Ha-ha, very funny. Truth or dare, Wardo?”

“I thought I said we weren’t playing this game,” Mark says, but Eduardo responds, “Dare.”

“Hmm.” Dustin looks around the room. It’s mostly cluttered, aside from Chris’s area which is near spotless (except for his desk, which is only half-spotless), and where Chris is sitting back on his chair, flipping through the GQ that had been on the table, an old edition with Jude Law on the cover. Mark is pretty sure that Chris is the one who’d put it there in the first place.

“I dare you,” Dustin says, “to take Mark’s laptop and sit on it.”

“I won’t sit on it,” Eduardo says. But before Mark knows it, his netbook is being wrenched from his hands, closed, and Eduardo is placing it on the other side of his body.

Mark yelps. “Hey!” he says, and tries to reach for it across Eduardo’s lap.

Eduardo pats Mark’s face. It’s odd. He gets his palm up on Mark’s nose and mouth and everything. “You can have your laptop back later,” he assures.

Mark scowls. Eduardo’s taken his hand back, and Mark kind of wants an excuse to bite it. “I want it back now,” he says.

“That’s what you get for being a party pooper,” Dustin sing-songs. “Chris!”

Chris jerks up from the magazine. “Yeah?”

Dustin eyes him for a moment. “I commend you on your taste in men,” he says, and finger guns at the magazine.

Pouting, Mark says, “Why aren’t you making Wardo take Chris’s magazine away?” He’s pretty sure Eduardo is laughing at him. He’s put Mark’s laptop on the floor, on the other side of the couch by the armrest, and Mark’s too lazy to get up and try to get it back. That, and Eduardo would probably just snatch it back before Mark can get it, anyway. Even when high, Eduardo has scarily good reflexes.

“Because at least Chris is doing something worthwhile with his time, like looking at pretty men,” Dustin says pointedly.

Mark huffs. “Jude Law is mediocre.”

Eduardo snickers. “You think everyone is mediocre,” he says to Mark.

Mark decidedly does not answer this.

“Okay, Wardo!” Dustin enthuses. “Your turn, truth or dare someone!”

Eduardo leans back, examining Chris who keeps his nose stuck in the magazine, and Dustin who looks eager for either someone to humiliate themselves or to humiliate himself. Mark avoids Eduardo’s eyes, too: the past few times they played truth or dare (not by Mark’s choice), Eduardo has made Chris take off Mark’s socks with his teeth, Dustin run around in the snow wearing no shoes or socks, and Mark stick his t-shirt under running water for five minutes and wear it for the rest of the night. Mark was cold, wet, and half-wanted to kill his best friend that day.

“Okay,” Eduardo says, and Mark hopes to god that he’ll ask Dustin. “Mark.”

Fuck.

“Truth or dare?” Eduardo asks.

Mark fidgets. “You should ask Dustin,” he says. “He’s the one who actually wanted to play in the first place.”

“That’s because we’re high and not DOING anything,” Dustin says, too loudly, while Eduardo nudges him and says, “I’m asking you.”

“Ugh.” Mark tries to rationalize it in his brain, even though Dustin is being bouncy and Chris is looking smug. Eduardo watches him, patiently, waiting, looking annoyingly kissable in the lemon light. The radio from Dustin’s boombox is still playing, a rap song that Mark actually likes, and time is not passing the way it does usually. Mark blinks and finds his mouth speaking before he can fully think it over.

“Dare,” he says.

“I dare you,” Eduardo says immediately, “to dance. To this song.”

Mark stares at him.

“Sexily,” Eduardo adds.

Dustin does something between a catcall and a snort. Chris actually puts his magazine down and, snickering, asks, “You want Mark to do a strip-tease?”

“No stripping involved,” Eduardo says airily. “Just sexy dancing.”

“While sitting in Chris’s lap!” Dustin calls.

Mark stares at Dustin, then at Chris, who covers his face. Chris’s cheeks are red, though from the weed more than anything, and he says, “I think Eduardo should be the one for Mark to do a lap dance on.”

“I’m not doing a lap dance,” Mark snaps. “I’m not doing any dance.”

“Oh come on,” says Dustin. “It’s just a dance, nothing to worry about! None of us are good dancers when we’re high.”

“Seriously,” Eduardo says, looking at Mark. “And I didn’t ask you to do the lap dancing part.” His tone is gentle, and Mark knows that he wouldn’t actually want to humiliate Mark. Just make him do something stupid more than anything, since they’ve all done stupid things while being dared. Like wearing a wet t-shirt. Though Eduardo had just taken Mark’s laptop away, which Mark is pretty sure doesn’t count as stupid.

“I can do the lap dancing part,” Mark says suddenly. “I’m just not sure what qualifies as sexy dancing. Or dancing at all.”

“That’s a good point,” Dustin says seriously. “I have seen your moves at AEPi parties, man. What’s up with that?”

Mark throws a pillow at him.

“Just move your hips or something,” Eduardo encourages, putting a hand on Mark’s back and pushing him up. “C’mon, only thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds?” Mark says incredulously. “Why not ten seconds?”

“Why not five whole minutes?” Chris says. He’s still laughing into his hand.

Mark reaches down to grab a pillow to throw at him, but Eduardo quickly puts the only other pillow on the couch behind his back and Mark doesn’t want to go through the effort of fighting him for it. “Go on, Mark,” says Eduardo, grinning. “It’s only thirty seconds.”

“And lap dancing!” Dustin says, thrusting his hips suggestively.

“Am I lap dancing?” Mark deadpans. “Or are we going to continue discussing the logistics of this until we forget that I have to do this at all?”

“You can dance on someone’s lap if you want to,” Eduardo says easily.

He looks indifferent, but he dug this damn hole in the first place and Mark has no idea how to dance sexily without it involving someone’s lap or clothes being taken off. And he doesn’t really feel like taking his clothes off, so he just says, “Ugh. Someone time this. Dustin, turn up the music.” From behind him, Pharrell and Jay-Z’s Frontin’ blasts louder and Mark hopes that these next thirty seconds will be the fastest thirty seconds of his life.

Getting up, he remembers the moves he’s seen girls do on like, movies and stuff. Which really just consists of moving his hips around a lot, and his ass—having been fencing in high school makes him feel slightly confident with his thighs, but not much. “I hate you so much,” he says to Eduardo, doing a weird rolling motion with his hips, as Eduardo covers his laugh with one hand. He’s timing Mark with his watch, while Chris is just grinning and Dustin isn’t even pretending he’s not laughing at Mark anymore.

Only a couple of seconds have passed, and Mark reasons that he’s high so what-the-fuck-ever, so he decides to up the stakes a little and crawl on the table. Dustin’s laughter gets louder and he’s pretty sure Chris wheezes, but Mark doesn’t care; he does that weird predatory crawl thing that he’s seen people do in movies, towards Eduardo, who just raises his eyebrows at Mark.

“You asked for this,” Mark reminds him, before getting up off the table and sitting right on Eduardo’s lap. Chris coughs in surprise—but Eduardo really did ask for this. And even though Mark knows that he’s not particularly sexy, the only way he knows to at least look sexy is to be confident and try. Neither of which Mark will gamble on in himself, but—

But he moves his ass and twists his hips on Eduardo’s thighs, focusing on what he feels could pass as sexy, leaning his back against Eduardo’s chest and grinding himself down on his lap. If he were sober he would’ve noticed Eduardo’s breath hitching, but Mark has never had much confidence—or much of an excuse—to try to seduce someone like Eduardo. Now he’s dancing all up on him, so he’s going to go all out, even if the moment Eduardo says, “Time’s up,” Mark realizes it’s the most embarrassing thing in the world.

He jolts himself off of Eduardo’s lap and shuffles back over to the other side of the couch, plunking himself down. Fuck, he thinks—what is he doing? Seducing Eduardo? As if Eduardo could be seduced by Mark and his khaki pants and Adidas flip-flops. As if Mark could be seductive.

Mark pointedly does not look at Eduardo, his own face feeling like it’s on fire. Dustin coughs and says, “Well. That was something.” He and Chris have stopped laughing a while ago. Mark doesn’t know when.

“That certainly was,” says Chris. “So, uh, Mark? Your turn.”

“I dare someone to give me the pipe,” Mark grumbles, crossing his arms. He doesn’t know if Eduardo is laughing at him or regretting making Mark embarrass himself, but Mark doesn’t want to know either way.

“You’re supposed to ask truth or dare,” Dustin says, but hands him the pipe anyway.

Mark takes a quick hit. The chemicals in his brain do what they’re supposed to do, masking his self-consciousness with the apathetic haze, easing the tension in his bones. “Chris?” he says, passing the pipe to Eduardo next to him without thinking.

Eduardo takes it from him, and Mark chances a glimpse from the corner of his eye. There’s a faint flush on Eduardo’s face, but it’s probably because his low tolerance is finally hitting him.

“Truth,” says Chris. “I’m not an idiot like the rest of you.”

“Okay,” Mark says. “Jude Law or Tyson Beckford?”

“Tyson Beckford, duh,” Chris says without hesitation. “I’m not blind. If anything he should be the one on the cover of this magazine.” He shakes the issue of GQ in his hand.

Eduardo says, “Isn’t that an old issue?”

“My point still stands,” Chris huffs. “Anyway, truth or dare is boring when Eduardo’s not the one asking the dares.”

“False!” Dustin declares. “I come up with excellent dares! And truth questions!”

“I don’t care,” Mark says. “Preemptively I agree with Chris.”

“We should play spin the bottle,” Chris suggests.

“I retract my preemptive agreement.”

“We can’t play spin the bottle,” Eduardo says, “if not all of us are at least semi-comfortable with kissing everyone in this room.”

“I’m not comfortable with kissing anyone in this room,” Mark says immediately, not looking at Eduardo.

“You’re not comfortable with anything,” Dustin says cheerfully. “But it’s a good idea! I like the idea of bottles.”

“Thank you,” says Chris.

Eduardo shrugs. “We could play seven minutes in heaven instead,” he says. “Then there’s no obligation for the bottle to mean anything. We could use the bathroom.” He gestures to where the bathroom door is open, as it usually is to filter out whatever gross smells are in there. And also because the lighting in there is brighter than the overhand lamp in their common room.

“I’m not sure if that could be considered ‘heaven’ then,” Mark says.

Eduardo laughs at this. He’s still holding the pipe and looks more at ease now. Maybe he’s forgotten all about Mark’s humiliating dance thing, Mark thinks hopefully. Eduardo’s eyes are dark and it’s like, distractingly hot, just like everything else about Eduardo. Mark turns away and mentally starts listing things he could talk about if he ends trapped with Eduardo in the next several minutes.

“Sounds good to me,” says Chris. “Dustin, you can go first.”

“Why me!” Dustin says.

“Because you would even if I hadn’t told you too,” Chris says, grinning. “And also because I’m hungry.” The two have nothing to do with each other but none of them question it anyway.

While Chris goes over to the mini-fridge to grab god knows what, Dustin says, “Point.” He grabs the empty beer bottle that had been Mark’s a few hours ago from the mantelpiece, and places it on the coffee table. Mark and Eduardo watch with trepidation when he spins it. Chris pops up from the fridge with a loaf of bread and says, “Seriously, Mark, why do you eat canned tuna?”

“Because it’s good,” Mark says. Dustin’s bottle is pointing at nothing, so he spins it again.

Chris goes to get peanut butter from his desk, and the bottle this time points closer to the chair that Chris had been sitting on before. Dustin crows, “Chris, I got you!” but Chris turns around and says, “No, you got my chair. Doesn’t count.”

“Ugh,” Dustin says. “Effort.”

“Are you going to keep going?” Mark asks. “Or should we just lock you in the bathroom for seven minutes by yourself?”

“That’s a good idea,” Eduardo says.

“I hate both of you,” says Dustin, as the bottle slows for a third time. “Aha! I got Wardo!”

The bottle is, actually, pointing directly at Eduardo. Heaving himself up, Eduardo says, “You got me,” though he doesn’t seem too against it, following Dustin who’s hopping to the bathroom like a dog on crack.

“Don’t contract a disease,” Mark calls after him.

“I am offended by the implications of your words,” Dustin says without turning around, as Eduardo shoots Mark a grin and says, “I’ll try not to.”

They close the door behind them. It takes Mark a full second before he’s saying, “Wait, we should time them.”

“I am,” says Chris, coming back over with his peanut butter sandwich, holding up his watch.

Mark sits back and listens. There’s muffled talking, which is assuring—and it’s not that Mark is particularly afraid that they’re doing something; it’s Dustin. And Eduardo. Except Dustin does not exactly have a long range of limits, and Eduardo is up for most things that aren’t completely stupid or inhumane, and they have seven whole minutes. Well, seven minutes is not a lot, but. It’s seven minutes.

“So,” Chris says, munching on his sandwich. “Want to talk about your glaringly obvious crush on Wardo?”

Mark’s cheeks heat up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says immediately.

Chris raises his eyebrows. “Really? Because if I wasn’t sure before, that dance…”

“Was terrible and humiliating, I know,” Mark says. He should find the bowl again. Or get another beer.

“It really wasn’t that bad,” Chris says. When Mark meets his gaze, he says, “Seriously, Mark. You were like, all up on his crotch. I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“I fence, you know,” Mark reminds him. “I have decent thighs.”

Chris covers his face with his sandwich. “Okay, you didn’t have to say that,” he says, though he’s laughing. When Mark gets up, he asks, “Are you getting the munchies too?”

“Sort of,” Mark admits. It’s also been a while since they’ve all eaten dinner, but when Mark’s high he just likes the feeling of extra isolationism while he codes. Which he could do now, since Eduardo’s gone to the bathroom with Dustin so Mark’s laptop is back out in the open. But Mark wants to eat first.

Chris tears his sandwich in half and says, “Here.” He hands the part he hadn’t bitten from to Mark, who takes it gratefully.

As Mark eats, Chris says, “So. Back to your obvious crush on Eduardo.”

There’s no point in hiding it when Chris is gay and honest. Mostly honest. Well, he’s really gay, too. “Yeah,” Mark says resolutely.

“I’d hit that,” Chris says.

Gay and honesty, right there.

“What about Dustin?” Mark asks.

Chris thinks for a moment. “Well,” he says, and then squints in thought. “Maybe? He looks like a cuddler, but whether he’s a good one or a bad one will make or break it with me.”

“So if he’s a good cuddler you definitely would,” Mark says.

“Or if he’s a bad cuddler with a good sense of humor,” says Chris.

Mark snickers. “I don’t know about the ‘good sense of humor’ part,” he says. “Dustin is really excitable though. That could be a good thing.”

“Depending on the task.”

“Task,” Mark says, then laughs. “What if he’s into weird shit? Like food?”

“Food is not weird,” Chris says defensively.

“Are you into food?”

“Not like, sprinkling chow mein on my body and asking someone to eat it off me,” Chris says, and Mark nearly chokes on his sandwich. “But like, you know. Whipped cream. Cherries.”

“So fruit,” Mark says.

Chris picks up the pillow Mark had thrown at Dustin earlier and throws it back at him. “Shut up,” he says, and Mark laughs into his wrist. “You can’t qualify weird shit. What if Wardo’s into weird shit?”

Mark shrugs. “Depends on how weird,” he says. “There are levels. Are you into anything weird?”

“Again, that can’t be qualified, and also, I refuse to answer,” Chris says, and takes a dignified bite of his sandwich. “And honestly, I probably wouldn’t sleep with any of you. I mean, I would say so, theoretically, if it never were going to happen. So yes, hypothetically, I would sleep with any of you, because I wouldn’t ever actually.”

“Thank you,” Mark says sarcastically.

“Definitely Tyson Beckford, though,” says Chris, and turns thoughtful. “Or Jude Law.”

Mark wonders how long Eduardo and Dustin have been alone. Probably long enough, but he doesn’t want to ask to look desperate or suspicious. He says, “I wouldn’t mind sleeping with anyone who wants to sleep with me.”

“So I hypothetically qualify,” Chris says, amused. “I thought you had higher standards than that.”

Mark shrugs. “I do, but I lack the experience to make that judgment.”

“I see,” Chris says, understanding immediately. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I don’t think you’re alone in that regard. Not with me, I mean. But probably Dustin.”

“Probably Dustin,” Mark agrees, grinning slightly. And it doesn’t bother him a whole lot—he’s only eighteen—but there are things, like making websites and programs because you’re good at it and you can, and other things, like wanting to have sex with your best friend. Though the sex part is not the end goal. Just preferential.

Dustin and Eduardo come out from the bathroom then, and Dustin says, “Probably me what?”

“If we were in a zombie apocalypse and who would get turned into a zombie first,” Mark says immediately.

Dustin fist pumps. “Hell yeah I’d turn into a zombie first! Then I’d eat the rest of your brains. Except maybe Wardo’s, who I’d turn into a zombie with me.”

“I take it you guys had a good time alone then,” Chris says dryly.

“We took a bath together and everything,” Eduardo says. “An excellent waste of seven minutes of my life.”

“It was not a waste!” Dustin says, though he doesn’t look to be too bothered. “We had a deep conversation about what animal we’d like to be in our next life.”

“Right,” says Mark. At least neither Eduardo nor Dustin look disheveled or have any visible bruises on their mouth or neck or something. Mark would probably nail his hands to his computer if they did. Or never speak to either of them again. Both sound melodramatic and not very appealing. “Who’s going next?” he asks, because his thoughts are going all over the place.

“Is that Chris’s sandwich?” Eduardo asks him.

“No, it’s my half of Chris’s sandwich,” says Mark. He thinks over his words. “Which technically just makes it my sandwich.”

“I’m too high for this for sandwich talk,” Dustin says. “Speaking of which, now I want a sandwich.”

“Too bad,” says Chris, shoving the rest of his sandwich into his mouth. “I’m done.”

Mark hands Dustin what’s left of his own, which is only just about a square inch. “Here,” he says to Dustin, who eats it straight from his hand.

Mark makes a noise of disgust. “Ew, Dustin, what was that for?” he asks, wiping his hand on his shirt.

“I want to be a dog in my next life,” Dustin says.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It doesn’t, I just wanted to let you know.” Dustin licks his fingers, even though he hadn’t used his hands to disgustingly eat out of Mark’s hands at all. “Wardo wants to be a bird. Or a fish, he can’t pick.”

“Since I’m already a land animal in this life,” Eduardo says pragmatically.

Mark rolls his eyes. “I’m going to spin the bottle so we can end this conversation.”

“I think you’d be a cat,” Dustin says to Mark, watching him contemplatively as Mark reaches up to spin the empty beer bottle. “Though you’re kind of like a cat now, so never mind. Ooh, I know! Maybe a barnacle.”

“Are barnacles even animals?” Chris asks.

Mark ignores them both. The bottle’s spinning pretty hard, but he just leans back and waits for it to stop.

“I think so? Or they’re plants.” Dustin puts a hand to his chin. “Maybe we’re all plants.”

“We are not plants,” says Eduardo, as the bottle slows to a stop.

On him. Again.

“Wow,” says Eduardo when he notices. “The bottle must really like me today.”

“You’re such a popular guy, Wardo,” Dustin says, slapping him on the shoulder. “Up you go! You too, Mark.”

Mark’s heart is thumping rapidly, but even though he doesn’t exactly not want to, it’s kind of—terrifying. His mind tries to go through the list of the things he’d thought up before in case this happened, but he suddenly can’t remember any of it. And Chris is smirking at him and Mark doesn’t want to make himself look too obvious, so he says, “Why am I going?”

“Because,” Dustin says, tugging Mark by the hood. “You spun the bottle!”

“I did it so we would move on, not for me.” Mark lets Dustin drag him up anyway, though he twists out of his grip when Dustin begins to push him.

“Well, now I say that you spun it for yourself,” Dustin cackles. He gets Mark into the bathroom and shuts off the light. “Have fun! Take your time!”

“It’s seven minutes!” Mark says, but Dustin just closes the door in his face.

“Don’t worry,” says Eduardo’s voice. Mark doesn’t know why Dustin shut off the light even though either one of them could turn it back on, but at least this way Eduardo can’t see the blush creeping up Mark’s face. “I can set my watch.”

“In the dark?” Mark says sarcastically.

There’s a shuffle of cloth that sounds like Eduardo shrugging. “It was set before,” he says, and then a faint clicking sound comes from his direction. “So what do you want to talk about? Do you know what animal you want to be in your next life?”

“I can’t believe you and Dustin talked about that,” Mark says. “You’d actually want to be a fish or a bird?”

“Well,” says Eduardo, but he’s laughing. “I didn’t know at first and obviously I thought it was weird, since it was Dustin. But he made me talk about it.”

“For seven minutes,” says Mark. He wishes he knew precisely where Eduardo’s standing, though they’d have to be pretty far apart; Mark’s closer to the door and can see the light shining through the crack underneath.

Eduardo chuckles. “For seven minutes,” he echoes.

“Chris told me that he would hypothetically sleep with all of us,” Mark says.

Eduardo lets out a laugh, stifling it with his hand. “Really? All of us, as in an orgy?”

“What? Oh god, no,” says Mark. “Now my mind’s thinking about it, thanks. No, he meant like, hypothetically. But not actually. He said that he wouldn’t actually sleep with any of us.”

“I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,” Eduardo says, sounding amused.

They stand there like that in the dark—the bathroom is kind of cramped, but apparently Eduardo doesn’t want to stand too close, or more likely remembers how much space there is for him to be standing far away enough so it’s not weird. A part of Mark wants it to be weird, but he won’t say that. Because it won’t go that way. Eduardo is experienced, and charismatic, and has standards. And Mark is… Mark.

“You’re a better dancer than I thought you would be,” Eduardo says, after a moment.

Mark scoffs. “I’m assuming that’s a compliment,” he says, and ignores the flush rising to his cheeks. “Let’s just forget that ever happened in the history of our lives, ever.”

“It really wasn’t that bad,” says Eduardo, and when Mark raises his eyes to look at him (or at least, try to, in the dark), he says, “Really. I’ve seen worse.”

“Really,” Mark says wryly.

“Really,” Eduardo repeats, and steps closer. This time Mark can see a better outline of his figure, a distinct shadow, curve of a smile on his face like he’s trying to make Mark feel better, not mock him. Mark is used to this, Eduardo’s kindness, a genuine interest in people that Mark wished that he himself could express better.

He says, instead, “You’re standing really close to me.”

“Not that close,” Eduardo says. “I could be closer.”

“You could be closer,” Mark agrees. Then: “I don’t know why we’re playing seven minutes in heaven, anyway, if none of us are kissing each other.”

“Because spin the bottle would’ve had more requirements,” says Eduardo.

A strange burst of confidence surges through Mark’s veins. Maybe it’s the adrenaline, maybe it’s the weed—okay, it’s definitely the weed—but he steps closer into Eduardo’s space and asks, “How against those requirements are you?” Eduardo’s pot-smelling breath is lingering around his nose, though then Eduardo inhales quickly and all Mark can smell is the faint cologne still clinging to his suit and collar.

“Depends,” Eduardo breathes against him.

Mark peers up to meet his eyes in the dark. “Depends on what?”

“If I had to kiss you,” Eduardo says quietly.

And Mark has had his fair share of kisses in his eighteen-year old life—though a fair share is not much, relatively speaking—but he knows to stand a little on his tiptoes when someone is taller, to open his mouth in the slight, to aim low enough to capture the other’s bottom lips between his own. It’s just a slight puff of breath between their open mouths, his and Eduardo’s, and Eduardo murmurs absently between his lips, “You taste like peanut butter.”

“Sorry,” Mark says back, mouth moving against his. His fingers are tingling and everything feels very still, and he’s in the bathroom of his dorm and kissing Eduardo, whose hand is reaching up to cup Mark’s face, but only in the slight. Eduardo is more movement than kissing, stroking at Mark’s cheek with his thumb, leaning back that Mark has to push himself forward to reach for more. Mark says, “Fuck you,” because Eduardo keeps teasing back, and Eduardo hums.

“C’mon,” Mark says urgently, and he kind of accidentally grinds himself against Eduardo but that does it. Eduardo groans into his mouth and pushes him forward, sliding his tongue hotly into Mark’s mouth that sends shivers down Mark’s spine, all the way down to his toes. Eduardo’s hands slip down to his ass, squeezing lightly, and licking into Mark, his teeth and the smoke and everything. Mark’s own fingers slide up Eduardo’s ridiculous neck, to his hair, tugging at it.

“If you do that,” Eduardo says, somehow still talking when their lips are joined so Mark can feel the vibrations of his words against every inch of his skin, “they’re going to know what we’re doing.”

“That’s kind of the point,” Mark says, scraping his fingers gently against his scalp.

“Fuck,” Eduardo whispers, and brackets Mark’s hips between his palms. He’s not that much bigger than Mark, but it makes Mark feel delightfully smaller than him anyway, especially with the hard metal of Eduardo’s belt pressed against the front of his shorts. Mark wonders how much they can get away with in seven minutes, if seven minutes have passed already, but then he’s dragging his tongue against Eduardo’s teeth, and Eduardo sucks down hard, and Mark loses that train of thought entirely.

Eduardo’s mouth is moving to Mark’s jaw, kissing and biting, when the alarm on Eduardo’s watch goes off. Eduardo swears and jumps back, trying to find the switch in the dark. Mark’s head feels like it’s in an even heavier daze, now, lips tingling and bruised, dick patiently but still very half-hard between his legs.

He blinks when the door suddenly opens, switch turning on the blooming lights, and Eduardo still swearing and trying to turn off his alarm.

“Chris says that the time’s—oh, what do we have here?”

“Hi Dustin,” Mark says.

Dustin grins at him. “Someone looks happy,” he says, then glances at Eduardo, whose cheeks are red and hair blatantly disheveled; but, with his watch alarm now off, Eduardo’s gaze is fixed more on Mark than anything else. “Two someones. Did the inevitable finally happen?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Eduardo.

He kind of ruins the point when he suddenly grabs for Mark’s hand, though.

“We should get out of here,” he says to Mark. Mark realizes that his mouth hurts, because he’s smiling so hard. He doesn’t really mind.

“Get out of here?” he asks.

“To my dorm,” Eduardo says.

Dustin squawks as Eduardo leads them out to the common room, where Chris looks all too satisfied in his chair. Mark doesn’t care. Eduardo wants them to go to his dorm.

“Are more inevitable things about to happen?” Dustin asks excitedly.

“You disturb me,” Mark says to him, though not convincingly.

“You two,” Chris says, “disturb us, with how long that took. At least have fun and use protection.”

“You guys can make out while we’re gone,” Eduardo says without looking back.

“Not gonna happen,” says Chris. And as Mark trails after Eduardo out of the suite, he hears Chris say to Dustin, “Put Metal Gear Solid on,” and Dustin exclaim, “Yes, time to dank Solid Snake!”

Mark closes the door behind them. They’re alone in the hallway; Mark hadn’t even thought to bring his laptop. Not that that’s more important than Eduardo pausing to look at him.

“We don’t really have to do anything,” he says. “In my dorm. If you want. We can just make out and talk.”

“Or make out,” Mark says.

Eduardo’s face brightens. “Sure, we don’t have to talk, either,” he says.

He’s still holding onto Mark’s hand, and even though it’s kind of weird, Mark doesn’t really mind. “We can talk, too, I guess,” he says, rolling his eyes in a way that makes Eduardo laugh. “And do other stuff,” he adds. “I wouldn’t mind. At all.”

“Okay,” says Eduardo.

“I’d like to do other stuff,” Mark says. “Too.”

“Okay,” Eduardo says again.

Mark doesn’t know how long they stand there smiling at each other—certainly too long, though no one comes by. So not very long at all, even though it feels like everything, with Eduardo’s hand clutched in his.

“We should get going,” Eduardo says, after.

“Yeah,” says Mark, and they do—hazily, and hurriedly, and happily.