Rating:

Teen

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

The Social Network

Relationship:

Eduardo/Mark

Tags:

established relationship, post-canon, relationship study

Stats:

Posted on:

2015-12-30

Words:

3,028

On a cold day, Eduardo looks both ways before crossing the street. The wind is sharp like a knife. His jacket is zipped up to his chin, and he paces straight-backed across the walkway, through the breeze of the people, into a warmer building and up an elevator and into the Facebook offices.

He has two bags of lunch in his hands. Mark is expecting him in his office, so Eduardo goes to where he is. Mark does not look up from his computer when Eduardo enters, though there is the slowing of his fingers on the keyboard the closer Eduardo gets, until Eduardo is behind him, setting Mark’s lunch on his desk.

“Thanks,” Mark says without looking up, grabbing toward the bag.

Eduardo bends down. It takes Mark a second—it always does—but he leans forward, slightly, so their cheeks are brushing together. Eduardo turns his face to kiss him. It’s not very long, and neither is the lift of Mark’s lips when he does. If Eduardo was on the other side of the table, somewhere else in the room, not here and by Mark’s side, he would probably see a dimple. It would come and go as quickly as Eduardo does from the kiss.

“Don’t work while you eat,” Eduardo says, because he’s expected to. He rests his hand on the lid of Mark’s laptop.

“I can do that myself,” Mark tells him.

He is looking up and smiling, though. His smile reaches his eyes.

Eduardo averts his own as Mark closes his laptop.

*

There had been a time when Eduardo had thought he and Mark were equally brilliant. Mark is a programmer and a technician; Eduardo is a statistician and predictor. Mark had recognized Eduardo’s way with numbers the same way Eduardo had admired all the things that Mark could do,create, with so many different languages on a screen.

Today Eduardo knows that he is nowhere near Mark. He has known for a long time.

Someone is knocking at Eduardo’s hotel door when he comes out of the shower. “Coming!” he calls, one towel wrapped around his waist while tousling his hair with the other.

Behind the door is Mark. He seems startled at Eduardo’s state of undress. His eyes follow a water droplet trailing down to Eduardo’s bellybutton.

“Mark,” says Eduardo, equally surprised.

“Wardo.” Mark meets his eyes. The corners of his mouth twitch. “Got a minute?”

Eduardo pauses. “Yeah, yeah, sure,” he says, before moving aside to let Mark in.

Mark puts his laptop bag on Eduardo’s bed. Eduardo drops the towel that had been drying his hair to the ground, feeling like a man in the middle of a desert. Mark is the big hot sun, beating down on him.

Eduardo says, “I guess I don’t need to put on clothes now, do I?”

Mark’s smirk gets wider as he takes one step forward toward Eduardo. “Nope,” he says, resting his hand at the curve of Eduardo’s hip. His thumb tucks into the towel before dropping down.

Eduardo shivers upon contact.

*

Mark is a crackling spark on new year’s. Eduardo remembers the first time he’d met Mark, seeing him across the room at an AEPi meeting, in khakis and a Gap hoodie and making Eduardo’s stomach twist with something hot.

Mark’s fingers are grazing the edge of Eduardo’s shirt as he leans back in his chair. Eduardo’s lips are not chapped or dry, but he wants them to be. One of his own hands is cupping Mark’s face, and Eduardo is delirious at how warm he is. How cold he’d always expected him to be. The other hand is on the armrest of Mark’s chair, holding Eduardo upright as their lips move along each other.

Eduardo’s skin tingles as the pads of Mark’s fingers tease under his shirt. “Mark,” Eduardo murmurs. “We have the meeting in fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes is pretty long,” Mark murmurs back.

Eduardo does not want him to stop. He does not want this to continue. He does not know how to say, wait, maybe later.

“You’re optimistic,” he says, instead.

Mark chuckles against his lips. Mark never chuckles. Eduardo has heard him in spades of derisiveness, incredulity, mocking—there have been rare moments of genuine amusement, and prior to their current arrangement, it had been a long time since Eduardo had last heard it. He has not felt it before.

“I’m practical,” Mark says.

Eduardo pulls away. Mark makes a small whining noise, but Eduardo brings himself to smile.

“Oh?” he says. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mark tugs him back. “I’m familiar with your habits, you know,” he says, biting at Eduardo’s jaw. He is so warm and a chill runs up Eduardo’s bones. “I know how long you can last.”

Eduardo tries not to flinch in Mark’s grip. “You’d be surprised,” he says, and lets his cheek rut up against Mark’s sharp and warm one. He is like a flame licking up against Eduardo’s skin, white hot, freezing.

*

The bed is too big.

That has always been Eduardo’s complaint; there is too much room, for the nightmares to get in. For the memories Eduardo struggles to push back, the feelings he tries to pretend never happened, to slip in between the covers and slot into the spaces between Eduardo’s toes.

Mark shrugs. It is not the only thing Mark has spent too much money on, and he is motionless when he sleeps (Eduardo has known since Kirkland), but he says it’s enough room for the both of them.

Eduardo wakes up freezing and hungry. The bedsheets are cold enough to feel damp, and Mark is lying next to him. Eduardo watches him for one long moment, before leaning over and kissing Mark on the forehead. Mark does not stir.

Eduardo goes downstairs and prepares breakfast. He turns on the kitchen tv as he cooks, in Mark’s sweatpants and Mark’s t-shirt. They are strangers on his body, but it is not suffocating. Eduardo flips a pancake over.

Mark comes down after a while, scrubbing at his face. The sight of him makes an avalanche fall inside Eduardo, but it is all too familiar that he ignores it.

“Good morning,” he says.

Mark mumbles something as he sits at the breakfast bar. He spins around to watch the tv with him.

Eduardo supposes that at this point, he’s expected to say something to Mark. About how his sleep was, or some commentary about the weather, or maybe just another complaint about Mark’s fucking bed. He wonders what would happen if he didn’t say anything.

“It’s supposed to rain today,” he says.

Mark glances up through the sunroof of the kitchen. “I could’ve told you that,” he says, though his tone is light.

Eduardo finishes making breakfast and drags both the food and Mark to the dining table. Mark is evidently hungrier than he is; he wolfs his food down in what looks like two bites. Eduardo, himself, had wanted to eat more earlier, but after half a pancake and he’s beginning to feel like he can go on the rest of his day like this.

Mark stays at the table instead of putting his plate away. “Are you going to go back to your hotel?” he asks Eduardo.

“Yeah,” Eduardo replies, picking up a forkful of pancake. “All my stuff’s there.”

Mark eyes him carefully.

Something cold touches Eduardo’s bare foot.

Eduardo nearly jumps, dropping his fork and yanking his foot up onto his chair. “What was that for?” he demands.

Mark is wide-eyed, bewildered. “What are you freaking out for?” he asks. “It’s just me.”

Mark doesn’t try to touch him under the table. Except this Mark does, when he kisses Eduardo sometimes at random, absently tangling their fingers together down the street.

“Don’t touch me,” Eduardo mumbles, going back to his food.

“We touch each other all the time,” says Mark.

Eduardo doesn’t respond as he tries to finish his food.

*

Sean Parker is a buffer, surprisingly, between what Eduardo knows and what he wants to forget. He invites himself to dinner with Eduardo and Mark one day, and while Mark looks annoyed, he does not say no.

He looks surprised when Eduardo does not protest.

Eduardo supposes he could’ve put up more of a fight. But what’s the use, when it doesn’t make a difference to him, anyway? Besides, Sean Parker talks about Faceboook and new apps and the music industry. He talks about them, too, briefly—

“Glad to see my favorite gay power couple is going strong.”

Mark’s cheeks flush pink under the fluorescent of the restaurant light. Eduardo says, “I didn’t realize we were your favorite.”

“Well, it’s either you guys or Hughes and his boy, but he chewed me out when I tried running that line on him.”

“I’ll chew you out, too,” Mark says.

“You’re not as threatening as he is,” says Sean.

“Yes, I am.”

“You’re really not,” Eduardo puts in.

—and that is it. Sean shies away from Eduardo for the most part, as he usually does, but it has been long enough that the urge to punch Sean only comes about twenty percent of the time now. They say goodbye and part their ways.

Mark walks with Eduardo. Eduardo’s hotel is only a few blocks away, so there’s no point in taking a cab when it’s a nice night out and the air is cool. It skates along the back of Eduardo’s palms just enough to raise a little gooseflesh. Mark does not complain about the cold, or the walking, as they make their way along. Eduardo wonders if he can shake Mark off.

“Well,” he says, when they stop and arrive at Eduardo’s hotel.

Mark blinks at him. “Aren’t you going to invite me up?”

Eduardo has always been bad at saying no to Mark. They go upstairs, and once they’re in Eduardo’s room, Mark closes the gap between them. He tastes like marinara and beer, because he doesn’t like wine. His lips are rough and press upon Eduardo’s like he is trying to surge his breath down Eduardo’s throat, suffocating him. Eduardo kisses back.

*

Sometimes people that Eduardo recognizes around the offices—never vaguely, he knows all of them like yesterday’s hurricane—stare in disbelief, when Eduardo comes in with Mark’s lunch, when they both leave his office together, when they try to sneak a private kiss in the elevator and are unsuccessful. Eduardo can only imagine what it’s like, wants to say, I know what you mean.

He stays, as always, two weeks before the meeting, and two weeks after. He leaves for Singapore on a Thursday, is packed up and ready to go.

Mark did not tell him to come by the offices before he left. But Eduardo knows that’s what he’s supposed to do. He leaves his things and the driver in the cab as he comes upstairs.

Mark wires out as soon as he sees Eduardo. “You’re leaving,” he states.

Eduardo’s smile feels like relief. “I’m glad you remembered.”

Mark makes a movement that makes Eduardo feel like he should come join him at his chair, so he does. He rounds the desk and Mark turns to the side, staring at him.

“When are you going to stay in California with me?” he says.

Eduardo’s mouth tightens. His lips feel more strained now.

“When will you move Facebook headquarters to Singapore?” he asks.

Mark frowns. He grabs Eduardo by the wrists, tugging him in. “You know I can’t do that.”

Eduardo laughs lightly. “Yeah, I know,” he says, letting Mark pull him down and kiss him goodbye.

Later, the flight back home feels like a weight off his shoulders, a new thump in his stomach. Eduardo feels hot and cold all at once, like he has the flu, except he doesn’t, because this happens far below his skin and veins, somewhere deep in his bones he can’t place. In the direction he is going in, his back is turned to Mark.

The freedom is replaced by guilt.

*

Eduardo has spent what felt like half his life (and had been a year) hoping Mark would look up long enough to notice. There had been every reason for him to give up, but Mark is brilliant and Eduardo is good at probability, so together the both of them should have realized the pull between them, like magnets—

He wishes, now, that they were polar. That Eduardo would have every right, every reason, to answer to the anxiety thrumming through his blood, when he hears Facebook, when he sees Mark through glass windows or the back of his curly head, could walk away as well so they can go into opposite directions, without Eduardo feeling like he is always chasing after Mark.

Singapore is open, but lonely. Eduardo lives with a nervous twitch in his body, pacing and moving with the feeling that there is something missing. He goes out for drinks with his coworkers. He accompanies some acquaintances to nightclubs, dances with strangers (he never kisses them.) There is a feeling of too-warm and too-empty as he soars through his days, needing to fill that gap that is not there.

Mark texts and calls him. Eduardo responds half the time; he should respond for most. Mark doesn’t say anything, doesn’t scold or seem upset.

“We should Skype,” he says, once, when Eduardo is ordering his lunch and distracted by the sound of Mark’s voice.

So they do, when it is a decent time for the both of them to be Skyping. This is a little less than twenty-four hours later, when Mark’s pale face is illuminated by the light of his computer screen. Eduardo’s chest lurches, a sweet pang.

It makes him want to throw up.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Mark asks, squinting a little at the computer.

Eduardo pulls his mouth into a smile. “It’s the weekend, Mark,” he chides.

Mark pauses. “Time differences,” he declares, as if he’d just discovered them himself.

Here, Eduardo laughs into his palm and it feels real. Here, there is no Mark to try to touch him, or kiss him. This Mark shrouded by the dark feels fake, like he exists only on his computer screen, an entity only in colored pixels. Eduardo relaxes into his skin.

“What’ve you been up to?” he asks.

*

They are two ends of the same string, threatening to fray apart. Sometimes Eduardo wonders if he’ll ever see the end. If he wants to.

The gap is too much. The space is too little.

He wonders often how they got here—after the dilution, after Harvard, after the depositions. But in the end, Eduardo supposes this, like everything else, is his fault. He had suggested Stanford. He had chosen to forgive Mark. The things that followed—his shares, them—they are the things that should naturally follow. Eduardo is a statistician. He should know.

*

When he is next scheduled to travel to the States, he wants to prolong it. His insides are tied up and the tear between going and not going feels like a neurosis under his palms.

He arrives at the airport, boards the plane on time, and is back stateside.

Mark greets him at the luggage carousel. “Wardo,” he says, nodding when Eduardo strolls over.

Eduardo wants to kiss him and fuck him and toss him and leave him stranded in the rain. “Hi Mark,” he says. He pushes his lips into his cheeks, smiling. He doesn’t choke.

Mark drives him to his hotel, because Eduardo refuses to stay in his house. Their fingers brush a few times against the gearshift, but Eduardo can only blame himself; Mark yanks his hand back every time, warm and embarrassed. When they get to the hotel Mark invites himself up, but it’s been long enough that Eduardo doesn’t feel annoyed.

The want to pull away from him is strong. The expectation to stay is even stronger, as Mark makes him forget about his bags, kisses him as soon as the door to the hotel room is shut. “I missed this,” Mark murmurs, eyes hazy. Eduardo’s not sure if he knows what he’s just said.

Eduardo swallows. “I missed this too,” he hears himself say.

*

Mark is the seven seas and the land and Eduardo is torn and shipwrecked wherever he goes. Mark is the loud pound of thunder, when Eduardo was seven years old and his house was rattling and it was too frightening to be fascinating, just tremors, everywhere, and he had nowhere to hide.

Mark is Mark, and Eduardo watches him as he works. The blankets are bunched up to Mark’s bare waist, and he types rapidly on his keyboard, responding to emails, being the CEO of a billion dollar company from Eduardo’s hotel bed. He is not warm enough, and sometimes Eduardo wishes to wake up to an empty bed and a barely used phone, the space surrounding him as frigid as it has always been, like he has always known.

Eduardo will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. There is no telling with Mark, when he is so brilliant and Eduardo is so, so stupid; there is no knowing what Mark is planning, for the next day, or the day after. Eduardo holds his breath every moment—Mark is what is making him hold his breath—Mark is not letting him breathe—

It expands in his chest and sends bumps all over his skin, running down his spine in ice cold trickles. Eduardo cannot believe this is real. He does not want this to be real.

Mark looks at him. He is shirtless and smiling. “Lunch?” he says, a steady stream of things Eduardo had never thought he’d be able to witness before.

Because, you see, Eduardo will never be able to replace the Mark he wants with this one.

He pushes the air up through his throat, willing himself to breathe. “Sure,” he says, straightening himself up. “I’ll call room service.”

He slips out from the bed. The air around him is less cold. He shivers.