aroceu's fic“What?”
“Great white, beautiful fish,” said Billy Olson.
“Thanks,” said Mark Zuckerberg.
*
“Who should we send it to first?” Eduardo asked.
“Dwyer,” said Dustin.
“Neal,” Chris suggested.
*
“Chris, the first thing you can do is get us a story in the BU student newspaper,” said Mark. “It’s the Bridge.”
“They hate doing stories about Harvard,” Chris complained.
*
Dustin was coming back from his economics class. He had hours of homework to do today, and all he wanted was to sit in front of the TV and watch something good and long to get his mind off of it. Maybe he could goad Mark and Chris into watching Star Wars again for the umpteenth time. Or Gladiator.
Chris was on the couch when he got home. He was already watching something. Dustin threw his bag onto the couch and flopped down beside him.
“Whatcha watching’?” he asked.
Chris nodded toward the TV. “Shark week’s on,” he said.
They watched for a while. It seemed to be an endless episode (it was about forty minutes long.) Dustin soon got bored and went to bother Mark about something.
Chris continued watching.
*
Facebook was expanding. It was always expanding, and Mark couldn’t be happier that he’d put Chris in charge of social and events. Not only did Chris have the friendly boy-next-door look, but he always managed to rope in good conversations and interviews. Mark was pleased with how fast Facebook was spreading.
He came into Chris’s room, fiddling a pen between his fingers. It was March and spring break was next week. “Think we can hit NYU before next week?” he asked Chris.
Chris was reading a magazine article about sharks.
He didn’t look up, but Mark took that as a yes. “Do we have a meeting with Washington Square yet?” he asked.
Chris finally looked up. “They hate doing stories about Harvard,” he emphasized to Mark.
Mark rolled his eyes. “This is something they’re gonna want. We’ve got Columbia already; WSN should be begging to have an interview with us.”
Chris flipped a page in his newspaper.
*
The suite was lively when Eduardo came in. Dustin was blowing stuff up on the Xbox. Mark was tapping away at his desk.
Chris was sitting next to Dustin on the couch. He was on the phone, talking to someone.
“Hey, what’s up?” Eduardo asked, balancing himself on the armrest. He glanced at Mark, as per routine.
“Yo, Wardo,” said Dustin, mashing buttons furiously on the Xbox controller, his tongue sticking out. “What’s new?”
“Just a club meeting.” Eduardo shook his head.
He glanced to the other end of the couch. Chris was laughing quietly into his phone, saying something.
“Who’re you talking to?” Eduardo asked him.
Chris mouthed, “Neal.”
Eduardo nodded, and then shrugged to himself. Mark didn’t move from his room, typing furiously, before stopping every once in a while and reading over whatever he had just done. He usually ignored anyone who came in, including Eduardo and Billy Olsen.
And Neal. If he ever came by. Whoever he was. Eduardo had never met him before.
*
Facebook moved out to California. Chris stayed at the house for the second half of the summer, because unfortunately he had to spend the first half with his family, back at home. He’d rather be in California. It was near the sea. Sharks lived in the sea.
They didn’t film Shark Week here, though—that was in Maryland. Chris wondered idly if he could persuade his family to visit Maryland.
They said no, but when he arrived at California, it turned out that Dustin had gotten him a whole box set of Shark Week as a greeting present. “Since that’s all you seem to watch,” he’d chortled.
*
Dustin was coding away at his desk, but he could hear Chris chuckling in the other room.
“Who’s he talking to?” he asked Mark who was sitting on the couch. Mark had his head rested on a propped elbow and didn’t respond. He’d probably accidentally dozed off.
Neal, Dustin figured. Chris was always talking to Neal. And watching Shark Week. (It was the only thing under “TV Shows” on Chris’s Facebook profile.) Dustin wondered if Neal had a Facebook page.
Inspired, he went to Chris’s profile and loaded all his friends, before doing a quick find for anyone named Neal. Nope. He tried the other spellings too, even though he’d seen the caller ID on Chris’s phone before.
Nothing came up. Dustin was stumped. He made a mental note to tell Chris to this Neal guy—who went to Harvard, they all knew that—to make a Facebook. Everyone did.
*
Sean Parker had met the rest of the Facebook crew—young kids filled with energy, ready to guard the site at any second. Mark’s head programmer was easily distracted but just as focused as Mark, and all the interns were loyal and stayed up to odd hours to make sure that the site was functioning while implementing new features. Sean couldn’t have been prouder.
The only person he couldn’t quite figure out was Mark’s PR guy, Chris Hughes. He was a nice guy, sure. He wasn’t even bad looking, another plus.
But—
Sean was unceremoniously shoved off the couch one evening, when Chris came him and wrested the remote control from his hand without even looking at him. Of course, Sean wouldn’t put up with this nonsense without a fight, so he tried to grab it back. Chris just pushed him to the ground.
“Hey!” Sean demanded. “What the fuck, dude?”
Chris didn’t look at him, changing the channel with the remote control. “Shark week’s on,” was all he said.
Sean glared at him, hoping that Chris would look at him again and cower in fear. When this didn’t happen—Chris seemed much more interested in the sharks gliding about on the TV screen—Sean huffed and headed to the back, with all the interns and programmers.
“What’s up with your PR guy?” he asked Mark, who had been eating Red Vines and talking very fast with Dustin about the Wall.
Mark glanced up at him. “What about Chris?”
“He just—!” Sean gesticulated wildly. “He just shoved me off the couch! For fucking Shark Week!”
“Oh yeah,” Dustin laughed. “He does that.”
“He does that?”
“Chris is…” Mark and Dustin looked at each other, exchanging some sort of telepathic communication in the way you do when you’ve lived with a guy for over a year and want to talk about your third roommate without actually saying anything.
“He’s Chris,” said Dustin assuredly.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Mark.
*
Stanford hadn’t hated doing a story about Harvard. They’d loved it, actually, making Chris’s life easier. He visited toward the end of the summer, and the Stanford Daily were delighted to see him again. Most of them even remembered his name.
“And I heard you guys got Cambridge and Oxford, too,” their editor-in-chief, Leah, said.
Chris chuckled and sloshed along the beer that he’d been given. “They hate doing stories about Harvard,” he told them.
Everyone else laughed.
*
Mark had stopped telling Chris what papers and colleges to go for, but that was mostly because even though he was back at school, Chris was capable of managing it himself.
He was eating lunch with Eduardo, except he was doing more texting than eating. Eduardo was poking thoughtfully at his string beans. After several minutes, he asked Chris, “Who’re you texting?”
“Neal,” Chris said without looking up.
Eduardo sighed.
Chris continued tapping away at his phone.
Eduardo ate a string bean, before asking, “Didn’t we get, like, Loyola the other day?”
Chris chuckled, still texting. “They hate doing stories about Harvard.”
Of course they did.
*
After Eduardo had walked out of Facebook, it had effectively put a strain between himself and Chris. Chris talked to Neal about it. Neal was quite supportive of him.
Eduardo knew that Chris was going back to Facebook for at least another year, despite everything. They hadn’t touched the whole world yet. There were still loads of schools and countries they had to tackle. Most of them would probably hate to do a story about Harvard.
But during graduation, Eduardo gave Chris a present before hugging him and leaving. On the plane ride to California, Chris finally had time to take a break and open it up.
It was a Shark Week mug.
Chris beamed.