SNAP TO BLACK / ROLL MAIN TITLE

Neither of them suggest it. It’s agreed upon, because Eduardo is thirty percent, and Mark is seventy percent (everything), so naturally they’re spending spring break together.

Eduardo doesn’t think twice about it, even though Christy is coming. Christy is pretty and sharp and good at sex. Eduardo likes that in a girl. They don’t share a room, because Eduardo believes in class. Christy rolls her eyes and Mark says, “That’s a waste of money.” 

“We can use both of our rooms,” Eduardo points out, handing over his credit card. “Besides, it’s not like it’s your money, anyway.” 

Mark doesn’t say anything.

The meetings are embarrassing. Mark falls asleep in one, pretends to fall asleep in the other, accompanied by obnoxious snores that Eduardo wants to hit him for. Eduardo admonishes himself for wanting to hit Mark. In the others, Mark does a variety of things, like making glottal stop noises and standing up in the middle of the ad exec talking and saying, “I need to pee.” 

Eduardo tries hard even though Mark doesn’t. Mark doesn’t understand—he’s so sucked into making The Facebook something that he’s not thinking of it as a commodity. That’s Eduardo’s job, as the CFO. So Mark doesn’t understand.

Then there’s Sean Parker, eyes and teeth like a shark. Eduardo doesn’t like him. Mark does.

They don’t drop the The until the evening, when Eduardo is browsing the site (Mark’s creation) and notices it gone from the header. He rolls his eyes and slams his laptop shut, before going to the bathroom to wash up for bed.

He hears a knock at the door. “I’ll be a sec!” he calls, though he tells himself to rush, because Christy is not good at being patient. He dries his face on the hand towel, then heads out.

Christy is not on the other side of the door. It’s Mark, laptop clutched in his arms.

“Mark,” Eduardo says, surprised.

“Can I come in?” And without waiting for a response, Mark files himself past Eduardo. Blinking, Eduardo shuts the door.

“I,” says Eduardo. “What are you doing here?” 

Mark sits on the bed, even though he’s still wearing his jeans from before, which are probably dirty with appletini and tuna tartare. Eduardo wants to tell him to get off, and doesn’t. 

Mark says, “I want to talk about Sean.” 

Eduardo scowls. He goes over to his suitcase and begins unbuttoning his shirt. “What’s there to talk about?” he asks.

Mark says, “You don’t like him.” 

“What gave you that idea?” 

“—I do,” Mark continues, as if Eduardo hadn’t spoken. “He has a name in the industry. A foot in the door. He’s an asset, Wardo, he can help us—” 

“At least you think there’s an us,” Eduardo mutters, browsing through his clothes for a sleep shirt.

He hears a shift, and then light footsteps padding toward him. “I want to make him president,” Mark says from somewhere behind him.

Eduardo whips around, a clean shirt tight in his grasp. “What?” 

“He’s the president of Facebook,” Mark says, and then shrugs. “I mean, I’ll ask, but I have a feeling he’ll say yes. I just wanted to let you know—” 

“Because you think I’ll say yes?” Eduardo spits. “Even if I don’t want him to?” He tosses the shirt half-heartedly at Mark, who doesn’t bother catching it. It falls to the floor. “I don’t trust him, Mark, and you shouldn’t either—” 

“He’s the president of Facebook.” Mark juts his chin out defiantly, eyes bright.

Eduardo keeps his breath from catching. “You haven’t asked him yet,” he says. “He’s not going to say yes just because you want him to. I’m not going to say yes, just because you want me to.” He takes a deep breath and cards his fingers through his hair.

“Look,” he says. “You can’t just tell people what to do and expect them to listen, Mark. How would you feel if I told you what to do all the time?” 

Mark steps forward.

“That depends on the context,” he says.

His eyes flicker down Eduardo’s face.

Eduardo’s mouth goes dry. His lips suddenly feel chapped, and he opens them stupidly.

“I,” he says. “What?” 

Mark leans up, practically stepping on Eduardo’s toes for the height. He kisses him. Eduardo lets out a tiny whimper in the back of his throat as Mark grabs at his chin with one hand, the other still fastened around his laptop between their chests.

Eduardo can’t believe this is happening. Mark is moving unskilled, hesitant, and Eduardo knows it’s because he has little to no experience. It’s the hottest thing in the world. He presses back for more, lifting up a finger to push between their mouths, getting Mark to part his lips. Mark takes his finger and sucks it a little into his mouth, and heat pools down below Eduardo’s waist, and he growls. 

He pushes them back into the bed, shoving Mark’s laptop aside as Mark careens from underneath him. He tries to say, we can’t, but instead what comes out of his mouth is, “Mark,” a harsh whisper. Mark’s hands splay around Eduardo’s shoulders, over his bare chest. Eduardo shivers.

Mark whispers, “Tell me what to do, Wardo.” 

now;

Eduardo is not afraid of letting his gaze burn into Mark. Mark is not afraid of staring back, some sort of cold fury in his eyes, as if he has any right to be angry with Eduardo. He started it, Eduardo would tell everyone, his lawyers, his coworkers, his mother and father who’d scoffed and turned away from him like Eduardo was a five year old pushed down on playground mulch. It’s electric across the room, as the lawyers draw up an outline around the ConnectU-Facebook suit for their own depositions.

He goes to his hotel. He’s been in too many hotels in his life, but it’s his first in San Francisco. He puts his hands on his hips and stares out at the San Francisco skyline. It’s bright and cloudy. He has a weight on his chest he wishes he dealt with years ago.

The door opens. Eduardo knows it’s not housekeeping.

“How did you get my room number, Mark?” he asks without turning around.

Mark is quiet, but there’s some shuffling. “It’s not that hard to hack the databases,” Mark says. His voice is getting closer.

He stands behind Eduardo, not beside him. Eduardo refuses to look at him.

“So this is really happening,” Mark says dryly. 

Eduardo exhales. 

“What do you want?” he asks.

Mark has this remarkable ability of making Eduardo feel small, even though Eduardo is taller than him, even though Eduardo is the one suing him for half a billion dollars. His back is turned to Mark and he still feels like folding inside himself, listening, doing what Mark says. Mark is the protagonist all the time and Eduardo will never be anything but a supporting character. That’s what thirty percent, point zero three percent, has always meant.

“I don’t want this,” Mark says. He reaches out to rest his palm on Eduardo’s upper arm.

Eduardo chokes out a laugh, skin burning at Mark’s touch. He wants to shove his face in his arms. His cheeks are too dry and he lets out a sob in his throat.

He kisses Mark, wet and three years too late. He buries his fingers in Mark’s curls. Mark unbuttons Eduardo’s shirt with haste as Eduardo rips off Mark’s stupid, stupid hoodie. 

“Do you want this?” Eduardo asks, and he doesn’t know what he’s asking, and it almost makes him laugh when Mark nods, fast and eager, because he’d just said he didn’t, and now he does, and they are both so, so fucked up.

then;

Mark is riding on the high from the hackathon, laughing into Eduardo’s shoulder as they toy with each other’s pants, drunk and terrible at this. Eduardo is giggling against Mark’s cheek, because he’s gotten Mark’s belt off, but zippers, man, they’re another story.

“I hate pants,” he says into Mark’s side. Mark’s chest hiccups as he laughs again.

“I do, too,” Mark says. His hands disappear from Eduardo’s waist and instead go into his Northface jacket, running down Eduardo’s sides, always too cold against Eduardo’s warmth. Eduardo groans into his touch. Mark’s hands are knobby and impossible to see in the dim lighting of Eduardo’s dorm, and Eduardo kind of cares but couldn’t be asked to turn on his bed light.

“Wardo,” Mark murmurs, as Eduardo finally gets his jeans open.

Eduardo perks his head up, looking into Mark’s eyes. They’re dark, a ring of blue around the pupil. Eduardo kisses the side of Mark’s nose.

“Yeah,” he says, smiling when Mark smiles.

Mark reaches down to lace their fingers together. “Come out to Palo Alto with us,” he says.

Eduardo’s body goes cold, and not because of Mark now. The blue around Mark’s eyes get bigger as Eduardo pulls back, letting go of Mark suddenly.

“I can’t—” he starts, because he is not Mark, his life doesn’t revolve around Facebook. His life doesn’t revolve around Mark. “I can’t do that, I have an internship in New York.” 

“You’re my CFO,” Mark says. No emphasis, like he’s stating a fact. “Facebook is going to California. You—You have to, too.” 

“We need ads, Mark,” Eduardo says sadly, because they’re still having this conversation. It never feels like they make any progress. They talk circles around each other. “We didn’t get anyone in New York last time, we need—” 

“We got Sean,” Mark interrupts.

“Oh, that’s right,” Eduardo snarls. “We got Sean. What’s Sean done for us yet? Tell us to drop the fucking ‘The,’ tell you to move out to California—” 

“He didn’t tell me, that was a decision I made on my own!” Mark snaps. “He has more connections to VCs than you, and really, Wardo, what have you done—” 

Eduardo explodes. “Well if he’s so great you can fuck him instead then!” he says, yanking himself up. Leaving Mark on the bed, he pulls his jacket closed and storms out the door, even though it’s his dorm. He doesn’t look behind him.

Mark doesn’t call out for him.

now;

Eduardo fucks Mark, not feeling like it. Mark is writhing and twisting in bed. Eduardo doesn’t know why he’s hard. Mark is probably enjoying this. Eduardo feels like he is watching from afar, watching himself fuck Mark.

Afterward, he falls flat on the bed next to Mark. “What am I doing,” he murmurs, because only hours ago he was glaring holes into Mark, listening to Erica Albright’s testimony, having to hear about that stupid first night all over again. He sifts his fingers in his hair.

Mark does not turn on his side, does not look at Eduardo. “Having sex with me,” he states plainly. “Are you still dating Christy?” 

Eduardo laughs. He laughs and turns to Mark, who is watching him curiously. “Am I still dating—no, of course not. It’s been years. Why would I be?” 

Mark shrugs.

Hours later, Mark’s on his back, ankle hot in Eduardo’s grip. Eduardo shoves himself in all the way, hearing Mark gasp, because Mark is loud, always loud in bed. He is tight around Eduardo and Eduardo’s stomach coils in every direction and he pushes himself forward, letting Mark go, tangling their legs together, nothing, nothing but Mark all around him.

then;

Someone knocks at Eduardo’s door and he is grateful it’s not Christy. It’s only been two weeks into the summer and she’s demanding that she stay with him all the time already, even though she’s commuting from her parents’ place in Manhattan. He’s glad he hasn’t changed out of his clothes yet.

It’s Mark, and Eduardo thinks dumbly of spring break. “Mark,” he says, first, because Mark has a duffel bag over his shoulder and is glancing around the hallway uncertainly.

“This is a nice place,” is the first thing Mark says to him.

Eduardo laughs and lets Mark in. He doesn’t know why Mark is here, but it elates him. Mark is here to see him. He laughs again, incredulously to himself, before padding to the kitchen.

“Do you want anything to drink?” he asks. He remembers he has Jackson’s in the fridge. “Beer?” 

“Sure.” Mark is setting his bag down on the floor and sitting at a chair near the dining table. Eduardo hands a bottle over to him.

Eduardo sits down at the other chair, glancing over Mark. “Did you get a tan?” he teases.

Mark takes a gulp of his beer.

“Come to California, Wardo,” he says. “It’s—everyone’s working so hard, you gotta come see.” 

Eduardo’s blood chills over, to his fingers, to somewhere in his middle. Of course Mark hadn’t come for him. He’d come here for Facebook. Because— 

“Isn’t the nineteen thousand enough?” he asks.

Mark shakes his head, surprising Eduardo further. “Just,” he says, and his voice cracks briefly and actually sounds pleading. Eduardo is too shocked to speak. “I want you there with us, with—New York doesn’t have anything for us.” He waves a hand. “Dustin’s in California, we’ve got a shitload of new laptops, we have a pool—” 

“Oh, if there’s a pool,” Eduardo says sarcastically.

Mark gets up and kisses him, one hand on Eduardo’s shoulder, and Eduardo grabs for his elbow. He tightens his fingers around it, and Mark opens his mouth gently. Eduardo hates it, because Mark’s lips are red and half-bitten and he’s looking at Eduardo like he’s begging, like he thinks this will work, and it won’t. Eduardo is like Mark like this.

They drag each other to Eduardo’s bed, panting against each other. Mark leaves in the morning.

now;

Eduardo is asleep when the card key zips open. He opens his eyes blearily in the dark, sees Mark wander in, laptop case against his side.

Eduardo sighs and turns over in bed so his back is facing the door. “Don’t you have your own home to get back to?” he says, still only half-awake into his pillow. “Like some stupid big mansion or something?” 

He hears the thunk of Mark’s laptop being put on the ground. “It’s not that big,” says Mark’s voice.

Eduardo scoffs. Mark is sliding into bed behind him, and Eduardo can’t bring himself to pull away. Mark is wearing a hoodie around his button-up and tie, probably the weirdest thing Eduardo has ever seen him in. And Eduardo has seen Mark after five weeks of not doing laundry. 

He snuffles into his pillow involuntarily. He says, “Get out of my bed, Mark.” 

Mark is quiet. His arm on Eduardo’s waist tenses.

Eduardo clears his throat and forces himself to speak louder. “Get out of my bed, Mark,” he repeats.

Mark’s arm is slowly withdrawn. Eduardo shudders out a breath, but Mark’s weight remains warm, unsettled next to him.

“Why did you have to say that?” Mark asks. His voice blends in with the dark, a distant grey that Eduardo’s not even sure that he heard him. But Mark says, “About the friend thing.” 

Eduardo doesn’t turn around. “Was I wrong?” he asks.

Mark doesn’t answer him.

Eduardo forces himself completely awake, balling a fist in front of his chest. His side is starting to ache and he wants to turn over. He wants to stop aching.

“Get out of my bed, Mark,” he says for the third time.

He hears Mark sit up, slip out. Footsteps, grabbing for his laptop case. The almost imperceptible sound of the door closing.

Eduardo breathes and tries to go to sleep.

(A half an hour later he goes to the door, squints into the hall. Mark is leaned against the wall, laptop resting on his thighs, dozed off on his shoulder. Eduardo wakes him up and Mark blows him in the dark, off the edge of the bed. Eduardo scrubs himself red in the shower and wants to scream.)

then;

Eduardo throws himself into the bathroom after fighting with Mark, because even though he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t have anywhere else to stay. All this is being paid with his money, anyway; if he really wanted to he could kick everyone out and claim full ownership of the house.

Mark would kill him, so he doesn’t. 

In the middle of his shower, he hears the door creak open. “Occupied!” he shouts over the stream of water.

Mark’s voice says, “It’s me.” 

Eduardo peeks out from behind the shower curtain. Mark is stripping his clothes off, tossing them to the floor. His chest is pale and he has stupid tan lines on his arms and thighs that Eduardo wants to lick. He doesn’t catch Eduardo staring at him. Eduardo is wordless as he returns to his shower, and Mark steps in. 

Mark’s skin gets welts from the pressure of the showerhead. He closes his eyes and lets the water run over his face, straightening his hair. Eduardo has his back turned to him.

“Wardo,” Mark says, like he wants Eduardo.

He doesn’t. Eduardo knows that, because I need my CFO sounds like such a lie, I need you here sounds like such a lie. Eduardo tells himself that and turns around.

Mark kisses him under the water and it’s too wet and terrible. Eduardo brings his hand to Mark’s shoulder blade, down to the back of his neck. His other hand, which is a little soaped up, rakes through Mark’s hair. Mark laughs.

Eduardo doesn’t know what to think as the tension seeps out of him. “If we’re loud enough I’m pretty sure the whole house will know we’re having shower sex,” he says, because Mark’s hand is snaking down, running along the base of Eduardo’s cock.

Mark says, “Good.” 

He gets jerks both of them off, elegant fingers that built Facebook, that are like foil, around the both of them. He is confident and messy and holding Eduardo’s cock with his like they are in this together, everything together, in Palo Alto and New York and Boston. Eduardo comes with Mark’s name on his lips, pretending that they are.

When he freezes the bank account the next morning, he does it without guilt.

now;

Mark settles, and Eduardo is not surprised. He is not standing over Mark’s shoulder, watching him write the check. He is staring out at the San Francisco skyline and wishing that maybe, in another life, he could learn to like it. 

Later, Eduardo is packed up to go, wearing his last set of clean clothes and getting ready to check out of the hotel, to catch his flight back to the east coast. The windows are wide open and muggy and bright. His trousers are rolled past his thigh, the top button of his collar undone, and he is balls deep in Mark as Mark trembles through his orgasm.

He wipes himself off with a tissue. Mark gets his own. Eduardo zips himself back up and grabs his briefcase.

His gaze flickers to the window.

“It’s raining,” he says.

Mark shrugs. “It’s California,” he says.

Eduardo turns to him. Mark is staring at him openly, and Eduardo tries to find everything from before—secret, dug out, used and rotten. It used to hurt, all those years, ago, and before that it was something warm, itching to burst. It is dull now, and Eduardo is going to Singapore. He is never going to see Mark again. 

They have burned down.

“Goodbye, Mark,” he says, grabbing for his suitcase. His keycard is in his pocket and Mark’s is on the dresser. Eduardo does not want to have the final word, but he does not wait. The rain taps against the glass window like little bullets.

Mark says nothing. Eduardo lets himself out. As he strolls through the hallway, he doesn’t glance back, doesn’t hope for anything. He goes down to the lobby and to a cab and out of California. He does not think about what he wishes, what he dreams. 

What he might remember.