188
tires sing to the asphalt
social network (mark/eduardo)
10,390 words. in which mark and eduardo take a road trip across the us, and have a lot of issues. they seriously have a lot of issues.
huge thanks to strikesoftly, wishpaper, and exmptfromsanity for their fucking fantastic comments and criticism. all remaining failures are my own. ♥
(translated into chinese by reiai here: 1 2 3 4 5. ♥)
After the meeting with Legal, Mark heads back to his office. He doesn’t dawdle on his path through the honeycomb desks, but he doesn’t close his office door, either. His mood doesn’t make Facebook development any less important.
His open laptop has gone into hibernation, and Mark pauses, momentarily, looking at the blank computer screen before moving past the desk. He stops by the window, blinds up to let in the sun, and scrolls through the contacts on his cell phone. Dustin is in the office, so he could just - walk over there, if he wanted. Chris is off with his new organization, but he doesn’t mind when Mark calls him. Not much, anyway.
Mark scrolls to the Es, fingers stalling on the touch screen for a few seconds too long. He listens to his breath in the emptiness of the room, and presses the phone to his ear. He stares out of the window.
“Hello?” Eduardo’s voice sounds exactly the same. He doesn't know that it's Mark.
“Hi,” Mark says. He pauses, thinks of several additional responses, and summarily dismisses all of them. Eduardo just breathes.
“Mark?” he asks, eventually. He sounds like he’s not sure. Mark watches a car crawl up the driveway toward the offices.
“Eduardo,” Mark says, and then stops. He’s gripping the phone too hard, and his hand is starting to sweat.
“What?” There’s the harshness Mark was expecting. He doesn’t close his eyes, or even physically react. He just watches the car pull into a parking lot - visitor parking. Interviewee, maybe.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Why?” Mark can’t hear any ambient noise over the line. He wonders where Eduardo is. What he’s doing.
“Come on a trip with me,” Mark says, completely spur of the moment. He rubs his left hand against the thigh of his jeans. “A road trip. With me.” He waits for Eduardo to laugh at him, or scoff, but there’s only silence.
Finally, Eduardo says, “I - Fine.” His voice has lost some of its edge, but Mark doesn’t know why. “Email me the details.” Then he hangs up.
Mark doesn’t have any details. He has no idea what he’s doing.
Mark picks Eduardo up at the San Jose International Airport in the mid morning. Palo is breezy and warm. Mark wonders, again, if this is such a good idea.
“Why am I here, Mark?” Eduardo is angry again - it shows in the tense lines of his shoulders, and the set of his jaw. Eduardo is the only person that Mark can read at all, and even that is an imperfect science.
“I don’t know,” he says. It’s only half a lie. Eduardo is here, apparently, because Mark asked him to be. Mark’s just not sure why Eduardo still gives a shit about what Mark asks of him. He’s not going to point out the faulty logic; he senses it wouldn’t solve anything. But he isn’t keeping Eduardo from his work - according to his email, he’s on vacation. Visiting Palo Alto from Miami. Mark vaguely wonders what he’s told his parents. “I invited you because I wanted you here. I am uncertain as to why you decided to show up.”
Mark’s bought a silver Honda Civic for the trip. A boring car, but a safe choice for someone who doesn’t give a shit about cars. Sean would be so disappointed. Mark’s got one hand on the driver’s side door handle. Eduardo is still standing by the sliding door to the arrival terminal, shaking his head. There’s regret there, maybe, underneath all the anger.
“You don’t have to come,” Mark adds, finally. Eduardo is staring down at his feet, the wave of his bangs falling into his face.
Eduardo sighs. He looks at his black duffle, half-deflated on the sidewalk, and picks it up. He shoves it into the back seat of the Civic.
“Let’s get this over with,” he says, and slides into the passenger seat. Mark doesn’t say anything at all.
The first night, Mark gets them a motel room on the Washington border and wonders if he should have gotten them two separate rooms instead. It would sort of defeat the purpose of a road trip, but Eduardo is still antsy. They’ve been in the car for a long time, and it’s late. There was a lot of silence, most of it awkward. Mark asked after Eduardo’s family, his sister, but hadn’t pried much further. Eduardo avoided talking about Facebook for obvious reasons, but Mark does little else.
“This doesn’t have to be awkward,” Mark says, sitting on the edge of one bed while Eduardo is brushing his teeth in the bathroom. He’s left the door open, so Mark figures he’s allowed.
Eduardo spits into the sink. He turns to look at Mark, his expression withering. He has toothpaste smeared in one corner of his mouth. “Go to bed, Mark.”
Mark’s feet are socked and pressed against the carpet. He hasn’t taken off his shirt, nor is he going to, but he’s shucked his jeans and left them draped over the chair pushed into the desk in the corner. He watches Eduardo’s face for another thirty seconds, and then reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp. He crawls underneath the covers.
He thinks about saying goodnight, but he doesn’t.
They’re outside Tacoma. Eduardo has his feet up on the dash, shoes discarded somewhere into the overcrowded backseat. He’s staring out the window. Mark notices the hem of his pants riding up enough to expose surprisingly delicate ankles, and has to look away.
He’s driving the speed limit, but cars keep passing him anyway.
“You can drive faster, you know,” Eduardo says. It’s the first time he’s spoken since they left the hotel this morning. To be fair, Mark hasn’t said anything either.
“I could,” Mark agrees. “But we’re not in a hurry to get anywhere.”
“No,” Eduardo says, “but you sure are pissing off a lot of people.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. He expects Eduardo to add something glib, wonder aloud how Mark can even be an asshole following traffic laws. Eduardo is silent, though, and when Mark glances over, he’s leaning his head against the window, eyes closed. His cheek is fogging up the glass.
Mark carefully speeds up. Eduardo doesn’t open his eyes.
Montana is mountainous, and also fucking huge. Mark knew this cerebrally, but he’s still not expecting it. They pass through a few odd towns, driving down I-90 - Missoula, near the Idaho border, Deer Lodge - but the territory just seems to go on forever. They bypass Anaconda, and the turnoff toward I-15, and stop at Bozeman for lunch. They park on Main St, and Eduardo gets out, stretching his arms over his head. Mark watches his plaid shirt expose the tanned skin of his belly, and purses his lips. Eduardo leans down to peer in through the window.
“You coming?” He doesn’t sound annoyed, yet, so Mark just nods. They walk a few blocks, Eduardo with his hands in his pockets, Mark’s motionless at his sides. Neither of them says anything, but the silence isn’t exactly tense, either. They end up at a coffee shop called Leaf & Bean. Eduardo gets in line, while Mark snags them a seat by the storefront window.
Eduardo returns with two paninis, and two cups of coffee. The first sip Mark takes is too hot, and he swallows quickly, feeling the liquid go all the way down his esophagus. He wonders, vaguely, why Eduardo is here.
“They wanted me to write a will,” Mark says, apropos of nothing in particular, and takes a large bite of his panini. “The lawyers,” he tacks on with his mouth full. Eduardo raises his eyebrows and purses his lips, obviously unsure what to make of the statement. Mark swallows, and takes another bite.
He doesn’t say, I couldn’t figure out who to divide it all between, and he doesn’t even want to.
Eduardo takes a sip of his coffee, and seems to let it go.
The motel they stay in on the edge of Montana, just before it turns into North Dakota, has a swimming pool. Outdoors, and it’s not the right season, but when Mark can’t sleep he goes outside and sits on one of the patio chairs. He’s tired of staring at the ceiling. He’s never had trouble sleeping before.
He could blame it on Eduardo’s loud breathing from the other bed, but Mark’s shared dorm rooms. He’s restless. He picks at the threads on the bottom cuff of his jeans, and longs for his computer. He’d left it behind intentionally.
He’s been outside for something like an hour when Eduardo sits next to him. Mark can feel the thick plastic bands give under the weight of another human body. Eduardo’s feet are the first things in view - his long toes, the vulnerable arch curving them. He’s sitting cross-legged, still in his pajama pants and t-shirt, and he doesn’t say anything for a long time. Mark thinks it will be less than two hours until the sun is rising again. Mark usually only sees it from this end anyway.
“You never deleted my phone number.” Eduardo’s voice, when he breaks the silence, is softer than expected. The words are similarly unexpected. Mark doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. He supposes he could say something like, it wasn’t me who cut all ties, but he knows well enough now that it wouldn’t go over well. For a few minutes it feels like Eduardo is finished talking. Then, “I deleted yours. I still recognized it when you called, though.”
Mark nods. More to have contributed a response than that he actually finds it necessary to do so. Eduardo doesn’t touch Mark, just stuffs his hands underneath the cotton of his t-shirt to keep them warm against his stomach.
After another fifteen minutes of silence, Eduardo sighs. He stands, and pauses, hovering.
“Goodnight, Mark,” he says, eventually, and heads back inside. He doesn’t say, don’t stay up too late. Mark sits for another half an hour before going back inside. Eduardo is asleep.
Mark thinks it might be interesting to see the Great Lakes, so in the morning they head across North Dakota toward Minnesota. They stop in a 7-11 at about 9 AM, and Eduardo gets some shitty coffee, and Mark stocks up on junk food. He buys two huge bags of cheetos, a liter of coke, and seven packs of Twizzlers. Mark has never escaped his addiction to them. Eduardo is cupping his coffee, standing in front of the cash register eyeing the gum. Mark watches Eduardo’s eyes move, and snags a pack of Trident, spearmint flavored, and puts it on the counter.
“How much?” The girl working the register can’t be more than eighteen, at most. She still has braces, and two lurid stripes of red coloring the hair bordering her face. She rings them up with the efficiency of long practice.
“The coffee, too?” she asks. Her accent is rounder than he’s used to, particularly on the vowels.
“Yeah,” he says. “The coffee, too.”
Eduardo gives him a sharp look, and Mark wonders if he’s thinking, don’t rub the money in my face, Mark, but that’s not the point at all. The point is - there isn’t one. Mark can afford it, and. It’s his road trip.
“Mark,” Eduardo starts, but Mark waves him off. The cashier puts everything in a big plastic bag, and slides it over the counter. Mark grabs the handles, and fishes around inside, handing Eduardo his gum. Then he heads to the car.
Mark’s got his hand on the driver’s side door when he hears Eduardo’s feet on the pavement. They’ve already gotten gas at the attached Exxon. Time to head out again.
“You don’t have to do shit like that, Mark,” Eduardo says. He sounds guilty, or angry, or both. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Eduardo is wound up so tight.
“The coffee was ninety-nine cents, Eduardo. The gum was a dollar and twenty-seven. Not a hardship.” Mark glances over his shoulder. Eduardo is standing uncertainly behind him. His hair is flat from sleeping against the window, and there’s the shadow of dark stubble on his jaw. Circles under his eyes, but Mark has seen worse. Mark has had worse.
“It’s not - it’s not about the money, Mark,” Eduardo says, and then rolls his eyes. At himself, or at Mark, or at something else entirely, Mark doesn’t know. “I mean, it’s about the money, but not in the way you think.”
“I’m not rubbing it in. There’s no ulterior motive. It’s two dollars and twenty-six cents, plus tax. Easier to buy everything together, that’s all.” Not the truth, but close enough. Mark only gives a shit about money in the sense that it lets him do what he wants. An extension of his willpower. He’s not showing Eduardo up, he’s apologizing.
“Fine, whatever,” Eduardo says, and holds up his hands in surrender. He’s put the gum in his pocket, and he doesn’t spill any coffee. He does climb into the passenger seat, though.
Dustin texts him that evening, just as they skirt around the twin cities, taking 94 to 35.
i kno ur out lookin 4 ur soul r whatev but shld i b wrkin? Dustin has the most terrible texting grammar in the entire universe. It literally hurts Mark’s eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, curled up in the passenger seat. They’re pulled over into a truck stop. Eduardo is peeing inside. Cleaner than the side of the road, and lighter, too, now that the sun’s gone down.
If you want a job when I get back, then, yes, possibly. It’s an idle threat. Mark couldn’t, and probably wouldn’t, do it.
lolololol, Dustin says, obviously taking the threat very seriously. Then, Dustin texts him again. how did u get wardo to cme w u neway?
Mark stares at the text for a minute, wishing that he could communicate a shrug with a text message. No idea, he says, instead. Why don’t you ask him?
i did, Dustin says less than a minute later. i dont thnk he knos.
Mark’s still thinking about it when Eduardo pulls the driver’s side door open and climbs in. The thighs of his jeans are a little wet where he’s dried his hands on them. He pulls off his shoes and tosses them into the passenger side foot well. Mark doesn’t care, since he has his feet pulled up anyway. Eduardo doesn’t say anything as he turns the key in the ignition. It’s probably illegal to drive without shoes on. Mark cranes his neck to look at Eduardo’s toes stretched over the gas pedal. His feet are long, spindly, and Mark can see his tendons.
“What?” Eduardo asks, glancing over at Mark quickly, before returning his eyes to the road in front of him. There isn’t very much traffic.
Mark isn’t going to say anything about Eduardo’s feet, or his ankles, or the slices of his forearms exposed as he pushes his long-sleeved t-shirt up with one hand at a time. He keeps the other safe on the steering wheel. “You still talk to Dustin?” he asks, instead.
The glance Eduardo sends him this time is surprised. “Well,” Eduardo says, and pauses, and shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Sometimes.”
Mark nods, and turns to the window. There isn’t much to see besides the flat expanse of fields off into the distance, and the highway scrub exposed by the streetlights. Mark struggles for a moment, knowing that he should say something else, but not having anything to say.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Eduardo doesn’t look over at him, Mark is watching in the reflection on the window, but his tone is tense. Unhappy.
“No.” Mark’s voice is too abrupt. “Of course not. Why would I?”
Eduardo shrugs, but he doesn’t know that Mark is looking at him, so he says, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t,” Mark says. He’s relatively certain that it’s the truth.
“Okay.” Eduardo looks at him, longer this time, and Mark pretends to be watching the highway shoulder pass them by.
They get into Duluth at some terrible hour in the morning. Mark almost forgets to take off his pants and get under the covers. He’s dozing, waiting for Eduardo to finish brushing his teeth and turn off the bathroom light. Eduardo doesn’t make that much noise, tidying up his things, pulling the covers back on his bed, but it’s enough to rouse Mark.
With the lights off, Eduardo is just a grey shape against a slightly lighter background. Mark wonders, if he said something right now, would it have more or less validity, given the cover of darkness. Would it be an unburdening? Somehow, he doesn’t think so.
“Goodnight, Wardo,” he says, instead. His voice is gravelly.
Eduardo draws in a quick breath, almost a hiss. Mark doesn’t know why.
“Goodnight, Mark,” he says, eventually.
Duluth is right on the tip of Lake Superior. Mark can’t see the end of it, even from the Sky Harbor Airport parking lot. He can see Wisconsin on the other shore, though, across the bay.
“Huh,” he says. He thinks that he’d like to drive along the shore, all the way around the entire perimeter. They probably won’t. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” he asks, but when he looks over his shoulder, Eduardo’s not leaning against the car anymore. Mark spins in a slow circle, and finds Eduardo already heading toward the walking trail. Mark stuffs his hands in his pockets and wonders if he should try to catch up before Eduardo makes it out of sight. No, probably not. If Eduardo had wanted his company, he’d have asked.
Mark leaves the car, treks through the line of small buildings, and makes it to the trees. The walking trail, the airport, the parking lot, all of it is stationed on a thin strip of land jutting out from one shore of the lake and reaching toward the other. If they walk far enough, it’ll end. Maybe two, or two and a half miles.
When Mark gets onto the path he can see Eduardo in front of him. He’s not hurrying, just strolling, watching the water. Shoulders back, steps measured. Mark won’t bother him.
The air smells like water and rock and greenery, less like petrol and gas the farther they get from the airport. It makes Mark feel almost lightheaded. He stares out across the water as he walks, and wonders how this could possibly feel so different from the ocean. There’s no salt in the air.
Finally, Eduardo stops walking. Mark doesn’t notice until he’s caught up. They haven’t gotten all the way to the tip, yet, but Eduardo looks wind-swept and pink-cheeked. The breeze off of the water stirring his hair.
“Want to keep going?” Eduardo asks. His eyes look wet, dark, and Mark can’t be sure if it’s the walk or whatever Eduardo was thinking about. There’s no way to know.
Mark shrugs. He could keep walking forever, but that’s not an option.
Eduardo laughs. It’s a surprise. “Since when do you not have any opinions?” He drags his arms across his eyes, but he’s still laughing.
“I assure you, I still have opinions.” He doesn’t point out examples, but he doesn’t think that he has to.
“I’m sure,” Eduardo says. He pauses, and watches Mark. Mark chews on his bottom lip, but doesn’t move otherwise. “Lets go back to the car.”
“Okay,” Mark says. Eduardo nudges him with the toe of one shoe, getting him moving. Mark tries not to let it feel significant.
They backtrack toward Minneapolis, and then head down to Iowa. Eduardo still hasn’t asked Mark where they’re going. Mark still doesn’t know, exactly.
Mark falls asleep in the passenger seat somewhere near the Iowa border. When he wakes up two hours later, it takes him a few confused moments to realize that Eduardo is singing under his breath. Mark can’t identify the song, only that Eduardo’s voice is sweeter than expected. Mark keeps his eyes closed, and pretends that he hasn’t woken. Eduardo doesn’t seem to notice. Mark listens to him sing until he falls asleep again.
Mark only wakes again when Eduardo rouses him. He jolts when Eduardo shakes him by the shoulder, but he doesn’t pull away.
“C’mon,” Eduardo says. “I’ve gotten us a room.”
Mark nods. He’s not sure where they are, but since there’s no destination, he supposes that it doesn’t matter. They can’t be far out of Iowa, though.
“Why am I here, Mark?” Eduardo asks, while Mark is brushing his teeth. It’s not the most opportune of moments, and Mark almost swallows toothpaste and saliva and foam. Instead, he spits it all out into the sink. At least Eduardo isn’t angry, this time. Not outwardly so, anyway.
“I’ve already answered that question,” Mark says, and rinses out his mouth. He puts his toothbrush down on the counter. When he turns, Eduardo is looking at him with his mouth drawn down, arms crossed. He’s sitting on the edge of the closer bed.
“Not really. You fairly successfully avoided answering it.”
“No, I answered the question you asked. If you want a different answer, ask a different question.” Mark sees no reason to make this easier than it has to be. He doesn’t actually want to talk about it.
Eduardo exhales, unsteady and frustrated. He smiles, but it’s not nice. “Of course,” he says. “Because you can’t just answer the question you know I’m actually asking.”
Mark says nothing. Eduardo hasn’t asked him anything at all, now.
Eduardo stares at him for a few still, quiet moments. He’s building up to something, and Mark’s relatively sure he doesn’t want to know what it is.
“Fuck,” Eduardo says, finally. He’s frustrated. “You’re infuriating, and you know it, and you don’t even care. I knew this was going to be a bad idea, I just thought -” He cuts himself off and shakes his head. Mark’s curious.
“You thought what?”
“It’s been years, Mark,” Eduardo says with very little hesitation. He’s been waiting to say this. “I thought maybe you’d changed.”
It takes everything in Mark not to scoff. He manages not to. “You came here with your mind made up. Everything I do is either to rub the past in your face or to show that I’m somehow stagnant. Still mentally a nineteen-year-old college student.” Mark shrugs in the way he knows is reminiscent of every shrug Eduardo has ever seen him do. “It doesn’t matter if I’ve changed or not, because you wouldn’t notice it anyway.” Mark’s tone is mild.
Mark doesn’t really look at Eduardo’s face, because it could look one of two ways, and he doesn’t want to see either of them. Instead, he walks over to his bed, and pulls the comforter down, climbing underneath the covers.
“Goodnight, Wardo,” he says. He’s probably not to going to sleep again, but he’ll make the effort.
They make it through Indiana and into Kentucky without another verbal scuffle, but also without much conversation. Mark doesn’t see the point in stewing, but Eduardo obviously does. He bites into his thumbnail and looks out the window. Mark does most of the driving, but he doesn’t really mind.
They get stuck in a traffic jam on 65 heading down toward Tennessee. They’ll have to stop for the night before the Tennessee border as it is, but this is only going to slow them down further. Mark’s gotten used to driving above the speeding limit, and how he has to go at a crawl. He glances over at Eduardo, the line of tension in his neck, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. Mark looks away.
He hears Eduardo rustle about, the sound of his bare feet on the dashboard, and his fingernails tapping against the window. He doesn’t say anything.
Eduardo comes back to the motel room in the morning with two cups of shitty Dunkin Donuts coffee and two Egg McMuffins. The only restaurants they are near serve fast food. Mark sits cross-legged on the edge of his bed and balances his sandwich on his knee, taking a sip of coffee.
“You might be right,” Eduardo says. Mark doesn’t ask him what he’s talking about, he just shrugs. He already knows.
Mark isn’t inclined to demur about it, or pretend that it doesn’t matter, but he isn’t going to insist on an apology, either. That wasn’t the point of this trip.
“Okay,” he says, in lieu of anything else. He doesn’t know what else he should say. He unwraps his McMuffln and takes a bite. “Should we get on the road?”
Eduardo gives him a look that’s half confusion and half incredulity, but it’s not really that hard to parse, Mark doesn’t think.
“Yeah, sure,” Eduardo says.
They stop for lunch in Nashville, at a sports bar north of downtown, and they get burgers. They eat mostly in silence, thanking the waitress, murmuring quietly to each other to pass the condiments. There are several teams playing several different, easily identifiable sports on the monitors above the bar - soccer, basketball, football - but Mark has never been a sports fan. He used to watch baseball with his dad, but he doesn’t keep up. He looks down at his fries, instead, and drowns them in catsup.
When he looks over at Eduardo, he’s using his fries to mop up the guacamole that oozed off of his burger and dripped onto the plate. Mark watches him.
“What?” Eduardo asks, swallowing. He licks the salt off of his fingers, and Mark almost looks away. The only reason he doesn’t is because it would be obvious. He hates being obvious.
Mark shakes his head. “Nothing. Is that good?”
“I’d eat guac on almost anything,” Eduardo says, and laughs. “If we’d gone out more you might know that.”
There’s no reprisal in Eduardo’s tone, though Mark thinks that there probably should be. Mark still doesn’t really know how to be a friend. Mark hums in agreement, mostly because he doesn’t have anything to say. When he can’t talk about Facebook, and code, and programming, Mark doesn’t really know what to talk about.
“It’s fine,” Eduardo says, like he knows what Mark is thinking. “I didn’t even mind that then.”
Of all the things I’m angry about, that is not one, he’s saying. Tactfully.
“Oh,” Mark says, and then asks, curious, “why not?”
Eduardo looks surprised for half a second before he schools his expression. He shrugs with one shoulder and looks down at his plate before turning back to Mark. Not expecting Mark to be curious, then. “Just not what we did. We were busy, anyway,” he says. With Facebook, he doesn’t say, but Mark hears it anyway.
“It’s not that I don’t know that I’m not a very good friend,” Mark says, and refuses to use the past tense. If Eduardo actually hated him he wouldn’t be here. Even Mark knows that.
He doesn’t want to have this conversation here. As if he wants to have it at all.
“Mark -” Eduardo cuts himself off. He shakes his head. “No, you really weren’t.”
Mark doesn’t know what the past tense indicates - either that Eduardo still doesn’t consider them friends, or that he’s somehow progressed in his friendship abilities, but when Eduardo lets it drop, so does Mark, and happily so.
They drive toward Memphis, bringing them within spitting distance of the Arkansas border. Mark always forgets that Arkansas exists - he’s never been there, nor does he think that he knows anyone that has. It’s about a three and a half hour drive, getting them to Memphis just as the sun is going down. This means that they most likely won’t be going through Alabama. Mark’s trying to avoid going farther east - he’s been most places on the east coast, and he honestly doesn’t want Eduardo to suggest that Mark drop him off in Miami.
“Did you always know that you were a terrible friend?” Eduardo asks, half a Twizzler hanging out of his mouth. It makes him slur, a little, and Mark quirks a smile.
“Not really,” Mark says. The highway is mostly empty as they exit. They’ll have to find a hotel, though it hasn’t been a problem so far.
“Hm,” Eduardo says, which could either be agreement, confusion, or simple acknowledgement.
Mark glances over at Eduardo - his relaxed position, the way he’s pushed his seat back as far as it will go, his worn, cotton t-shirt. In college, Mark rarely saw Eduardo in casual clothes. He likes how Eduardo looks this way.
“Do you regret ever befriending me?” Mark’s been wondering since Eduardo filed the lawsuit, but he’s never asked. He used to think it was because he knew the answer already, but now he thinks it’s because he didn’t want to.
Eduardo is looking at him when Mark glances over again. Mark wonders what he’s seeing - the slightly longer hair, the similarly disheveled appearance, the fact that he hasn’t shaved since the day before yesterday. Something else entirely.
“No,” Eduardo says. “Well, maybe occasionally. Not overall.”
Mark ponders this for a moment. “How often is occasionally?”
Eduardo huffs out a laugh. “I could give you specific examples, if you wanted.”
Mark wonders, pulling into a hotel parking lot, when is the occasion where it’s appropriate to say, I used to think you’d let me kiss you if I wanted to. Or when it’s appropriate to say, I always wanted to, I just never did.
He thinks that the moment is long passed.
Eduardo is sleeping, and Mark isn’t. It’s starting to become a habit. Mark turns on the TV and mutes it. He flicks channels until he settles on the Spanish language station, playing some overly dramatic tele-novella. A woman is screaming at another woman, her hands gesticulating wildly. They fall upon each other, kicking and pulling hair. A man enters from the kitchen and sees them. He throws a glass at a wall. Mark wonders if there is an option to put on subtitles, or if he should just start constructing dialogue in his head.
He grabs four tiny bottles of overly expensive alcohol - two gins, a whisky, and a vodka - and downs them in quick succession. Eduardo is still sleeping, curled up in his side with one hand stuffed underneath his pillow. Mark can hear his breathing in the quiet; he can see the lines of his body underneath cheap motel bedcovers.
Mark doesn’t know what love is, but he’s tipsy enough to consider that if he were someone else in the same position, he might.
The woman Mark has dubbed Lucia has been pulled bodily off of the woman Mark is calling Gloria, and now the two of them are crying. The man, Luis, is shaking his head, as if to say, tsk, women, which Mark personally finds pretty bigoted of him. Lucia pets Gloria’s hair, and the two of them leave. Mark only realizes that the show is over when the credits start to roll.
He drifts off sometime after that.
“Had a party all by yourself last night?” Mark cracks an eye open, and Eduardo is looking down at him with his eyebrows raised. He has bed-hair, and his eyes are still half-lidded with sleep. Mark realizes that he passed out on top of the covers, the TV still on, the little alcohol bottles strewn beside him on the bedspread. He shrugs.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says.
“Do you often self-medicate using alcohol?” Eduardo doesn’t sound worried. There’s no history of alcoholism in either of their families. In such close quarters, Eduardo would’ve noticed before this.
“No,” Mark says.
Eduardo waits, as if he thinks that Mark is going to say something else. Mark doesn’t really intend to.
“Something wrong?” Eduardo asks, eventually.
“Not really,” Mark says.
“Are you ever going to tell me why we’re on this trip in the first place?” Eduardo doesn’t sound impatient, but nor does he sound resigned. His voice is closer to amused, though Mark couldn’t say why he would be.
“Probably,” Mark says. “Eventually.”
They get a late start. They both shower, and Mark takes his time with his. He jerks off, washes his hair, shaves. It’s close to eleven AM by the time they get on the road. They drive past the Mississippi border, heading almost due south. Eduardo drives, as Mark still feels a little like his head is full of cotton.
Mark tells Eduardo to get on to I-55, which, if they stay on it long enough, will take them through Mississippi and into Louisiana. It goes straight to New Orleans. Mark hasn’t decided where he wants to stop, but New Orleans is as good a goal as any. It should take them between six and seven hours. They’ll arrive in time for dinner. Mark is on his last package of Twizzlers, and he can’t decide if it’s worth finding another 7-11, or just going without until they stop again.
“You don’t really have a destination in mind, do you?” Eduardo has one elbow sticking out of the open window. His hair is becoming more and more disheveled the longer he leaves it open. Mark has zipped his hoodie up all the way, but he doesn’t really mind.
“What makes you say that?” he asks. They’re somewhere outside Jackson. The second Jackson they’ve passed by in two days. Mark finds them indistinguishable.
“If the goal was the end up in Louisiana, which it seems to be at the moment, you chose what is most likely the least efficient route.” Eduardo looks over at him and grins, like he’s happy to have figured something out. Like he’s accomplished something. Mark hasn’t seen the expression in longer than he cares to remember. “You’re all about efficiency, Mark.”
Mark has to smile, a least a little. “You’re correct, there is no goal.”
Eduardo laughs, and drums his hand against the side of the car. He’s driving too fast, and Mark doesn’t care.
“Are you getting what you wanted out of this?” Eduardo asks, eventually.
Mark thinks back to the tension in the car when they’d set off. He taps his fingers against the armrest. “Something like that.”
“You just enjoy being vague.” Eduardo is shaking his head. His hair is wind-blown and wild. Mark keeps his hands in his lap, though he’s not sure he wants to.
“Something like that,” Mark says, a second time.
They don’t get pulled over, despite Eduardo driving well above the speed limit the entire way. They stop for lunch in some town call Brookhaven, and get burgers from Burger King. The backseat of Mark’s car looks like a trash bin, and smells like a fast food kitchen. Somehow, neither of them mind, nor do they bother to throw anything out.
“I don’t suppose we can stay in a nice hotel for once,” Eduardo says with a hopeful twist in the corner of his mouth. Mark suspects that this is the last stop before they head back to California, so he doesn’t think it will hurt. He can certainly afford it.
“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”
Eduardo laughs. “Seriously? That’s all it takes?”
Mark shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says.
They end up at the Marriott within walking distance of the French Quarter, which means more to Eduardo than it does to Mark. The room is lush, and a little small. The beds are ridiculously comfortable, though closer together than Mark is used to. He doesn’t look suited to this hotel, though Eduardo does, even in jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and sandals. Mark caught the look the receptionist gave the two of them, and her slightly raised eyebrows as he handed over his credit card.
“This is something else,” Eduardo says, standing in the doorway to the bathroom. He’s run wet fingers through his hair, and it’s tamer than usual. He’s changed his shirt into a nicer button-down, though he’s kept the jeans. He looks good, but that isn’t surprising.
“We should get a nice dinner,” Mark says, instead of replying.
They ask the concierge for restaurant recommendations within walking distance, and head into the French Quarter. Mark doesn’t mind being a tourist. He’s usually in one of two places, anyway - his house, or the office. Everything else is outside his normal realm of experience. He doesn’t mind admitting to it.
The sit together in a slightly darkened dining room, back in the corner. It’s quiet, just the murmur of quiet conversation; there’s not even any ambient music. Eduardo gets some spicy, fancy version of sausage, shrimp and grits. Mark gets a roasted half-chicken. It feels like the first real food they’ve eaten in days, though that’s not really the case. Eduardo orders them wine off of the list. He murmurs his approval at the first taste, and Mark is willing to trust his judgment.
“This is really nice, Mark,” Eduardo says, leaning back in his chair. He puts his napkin on the table, and reaches to drain the last of his glass of wine. Mark watches the low lighting play with the shadows on his face, darken his skin tone to a golden brown. If they were anyone else, this would be a date.
But they aren’t.
Mark gets the check, and pays for dinner. Eduardo raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t actively comment. Mark takes it as a step in the right direction.
“Dessert?” he asks.
They get a table at Café Du Monde for beignets and coffee. Mark gets a cappuccino, for once, and Eduardo looks amused as he orders the same. The café is busy, both for service and for take out, even though it’s evening.
Eduardo makes an obscene noise of pleasure as he takes a bite of a beignet. “I’m glad they don’t have these anywhere near my house.”
“You wouldn’t get fat,” Mark says. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
Eduardo laughs. “You’ve considered it in depth, then?”
Mark lifts one shoulder and takes a sip of his cappuccino. It’s good, but he wishes that they had cinnamon. Mark takes picks up a beignet of his own and lets the silence sit. Eduardo is watching him.
“Where are we off to next?” Eduardo asks, while Mark licks powdered sugar off of his fingers.
The trip is a farce, Mark admits to himself. Some things he can’t have. He doesn’t have the ability to turn back time, and even if he did, he wouldn’t choose to.
“Home,” Mark says, and shrugs his shoulder again.
Eduardo looks surprised. “You did get what you wanted, then?”
Mark has to smile at that. “Not really,” he says. He points to the plate between them. “The last one is yours.”
They get back to the hotel after midnight. The French Quarter is still full of people, bars humming with talk and music. The streets smell like cobblestone and cigarettes. Mark is tired.
In their room, he shucks his pants and unzips his hoodie. He folds them both over the back of a chair, and curls his toes into the carpet. When he looks up, Eduardo is looking at him. He’s still fully dressed, though he’s toed off his sandals, lining them neatly against the wall next to Mark’s sneakers.
“Mark,” he says, and cocks his head to the side. There’s a gap in between the top button and the collar of his shirt; Mark can see a slice of smooth skin. Mark doesn’t know much about people, but he does know Eduardo. Eduardo is tired of asking questions that Mark doesn’t answer. Mark wonders if that means he’ll stop asking.
“Wardo,” Mark says, deadpan. He knows his face is blank. Most people assume it means he’s bored. It doesn’t.
Eduardo closes his eyes for just a moment, and then tilts his head back to look at the ceiling. “Don’t call me that if you don’t mean it, Mark,” Eduardo says. His voice is a warning, the first one that Mark has heard in days.
“When have I ever not meant it?” Eduardo is still not looking at him, so Mark watches the column of his throat at he swallows. The bob of his Adam’s apple.
“I don’t know, have you ever meant it?” Eduardo is looking at him now, eyes wide and dark. He always looks the most vulnerable when he’s angry.
Mark doesn’t say anything. He shrugs. Eduardo spins and hits the wall with the side of his fist.
“Fuck you, Mark,” Eduardo says. He takes a deep breath. “You know exactly how to make me angry, so why do it?”
Mark could say, because I can, and Eduardo might even leave. Mark is better at sabotaging relationships than he is at conducting them.
“What are you so fucking scared of?” Eduardo shakes his head, tongue sliding over his lower lip. He’s still breathing in and out too quickly.
Mark could shrug, or be snide, or be truthful, but he can’t decide what he wants. He says nothing at all. Eduardo takes a step closer, feet quiet on the carpet. Mark sits on the edge of his bed.
Mark opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t know what, and then Eduardo is kissing him. He leans in and curls one hand in Mark’s hair, and other wrapping in the collar of his t-shirt, both of them pulling him up. Mark’s back is taut like a strung wire. Eduardo’s mouth is soft, and hot, and he pushes his tongue into Mark’s mouth.
Mark presses one hand against Eduardo’s hip, just that single point of contact - Mark’s fingers touching Eduardo’s skin beneath the hem of his nice shirt. Eduardo pulls away, biting into Mark’s lip hard enough to sting. Mark is breathing too quickly. Eduardo drops his hands to his sides, and takes a step back.
“Huh,” he says, half to himself, and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Mark listens to the shower run, and pulls back the covers. He turns off the bedside lights, and tries to sleep.
In the morning, Eduardo is still asleep in his bed, and Mark is somewhat relieved. No midnight taxi to the airport, then. He’s wearing at least a tank top, the rest of covers tucked in around his waist. Mark escapes into the bathroom and turns on the shower. He thinks about Eduardo’s mouth, Eduardo’s hands in his hair and on his skin. He jerks off fast and hard, and then reaches for the shampoo.
Mark drives. Eduardo has said nothing all day except to thank Mark for the coffee he brought back to the room. Eduardo had slept in, and Mark had been restless. At least they aren’t in a hurry.
Mark keeps one hand on the wheel, grabbing another Twizzler from the pack stashed in the cup holder. Eduardo has his feet up on the seat, knees pressed against the door. He’s staring blankly out at the road. Mark is trying to give him space. It is, not surprisingly, rather hard while sharing such close quarters.
The easiest route home is almost straight west, taking the 10 until it ends. Four hours of straight driving gets them to the Texas border, heading toward Houston, and after that on to San Antonio. Mark hasn’t been to Texas since he was a kid, and he doesn’t remember much about it. It’s dry, he’s sure. Red clay mesas like a roadrunner cartoon. Eduardo watches the scenery slowly change, and says nothing at all.
Part of Mark hates that it’s been years and they haven’t gotten better at this. Mark hasn’t, and neither has Eduardo.
It’s late when they get to San Antonio - almost nine PM, and they haven’t eaten dinner yet. They pick up takeout at a Taco Bell, and get a room at a Quality Inn just off the exit to the highway. Eduardo sits at the small table in the corner and unpacks his burrito. Mark sits on his bed with his quesadilla.
“Did I actively fuck something up?” Mark asks, finally, swallowing a bite of cheese and meat and tortilla.
“Shut up, Mark,” Eduardo says, staring down at his dinner. His feet are tapping restlessly against the floor. When he glances at Mark, his eyes are wide, and dark, and he quickly looks away.
“Come here.” Mark says it before he can convince himself not to, which, he’s sure, would ultimately have been the smarter choice. Eduardo sucks in a deep breath, and his feet still. Mark is still cross-legged.
“What?” Eduardo is uncertain. He’s looking at Mark again.
“Come here,” Mark says, more solid than the first time. Eduardo started it, because someone had to. But Mark isn’t a complete coward.
Eduardo stands, and Mark puts his food, tin foil wrapping and all, onto the nightstand. Eduardo’s steps are measured and slow, careful in a way that he forgets to be, sometimes.
When Eduardo stops at the foot of Mark’s bed, Mark props himself up on his knees. He wraps a hand in the fabric at the front of Eduardo’s t-shirt, and pulls. Eduardo resists, for a moment, but Mark is insistent. He pulls Eduardo down until he’s sitting on the bed, until Mark can push him flat on his back.
“Mark,” he tries, and starts to sit back up, like he realizes what this looks like. Mark puts a hand flat on the center of his chest. There isn’t enough force behind it to hold Eduardo down, but he stills anyway. He’s breathing too fast, like a scared rabbit, and this isn’t exactly what Mark wants, but he’s tired of watching, and waiting to be good enough. He doesn’t think he ever will be.
Eduardo’s chest is firm beneath the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Mark carefully curls his fingers in, wrinkling the fabric under his palm. He can feel Eduardo’s heart beating like a kettledrum.
“Mark,” Eduardo says again, voice unsteady. And then, “Don’t.”
Mark kisses him anyway. He leans in, hunches over Eduardo’s prone body, and Eduardo opens for him. Mark licks his way into Eduardo’s mouth with a soft, urgent sound, and Eduardo lets him. His hand comes up and presses against the back of Mark’s head. Mark is still kneeling on the bedspread. He bites into Eduardo’s lips, and then his jaw, just underneath his left ear. His tastes like sweat and soap and he hisses between his teeth when Mark sucks a bruise into his skin.
“Wait, wait,” Eduardo says, breathy. His hand is still in Mark’s hair, tugging. Mark pulls away, and watches Eduardo lick at his swollen lips.
“What?” Mark’s voice is huskier than he’s expecting. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, biting it between his teeth, and watches Eduardo watch him do it. He still knows that he’s not going to like whatever it is that Eduardo is going to say next.
“We can’t do this.” Eduardo looks disheveled - his hair is a mess, his shirt wrinkled, and he’s got at least one bruise on his neck from Mark’s teeth. His brows are drawn down, though, and so Mark sits back on his heels.
“Why not?”
Eduardo is silent for long enough that Mark isn’t sure he wants to know at all.
“I made a mistake, last night. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have pretended that was an option.” His hands have tightened into fists. He’s still lying on his back, but he’s tense all over. For one blinding second, Mark hates him.
“Oh,” he says. He’s thinking about Eduardo’s delicate ankles propped up on the dashboard, Eduardo licking guacamole off of his fingers. Eduardo’s anger over coffee and a pack of gum. Eduardo is lying. It’s an option; it’s just not one Eduardo is willing to acknowledge. Why he presented it in the first place, Mark honestly isn’t sure. “Okay.”
For maybe the first time since he left Palo Alto, Mark misses his laptop like a fucking limb.
He slides off the bed and stands. “Look,” he says. “You don’t have to stay. I’ll take you to the airport tomorrow. Get you on a flight back to Miami.”
Eduardo doesn’t say anything, his face kept carefully blank. Mark fumbles for his wallet on the bedside table, room key tucked in the back with his money. He’s out the door without another word.
Mark sits on the hood of his car, and listens to himself breathe. He thinks about all the shit in his life that he shouldn’t have done, and this trip rates pretty high on the list. He doesn’t get back to the room until well after 4 AM. Eduardo is asleep.
He stops in the motel lobby on the way back in, and uses the public computer to buy Eduardo a plane ticket back to Miami. His flight leaves at 12:47. It’s apparently a 4 hour and 46 minute flight.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, he texts Dustin.
Should be home in two days, he sends. It takes Dustin about thirty seconds to respond.
k u get yr shit wrked out??? lol
Mark chuckles softly to himself.
For the most part, yes.
Mark sleeps for less than three hours. He wakes before Eduardo, slides the boarding pass and itinerary underneath Eduardo’s phone on the bedside table. Then he leaves.
It’s a dick move, and he knows it. It’s a cop out. It’s the same self-defensive shit he’s pulled since he was twelve and getting beaten up on a regular basis. That doesn’t make it any less necessary. He gets in the car, and sits for a moment. Eduardo doesn’t come rushing out to tell him to stop, so he pulls out of the parking lot and gets back on the 10 heading toward Arizona.
He manages to get to Tucson around dinnertime. He decides to stop mostly because he keeps nearly falling asleep at the wheel. He’d stopped at midday for greasy diner food off the side of the highway, but he hasn’t eaten since. He’s too exhausted to think about it. He gets a room at a local motel, grunting monosyllabic answers to the desk jockey, and falls asleep almost immediately.
He doesn’t wake up until 10 the next morning. He feels like he’s been run over by a train, but he still drags himself out of bed, and into the shower. Tucson is hot but dry when he steps out into the day. He grabs a few pastries and a cup of coffee to go at the complimentary breakfast in the hotel lobby - the pastries are stale, and the coffee is bitter, but it’s free, and he doesn’t care much. He hopes that Eduardo made it home okay. He’ll ask Dustin when he gets back to the office.
He gets back on the 10, passing briefly through Phoenix and then west until he hits the Pacific. He’s relieved to see the ocean after so much land. He skirts around the edges of Los Angeles, and gets onto the 5 going north. He still has six hours to go, and it’s nearly 6 PM. He’s determined not to stop again, but he knows that there’s no way he’s getting home before midnight, no matter what he does.
He stops in San Clarita for more coffee, and two bags of Twizzlers, enough sugar to keep him awake until he gets home. He’s not a west coast native but he’s still glad to be back.
He finds Eduardo’s pack of gum tucked into the passenger side door. He figures he’s not going to see Eduardo for a long time, if ever again, so he steals a piece. Spearmint. It loses its flavor too quickly.
Mark rolls down the window and lets the wind run through his hair.
He pulls into the parking space in front of his house at 12:19 AM. Not bad, considering he’d started the trip driving the speed limit. He fires off a text to Dustin, saying he’s home, and he’s going to sleep for at least twelve hours, but he should get into the office in the afternoon. He’s anxious to make sure that Dustin hasn’t destroyed everything. After a moment’s consideration, he copies the text and sends it to his assistant. She’ll probably want to know.
The first thing he notices when he opens the front door is that the shoes on the mat aren’t his. He recognizes them, worn down sandals, and wonders if Dustin has been abusing his key privileges. He doesn’t give a shit right now, though, considering he’s about to fall over and he feels like he’s coated in a fine dusting of road dirt. He toes off his sneakers in a disorderly pile, leaves his duffle underneath the table in the entryway, and stumbles down the hall toward his bedroom.
Eduardo is sleeping in his bed. He’s a lump, the covers pulled almost over his head, but Mark can still tell from the disheveled mop of hair and the curve of one exposed cheekbone. Mark’s been looking at him long enough.
Mark is too tired to deal with this right now. He turns around, walks down the hall, and falls asleep in the guest room.
Mark doesn’t wake up until just after 11, if the clock on the bedside table it to be believed. He probably needed the sleep. What he wants more than anything is a shower, but all of his toiletries are in the bathroom attached to his bedroom, and he’s not willing to walk into that mess, yet. If only he kept his guest bathroom stocked.
He flops over onto his back, staring at the blank white ceiling. There isn’t even a light fixture to look at. The sun is peeking in around the edges of the curtains, and Mark bites his lip. Eduardo is in his house. Considering the timing, Eduardo has probably been in his house since sometime before Mark got to Tucson.
Mark reaches out blindly with one hand and gropes for his phone. He hits it with the heel of his palm, but manages not to knock it off of the nightstand. When he looks at the display, he has six missed texts. Four are from his assistant, updating him now that he’s back in town, and the other two are from Dustin.
ur in 4 a surprse, the first one says, dated shortly after Mark went to sleep last night. It’s quickly followed by, im not givin bak my key
Dustin’s fault, then. No surprises there.
I hate you, Mark texts him, and then shoves his phone back onto the bedside table.
“Fuck everything,” he says aloud. His voice croaks horribly. He slides out from under the covers, and chances the hallway.
The house smells like coffee and something cooking, so Mark isn’t expecting to see Eduardo still in his bedroom. He’s obviously just finished showering. Mark watches him pull a shirt on over his wet hair, frozen in the doorway. Eduardo’s feet are bare underneath the hem of his jeans. Eduardo looks up, and Mark almost leaves.
He still needs a shower, however.
“We’re not talking about this now,” he says. It’s a statement of fact. He is not talking about this now - not about why he left Eduardo in that hotel room, or why Eduardo is here now, or how much time Mark spends wanting to kiss him.
“Okay,” Eduardo says. He’s frowning. Mark rubs at one eye with his fingers. He’s still exhausted.
“I’m going to shower, you’re going to leave this room, and later -” Mark takes a deep breath. “Later, we talk.”
“Fine,” Eduardo says, but he still doesn’t move. Mark takes a step into the room, and pulls his shirt over his head. He’s still wearing his clothes from the day before. He undoes his jeans, and pushes them down over his hips.
Eduardo’s mouth is open, a little, and he’s blushing. When Mark’s hands go to the waistband of his boxers, Eduardo hurries out of the room. Mark, naked, pads into the bathroom and turns on the shower.
There are a few dirty dishes in the sink when Mark enters the kitchen. A pot and a saucepan drying on the stove. He can see Eduardo sitting on the couch in the living room. Mark grabs an apple off the counter, and pours himself a cup of coffee from the carafe sitting next to the coffeemaker. Eduardo must have made enough for both of them this morning.
He takes a bite of the apple, and meanders into the living room. Eduardo glances up at him, and Mark isn’t trying for casual as much as he’s stalling. Not surprising, really.
“I thought you were going home,” Mark says, swallowing apple.
Eduardo shrugs with one shoulder. He could be mocking Mark, or he could not be. Mark can’t tell.
“Okay,” Mark says. “Fine.” He slumps next to Eduardo on the couch, and takes another bite of apple. He puts his coffee cup on the coffee table with a clink.
They sit in silence, Mark eating his apple and drinking his coffee. Eduardo just watches him.
Finally, Eduardo says, “You scare the shit out of me.” He says it like he’s been holding it in, though for how long Mark isn’t sure. Mark has to swallow the last of his coffee or spit it out all over the carpet.
“What?”
“This - thing, with you. I was. I’d finally - moved on, or close enough, and you decide -“ Eduardo cuts himself off to laugh. It’s a bitter sound. “And you decide to just waltz right back into my life, and. Be you. All over again.”
“You could have said no. You didn’t have to come.” Mark looks at his knees, his hands curved over his kneecaps, and then at Eduardo, with his legs pulled up to his chest.
Eduardo snorts. “And I’ve said no to you how many times?”
“Enough times,” Mark says, and Eduardo looks up at him, sharp. “Enough times, Wardo, it’s not a forgone conclusion that you’ll do whatever I say. I asked you because I wanted you here, not to - exert my influence, or whatever it is you think -”
“Mark.” Eduardo cuts him off this time, his voice curt. “I’ve been in love with you since I was nineteen. You can’t think that asking -”
“I didn’t know!” Mark’s fingernails are digging into his knees hard enough to bruise, probably. He hates the harsh sound of his voice. “I didn’t know,” he says, softer. “Not until maybe forty-eight hours ago.”
“Jesus,” Eduardo says, and laughs. He covers his face with his hands, and Mark wants to grab his wrists and pull them away. So he does.
Eduardo’s pulse is fast and it picks up speed when Mark’s fingers wrap around his wrists. Mark has to lean in to reach, and from this close he can see the stubble on Eduardo’s cheeks, his slightly chapped lips, the flush blooming across his cheekbones.
“Mark,” Eduardo says, like he’s tried to be stern and only managing breathy, and there’s a flicker of something - fear, maybe - across his face, and then he leans forward and kisses Mark. It’s sloppy, and he misses, a little, lips pressed against the corner of Mark’s mouth before he corrects himself.
Mark makes a noise, needy and urgent, and lets Eduardo’s tongue sweep over his lower lip. His hands are tight around Eduardo’s wrists, and Eduardo’s knees are between them. The angle is awkward, and Mark’s back is hunched. Mark feels more desperate than he thinks he ever has. He pulls away.
“I didn’t know,” he says again. “I - missed you, and I. Wanted you to forgive me. That’s all. That’s all.” He shrugs, lets his chin brush against Eduardo’s knee. He is not an affectionate person. He still can’t help wanting to touch Eduardo.
“Fuck,” Eduardo says, and pulls one hand out of Mark’s grasp. He grabs Mark by the back of the neck, and tugs him in. Eduardo bites into his mouth hard enough to sting and Mark wraps his free hand into the fabric of Eduardo’s t-shirt, right at his shoulder.
When Eduardo pushes him down, he holds on as tight as he can.
They nap on the couch until dinner, and then they order pizza. Eduardo has a hickey on his neck from Mark’s teeth; Mark can’t stop looking at it, even as Eduardo shovels vegetarian pizza into his mouth.
They make it to the bedroom the second time, and Eduardo’s mouth tastes like cheese and peppers. Mark’s probably does too. Mark blows Eduardo until he has his hands white-knuckled on the headboard, and then Eduardo pulls him off. Eduardo fucks him so slowly that it’s agony, and by the time he comes he’s sweat-drenched and sore all over. Eduardo whispers filthy things in his ear, licks the sweat off of his neck. He thinks about cleaning himself up, cleaning them both up, but he falls asleep before he gets around to it.
In the morning, he wakes up to an empty bed and the shower running. He categorizes his feelings and labels them, and there is no panic. He is almost surprised, but mostly relieved.
He’s still sore when he stands, but he’s mobile enough to make it to the bathroom. The mirror is fogged, but Eduardo’s body is water-slicked and tan in the enormous shower. No glass and no curtain, so he’s easy enough to see.
“Wardo?”
Eduardo turns around and flashes him a smile. It’s small, but real. His hair is plastered to his cheeks and neck with water. He has freckles along the backs of his shoulders. “Finally awake, I see,” he says.
“You should just stay,” Mark blurts out before he can think about it.
Eduardo laughs, but he doesn’t say no. “Come here,” he says, instead. Mark leaves his boxers on the floor, and steps into the spray.
“I’m in love with you,” Mark says, and this time he means to. The water thunders against his shoulders and chest. Eduardo is four inches away from him, blocking the rest of the spray. His eyes go wide, but while there’s surprise there, there’s no disbelief.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, and kisses him. His fingers are soapy on the sides of Mark’s face. Mark doesn’t mind.
(now with a porny coda! - we were safe inside)
social network (mark/eduardo)
10,390 words. in which mark and eduardo take a road trip across the us, and have a lot of issues. they seriously have a lot of issues.
huge thanks to strikesoftly, wishpaper, and exmptfromsanity for their fucking fantastic comments and criticism. all remaining failures are my own. ♥
(translated into chinese by reiai here: 1 2 3 4 5. ♥)
After the meeting with Legal, Mark heads back to his office. He doesn’t dawdle on his path through the honeycomb desks, but he doesn’t close his office door, either. His mood doesn’t make Facebook development any less important.
His open laptop has gone into hibernation, and Mark pauses, momentarily, looking at the blank computer screen before moving past the desk. He stops by the window, blinds up to let in the sun, and scrolls through the contacts on his cell phone. Dustin is in the office, so he could just - walk over there, if he wanted. Chris is off with his new organization, but he doesn’t mind when Mark calls him. Not much, anyway.
Mark scrolls to the Es, fingers stalling on the touch screen for a few seconds too long. He listens to his breath in the emptiness of the room, and presses the phone to his ear. He stares out of the window.
“Hello?” Eduardo’s voice sounds exactly the same. He doesn't know that it's Mark.
“Hi,” Mark says. He pauses, thinks of several additional responses, and summarily dismisses all of them. Eduardo just breathes.
“Mark?” he asks, eventually. He sounds like he’s not sure. Mark watches a car crawl up the driveway toward the offices.
“Eduardo,” Mark says, and then stops. He’s gripping the phone too hard, and his hand is starting to sweat.
“What?” There’s the harshness Mark was expecting. He doesn’t close his eyes, or even physically react. He just watches the car pull into a parking lot - visitor parking. Interviewee, maybe.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Why?” Mark can’t hear any ambient noise over the line. He wonders where Eduardo is. What he’s doing.
“Come on a trip with me,” Mark says, completely spur of the moment. He rubs his left hand against the thigh of his jeans. “A road trip. With me.” He waits for Eduardo to laugh at him, or scoff, but there’s only silence.
Finally, Eduardo says, “I - Fine.” His voice has lost some of its edge, but Mark doesn’t know why. “Email me the details.” Then he hangs up.
Mark doesn’t have any details. He has no idea what he’s doing.
Mark picks Eduardo up at the San Jose International Airport in the mid morning. Palo is breezy and warm. Mark wonders, again, if this is such a good idea.
“Why am I here, Mark?” Eduardo is angry again - it shows in the tense lines of his shoulders, and the set of his jaw. Eduardo is the only person that Mark can read at all, and even that is an imperfect science.
“I don’t know,” he says. It’s only half a lie. Eduardo is here, apparently, because Mark asked him to be. Mark’s just not sure why Eduardo still gives a shit about what Mark asks of him. He’s not going to point out the faulty logic; he senses it wouldn’t solve anything. But he isn’t keeping Eduardo from his work - according to his email, he’s on vacation. Visiting Palo Alto from Miami. Mark vaguely wonders what he’s told his parents. “I invited you because I wanted you here. I am uncertain as to why you decided to show up.”
Mark’s bought a silver Honda Civic for the trip. A boring car, but a safe choice for someone who doesn’t give a shit about cars. Sean would be so disappointed. Mark’s got one hand on the driver’s side door handle. Eduardo is still standing by the sliding door to the arrival terminal, shaking his head. There’s regret there, maybe, underneath all the anger.
“You don’t have to come,” Mark adds, finally. Eduardo is staring down at his feet, the wave of his bangs falling into his face.
Eduardo sighs. He looks at his black duffle, half-deflated on the sidewalk, and picks it up. He shoves it into the back seat of the Civic.
“Let’s get this over with,” he says, and slides into the passenger seat. Mark doesn’t say anything at all.
The first night, Mark gets them a motel room on the Washington border and wonders if he should have gotten them two separate rooms instead. It would sort of defeat the purpose of a road trip, but Eduardo is still antsy. They’ve been in the car for a long time, and it’s late. There was a lot of silence, most of it awkward. Mark asked after Eduardo’s family, his sister, but hadn’t pried much further. Eduardo avoided talking about Facebook for obvious reasons, but Mark does little else.
“This doesn’t have to be awkward,” Mark says, sitting on the edge of one bed while Eduardo is brushing his teeth in the bathroom. He’s left the door open, so Mark figures he’s allowed.
Eduardo spits into the sink. He turns to look at Mark, his expression withering. He has toothpaste smeared in one corner of his mouth. “Go to bed, Mark.”
Mark’s feet are socked and pressed against the carpet. He hasn’t taken off his shirt, nor is he going to, but he’s shucked his jeans and left them draped over the chair pushed into the desk in the corner. He watches Eduardo’s face for another thirty seconds, and then reaches over to turn off the bedside lamp. He crawls underneath the covers.
He thinks about saying goodnight, but he doesn’t.
They’re outside Tacoma. Eduardo has his feet up on the dash, shoes discarded somewhere into the overcrowded backseat. He’s staring out the window. Mark notices the hem of his pants riding up enough to expose surprisingly delicate ankles, and has to look away.
He’s driving the speed limit, but cars keep passing him anyway.
“You can drive faster, you know,” Eduardo says. It’s the first time he’s spoken since they left the hotel this morning. To be fair, Mark hasn’t said anything either.
“I could,” Mark agrees. “But we’re not in a hurry to get anywhere.”
“No,” Eduardo says, “but you sure are pissing off a lot of people.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. He expects Eduardo to add something glib, wonder aloud how Mark can even be an asshole following traffic laws. Eduardo is silent, though, and when Mark glances over, he’s leaning his head against the window, eyes closed. His cheek is fogging up the glass.
Mark carefully speeds up. Eduardo doesn’t open his eyes.
Montana is mountainous, and also fucking huge. Mark knew this cerebrally, but he’s still not expecting it. They pass through a few odd towns, driving down I-90 - Missoula, near the Idaho border, Deer Lodge - but the territory just seems to go on forever. They bypass Anaconda, and the turnoff toward I-15, and stop at Bozeman for lunch. They park on Main St, and Eduardo gets out, stretching his arms over his head. Mark watches his plaid shirt expose the tanned skin of his belly, and purses his lips. Eduardo leans down to peer in through the window.
“You coming?” He doesn’t sound annoyed, yet, so Mark just nods. They walk a few blocks, Eduardo with his hands in his pockets, Mark’s motionless at his sides. Neither of them says anything, but the silence isn’t exactly tense, either. They end up at a coffee shop called Leaf & Bean. Eduardo gets in line, while Mark snags them a seat by the storefront window.
Eduardo returns with two paninis, and two cups of coffee. The first sip Mark takes is too hot, and he swallows quickly, feeling the liquid go all the way down his esophagus. He wonders, vaguely, why Eduardo is here.
“They wanted me to write a will,” Mark says, apropos of nothing in particular, and takes a large bite of his panini. “The lawyers,” he tacks on with his mouth full. Eduardo raises his eyebrows and purses his lips, obviously unsure what to make of the statement. Mark swallows, and takes another bite.
He doesn’t say, I couldn’t figure out who to divide it all between, and he doesn’t even want to.
Eduardo takes a sip of his coffee, and seems to let it go.
The motel they stay in on the edge of Montana, just before it turns into North Dakota, has a swimming pool. Outdoors, and it’s not the right season, but when Mark can’t sleep he goes outside and sits on one of the patio chairs. He’s tired of staring at the ceiling. He’s never had trouble sleeping before.
He could blame it on Eduardo’s loud breathing from the other bed, but Mark’s shared dorm rooms. He’s restless. He picks at the threads on the bottom cuff of his jeans, and longs for his computer. He’d left it behind intentionally.
He’s been outside for something like an hour when Eduardo sits next to him. Mark can feel the thick plastic bands give under the weight of another human body. Eduardo’s feet are the first things in view - his long toes, the vulnerable arch curving them. He’s sitting cross-legged, still in his pajama pants and t-shirt, and he doesn’t say anything for a long time. Mark thinks it will be less than two hours until the sun is rising again. Mark usually only sees it from this end anyway.
“You never deleted my phone number.” Eduardo’s voice, when he breaks the silence, is softer than expected. The words are similarly unexpected. Mark doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. He supposes he could say something like, it wasn’t me who cut all ties, but he knows well enough now that it wouldn’t go over well. For a few minutes it feels like Eduardo is finished talking. Then, “I deleted yours. I still recognized it when you called, though.”
Mark nods. More to have contributed a response than that he actually finds it necessary to do so. Eduardo doesn’t touch Mark, just stuffs his hands underneath the cotton of his t-shirt to keep them warm against his stomach.
After another fifteen minutes of silence, Eduardo sighs. He stands, and pauses, hovering.
“Goodnight, Mark,” he says, eventually, and heads back inside. He doesn’t say, don’t stay up too late. Mark sits for another half an hour before going back inside. Eduardo is asleep.
Mark thinks it might be interesting to see the Great Lakes, so in the morning they head across North Dakota toward Minnesota. They stop in a 7-11 at about 9 AM, and Eduardo gets some shitty coffee, and Mark stocks up on junk food. He buys two huge bags of cheetos, a liter of coke, and seven packs of Twizzlers. Mark has never escaped his addiction to them. Eduardo is cupping his coffee, standing in front of the cash register eyeing the gum. Mark watches Eduardo’s eyes move, and snags a pack of Trident, spearmint flavored, and puts it on the counter.
“How much?” The girl working the register can’t be more than eighteen, at most. She still has braces, and two lurid stripes of red coloring the hair bordering her face. She rings them up with the efficiency of long practice.
“The coffee, too?” she asks. Her accent is rounder than he’s used to, particularly on the vowels.
“Yeah,” he says. “The coffee, too.”
Eduardo gives him a sharp look, and Mark wonders if he’s thinking, don’t rub the money in my face, Mark, but that’s not the point at all. The point is - there isn’t one. Mark can afford it, and. It’s his road trip.
“Mark,” Eduardo starts, but Mark waves him off. The cashier puts everything in a big plastic bag, and slides it over the counter. Mark grabs the handles, and fishes around inside, handing Eduardo his gum. Then he heads to the car.
Mark’s got his hand on the driver’s side door when he hears Eduardo’s feet on the pavement. They’ve already gotten gas at the attached Exxon. Time to head out again.
“You don’t have to do shit like that, Mark,” Eduardo says. He sounds guilty, or angry, or both. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Eduardo is wound up so tight.
“The coffee was ninety-nine cents, Eduardo. The gum was a dollar and twenty-seven. Not a hardship.” Mark glances over his shoulder. Eduardo is standing uncertainly behind him. His hair is flat from sleeping against the window, and there’s the shadow of dark stubble on his jaw. Circles under his eyes, but Mark has seen worse. Mark has had worse.
“It’s not - it’s not about the money, Mark,” Eduardo says, and then rolls his eyes. At himself, or at Mark, or at something else entirely, Mark doesn’t know. “I mean, it’s about the money, but not in the way you think.”
“I’m not rubbing it in. There’s no ulterior motive. It’s two dollars and twenty-six cents, plus tax. Easier to buy everything together, that’s all.” Not the truth, but close enough. Mark only gives a shit about money in the sense that it lets him do what he wants. An extension of his willpower. He’s not showing Eduardo up, he’s apologizing.
“Fine, whatever,” Eduardo says, and holds up his hands in surrender. He’s put the gum in his pocket, and he doesn’t spill any coffee. He does climb into the passenger seat, though.
Dustin texts him that evening, just as they skirt around the twin cities, taking 94 to 35.
i kno ur out lookin 4 ur soul r whatev but shld i b wrkin? Dustin has the most terrible texting grammar in the entire universe. It literally hurts Mark’s eyes.
“Jesus Christ,” he says, curled up in the passenger seat. They’re pulled over into a truck stop. Eduardo is peeing inside. Cleaner than the side of the road, and lighter, too, now that the sun’s gone down.
If you want a job when I get back, then, yes, possibly. It’s an idle threat. Mark couldn’t, and probably wouldn’t, do it.
lolololol, Dustin says, obviously taking the threat very seriously. Then, Dustin texts him again. how did u get wardo to cme w u neway?
Mark stares at the text for a minute, wishing that he could communicate a shrug with a text message. No idea, he says, instead. Why don’t you ask him?
i did, Dustin says less than a minute later. i dont thnk he knos.
Mark’s still thinking about it when Eduardo pulls the driver’s side door open and climbs in. The thighs of his jeans are a little wet where he’s dried his hands on them. He pulls off his shoes and tosses them into the passenger side foot well. Mark doesn’t care, since he has his feet pulled up anyway. Eduardo doesn’t say anything as he turns the key in the ignition. It’s probably illegal to drive without shoes on. Mark cranes his neck to look at Eduardo’s toes stretched over the gas pedal. His feet are long, spindly, and Mark can see his tendons.
“What?” Eduardo asks, glancing over at Mark quickly, before returning his eyes to the road in front of him. There isn’t very much traffic.
Mark isn’t going to say anything about Eduardo’s feet, or his ankles, or the slices of his forearms exposed as he pushes his long-sleeved t-shirt up with one hand at a time. He keeps the other safe on the steering wheel. “You still talk to Dustin?” he asks, instead.
The glance Eduardo sends him this time is surprised. “Well,” Eduardo says, and pauses, and shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Sometimes.”
Mark nods, and turns to the window. There isn’t much to see besides the flat expanse of fields off into the distance, and the highway scrub exposed by the streetlights. Mark struggles for a moment, knowing that he should say something else, but not having anything to say.
“Do you have a problem with that?” Eduardo doesn’t look over at him, Mark is watching in the reflection on the window, but his tone is tense. Unhappy.
“No.” Mark’s voice is too abrupt. “Of course not. Why would I?”
Eduardo shrugs, but he doesn’t know that Mark is looking at him, so he says, “I don’t know.”
“I don’t,” Mark says. He’s relatively certain that it’s the truth.
“Okay.” Eduardo looks at him, longer this time, and Mark pretends to be watching the highway shoulder pass them by.
They get into Duluth at some terrible hour in the morning. Mark almost forgets to take off his pants and get under the covers. He’s dozing, waiting for Eduardo to finish brushing his teeth and turn off the bathroom light. Eduardo doesn’t make that much noise, tidying up his things, pulling the covers back on his bed, but it’s enough to rouse Mark.
With the lights off, Eduardo is just a grey shape against a slightly lighter background. Mark wonders, if he said something right now, would it have more or less validity, given the cover of darkness. Would it be an unburdening? Somehow, he doesn’t think so.
“Goodnight, Wardo,” he says, instead. His voice is gravelly.
Eduardo draws in a quick breath, almost a hiss. Mark doesn’t know why.
“Goodnight, Mark,” he says, eventually.
Duluth is right on the tip of Lake Superior. Mark can’t see the end of it, even from the Sky Harbor Airport parking lot. He can see Wisconsin on the other shore, though, across the bay.
“Huh,” he says. He thinks that he’d like to drive along the shore, all the way around the entire perimeter. They probably won’t. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” he asks, but when he looks over his shoulder, Eduardo’s not leaning against the car anymore. Mark spins in a slow circle, and finds Eduardo already heading toward the walking trail. Mark stuffs his hands in his pockets and wonders if he should try to catch up before Eduardo makes it out of sight. No, probably not. If Eduardo had wanted his company, he’d have asked.
Mark leaves the car, treks through the line of small buildings, and makes it to the trees. The walking trail, the airport, the parking lot, all of it is stationed on a thin strip of land jutting out from one shore of the lake and reaching toward the other. If they walk far enough, it’ll end. Maybe two, or two and a half miles.
When Mark gets onto the path he can see Eduardo in front of him. He’s not hurrying, just strolling, watching the water. Shoulders back, steps measured. Mark won’t bother him.
The air smells like water and rock and greenery, less like petrol and gas the farther they get from the airport. It makes Mark feel almost lightheaded. He stares out across the water as he walks, and wonders how this could possibly feel so different from the ocean. There’s no salt in the air.
Finally, Eduardo stops walking. Mark doesn’t notice until he’s caught up. They haven’t gotten all the way to the tip, yet, but Eduardo looks wind-swept and pink-cheeked. The breeze off of the water stirring his hair.
“Want to keep going?” Eduardo asks. His eyes look wet, dark, and Mark can’t be sure if it’s the walk or whatever Eduardo was thinking about. There’s no way to know.
Mark shrugs. He could keep walking forever, but that’s not an option.
Eduardo laughs. It’s a surprise. “Since when do you not have any opinions?” He drags his arms across his eyes, but he’s still laughing.
“I assure you, I still have opinions.” He doesn’t point out examples, but he doesn’t think that he has to.
“I’m sure,” Eduardo says. He pauses, and watches Mark. Mark chews on his bottom lip, but doesn’t move otherwise. “Lets go back to the car.”
“Okay,” Mark says. Eduardo nudges him with the toe of one shoe, getting him moving. Mark tries not to let it feel significant.
They backtrack toward Minneapolis, and then head down to Iowa. Eduardo still hasn’t asked Mark where they’re going. Mark still doesn’t know, exactly.
Mark falls asleep in the passenger seat somewhere near the Iowa border. When he wakes up two hours later, it takes him a few confused moments to realize that Eduardo is singing under his breath. Mark can’t identify the song, only that Eduardo’s voice is sweeter than expected. Mark keeps his eyes closed, and pretends that he hasn’t woken. Eduardo doesn’t seem to notice. Mark listens to him sing until he falls asleep again.
Mark only wakes again when Eduardo rouses him. He jolts when Eduardo shakes him by the shoulder, but he doesn’t pull away.
“C’mon,” Eduardo says. “I’ve gotten us a room.”
Mark nods. He’s not sure where they are, but since there’s no destination, he supposes that it doesn’t matter. They can’t be far out of Iowa, though.
“Why am I here, Mark?” Eduardo asks, while Mark is brushing his teeth. It’s not the most opportune of moments, and Mark almost swallows toothpaste and saliva and foam. Instead, he spits it all out into the sink. At least Eduardo isn’t angry, this time. Not outwardly so, anyway.
“I’ve already answered that question,” Mark says, and rinses out his mouth. He puts his toothbrush down on the counter. When he turns, Eduardo is looking at him with his mouth drawn down, arms crossed. He’s sitting on the edge of the closer bed.
“Not really. You fairly successfully avoided answering it.”
“No, I answered the question you asked. If you want a different answer, ask a different question.” Mark sees no reason to make this easier than it has to be. He doesn’t actually want to talk about it.
Eduardo exhales, unsteady and frustrated. He smiles, but it’s not nice. “Of course,” he says. “Because you can’t just answer the question you know I’m actually asking.”
Mark says nothing. Eduardo hasn’t asked him anything at all, now.
Eduardo stares at him for a few still, quiet moments. He’s building up to something, and Mark’s relatively sure he doesn’t want to know what it is.
“Fuck,” Eduardo says, finally. He’s frustrated. “You’re infuriating, and you know it, and you don’t even care. I knew this was going to be a bad idea, I just thought -” He cuts himself off and shakes his head. Mark’s curious.
“You thought what?”
“It’s been years, Mark,” Eduardo says with very little hesitation. He’s been waiting to say this. “I thought maybe you’d changed.”
It takes everything in Mark not to scoff. He manages not to. “You came here with your mind made up. Everything I do is either to rub the past in your face or to show that I’m somehow stagnant. Still mentally a nineteen-year-old college student.” Mark shrugs in the way he knows is reminiscent of every shrug Eduardo has ever seen him do. “It doesn’t matter if I’ve changed or not, because you wouldn’t notice it anyway.” Mark’s tone is mild.
Mark doesn’t really look at Eduardo’s face, because it could look one of two ways, and he doesn’t want to see either of them. Instead, he walks over to his bed, and pulls the comforter down, climbing underneath the covers.
“Goodnight, Wardo,” he says. He’s probably not to going to sleep again, but he’ll make the effort.
They make it through Indiana and into Kentucky without another verbal scuffle, but also without much conversation. Mark doesn’t see the point in stewing, but Eduardo obviously does. He bites into his thumbnail and looks out the window. Mark does most of the driving, but he doesn’t really mind.
They get stuck in a traffic jam on 65 heading down toward Tennessee. They’ll have to stop for the night before the Tennessee border as it is, but this is only going to slow them down further. Mark’s gotten used to driving above the speeding limit, and how he has to go at a crawl. He glances over at Eduardo, the line of tension in his neck, the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. Mark looks away.
He hears Eduardo rustle about, the sound of his bare feet on the dashboard, and his fingernails tapping against the window. He doesn’t say anything.
Eduardo comes back to the motel room in the morning with two cups of shitty Dunkin Donuts coffee and two Egg McMuffins. The only restaurants they are near serve fast food. Mark sits cross-legged on the edge of his bed and balances his sandwich on his knee, taking a sip of coffee.
“You might be right,” Eduardo says. Mark doesn’t ask him what he’s talking about, he just shrugs. He already knows.
Mark isn’t inclined to demur about it, or pretend that it doesn’t matter, but he isn’t going to insist on an apology, either. That wasn’t the point of this trip.
“Okay,” he says, in lieu of anything else. He doesn’t know what else he should say. He unwraps his McMuffln and takes a bite. “Should we get on the road?”
Eduardo gives him a look that’s half confusion and half incredulity, but it’s not really that hard to parse, Mark doesn’t think.
“Yeah, sure,” Eduardo says.
They stop for lunch in Nashville, at a sports bar north of downtown, and they get burgers. They eat mostly in silence, thanking the waitress, murmuring quietly to each other to pass the condiments. There are several teams playing several different, easily identifiable sports on the monitors above the bar - soccer, basketball, football - but Mark has never been a sports fan. He used to watch baseball with his dad, but he doesn’t keep up. He looks down at his fries, instead, and drowns them in catsup.
When he looks over at Eduardo, he’s using his fries to mop up the guacamole that oozed off of his burger and dripped onto the plate. Mark watches him.
“What?” Eduardo asks, swallowing. He licks the salt off of his fingers, and Mark almost looks away. The only reason he doesn’t is because it would be obvious. He hates being obvious.
Mark shakes his head. “Nothing. Is that good?”
“I’d eat guac on almost anything,” Eduardo says, and laughs. “If we’d gone out more you might know that.”
There’s no reprisal in Eduardo’s tone, though Mark thinks that there probably should be. Mark still doesn’t really know how to be a friend. Mark hums in agreement, mostly because he doesn’t have anything to say. When he can’t talk about Facebook, and code, and programming, Mark doesn’t really know what to talk about.
“It’s fine,” Eduardo says, like he knows what Mark is thinking. “I didn’t even mind that then.”
Of all the things I’m angry about, that is not one, he’s saying. Tactfully.
“Oh,” Mark says, and then asks, curious, “why not?”
Eduardo looks surprised for half a second before he schools his expression. He shrugs with one shoulder and looks down at his plate before turning back to Mark. Not expecting Mark to be curious, then. “Just not what we did. We were busy, anyway,” he says. With Facebook, he doesn’t say, but Mark hears it anyway.
“It’s not that I don’t know that I’m not a very good friend,” Mark says, and refuses to use the past tense. If Eduardo actually hated him he wouldn’t be here. Even Mark knows that.
He doesn’t want to have this conversation here. As if he wants to have it at all.
“Mark -” Eduardo cuts himself off. He shakes his head. “No, you really weren’t.”
Mark doesn’t know what the past tense indicates - either that Eduardo still doesn’t consider them friends, or that he’s somehow progressed in his friendship abilities, but when Eduardo lets it drop, so does Mark, and happily so.
They drive toward Memphis, bringing them within spitting distance of the Arkansas border. Mark always forgets that Arkansas exists - he’s never been there, nor does he think that he knows anyone that has. It’s about a three and a half hour drive, getting them to Memphis just as the sun is going down. This means that they most likely won’t be going through Alabama. Mark’s trying to avoid going farther east - he’s been most places on the east coast, and he honestly doesn’t want Eduardo to suggest that Mark drop him off in Miami.
“Did you always know that you were a terrible friend?” Eduardo asks, half a Twizzler hanging out of his mouth. It makes him slur, a little, and Mark quirks a smile.
“Not really,” Mark says. The highway is mostly empty as they exit. They’ll have to find a hotel, though it hasn’t been a problem so far.
“Hm,” Eduardo says, which could either be agreement, confusion, or simple acknowledgement.
Mark glances over at Eduardo - his relaxed position, the way he’s pushed his seat back as far as it will go, his worn, cotton t-shirt. In college, Mark rarely saw Eduardo in casual clothes. He likes how Eduardo looks this way.
“Do you regret ever befriending me?” Mark’s been wondering since Eduardo filed the lawsuit, but he’s never asked. He used to think it was because he knew the answer already, but now he thinks it’s because he didn’t want to.
Eduardo is looking at him when Mark glances over again. Mark wonders what he’s seeing - the slightly longer hair, the similarly disheveled appearance, the fact that he hasn’t shaved since the day before yesterday. Something else entirely.
“No,” Eduardo says. “Well, maybe occasionally. Not overall.”
Mark ponders this for a moment. “How often is occasionally?”
Eduardo huffs out a laugh. “I could give you specific examples, if you wanted.”
Mark wonders, pulling into a hotel parking lot, when is the occasion where it’s appropriate to say, I used to think you’d let me kiss you if I wanted to. Or when it’s appropriate to say, I always wanted to, I just never did.
He thinks that the moment is long passed.
Eduardo is sleeping, and Mark isn’t. It’s starting to become a habit. Mark turns on the TV and mutes it. He flicks channels until he settles on the Spanish language station, playing some overly dramatic tele-novella. A woman is screaming at another woman, her hands gesticulating wildly. They fall upon each other, kicking and pulling hair. A man enters from the kitchen and sees them. He throws a glass at a wall. Mark wonders if there is an option to put on subtitles, or if he should just start constructing dialogue in his head.
He grabs four tiny bottles of overly expensive alcohol - two gins, a whisky, and a vodka - and downs them in quick succession. Eduardo is still sleeping, curled up in his side with one hand stuffed underneath his pillow. Mark can hear his breathing in the quiet; he can see the lines of his body underneath cheap motel bedcovers.
Mark doesn’t know what love is, but he’s tipsy enough to consider that if he were someone else in the same position, he might.
The woman Mark has dubbed Lucia has been pulled bodily off of the woman Mark is calling Gloria, and now the two of them are crying. The man, Luis, is shaking his head, as if to say, tsk, women, which Mark personally finds pretty bigoted of him. Lucia pets Gloria’s hair, and the two of them leave. Mark only realizes that the show is over when the credits start to roll.
He drifts off sometime after that.
“Had a party all by yourself last night?” Mark cracks an eye open, and Eduardo is looking down at him with his eyebrows raised. He has bed-hair, and his eyes are still half-lidded with sleep. Mark realizes that he passed out on top of the covers, the TV still on, the little alcohol bottles strewn beside him on the bedspread. He shrugs.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he says.
“Do you often self-medicate using alcohol?” Eduardo doesn’t sound worried. There’s no history of alcoholism in either of their families. In such close quarters, Eduardo would’ve noticed before this.
“No,” Mark says.
Eduardo waits, as if he thinks that Mark is going to say something else. Mark doesn’t really intend to.
“Something wrong?” Eduardo asks, eventually.
“Not really,” Mark says.
“Are you ever going to tell me why we’re on this trip in the first place?” Eduardo doesn’t sound impatient, but nor does he sound resigned. His voice is closer to amused, though Mark couldn’t say why he would be.
“Probably,” Mark says. “Eventually.”
They get a late start. They both shower, and Mark takes his time with his. He jerks off, washes his hair, shaves. It’s close to eleven AM by the time they get on the road. They drive past the Mississippi border, heading almost due south. Eduardo drives, as Mark still feels a little like his head is full of cotton.
Mark tells Eduardo to get on to I-55, which, if they stay on it long enough, will take them through Mississippi and into Louisiana. It goes straight to New Orleans. Mark hasn’t decided where he wants to stop, but New Orleans is as good a goal as any. It should take them between six and seven hours. They’ll arrive in time for dinner. Mark is on his last package of Twizzlers, and he can’t decide if it’s worth finding another 7-11, or just going without until they stop again.
“You don’t really have a destination in mind, do you?” Eduardo has one elbow sticking out of the open window. His hair is becoming more and more disheveled the longer he leaves it open. Mark has zipped his hoodie up all the way, but he doesn’t really mind.
“What makes you say that?” he asks. They’re somewhere outside Jackson. The second Jackson they’ve passed by in two days. Mark finds them indistinguishable.
“If the goal was the end up in Louisiana, which it seems to be at the moment, you chose what is most likely the least efficient route.” Eduardo looks over at him and grins, like he’s happy to have figured something out. Like he’s accomplished something. Mark hasn’t seen the expression in longer than he cares to remember. “You’re all about efficiency, Mark.”
Mark has to smile, a least a little. “You’re correct, there is no goal.”
Eduardo laughs, and drums his hand against the side of the car. He’s driving too fast, and Mark doesn’t care.
“Are you getting what you wanted out of this?” Eduardo asks, eventually.
Mark thinks back to the tension in the car when they’d set off. He taps his fingers against the armrest. “Something like that.”
“You just enjoy being vague.” Eduardo is shaking his head. His hair is wind-blown and wild. Mark keeps his hands in his lap, though he’s not sure he wants to.
“Something like that,” Mark says, a second time.
They don’t get pulled over, despite Eduardo driving well above the speed limit the entire way. They stop for lunch in some town call Brookhaven, and get burgers from Burger King. The backseat of Mark’s car looks like a trash bin, and smells like a fast food kitchen. Somehow, neither of them mind, nor do they bother to throw anything out.
“I don’t suppose we can stay in a nice hotel for once,” Eduardo says with a hopeful twist in the corner of his mouth. Mark suspects that this is the last stop before they head back to California, so he doesn’t think it will hurt. He can certainly afford it.
“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”
Eduardo laughs. “Seriously? That’s all it takes?”
Mark shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says.
They end up at the Marriott within walking distance of the French Quarter, which means more to Eduardo than it does to Mark. The room is lush, and a little small. The beds are ridiculously comfortable, though closer together than Mark is used to. He doesn’t look suited to this hotel, though Eduardo does, even in jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and sandals. Mark caught the look the receptionist gave the two of them, and her slightly raised eyebrows as he handed over his credit card.
“This is something else,” Eduardo says, standing in the doorway to the bathroom. He’s run wet fingers through his hair, and it’s tamer than usual. He’s changed his shirt into a nicer button-down, though he’s kept the jeans. He looks good, but that isn’t surprising.
“We should get a nice dinner,” Mark says, instead of replying.
They ask the concierge for restaurant recommendations within walking distance, and head into the French Quarter. Mark doesn’t mind being a tourist. He’s usually in one of two places, anyway - his house, or the office. Everything else is outside his normal realm of experience. He doesn’t mind admitting to it.
The sit together in a slightly darkened dining room, back in the corner. It’s quiet, just the murmur of quiet conversation; there’s not even any ambient music. Eduardo gets some spicy, fancy version of sausage, shrimp and grits. Mark gets a roasted half-chicken. It feels like the first real food they’ve eaten in days, though that’s not really the case. Eduardo orders them wine off of the list. He murmurs his approval at the first taste, and Mark is willing to trust his judgment.
“This is really nice, Mark,” Eduardo says, leaning back in his chair. He puts his napkin on the table, and reaches to drain the last of his glass of wine. Mark watches the low lighting play with the shadows on his face, darken his skin tone to a golden brown. If they were anyone else, this would be a date.
But they aren’t.
Mark gets the check, and pays for dinner. Eduardo raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t actively comment. Mark takes it as a step in the right direction.
“Dessert?” he asks.
They get a table at Café Du Monde for beignets and coffee. Mark gets a cappuccino, for once, and Eduardo looks amused as he orders the same. The café is busy, both for service and for take out, even though it’s evening.
Eduardo makes an obscene noise of pleasure as he takes a bite of a beignet. “I’m glad they don’t have these anywhere near my house.”
“You wouldn’t get fat,” Mark says. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
Eduardo laughs. “You’ve considered it in depth, then?”
Mark lifts one shoulder and takes a sip of his cappuccino. It’s good, but he wishes that they had cinnamon. Mark takes picks up a beignet of his own and lets the silence sit. Eduardo is watching him.
“Where are we off to next?” Eduardo asks, while Mark licks powdered sugar off of his fingers.
The trip is a farce, Mark admits to himself. Some things he can’t have. He doesn’t have the ability to turn back time, and even if he did, he wouldn’t choose to.
“Home,” Mark says, and shrugs his shoulder again.
Eduardo looks surprised. “You did get what you wanted, then?”
Mark has to smile at that. “Not really,” he says. He points to the plate between them. “The last one is yours.”
They get back to the hotel after midnight. The French Quarter is still full of people, bars humming with talk and music. The streets smell like cobblestone and cigarettes. Mark is tired.
In their room, he shucks his pants and unzips his hoodie. He folds them both over the back of a chair, and curls his toes into the carpet. When he looks up, Eduardo is looking at him. He’s still fully dressed, though he’s toed off his sandals, lining them neatly against the wall next to Mark’s sneakers.
“Mark,” he says, and cocks his head to the side. There’s a gap in between the top button and the collar of his shirt; Mark can see a slice of smooth skin. Mark doesn’t know much about people, but he does know Eduardo. Eduardo is tired of asking questions that Mark doesn’t answer. Mark wonders if that means he’ll stop asking.
“Wardo,” Mark says, deadpan. He knows his face is blank. Most people assume it means he’s bored. It doesn’t.
Eduardo closes his eyes for just a moment, and then tilts his head back to look at the ceiling. “Don’t call me that if you don’t mean it, Mark,” Eduardo says. His voice is a warning, the first one that Mark has heard in days.
“When have I ever not meant it?” Eduardo is still not looking at him, so Mark watches the column of his throat at he swallows. The bob of his Adam’s apple.
“I don’t know, have you ever meant it?” Eduardo is looking at him now, eyes wide and dark. He always looks the most vulnerable when he’s angry.
Mark doesn’t say anything. He shrugs. Eduardo spins and hits the wall with the side of his fist.
“Fuck you, Mark,” Eduardo says. He takes a deep breath. “You know exactly how to make me angry, so why do it?”
Mark could say, because I can, and Eduardo might even leave. Mark is better at sabotaging relationships than he is at conducting them.
“What are you so fucking scared of?” Eduardo shakes his head, tongue sliding over his lower lip. He’s still breathing in and out too quickly.
Mark could shrug, or be snide, or be truthful, but he can’t decide what he wants. He says nothing at all. Eduardo takes a step closer, feet quiet on the carpet. Mark sits on the edge of his bed.
Mark opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t know what, and then Eduardo is kissing him. He leans in and curls one hand in Mark’s hair, and other wrapping in the collar of his t-shirt, both of them pulling him up. Mark’s back is taut like a strung wire. Eduardo’s mouth is soft, and hot, and he pushes his tongue into Mark’s mouth.
Mark presses one hand against Eduardo’s hip, just that single point of contact - Mark’s fingers touching Eduardo’s skin beneath the hem of his nice shirt. Eduardo pulls away, biting into Mark’s lip hard enough to sting. Mark is breathing too quickly. Eduardo drops his hands to his sides, and takes a step back.
“Huh,” he says, half to himself, and goes into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Mark listens to the shower run, and pulls back the covers. He turns off the bedside lights, and tries to sleep.
In the morning, Eduardo is still asleep in his bed, and Mark is somewhat relieved. No midnight taxi to the airport, then. He’s wearing at least a tank top, the rest of covers tucked in around his waist. Mark escapes into the bathroom and turns on the shower. He thinks about Eduardo’s mouth, Eduardo’s hands in his hair and on his skin. He jerks off fast and hard, and then reaches for the shampoo.
Mark drives. Eduardo has said nothing all day except to thank Mark for the coffee he brought back to the room. Eduardo had slept in, and Mark had been restless. At least they aren’t in a hurry.
Mark keeps one hand on the wheel, grabbing another Twizzler from the pack stashed in the cup holder. Eduardo has his feet up on the seat, knees pressed against the door. He’s staring blankly out at the road. Mark is trying to give him space. It is, not surprisingly, rather hard while sharing such close quarters.
The easiest route home is almost straight west, taking the 10 until it ends. Four hours of straight driving gets them to the Texas border, heading toward Houston, and after that on to San Antonio. Mark hasn’t been to Texas since he was a kid, and he doesn’t remember much about it. It’s dry, he’s sure. Red clay mesas like a roadrunner cartoon. Eduardo watches the scenery slowly change, and says nothing at all.
Part of Mark hates that it’s been years and they haven’t gotten better at this. Mark hasn’t, and neither has Eduardo.
It’s late when they get to San Antonio - almost nine PM, and they haven’t eaten dinner yet. They pick up takeout at a Taco Bell, and get a room at a Quality Inn just off the exit to the highway. Eduardo sits at the small table in the corner and unpacks his burrito. Mark sits on his bed with his quesadilla.
“Did I actively fuck something up?” Mark asks, finally, swallowing a bite of cheese and meat and tortilla.
“Shut up, Mark,” Eduardo says, staring down at his dinner. His feet are tapping restlessly against the floor. When he glances at Mark, his eyes are wide, and dark, and he quickly looks away.
“Come here.” Mark says it before he can convince himself not to, which, he’s sure, would ultimately have been the smarter choice. Eduardo sucks in a deep breath, and his feet still. Mark is still cross-legged.
“What?” Eduardo is uncertain. He’s looking at Mark again.
“Come here,” Mark says, more solid than the first time. Eduardo started it, because someone had to. But Mark isn’t a complete coward.
Eduardo stands, and Mark puts his food, tin foil wrapping and all, onto the nightstand. Eduardo’s steps are measured and slow, careful in a way that he forgets to be, sometimes.
When Eduardo stops at the foot of Mark’s bed, Mark props himself up on his knees. He wraps a hand in the fabric at the front of Eduardo’s t-shirt, and pulls. Eduardo resists, for a moment, but Mark is insistent. He pulls Eduardo down until he’s sitting on the bed, until Mark can push him flat on his back.
“Mark,” he tries, and starts to sit back up, like he realizes what this looks like. Mark puts a hand flat on the center of his chest. There isn’t enough force behind it to hold Eduardo down, but he stills anyway. He’s breathing too fast, like a scared rabbit, and this isn’t exactly what Mark wants, but he’s tired of watching, and waiting to be good enough. He doesn’t think he ever will be.
Eduardo’s chest is firm beneath the soft cotton of his t-shirt. Mark carefully curls his fingers in, wrinkling the fabric under his palm. He can feel Eduardo’s heart beating like a kettledrum.
“Mark,” Eduardo says again, voice unsteady. And then, “Don’t.”
Mark kisses him anyway. He leans in, hunches over Eduardo’s prone body, and Eduardo opens for him. Mark licks his way into Eduardo’s mouth with a soft, urgent sound, and Eduardo lets him. His hand comes up and presses against the back of Mark’s head. Mark is still kneeling on the bedspread. He bites into Eduardo’s lips, and then his jaw, just underneath his left ear. His tastes like sweat and soap and he hisses between his teeth when Mark sucks a bruise into his skin.
“Wait, wait,” Eduardo says, breathy. His hand is still in Mark’s hair, tugging. Mark pulls away, and watches Eduardo lick at his swollen lips.
“What?” Mark’s voice is huskier than he’s expecting. He sucks his lower lip into his mouth, biting it between his teeth, and watches Eduardo watch him do it. He still knows that he’s not going to like whatever it is that Eduardo is going to say next.
“We can’t do this.” Eduardo looks disheveled - his hair is a mess, his shirt wrinkled, and he’s got at least one bruise on his neck from Mark’s teeth. His brows are drawn down, though, and so Mark sits back on his heels.
“Why not?”
Eduardo is silent for long enough that Mark isn’t sure he wants to know at all.
“I made a mistake, last night. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have pretended that was an option.” His hands have tightened into fists. He’s still lying on his back, but he’s tense all over. For one blinding second, Mark hates him.
“Oh,” he says. He’s thinking about Eduardo’s delicate ankles propped up on the dashboard, Eduardo licking guacamole off of his fingers. Eduardo’s anger over coffee and a pack of gum. Eduardo is lying. It’s an option; it’s just not one Eduardo is willing to acknowledge. Why he presented it in the first place, Mark honestly isn’t sure. “Okay.”
For maybe the first time since he left Palo Alto, Mark misses his laptop like a fucking limb.
He slides off the bed and stands. “Look,” he says. “You don’t have to stay. I’ll take you to the airport tomorrow. Get you on a flight back to Miami.”
Eduardo doesn’t say anything, his face kept carefully blank. Mark fumbles for his wallet on the bedside table, room key tucked in the back with his money. He’s out the door without another word.
Mark sits on the hood of his car, and listens to himself breathe. He thinks about all the shit in his life that he shouldn’t have done, and this trip rates pretty high on the list. He doesn’t get back to the room until well after 4 AM. Eduardo is asleep.
He stops in the motel lobby on the way back in, and uses the public computer to buy Eduardo a plane ticket back to Miami. His flight leaves at 12:47. It’s apparently a 4 hour and 46 minute flight.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, he texts Dustin.
Should be home in two days, he sends. It takes Dustin about thirty seconds to respond.
k u get yr shit wrked out??? lol
Mark chuckles softly to himself.
For the most part, yes.
Mark sleeps for less than three hours. He wakes before Eduardo, slides the boarding pass and itinerary underneath Eduardo’s phone on the bedside table. Then he leaves.
It’s a dick move, and he knows it. It’s a cop out. It’s the same self-defensive shit he’s pulled since he was twelve and getting beaten up on a regular basis. That doesn’t make it any less necessary. He gets in the car, and sits for a moment. Eduardo doesn’t come rushing out to tell him to stop, so he pulls out of the parking lot and gets back on the 10 heading toward Arizona.
He manages to get to Tucson around dinnertime. He decides to stop mostly because he keeps nearly falling asleep at the wheel. He’d stopped at midday for greasy diner food off the side of the highway, but he hasn’t eaten since. He’s too exhausted to think about it. He gets a room at a local motel, grunting monosyllabic answers to the desk jockey, and falls asleep almost immediately.
He doesn’t wake up until 10 the next morning. He feels like he’s been run over by a train, but he still drags himself out of bed, and into the shower. Tucson is hot but dry when he steps out into the day. He grabs a few pastries and a cup of coffee to go at the complimentary breakfast in the hotel lobby - the pastries are stale, and the coffee is bitter, but it’s free, and he doesn’t care much. He hopes that Eduardo made it home okay. He’ll ask Dustin when he gets back to the office.
He gets back on the 10, passing briefly through Phoenix and then west until he hits the Pacific. He’s relieved to see the ocean after so much land. He skirts around the edges of Los Angeles, and gets onto the 5 going north. He still has six hours to go, and it’s nearly 6 PM. He’s determined not to stop again, but he knows that there’s no way he’s getting home before midnight, no matter what he does.
He stops in San Clarita for more coffee, and two bags of Twizzlers, enough sugar to keep him awake until he gets home. He’s not a west coast native but he’s still glad to be back.
He finds Eduardo’s pack of gum tucked into the passenger side door. He figures he’s not going to see Eduardo for a long time, if ever again, so he steals a piece. Spearmint. It loses its flavor too quickly.
Mark rolls down the window and lets the wind run through his hair.
He pulls into the parking space in front of his house at 12:19 AM. Not bad, considering he’d started the trip driving the speed limit. He fires off a text to Dustin, saying he’s home, and he’s going to sleep for at least twelve hours, but he should get into the office in the afternoon. He’s anxious to make sure that Dustin hasn’t destroyed everything. After a moment’s consideration, he copies the text and sends it to his assistant. She’ll probably want to know.
The first thing he notices when he opens the front door is that the shoes on the mat aren’t his. He recognizes them, worn down sandals, and wonders if Dustin has been abusing his key privileges. He doesn’t give a shit right now, though, considering he’s about to fall over and he feels like he’s coated in a fine dusting of road dirt. He toes off his sneakers in a disorderly pile, leaves his duffle underneath the table in the entryway, and stumbles down the hall toward his bedroom.
Eduardo is sleeping in his bed. He’s a lump, the covers pulled almost over his head, but Mark can still tell from the disheveled mop of hair and the curve of one exposed cheekbone. Mark’s been looking at him long enough.
Mark is too tired to deal with this right now. He turns around, walks down the hall, and falls asleep in the guest room.
Mark doesn’t wake up until just after 11, if the clock on the bedside table it to be believed. He probably needed the sleep. What he wants more than anything is a shower, but all of his toiletries are in the bathroom attached to his bedroom, and he’s not willing to walk into that mess, yet. If only he kept his guest bathroom stocked.
He flops over onto his back, staring at the blank white ceiling. There isn’t even a light fixture to look at. The sun is peeking in around the edges of the curtains, and Mark bites his lip. Eduardo is in his house. Considering the timing, Eduardo has probably been in his house since sometime before Mark got to Tucson.
Mark reaches out blindly with one hand and gropes for his phone. He hits it with the heel of his palm, but manages not to knock it off of the nightstand. When he looks at the display, he has six missed texts. Four are from his assistant, updating him now that he’s back in town, and the other two are from Dustin.
ur in 4 a surprse, the first one says, dated shortly after Mark went to sleep last night. It’s quickly followed by, im not givin bak my key
Dustin’s fault, then. No surprises there.
I hate you, Mark texts him, and then shoves his phone back onto the bedside table.
“Fuck everything,” he says aloud. His voice croaks horribly. He slides out from under the covers, and chances the hallway.
The house smells like coffee and something cooking, so Mark isn’t expecting to see Eduardo still in his bedroom. He’s obviously just finished showering. Mark watches him pull a shirt on over his wet hair, frozen in the doorway. Eduardo’s feet are bare underneath the hem of his jeans. Eduardo looks up, and Mark almost leaves.
He still needs a shower, however.
“We’re not talking about this now,” he says. It’s a statement of fact. He is not talking about this now - not about why he left Eduardo in that hotel room, or why Eduardo is here now, or how much time Mark spends wanting to kiss him.
“Okay,” Eduardo says. He’s frowning. Mark rubs at one eye with his fingers. He’s still exhausted.
“I’m going to shower, you’re going to leave this room, and later -” Mark takes a deep breath. “Later, we talk.”
“Fine,” Eduardo says, but he still doesn’t move. Mark takes a step into the room, and pulls his shirt over his head. He’s still wearing his clothes from the day before. He undoes his jeans, and pushes them down over his hips.
Eduardo’s mouth is open, a little, and he’s blushing. When Mark’s hands go to the waistband of his boxers, Eduardo hurries out of the room. Mark, naked, pads into the bathroom and turns on the shower.
There are a few dirty dishes in the sink when Mark enters the kitchen. A pot and a saucepan drying on the stove. He can see Eduardo sitting on the couch in the living room. Mark grabs an apple off the counter, and pours himself a cup of coffee from the carafe sitting next to the coffeemaker. Eduardo must have made enough for both of them this morning.
He takes a bite of the apple, and meanders into the living room. Eduardo glances up at him, and Mark isn’t trying for casual as much as he’s stalling. Not surprising, really.
“I thought you were going home,” Mark says, swallowing apple.
Eduardo shrugs with one shoulder. He could be mocking Mark, or he could not be. Mark can’t tell.
“Okay,” Mark says. “Fine.” He slumps next to Eduardo on the couch, and takes another bite of apple. He puts his coffee cup on the coffee table with a clink.
They sit in silence, Mark eating his apple and drinking his coffee. Eduardo just watches him.
Finally, Eduardo says, “You scare the shit out of me.” He says it like he’s been holding it in, though for how long Mark isn’t sure. Mark has to swallow the last of his coffee or spit it out all over the carpet.
“What?”
“This - thing, with you. I was. I’d finally - moved on, or close enough, and you decide -“ Eduardo cuts himself off to laugh. It’s a bitter sound. “And you decide to just waltz right back into my life, and. Be you. All over again.”
“You could have said no. You didn’t have to come.” Mark looks at his knees, his hands curved over his kneecaps, and then at Eduardo, with his legs pulled up to his chest.
Eduardo snorts. “And I’ve said no to you how many times?”
“Enough times,” Mark says, and Eduardo looks up at him, sharp. “Enough times, Wardo, it’s not a forgone conclusion that you’ll do whatever I say. I asked you because I wanted you here, not to - exert my influence, or whatever it is you think -”
“Mark.” Eduardo cuts him off this time, his voice curt. “I’ve been in love with you since I was nineteen. You can’t think that asking -”
“I didn’t know!” Mark’s fingernails are digging into his knees hard enough to bruise, probably. He hates the harsh sound of his voice. “I didn’t know,” he says, softer. “Not until maybe forty-eight hours ago.”
“Jesus,” Eduardo says, and laughs. He covers his face with his hands, and Mark wants to grab his wrists and pull them away. So he does.
Eduardo’s pulse is fast and it picks up speed when Mark’s fingers wrap around his wrists. Mark has to lean in to reach, and from this close he can see the stubble on Eduardo’s cheeks, his slightly chapped lips, the flush blooming across his cheekbones.
“Mark,” Eduardo says, like he’s tried to be stern and only managing breathy, and there’s a flicker of something - fear, maybe - across his face, and then he leans forward and kisses Mark. It’s sloppy, and he misses, a little, lips pressed against the corner of Mark’s mouth before he corrects himself.
Mark makes a noise, needy and urgent, and lets Eduardo’s tongue sweep over his lower lip. His hands are tight around Eduardo’s wrists, and Eduardo’s knees are between them. The angle is awkward, and Mark’s back is hunched. Mark feels more desperate than he thinks he ever has. He pulls away.
“I didn’t know,” he says again. “I - missed you, and I. Wanted you to forgive me. That’s all. That’s all.” He shrugs, lets his chin brush against Eduardo’s knee. He is not an affectionate person. He still can’t help wanting to touch Eduardo.
“Fuck,” Eduardo says, and pulls one hand out of Mark’s grasp. He grabs Mark by the back of the neck, and tugs him in. Eduardo bites into his mouth hard enough to sting and Mark wraps his free hand into the fabric of Eduardo’s t-shirt, right at his shoulder.
When Eduardo pushes him down, he holds on as tight as he can.
They nap on the couch until dinner, and then they order pizza. Eduardo has a hickey on his neck from Mark’s teeth; Mark can’t stop looking at it, even as Eduardo shovels vegetarian pizza into his mouth.
They make it to the bedroom the second time, and Eduardo’s mouth tastes like cheese and peppers. Mark’s probably does too. Mark blows Eduardo until he has his hands white-knuckled on the headboard, and then Eduardo pulls him off. Eduardo fucks him so slowly that it’s agony, and by the time he comes he’s sweat-drenched and sore all over. Eduardo whispers filthy things in his ear, licks the sweat off of his neck. He thinks about cleaning himself up, cleaning them both up, but he falls asleep before he gets around to it.
In the morning, he wakes up to an empty bed and the shower running. He categorizes his feelings and labels them, and there is no panic. He is almost surprised, but mostly relieved.
He’s still sore when he stands, but he’s mobile enough to make it to the bathroom. The mirror is fogged, but Eduardo’s body is water-slicked and tan in the enormous shower. No glass and no curtain, so he’s easy enough to see.
“Wardo?”
Eduardo turns around and flashes him a smile. It’s small, but real. His hair is plastered to his cheeks and neck with water. He has freckles along the backs of his shoulders. “Finally awake, I see,” he says.
“You should just stay,” Mark blurts out before he can think about it.
Eduardo laughs, but he doesn’t say no. “Come here,” he says, instead. Mark leaves his boxers on the floor, and steps into the spray.
“I’m in love with you,” Mark says, and this time he means to. The water thunders against his shoulders and chest. Eduardo is four inches away from him, blocking the rest of the spray. His eyes go wide, but while there’s surprise there, there’s no disbelief.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, and kisses him. His fingers are soapy on the sides of Mark’s face. Mark doesn’t mind.
(now with a porny coda! - we were safe inside)