204 - b
PART ONE
They’re late for dinner, but the woman who runs the bed and breakfast feeds them anyway. They’re the only two in the dining room, and she gives them two bowls of reheated stew, and half a loaf of bread. She smiles faintly and shakes her head at their thanks.
“Will you - let me touch you again,” Mark says, mostly to keep himself from asking something else, something stupid, like, Why didn’t you come out to Palo Alto? Why wasn’t this enough for you?
Eduardo flushes a deep red, and stares at his spoon like it is going to tell him something important, like it will answer Mark’s question for him.
“I - do you -” Eduardo cuts himself off, frustrated. “What is this, Mark?” What do you want from me? he doesn’t say, but Mark can hear it anyway. Eduardo’s eyes are searching Mark’s face, and Mark can only hope he finds what he’s looking for. Mark has always felt this way about Eduardo, always wanted to push his fingers into the notches of Eduardo’s spine, between the slats of his ribs. He’s always wanted to slides his fingertips up the inside of Eduardo’s thighs, it’s just that Eduardo has never known.
“It’s - I don’t know,” Mark says, truthfully. “What do you want it to be?”
“That’s not what I asked,” Eduardo says, and that’s fair, but Mark doesn’t know the answer to the question Eduardo asked. He knows what he wants, but that’s different than what it is.
“I don’t know what it is,” Mark says, and tries not to shrug. He’s sharp, he knows, and not easy to read. He doesn’t take well to emotional conversations. He’s too blunt. “I just know that I want it.”
Eduardo breathes in, shaky, and starts to eat again. Mark doesn’t know what Eduardo wants; he just hopes that Eduardo does.
That night Mark touches Eduardo’s cheek, brushing his hands over Eduardo’s skin. He could touch Eduardo all day and not get tired of it - mapping the freckles trailing down Eduardo’s neck, or the faded scar just underneath his chin.
Eduardo flips Mark over onto his back, presses him down into the bed with a hand on the center of his chest. Eduardo’s thumb brushes over Mark’s left nipple, and Mark shudders, though he can’t be sure if Eduardo is doing it on purpose or not.
Mark bites into his lower lip when Eduardo’s hand pushes past the elastic of his sweats and wraps around his cock. Mark’s not wearing boxers at the moment, though he honestly hadn’t thought it would matter.
Eduardo’s hand is hot around Mark’s dick, and it only takes a couple of strokes for Mark to be fully hard. Eduardo is laying half on top of him, and his breath tickles Mark’s neck as Eduardo’s hand finds a rhythm.
“Fuck,” Mark says, and squeezes his eyes closed. Eduardo is breathing too quickly, and his hand is still hot in the center of Mark’s chest, pushing Mark down into the mattress. Mark isn’t struggling. “You’re touching me.” His words are puffs of air, gasps into the near silence. Mark doesn’t try not to say them, because he means them. Eduardo’s hand on the small of his back would go almost unnoticed, Eduardo’s wry smile, Eduardo handing over an open beer, but Eduardo’s hand on Mark’s dick, Eduardo’s mouth on the curve of his jaw, Eduardo’s shoulder aligned with the center of Mark’s chest, these things are new. Mark is determined not to take them for granted. They are not owed him.
“Yes,” Eduardo says, with something like reverence or determination, and Mark comes nearly silently. His mouth opens, and his hips arch, but he can’t speak.
Mark tries to catch his breath. Eduardo is looking down at him, some emotion Mark can’t categorize flitting across his face and then off again.
“All I wanted was to be important to you,” Eduardo says. He says it like a confession. Mark’s not sure if he means freezing the account, or joining the Facebook team, or in general, but he’s not sure it matters.
“You were,” he says, and wraps a hand around the back of Eduardo’s neck. “You always have been.”
To: mark.zuckerberg@fb.com
Cc:
Subject: geez mark
if you can’t be here right now can you at least help me with the code, i’m serious.
will you please tell me what the fuck is going on?
- d
Mark frowns. He’s not expecting major site renovations, and he can’t see what Dustin would need his help with, but he’s not sure he’s willing to risk it.
“Dustin?” Eduardo is sitting on the bed reading a book he’d found in one of the drawers in the bedside table. Mark is monopolizing the desk again.
“Yeah. He says he needs help with the coding, and he’s wondering why I’m not there.” Mark voice is completely flat, the way it is when he’d perturbed or confused. He can hear Eduardo putting the book down, but he doesn’t look.
“I don’t even know why you’re not there, Mark. No one does except you.” Eduardo’s voice holds the frustration of more than a week of withheld information. “Are you ever going to tell me?”
“Sean knows,” Mark says, before he can help himself. He shakes his head. “I will, just not now.”
“Mark -” Some of the bitterness is back in Eduardo’s voice. Mark is more used to that defeated tone than he is comfortable with. He wonders if it’s the mention of Sean, or the whole situation.
“They tried to make me choose, okay?” Mark hates the defensive sound of his voice, nasal like he’s trying to hold it in. “Between you and Facebook. The investors wanted me to choose and I couldn’t.” I chose you, he doesn’t say. He can’t say it.
Eduardo doesn’t say anything, but Mark can hear him breathe, shallow and fast. Mark wants him to ask, to push, to force Mark to say what he can’t on his own, but Eduardo stays silent.
To: dustin.moscovitz@fb.com
Cc:
Subject: Re: geez mark
If it’s really dire I’ll look over the code for you, but you know you don’t actually need my help. You’re more than capable.
I’ll tell you what’s going on when I feel comfortable doing so.
- Mark
“I want to see you naked,” Mark says, the next morning. Eduardo has pillow creases marking his cheek and his hair is ridiculous and wild. He is sleepy-eyed, perfect, and Mark has been slowly watching him wake up for nearly forty minutes.
“What,” Eduardo says, not a question. He’s not awake enough, probably.
Mark just pushes his hands underneath Eduardo’s t-shirt. His fingers brush Eduardo’s ribs and his back and he squirms, but not away. Eduardo’s skin is soft and warm. It doesn’t take much effort to get his shirt off.
“What are you -,” Eduardo starts, but he lets Mark touch him. Mark runs his hands over Eduardo’s stomach, up over his rib cage, feeling the way that he breathes in and out. He brushes his thumbs over Eduardo’s nipples, smiling at the way his breath hitches.
“I told you,” Mark says. He puts his mouth on Eduardo’s collarbone, and watches Eduardo blink, watches his eyes focus on Mark’s face, flit down to Mark’s mouth. Mark is warm underneath the covers and not impatient to move. He still can’t believe that Eduardo hasn’t pulled away yet. He brushes Eduardo’s calf with one foot, and Eduardo jolts.
“I don’t - Mark,” Eduardo starts, like a protest, but he’s not pulling away. He shivers when Mark’s fingers brush over his body, when Mark’s teeth dig into his collarbone. “What are you trying -” He cuts himself off with a gasp, and Mark swipes his tongue over Eduardo’s left nipple one more time, just because he can.
“I’m trying to prove to you that I need you,” Mark says. “Tell me to stop.”
“If they hadn’t made you, you never would have tried.” Eduardo’s voice isn’t an accusation; it’s a statement of fact. Mark knows that he’s right.
Still, when Mark pushes at the comforter, and the sheets, and Eduardo’s boxers, nudging everything out of the way until Eduardo is completely naked underneath him, Eduardo lets him. And that counts for something.
3.
It’s raining in Prague when they land. Mark doesn’t pay much attention to where they’re going, at this point. He’s watching the rain sluice over the dark stones and wash nothing away but a day’s worth of grit. Thousands of small leaves are caught in the gutters. The trees are shedding, and the leaves will rot, eventually.
He follows Eduardo to the Hotel Unitas, trusts him to make the arrangements. Eduardo has a more refined taste than Mark, and he cares about appearances. The hotel is elegant, built inside a renovated convent.
They are both soaked through by the time they set their things in their hotel room, with its high ceilings and long, flowing curtains. Mark is reminded of the night in Palo Alto, where things spiraled so far out of his grasp, and the night, later, in New York, when he realized he had to make sacrifices. He wonders if Eduardo draws the same conclusions, but he doesn’t ask. He’s not sure it really matters.
Mark shucks his wet clothes and pulls on a pair of dry sweats. Eduardo is just glancing away from Mark when he looks over. Eduardo is half in and half out of his trousers, shirt mostly unbuttoned and hanging slack over his thin frame. His skin is shiny with moisture, and Mark is struck by the sudden urge to press his tongue to every place the rainwater touched. To see how it tastes.
Eduardo’s breath hitches when Mark goes down on his knees. He pushes the unbuttoned fabric of Eduardo’s shirt aside and licks a stripe up his stomach. His skin tastes like sweat and rain, like earth and like stone. Mark revels in the way Eduardo’s stomach muscles tense and shudder. He leans in again, pressing his mouth soft against the skin just to the left of Eduardo’s navel.
“If I wanted you to,” Mark starts, looking up the long, lean line of Eduardo’s body, his shirt still plastered to his shoulders with water, “would you fuck me?”
Eduardo closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, and tips his head back. It’s not a challenge, for Mark. He’s not testing Eduardo’s resolve. He just wants it.
“Yes,” Eduardo says. He’s staring at the ceiling, and Mark presses his cheek against the waistband of Eduardo’s trousers. “I would.”
“I want you to.” Mark’s voice is steady, and soft. When Eduardo’s fingers touch his hair, tentative, he closes his eyes.
The rain trickles to a halt, Eduardo goes out, and Mark codes. He’s missed the simplicity of it. His inbox is full of emails from Sean, which range from anger to passive aggressive annoyance to frustration. Mark doesn’t answer any of them. Dustin emails to say that they’re making progress on the updates Mark had planned before he left. Mark wonders if he’s even needed, really, though he knows that, to some degree, he is. Dustin is following the steps he’d had in place before he left but without that he’d have to rely on his own ideas, and with no one to bounce them off of.
Mark spends an hour or so debugging the program he’d started the week earlier, and then starts on something new, something he’s not entirely sure he knows the parameters of, yet. When he looks up again, it’s starting to get dark, and Eduardo has just closed the door to their hotel room.
“Exactly where I left you,” Eduardo says, with a rueful, knowing smile. Mark shrugs, and saves the program.
“I didn’t have much reason to move.”
Eduardo is a little flushed across his cheeks, and he has his computer bag slung over one shoulder, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers. Mark closes his laptop one-handed, and turns around in the chair.
“Dinner?” Eduardo asks, hopefully.
They eat room service food on the floor - some kind of beef stew, a few fresh rolls, pasta with fresh mozzarella, assorted vegetables, and tomato sauce. The sauce stains the corners of Eduardo’s mouth, and when Mark reaches up a hand to rub it away, Eduardo lets him. Mark pushes his thumb against Eduardo’s plush lower lip, and carefully watches the way Eduardo’s pupils dilate.
“What did you do while you were out?” Mark asks, thumb sliding over Eduardo’s cheekbone and then away.
“Walked, bought some coffee.” Eduardo shrugs. “Did some thinking - about, you know. Here. You.” He glances down at his hand, tightly curled around his cutlery. He puts down the fork and spoon, and then stretches his fingers out.
“Wardo,” Mark says, and then wraps his fingers around Eduardo’s wrist. Eduardo looks down at their hands.
The lamp is still on, and their dishes are still on the floor. Mark is sweating, and Eduardo has two fingers pushed inside him.
“Ah, fuck,” Mark says, and Eduardo shushes him, pressing his mouth against the curve of one kneecap. Eduardo’s fingers are slick with whatever it was he bought while he was out, and they just keep pushing in, again and again. Mark is on his back, and he’s watching Eduardo’s face, the way he bites his lip, furrows his brow in concentration. Mark is so hard he can barely think, and he wants - he wants -
“Are you ever going to -” he manages, and Eduardo shushes him again, and pushes a third finger inside him. “Oh,” Mark says, part surprise and part pleasure.
“If you could see yourself right now, Mark.” Eduardo’s voice is hushed, and Mark can see the sweat trickling down his neck, pooling in his collarbones. He’s nearly naked, his shirt unbuttoned and open, his boxers still pulled up over his hips. If Mark arches his neck, he can see the bulge of Eduardo’s erection.
“I might - ah - say the same thing to you,” Mark says. His voice isn’t anything close to steady. Eduardo’s eyes flick up to Mark’s face and then back down, between his spread thighs, to where Eduardo’s fingers are pushing inside him. Mark has never felt so exposed. He’s surprised by how much he likes it.
“I can’t believe you’re letting me do this,” Eduardo says, so quietly that Mark almost doesn’t hear over the sound of his heartbeat, the blood rushing through his veins. His own heavy breathing.
“You’d be surprised,” Mark says, because - Eduardo is still surprised that Mark wants him. Eduardo heard I think you’re going to get left behind, and completely missed I need you. Mark is an asshole, but he doesn’t say things that he doesn’t mean. Eduardo just doesn’t listen.
“Mark,” Eduardo says, and digs his teeth into Mark’s knee, and crooks his fingers, sliding them over something - his prostate - making him jolt like he’s been struck by lightening and clench down on Eduardo’s fingers.
Mark is having a hard time forming words. Eduardo’s eyes are locked on his face, and Mark is trying not to push back into Eduardo’s fingers, trying not to betray how needy he actually is.
“If you’re going to fuck me,” Mark says, half as distraction, half genuine impatience, “then do it. Wardo. Fuck me.”
There’s gravel in Mark’s voice, a low rumble like a far off thunderstorm, and Eduardo put it there. Eduardo, who rubs his fingers over Mark’s prostate one more time, just to make Mark gasp, and then pulls his fingers out. He’s reaching for a condom when Mark manages to arch his neck and look. Eduardo pushes his boxer’s over his hips, and his fingers are shaking, just a little tremor.
His eyelids flutter when he rolls it on, fingers brushing the hot skin of his dick, and a high flush spreads up his neck and over his cheeks. Mark wants to press his mouth there and feel the heat on his tongue, but Eduardo still has one hand on his inner thigh, keeping them spread, even as he gropes for the lubricant - the unfamiliar letters on the tube still can’t disguise from what it is. Eduardo rubs the lube over his dick with two quick pumps, and then he’s leaning in, lining up. The head of his cock is blunt against Mark’s hole, even with the preparation.
Eduardo mutters something in Portuguese, something that sounds like a curse, or a blessing. He sinks in so slowly that Mark has to swallow the noises his throat tries to make - the groans, the exertion. Eduardo’s brow is furrowed, looking down, and then one, final push and Eduardo is balls deep, pressed completely inside Mark. Mark hasn’t ever felt anything like it. He wants to speak, but he can’t remember how. He cants his hips, trying to get Eduardo to move, trying not brush the sweaty clump of hair off of Eduardo’s forehead. He feels - exquisite, taken. Possessed, but not scared. Eduardo wouldn’t hurt him on purpose.
Eduardo starts slow and gradually picks up speed. Mark wraps his legs around Eduardo’s hips. Eduardo is only just close enough to kiss, but Mark manages it, sloppy and off-center. He wants to provoke, but he’s not sure what he’ll get if he does. They’ve never done this before.
“Talk to me,” Eduardo says. His brow is furrowed, and Mark would press his mouth to the divots in Eduardo’s forehead, if only he could reach them. “Mark, I - ah. Mark.”
Eduardo’s hips slam forward, hard enough that the force lifts Mark’s hips off of the mattress, and Mark groans. He should be worrying about being heard through the walls, but he’s not. Eduardo is fucking him like he can’t help himself, each thrust pushing these little gasps past his lips, ruthless and vulnerable.
“It’s - fuck, perfect. Eduardo, you’re - I can’t -” Mark cuts himself off, and Eduardo has him bent nearly in half in his quest to get closer, to get further inside Mark. There are beads of sweat catching on his ribs, clinging to the skin of his pectorals. Eduardo’s cock nudges Mark’s prostate over and over, making Mark shudder and whine, the sound trapped in the back of his throat with most of his words, the ones that aren’t curses or pleas or Eduardo’s name. “Touch me,” Mark manages to say, an order, and Eduardo’s eyes are all pupil, a thin rim of iris on the edge, barely any white to speak of, but a shiver runs through him at the sound of Mark’s voice.
He manages to push a hand between their bodies, wrapping it around Mark’s cock. His thumb smears the precome gathering at the head and pushes against the slit, and Mark bites his lips to hold in what would probably be a loud moan. Eduardo pumps his hands up and down the shaft, fingers just this side of too tight. Mark knows he won’t last, not between Eduardo’s punishing rhythm and the certainty of his hand on Mark’s cock. Mark can feel it rippling through him, sending off sparks behind his eyelids, and Eduardo gets two more strokes in before Mark is coming all over his hand, splatters of it on his own chest and stomach and thighs. He clenches around Eduardo’s cock, riding out the pulses of his orgasm.
Three more brutal thrusts, and Eduardo is collapsing on top of him, biting into Mark’s collarbone as he comes. Mark can feel it inside him, even through the condom. Eduardo’s mouth is soft against the bite he’d left on Mark’s collar, and they’re sticking together with sweat and Mark’s come.
Mark is still breathing heavily when Eduardo rolls off of him, holding onto the condom as he pulls out.
“Christ,” he says. His shirt is still hanging off of his shoulders, unbuttoned, and his boxers are still around his ankles. Mark feels disgusting and sated and sore. Boneless.
He’s thought a lot about what would happen if he and Eduardo fucked, but he never really thought it would happen. He’s been in love with Eduardo for almost two years. He’s never said it, so Eduardo probably doesn’t know.
Mark looks over at Eduardo, lying on the bed, still tangled up in sweaty fabric, splotches of red on his chest and neck
and cheeks, golden-skinned and dark-eyed, and thinks about telling him. Eduardo rolls over and looks at him, and Mark says nothing.
They fuck again seventeen hours later. Mark is still sore, but he wants it enough. He hoists himself over Eduardo’s lap, straddling his hips, and lowers himself down.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the way Eduardo looks at him, his serious eyes, his tense mouth. He doesn’t think he’ll forget the careful touch of Eduardo’s fingers on his hips, holding him steady.
Dustin says that Sean is still talking to the investors and the lawyers. He says that Sean is starting to mutter about booting Mark from the company. They’re still talking about diluting the shares. Mark knows less about business than he should, but they can’t do much without him signing off on it. He still owns a majority percentage. It does mean that the people back home are getting restless, and Mark isn’t anywhere near ready to make his valiant return.
“Bad news?” Eduardo asks, leaning in the doorway to the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, steam billowing out behind him like backlighting. Mark would rather look at Eduardo than at his email.
“Everyone is too impatient,” Mark says, though with businesses, he knows, you’re either there at the right time, or someone else gets there first. Facebook is already there, though, Facebook is ready, and being used, and more money will make things spectacularly easier, but Mark doesn’t put that much stock in it. He’ll find a way.
“They just want it to work, Mark,” Eduardo says. His feet are silent on the carpet, but Mark knows he’s coming, anyway. Eduardo stops behind him and seems to hesitate, and then puts a hand on the side of Mark’s face. Mark leans into it, without reservation, and Eduardo makes a soft noise in his throat.
Mark is still sore, but not in a way that he minds. Every few minutes he’ll shift just to remind himself that they’d actually gone through with it. That Eduardo had let him.
“No one wants it to work more than I do,” Mark says. “And I don’t think it will work without you.”
“Is that what this is about? Wooing me back into the fold? I wasn’t aware that I’d left it.”
Mark laughs, bitter, and shrugs. This is it, finally. “It was a close call. Sean was pushing for it. I didn’t want to let it happen.”
Eduardo’s hand is still on Mark’s cheek, but it’s still, no careful pressure, no fingertips dragging.
“Wardo,” Mark says. “You’re more important than the money we’d be making.”
Eduardo is silent for a long time, and Mark almost wishes that they were facing each other, but he also really doesn’t. “What money?” Eduardo asks, finally.
“More investors. Diluting your shares. Business things.” Mark shrugs with one shoulder, and Eduardo’s fingernail scrape his cheek.
“Is that why you came to New York without - Mark.”
“I couldn’t let it happen, Wardo. You should be in Palo Alto, helping us, but I’m not going to - we shouldn’t argue about that. But this isn’t the answer either.”
“It would have been the perfect revenge,” Eduardo says, a tone of wonder in his voice. “For freezing the account. Jesus, Mark.”
Mark doesn’t say anything, because there isn’t anything to say. He got pretty close there, for a while.
“This isn’t a solution either, Mark.” It’s so quiet that Mark can hardly hear it. Mark nods.
“I know, I just - you wouldn’t have listened to me, and I couldn’t prove that you mattered unless I had the time to figure out how.” Mark shrugs. So here we are, he doesn’t say. I just wanted you with me, he doesn’t say.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, but Mark doesn’t know exactly what he means.
4.
It’s late when they land in Belize, though neither of them can really tell. It’s humid, and Mark’s shirt sticks to his back. Eduardo unbuttons the top button on his shirt, and rolls up his sleeves. They choose a hotel based on the recommendation of a woman at the front desk when they get off the plane. She shows them a glossy brochure, and Eduardo just nods. Neither of them particularly care, by this point.
They take a cab, and Mark stares out the window while the driver weaves, quick and savvy, through traffic. Eduardo apparently knows some Spanish along with the Portuguese he speaks at home, and Mark tunes out what he can’t understand. There are people out on the streets, walking and talking and waiting for busses. Mark isn’t homesick, but he does feel out of place.
The room is a painted a ruddy red, like baked clay, and the full bed is centered in the far wall. It’s small, but clean. Mark doesn’t know what there is to do in Belize. He’s never even considered it, as a city. It had just been there, in the departure list.
The internet in only available through an Ethernet plug-in. Mark leaves his laptop in his bag, not interested in seeing what ultimatum Sean has tried to sell him on today. Eduardo has pushed open the window, and Mark can smell cooking meat, though he’s not sure from where. The sky is dark and full of stars, and Mark can even see a sliver of it over Eduardo’s shoulder.
They go to bed early that night, jet-lagged and exhausted. Eduardo curls up on his side, and Mark watches the muscles in his back shift as he breathes.
The next morning they fuck with the window open, Eduardo’s careful fingers on the sides of Mark’s rib cage. Mark tries to coax sounds out of Eduardo loud enough for the passerby to hear on the street seven stories down.
Mark imagines that he can hear the ocean, smell it wafting through the open air, and Eduardo’s hair is sticking to his forehead in one sweaty chunk, and he’s moaning as Mark fucks him, like he can’t help it.
Mark doesn’t turn his computer on until the next evening, sitting backward in a chair in just his boxers. Eduardo is taking a walk, and Mark hasn’t checked his email since they landed. He has seventy-two unread messages, though most of them don’t matter.
To: mark.zuckerberg@fb.com;
Cc:
Subject: congrats
were officially over 1mil members dude
congrats!!
Mark stares at the screen for a few minutes, trying to discern if this is Dustin’s way of telling him how much he’s missing, but he finally decides that it’s probably well meant. Dustin has never been subtle, not with his praise, and not with his complaints, either. Mark figures that he owes Dustin some kind of response.
To: dustin.moscovitz@fb.com;
Cc:
Subject:
It’s almost as much you as it is me. Congratulations.
-Mark
It’s too hot for Mark to sleep, though Eduardo is managing it just fine. Mark can see the sheen of sweat on Eduardo’s bare chest, and he thinks about how they’ll eventually have to go home, though he doesn’t know when. Probably soon. He thinks about Eduardo, back in his snug apartment in New York, doing all the things he thinks he should be doing, instead of the things he’s needed for. They haven’t talked about it, haven’t talked about much since they changed hemispheres. Mark wonders if he’s proved himself yet.
Mark spreads his knees far apart in the shower and tries not to slide as the water makes the tile slippery, swallowing around Eduardo’s cock. Eduardo has his head tilted back against the tiles, one hand twined into the shower curtain, and he’s speaking partially in Portuguese and partially in English. Mostly he’s just saying Mark’s name over and over.
“Oh,” Eduardo says. “Fuck, Mark.”
Mark trails one hand up the back of Eduardo’s thigh, slipping his fingers underneath the curve of Eduardo’s ass, and swallows Eduardo down as far as he can take him.
“I should have been able to say no to you,” Eduardo says. “At some point.”
They’ve rented a car for the day, and are currently walking a trail in the Sibun Forest Reserve. Mark is trying not to touch anything, trailing slightly behind Eduardo on the path. The leaves are damp underneath the soles of his shoes. Eduardo is flushed, and he’s grinning, despite the tone of his words.
“You do,” Mark tries, and stuffs his hands in his pockets. He’s sweating, but everything smells so green and fresh that he doesn’t really mind.
“Never when it’s the right thing to say.” Eduardo pauses. “My father thinks this is a waste of time. I think - I think he’s wrong.”
Mark’s not sure if Eduardo means Facebook, or Mark himself, or both, but he’s not going to ask.
“Where do you think we should go next?” Mark asks, and realizes that he’s never asked before. Eduardo is lying on the bed, still half naked, thumbing through a paperback some previous guest left in the bedside table.
“Mark.” The way that Eduardo says his name, the way that he sits up and puts his hand on Mark’s wrist, means Mark isn’t going to like it. “We have to go home. You’re stalling, and you know it.”
“I - ” Mark says, ready to deny it, but it’s the truth.
“This has been - great, but we both have lives. And Dustin can’t wait for you forever.” Eduardo’s hand is tight around Mark’s wrist, and Mark can still see the bruises on Eduardo’s chest where he bit down too hard.
“I know.” And he does, mostly.
“We have to go home.” Eduardo gives him a lopsided smile, and Mark shrugs.
4.5.
Mark programs on the flight back to New York, while Eduardo sleeps. He hasn’t asked Eduardo if he’s coming to Palo Alto, the way that Mark wants him to, or if he’s going to insist on staying in New York.
Mark could just have easily flown straight back to Palo Alto, but he’s still stalling.
He finishes the final touches just as the flight attendant asks him to turn off his laptop. He saves, and glances over at Eduardo. Eduardo is awake, and watching him with serious eyes. Mark can’t meet them for very long. He looks away.
5.
It’s raining in New York when they step out of the cab, onto the curb outside of Eduardo’s apartment building. It gives Mark déjà vu. He still doesn’t have an umbrella.
“It’s raining,” he says, and Eduardo snorts.
“Come on up,” Eduardo says.
Eduardo’s bed is still unmade, and the milk in his fridge has gone sour. They’d left in a hurry. Mark leaves his bags on the floor in the front hallway, and toes off his shoes. He can hear Eduardo rustling around in the bedroom, and he pads down the hallway to investigate.
Eduardo is shucking off his pants, sliding them down over his hips. He’s shirtless, and with his back to the doorway, Mark can see the way his shoulder blades flare out and settle as he moves. The bedside lamp is on, but it is the only light in the room. The rain is pounding against the side of the building.
Eduardo looks over his shoulder, pushing his black boxer briefs over his hips. Mark’s breath catches. He’s still fully clothed, from his socks to his hoodie, and Eduardo is naked, watching him with an expression that is half trepidation and half desire, idly stroking his cock. “Can I - fuck you?”
“Yes,” Mark says, without hesitation. His dick twitches in his boxers, and Eduardo turns and take three steps closer to Mark. He cups Mark’s left cheek in his hand, and kisses him. Mark wants to drop to his knees right there and suck Eduardo’s cock into his mouth, but Eduardo’s hands are fumbling to unzip his hoodie, and instead Mark helps him and then shrugs it off.
Eduardo is determined to get Mark naked as quickly as possible, so it seems like no time at all before Mark’s face down on Eduardo’s bed, legs spread wide, listening to Eduardo lube up his fingers. Mark presses his face into the comforter as Eduardo works him open, so thorough that Mark has to hold a sob when Eduardo finally, finally pushes three fingers into him.
When Eduardo rolls on the condom, pressing slowly, slowly inside him, Mark tries not to let it feel like a goodbye.
The shower is running when Mark wakes up. Mark catalogues his body, the sore muscles and dried sweat, the bruises on his shoulder where Eduardo bit down as he came. Mark is going back to Palo Alto today, with or without Eduardo, to sort out all of the shit he left behind when he ran out. And he doesn’t feel any differently about it now than he did before.
Mark stands and stretches and doesn’t bother to clothe himself before pushing open the door to Eduardo’s bathroom. The room is swathed in steam, and Eduardo is humming under his breath when Mark opens the shower door and steps inside. Mark registers Eduardo’s look of surprise, and then he kisses the side of Eduardo’s neck, and sinks to his knees. He wants this one more time before he goes, and he’s not going to be shy about it.
“Mark,” Eduardo starts, but Mark licks a stripe up the front of Eduardo’s thigh, and Eduardo shudders and cuts himself off. Mark bites into the inside of Eduardo’s thigh, and listens to the way that Eduardo’s fingers scrabble over the tile.
Eduardo makes a high sort of whine when Mark sucks the head of his cock into his mouth. Eduardo isn’t fully hard yet, but Mark can feel him getting harder as Mark sucks, pressing his tongue against the slit. Mark bobs down, taking Eduardo’s cock all the way in and then slowly easing back off.
Mark’s dick is throbbing between his thighs, and he sinks back down, letting one hand cup Eduardo’s ass while the other wraps tight around his dick. He wants to say, c’mon, fuck me, c’mon, but he doesn’t want to pull off, so he settles for urging Eduardo forward with the hand on his ass, fingers sliding between the cheeks, wet with water and soap.
“Mark, you can’t -” Eduardo is panting, and his hips stutter, just a small push into Mark’s mouth, but Mark moans. Mark can do what he wants, and what he wants, right now, is this.
Mark sucks, hard, around Eduardo’s cock, and the tips of his fingers brush against Eduardo’s hole. Eduardo’s hips push, and Mark relaxes his throat, letting Eduardo fuck his mouth.
Mark’s hand is striping fast over his own cock, and he looks up, meeting Eduardo’s eyes as Eduardo pumps his hips, breaths coming quick and shallow. Mark pushes the tip of one finger into Eduardo’s hole; Eduardo gasps and starts to come, sooner than he probably meant to, and Mark swallows. He takes as much of Eduardo’s cock into his throat as he can, and feels the pulses in his throat.
He hasn’t even started to pull off before he’s coming, hand still punishingly fast between his thighs, and Eduardo staring right at him.
After, Mark wipes off his mouth and stands. He steps out of the shower and grabs a towel hanging on the rack attached the wall.
“I should make sure I have everything,” he says, and closes the bathroom door behind him.
“You think you’re leaving without me,” Eduardo says, fifteen minutes later. He has a towel wrapped around his waist, and he’s dripping water onto the carpet. Mark is sitting on the couch, his laptop bag next to him, his duffle at his feet.
“Your apartment is here.” Mark keeps his voice flat, because hope won’t help him, here. Nothing will.
“I can’t - I’m not going to pretend that this doesn’t scare the shit out of me, and - this could go so, so badly, but you’re. Mark, you’re - if you still want me there -“
“Of course I still want you there,” Mark says, risking a look at Eduardo’s face. He’s serious, mouth set in a frown, eyebrows furrowed.
“I know,” Eduardo says, quiet, like a confirmation. “I just -”
“I need you,” Mark says, and feels like he’s cutting himself open. He doesn’t know how the words can be so much worse than showing Eduardo, than kissing him and fucking him and falling asleep next to him, but they are. “I don’t think it can work without you. I don’t think - I don’t work without you.”
Eduardo is silent for a long moment, his eyes searching Mark’s face, and Mark has done everything he can. He hopes that it’s enough.
“Okay,” Eduardo says. “I’ll go - I’ll. We’ll go.”
5.5.
Flying toward Palo Alto, Mark reaches for Eduardo’s hand. They are surrounded by clouds, and Eduardo is half asleep. No one is paying attention to them.
They’re late for dinner, but the woman who runs the bed and breakfast feeds them anyway. They’re the only two in the dining room, and she gives them two bowls of reheated stew, and half a loaf of bread. She smiles faintly and shakes her head at their thanks.
“Will you - let me touch you again,” Mark says, mostly to keep himself from asking something else, something stupid, like, Why didn’t you come out to Palo Alto? Why wasn’t this enough for you?
Eduardo flushes a deep red, and stares at his spoon like it is going to tell him something important, like it will answer Mark’s question for him.
“I - do you -” Eduardo cuts himself off, frustrated. “What is this, Mark?” What do you want from me? he doesn’t say, but Mark can hear it anyway. Eduardo’s eyes are searching Mark’s face, and Mark can only hope he finds what he’s looking for. Mark has always felt this way about Eduardo, always wanted to push his fingers into the notches of Eduardo’s spine, between the slats of his ribs. He’s always wanted to slides his fingertips up the inside of Eduardo’s thighs, it’s just that Eduardo has never known.
“It’s - I don’t know,” Mark says, truthfully. “What do you want it to be?”
“That’s not what I asked,” Eduardo says, and that’s fair, but Mark doesn’t know the answer to the question Eduardo asked. He knows what he wants, but that’s different than what it is.
“I don’t know what it is,” Mark says, and tries not to shrug. He’s sharp, he knows, and not easy to read. He doesn’t take well to emotional conversations. He’s too blunt. “I just know that I want it.”
Eduardo breathes in, shaky, and starts to eat again. Mark doesn’t know what Eduardo wants; he just hopes that Eduardo does.
That night Mark touches Eduardo’s cheek, brushing his hands over Eduardo’s skin. He could touch Eduardo all day and not get tired of it - mapping the freckles trailing down Eduardo’s neck, or the faded scar just underneath his chin.
Eduardo flips Mark over onto his back, presses him down into the bed with a hand on the center of his chest. Eduardo’s thumb brushes over Mark’s left nipple, and Mark shudders, though he can’t be sure if Eduardo is doing it on purpose or not.
Mark bites into his lower lip when Eduardo’s hand pushes past the elastic of his sweats and wraps around his cock. Mark’s not wearing boxers at the moment, though he honestly hadn’t thought it would matter.
Eduardo’s hand is hot around Mark’s dick, and it only takes a couple of strokes for Mark to be fully hard. Eduardo is laying half on top of him, and his breath tickles Mark’s neck as Eduardo’s hand finds a rhythm.
“Fuck,” Mark says, and squeezes his eyes closed. Eduardo is breathing too quickly, and his hand is still hot in the center of Mark’s chest, pushing Mark down into the mattress. Mark isn’t struggling. “You’re touching me.” His words are puffs of air, gasps into the near silence. Mark doesn’t try not to say them, because he means them. Eduardo’s hand on the small of his back would go almost unnoticed, Eduardo’s wry smile, Eduardo handing over an open beer, but Eduardo’s hand on Mark’s dick, Eduardo’s mouth on the curve of his jaw, Eduardo’s shoulder aligned with the center of Mark’s chest, these things are new. Mark is determined not to take them for granted. They are not owed him.
“Yes,” Eduardo says, with something like reverence or determination, and Mark comes nearly silently. His mouth opens, and his hips arch, but he can’t speak.
Mark tries to catch his breath. Eduardo is looking down at him, some emotion Mark can’t categorize flitting across his face and then off again.
“All I wanted was to be important to you,” Eduardo says. He says it like a confession. Mark’s not sure if he means freezing the account, or joining the Facebook team, or in general, but he’s not sure it matters.
“You were,” he says, and wraps a hand around the back of Eduardo’s neck. “You always have been.”
To: mark.zuckerberg@fb.com
Cc:
Subject: geez mark
if you can’t be here right now can you at least help me with the code, i’m serious.
will you please tell me what the fuck is going on?
- d
Mark frowns. He’s not expecting major site renovations, and he can’t see what Dustin would need his help with, but he’s not sure he’s willing to risk it.
“Dustin?” Eduardo is sitting on the bed reading a book he’d found in one of the drawers in the bedside table. Mark is monopolizing the desk again.
“Yeah. He says he needs help with the coding, and he’s wondering why I’m not there.” Mark voice is completely flat, the way it is when he’d perturbed or confused. He can hear Eduardo putting the book down, but he doesn’t look.
“I don’t even know why you’re not there, Mark. No one does except you.” Eduardo’s voice holds the frustration of more than a week of withheld information. “Are you ever going to tell me?”
“Sean knows,” Mark says, before he can help himself. He shakes his head. “I will, just not now.”
“Mark -” Some of the bitterness is back in Eduardo’s voice. Mark is more used to that defeated tone than he is comfortable with. He wonders if it’s the mention of Sean, or the whole situation.
“They tried to make me choose, okay?” Mark hates the defensive sound of his voice, nasal like he’s trying to hold it in. “Between you and Facebook. The investors wanted me to choose and I couldn’t.” I chose you, he doesn’t say. He can’t say it.
Eduardo doesn’t say anything, but Mark can hear him breathe, shallow and fast. Mark wants him to ask, to push, to force Mark to say what he can’t on his own, but Eduardo stays silent.
To: dustin.moscovitz@fb.com
Cc:
Subject: Re: geez mark
If it’s really dire I’ll look over the code for you, but you know you don’t actually need my help. You’re more than capable.
I’ll tell you what’s going on when I feel comfortable doing so.
- Mark
“I want to see you naked,” Mark says, the next morning. Eduardo has pillow creases marking his cheek and his hair is ridiculous and wild. He is sleepy-eyed, perfect, and Mark has been slowly watching him wake up for nearly forty minutes.
“What,” Eduardo says, not a question. He’s not awake enough, probably.
Mark just pushes his hands underneath Eduardo’s t-shirt. His fingers brush Eduardo’s ribs and his back and he squirms, but not away. Eduardo’s skin is soft and warm. It doesn’t take much effort to get his shirt off.
“What are you -,” Eduardo starts, but he lets Mark touch him. Mark runs his hands over Eduardo’s stomach, up over his rib cage, feeling the way that he breathes in and out. He brushes his thumbs over Eduardo’s nipples, smiling at the way his breath hitches.
“I told you,” Mark says. He puts his mouth on Eduardo’s collarbone, and watches Eduardo blink, watches his eyes focus on Mark’s face, flit down to Mark’s mouth. Mark is warm underneath the covers and not impatient to move. He still can’t believe that Eduardo hasn’t pulled away yet. He brushes Eduardo’s calf with one foot, and Eduardo jolts.
“I don’t - Mark,” Eduardo starts, like a protest, but he’s not pulling away. He shivers when Mark’s fingers brush over his body, when Mark’s teeth dig into his collarbone. “What are you trying -” He cuts himself off with a gasp, and Mark swipes his tongue over Eduardo’s left nipple one more time, just because he can.
“I’m trying to prove to you that I need you,” Mark says. “Tell me to stop.”
“If they hadn’t made you, you never would have tried.” Eduardo’s voice isn’t an accusation; it’s a statement of fact. Mark knows that he’s right.
Still, when Mark pushes at the comforter, and the sheets, and Eduardo’s boxers, nudging everything out of the way until Eduardo is completely naked underneath him, Eduardo lets him. And that counts for something.
3.
It’s raining in Prague when they land. Mark doesn’t pay much attention to where they’re going, at this point. He’s watching the rain sluice over the dark stones and wash nothing away but a day’s worth of grit. Thousands of small leaves are caught in the gutters. The trees are shedding, and the leaves will rot, eventually.
He follows Eduardo to the Hotel Unitas, trusts him to make the arrangements. Eduardo has a more refined taste than Mark, and he cares about appearances. The hotel is elegant, built inside a renovated convent.
They are both soaked through by the time they set their things in their hotel room, with its high ceilings and long, flowing curtains. Mark is reminded of the night in Palo Alto, where things spiraled so far out of his grasp, and the night, later, in New York, when he realized he had to make sacrifices. He wonders if Eduardo draws the same conclusions, but he doesn’t ask. He’s not sure it really matters.
Mark shucks his wet clothes and pulls on a pair of dry sweats. Eduardo is just glancing away from Mark when he looks over. Eduardo is half in and half out of his trousers, shirt mostly unbuttoned and hanging slack over his thin frame. His skin is shiny with moisture, and Mark is struck by the sudden urge to press his tongue to every place the rainwater touched. To see how it tastes.
Eduardo’s breath hitches when Mark goes down on his knees. He pushes the unbuttoned fabric of Eduardo’s shirt aside and licks a stripe up his stomach. His skin tastes like sweat and rain, like earth and like stone. Mark revels in the way Eduardo’s stomach muscles tense and shudder. He leans in again, pressing his mouth soft against the skin just to the left of Eduardo’s navel.
“If I wanted you to,” Mark starts, looking up the long, lean line of Eduardo’s body, his shirt still plastered to his shoulders with water, “would you fuck me?”
Eduardo closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, and tips his head back. It’s not a challenge, for Mark. He’s not testing Eduardo’s resolve. He just wants it.
“Yes,” Eduardo says. He’s staring at the ceiling, and Mark presses his cheek against the waistband of Eduardo’s trousers. “I would.”
“I want you to.” Mark’s voice is steady, and soft. When Eduardo’s fingers touch his hair, tentative, he closes his eyes.
The rain trickles to a halt, Eduardo goes out, and Mark codes. He’s missed the simplicity of it. His inbox is full of emails from Sean, which range from anger to passive aggressive annoyance to frustration. Mark doesn’t answer any of them. Dustin emails to say that they’re making progress on the updates Mark had planned before he left. Mark wonders if he’s even needed, really, though he knows that, to some degree, he is. Dustin is following the steps he’d had in place before he left but without that he’d have to rely on his own ideas, and with no one to bounce them off of.
Mark spends an hour or so debugging the program he’d started the week earlier, and then starts on something new, something he’s not entirely sure he knows the parameters of, yet. When he looks up again, it’s starting to get dark, and Eduardo has just closed the door to their hotel room.
“Exactly where I left you,” Eduardo says, with a rueful, knowing smile. Mark shrugs, and saves the program.
“I didn’t have much reason to move.”
Eduardo is a little flushed across his cheeks, and he has his computer bag slung over one shoulder, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers. Mark closes his laptop one-handed, and turns around in the chair.
“Dinner?” Eduardo asks, hopefully.
They eat room service food on the floor - some kind of beef stew, a few fresh rolls, pasta with fresh mozzarella, assorted vegetables, and tomato sauce. The sauce stains the corners of Eduardo’s mouth, and when Mark reaches up a hand to rub it away, Eduardo lets him. Mark pushes his thumb against Eduardo’s plush lower lip, and carefully watches the way Eduardo’s pupils dilate.
“What did you do while you were out?” Mark asks, thumb sliding over Eduardo’s cheekbone and then away.
“Walked, bought some coffee.” Eduardo shrugs. “Did some thinking - about, you know. Here. You.” He glances down at his hand, tightly curled around his cutlery. He puts down the fork and spoon, and then stretches his fingers out.
“Wardo,” Mark says, and then wraps his fingers around Eduardo’s wrist. Eduardo looks down at their hands.
The lamp is still on, and their dishes are still on the floor. Mark is sweating, and Eduardo has two fingers pushed inside him.
“Ah, fuck,” Mark says, and Eduardo shushes him, pressing his mouth against the curve of one kneecap. Eduardo’s fingers are slick with whatever it was he bought while he was out, and they just keep pushing in, again and again. Mark is on his back, and he’s watching Eduardo’s face, the way he bites his lip, furrows his brow in concentration. Mark is so hard he can barely think, and he wants - he wants -
“Are you ever going to -” he manages, and Eduardo shushes him again, and pushes a third finger inside him. “Oh,” Mark says, part surprise and part pleasure.
“If you could see yourself right now, Mark.” Eduardo’s voice is hushed, and Mark can see the sweat trickling down his neck, pooling in his collarbones. He’s nearly naked, his shirt unbuttoned and open, his boxers still pulled up over his hips. If Mark arches his neck, he can see the bulge of Eduardo’s erection.
“I might - ah - say the same thing to you,” Mark says. His voice isn’t anything close to steady. Eduardo’s eyes flick up to Mark’s face and then back down, between his spread thighs, to where Eduardo’s fingers are pushing inside him. Mark has never felt so exposed. He’s surprised by how much he likes it.
“I can’t believe you’re letting me do this,” Eduardo says, so quietly that Mark almost doesn’t hear over the sound of his heartbeat, the blood rushing through his veins. His own heavy breathing.
“You’d be surprised,” Mark says, because - Eduardo is still surprised that Mark wants him. Eduardo heard I think you’re going to get left behind, and completely missed I need you. Mark is an asshole, but he doesn’t say things that he doesn’t mean. Eduardo just doesn’t listen.
“Mark,” Eduardo says, and digs his teeth into Mark’s knee, and crooks his fingers, sliding them over something - his prostate - making him jolt like he’s been struck by lightening and clench down on Eduardo’s fingers.
Mark is having a hard time forming words. Eduardo’s eyes are locked on his face, and Mark is trying not to push back into Eduardo’s fingers, trying not to betray how needy he actually is.
“If you’re going to fuck me,” Mark says, half as distraction, half genuine impatience, “then do it. Wardo. Fuck me.”
There’s gravel in Mark’s voice, a low rumble like a far off thunderstorm, and Eduardo put it there. Eduardo, who rubs his fingers over Mark’s prostate one more time, just to make Mark gasp, and then pulls his fingers out. He’s reaching for a condom when Mark manages to arch his neck and look. Eduardo pushes his boxer’s over his hips, and his fingers are shaking, just a little tremor.
His eyelids flutter when he rolls it on, fingers brushing the hot skin of his dick, and a high flush spreads up his neck and over his cheeks. Mark wants to press his mouth there and feel the heat on his tongue, but Eduardo still has one hand on his inner thigh, keeping them spread, even as he gropes for the lubricant - the unfamiliar letters on the tube still can’t disguise from what it is. Eduardo rubs the lube over his dick with two quick pumps, and then he’s leaning in, lining up. The head of his cock is blunt against Mark’s hole, even with the preparation.
Eduardo mutters something in Portuguese, something that sounds like a curse, or a blessing. He sinks in so slowly that Mark has to swallow the noises his throat tries to make - the groans, the exertion. Eduardo’s brow is furrowed, looking down, and then one, final push and Eduardo is balls deep, pressed completely inside Mark. Mark hasn’t ever felt anything like it. He wants to speak, but he can’t remember how. He cants his hips, trying to get Eduardo to move, trying not brush the sweaty clump of hair off of Eduardo’s forehead. He feels - exquisite, taken. Possessed, but not scared. Eduardo wouldn’t hurt him on purpose.
Eduardo starts slow and gradually picks up speed. Mark wraps his legs around Eduardo’s hips. Eduardo is only just close enough to kiss, but Mark manages it, sloppy and off-center. He wants to provoke, but he’s not sure what he’ll get if he does. They’ve never done this before.
“Talk to me,” Eduardo says. His brow is furrowed, and Mark would press his mouth to the divots in Eduardo’s forehead, if only he could reach them. “Mark, I - ah. Mark.”
Eduardo’s hips slam forward, hard enough that the force lifts Mark’s hips off of the mattress, and Mark groans. He should be worrying about being heard through the walls, but he’s not. Eduardo is fucking him like he can’t help himself, each thrust pushing these little gasps past his lips, ruthless and vulnerable.
“It’s - fuck, perfect. Eduardo, you’re - I can’t -” Mark cuts himself off, and Eduardo has him bent nearly in half in his quest to get closer, to get further inside Mark. There are beads of sweat catching on his ribs, clinging to the skin of his pectorals. Eduardo’s cock nudges Mark’s prostate over and over, making Mark shudder and whine, the sound trapped in the back of his throat with most of his words, the ones that aren’t curses or pleas or Eduardo’s name. “Touch me,” Mark manages to say, an order, and Eduardo’s eyes are all pupil, a thin rim of iris on the edge, barely any white to speak of, but a shiver runs through him at the sound of Mark’s voice.
He manages to push a hand between their bodies, wrapping it around Mark’s cock. His thumb smears the precome gathering at the head and pushes against the slit, and Mark bites his lips to hold in what would probably be a loud moan. Eduardo pumps his hands up and down the shaft, fingers just this side of too tight. Mark knows he won’t last, not between Eduardo’s punishing rhythm and the certainty of his hand on Mark’s cock. Mark can feel it rippling through him, sending off sparks behind his eyelids, and Eduardo gets two more strokes in before Mark is coming all over his hand, splatters of it on his own chest and stomach and thighs. He clenches around Eduardo’s cock, riding out the pulses of his orgasm.
Three more brutal thrusts, and Eduardo is collapsing on top of him, biting into Mark’s collarbone as he comes. Mark can feel it inside him, even through the condom. Eduardo’s mouth is soft against the bite he’d left on Mark’s collar, and they’re sticking together with sweat and Mark’s come.
Mark is still breathing heavily when Eduardo rolls off of him, holding onto the condom as he pulls out.
“Christ,” he says. His shirt is still hanging off of his shoulders, unbuttoned, and his boxers are still around his ankles. Mark feels disgusting and sated and sore. Boneless.
He’s thought a lot about what would happen if he and Eduardo fucked, but he never really thought it would happen. He’s been in love with Eduardo for almost two years. He’s never said it, so Eduardo probably doesn’t know.
Mark looks over at Eduardo, lying on the bed, still tangled up in sweaty fabric, splotches of red on his chest and neck
and cheeks, golden-skinned and dark-eyed, and thinks about telling him. Eduardo rolls over and looks at him, and Mark says nothing.
They fuck again seventeen hours later. Mark is still sore, but he wants it enough. He hoists himself over Eduardo’s lap, straddling his hips, and lowers himself down.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the way Eduardo looks at him, his serious eyes, his tense mouth. He doesn’t think he’ll forget the careful touch of Eduardo’s fingers on his hips, holding him steady.
Dustin says that Sean is still talking to the investors and the lawyers. He says that Sean is starting to mutter about booting Mark from the company. They’re still talking about diluting the shares. Mark knows less about business than he should, but they can’t do much without him signing off on it. He still owns a majority percentage. It does mean that the people back home are getting restless, and Mark isn’t anywhere near ready to make his valiant return.
“Bad news?” Eduardo asks, leaning in the doorway to the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist, steam billowing out behind him like backlighting. Mark would rather look at Eduardo than at his email.
“Everyone is too impatient,” Mark says, though with businesses, he knows, you’re either there at the right time, or someone else gets there first. Facebook is already there, though, Facebook is ready, and being used, and more money will make things spectacularly easier, but Mark doesn’t put that much stock in it. He’ll find a way.
“They just want it to work, Mark,” Eduardo says. His feet are silent on the carpet, but Mark knows he’s coming, anyway. Eduardo stops behind him and seems to hesitate, and then puts a hand on the side of Mark’s face. Mark leans into it, without reservation, and Eduardo makes a soft noise in his throat.
Mark is still sore, but not in a way that he minds. Every few minutes he’ll shift just to remind himself that they’d actually gone through with it. That Eduardo had let him.
“No one wants it to work more than I do,” Mark says. “And I don’t think it will work without you.”
“Is that what this is about? Wooing me back into the fold? I wasn’t aware that I’d left it.”
Mark laughs, bitter, and shrugs. This is it, finally. “It was a close call. Sean was pushing for it. I didn’t want to let it happen.”
Eduardo’s hand is still on Mark’s cheek, but it’s still, no careful pressure, no fingertips dragging.
“Wardo,” Mark says. “You’re more important than the money we’d be making.”
Eduardo is silent for a long time, and Mark almost wishes that they were facing each other, but he also really doesn’t. “What money?” Eduardo asks, finally.
“More investors. Diluting your shares. Business things.” Mark shrugs with one shoulder, and Eduardo’s fingernail scrape his cheek.
“Is that why you came to New York without - Mark.”
“I couldn’t let it happen, Wardo. You should be in Palo Alto, helping us, but I’m not going to - we shouldn’t argue about that. But this isn’t the answer either.”
“It would have been the perfect revenge,” Eduardo says, a tone of wonder in his voice. “For freezing the account. Jesus, Mark.”
Mark doesn’t say anything, because there isn’t anything to say. He got pretty close there, for a while.
“This isn’t a solution either, Mark.” It’s so quiet that Mark can hardly hear it. Mark nods.
“I know, I just - you wouldn’t have listened to me, and I couldn’t prove that you mattered unless I had the time to figure out how.” Mark shrugs. So here we are, he doesn’t say. I just wanted you with me, he doesn’t say.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, but Mark doesn’t know exactly what he means.
4.
It’s late when they land in Belize, though neither of them can really tell. It’s humid, and Mark’s shirt sticks to his back. Eduardo unbuttons the top button on his shirt, and rolls up his sleeves. They choose a hotel based on the recommendation of a woman at the front desk when they get off the plane. She shows them a glossy brochure, and Eduardo just nods. Neither of them particularly care, by this point.
They take a cab, and Mark stares out the window while the driver weaves, quick and savvy, through traffic. Eduardo apparently knows some Spanish along with the Portuguese he speaks at home, and Mark tunes out what he can’t understand. There are people out on the streets, walking and talking and waiting for busses. Mark isn’t homesick, but he does feel out of place.
The room is a painted a ruddy red, like baked clay, and the full bed is centered in the far wall. It’s small, but clean. Mark doesn’t know what there is to do in Belize. He’s never even considered it, as a city. It had just been there, in the departure list.
The internet in only available through an Ethernet plug-in. Mark leaves his laptop in his bag, not interested in seeing what ultimatum Sean has tried to sell him on today. Eduardo has pushed open the window, and Mark can smell cooking meat, though he’s not sure from where. The sky is dark and full of stars, and Mark can even see a sliver of it over Eduardo’s shoulder.
They go to bed early that night, jet-lagged and exhausted. Eduardo curls up on his side, and Mark watches the muscles in his back shift as he breathes.
The next morning they fuck with the window open, Eduardo’s careful fingers on the sides of Mark’s rib cage. Mark tries to coax sounds out of Eduardo loud enough for the passerby to hear on the street seven stories down.
Mark imagines that he can hear the ocean, smell it wafting through the open air, and Eduardo’s hair is sticking to his forehead in one sweaty chunk, and he’s moaning as Mark fucks him, like he can’t help it.
Mark doesn’t turn his computer on until the next evening, sitting backward in a chair in just his boxers. Eduardo is taking a walk, and Mark hasn’t checked his email since they landed. He has seventy-two unread messages, though most of them don’t matter.
To: mark.zuckerberg@fb.com;
Cc:
Subject: congrats
were officially over 1mil members dude
congrats!!
Mark stares at the screen for a few minutes, trying to discern if this is Dustin’s way of telling him how much he’s missing, but he finally decides that it’s probably well meant. Dustin has never been subtle, not with his praise, and not with his complaints, either. Mark figures that he owes Dustin some kind of response.
To: dustin.moscovitz@fb.com;
Cc:
Subject:
It’s almost as much you as it is me. Congratulations.
-Mark
It’s too hot for Mark to sleep, though Eduardo is managing it just fine. Mark can see the sheen of sweat on Eduardo’s bare chest, and he thinks about how they’ll eventually have to go home, though he doesn’t know when. Probably soon. He thinks about Eduardo, back in his snug apartment in New York, doing all the things he thinks he should be doing, instead of the things he’s needed for. They haven’t talked about it, haven’t talked about much since they changed hemispheres. Mark wonders if he’s proved himself yet.
Mark spreads his knees far apart in the shower and tries not to slide as the water makes the tile slippery, swallowing around Eduardo’s cock. Eduardo has his head tilted back against the tiles, one hand twined into the shower curtain, and he’s speaking partially in Portuguese and partially in English. Mostly he’s just saying Mark’s name over and over.
“Oh,” Eduardo says. “Fuck, Mark.”
Mark trails one hand up the back of Eduardo’s thigh, slipping his fingers underneath the curve of Eduardo’s ass, and swallows Eduardo down as far as he can take him.
“I should have been able to say no to you,” Eduardo says. “At some point.”
They’ve rented a car for the day, and are currently walking a trail in the Sibun Forest Reserve. Mark is trying not to touch anything, trailing slightly behind Eduardo on the path. The leaves are damp underneath the soles of his shoes. Eduardo is flushed, and he’s grinning, despite the tone of his words.
“You do,” Mark tries, and stuffs his hands in his pockets. He’s sweating, but everything smells so green and fresh that he doesn’t really mind.
“Never when it’s the right thing to say.” Eduardo pauses. “My father thinks this is a waste of time. I think - I think he’s wrong.”
Mark’s not sure if Eduardo means Facebook, or Mark himself, or both, but he’s not going to ask.
“Where do you think we should go next?” Mark asks, and realizes that he’s never asked before. Eduardo is lying on the bed, still half naked, thumbing through a paperback some previous guest left in the bedside table.
“Mark.” The way that Eduardo says his name, the way that he sits up and puts his hand on Mark’s wrist, means Mark isn’t going to like it. “We have to go home. You’re stalling, and you know it.”
“I - ” Mark says, ready to deny it, but it’s the truth.
“This has been - great, but we both have lives. And Dustin can’t wait for you forever.” Eduardo’s hand is tight around Mark’s wrist, and Mark can still see the bruises on Eduardo’s chest where he bit down too hard.
“I know.” And he does, mostly.
“We have to go home.” Eduardo gives him a lopsided smile, and Mark shrugs.
4.5.
Mark programs on the flight back to New York, while Eduardo sleeps. He hasn’t asked Eduardo if he’s coming to Palo Alto, the way that Mark wants him to, or if he’s going to insist on staying in New York.
Mark could just have easily flown straight back to Palo Alto, but he’s still stalling.
He finishes the final touches just as the flight attendant asks him to turn off his laptop. He saves, and glances over at Eduardo. Eduardo is awake, and watching him with serious eyes. Mark can’t meet them for very long. He looks away.
5.
It’s raining in New York when they step out of the cab, onto the curb outside of Eduardo’s apartment building. It gives Mark déjà vu. He still doesn’t have an umbrella.
“It’s raining,” he says, and Eduardo snorts.
“Come on up,” Eduardo says.
Eduardo’s bed is still unmade, and the milk in his fridge has gone sour. They’d left in a hurry. Mark leaves his bags on the floor in the front hallway, and toes off his shoes. He can hear Eduardo rustling around in the bedroom, and he pads down the hallway to investigate.
Eduardo is shucking off his pants, sliding them down over his hips. He’s shirtless, and with his back to the doorway, Mark can see the way his shoulder blades flare out and settle as he moves. The bedside lamp is on, but it is the only light in the room. The rain is pounding against the side of the building.
Eduardo looks over his shoulder, pushing his black boxer briefs over his hips. Mark’s breath catches. He’s still fully clothed, from his socks to his hoodie, and Eduardo is naked, watching him with an expression that is half trepidation and half desire, idly stroking his cock. “Can I - fuck you?”
“Yes,” Mark says, without hesitation. His dick twitches in his boxers, and Eduardo turns and take three steps closer to Mark. He cups Mark’s left cheek in his hand, and kisses him. Mark wants to drop to his knees right there and suck Eduardo’s cock into his mouth, but Eduardo’s hands are fumbling to unzip his hoodie, and instead Mark helps him and then shrugs it off.
Eduardo is determined to get Mark naked as quickly as possible, so it seems like no time at all before Mark’s face down on Eduardo’s bed, legs spread wide, listening to Eduardo lube up his fingers. Mark presses his face into the comforter as Eduardo works him open, so thorough that Mark has to hold a sob when Eduardo finally, finally pushes three fingers into him.
When Eduardo rolls on the condom, pressing slowly, slowly inside him, Mark tries not to let it feel like a goodbye.
The shower is running when Mark wakes up. Mark catalogues his body, the sore muscles and dried sweat, the bruises on his shoulder where Eduardo bit down as he came. Mark is going back to Palo Alto today, with or without Eduardo, to sort out all of the shit he left behind when he ran out. And he doesn’t feel any differently about it now than he did before.
Mark stands and stretches and doesn’t bother to clothe himself before pushing open the door to Eduardo’s bathroom. The room is swathed in steam, and Eduardo is humming under his breath when Mark opens the shower door and steps inside. Mark registers Eduardo’s look of surprise, and then he kisses the side of Eduardo’s neck, and sinks to his knees. He wants this one more time before he goes, and he’s not going to be shy about it.
“Mark,” Eduardo starts, but Mark licks a stripe up the front of Eduardo’s thigh, and Eduardo shudders and cuts himself off. Mark bites into the inside of Eduardo’s thigh, and listens to the way that Eduardo’s fingers scrabble over the tile.
Eduardo makes a high sort of whine when Mark sucks the head of his cock into his mouth. Eduardo isn’t fully hard yet, but Mark can feel him getting harder as Mark sucks, pressing his tongue against the slit. Mark bobs down, taking Eduardo’s cock all the way in and then slowly easing back off.
Mark’s dick is throbbing between his thighs, and he sinks back down, letting one hand cup Eduardo’s ass while the other wraps tight around his dick. He wants to say, c’mon, fuck me, c’mon, but he doesn’t want to pull off, so he settles for urging Eduardo forward with the hand on his ass, fingers sliding between the cheeks, wet with water and soap.
“Mark, you can’t -” Eduardo is panting, and his hips stutter, just a small push into Mark’s mouth, but Mark moans. Mark can do what he wants, and what he wants, right now, is this.
Mark sucks, hard, around Eduardo’s cock, and the tips of his fingers brush against Eduardo’s hole. Eduardo’s hips push, and Mark relaxes his throat, letting Eduardo fuck his mouth.
Mark’s hand is striping fast over his own cock, and he looks up, meeting Eduardo’s eyes as Eduardo pumps his hips, breaths coming quick and shallow. Mark pushes the tip of one finger into Eduardo’s hole; Eduardo gasps and starts to come, sooner than he probably meant to, and Mark swallows. He takes as much of Eduardo’s cock into his throat as he can, and feels the pulses in his throat.
He hasn’t even started to pull off before he’s coming, hand still punishingly fast between his thighs, and Eduardo staring right at him.
After, Mark wipes off his mouth and stands. He steps out of the shower and grabs a towel hanging on the rack attached the wall.
“I should make sure I have everything,” he says, and closes the bathroom door behind him.
“You think you’re leaving without me,” Eduardo says, fifteen minutes later. He has a towel wrapped around his waist, and he’s dripping water onto the carpet. Mark is sitting on the couch, his laptop bag next to him, his duffle at his feet.
“Your apartment is here.” Mark keeps his voice flat, because hope won’t help him, here. Nothing will.
“I can’t - I’m not going to pretend that this doesn’t scare the shit out of me, and - this could go so, so badly, but you’re. Mark, you’re - if you still want me there -“
“Of course I still want you there,” Mark says, risking a look at Eduardo’s face. He’s serious, mouth set in a frown, eyebrows furrowed.
“I know,” Eduardo says, quiet, like a confirmation. “I just -”
“I need you,” Mark says, and feels like he’s cutting himself open. He doesn’t know how the words can be so much worse than showing Eduardo, than kissing him and fucking him and falling asleep next to him, but they are. “I don’t think it can work without you. I don’t think - I don’t work without you.”
Eduardo is silent for a long moment, his eyes searching Mark’s face, and Mark has done everything he can. He hopes that it’s enough.
“Okay,” Eduardo says. “I’ll go - I’ll. We’ll go.”
5.5.
Flying toward Palo Alto, Mark reaches for Eduardo’s hand. They are surrounded by clouds, and Eduardo is half asleep. No one is paying attention to them.