(fic) it's hard to know what you want
it's hard to know what you want
The Social Network
Mark/Eduardo pre-slash, PG-13
disclaimer: Most emphatically not mine, also this fic is based on the dramatized versions of Mark & Eduardo featured in the film The Social Network, most certainly not the real people because I know nothing about them and would be very silly to assume otherwise &c ad infinitum.
notes: Er, wordvomit mostly, might be a bit staggered and ooc or something maybe. Beware stupid and gratuitous tense changes. Title is from People Can Do the Most Amazing of Things by The Kisses.
it's hard to know what you want, mark/eduardo, pg-13, 2522 words.One time, when Mark was drunk and Eduardo was not, they both ended up sprawled on the floor with their backs against the leather cushions of the couch, video game controllers sweat-slippery in their hands. Mark's (nth) beer was half-finished on the coffee table, and Eduardo was smiling quietly to himself, button-mashing futilely until his character died in a spatter of badly-animated gore. Headshot.
Mark's own head lolled in Eduardo's direction, the game back on its title screen, alcohol-glassy eyes turned towards him. "Wardo," Mark said. "Wardo."
“You won,” Eduardo pointed out.
“I know. But Wardo-”
See, Eduardo liked it when Mark let some of his six-inch thick concrete-reinforced walls down; he liked how Mark was still amazingly literate, even when he was pie-eyed. Literate in a clear, succinct way. Mark didn't slur like other people, but he did stumble and repeat himself, which was endearing in its own way.
"Yeah?"
"I'm pretty drunk."
"No shit," Eduardo laughed.
"I think we should stop playing. My hand-eye coordination is shot."
"I can see that."
"Because I'm-"
"Drunk, yeah."
"Don't you think that's sad? That I'm drunk, that I got drunk in my dorm room. By myself. With you." Mark squinted, mouth twitching upwards at the contradiction, his shoulders sliding down a bit, eyes half-lidded. "Not out partying. That's the place to get drunk. At the AEPi party."
"You said you didn't want to go."
"I know. I don't. Didn't. Stupid. It's why this is sad. For me. For us."
Eduardo shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. Sad for some people. I kind of like staying in. This is nice."
Mark made a noise. Of agreement, or just noise, Eduardo couldn't tell. His head lolled again, the controller falling from his grasp and onto the carpet covering the hardwood floor, and Eduardo's arm found itself stretching to rest on the couch cushions behind them, behind Mark's neck.
"Tired?" Eduardo asked, as Mark's hair brushed the inside of his wrist.
"A little." Mark said. "You're not."
"Not really." Eduardo smiled. "It's only eleven."
"You don't have to go back to your room," Mark said suddenly, flatly. "Tomorrow's Saturday."
Eduardo hesitated.
"Couch," Mark said, without moving or indicating the couch in question. Eduardo nudged the back of Mark's head with his fingers, resiting the urge to let them stay there, threaded in Mark's short curls.
"You sure?"
A dismissive snort from Mark that clearly meant: when am I not.
"Thanks," he said. "That’s-thanks. Hey. Need help getting up?"
"Of course not." Mark said, standing abruptly, wobbling a little, hands shoved deep into hoodie pockets. He made a move forward, and then stopped, turning to collapse back into the cushions while Eduardo looked up at him from the floor, amused.
"No help, huh?"
"Shut up."
Eduardo heaved himself up onto the couch, arms resting on the arm and back respectively, legs hanging off the end to make room for Mark, whose eyes were beginning to fall shut, to droop closed, knees unbending a little. He looked like he was about to drop off any second-drop off the face of a cliff, into deep sleep, and then into one hell of a morning hangover.
"Guess this means the couch is double-booked."
"Guess so." Mark's head dropped slowly onto the armrest.
"Should I monopolize your bed while I have the chance?"
It came out sounding a bit wrong; Eduardo grimaced, but Mark only slid down into a more comfortable position. "You can stay," he said. Mumbled.
"Mark?" Eduardo said softly, a moment later. He prodded Mark with a foot. "Hey. I'm staying."
Mark rolled onto his side, eyes closed, and Eduardo slid down to join him in sleep.
(In the morning, they woke up with their legs tangled, Eduardo's ankles poking into Mark's hoodie-clad stomach, Mark's heels digging into Eduardo's hips, and Eduardo apologized as Mark just looked at him fuzzy-eyed, and then they went to breakfast together.)
+
Anyway, Mark reminds himself now, that was a long time ago; one memory among many similar ones, plus or minus a couch or game or that buzzing tension that never really figured itself out. It just seems important to remember.
+
"Eduardo," Mark says, as if he hasn't been sure the door would open after all, like he hasn't spent the whole way here planning the conversation in his head-with different words in different sentences-only his lines stay mostly the same while Wardo's change, change tone, then change back, a constant revision process. It's probably best Mark's had his head filled with possibilities just so he could ignore reality. Just long enough to end up on Eduardo's doorstep without really thinking about the consequences.
Eduardo looks surprised for a fleeting moment, but it's watered down with sad-angry exhaustion. Mark's never been a dab hand at reading people, in real life, but he thinks he could read Eduardo pretty well if he tried. It's all to do with whether or not he really wants to look for those cracks and slivers of tired betrayal again, those big doe eyes. He's had to avoid them all through the deposition, though he caught them there, on Wardo's face, once or twice. And Eduardo's eyes are things of pure expression; wide, terrible mirrors, even when he's trying so hard to be cold. Mark's own faults had looked back at him out of Wardo's damn eyes. Fuck. Eduardo. He's still not sure why he's here.
"Eduardo," he says again, simply because he's forgotten all his imagined scriptwriting, and has nothing else to go on but a name.
"What do you want, Mark," Eduardo says, like each word weighs a hundred pounds.
Mark reaches for a reason, pauses with his mouth open and throws his eyes to the side. "I-" he starts; don't know, almost says. "I'm paying you. The settlement. You'll be back on the masthead."
Eduardo looks at him, and shakes his head. Mark's finding it difficult to pull his thoughts into a cohesive narrative and then say it out loud; which is never the case, usually the opposite. It's always spitfire brutality, blunt and sure, but right now it's like sorting through file cabinets with clippings of memories-images and words and-and it's just different, this time, with Eduardo. On his doorstep. Hotel-room threshold. Whatever.
"For fuck's sake, Mark, I know," Eduardo says, "If you came all the way here just to tell me what my lawyers have already-"
"I didn't," Mark interrupts. "Not just that. I needed something to say. Like, filler. Or something. I'm trying to think what else. I haven't had enough time to, you know, think it over."
Eduardo looks at him in disbelief. "You haven't had enough time to think it over."
"It's not like that. I didn't think before coming over because I was already preoccupied with-with thinking." He's aware it makes no sense. It doesn't really need to; he's not in a sense-making sort of way right now.
There's a moment of silence on both their ends; Eduardo stares at him oddly, so Mark swallows.
"Hey," he says. "Remember when we used to sleep on the couch together?"
Eduardo looks at him. Really looks at him.
"Yeah. Yeah, Mark, I do. Why?"
"I-" Mark licks his lips and shrugs a shoulder. "Never mind. Aren't you going to invite me in?"
"Seriously? You screwed me over."
"I know."
"I'm not inviting you in, Mark."
"I thought I'd ask anyway."
"You are the last person I'd say yes to."
And maybe if Mark could read people, he'd be able to tell Eduardo wasn't telling the whole truth there, but instead he counters with: "Even if I apologized?"
Eduardo pauses, frowning, maybe slightly a bit too hopeful-still angry. "You came here to apologize?"
No. But it's as good a reason as any. He needs to keep talking. "So you would."
"I would-" Wardo closes his eyes for a second. "No. No, because I know you're not sorry. That you wouldn't mean it even if you said it; you're not that kind of person. So no. I wouldn't let you in even if you apologized."
"Hm." Mark says. "Then what do I have to do?"
"To get in? To come in?"
"Yes."
"To my hotel room."
"Yes. And-yes."
And then Eduardo laughs, because Mark's showing his hand, and Mark knows he is; its all about final clubs and prestigious positions and Eduardo's the best of the best. The best friend, the best person Mark's even known. He wants to get in and the one doing the punching is Eduardo himself, the Eduardo Saverin Club, and Mark, the only member. The number one member. At his fucking hotel! Jesus Christ, Mark-
He closes the door in Mark's face. He doesn't answer even when Mark's knocked, pragmatically, for a minute. Mark knows he's being told to go away without being told, but he can't seem to make himself move his feet until five minutes have passed and nothing's happened and nothing will.
+
Eduardo chewed at Mark over his eggs and toast. The Crimson was on the table next to him, recently read, crumpled at the edges and corners and creased down the middle. Mark had wanted to bring his laptop down to Kirkland dining hall with with him, but it was Saturday and as much as he would have preferred scrolling through code or doing a problem set at eight in the morning, Eduardo's face was just as interesting. And the fact that simple math (or common sense, or whatever) will tell anyone with half a brain that bright lights are bad and wouldn't have done much to cure him of his lingering hangover. Anyway, the point was Eduardo, who was staring.
"What?" Mark asked.
"Nothing," Eduardo said, then added; "Just that last night was fun."
"I wouldn't say 'fun'.”
“You wouldn’t?”
Mark looked at him. “We didn't do much. You didn't do much, other than watch me intoxicate myself with shitty beer."
“Shitty college beer.” Eduardo said, and hid a smile. “We go to Harvard, you’d think we could afford the good stuff.”
“Exactly. The good stuff would be fun.”
“Maybe I found that-the bad stuff fun.”
“You find Econ fun,” Mark said.
“I find a lot of things fun,” Eduardo corrected. “I find fun things fun.”
“You find-” Mark stops. “Whatever. This is stupid. We’re saying ‘fun’ too much.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes more; Mark, with his fingertips pressed hard into his right temple, left hand nursing a glass of juice, and Eduardo, with his nose buried in the Crimson. The clacking of utensils and chatter filled up the almost-awkward silence and made it bearable; but there was also Eduardo's lidded eyes and long fingers holding up the paper, and watching him read made Mark's head throb a little less.
"So. What if I bought the good stuff?" Eduardo asked.
"Then you would be in possession of the good stuff," Mark said. "Which you bought.”
“Well. Yes. But I can’t actually buy the good stuff. I’d have to pay an older student.”
“Now you’re saying 'stuff' too much."
"I'd share it-the stuff-the beer."
"Lucky me."
Eduardo snorted, amused. “Lucky you.”
“Hey. You know you can stay over whenever,” Mark said abruptly.
Eduardo paused. "Uh. Yeah, man. I know. Look. Okay, by 'fun', I meant-it was nice. I liked it. I mean-" he laughed, didn't finish his sentence. He shook his head and picked the paper back up while Mark scratched his nose and added,
“Okay. You find weird things fun. We can do it again.”
Eduardo looked up. “Okay?”
“Tonight we can-I don’t know-watch a lame movie or something.”
“Yeah?” Eduardo was smiling now. “Yeah, okay. That’d be f-nice. That’d be nice. I'll bring the good stu-beer. The good beer.”
Mark nodded. The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Okay. Cool.”
+
So now it's raining.
(Do I have your full attention?)
It's poetic justice, or karmic payback, or whatever. Mark's not stupid, so he doesn't stay outside of Eduardo's hotel for longer than he has to, but it's an uncomfortable cab ride back to his place with squelchy shoes and a soaked-through dress shirt, which would have looked more at home on Eduardo's skinny back. Mark figures somewhere along the line that he should stop thinking about Wardo, but despite the fact he has an iron control over what he says, there's no similar deal with what he thinks.
Two minutes at the computer tells him Eduardo's flight plan, his airline and fellow first-class passengers. Mark doesn't need to be in the room when Eduardo signs the non-disclosure agreement, but he knows after the settlement's been paid and all the documents have been filed away in nice neat little folders that he's going to go board his plane and go on back to New York and try his hardest to forget about Mark-fucking-Zuckerberg and that will be that. It shouldn't bother Mark as much as it does-nothing should bother Mark as much as it does-but if he's a slave to anything, it's thinking too much.
Eduardo gives him a lot to think about. So he collapses into a rolling chair and distracts himself with Facebook and does some superficial coding and drinks two beers and one glass of orange juice and forgets to wash the rainwater out of his hair. He falls asleep smelling like missed opportunities and mistakes and disappointment, and won't that be funny in a few years' time, when he can look back on all of this and say, 'wow, Mark, look at what you did, weren't you one sorry bastard back then, ha ha.' Hilarious.
It's what he tells himself, anyway. He's not sorry about the dilution; he won't apologize for doing what was best for the company, and he'd like to think being right outweighs the loss of his only friend.
Some things are for the best. Then again, some things don't work out the way you want them to.
The Social Network
Mark/Eduardo pre-slash, PG-13
disclaimer: Most emphatically not mine, also this fic is based on the dramatized versions of Mark & Eduardo featured in the film The Social Network, most certainly not the real people because I know nothing about them and would be very silly to assume otherwise &c ad infinitum.
notes: Er, wordvomit mostly, might be a bit staggered and ooc or something maybe. Beware stupid and gratuitous tense changes. Title is from People Can Do the Most Amazing of Things by The Kisses.
it's hard to know what you want, mark/eduardo, pg-13, 2522 words.One time, when Mark was drunk and Eduardo was not, they both ended up sprawled on the floor with their backs against the leather cushions of the couch, video game controllers sweat-slippery in their hands. Mark's (nth) beer was half-finished on the coffee table, and Eduardo was smiling quietly to himself, button-mashing futilely until his character died in a spatter of badly-animated gore. Headshot.
Mark's own head lolled in Eduardo's direction, the game back on its title screen, alcohol-glassy eyes turned towards him. "Wardo," Mark said. "Wardo."
“You won,” Eduardo pointed out.
“I know. But Wardo-”
See, Eduardo liked it when Mark let some of his six-inch thick concrete-reinforced walls down; he liked how Mark was still amazingly literate, even when he was pie-eyed. Literate in a clear, succinct way. Mark didn't slur like other people, but he did stumble and repeat himself, which was endearing in its own way.
"Yeah?"
"I'm pretty drunk."
"No shit," Eduardo laughed.
"I think we should stop playing. My hand-eye coordination is shot."
"I can see that."
"Because I'm-"
"Drunk, yeah."
"Don't you think that's sad? That I'm drunk, that I got drunk in my dorm room. By myself. With you." Mark squinted, mouth twitching upwards at the contradiction, his shoulders sliding down a bit, eyes half-lidded. "Not out partying. That's the place to get drunk. At the AEPi party."
"You said you didn't want to go."
"I know. I don't. Didn't. Stupid. It's why this is sad. For me. For us."
Eduardo shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. Sad for some people. I kind of like staying in. This is nice."
Mark made a noise. Of agreement, or just noise, Eduardo couldn't tell. His head lolled again, the controller falling from his grasp and onto the carpet covering the hardwood floor, and Eduardo's arm found itself stretching to rest on the couch cushions behind them, behind Mark's neck.
"Tired?" Eduardo asked, as Mark's hair brushed the inside of his wrist.
"A little." Mark said. "You're not."
"Not really." Eduardo smiled. "It's only eleven."
"You don't have to go back to your room," Mark said suddenly, flatly. "Tomorrow's Saturday."
Eduardo hesitated.
"Couch," Mark said, without moving or indicating the couch in question. Eduardo nudged the back of Mark's head with his fingers, resiting the urge to let them stay there, threaded in Mark's short curls.
"You sure?"
A dismissive snort from Mark that clearly meant: when am I not.
"Thanks," he said. "That’s-thanks. Hey. Need help getting up?"
"Of course not." Mark said, standing abruptly, wobbling a little, hands shoved deep into hoodie pockets. He made a move forward, and then stopped, turning to collapse back into the cushions while Eduardo looked up at him from the floor, amused.
"No help, huh?"
"Shut up."
Eduardo heaved himself up onto the couch, arms resting on the arm and back respectively, legs hanging off the end to make room for Mark, whose eyes were beginning to fall shut, to droop closed, knees unbending a little. He looked like he was about to drop off any second-drop off the face of a cliff, into deep sleep, and then into one hell of a morning hangover.
"Guess this means the couch is double-booked."
"Guess so." Mark's head dropped slowly onto the armrest.
"Should I monopolize your bed while I have the chance?"
It came out sounding a bit wrong; Eduardo grimaced, but Mark only slid down into a more comfortable position. "You can stay," he said. Mumbled.
"Mark?" Eduardo said softly, a moment later. He prodded Mark with a foot. "Hey. I'm staying."
Mark rolled onto his side, eyes closed, and Eduardo slid down to join him in sleep.
(In the morning, they woke up with their legs tangled, Eduardo's ankles poking into Mark's hoodie-clad stomach, Mark's heels digging into Eduardo's hips, and Eduardo apologized as Mark just looked at him fuzzy-eyed, and then they went to breakfast together.)
+
Anyway, Mark reminds himself now, that was a long time ago; one memory among many similar ones, plus or minus a couch or game or that buzzing tension that never really figured itself out. It just seems important to remember.
+
"Eduardo," Mark says, as if he hasn't been sure the door would open after all, like he hasn't spent the whole way here planning the conversation in his head-with different words in different sentences-only his lines stay mostly the same while Wardo's change, change tone, then change back, a constant revision process. It's probably best Mark's had his head filled with possibilities just so he could ignore reality. Just long enough to end up on Eduardo's doorstep without really thinking about the consequences.
Eduardo looks surprised for a fleeting moment, but it's watered down with sad-angry exhaustion. Mark's never been a dab hand at reading people, in real life, but he thinks he could read Eduardo pretty well if he tried. It's all to do with whether or not he really wants to look for those cracks and slivers of tired betrayal again, those big doe eyes. He's had to avoid them all through the deposition, though he caught them there, on Wardo's face, once or twice. And Eduardo's eyes are things of pure expression; wide, terrible mirrors, even when he's trying so hard to be cold. Mark's own faults had looked back at him out of Wardo's damn eyes. Fuck. Eduardo. He's still not sure why he's here.
"Eduardo," he says again, simply because he's forgotten all his imagined scriptwriting, and has nothing else to go on but a name.
"What do you want, Mark," Eduardo says, like each word weighs a hundred pounds.
Mark reaches for a reason, pauses with his mouth open and throws his eyes to the side. "I-" he starts; don't know, almost says. "I'm paying you. The settlement. You'll be back on the masthead."
Eduardo looks at him, and shakes his head. Mark's finding it difficult to pull his thoughts into a cohesive narrative and then say it out loud; which is never the case, usually the opposite. It's always spitfire brutality, blunt and sure, but right now it's like sorting through file cabinets with clippings of memories-images and words and-and it's just different, this time, with Eduardo. On his doorstep. Hotel-room threshold. Whatever.
"For fuck's sake, Mark, I know," Eduardo says, "If you came all the way here just to tell me what my lawyers have already-"
"I didn't," Mark interrupts. "Not just that. I needed something to say. Like, filler. Or something. I'm trying to think what else. I haven't had enough time to, you know, think it over."
Eduardo looks at him in disbelief. "You haven't had enough time to think it over."
"It's not like that. I didn't think before coming over because I was already preoccupied with-with thinking." He's aware it makes no sense. It doesn't really need to; he's not in a sense-making sort of way right now.
There's a moment of silence on both their ends; Eduardo stares at him oddly, so Mark swallows.
"Hey," he says. "Remember when we used to sleep on the couch together?"
Eduardo looks at him. Really looks at him.
"Yeah. Yeah, Mark, I do. Why?"
"I-" Mark licks his lips and shrugs a shoulder. "Never mind. Aren't you going to invite me in?"
"Seriously? You screwed me over."
"I know."
"I'm not inviting you in, Mark."
"I thought I'd ask anyway."
"You are the last person I'd say yes to."
And maybe if Mark could read people, he'd be able to tell Eduardo wasn't telling the whole truth there, but instead he counters with: "Even if I apologized?"
Eduardo pauses, frowning, maybe slightly a bit too hopeful-still angry. "You came here to apologize?"
No. But it's as good a reason as any. He needs to keep talking. "So you would."
"I would-" Wardo closes his eyes for a second. "No. No, because I know you're not sorry. That you wouldn't mean it even if you said it; you're not that kind of person. So no. I wouldn't let you in even if you apologized."
"Hm." Mark says. "Then what do I have to do?"
"To get in? To come in?"
"Yes."
"To my hotel room."
"Yes. And-yes."
And then Eduardo laughs, because Mark's showing his hand, and Mark knows he is; its all about final clubs and prestigious positions and Eduardo's the best of the best. The best friend, the best person Mark's even known. He wants to get in and the one doing the punching is Eduardo himself, the Eduardo Saverin Club, and Mark, the only member. The number one member. At his fucking hotel! Jesus Christ, Mark-
He closes the door in Mark's face. He doesn't answer even when Mark's knocked, pragmatically, for a minute. Mark knows he's being told to go away without being told, but he can't seem to make himself move his feet until five minutes have passed and nothing's happened and nothing will.
+
Eduardo chewed at Mark over his eggs and toast. The Crimson was on the table next to him, recently read, crumpled at the edges and corners and creased down the middle. Mark had wanted to bring his laptop down to Kirkland dining hall with with him, but it was Saturday and as much as he would have preferred scrolling through code or doing a problem set at eight in the morning, Eduardo's face was just as interesting. And the fact that simple math (or common sense, or whatever) will tell anyone with half a brain that bright lights are bad and wouldn't have done much to cure him of his lingering hangover. Anyway, the point was Eduardo, who was staring.
"What?" Mark asked.
"Nothing," Eduardo said, then added; "Just that last night was fun."
"I wouldn't say 'fun'.”
“You wouldn’t?”
Mark looked at him. “We didn't do much. You didn't do much, other than watch me intoxicate myself with shitty beer."
“Shitty college beer.” Eduardo said, and hid a smile. “We go to Harvard, you’d think we could afford the good stuff.”
“Exactly. The good stuff would be fun.”
“Maybe I found that-the bad stuff fun.”
“You find Econ fun,” Mark said.
“I find a lot of things fun,” Eduardo corrected. “I find fun things fun.”
“You find-” Mark stops. “Whatever. This is stupid. We’re saying ‘fun’ too much.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes more; Mark, with his fingertips pressed hard into his right temple, left hand nursing a glass of juice, and Eduardo, with his nose buried in the Crimson. The clacking of utensils and chatter filled up the almost-awkward silence and made it bearable; but there was also Eduardo's lidded eyes and long fingers holding up the paper, and watching him read made Mark's head throb a little less.
"So. What if I bought the good stuff?" Eduardo asked.
"Then you would be in possession of the good stuff," Mark said. "Which you bought.”
“Well. Yes. But I can’t actually buy the good stuff. I’d have to pay an older student.”
“Now you’re saying 'stuff' too much."
"I'd share it-the stuff-the beer."
"Lucky me."
Eduardo snorted, amused. “Lucky you.”
“Hey. You know you can stay over whenever,” Mark said abruptly.
Eduardo paused. "Uh. Yeah, man. I know. Look. Okay, by 'fun', I meant-it was nice. I liked it. I mean-" he laughed, didn't finish his sentence. He shook his head and picked the paper back up while Mark scratched his nose and added,
“Okay. You find weird things fun. We can do it again.”
Eduardo looked up. “Okay?”
“Tonight we can-I don’t know-watch a lame movie or something.”
“Yeah?” Eduardo was smiling now. “Yeah, okay. That’d be f-nice. That’d be nice. I'll bring the good stu-beer. The good beer.”
Mark nodded. The corner of his mouth twitched up. “Okay. Cool.”
+
So now it's raining.
(Do I have your full attention?)
It's poetic justice, or karmic payback, or whatever. Mark's not stupid, so he doesn't stay outside of Eduardo's hotel for longer than he has to, but it's an uncomfortable cab ride back to his place with squelchy shoes and a soaked-through dress shirt, which would have looked more at home on Eduardo's skinny back. Mark figures somewhere along the line that he should stop thinking about Wardo, but despite the fact he has an iron control over what he says, there's no similar deal with what he thinks.
Two minutes at the computer tells him Eduardo's flight plan, his airline and fellow first-class passengers. Mark doesn't need to be in the room when Eduardo signs the non-disclosure agreement, but he knows after the settlement's been paid and all the documents have been filed away in nice neat little folders that he's going to go board his plane and go on back to New York and try his hardest to forget about Mark-fucking-Zuckerberg and that will be that. It shouldn't bother Mark as much as it does-nothing should bother Mark as much as it does-but if he's a slave to anything, it's thinking too much.
Eduardo gives him a lot to think about. So he collapses into a rolling chair and distracts himself with Facebook and does some superficial coding and drinks two beers and one glass of orange juice and forgets to wash the rainwater out of his hair. He falls asleep smelling like missed opportunities and mistakes and disappointment, and won't that be funny in a few years' time, when he can look back on all of this and say, 'wow, Mark, look at what you did, weren't you one sorry bastard back then, ha ha.' Hilarious.
It's what he tells himself, anyway. He's not sorry about the dilution; he won't apologize for doing what was best for the company, and he'd like to think being right outweighs the loss of his only friend.
Some things are for the best. Then again, some things don't work out the way you want them to.