[fic] still your song, 2/2

[daisysusan]

 
(continued from here)

Mark emailed him a few days after they talked. It wasn’t a serious email, just a YouTube link prefaced with I thought you might enjoy this, all lumped today under the subject of hi.

But that was enough, a starting point or a new beginning or whatever they needed. The floodgates opened, so to speak. Back and forth and back and forth, they emailed links and stories, sometimes copying Chris or Dustin or both of him, but at the core it was him and Mark and far too many nights spent staring at his computer screen.

(He still has the first email saved, buried in a folder called “Expense Vouchers,” because he may be a sap but if Mark- or, god forbid, Dustin-found out he would never live it down.)

One night, out at a benefit dinner that was so boring he actually felt himself aging by the second, he typed out a message on his phone-oh my god I think I’m actually dying of boredom-and, before he could second-guess himself, texted it to Mark.

(Because they were friends again, he reminded himself as it sent. They were friends and friends did things like that.)

that sucks. try imagining everyone there in their underwear? came Mark’s quick reply.

There was only one appropriate response to that: THERE IS NOT ENOUGH ALCOHOL IN THE WORLD TO MAKE ME FORGET THAT MENTAL IMAGE.

All of it was such a very long time coming, he thinks. And, in hindsight, it’s fitting that things fell into place slowly, because tumbling headlong into everything hadn’t worked out for either of them. They’d ended up in too deep, tied into a convoluted mixture of friendship and business that pulled them both in too many directions.

(For all that they had dived into their college friendship together, it hadn’t been an equal one, and everyone had known it. Mark asked and he gave and to this day he doesn’t know if Mark would have reciprocated, because he never asked for anything. He was too insecure to ask, afraid that being less than perpetually helpful or actually requiring effort from his them might scare off the amazing, brilliant people who liked him enough to include him.

He didn’t start learning otherwise until after the dilution, when Chris-and then later Dustin-stuck by him despite all the trouble it caused them. In that tiny way, it wasn’t all bad. He lost his best friend, but he learned that other people cared enough to make an effort. He learned that not being perfect wasn’t a deal-breaker for most people, that it was just his father who constantly demanded flawlessness and accepted nothing less. Chris and Dustin just wanted their friend, they assured him time and again. After a while, it stuck.)

The step from their casual, uninvolved relationship to something truer, more heartfelt (more like they’d had in college) happened (and it’s so fitting now, when he thinks about it, it comes back like a motif Chris would find in the novels he read, looping through the story and reappearing at significant moments) on his birthday. Their first all-night video game session cum heart-to-heart (not that he would have called it that at the time) happened on his birthday, as did the first time he admitted to Mark (to anyone) that being around his father made him feel worthless. (And so many more things will happen on birthdays, before he gets this rehashing to the present day, but he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself.)

Early-but not too early-on the morning of his first birthday after they started speaking again, his phone rang, a number he didn’t recognize but that its screen announced was from Palo Alto.

“Hello?” he said.

“Happy birthday, Wardo,” he heard Mark reply.

Softly, he answered, “Thanks.”

“Hey, hey!” another voice said, “I want you to have a happy birthday too, Wardo!”

He laughed and so did Mark, the easy comfortable laughter they’d always shared at Dustin’s silliness (the silliness Dustin often used for the purpose of creating their laughter, he knows, to defuse a tense room or break a stony frown).

“Thanks, Dustin,” he replied, still grinning.

“Hold on just a sec,” Dustin said frantically. He heard the soft noise of phone buttons being pushed, and then silence.

Suddenly, Dustin’s voice cut back in, saying “On three, okay?” then, after some assents, “One, two, three … Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Wardo, happy birthday to you!”

Except it wasn’t just Dustin and Mark singing, there was another voice he recognized just as well.

“Chris?” he asked, stunned or amazed or maybe just touched.

A cacophony of voices came from his phone, Chris’s cheerful yeah, it’s me overlapping with Dustin’s exuberant my idea, Wardo, to get all of us on a conference call with Mark’s sincere I really do hope you have a good day.

In that moment, with the four of them talking over each other even though they were on opposite sides of the world, with Chris berating Dustin for inappropriate self-promotion (but still laughing) and Mark chiming in that it didn’t matter whose idea the conference call was because it was his idea to call at all, in that moment he realized just how much he missed this. Chris and Dustin and even Mark were his family, brutal and honest and sometimes disagreements made having everyone around a table awkward, but there was also acceptance and encouragement and unconditional love.

He felt his eyes water a little bit, then had a flash of happiness that no one had thought of doing a video chat. Finding the self-control to keep his voice from wavering, he said to them “Thank you so much. You guys are the best.”

(The next year, it was a video chat. Dustin made fun of him for crying.)

(The year after that, well, that’s the reason he’s sitting awake in the dark trying to make sense of the last few years of his life.)

Before his next birthday, though, the last of them (save Mark) left.

Dustin called him, after Chris and after he told Mark, but Dustin called him.

(For everything that had happened, he still knew how to read Mark, how Mark worked, maybe better than any of them.)

“Wardo,” Dustin said, soft and sincere, “I don’t want him to think I’m abandoning him because I’m not. I just really, really want to do my own thing.”

“Then don’t abandon him,” he answered. “You’ll still be in Palo Alto, right? So you guys can hang out or get dinner or whatever it is you do.”

“I’m just afraid that Mark will think me leaving means I don’t care about Facebook and that me not caring about Facebook means I don’t care about him.”

He nodded sighing once. “I think Mark has grown up, Dustin. He’s learned to tell the difference between caring about him and wanting to work at Facebook. Besides, you’ll still a shareholder, so it’s not like you’re going to want it to fail.”

“I wouldn’t want it to fail even if I weren’t a shareholder, Wardo!” Dustin rebutted, sounding offended.

“I know, I know,” he answered.

Mark didn’t call him when Dustin left, just sent a text message that said dustin’s leaving. He didn’t include anything as trite as a sad face, but then, he didn’t really need to. That he sent the text at all implied the sad face that someone else would have included (and it worried him at first, that he still knew Mark’s emotions so well, how he chose to express them through acknowledgement rather than through explicit description).

I know. I’m sorry, he sent back; then, after a moment’s consideration, he added at least he’s not going far.

Mark didn’t say anything else that night, but he didn’t worry. He worried at lot less about this grown-up Mark than he did about the Mark he knew in college. The Mark he got to know after their apologies could feed himself and swore he was doing his own laundry and remembered his friends’ birthdays.

He worries even less about he Mark he knows now, who smiles so much more easily and who texts him snide remarks from meetings instead of assuming that everything he thinks is worth saying.

Their first spat (because after the dilution and the depositions, they were hesitant to call anything a fight, not when it would be compared with something huge and sweeping that threatened to ruin them forever) was over a shareholder meeting. He didn’t go to them, even after they started actually speaking. It stressed him too much-the offices, the memory of storming across them and hurling Mark’s computer, Sean (Parker, not Eldridge, and he actually qualifies them in his mind because he barely tolerates the former but genuinely loves the latter for making Chris happy)-and he didn’t want to be reminded of that side of his relationship with Mark, not when they were just sorting things out.

But Mark wanted him to come, saying that he missed him and that the four of them could go out to dinner or something. He wasn’t ready (which he told Mark). Only Mark, for all his changes, is still Mark, selfish and a little controlling, and seeing the world from someone else’s shoes doesn’t come naturally to him. So he clung stubbornly to his resolution while Mark demanded that everything go his way, and they ended up yelling into their phones.

“God dammit, Wardo, am I not allowed to ask my friend to come visit? Jesus,” Mark asked, bitter and cutting.

“I told you already, I’m just not ready to go to the shareholder meeting!” And then he hung up, throwing his phone angrily into his sofa.

The next day, he texted Mark from a meeting, sorry. I shouldn’t have hung up on you. The reply was almost instantaneous (he still wonders if Mark had it saved, ready to send as soon as the lines of communication were open again). i’m sorry i pushed you. if you’re not ready to come to the meeting, i shouldn’t force it.

He goes to the meetings now, shows up early to visit Mark at his desk and leans over Dustin’s computer at the conference table with Chris (who comes despite his small share and calls it a founder’s privilege), giggling over whatever absurd video is making its rounds on the internet that week while Mark stares them down disdainfully. Sometimes he caves to the pressure and joins them, and they stand huddled together while the others enter, and it takes him back to Kirkland and FaceMash and how stupid they all were, but also to how they were young and bright-eyed and hopeful, dreaming of changing the world. It’s a memory no one else in the room is privy to, the very beginnings of Facebook and how its early days drew them so closely together, creating the type of bond that can withstand fights and share dilutions and lawsuits to end up back here again.

(After the meetings, they go out to lunch, just the four of them.)

He and Mark kept seeing each other at events, and sometimes he saw Chris or Dustin, but they never seemed to coordinate being in the same place at the same time, so it wasn’t until the first shareholder meeting he did agree to go to that they were all together again. They were draped messily over Dustin’s living room furniture (neutral ground or something) and not even buzzed because there was only a six-pack between them but maybe a little high on life.

The familiarity of it was nearly overwhelming, Dustin swearing and Chris gloating (but all the while sharing the next-to-last beer), and he wasn’t thinking about the last few years at all, not even a little bit. Instead, when Mark grabbed the last beer, took a swig, and then offered it to him, he accepted it without hesitation. It was imported, some fancy thing that Chris liked, not the cheap shit that was always in the mini-fridge at Kirkland (because, Christ, they were all loaded now).

He took another pull and handed the beer back to Mark, then stretched lengthwise on the couch and flung his legs over Mark’s lap.

Immediately, of course, he regretted it. Were they comfortable enough together for him to do that? What if Mark was still antsy around him? What if he didn’t want Mark to think everything was okay because it wasn’t quite, not yet? Mark had never really liked all the touchy-feely stuff anyway and this friendship was still so brittle, so breakable, so new.

But then Mark curled his hand around the skinny ankle in his lap and thumbed softly at its pointed bone, and well, that was really, really new.

He didn’t say anything (for several reasons: first, didn’t want to startle Mark into breaking this fragile new comfort between them; second, he was entirely too lazy to move his legs; and third, he had no fucking idea what to say anyway). It wasn’t until much later, when he was half-asleep to the soothing rhythm of Chris and Dustin’s laughter, that Mark gently pushed the legs off his lap with a last fond touch (fond? But there really wasn’t another word for a soft stroke of Mark’s palm across his skin). As he stood, he said quietly, “I need to head home. Apparently I have to be awake during the meeting tomorrow.”

(Dustin muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Screw that.”)

As for him, he gaped silently.

“If you fall asleep, Dustin,” Mark said flatly, “I’ll get Chris to hit you.”

“You didn’t tell Chris and Wardo to stay awake!” Dustin whined back.

Chris rolled his eyes. Mark just left.

It still baffles him sometimes, how much Mark grew up in the little ways. He still struggles with the broader aspects of taking care of himself from time to time-coding binges are not exactly uncommon-but on an average day, he remembers the important things, to eat and sleep at regular intervals and that he has meetings and responsibilities, all the stupid things that everyone else learns by the time they start middle school. He likes watching this new-and-improved Mark, all his genius and competence, but all that filtered through the vague understanding that just saying he deserves recognition isn’t enough, he has to earn it. (And Mark has earned it, demanded the respect of the real-world equivalents of the Ad Board.)

Somewhere between starting a world-changing company in his dorm room and becoming the world’s second-youngest billionaire, Mark learned a little bit about humility.

(It really, really suits him.)

Sometimes, he’s kind of amazed it didn’t happen at Harvard, when they were living out of each other’s pockets (and they were kind of ridiculously horny, like, constantly, because that’s pretty much a side-effect of being nineteen and male or maybe just nineteen because how would he know, he’s never been female) but mostly he’s glad it didn’t, because at nineteen he had no idea what he wanted and he’s pretty sure that all Mark wanted was Facebook. Maslow was kind of onto something with that self-actualization shit, because they’re so much more now than they were then. He can say no and stop and sometimes even I’m worth more than my father thinks I am, and Mark can say yes and that’s interesting, tell me more (about things that aren’t code) and sometimes I’m sorry and I care about you.

And if Mark can’t say those all the time, it’s okay, because he can’t say everything he needs to all the time, either.

He’s still rebelling, a little bit, because for all that he’s an investor-rich and successful and doing the job his father always wanted him to do-he’s investing in dot-com startups and websites and technology his father isn’t familiar with and distrusts, just a little bit. He loves it, though. The thrill of seeing a website go live, of knowing that he helped (in a small way) to make it happen. It’s not like Kirkland, not like seeing Facebook-thefacebook-go live, but it’s still a rush, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

(It was never about the money, not for Mark, not for him. Sometimes he thinks that they-and Chris and Dustin-are the only ones who really understand that.)

The day Dustin found out that Facebook had made him a billionaire, he sent the world’s most obnoxious email. WARDOOOOOOOOOO, it said, GUESS WHAT I AM AND MARK ISN’T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Signed, Dustin “D-MAN” Moskovitz, World’s Youngest Billionaire. He burst out laughing at his desk.

Five weeks later, when the four of them were pretending to be dignified enough to sit in Chris’s fancy Manhattan loft and Dustin was still bringing his new status up about once every thirty minutes, Mark finally turned toward him and said, “Jesus Christ, Dustin, if you don’t stop that, I’m going to dilute your shares until you’re not a billionaire anymore.”

At that, the whole room got tense, like the air was heavier. Mark turned toward him, eyes anxious and rubbing at his pants nervously.

“I’m so-” Mark started to say, but he cut him off with laughter, because seriously, it was funny and Dustin really needed to shut the fuck up about the whole thing.

“Can I have his extra shares?” he asked, throwing a pillow at Dustin’s head to forestall the impending whine.

“I was planning to give them to Chris,” Mark replied.

Chris, of course, nodded approvingly. “I think I’ve earned them more than anyone else, Mark. Do you know how much shit I cleaned up for you guys?”

They laughed, comfortable again, and the night carried on.

But Mark had turned to him, anxious and ready to apologize, an actual honest-to-god apology instead of just an acknowledgement that he said something cutting or cruel. And it was eye-opening all over again, that maybe Mark hadn’t stopped being harsh but now he noticed he was doing it and sometimes cared enough to fix it, admit his wrongness. Everything shifted just a little more that night, the lenses lined up a little more to show him new-and-improved Mark, with added emotional awareness.

He should have seen it earlier, he knows, because the day Dustin emailed him to gloat, Mark had called him, voice hesitant but with his pride seeping through.

“Hi, Eduardo,” Mark had said when he escaped a meeting to answer his buzzing phone. “Congratulations on officially being a billionaire!”

“Thanks, Mark,” he replied. “I actually got a call about it as soon as Facebook’s new evaluation came out. And an email from Dustin where he computer-yelled at me.”

“Just,” Mark said, ignoring his lightness entirely, “Just tell your father to stick that in his pipe and smoke it. Or whatever. You’ve done better than he could ever have imagined you would. You helped change the world. If he still won’t look at you you’re worth more than two billion dollars, you’ll never please him and you should stop trying.”

He hadn’t really had an answer for that, except an awkward “Thanks. Um, I think.”

But he should have seen it clearly then, how growing up and living outside of computer labs and claustrophobic dorm rooms made Mark open himself up a little, that beyond just learning civility, he’d learned about people and their feelings (or at least how to express himself, he’d kind of always understood people).

Sitting on Chris’s couch, though, he saw it, all the changes and emotional maturity and confidence that was less arrogant self-assuredness and more earned faith in himself. (He wonders, sometimes, if the changes are a side-effect of second-guessing himself, if Mark had the capacity to do that now, the way he had after he froze the account because it was petty and childish and he knew all that and he did it anyway, but maybe it doesn’t matter so much because, whatever the impetus, Mark has grown up.)

And it hit him, there on the couch, like a smack in the face and a thousand other clichés, that he wanted to kiss Mark, just a little bit. They weren’t even touching, just sitting at opposite ends of the sofa and listening to Chris and Dustin banter.

He swallowed the feeling (that time), pushed it away into the back of his mind where he didn’t have to think about it because it surprised him. Mark had never been someone he was attracted to, just his best friend that he kind of had to mother and then someone he avoided speaking to as much as possible. Never a potential romantic interest. Never someone he wanted to kiss. Besides, he remembers thinking wildly later that night as he was curled into the spare bedroom of Chris’s apartment, isn’t his late twenties too late to have a gay crisis?

(He supposes now, with the benefit of some perspective, that there’s no such thing as too old. And his turned out to not be much of a crisis anyway.)

At the time, of course, he talked to Chris, because Chris seemed to have this whole sexual orientation thing figured out better than-well, better than he did, anyway. The next day, he was sitting at the bar that separated the kitchen from the big living area while Chris made himself a cup of tea. (He’d called dibs on the guest bedroom on the grounds that Mark and Dustin had even more money; it seemed to have worked out for the best.)

“Can I talk to you about something?” he heard himself say.

“Sure,” Chris answered, turning to face him and resting his mug on the counter. “Anything, anytime. You know that.”

(He has to be reminded sometimes, and he loves Chris for knowing that, for always having known that.)

It turned out, though, that actually saying the words wasn’t quite as easy as he’d hoped.

“I,” he began, and then stumbled. “I think that I need to … No, um, I had this …” He trailed off, unable to articulate the peculiarity of his unexpected desire to kiss Mark. (Kiss Mark, kiss Mark, kiss Mark; no matter how many times he turned the words over in his head, they still felt they’d come from nowhere to drive him crazy with self-doubt.)

“Eduardo, I once helped Dustin through a crisis of sexual confidence. You cannot possibly say anything that will shock me.”

He spat it out, let the words out into the air before he could hesitate again. “Last night, I wanted to kiss Mark.”

After a pause, he added, “I still kind of want to.”

“Oh,” Chris answered, his face unreadable.

Silence lingered around them for a few minutes, until Chris continued. “So, just to be clear, is this a gay freak-out or an I-want-to-kiss-my-ex-best-friend-who-screwed-me-over-but-now-we’re-friends-again freak-out?”

“Kind of both, I guess?”

Chris laughed, but not meanly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He shrugged. “There’s not much to say. We were all sitting around last night, and then out of nowhere it hit me, like holy shit I want to kiss Mark. And, I mean, I’ve never wanted to kiss a guy before and I’ve definitely never wanted to kiss Mark before.”

“First off, it’s okay. You know that, right?”

He nodded once, waiting for Chris to continue.

“Mark is a pretty attractive guy-not my type or anything, but he’s smart, funny when he isn’t mean, and he’s working on not being a giant asshole all the time. And you two were always ridiculously close. At school, more people asked me if you two were dating than about me and Dustin, and you know all about Dustin and his public displays of platonic affection.”

“People at school thought,” he started to say, but then thought better of it. It shouldn’t surprise him, he realized. They had spent a lot of time together, and he had put a lot of effort into taking care of Mark (to him it has always seemed maternal but it could probably have looked domestic to someone else).

Chris smirked. “Did you finally put that one together? Took you long enough.”

“It wasn’t like that at all!” he protested.

“Well, I know that, just like I know that Dustin and I were never like that. It didn’t stop the rest of the school from speculating.” Then Chris grinned, in the mischievous and slightly shit-eating way he’d picked up from Dustin at some point, and said, “Though now it looks like they were just precognizant. What with you wanting to kiss Mark and all.”

“Shut up, I came to you in my time of vulnerability and you’re being no help at all.”

Chris turned away, pouring the boiling water from the teakettle into his mug. “Okay then. What do you want my help with?”

He dropped his head into his hands. “All of it. I don’t know what to do. At all.”

As usual, Chris proved to be disgustingly helpful. He passed over his tea, saying first “This’ll help you calm down a bit,” and then “So, was last night the first time you wanted to kiss him?”

He sipped the tea, trying to bury his face in the mug, and nodded. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Chris smiled kindly. “Wanting to kiss boys-or a boy, rather-is nothing to be ashamed of. And I’ll sic Sean on you if you keep that up.”

“I’m not ashamed!” he insisted. “Okay, I’m a little ashamed, but that’s because I wanted to kiss Mark. I’ve seen him after coding binges in college when he didn’t do laundry or shower, so it’s a little baffling to me that I can still be attracted to him. And I’m a little confused about being attracted to him period because I didn’t think I was into guys. So …”

(Mark does his own laundry now, albeit reluctantly. When he expressed skepticism about that, Mark dragged him to the laundry room, motioning to the pile of unfolded clean clothes sitting on the dryer.)

Chris nodded understandingly. “Well, why don’t you give it a little time? See Mark again and figure out whether it was a one-time deal or if you want to kiss him all the time.”

Unfortunately, he didn’t see Mark again for a good while, not until the next Facebook shareholder meeting. In the meantime, of course, they emailed and texted and called. Sometimes, when the time zones and everyone’s schedules worked out, they would have four-way Skype chats (that were sometimes three-way Skype chats when Dustin was sprawled across the floor of Mark’s living room). Mostly, he just thought of Mark as a friend, someone he called when he had good news (and sometimes even when he had bad news), someone who emailed him funny links or texted him during boring meetings with the legal department (that were probably about the privacy issues which meant Mark really ought to be listening but oh well, he can’t ask for everything).

But then sometimes they would talk on Skype, just the two of them, or a picture would show up online, and it would hit him all over again (like one of those waves that comes up behind you at the beach and crashes on your head, he thinks, or maybe a gust of wind that catches you at a strange angle and throws you off balance), how he wanted to kiss Mark.

So it wasn’t something he thought about constantly (or even regularly) during those months. But it was something he thought about.

He texted Chris, after the fourth time he found himself thinking god I really just want to kiss you until you don’t remember your name while Mark regaled him with tales of absurd programmers.

Chris, the text said, I’m pretty sure wanting to kiss Mark wasn’t a one-time thing.

The reply somehow managed to be both cryptic and helpful; well then you need to figure out what you want to do about it, it said.

Of course, he is, and always has been, a giant chicken. (Which is probably the worst description ever, given the chicken and the absolutely absurdity of that whole mess.) But regardless of his chicken-torturing habits, he was a wimp who didn’t want Mark to find out about his feelings. In hindsight, it’s entirely possible he was just a 14-year-old girl. (At least he never passed an anonymous note to him saying do you like me yes/no pick one.) The point is that he didn’t say anything, he in no way indicated to Mark his desire to engage in a little kissing between bros or whatever.

(It’s getting really late, and the weight of another person asleep half on top of him is distractingly warm and comfortable, like a blanket but with more nuzzling and soft exhales into his neck.)

He suspected, when he was first notified about the specific shareholder meeting he’s remembering, that Mark had scheduled it for that date on purpose. It was just after his birthday (and by extension, just before Dustin’s). There was clearly some sort of deeper meaning behind the choice of meeting days-but it was just so unlike Mark, to try and get what he wanted in a subtle, roundabout way.

At first he thought he was just reading too much into it (the company was due for a meeting anyway, it was Mark so he’d probably just forgotten about the birthdays altogether, maybe someone else scheduled the meeting and just got Mark to sign off on it), but when Dustin met him at the airport, he was grumbling something into his cell phone about “won’t even ask for what he wants, Chris, it’s the most annoying thing ever. I never thought I’d miss him being totally straightforward about everything, but I swear to god I do-Oh, gotta go, Wardo’s here. See you tonight?”

Mark’s new shyness probably should have annoyed him as much as it frustrated Dustin, but it didn’t. He found it kind of … endearing.

He stayed for the whole slew of festivities, Mark’s big-deal work party (because being the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation meant that everyone wanted to celebrate his birthday), Dustin’s much smaller work party, and the surprisingly calm gathering at Dustin’s house exactly in the middle, with their actual friends and presents that were less garish flaunting of wealth and more heartfelt consideration (except for the diamond-studded fencing foil Dustin gave Mark, but that was at least two-thirds a joke).

On the bottom of Mark’s card, he scribbled next time, just invite me. I’ll come, and when Mark read the card he smiled huge and true and brilliant.

He had no choice but to smile back. (No one had a choice, not when Mark smiled like that.)

He’s smiling a little, just thinking about it. To his credit, he’s never denied being disgustingly smitten and it’s just-Mark doesn’t smile that much, but when he does his face loses its sharpness (without losing its intelligence) and he looks so innocently happy.

The voice in the back of his mind mocking him for being a giant sap sounds disturbingly like Dustin.

(It’s a little weird to have known someone so long and so well that they don’t actually need to be around for him to hear their sarcastic commentary, but it’s also kind of nice.)

He found out about the next shareholder meeting not from a rote notification in his inbox but from Mark himself, via a hesitant phone call.

“It’s, um, right before your birthday. I know you said I could just invite you but I thought it would save you the trouble of flying out twice, and this way Chris’ll be here too so we can all go out. Or we can stay in, cause you used to like that better. Whatever you want; it’s your birthday.”

“Thanks, Mark,” he said, smiling so hard his face hurt, “That’s really sweet of you. I’m looking forward to it.”

The time until the meeting was uneventful, filled as usual with work and family and friends. His stay in California was less so.

For his birthday, they did stay in. (Mark was right; he always had liked low-key nights of friendly company better than elaborate outings or wild parties. He thinks, when he actually bothers to think about it, that he probably wouldn’t have made an effort with the Phoenix if it hadn’t been for his father.)

(Mark would tell him not to underestimate his own ambition.)

They were at Mark's house, talking through the night like back at Harvard. Chris and Dustin had left some time earlier, but he and Mark were too enraptured by their ideas (by each other) to call it a night. And really, it was almost exactly like being back at school, except Mark's hand was curled around his ankle (again), warm and comforting, rubbing small circles with his thumb.

It was a lot like the last time Mark had done that, but this time Chris and Dustin weren't there as buffers, and he had the memory, fresh and sharp, of the first time he wanted to kiss Mark.

Sitting in the dark, Mark's fingers warm on his skin, the idea rose into his mind yet again. Kissing Mark.

It was still a new thought, sort of. Nothing he'd ever considered at Harvard or after, when everything was going so horribly sideways, and so much newer than all the hurt and anger and bitterness of the lawsuit. But in the calm darkness, with Mark’s hand wrapped warmly around his ankle, it lingered temptingly in the back of his mind, occasionally sending forward interesting tidbits such as look, he just licked his lips or I wonder what the skin on his neck tastes like.

And Mark didn't look like he would be opposed to it as such. He could feel Mark's eyes tracing his face, shrouded in the darkness of the room, and the hand on his ankle tightened slightly.

He was feeling courageous, that night. In the half-light of the room, with the excitement of video game tournaments and too much cake and an evening spent in the company of friends lingering in his veins, it was easy to pull his legs gently off Mark’s lap and lean forward, brushing his fingers across Mark’s empty palm.

Mark-and at the time he wished desperately there was another word for it-Mark shuddered. His eyes closed briefly and he swallowed softly.

For someone still getting used to the idea of wanting to kiss his rapidly-becoming-best-again friend, that was a lot to handle.

(It was probably a good thing that Mark’s eyes were closed. Because he knows, now, what they look like when they’re blown wide and dark with desire and if he’d seen that, well, he’s not entirely sure what he would have done. But there’s a distinct possibility it would have involved pinning Mark to the couch and tearing all his clothes off.)

(There’s a possibility that’s what happened when he did see that expression.)

Pulling his fingers off Mark’s wrist, he rested his hand softly on Mark’s shoulder, and then Mark leaned into the touch, and he was really definitely not projecting when he thought that he might not be the only one with romantic feelings in the room, because Mark turned his head to touch a cheek to the back of his hand and then turned it a bit father to press a kiss to it.

What happened next was easy, moving his hand to the back of Mark’s neck, leaning forward, and kissing him; he blames the delicate intimacy of the hand-kissing and also Mark’s face for existing (all sharp angles and intelligent eyes and dimples).

Besides, Mark leaned into the kiss immediately, reaching around to the back of his neck and pulling him closer. He bit Mark’s lower lip, following his teeth with his tongue, and Mark hummed into his mouth.

And then Mark was pushing him into the back of the sofa, straddling his thighs and kissing him in a way that could best be described as licking into his mouth (only with a bit more teeth in the most wonderful way possible).

He rested his hand on Mark’s cheek, running a thumb along his cheekbone. Mark sighed, pressing another kiss to his hand, and then whispered, “Happy birthday, Wardo,” into his ear before climbing off his lap. He ran a hand across his face, and then added, “I’m going to bed now. Is that okay?”

He nodded dumbly.

A couple minutes later, as he was attempting to gather the energy to pry himself off the sofa and head to the guest bedroom he was occupying, he heard footsteps coming back down the stairs.

“Wardo,” Mark said, “I, um, I think that wasn’t the right place to leave things.”

He stared.

Mark continued speaking, hesitantly, from the foot of the stairs. “I’m still kind of shit at this people thing, but I’m really trying and, uh, I don’t want you to think that I only kissed you because it’s your birthday.”

“Oh,” he said, unable to form other words.

For a long moment, Mark looked at him, his eyes calculating and sharp. Then he squared his shoulders, said “Oh, fuck it,” and walked away from the stairs.

Before he had completely processed the information that Mark might want to kiss him possibly all the time, well, Mark was leaning down and kissing him again.

It was softer than before, just the press of Mark’s lips against his and Mark’s hand curling around his neck. He tugged against the front of Mark’s hoodie until he was being straddled again, the weight in his lap comfortable, his hands running up Mark’s back.

Falling into the kiss was even easier than he’d thought it would be, Mark’s body warm against his and Mark’s hands tangling in his hair. He thought, absently, about all the time he’d wanted to kiss him recently, about everything they already knew about each other and how well they had always fit together. The hardest thing about it, he knows, is going to be keeping his head above the water, not letting his old and overwhelming affection for Mark overtake him.

When Mark pulled back to breathe, he heard himself whisper “hi” and ran a hand over the soft hair at the back of Mark’s neck.

“I kind of want to do that all the time,” Mark said, then blushed and leaned forward, burying his face against the back of the sofa.

Mark was a little tipsy, not really drunk, just buzzed enough to be open and slightly gigglier than he would ever be sober. And he still hadn’t moved, was settled comfortably in the lap beneath him.

Grabbing Mark’s shoulders to pull his face out of the cushions, all he said was “Me too.”

“Oh,” Mark said, and kissed him again.

Things sort of … progressed from there. And quickly, too. There was a lot more kissing, like, a lot more kissing. And then he did get to see Mark’s eyes wide dark with desire and he did push Mark down into the sofa, tugging a little frantically at the button of his jeans, but Mark pushed him off, muttering “bed” tersely.

(He wonders whether it was smart, going this quickly, whether he should have held off and taken things more slowly.)

Everything’s kind of a blur after that, a smudged recollection of stumbling up the stairs while running his hands over every part of Mark that he could reach and stopping to press Mark into (or have Mark press him into) the wall for a thorough kiss. He knows they eventually fell into Mark’s bed, half-clothed and kissing and just this side of desperate.

The rest doesn’t really matter, because Mark is curled next to him, legs tangled with his and smiling even in sleep.

And he’s happy, stupidly happy in a way he doesn’t think he’s ever been before (not at Harvard or before or after). Yeah.

He nods to himself. The rest doesn’t matter.

Mark nuzzles against his shoulder, pushes against his torso. “Wardo,” he says, words hazy with sleep, “Go to sleep.”

And then, because Mark really is quite good at getting what he wants, he adds “I want you alert for my exciting morning plans tomorrow.”

He doesn’t really have it in him to resent that particular form of manipulation. Sliding deeper into the bed, he rests his head against Mark’s and goes to sleep.

(Okay, he kisses Mark’s forehead first. But that’s between him and Mark’s forehead; no one else needs know.)