(Untitled)

[floozyfacade]

After the Compound, Olive makes her way down to the beach, where she sits for a while with a book. This is the way most of her days work, though she does something different on most of them - she wanders around, she finds her way to the main building, she talks to friends, she reads. It winds up being pretty interesting most of the time, actually,

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[pointzerothree]

It isn't a mental image that Eduardo ever wanted to have to cope with, Olive standing at Mark Zuckerberg's side. Naturally, as soon as he sees it - as soon as he walks away, that is, because it isn't something he can stand there and look at, despite the lingering sense of something being off - he knows full well that he won't fault either of them, though that doesn't make him any more comfortable with the situation. It's confusing at best, sickening at worst, with too much that he can't make sense of. (Don't jump to conclusions, he tells himself, but it's far too late for that by the time he does. There are any number of possible explanations, but there's only one that clicks, instinct driving. As much as he's often made a point of being logical, rational, a sight like that and it only goes so far.)

The walk he takes to clear his head, catch his breath, doesn't do shit, and he's planning on holing up in his hut for a while, picking some dense book with tiny print to get lost in. That plan, of course, of course, is put to rest by the sight of Olive waving. He can't just ignore her, doesn't have it in him, despite the sinking feeling in his stomach; he returns the gesture, though the accompanying smile isn't quite convincing. He has to wonder if she knows what she's doing, but it's too easy to assume she doesn't, to expect the best yet again. "Uh, hey."

[floozyfacade]

Olive would like to think that, even after what's really only a matter of weeks, she's learned to read Eduardo. Then again, it doesn't hurt he's easily read, most of what he feels worn right on his sleeve. Her own mood may not be anything special, but it's decent, a smile on her lips as it always is when she sees him, but it fades a little as she tips her head to the side. "Long day?" she says lightly. They never seem very long here, even when they drag on. She doesn't want just to make unfounded assumptions, though, and she knows he'll talk to her if he wants to. She just wants to remind him he can.

[pointzerothree]

"Sort of," Eduardo answers, brows furrowing as he fumbles, for a moment, to find the right words. She seems so natural, and not only is that entirely at odds with the situation as he perceives it (another sign that something is off), but in stark contrast to the tension that's felt like it has been building under his skin ever since the glimpse he caught of them in the Compound. The light tone of hers makes it all the more difficult for him to know how he's supposed to deal with this, but it is, he decides, best to come right out with it. Either he's grossly misjudged her - it wouldn't be the first time he did so of a best friend - or there's some far simpler explanation to be given, and he's inclined, as always, to give the benefit of the doubt. Swallowing, he takes a deep breath, far more serious when he speaks again, though he manages to keep any accusation out of his voice. "I saw you earlier. The two of you."

[floozyfacade]

Even as Olive furrows her brow in confusion, she almost laughs. It isn't funny, if only because she doesn't know what he means and that's worrying, but it's just so dramatic, like he's saying he's caught her cheating. There doesn't seem to be any judgment in his tone, but she still gets the impression she's done something she shouldn't have - that, at least, he thinks she has. Glancing up to the side, she thinks back through the people she's spoken to today, the things she's done, and she still can't fathom what he means. "Okay," she says, drawing the word out to leave no doubt of her uncertainty. "Should I know what that means? 'cause, I've gotta say, Eduardo, I don't. The two of us who?"

[pointzerothree]

"You," Eduardo starts, but he can't quite say it, his throat seeming to close around the words. This is wrong, this is so fucking wrong, and already he has the sense that she'll probably take this the wrong way and it will somehow be on him, but it's more than he can just disregard. She seems so earnestly puzzled that, for all he knows, names weren't even exchanged; if that's the case, then maybe this is a good thing, a chance to protect her from the best friend he'd still defend if he could. "You and - that was Mark, Olive. The guy. Up at the Compound."

[floozyfacade]

"What? No," Olive says, shaking her head. She's had several conversations today, more than one at the Compound, but she hasn't met anyone new (a reminder, unwanted, of how long she's already been here. The weeks fly by and she learns names and faces too fast. At first she met someone new every single day). There's a moment in which she's more affronted than confused, and then worry sets in. He has to have a reason for saying this. She trusts him too much to think otherwise, so either something is wrong or he's been imagining things, and she doesn't like either option. "Eduardo, what guy? I didn't - I didn't talk to Mark, I - when did he get here? I had no idea..."

That stings, actually, and she huffs out a breath, a little stunned. She'd thought if something like that ever happened, he would come to her with it, at least tell her later, but for Mark to turn up and Eduardo not to say a word - she doesn't know what to make of that, but it's nothing good.

[pointzerothree]

"Neither did I," Eduardo replies, immediate this time, though saying it only makes him look more dazed. It's reasonable enough, of course, that Mark wouldn't have known to look for him if he wasn't aware of his presence (and stupid for Eduardo to even expect as much, or be hurt by his not having done so), but it still just presents more questions. Mark could have been here for weeks with him having no knowledge of it, a thought that's quick to put him on the defensive. This is his place, his friends, and yet he'd never be able to do anything but yield all of it to Mark if it came to that. It's not fair. To think so is childish, surely, but still true. Maybe he hasn't liked it much here, but even in having missed his onetime best friend, it's still been something he can appreciate, a world away from Facebook and all of that. Now, apparently, that's ended, and it's a weight on his shoulders all over again.

As for Olive, he believes her (wants to believe her, needs to believe her), but that only makes him more confused. He knows what he saw, would have recognized that face anywhere, and there's no way she could be lying, not about this, not to him. Running a hand through his hair, he lets out a breath. "I only just saw him. Today, a little while ago, I haven't - I haven't spoken to him, I don't even think he noticed me. He was just in the kitchen, with you."

[floozyfacade]

"No," Olive says, firm, "he wasn't." It's a stupid answer - for all she knows, he was and she spoke to him only in passing as she shuffled around, chatting with Columbus and making tea. People are always in there, moving around, getting in each other's way. She certainly, though, wasn't having a conversation with anyone else, not in the kitchen in the last few hours, and as much as she wants to reassure Eduardo, tell him he's just being paranoid and it's okay, that nothing is wrong, she's starting to get a little irritated. She knows who she was talking to and she's not just going to let him tell her she's wrong like she's done something. "If I talked to Mark, I wouldn't be denying it, Eduardo, I would have come looking for you. The only person I talked to in the kitchen was my friend Columbus and I've known that guy almost as long as I've known you." She just barely bites her tongue before she can add Not that it's any of your business.

[pointzerothree]

"Columbus," Eduardo echoes, eyes wide, face blank. It's three short syllables, a city from Ohio, for Christ's sake, and yet the name serves as a relief and a disappointment and to make him feel like a fucking idiot all at once. He has, since his brief meeting with Mark's doppelganger, done his best to ignore - even forget about - Columbus' existence, the feelings it brings to the surface innumerable and too complicated for him to want to deal with. (He hates Mark, he loves Mark, he misses Mark like crazy and couldn't be more grateful to be away from that lying douchebag.) Now, it seems that putting Columbus as far from his mind as possible was a mistake. The first thing he wants to do is lean against something, made inexplicably unsteady by the course of events, the leftover surge of emotions caused by the mere idea of Mark's being on the island. The second thing he wants to do is apologize fucking profusely, because she shouldn't have to deal with his problems, of which this is undoubtedly one. He swallows heavily, his mouth feeling like it's gone dry. "That was Columbus. You're friends with Columbus... who looks exactly like the guy who used to be my best friend."

[floozyfacade]

Olive shakes her head, hands raised in protest. No, if Columbus looked like Mark - of course she wouldn't know, she has no way of knowing that, but it feels like something she should know by instinct alone somehow, like she should have been prepared for this possibility, which is so ludicrous that, if she weren't in the middle of it, she'd find hysterically funny. Maybe because it isn't at all. She looks like Wichita, he looks like Mark, and for one wild moment, she wonders who that makes them, who they are, and if Wichita would like Mark the way she liked Columbus, the way Olive thinks she'd like Columbus if it weren't for Wichita (and maybe she does anyway, she's never sure where and how this other girl comes into play and it's another layer of confusion she just doesn't need these days, but here's Eduardo with yet another, like he doesn't already bewilder her enough). It doesn't even make sense. Columbus is one of the sweetest guys she knows. Somehow it doesn't feel right he should share a face with that asshole.

It doesn't feel right that this is an accepted possibility either, but that's life on the island.

"You're sure we're talking about the same guy?"

[pointzerothree]

"Comes from the supposed end of the world Columbus? Curly hair, about this tall?" Eduardo doesn't even know why he bothers checking, except maybe that he feels he owes it to her for what he perceived the situation to be, even if there was no blame in it. It's hardly as if Columbus is a common name, not any more so than his face; having a guy named Columbus who looks like Mark is one thing, but two would just be ridiculous. Sighing, he nods, hand settling at the back of his neck, which has grown hot. "Yeah, it'd be the same guy. I met him, once, I just don't - I don't spend a lot of time thinking about him, which probably sounds awful, but, I mean, lookalike of your best friend who screwed you over, it's, it's weird. I can't see his face and automatically think of someone else."

[floozyfacade]

"Wow, well, you should try," Olive says, cooler than she means to be, "he's a great guy." She should be nicer, she knows she should (she's practically yelling at herself to pull it back, to stop, because the last person she wants to hurt is Eduardo and his explanation is a perfectly reasonable one). Instead she shakes her head and shrugs. "Really sweet, actually. He was just telling me about the girl he liked back home, Wichita. Looks a lot like me, actually, that's how we met - I remind him of her. Because that's how it works here, people look alike." She has a point in there about how he'll see them together more than once, how he has to get used to it, but it gets lost amid the other pointed remarks. Why she's bothering, she doesn't know. She can't take things out on him he doesn't understand, but she can't seem to stop herself trying.

[pointzerothree]

It always comes down to this. Eduardo expects too much - from everyone, really, but especially from the people he cares about, Olive being foremost among them - and as such, guilty as he feels, he can't help being utterly fucking stunned at her response. He might've screwed up, sure, but at least it wasn't anything massive. With as much as she knows about what Mark did to him, he'd have thought she might at least try to see where he's been coming from. "I know it's how things work here," he says stiltedly, remarkably still, in a way that isn't customary for him in the slightest, comes only with feeling like he's just taken a punch to the stomach. She can't mean anything by it, but it hurts all the same, leaving him dazed. (Were he the type to immediately retaliate, he'd ask if she could stand being around someone who looked like the guy who left her in tears the night she showed up here, but he isn't that cold and it isn't the same thing.) "And he seemed like a very nice guy, but - Jesus, Olive, he looks like Mark, not just some other -" Lips pressing into a thin line, he shakes his head. There's no sense in letting this escalate, or naïvely hoping she'll understand. "Forget it. I'm sure you're right. I should definitely give it a try."

[floozyfacade]

Olive freezes, head slightly raised as if in a nod she won't completely, her heart beating hard against her ribs like it's begging to get out (fix it, fix it, be nice). It steals her breath - he's not supposed to be like this with her. She's not supposed to be like this with him either, and if there's one thing that can change how she feels about Columbus, it will be Eduardo, and that isn't fair, that everything comes down to this, to him, the way he pulls at her without ever intending it. She doesn't want to look at Columbus and remember this, though, this guilt that has nothing to do with him. "No," she says, the word tumbling out of her before she knows what she means by it. "I just - you know, I -" Fix it. "He's my friend. Okay? Eduardo, he - I'm not, I'm, I'm - I can't not spend time around him just because - I know you aren't asking me to, but it's a small island, you're gonna see me around him, I... I just... don't want to fight with you every time you catch me having a talk with my friend. I get that it's - I know, it's Mark, in your head he's - he, he isn't Mark to me, I, I don't... know what to do."

[pointzerothree]

"I never -" Eduardo protests, though it's mostly just to get a word in at all. He doesn't know what to say, suddenly at a loss for how to make his case, even if he's pretty sure he actually does have a leg to stand on here. It only makes sense that the sight of Columbus should throw him for a loop; maybe he could try more, try harder, but there'd be so little to gain and it would be at his own expense. He would do it, but it's the fact that she seems - or seemed, he doesn't know, now - to want him to that's unsettling. Drawing in a deep breath takes more effort than he'd care to admit to, but he does, ducking his head so he can meet her gaze steadily. "I wouldn't ask you to stop spending time with him," he says, slow, careful, though the difficulty it takes to hold himself together is evident in his voice. She's already told him that she knows he hasn't, but it seems an important thing to say anyway. "And I wouldn't fight with you for it, either. I just, I can't help that the first thing I think when I see it is -" Mark has taken everything else, so it only makes sense that he would take Olive, too. Hell, even just by nature of his face belonging to someone else, now, and causing this in the process, he's effectively done as much. (Only Mark could have such an impact from a universe away.) He wouldn't ask her not to see Columbus, but he can't deny that he'd prefer it if she did, Columbus posing a threat now he'd never known existed before. "I thought it was him. I didn't know that you were friends with Columbus, and now I do."

[floozyfacade]

"Now you do," Olive agrees, shaking her head, huffing out a sigh. Torn between feeling sorry, even guilty, for this and wanting just to throw her book at him, she doesn't know if she's right about this or irrational. It just doesn't feel fair either way. As much right as he has to be upset over people who look like Mark, it's frustrating to feel this one thing that had nothing to do with him ebbing away from her now. On the whole island, there was one guy she thought might be even the slightest bit interested in her, and whether he meant to or not, he had to take that way from her when he can't give her anything in return. Maybe that isn't his fault, but right now it feels like it. Besides, she hasn't done anything to be sorry about, except get short with him when she shouldn't have. "I didn't know he looked like Mark, so... now I do. You know, you never told me... Is this going to be a problem?"