[oneshot] be more like the man you were made to be
Title: be more like the man you were made to be
Pairing: mark zuckerberg/eduardo saverin
Rating: pg13 for language
Genre: au, angst, romance
Warnings: swearing, possible suicide triggers
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: for an anon at tsn_kinkmeme who wanted groundhog day au! in which the depositions took place in new york and there's a lot of dustin. 7,100 words.
love, it will not betray you
dismay or enslave you
it will set you free.
( sigh no more, mumford & sons )
"Rise and shine, darling!"
The planes and edges of his phone are freezing against his cheek and he grimaces against his pillow, burrows further into the covers. "Never say that again, Dustin."
"Woke you up, though, didn't it?" Mark groans into the receiver in response. "Look-today's the last day, isn't it? After this, you can walk away and come back to work on your baby. You won't have to think about any of them anymore."
He bites his lip and rolls out of bed, hits speakerphone on his way to the bathroom. "I guess it'll be nice to be back in Palo Alto."
"That's the spirit." A pause. "You should at least make an effort to try and pay attention instead of bothering me with random texts about the Winklevosses' ties and shit. Some of us are trying to work."
"I won't be seeing them today, that lawsuit's over-and you know you're preaching at the choir."
"More like preaching at the devil."
Mark throws a sweater on over his dress shirt and tucks the phone underneath his chin to shimmy into a pair of slacks. "Whatever, man. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, yeah. Take care."
Six AM on Friday morning and only the maids are out and about to watch Mark shuffle down the hallway. One of them sweeps miserably at the floor as he gets into the elevator, doleful eyes peering at him when the double doors slide closed. He tugs uncomfortably at his starched-stiff collar and picks at a lukewarm continental breakfast in the hotel's restaurant for about five minutes before giving up and nearly getting run over by a crazy moped going in the wrong direction whilst hailing a cab. Mark's paying the firm too well for them to care that he's over an hour early to the meeting-and he's itching to do something, even if something just means sitting in the lobby of the building and using their superior wi-fi to check in on how it's going in Tokyo or Moscow.
The shadows under Eduardo's eyes are incredibly pronounced today-they're like fucking black holes trying to suck at his soul, but Mark's so numbed by everything that's happened in the past week that he can barely bring himself to care anymore. At least that's what he tells himself after if you were the inventors of Facebook-you'd have invented Facebook and did I adequately answer your condescending question and he was my best friend.
It's not that Mark can't follow the lines of questioning; what Gage and Gretchen are trying to do is clear enough that he can call them out on it whenever he feels the inclination. He's always been good at seeing straight through bullshit, aside from the Sean anomaly-but he doesn't want to think about that. It's just that-well, he's been focused on Facebook and being a smooth, polished CEO for so long after Eduardo left and Sean crashed out of the company that he hasn't had time to think about friendship and feelings; he's pushed it all into the back of his head because none of that matters anymore. Or it hadn't, not until the first stirrings of the lawsuits started to rumble behind his meteoric success, because before that point everything had been about the company. Facebook had been, for all intents and purposes, everything he lived and breathed.
And he still doesn't want to care-he wants to get out of this place and get Eduardo out of his general vicinity because the things that come out of his mouth this last day (you had one friend and my father won't even look at me and point zero three percent) threaten to dredge up every single suppressed emotion he'd much rather keep buried underneath thick layers of insulation and compartmentalization in his head.
You're going to have to settle, Marilyn tells him, and it's not until she actually says it that several things dawn on him at once-that he's lost the suit, yes, but also that he's done nothing (and probably will do nothing in the near future) to mend his relationship with Eduardo. Because sure, there's always the option of adding him as a friend on Facebook like he's trying to with Erica and seeing him in passing at shitty charity galas-but nothing is ever going to bring back lazy Sunday afternoons coding at Kirkland with Eduardo puttering around in the background with his econ books, or clinking beers with him and Dustin at the Thirsty Scholar's. Nothing's ever going to bring back undergrad and hitting on girls and camping out at Widener during the reading period.
After everything that's happened, Mark's not even sure he wants to go back-and that's the worst of it, isn't it? For the first time in his life, he has no idea what he wants.
Dustin calls about some issue in Bosnia when he gets back to the hotel. "How do you feel?" he asks, tentative, after they've discussed everything three times and Mark's head is pounding a slow rat-a-tat-tat at the base of his skull.
"Like shit," he says shortly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. After Dustin hangs up, he falls into prompt, uneasy sleep.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
Pale morning light hits the curtains and bounces straight into the crack between his eyelids as he blinks. "I didn't ask you to call me the morning of my flight, Dustin, though the sentiment is appreciated."
"What are you talking about?" A swift pattering of keystrokes can be heard over the phone, and then-"Today's the last day of the depositions. You know-where your lawyers try to haggle for a lower price over what you're going to have to pay Eduardo and the Winklevosses?"
"Is this some sort of joke?" He pulls his laptop onto the bed and gradually flips it open, stares at the blinking Friday, November 4th, 2005 at the corner of his screen. "What the fuck is going on?"
"What, you want the lawsuit to drag on for longer? I'm sure that can be arranged."
Mark rubs at his face and slams the lid closed, stares at his unpacked suitcase on the floor. There's a sick feeling in the back of his throat, like his stomach wants to slowly climb out of his mouth through it. "Jesus Christ."
"Look, I don't know about you, but I've got deadlines to meet-the ones that you set. So I'll be going. Ta!"
"No, wait-don't hang up on me-"
Dustin laughs, and then: click. The shrill pitch of the dial tone seems to match the faint ringing in his ears.
The only thing worse than going through a lawsuit that essentially closes all avenues of future reconciliation with your former best friend is waking up the next morning and having to do it all over again. Mark is too shell-shocked by his situation to do much else than go through the motions again, robotically answering Gretchen's pointed questions and trying to avoid Eduardo's stupid hurt gaze all day. This time, he leaves before Marilyn can catch him, stomps up ten flights of stairs to get to his hotel room and collapses bonelessly into an armchair. The call from Dustin comes half an hour later.
"Mark! We need to talk about Bosnia."
"Dustin," Mark interjects before he can say anything else, "Dustin, I think I'm going crazy."
He laughs and Mark frowns. "You mean like even more so than you usually are?"
"No, listen to me. This has all happened before. You called me about Bosnia, and-"
"It's probably just déjà vu-"
"Listen. You called about Bosnia and-you want to talk about picture-sharing privacy, don't you?"
"Well, yes," Dustin says with the air of someone talking to a very small child, "but we've been trying to figure out a way to code it for the past month. Why are you surprised?"
He massages his temple and sighs into the receiver. "You know what-nevermind."
"You're probably just exhausted from the depositions. Get some sleep, yeah? How do you feel?"
"Like shit," he answers automatically, then claps a hand over his mouth and flips his phone shut before Dustin can reply.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
Mark just grunts.
"Are you awake?" He grunts again and rolls over to glare balefully at crumpled clothes hanging over the armrest of his chair. "I'm going to hang up if you are."
Mark's about to hang up on his own when it occurs to him that Dustin might be able to help. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
"Since when did you ever request permission for anything?"
Mark coughs. "Right."
"Well? Make it quick."
"What would you do if, hypothetically speaking, you had a day to do whatever you wanted without any consequences the next morning?"
"Do you even have to ask?"
"What do you mean?"
Dustin's snort is so loud that Mark has to move his phone away from his ear for a second before gingerly bringing it back. "The possibilities would be endless, wouldn't they? You could get as drunk as you want without the hangover, or get thrown in jail and the next morning-voila! Slate wiped clean."
Mark sighs. "Of course that's what you'd do."
"Don't hate," he says, laughing.
After two more days of monotonous repetition, he decides to take Dustin's advice. Mark has never been one for sitting around and twiddling his thumbs, and there are better things to be doing than listening to Eduardo recount Mark's alleged betrayal over and over and over again, even if he has his suspicions that the root of this glitch in the space-time continuum has something to do with Eduardo. He'll take working on the website over yawning for the hundredth time in the deposition room any day.
"I can't believe you're blowing them off for a whole day just to code while in New York," Dustin says drily over video chat one afternoon. "Actually, why am I surprised? This is totally like you. What are you trying to do, shove salt in Eduardo's wounds by flipping him the proverbial bird?"
Mark levels his best fuck-you stare into the webcam. "Shut up and work."
"Right-o."
Except there's only so much he can code in a day without getting frustrated by the physical constraints and limitations on what he can do, especially when everything he's written gets erased when he wakes up the next morning. Of course, it's all still there in his head-but there comes a time when Dustin has no idea what he's talking about anymore when he calls, and then it's just him on perpetual fifteen-hour coding tears, holed up in the hotel room with no outside interaction at all.
By day thirty-two, Mark's going stir crazy and feels the distinct urge to chuck his laptop across the room.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
"Go kill yourself."
Which is when, of course, the metaphorical light bulb goes off in his head, and the next several iterations involve a lot of gruesome deaths-namely, his own-to try and break the cycle. But even that gets old after it becomes clear that isn't going to work-the only thing he can think the morning after he tries throwing himself off the Empire State Building is that he's definitely topping Guinness's world record for number of suicide attempts.
It starts off as a joke.
Mark counts the seconds down and picks up the phone after the first ring. "So I went to the law firm again today," he blurts out before Dustin can get a word in edgewise.
"I know," Dustin says, "what else would you have done?"
"Right, whatever," Mark says quickly. Of course Dustin doesn't know it's the first time he's gone in weeks. "What I wanted to say was-there's this girl at the firm, an associate-"
Dustin starts laughing. "Oh, this is interesting."
"Shut up," he snaps. "I mean-okay, objectively speaking she was really pretty, but that isn't the point."
"And what is?"
"She-she said something about likability and how I'm not a bad guy-that I'm just trying so hard to be one. What does that even mean?"
Dustin sighs. "I wouldn't take it to heart, Mark. She doesn't even know you."
"You do," he counters, frowning, "and on the contrary, I think she knows a lot more about me than I'd like. My whole life since sophomore year of college has been on display for the past week."
"I'm your friend, Mark, so I'm going to tell you the truth. You might not like it, but you know what they say-the truth hurts. Facebook is your whole fucking life, which, yeah, it's great for the company, but not so much for you. You're like a robot, and nobody can keep up. When I called you this morning it was three in the morning, my time, and you didn't even care. I guess if you did care, you wouldn't be you-that's more of a What Would Eduardo Do? type scenario."
"Let's not talk about him," Mark mumbles, but the phrase bounces around and stays in the back of his mind anyway.
"You have to admit, he was pretty much our only moral compass back in college. Out of all of us, he was the nicest. I still have no idea why he was your best friend."
They're both quiet for a moment. Mark's too tired to think of something cutting to say in reply. Then-"Can I ask you one more thing?"
"Shoot."
"What would you say if I told you I was reliving today over and over again and had no idea how to stop it?"
It's probably a testament to how much of his neuroticism Dustin's put up with over the years that he doesn't question it before he answers. "I'd say there's probably some sort of lesson you're supposed to learn through all this before you can break the time loop. Probably has something to do with Eduardo if it's today you're repeating. This is all very sci-fi, you know? Cool shit."
Mark chuckles and shakes his head. "Hey, Dustin?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. Really."
He can hear the smile in Dustin's voice when he waves it off with a no problem, always here to help out the homies and hangs up the phone.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
What would Eduardo do? is, naturally, the first thing that comes to mind. Shit, he thinks, shaking his head. "Thanks for waking me up."
"That was supposed to be sarcastic, wasn't it? You must be losing your touch."
For the first time in a long time, he's a little uncomfortable at the thought that someone thinks he's that much of an asshole. It's a distinctly foreign feeling and he's not sure he likes it much. He bites his lip, thinks of yesterday's conversation, and says, "Go to bed, Dustin, it's three in the morning over there."
"I'm touched by your concern, but I've got deadlines to meet."
Mark winces. "My deadlines. And I'm telling you to go to bed."
"Alright," he says at last. Mark hears the click of a mouse and a couple of quick keystrokes. "But don't yell at me tomorrow when I'm not done with shit you assigned before you left."
This is stupid, Mark thinks. Really, really stupid.
He's sitting in a tiny café across the street from the office building and counting down seconds on his phone. Sy storms out first, at exactly nine AM, then Marilyn a couple of minutes later, and-he pulls his absurdly large sunglasses down, here-ah, there's the accidental step into a puddle that gets dirty water all over her hose. Gretchen leaves the building at eleven, on the phone with another client, and then-there. Eduardo.
Mark pays the cashier for his shitty coffee and takes off down the street after him. When he turns a quiet corner down a familiar alley, Mark jams two fingers against the small of his back and brings a glove-clad hand around to cover Eduardo's mouth. "Don't try to yell for help," he says, voice low and scratchy in his best Batman impersonation. Eduardo nods shakily and Mark tucks a cloth bag over his head before pushing him further down the alley and into a seedy looking motel. He flashes a card at the front desk and the lady behind it doesn't ask any questions.
"Look," Eduardo says a bit desperately when Mark sits him down in one of the dingy armchairs. "I'm not the one with money. You should've taken-my friend, Mark Zuckerberg." Mark's eyebrows go up. "He's the founder of Facebook, you know-but I guess he was too smart for you and probably has a ridiculous security detail anyway-"
Mark pulls the bag off his head. "I don't."
Eduardo can't seem to speak for a few moments. Then: "What the fuck are you trying to do, Mark?"
He sucks in a long breath to answer-and realizes he has no clue at all. "I admittedly didn't think this through."
"Do you even have a gun?" He shakes his head and Eduardo lets out a slightly hysterical laugh. "What do you want, Mark? Haven't you fucked my life up enough already? Why didn't you show up this morning?"
"I don't know, okay?" he snaps, feeling an impending migraine. "And-just-how else am I supposed to get you sit still long enough to listen to what I have to say? You don't want anything to do with me."
"How about being a fucking decent person and apologizing instead of doing stupid shit like fucking kidnapping me," Eduardo retorts. "Who am I kidding-of course you'd think this was a good idea." Mark doesn't say anything. "Jesus Christ."
"So what should I do?"
"What do you mean?"
"What am I supposed to do get you to forgive me? I mean-if kidnapping you isn't going to work-"
Eduardo laughs again. "Wow-Mark. Look. It isn't that easy. You screwed me out of my own company. I'm not just going to let you waltz back into my life and get rid of your own guilt before leaving again. Things don't work that way."
"Then why are you still here?"
"What?"
His brow furrows. "You know I don't have a gun and you're still here, talking to me. Why?"
Eduardo bites his lip and looks down at the uneven wood of the floor. "I don't know."
"Why are we here?"
Mark twists at the napkin in his lap and shrugs. "I wanted to talk to you."
"Okay," Eduardo snaps, avoiding his gaze, "so talk."
"Maybe we should order food first-"
"Talk."
"I-" Mark sighs and sips at the champagne in his glass. "I want to know what I have to do to get you to forgive me."
Eduardo rolls his eyes. "That kind of defeats the purpose-it won't happen if I have to spell it out for you."
"Humor me."
Eduardo's eyebrows go up when Mark pulls out the yellow journal, doodles scrawled all across the top page. "Are you seriously taking notes?"
"Consider it a sign that I'm paying attention. Now, you were saying?"
He gives Mark a weird look, like he's considering just getting up and walking out on him (which actually happened the last three times), but obliges.
"Why are we here?"
"Because Singaporean food's your favorite," Mark says easily, fiddling at the cuff of his dress shirt. "And this place is the best in town."
"I see you made an effort to dress for dinner."
He shrugs. "You were always pretty big on looking nice for special occasions."
Eduardo puts the menu down. "Why are you being so nice to me?" Mark tries to think of a good answer but Eduardo frowns and does it for him. "You-you don't actually think I'm going to drop the charges against you or something because we're having dinner together?"
"No, I-"
He shakes his head incredulously. "That's exactly what you think. Well, sorry, I'm not some kind of idiot who'll just sit here and let you take advantage of me again."
"Calm down, Wardo-"
"Don't tell me what to do, you pretentious fucker-" He tosses the contents of his wine glass in Mark's face, adjusts his suit, and walks away.
Mark blinks red wine out of his eyes and ignores the stupid pang in his chest as he watches Eduardo storm out of the restaurant. "That went well."
"Why are you here?"
"Because," Mark says, leaning against the frame of the door so Eduardo won't slam it in his face, "we're going to ditch the depositions today and actually talk about what I did to you."
Eduardo opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "How did you even find out where I was staying?"
"Does it matter?"
"No," he says after a moment. "Why do you want to talk now? You had three years to try and talk to me and the depositions are about to end. Feeling guilty, are you?"
"Yes," he replies simply, and Mark has to admit to himself that seeing Eduardo at a loss for words is kind of fun. Endearing. "So can we talk?"
"Yeah, okay," Eduardo says, exasperated. "Why not?"
He agrees, but it doesn't matter; every time Mark tries to make amends, Eduardo takes it the wrong way or gets offended and leaves. It's like he's living in some elaborate choose-your-own-adventure book and each misstep results in another repeat of the same day. He tries everything-giving Eduardo seven percent of the company back, admitting to the lawyers that he was wrong and Eduardo was right in the middle of Gretchen's questioning-but nothing's enough. He's lost count of the number of times Eduardo's walked out on him.
Day 92: "Isn't this the restaurant where we first met Sean?"
Mark nods and pulls his head out from where it's buried behind the menu. "I thought it was fitting."
"Brings back memories, doesn't it?"
"What, of me being a naïve fucker and believing everything that came out of Sean's mouth?"
"There was that," Eduardo says, smiling over the rim of his glass. Mark perks up-this is the first time Eduardo has smiled genuinely at him in the past three months, and it makes his heart do a little hiccup in his chest. He pushes the odd feeling to the back of his mind and tries to focus on what Eduardo's saying. "And that was around the time Christy got really batshit crazy."
"I remember that. And I was still hung up over Erica."
"You mean you aren't anymore?"
Mark shrugs. "Well, things are different now, aren't they?"
Eduardo inclines his head. "That's true. It's been years."
Mark's forgotten how easy it is to talk to him-the witty repartee, how he doesn't have to explain himself because Eduardo still knows what he means after all these years-but they pick it up again easily enough: a quick rejoinder here and a quiet chuckle there as they work through the complementary appetizers on the table.
A waitress comes by to take their orders and interrupts the steady, comfortable flow of conversation. "Can you wait?" he snarls without thinking. "We're trying to talk."
Eduardo's eyes snap as she scurries off. "Jesus, Mark-you still have no idea how people tick, do you?"
"What? She's just a waitress, Wardo-"
"There's this thing people say-how people treat a waiter shows a lot about the type of person they are. Just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it's any less true. Maybe you should think about that before coming to find me again."
"People don't care what kind of person I am," Mark says crossly. "I made Facebook."
"Just because you're an asshole doesn't mean you can't create things. They aren't mutually exclusive. Goodbye, Mark." He throws his napkin on the empty plate and then all Mark can see is his back as it disappears around the corner.
"Shit."
I know how people tick, he thinks angrily on the cab ride back to his hotel. How else would I have known that Facebook had so much potential? Except if he really thinks about it, like he does for the next three days in bed, all Mark's really done is create a way for people to be lazy, to connect with other people the only way he knows how, and Eduardo's right. He's always been infuriatingly right about these things.
He ventures out of his hotel room at the end of the third day, hair mussed up and blinking bleary-eyed, and nearly runs into the terrified maid outside his door. She spills carpet cleaner all over his shirt. Mark automatically starts opening his mouth to yell at her, but then-
What would Eduardo do?
The maid is still staring at him when he smiles and bends down to help pick up her mop. "Hi, I'm Mark Zuckerberg. What's your name?"
"Rise and shine, darling!"
"Top of the morning to you, too, Dustin."
"You seem tremendously peppy for six in the morning."
"And it's three where you are, so you should probably be sleeping. Don't worry about the deadlines, I'll get the coding figured out after the depositions today." Dustin seems at a loss for words. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Yeah, sure," he says dazedly.
"Do you think it's possible to forgive someone you hate-or I guess are actively trying to hate-in one day?"
Dustin hums into the receiver as he thinks. Then: "Better be a goddamn long day."
Mark cocks his head to the side. "In a manner of speaking, yes."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing," he says. "Get some sleep, I'll talk to you later." He hangs up before Dustin can get another word in.
The maid is sweeping outside the elevator, as usual, when he passes it. "Good morning, Margaret," he says absentmindedly.
"How do you know my name?" she asks in thick, accented English, eyes narrowing as she clutches at her dustpan.
Oh, shit, he thinks, mind racing. People like being praised, don't they? "The owner of the hotel was telling me about what a good job the employees were doing lately. You're the head of housekeeping, aren't you? He mentioned you by name." Mark knows he's right when a delighted grin breaks across her face.
It feels-well, it feels strange to be liked and to be smiled at for some reason other than the company he owns, but he kind of likes it, and he guesses it makes sense. Even though Mark doesn't understand it, people like being liked, and he's only human. His smile flashes back at him from the reflection of the double doors when they close.
On day one hundred, he goes back to the law firm and seriously goes through the depositions again. And maybe it's because he's really, really looking this time, or because what would Eduardo do is the running mantra in his head, thanks to Dustin-whatever the reason, it kind of floors him that Eduardo is so completely invested in what's going on, that he still cares so much after such a long time. Eduardo wears his heart on his sleeve the whole day, and Mark sees his face when he talks about flying back for the party-that-wasn't-a-party and his diluted shares-and it hurts. It's uncomfortable and foreign and Mark just wants to walk out and start over the next day, but Eduardo's voice is like a web that catches him, keeps him glued to his chair.
"You're not an asshole, Mark." He turns to see Marilyn's familiar silhouette against the glass door. "You're just trying so hard to be."
He thinks he might know what she means, now.
Mark looks up from refreshing Erica's Facebook page (never, not once in the past three months, has she accepted his friend request) and sees Eduardo leave the conference room, briefcase in hand.
"I've got an umbrella," he says, falling into step next to him, "if you need one."
"What do you want, Mark?" Eduardo asks, running a hand through his hair as they walk into the elevator.
"Do I have to want something from you to be able to talk to you?"
"From my past experience," he replies, eyebrows raised, "that's the only reason you ever want to talk to me."
Mark grimaces. "Okay, I deserved that."
"You know what else you deserved?" Eduardo doesn't even wait for Mark to speak, just plows on while the elevator descends. "You deserved every last thing Erica said about you in her deposition-who cares if she was lying? That doesn't make it any less true. And I hope you do have to settle with the Winklevosses, even if you didn't actually steal their code-yeah, they're pretentious douchebags, but at least they didn't screw their best friend over for a fucking website. And the best part about all of this is that even if we do get our money you won't have learned anything, because you don't care. You've never cared." He sucks in a long breath of air as the double doors slide open. "Sorry, that was mean. I shouldn't have-"
"No," Mark interrupts, "you're right." Eduardo blinks. "Have a cup of coffee with me?"
"You hate coffee," he hedges uncertainly.
"But you don't." And when Mark takes his arm Eduardo doesn't shake it off, lets Mark lead him into the café across the street.
"Evening, John," he says to the waiter who comes to take their order. He revels for a moment in the surprised, bemused look on Eduardo's face. "He serves me coffee every morning, and always asks if I want a donut with it, because he's heard on the news that patrons tip well when their servers take initiative."
"What are you doing?"
Mark ignores him and tugs at the shoulder of the man at the table next to theirs. "This is George, the crazy moped driver that nearly ran me over this morning." George tips his hat, and Eduardo waves cautiously back. "I bought him a helmet and gave him five extra dollars for breakfast, since he was rushing home to look for his wallet and was about to be late for work."
"Thanks for that, by the way."
"No problem."
One of the waitresses stops by with Mark's pastry and Eduardo's coffee. "This is Annie. She doesn't like working in a tiny café on the corner of North and Fremont, but it gets her through college. She really wants to go to law school after she graduates, which is why she's working here, across the street from one of the biggest law firms in town. Annie also has issues with picture-sharing privacy on Facebook." He turns and takes their plates from her and sets them down on the table. "I'll look into that for you."
"Thanks, Mr. Zuckerberg," she says, smiling and walking to the next group of customers.
"How do you-" Eduardo's staring at him when Mark looks at him again, half-curious, half-scared. "How do you know all these people?"
Mark hesitates. Then: "I had to come here a lot," he says at last, "to talk with the litigators."
"You've changed."
He shrugs. "Just grown up a little, maybe."
"No," Eduardo says, "I know you, Mark. You don't do shit like this-you don't care about people, not even when ulterior motives are involved. Why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because-" and he doesn't even care if Eduardo thinks he's crazy anymore, he's just going to say it, "because it's the only way to prove to you that I've lived this day over and over and over again. I've memorized, word for word, what you and Gretchen say to each other, and I still don't know-why? Why do you care so much? Why are you still so emotionally invested in me after the shit I put you through, and the lawsuit? I can't figure it out-I can't figure you out."
Eduardo shakes his head and stirs sugar into his cup. "You just don't get it, do you?"
Mark slams his hands down on the table and Eduardo jumps, nearly spills his coffee. "I am sick and tired of you saying that I don't understand and storming off like some self-righteous brat. How am I supposed to know if you don't explain it to me? You know I'm not good with people-they aren't easy to understand, like Java or C++ or even fucking poetry. I've lived today over a hundred times. That's how I know everyone." Mark laughs. "You're like my fucking conscience, in the back of my head asking me what you would do, how you would approach things, because I feel like that's the only way I can get myself out of this cycle."
"Okay," Eduardo says, eyes shining under the café's dim lights. "Then what about me?"
"What?"
"Tell me what you know about me."
Mark sits back down slowly and rubs at his temples. "Your name is Eduardo Luis Saverin. Your family isn't very rich but you always wear three-piece suits to make it seem like they are. I don't know why you do that-you're nice enough that people don't care about how much money your family has. They like you anyway. You love Florida because it reminds you of the weather and the oranges in Brazil. You go back to São Paulo every summer you can to visit your family, even if you don't like them very much. It's the country you love. You wanted to be an astronaut when you were younger, but your father said being a businessman was more practical, which is why you majored in economics. Your dad, by the way-" Eduardo flinches, but Mark presses on, "your dad's put all the pressure on you to make him and the family proud, but you can never do it because his expectations are so high. But because of the kind of the person you are-trusting, kind, eager to please-you'll never stop trying to live up to his expectations, even if they're impossible." He coughs uncomfortably. "Do you believe me now?"
"Yes, I believe you." His brow furrows in that familiar way it always does when he's thinking hard about something. "It's absolutely crazy, but-I believe you."
Mark smiles and takes a bite out of his strudel. "You won't even remember this in the morning, but it's okay. I'm okay with that."
"I think I should stay with you for the rest of the day," Eduardo says cautiously. Mark nearly chokes on the strudel.
"Why?"
"Consider it an experiment."
"I guess it couldn't hurt," he says tiredly. "You'll forget it all tomorrow and I'll be back at square one again."
"Let's go out for a drink," Eduardo suggests, grinning when Mark's eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline because he's raising them so high. "You really look like you could use one."
"Remember the algorithm on the window at Kirkland?" Eduardo hiccups and laughs, leans back against the base of the couch when Mark nods. Somehow they've ended up in his hotel room, half-drunk and still trying to make their way through the last box of cheap beer. "God, that was a long time ago."
"You spent a lot of time at our dorm," Mark slurs, poking at his thigh with his foot.
"You were a really high maintenance best friend," he retorts, swatting Mark's leg away.
"I think you just liked taking care of me," he says. He huffs when Eduardo starts chuckling again.
"So do you disappear or what? Does the godfairy of all douchebags come to whisk you away when the clock strikes twelve?"
Mark snorts. "I don't know. I've tried staying up till six AM but I always end up passing out beforehand. And then I'm back in bed, waking up because Dustin's calling."
"Weird."
"Yeah."
Eduardo's head lolls back onto the seat of the couch, and Mark can see him grinning up at him in the darkness. "I loved you a lot, you know," he says a moment later. Mark freezes, beer can halfway to his mouth. "And-I don't know, maybe a part of me still loves you and that's why I care so much."
"Yeah," Mark mutters, and after Eduardo trails off and his breath evens out, when Mark can turn the thought over in his head, it finally, finally makes sense. He's a little bit in awe of Eduardo, despite everything he's learned about him already-this last piece of Eduardo that was missing makes it clear, and he's not sure he doesn't love Eduardo a little bit himself.
"Let's get you on the bed," he says out loud, dragging Eduardo's arm over his shoulder.
"Wait, I'm not tired," Eduardo mumbles into his neck. "I can stay awake."
"Like shit you can," Mark replies, arranging his limbs on the bed and folding the blanket over him, then climbing in the other side. "Just go to sleep."
"Were you saying something?" he asks faintly, eyes fluttering shut, and despite his disheveled hair and chapped lips, in that moment Mark doesn't think he's ever seen anything quite as ridiculously charming as Eduardo.
"No," he starts to say, and then-"fuck it, you won't remember this in the morning. I just-wow, this is really fucking cheesy, but-somewhere down the line I realized that you're the only one who's ever really understood me and put up with the full extent of my neuroticism. You're the most trusting, open person I have ever met-probably will ever meet. And I want to say that I'm sorry, and I never meant to hurt you-I was just thinking about the company and I didn't think you'd take it so personally. I didn't think I'd lose you as a friend-and I know I don't deserve it after everything I've done to you, but if you gave me another chance I think-"
"What?" Eduardo's eyes are huge and dark and Mark has to swallow around the lump in his throat before he can continue.
"I think I'd never let you go." He bites his lip and watches Eduardo blink slowly.
"Okay."
The corner of his mouth comes up when Eduardo yawns. "Good night, Wardo."
"Good night, Mark."
The first thing he realizes when he opens his eyes the next morning is that his phone isn't ringing.
The second is that Eduardo's still next to him beneath the covers, breathing deep and measured, hands curled under the pillow.
"Oh, shit," he says out loud, checking the time. His flight leaves at noon and he's supposed to meet with Sy and Marilyn one more time so they can present the settlement agreement for him to sign-
"Mark?" His head snaps around as Eduardo stirs and pulls at the blanket. "Mark, it's tomorrow."
"Technically, that's impossible."
"You know what I mean."
He nods, watching the play of early morning shadows stream across Eduardo's face as he sits up.
"Does that mean you broke the curse?"
"You make it sound like I'm living some sort of real life fairytale," Mark says, and Eduardo smiles blearily, rubbing at his eyes.
"Does that make me the damsel in distress or what?"
"I don't think it works that way," he replies.
Eduardo props his head up, elbow digging into a dip in the bed. "Okay, so how is it supposed to work?"
"I don't know," Mark says drily. "I've never done this before."
His phone rings before Eduardo can say anything. "Hello?"
"Mark, I tried calling you last night but you didn't respond-"
"It's about Bosnia, isn't it?" Dustin splutters something unintelligible across the line. Eduardo climbs out of bed and pads into the bathroom as Mark starts rattling off lengthy bits of code he's remembered from the past quarter of a year.
"Wow," Dustin says when he's finished. "This is why you're CEO and I'm just your vice president."
"You helped me with a lot of that," Mark says casually, "even if you don't remember doing it."
"What are you talking about?"
Eduardo plucks the phone out of Mark's hand and says, "Don't worry about it."
"Wardo?"
"We'll talk later," he says, and then he's flipping the phone shut and sliding it back into Mark's outstretched palm.
"Hi."
Eduardo quirks an eyebrow and purses his lips. "Morning."
"This isn't awkward at all."
"Maybe if you keep saying that, it'll be true."
"We have a settlement meeting to go to," Mark says, scratching the back of his neck.
"And after that?"
"I-" He takes a deep breath. "It's up to you."
"Oh?"
"I have a plane ticket to California tucked into my laptop case, but if you want-" He trails off uncertainly.
"Didn't you say something about not letting me go?" Eduardo says, an infuriating twinkle in his eye.
Mark frowns. "You kind of passed out after that. How am I supposed to know what you want if you don't tell me? I'm not a mind-reader like you are."
"I'm not a mind-reader either," Eduardo says wryly, picking his briefcase up off the floor and straightening his wrinkled tie. "But I do think we can give this more-than-friends thing a try, after the settlement."
Mark's heart threatens to jump into his throat. "Won't it be awkward?"
"Yeah, it might be," he says, laughing when Mark gapes at him, "but what's life without a little awkwardness? Besides, you love me." Eduardo shakes his head when he opens his mouth to protest. "You were the most honest you've ever been to me last night, and you spelled it out yourself. Too late to backtrack now."
"I didn't actually say it," Mark says petulantly.
"Didn't have to." Mark frowns and Eduardo laughs again. "I see you're still as emotionally constipated as ever."
"Repeating the same day a hundred times doesn't change a person that much," he mutters.
"And yet, everything is different."
"Only the important things," he says, grudgingly letting an irrationally pleased Eduardo cart him off to breakfast, and later, after the settlement agreements are gone over and signed, to a late lunch.
He misses his flight. We have a lot to catch up on is the reason Eduardo gives him to pass on to Dustin when he calls, and it doesn't bother Mark as much as it should that it'll set his plans for Facebook in South Africa or Bosnia back a little bit. There will always be time to code.
fin
A/N: happy holidays from shanghai ♥ (▰˘◡˘▰)! anon commenting, as usual, is on. thank you to underhand_glory for looking at drafts of this and listening to me whine ♥.
Pairing: mark zuckerberg/eduardo saverin
Rating: pg13 for language
Genre: au, angst, romance
Warnings: swearing, possible suicide triggers
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: for an anon at tsn_kinkmeme who wanted groundhog day au! in which the depositions took place in new york and there's a lot of dustin. 7,100 words.
love, it will not betray you
dismay or enslave you
it will set you free.
( sigh no more, mumford & sons )
"Rise and shine, darling!"
The planes and edges of his phone are freezing against his cheek and he grimaces against his pillow, burrows further into the covers. "Never say that again, Dustin."
"Woke you up, though, didn't it?" Mark groans into the receiver in response. "Look-today's the last day, isn't it? After this, you can walk away and come back to work on your baby. You won't have to think about any of them anymore."
He bites his lip and rolls out of bed, hits speakerphone on his way to the bathroom. "I guess it'll be nice to be back in Palo Alto."
"That's the spirit." A pause. "You should at least make an effort to try and pay attention instead of bothering me with random texts about the Winklevosses' ties and shit. Some of us are trying to work."
"I won't be seeing them today, that lawsuit's over-and you know you're preaching at the choir."
"More like preaching at the devil."
Mark throws a sweater on over his dress shirt and tucks the phone underneath his chin to shimmy into a pair of slacks. "Whatever, man. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, yeah. Take care."
Six AM on Friday morning and only the maids are out and about to watch Mark shuffle down the hallway. One of them sweeps miserably at the floor as he gets into the elevator, doleful eyes peering at him when the double doors slide closed. He tugs uncomfortably at his starched-stiff collar and picks at a lukewarm continental breakfast in the hotel's restaurant for about five minutes before giving up and nearly getting run over by a crazy moped going in the wrong direction whilst hailing a cab. Mark's paying the firm too well for them to care that he's over an hour early to the meeting-and he's itching to do something, even if something just means sitting in the lobby of the building and using their superior wi-fi to check in on how it's going in Tokyo or Moscow.
The shadows under Eduardo's eyes are incredibly pronounced today-they're like fucking black holes trying to suck at his soul, but Mark's so numbed by everything that's happened in the past week that he can barely bring himself to care anymore. At least that's what he tells himself after if you were the inventors of Facebook-you'd have invented Facebook and did I adequately answer your condescending question and he was my best friend.
It's not that Mark can't follow the lines of questioning; what Gage and Gretchen are trying to do is clear enough that he can call them out on it whenever he feels the inclination. He's always been good at seeing straight through bullshit, aside from the Sean anomaly-but he doesn't want to think about that. It's just that-well, he's been focused on Facebook and being a smooth, polished CEO for so long after Eduardo left and Sean crashed out of the company that he hasn't had time to think about friendship and feelings; he's pushed it all into the back of his head because none of that matters anymore. Or it hadn't, not until the first stirrings of the lawsuits started to rumble behind his meteoric success, because before that point everything had been about the company. Facebook had been, for all intents and purposes, everything he lived and breathed.
And he still doesn't want to care-he wants to get out of this place and get Eduardo out of his general vicinity because the things that come out of his mouth this last day (you had one friend and my father won't even look at me and point zero three percent) threaten to dredge up every single suppressed emotion he'd much rather keep buried underneath thick layers of insulation and compartmentalization in his head.
You're going to have to settle, Marilyn tells him, and it's not until she actually says it that several things dawn on him at once-that he's lost the suit, yes, but also that he's done nothing (and probably will do nothing in the near future) to mend his relationship with Eduardo. Because sure, there's always the option of adding him as a friend on Facebook like he's trying to with Erica and seeing him in passing at shitty charity galas-but nothing is ever going to bring back lazy Sunday afternoons coding at Kirkland with Eduardo puttering around in the background with his econ books, or clinking beers with him and Dustin at the Thirsty Scholar's. Nothing's ever going to bring back undergrad and hitting on girls and camping out at Widener during the reading period.
After everything that's happened, Mark's not even sure he wants to go back-and that's the worst of it, isn't it? For the first time in his life, he has no idea what he wants.
Dustin calls about some issue in Bosnia when he gets back to the hotel. "How do you feel?" he asks, tentative, after they've discussed everything three times and Mark's head is pounding a slow rat-a-tat-tat at the base of his skull.
"Like shit," he says shortly, rubbing the bridge of his nose. After Dustin hangs up, he falls into prompt, uneasy sleep.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
Pale morning light hits the curtains and bounces straight into the crack between his eyelids as he blinks. "I didn't ask you to call me the morning of my flight, Dustin, though the sentiment is appreciated."
"What are you talking about?" A swift pattering of keystrokes can be heard over the phone, and then-"Today's the last day of the depositions. You know-where your lawyers try to haggle for a lower price over what you're going to have to pay Eduardo and the Winklevosses?"
"Is this some sort of joke?" He pulls his laptop onto the bed and gradually flips it open, stares at the blinking Friday, November 4th, 2005 at the corner of his screen. "What the fuck is going on?"
"What, you want the lawsuit to drag on for longer? I'm sure that can be arranged."
Mark rubs at his face and slams the lid closed, stares at his unpacked suitcase on the floor. There's a sick feeling in the back of his throat, like his stomach wants to slowly climb out of his mouth through it. "Jesus Christ."
"Look, I don't know about you, but I've got deadlines to meet-the ones that you set. So I'll be going. Ta!"
"No, wait-don't hang up on me-"
Dustin laughs, and then: click. The shrill pitch of the dial tone seems to match the faint ringing in his ears.
The only thing worse than going through a lawsuit that essentially closes all avenues of future reconciliation with your former best friend is waking up the next morning and having to do it all over again. Mark is too shell-shocked by his situation to do much else than go through the motions again, robotically answering Gretchen's pointed questions and trying to avoid Eduardo's stupid hurt gaze all day. This time, he leaves before Marilyn can catch him, stomps up ten flights of stairs to get to his hotel room and collapses bonelessly into an armchair. The call from Dustin comes half an hour later.
"Mark! We need to talk about Bosnia."
"Dustin," Mark interjects before he can say anything else, "Dustin, I think I'm going crazy."
He laughs and Mark frowns. "You mean like even more so than you usually are?"
"No, listen to me. This has all happened before. You called me about Bosnia, and-"
"It's probably just déjà vu-"
"Listen. You called about Bosnia and-you want to talk about picture-sharing privacy, don't you?"
"Well, yes," Dustin says with the air of someone talking to a very small child, "but we've been trying to figure out a way to code it for the past month. Why are you surprised?"
He massages his temple and sighs into the receiver. "You know what-nevermind."
"You're probably just exhausted from the depositions. Get some sleep, yeah? How do you feel?"
"Like shit," he answers automatically, then claps a hand over his mouth and flips his phone shut before Dustin can reply.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
Mark just grunts.
"Are you awake?" He grunts again and rolls over to glare balefully at crumpled clothes hanging over the armrest of his chair. "I'm going to hang up if you are."
Mark's about to hang up on his own when it occurs to him that Dustin might be able to help. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
"Since when did you ever request permission for anything?"
Mark coughs. "Right."
"Well? Make it quick."
"What would you do if, hypothetically speaking, you had a day to do whatever you wanted without any consequences the next morning?"
"Do you even have to ask?"
"What do you mean?"
Dustin's snort is so loud that Mark has to move his phone away from his ear for a second before gingerly bringing it back. "The possibilities would be endless, wouldn't they? You could get as drunk as you want without the hangover, or get thrown in jail and the next morning-voila! Slate wiped clean."
Mark sighs. "Of course that's what you'd do."
"Don't hate," he says, laughing.
After two more days of monotonous repetition, he decides to take Dustin's advice. Mark has never been one for sitting around and twiddling his thumbs, and there are better things to be doing than listening to Eduardo recount Mark's alleged betrayal over and over and over again, even if he has his suspicions that the root of this glitch in the space-time continuum has something to do with Eduardo. He'll take working on the website over yawning for the hundredth time in the deposition room any day.
"I can't believe you're blowing them off for a whole day just to code while in New York," Dustin says drily over video chat one afternoon. "Actually, why am I surprised? This is totally like you. What are you trying to do, shove salt in Eduardo's wounds by flipping him the proverbial bird?"
Mark levels his best fuck-you stare into the webcam. "Shut up and work."
"Right-o."
Except there's only so much he can code in a day without getting frustrated by the physical constraints and limitations on what he can do, especially when everything he's written gets erased when he wakes up the next morning. Of course, it's all still there in his head-but there comes a time when Dustin has no idea what he's talking about anymore when he calls, and then it's just him on perpetual fifteen-hour coding tears, holed up in the hotel room with no outside interaction at all.
By day thirty-two, Mark's going stir crazy and feels the distinct urge to chuck his laptop across the room.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
"Go kill yourself."
Which is when, of course, the metaphorical light bulb goes off in his head, and the next several iterations involve a lot of gruesome deaths-namely, his own-to try and break the cycle. But even that gets old after it becomes clear that isn't going to work-the only thing he can think the morning after he tries throwing himself off the Empire State Building is that he's definitely topping Guinness's world record for number of suicide attempts.
It starts off as a joke.
Mark counts the seconds down and picks up the phone after the first ring. "So I went to the law firm again today," he blurts out before Dustin can get a word in edgewise.
"I know," Dustin says, "what else would you have done?"
"Right, whatever," Mark says quickly. Of course Dustin doesn't know it's the first time he's gone in weeks. "What I wanted to say was-there's this girl at the firm, an associate-"
Dustin starts laughing. "Oh, this is interesting."
"Shut up," he snaps. "I mean-okay, objectively speaking she was really pretty, but that isn't the point."
"And what is?"
"She-she said something about likability and how I'm not a bad guy-that I'm just trying so hard to be one. What does that even mean?"
Dustin sighs. "I wouldn't take it to heart, Mark. She doesn't even know you."
"You do," he counters, frowning, "and on the contrary, I think she knows a lot more about me than I'd like. My whole life since sophomore year of college has been on display for the past week."
"I'm your friend, Mark, so I'm going to tell you the truth. You might not like it, but you know what they say-the truth hurts. Facebook is your whole fucking life, which, yeah, it's great for the company, but not so much for you. You're like a robot, and nobody can keep up. When I called you this morning it was three in the morning, my time, and you didn't even care. I guess if you did care, you wouldn't be you-that's more of a What Would Eduardo Do? type scenario."
"Let's not talk about him," Mark mumbles, but the phrase bounces around and stays in the back of his mind anyway.
"You have to admit, he was pretty much our only moral compass back in college. Out of all of us, he was the nicest. I still have no idea why he was your best friend."
They're both quiet for a moment. Mark's too tired to think of something cutting to say in reply. Then-"Can I ask you one more thing?"
"Shoot."
"What would you say if I told you I was reliving today over and over again and had no idea how to stop it?"
It's probably a testament to how much of his neuroticism Dustin's put up with over the years that he doesn't question it before he answers. "I'd say there's probably some sort of lesson you're supposed to learn through all this before you can break the time loop. Probably has something to do with Eduardo if it's today you're repeating. This is all very sci-fi, you know? Cool shit."
Mark chuckles and shakes his head. "Hey, Dustin?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks. Really."
He can hear the smile in Dustin's voice when he waves it off with a no problem, always here to help out the homies and hangs up the phone.
"Rise and shine, darling!"
What would Eduardo do? is, naturally, the first thing that comes to mind. Shit, he thinks, shaking his head. "Thanks for waking me up."
"That was supposed to be sarcastic, wasn't it? You must be losing your touch."
For the first time in a long time, he's a little uncomfortable at the thought that someone thinks he's that much of an asshole. It's a distinctly foreign feeling and he's not sure he likes it much. He bites his lip, thinks of yesterday's conversation, and says, "Go to bed, Dustin, it's three in the morning over there."
"I'm touched by your concern, but I've got deadlines to meet."
Mark winces. "My deadlines. And I'm telling you to go to bed."
"Alright," he says at last. Mark hears the click of a mouse and a couple of quick keystrokes. "But don't yell at me tomorrow when I'm not done with shit you assigned before you left."
This is stupid, Mark thinks. Really, really stupid.
He's sitting in a tiny café across the street from the office building and counting down seconds on his phone. Sy storms out first, at exactly nine AM, then Marilyn a couple of minutes later, and-he pulls his absurdly large sunglasses down, here-ah, there's the accidental step into a puddle that gets dirty water all over her hose. Gretchen leaves the building at eleven, on the phone with another client, and then-there. Eduardo.
Mark pays the cashier for his shitty coffee and takes off down the street after him. When he turns a quiet corner down a familiar alley, Mark jams two fingers against the small of his back and brings a glove-clad hand around to cover Eduardo's mouth. "Don't try to yell for help," he says, voice low and scratchy in his best Batman impersonation. Eduardo nods shakily and Mark tucks a cloth bag over his head before pushing him further down the alley and into a seedy looking motel. He flashes a card at the front desk and the lady behind it doesn't ask any questions.
"Look," Eduardo says a bit desperately when Mark sits him down in one of the dingy armchairs. "I'm not the one with money. You should've taken-my friend, Mark Zuckerberg." Mark's eyebrows go up. "He's the founder of Facebook, you know-but I guess he was too smart for you and probably has a ridiculous security detail anyway-"
Mark pulls the bag off his head. "I don't."
Eduardo can't seem to speak for a few moments. Then: "What the fuck are you trying to do, Mark?"
He sucks in a long breath to answer-and realizes he has no clue at all. "I admittedly didn't think this through."
"Do you even have a gun?" He shakes his head and Eduardo lets out a slightly hysterical laugh. "What do you want, Mark? Haven't you fucked my life up enough already? Why didn't you show up this morning?"
"I don't know, okay?" he snaps, feeling an impending migraine. "And-just-how else am I supposed to get you sit still long enough to listen to what I have to say? You don't want anything to do with me."
"How about being a fucking decent person and apologizing instead of doing stupid shit like fucking kidnapping me," Eduardo retorts. "Who am I kidding-of course you'd think this was a good idea." Mark doesn't say anything. "Jesus Christ."
"So what should I do?"
"What do you mean?"
"What am I supposed to do get you to forgive me? I mean-if kidnapping you isn't going to work-"
Eduardo laughs again. "Wow-Mark. Look. It isn't that easy. You screwed me out of my own company. I'm not just going to let you waltz back into my life and get rid of your own guilt before leaving again. Things don't work that way."
"Then why are you still here?"
"What?"
His brow furrows. "You know I don't have a gun and you're still here, talking to me. Why?"
Eduardo bites his lip and looks down at the uneven wood of the floor. "I don't know."
"Why are we here?"
Mark twists at the napkin in his lap and shrugs. "I wanted to talk to you."
"Okay," Eduardo snaps, avoiding his gaze, "so talk."
"Maybe we should order food first-"
"Talk."
"I-" Mark sighs and sips at the champagne in his glass. "I want to know what I have to do to get you to forgive me."
Eduardo rolls his eyes. "That kind of defeats the purpose-it won't happen if I have to spell it out for you."
"Humor me."
Eduardo's eyebrows go up when Mark pulls out the yellow journal, doodles scrawled all across the top page. "Are you seriously taking notes?"
"Consider it a sign that I'm paying attention. Now, you were saying?"
He gives Mark a weird look, like he's considering just getting up and walking out on him (which actually happened the last three times), but obliges.
"Why are we here?"
"Because Singaporean food's your favorite," Mark says easily, fiddling at the cuff of his dress shirt. "And this place is the best in town."
"I see you made an effort to dress for dinner."
He shrugs. "You were always pretty big on looking nice for special occasions."
Eduardo puts the menu down. "Why are you being so nice to me?" Mark tries to think of a good answer but Eduardo frowns and does it for him. "You-you don't actually think I'm going to drop the charges against you or something because we're having dinner together?"
"No, I-"
He shakes his head incredulously. "That's exactly what you think. Well, sorry, I'm not some kind of idiot who'll just sit here and let you take advantage of me again."
"Calm down, Wardo-"
"Don't tell me what to do, you pretentious fucker-" He tosses the contents of his wine glass in Mark's face, adjusts his suit, and walks away.
Mark blinks red wine out of his eyes and ignores the stupid pang in his chest as he watches Eduardo storm out of the restaurant. "That went well."
"Why are you here?"
"Because," Mark says, leaning against the frame of the door so Eduardo won't slam it in his face, "we're going to ditch the depositions today and actually talk about what I did to you."
Eduardo opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. "How did you even find out where I was staying?"
"Does it matter?"
"No," he says after a moment. "Why do you want to talk now? You had three years to try and talk to me and the depositions are about to end. Feeling guilty, are you?"
"Yes," he replies simply, and Mark has to admit to himself that seeing Eduardo at a loss for words is kind of fun. Endearing. "So can we talk?"
"Yeah, okay," Eduardo says, exasperated. "Why not?"
He agrees, but it doesn't matter; every time Mark tries to make amends, Eduardo takes it the wrong way or gets offended and leaves. It's like he's living in some elaborate choose-your-own-adventure book and each misstep results in another repeat of the same day. He tries everything-giving Eduardo seven percent of the company back, admitting to the lawyers that he was wrong and Eduardo was right in the middle of Gretchen's questioning-but nothing's enough. He's lost count of the number of times Eduardo's walked out on him.
Day 92: "Isn't this the restaurant where we first met Sean?"
Mark nods and pulls his head out from where it's buried behind the menu. "I thought it was fitting."
"Brings back memories, doesn't it?"
"What, of me being a naïve fucker and believing everything that came out of Sean's mouth?"
"There was that," Eduardo says, smiling over the rim of his glass. Mark perks up-this is the first time Eduardo has smiled genuinely at him in the past three months, and it makes his heart do a little hiccup in his chest. He pushes the odd feeling to the back of his mind and tries to focus on what Eduardo's saying. "And that was around the time Christy got really batshit crazy."
"I remember that. And I was still hung up over Erica."
"You mean you aren't anymore?"
Mark shrugs. "Well, things are different now, aren't they?"
Eduardo inclines his head. "That's true. It's been years."
Mark's forgotten how easy it is to talk to him-the witty repartee, how he doesn't have to explain himself because Eduardo still knows what he means after all these years-but they pick it up again easily enough: a quick rejoinder here and a quiet chuckle there as they work through the complementary appetizers on the table.
A waitress comes by to take their orders and interrupts the steady, comfortable flow of conversation. "Can you wait?" he snarls without thinking. "We're trying to talk."
Eduardo's eyes snap as she scurries off. "Jesus, Mark-you still have no idea how people tick, do you?"
"What? She's just a waitress, Wardo-"
"There's this thing people say-how people treat a waiter shows a lot about the type of person they are. Just because it's a cliché doesn't mean it's any less true. Maybe you should think about that before coming to find me again."
"People don't care what kind of person I am," Mark says crossly. "I made Facebook."
"Just because you're an asshole doesn't mean you can't create things. They aren't mutually exclusive. Goodbye, Mark." He throws his napkin on the empty plate and then all Mark can see is his back as it disappears around the corner.
"Shit."
I know how people tick, he thinks angrily on the cab ride back to his hotel. How else would I have known that Facebook had so much potential? Except if he really thinks about it, like he does for the next three days in bed, all Mark's really done is create a way for people to be lazy, to connect with other people the only way he knows how, and Eduardo's right. He's always been infuriatingly right about these things.
He ventures out of his hotel room at the end of the third day, hair mussed up and blinking bleary-eyed, and nearly runs into the terrified maid outside his door. She spills carpet cleaner all over his shirt. Mark automatically starts opening his mouth to yell at her, but then-
What would Eduardo do?
The maid is still staring at him when he smiles and bends down to help pick up her mop. "Hi, I'm Mark Zuckerberg. What's your name?"
"Rise and shine, darling!"
"Top of the morning to you, too, Dustin."
"You seem tremendously peppy for six in the morning."
"And it's three where you are, so you should probably be sleeping. Don't worry about the deadlines, I'll get the coding figured out after the depositions today." Dustin seems at a loss for words. "Hey, can I ask you something?"
"Yeah, sure," he says dazedly.
"Do you think it's possible to forgive someone you hate-or I guess are actively trying to hate-in one day?"
Dustin hums into the receiver as he thinks. Then: "Better be a goddamn long day."
Mark cocks his head to the side. "In a manner of speaking, yes."
"What are you talking about?"
"Nothing," he says. "Get some sleep, I'll talk to you later." He hangs up before Dustin can get another word in.
The maid is sweeping outside the elevator, as usual, when he passes it. "Good morning, Margaret," he says absentmindedly.
"How do you know my name?" she asks in thick, accented English, eyes narrowing as she clutches at her dustpan.
Oh, shit, he thinks, mind racing. People like being praised, don't they? "The owner of the hotel was telling me about what a good job the employees were doing lately. You're the head of housekeeping, aren't you? He mentioned you by name." Mark knows he's right when a delighted grin breaks across her face.
It feels-well, it feels strange to be liked and to be smiled at for some reason other than the company he owns, but he kind of likes it, and he guesses it makes sense. Even though Mark doesn't understand it, people like being liked, and he's only human. His smile flashes back at him from the reflection of the double doors when they close.
On day one hundred, he goes back to the law firm and seriously goes through the depositions again. And maybe it's because he's really, really looking this time, or because what would Eduardo do is the running mantra in his head, thanks to Dustin-whatever the reason, it kind of floors him that Eduardo is so completely invested in what's going on, that he still cares so much after such a long time. Eduardo wears his heart on his sleeve the whole day, and Mark sees his face when he talks about flying back for the party-that-wasn't-a-party and his diluted shares-and it hurts. It's uncomfortable and foreign and Mark just wants to walk out and start over the next day, but Eduardo's voice is like a web that catches him, keeps him glued to his chair.
"You're not an asshole, Mark." He turns to see Marilyn's familiar silhouette against the glass door. "You're just trying so hard to be."
He thinks he might know what she means, now.
Mark looks up from refreshing Erica's Facebook page (never, not once in the past three months, has she accepted his friend request) and sees Eduardo leave the conference room, briefcase in hand.
"I've got an umbrella," he says, falling into step next to him, "if you need one."
"What do you want, Mark?" Eduardo asks, running a hand through his hair as they walk into the elevator.
"Do I have to want something from you to be able to talk to you?"
"From my past experience," he replies, eyebrows raised, "that's the only reason you ever want to talk to me."
Mark grimaces. "Okay, I deserved that."
"You know what else you deserved?" Eduardo doesn't even wait for Mark to speak, just plows on while the elevator descends. "You deserved every last thing Erica said about you in her deposition-who cares if she was lying? That doesn't make it any less true. And I hope you do have to settle with the Winklevosses, even if you didn't actually steal their code-yeah, they're pretentious douchebags, but at least they didn't screw their best friend over for a fucking website. And the best part about all of this is that even if we do get our money you won't have learned anything, because you don't care. You've never cared." He sucks in a long breath of air as the double doors slide open. "Sorry, that was mean. I shouldn't have-"
"No," Mark interrupts, "you're right." Eduardo blinks. "Have a cup of coffee with me?"
"You hate coffee," he hedges uncertainly.
"But you don't." And when Mark takes his arm Eduardo doesn't shake it off, lets Mark lead him into the café across the street.
"Evening, John," he says to the waiter who comes to take their order. He revels for a moment in the surprised, bemused look on Eduardo's face. "He serves me coffee every morning, and always asks if I want a donut with it, because he's heard on the news that patrons tip well when their servers take initiative."
"What are you doing?"
Mark ignores him and tugs at the shoulder of the man at the table next to theirs. "This is George, the crazy moped driver that nearly ran me over this morning." George tips his hat, and Eduardo waves cautiously back. "I bought him a helmet and gave him five extra dollars for breakfast, since he was rushing home to look for his wallet and was about to be late for work."
"Thanks for that, by the way."
"No problem."
One of the waitresses stops by with Mark's pastry and Eduardo's coffee. "This is Annie. She doesn't like working in a tiny café on the corner of North and Fremont, but it gets her through college. She really wants to go to law school after she graduates, which is why she's working here, across the street from one of the biggest law firms in town. Annie also has issues with picture-sharing privacy on Facebook." He turns and takes their plates from her and sets them down on the table. "I'll look into that for you."
"Thanks, Mr. Zuckerberg," she says, smiling and walking to the next group of customers.
"How do you-" Eduardo's staring at him when Mark looks at him again, half-curious, half-scared. "How do you know all these people?"
Mark hesitates. Then: "I had to come here a lot," he says at last, "to talk with the litigators."
"You've changed."
He shrugs. "Just grown up a little, maybe."
"No," Eduardo says, "I know you, Mark. You don't do shit like this-you don't care about people, not even when ulterior motives are involved. Why are you telling me all of this?"
"Because-" and he doesn't even care if Eduardo thinks he's crazy anymore, he's just going to say it, "because it's the only way to prove to you that I've lived this day over and over and over again. I've memorized, word for word, what you and Gretchen say to each other, and I still don't know-why? Why do you care so much? Why are you still so emotionally invested in me after the shit I put you through, and the lawsuit? I can't figure it out-I can't figure you out."
Eduardo shakes his head and stirs sugar into his cup. "You just don't get it, do you?"
Mark slams his hands down on the table and Eduardo jumps, nearly spills his coffee. "I am sick and tired of you saying that I don't understand and storming off like some self-righteous brat. How am I supposed to know if you don't explain it to me? You know I'm not good with people-they aren't easy to understand, like Java or C++ or even fucking poetry. I've lived today over a hundred times. That's how I know everyone." Mark laughs. "You're like my fucking conscience, in the back of my head asking me what you would do, how you would approach things, because I feel like that's the only way I can get myself out of this cycle."
"Okay," Eduardo says, eyes shining under the café's dim lights. "Then what about me?"
"What?"
"Tell me what you know about me."
Mark sits back down slowly and rubs at his temples. "Your name is Eduardo Luis Saverin. Your family isn't very rich but you always wear three-piece suits to make it seem like they are. I don't know why you do that-you're nice enough that people don't care about how much money your family has. They like you anyway. You love Florida because it reminds you of the weather and the oranges in Brazil. You go back to São Paulo every summer you can to visit your family, even if you don't like them very much. It's the country you love. You wanted to be an astronaut when you were younger, but your father said being a businessman was more practical, which is why you majored in economics. Your dad, by the way-" Eduardo flinches, but Mark presses on, "your dad's put all the pressure on you to make him and the family proud, but you can never do it because his expectations are so high. But because of the kind of the person you are-trusting, kind, eager to please-you'll never stop trying to live up to his expectations, even if they're impossible." He coughs uncomfortably. "Do you believe me now?"
"Yes, I believe you." His brow furrows in that familiar way it always does when he's thinking hard about something. "It's absolutely crazy, but-I believe you."
Mark smiles and takes a bite out of his strudel. "You won't even remember this in the morning, but it's okay. I'm okay with that."
"I think I should stay with you for the rest of the day," Eduardo says cautiously. Mark nearly chokes on the strudel.
"Why?"
"Consider it an experiment."
"I guess it couldn't hurt," he says tiredly. "You'll forget it all tomorrow and I'll be back at square one again."
"Let's go out for a drink," Eduardo suggests, grinning when Mark's eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline because he's raising them so high. "You really look like you could use one."
"Remember the algorithm on the window at Kirkland?" Eduardo hiccups and laughs, leans back against the base of the couch when Mark nods. Somehow they've ended up in his hotel room, half-drunk and still trying to make their way through the last box of cheap beer. "God, that was a long time ago."
"You spent a lot of time at our dorm," Mark slurs, poking at his thigh with his foot.
"You were a really high maintenance best friend," he retorts, swatting Mark's leg away.
"I think you just liked taking care of me," he says. He huffs when Eduardo starts chuckling again.
"So do you disappear or what? Does the godfairy of all douchebags come to whisk you away when the clock strikes twelve?"
Mark snorts. "I don't know. I've tried staying up till six AM but I always end up passing out beforehand. And then I'm back in bed, waking up because Dustin's calling."
"Weird."
"Yeah."
Eduardo's head lolls back onto the seat of the couch, and Mark can see him grinning up at him in the darkness. "I loved you a lot, you know," he says a moment later. Mark freezes, beer can halfway to his mouth. "And-I don't know, maybe a part of me still loves you and that's why I care so much."
"Yeah," Mark mutters, and after Eduardo trails off and his breath evens out, when Mark can turn the thought over in his head, it finally, finally makes sense. He's a little bit in awe of Eduardo, despite everything he's learned about him already-this last piece of Eduardo that was missing makes it clear, and he's not sure he doesn't love Eduardo a little bit himself.
"Let's get you on the bed," he says out loud, dragging Eduardo's arm over his shoulder.
"Wait, I'm not tired," Eduardo mumbles into his neck. "I can stay awake."
"Like shit you can," Mark replies, arranging his limbs on the bed and folding the blanket over him, then climbing in the other side. "Just go to sleep."
"Were you saying something?" he asks faintly, eyes fluttering shut, and despite his disheveled hair and chapped lips, in that moment Mark doesn't think he's ever seen anything quite as ridiculously charming as Eduardo.
"No," he starts to say, and then-"fuck it, you won't remember this in the morning. I just-wow, this is really fucking cheesy, but-somewhere down the line I realized that you're the only one who's ever really understood me and put up with the full extent of my neuroticism. You're the most trusting, open person I have ever met-probably will ever meet. And I want to say that I'm sorry, and I never meant to hurt you-I was just thinking about the company and I didn't think you'd take it so personally. I didn't think I'd lose you as a friend-and I know I don't deserve it after everything I've done to you, but if you gave me another chance I think-"
"What?" Eduardo's eyes are huge and dark and Mark has to swallow around the lump in his throat before he can continue.
"I think I'd never let you go." He bites his lip and watches Eduardo blink slowly.
"Okay."
The corner of his mouth comes up when Eduardo yawns. "Good night, Wardo."
"Good night, Mark."
The first thing he realizes when he opens his eyes the next morning is that his phone isn't ringing.
The second is that Eduardo's still next to him beneath the covers, breathing deep and measured, hands curled under the pillow.
"Oh, shit," he says out loud, checking the time. His flight leaves at noon and he's supposed to meet with Sy and Marilyn one more time so they can present the settlement agreement for him to sign-
"Mark?" His head snaps around as Eduardo stirs and pulls at the blanket. "Mark, it's tomorrow."
"Technically, that's impossible."
"You know what I mean."
He nods, watching the play of early morning shadows stream across Eduardo's face as he sits up.
"Does that mean you broke the curse?"
"You make it sound like I'm living some sort of real life fairytale," Mark says, and Eduardo smiles blearily, rubbing at his eyes.
"Does that make me the damsel in distress or what?"
"I don't think it works that way," he replies.
Eduardo props his head up, elbow digging into a dip in the bed. "Okay, so how is it supposed to work?"
"I don't know," Mark says drily. "I've never done this before."
His phone rings before Eduardo can say anything. "Hello?"
"Mark, I tried calling you last night but you didn't respond-"
"It's about Bosnia, isn't it?" Dustin splutters something unintelligible across the line. Eduardo climbs out of bed and pads into the bathroom as Mark starts rattling off lengthy bits of code he's remembered from the past quarter of a year.
"Wow," Dustin says when he's finished. "This is why you're CEO and I'm just your vice president."
"You helped me with a lot of that," Mark says casually, "even if you don't remember doing it."
"What are you talking about?"
Eduardo plucks the phone out of Mark's hand and says, "Don't worry about it."
"Wardo?"
"We'll talk later," he says, and then he's flipping the phone shut and sliding it back into Mark's outstretched palm.
"Hi."
Eduardo quirks an eyebrow and purses his lips. "Morning."
"This isn't awkward at all."
"Maybe if you keep saying that, it'll be true."
"We have a settlement meeting to go to," Mark says, scratching the back of his neck.
"And after that?"
"I-" He takes a deep breath. "It's up to you."
"Oh?"
"I have a plane ticket to California tucked into my laptop case, but if you want-" He trails off uncertainly.
"Didn't you say something about not letting me go?" Eduardo says, an infuriating twinkle in his eye.
Mark frowns. "You kind of passed out after that. How am I supposed to know what you want if you don't tell me? I'm not a mind-reader like you are."
"I'm not a mind-reader either," Eduardo says wryly, picking his briefcase up off the floor and straightening his wrinkled tie. "But I do think we can give this more-than-friends thing a try, after the settlement."
Mark's heart threatens to jump into his throat. "Won't it be awkward?"
"Yeah, it might be," he says, laughing when Mark gapes at him, "but what's life without a little awkwardness? Besides, you love me." Eduardo shakes his head when he opens his mouth to protest. "You were the most honest you've ever been to me last night, and you spelled it out yourself. Too late to backtrack now."
"I didn't actually say it," Mark says petulantly.
"Didn't have to." Mark frowns and Eduardo laughs again. "I see you're still as emotionally constipated as ever."
"Repeating the same day a hundred times doesn't change a person that much," he mutters.
"And yet, everything is different."
"Only the important things," he says, grudgingly letting an irrationally pleased Eduardo cart him off to breakfast, and later, after the settlement agreements are gone over and signed, to a late lunch.
He misses his flight. We have a lot to catch up on is the reason Eduardo gives him to pass on to Dustin when he calls, and it doesn't bother Mark as much as it should that it'll set his plans for Facebook in South Africa or Bosnia back a little bit. There will always be time to code.
fin
A/N: happy holidays from shanghai ♥ (▰˘◡˘▰)! anon commenting, as usual, is on. thank you to underhand_glory for looking at drafts of this and listening to me whine ♥.