Secret Santa Fic for robpat: Burning Down the Highway Skyline
fic: Burning Down the Highway Skyline
pairing: Mark/Eduardo (established relationship)
rating: Hard R
word count: ~3500
warnings: Petty fighting, semi-crisis situations, dumb boys who can't communicate, sex in a cramped space, and too much fluff? Also, I have absolutely no understanding of how cars work,so just pretend the mechanical stuff makes sense lol.
disclaimer: I don't own anything, and this isn't meant to represent real people
summary: Eduardo's perfect vacation isn't exactly going according to plan, and now he's stranded on the side of the road in the middle of a snowstorm with a grumpy boyfriend and a car that won't start.
notes: Written for the lovely robpat as a gift for tsnsecretsanta. I tried to work in domesticity, fluff, and angst with a happy ending, plus I wanted a sort of wintery theme (and also a snowstorm to make up for the sadly snowless winter I've been having). I had a lot of fun writing it, once I finally committed to an idea. Also, lots of credit goes to oflightsand salvadore_hart for helping me out and basically coming up with the idea, lol /o\. I hope you like it, bb! Happy New Year!
Can we climb this mountain?
I don't know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let's take it easy
Easy now, watch it go
We're burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane that started turning
When you were young
--The Killers, “When You Were Young”
“So what, are you going to ignore me the whole week?”
Mark doesn’t open his eyes. “I’m not ignoring you.”
Eduardo drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Sure seems like it.”
“I told you, I’m napping,” Mark says shortly. His eyes are closed and his face is pressed up against the fogged-up car window on the passenger’s side.
“Cool, so you’re gonna be passive-aggressive the whole week,” Eduardo says. “Sounds like a fantastic vacation.”
Mark snorts. “Oh, I’m being passive-aggressive. That’s funny.”
Eduardo breathes out through his teeth, frustrated. He had been looking forward to this vacation for weeks, a whole week away from work (and more importantly, with Mark away from work) up north at a ski resort. But Mark has been less than enthusiastic about it, and now they’re fighting about it, fucking again. And to make matters worse, the snow is starting to come down so hard that he can barely see the road.
“Is there a reason you’re driving like five miles an hour?” Mark says. “I’d like to make it there before all the ice caps melt, thanks.”
“Oh, my bad,” Eduardo spits out angrily. “Sorry if I don’t want to drive into a fucking snow bank, thanks.”
Mark just snorts and says nothing. There is a moment of tense silence as Eduardo cranks up the defroster and squints to see through the swirl of white flying at the windshield.
“So remind me, what was the reason you wanted to go up north?” Mark says.
Eduardo grits his teeth.
“Oh right, it was for the fantastic weather, wasn’t it. Because this is just lovely.”
“Are you serious?” Eduardo snaps, losing his patience altogether. “Can you not be a dick for one goddamn second? I know it’s hard for you, but I’m trying to not get us killed here, so you could at least try?”
Mark presses his lips together sulkily in what Eduardo would like to think is a silent surrender but knows is simply a refusal to speak. Eduardo does the same, staring at the road in front of him and refusing to let himself feel even the tiniest bit guilty for his outburst.
Sometimes he wonders if it’s really wise at all for two people with such hot tempers and high levels of stubbornness to be in a relationship. Anyone with sixth months of training in relationship therapy could tell you that it’s just a recipe for disaster.
Still, that doesn’t make Eduardo any more apt to break the silence. If Mark is going to have the attitude of a bratty teenager, well, then so is Eduardo. He’s twenty-seven, but his whole goddamned perfect vacation is heading to ruination, so fuck maturity. Just fuck it.
A huge clump of snow flies at the windshield and Eduardo swerves and curses. Years of living in the temperate climate has made him forget how awful it is to drive in the snow. He’s starting to wish they never left Palo Alto, but there’s no way in hell he’s admitting that to Mark.
“I just,” Mark finally says, voice clipped. “I don’t understand why we have to go to a ski resort.”
“I told you a thousand times,” Eduardo says sharply. “I miss the winter weather, and I thought you would enjoy skiing. Is that not a reasonable enough explanation for you?”
“But I told you like a thousand times that I didn’t want to go,” Mark says in a matching tone. “Why do you have to be so obsessive about-”
“Yeah, obviously you didn’t want to go!” Eduardo interrupts harshly. “You never do, do you? You’ll never leave home without dragging your feet, because god forbid you’ll be away from work from work for a week, and have to actually spend some time with your boyfriend, Jesus, what torture-”
“Fuck you,” Mark says, and it’s not his words as much as his tone, colder than the crystals forming on the windows, that makes guilt turn in Eduardo’s stomach. This has always been a touchy subject, and maybe that wasn’t entirely fair to say. “For your information-”
But he gets cut off as a heavy harsh noise suddenly comes from the front of the car. “What the fuck was that?” Mark says. Before Eduardo can reply, he notices an oily burning smell in the air. “Aw, shit,” he says and frantically spins the wheel to his right. He just barely gets the car off the road before it lets out another grinding noise, lurches forward, and then stops moving altogether.
“Fuck,” he says, heart pounding. He switches on the emergency blinkers with trembling hands.
“Yeah,” Mark says.
“Are you okay?” Eduardo says, turning towards Mark and looking at him through the darkness, searching for any signs of injury. He doesn’t even think about the argument they’d just been having; it’s an automatic reflex. Mark’s well-being is always the first thing on his mind.
“I’m fine,” Mark says jerkily. “You should be more worried about if your car is okay.”
Eduardo recoils. Apparently the pressure of a crisis is not enough to melt away Mark’s temper. Well, great.
He clicks on the overhead light, glad to see that at least the battery (and, thus, heat) is still working. “I’ll call Triple A,” he says, pulling out his phone.
“Good luck getting service in this storm,” Mark says. But to his smug satisfaction, Eduardo finds that he has two bars. “Ha,” he says.
Mark scowls and snatches the phone out of Eduardo’s hand. “You know what? Save your money,” he says. “I’ll fix it.”
Eduardo snorts. “Mark, it’s not a waste of money, it’s insured. Besides, we don’t know the first thing about cars.”
“Speak for yourself,” Mark snaps. “Maybe you’re too prissy to get your hands dirty, but I happen to be great with mechanics.” He opens the glove compartment and pulls out a dinky flashlight.
Eduardo lets the insult pass and says, “Come on, babe. There’s a big difference between a computer hard drive and a car engine. Why don’t you let me just call Triple A.”
But Mark is already unbuckling his seatbelt and opening his door. “Stop with the condescending pet names,” he says, getting out. “It’s not cute.”
“Mark-” Eduardo says with more urgent concern in his voice, aware of how irrational Mark can be when he’s trying to make a point. But Mark has already gotten out and slammed the door, leaving his jacket on the seat.
Eduardo curses under his breath. He rolls down the window and immediately winces as the freezing wind hits his face. He sticks his head out of the window and yells over the wind to where Mark is standing at the front of the car.
“Mark, come on, get in the car!” Eduardo yells. “Don’t be stupid, you’ll freeze!” Mark ignores him.
“At least get your jacket!” Eduardo calls, concern quickly bypassing annoyance.
“Shut up, Eduardo, I’m trying to concentrate,” Mark yells back. Eduardo can hardly hear him over the howling wind. He sighs and rolls up the window quickly. He reasons that Mark will have to come back into the car after a minute, as his stubbornness surely can’t overpower his self-preservation.
But after three minutes pass and Mark is still out there, Eduardo simply can’t take it. Mark might be pigheaded and sulky and inconsiderate, but he’s also the love of Eduardo’s life, and he can never, ever bear for him to be in danger.
Eduardo unbuckles his seatbelt and pulls on his jacket, then he braces himself for the cold and steps outside. Mark is standing with the hood open, holding the flashlight and squinting at the engine, though it’s clear he can barely see through the whirls of snow.
Eduardo wraps his arms around himself. “Come on, Mark, please,” he pleads. “Please just get in the car.”
“I can fix it,” Marks says, through chattering teeth.
“Maybe you can, but it’s really hard to see and there could be a thousand things wrong and who knows how long it could take, especially in the dark,” Eduardo beseeches, attempting to appeal to Mark’s reason. “And with the wind chill it’s below freezing out here, and I’m really worried that you’ll get frostbite. Please just come back in the car.”
“I-I’ll be fine,” Mark murmurs, but Eduardo grabs his arm and finds feels how badly he’s shivering.
“Mark, get in,” he says, panicked. He tugs Mark towards the back door, and Mark acquiesces, finally.
Mark climbs into the backseat and Eduardo scurries in after him, slamming the door behind him. When he looks over at Mark, his heart clenches. In the light of the car, he sees that Mark’s lips are blue and his teeth are chattering. He’s rocking back and forth involuntarily. The wet snow is dripping from his hair down into his eyes.
“Jesus,” Eduardo says. Without a single thought, he climbs over and takes Mark into his arms, ignoring how wet and freezing his skin feels against Eduardo’s and how his shivers rock through Eduardo’s body.
“Warm up, warm up,” he murmurs, rubbing his hands up and down Mark’s arms.
“I’m f-f-f-fine, Wardo,” Mark chatters. Eduardo, unconvinced, pulls back and quickly pulls Mark’s arms up.
“Come on, baby, let’s get this wet thing off, yeah?” he says, and tugs the sweatshirt over Mark’s head. As quickly as he can, he shrugs off his own jacket and sweater and drapes them over Mark’s shoulders, finds a blanket on the floor and uses it to wipe the melting snow off Mark’s hair and face, and then puts the blanket over both of them and puts his arms around Mark once more.
“Now you’ll be c-c-cold,” Mark says. Eduardo shakes his head and tsks. “I’ll be fine, just warm up, okay, baby?” he says. He winces inwardly at the pet name, but he can’t stop himself from using it as he tries to make Mark stop shivering so much.
Eventually, Mark seems to absorb some of Eduardo’s body heat, and he stills. Eduardo grabs his phone from the front seat and finds the contact for Triple A, extremely relieved to find that his call goes through, albeit with some static. He tells the operator that he and his boyfriend are stranded but safe and warm, and they say they can trace the call to find their location and they’ll be there with a tow truck within half an hour. Eduardo says thank you and hangs up.
They don’t speak for a few moments, Eduardo just continuing to rub his hands up and down Mark’s slowly-warming skin.
Finally, Mark says, “I guess you’re gonna tell me I’m a dumbass now, right?”
“No,” Eduardo says softly, marveling at how Mark can make his emotions go from angry frustration to panicked concern, and now to awful guilt, in a manner of minutes. It that isn’t love, he doesn’t know what is.
“Do you really think I’m more interested in work than spending time with you?” Mark says quietly, facing away from Eduardo’s face.
“No, of course not,” Eduardo says. “I was just frustrated and I shouldn’t-I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it, I swear.”
“Then what did you mean?” Mark says. Eduardo doesn’t think he means to be contrary, and the fact that Mark is initiating a conversation about feelings is unusual, to say the least.
“I was just-I was just really looking forward to having our first vacation together,” Eduardo says. “And when you seemed so…blah… about it, it made me feel like…well, not great.”
“Yeah, well, you were so fixated on planning this trip, you didn’t even pay any attention or seem to care about what I wanted to do,” Mark says, getting very quiet the way he always does when he feels vulnerable. “I told you I wanted to stay in Palo Alto, but you didn’t care. For a trip that was supposed to be ours, you gave me very little input.”
“I know,” Eduardo says. “And I’m sorry for that. I just-I just wanted to get away from home so-so neither of us would get caught up with stuff-”
“You mean like Facebook,” Mark says flatly.
“Yeah,” Eduardo says weakly, “for one thing…”
Mark doesn’t say anything for a very long time. Eduardo realizes he’s struck a nerve and starts to feel even worse. But it’s not like he had no reason to feel the way he did, and Mark needs to realize that…
“You know,” Mark says, refusing to look at Eduardo. “When you told me you had a week off, right away I made sure to cancel all my appointments and put in more hours to get the new update finished and installed with plenty of time for tweaking. And I had some ideas for, well, surprises, or whatever. Like, well, it sounds stupid now, but I thought one day we could marathon all the Indiana Jones movies, since you said you hadn’t seen them, and order in for all our meals, and not leave the house or even change out of our pajamas. And another night we could go out to that new fancy Italian place you kept talking about, you know, the one we never got around to checking out. And another time-” he mutters this part so quickly that Eduardo can understand him. “I thought I could try to make you breakfast in bed.”
“Mark…” Eduardo says, because he’s overcome and doesn’t know what else to say.
“I know it sounds lame out loud but at the time I thought they were fantastic ideas,” Mark says. “Romantic, or whatever.” He scoffs.
“It’s not stupid,” Eduardo says. “It is romantic.” He puts his hand on Mark’s cheek and tilts his face towards him, forcing Mark to meet his eyes. Mark looks uncomfortable and embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” Eduardo says. “I didn’t know.”
“Why would you?” Mark says. “You probably had good reason to assume that I was just gonna blow you off-”
“No,” Eduardo says firmly. “You are romantic, and you are thoughtful, and I should know that. I do know that, because I never would have gotten back together with you if you weren't.”
Mark gulps. He hates to be reminded of the bad parts of their past.
“I just got-caught up,” Eduardo continues, “And, yeah, obsessive, and I just really wanted to have the perfect vacation, and I turned into a control freak about it, and then I got upset when you didn’t go along with it. But I should never have forced you to go somewhere you didn’t want to go, or made unfair assumptions…I was a jerk. I’m sorry.”
Mark looks at him with big eyes. “You should know that I really don’t give a fuck where I am as long as you’re with me,” he says.
Well. Eduardo has no response to that but to kiss Mark soundly.
He puts his hand on the back of Mark’s neck to draw him closer and deepen the kiss. Mark sighs and parts his lips, almost automatically, like a reflex. That’s how it is between them: so many things have become second nature.
“Me too,” Eduardo murmurs into Mark’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling away a few inches. “I love you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mark says, but not spitefully.
“You’re supposed to say ‘I love you too, Wardo,’” Eduardo says facetiously, kissing him quickly on the corner of his mouth, where his smile is curving up.
“So bossy,” Mark says, smiling, and Eduardo knows he’s forgiven.
Mark leans in and kisses him again, wet and enthusiastic. It only takes a few short moments for it to descend into full-on making out. The stubble on their jaws scrapes together in the best way. Eduardo gets his fingers in Mark’s damp hair, and Mark responds in kind by pushing his hands under Eduardo’s shirt and pressing his fingers into the skin about his hips. It makes Eduardo shiver, only partially from the cold.
They’re close enough together on the car seat that it doesn’t take much maneuvering for Mark to climb completely on top of Eduardo, getting his knees on either side of Eduardo’s lap and pressing Eduardo back into the seat with his kisses.
“Mmph, Mark,” Eduardo says uselessly, trying to ignore the way Mark is moving his hips against Eduardo’s lap. Eduardo is too old to be doing this in a car, he really, really is, but Mark doesn’t seem to care. And neither does Eduardo’s penis, apparently.
Mark moves his hands from Eduardo’s hips to his waistband, unbuckling his belt. Eduardo make a noise-it’s meant to be a protest, really, but it sort of ends up sounding more like a groan of encouragement. Mark is undeterred, unbuckling both their belts with practiced ease.
Maybe Eduardo should stop this. Because it’s really very cramped back here and the seatbelt buckle is digging into his hip and god, they are supposed to be responsible adults, not teenagers who get each other off in the backseat of a car. (Not that Eduardo ever had car sex, or really any particularly illicit sex, when he was actually a teenager, but that’s neither here nor there.)
But Eduardo knows, better than really anyone, that for some reason, there is no sex quite as fantastic as make-up sex, especially between him and Mark. (And he’s ashamed to admit it, but that fact played a big role in the process of their eventual reconciliation.)
And besides-doing it this way, the rushed, frantic, slightly forbidden aspect of it-well, it’s more than a little reminiscent of their first hookups, back in college, drunken and hurried and confused and inexperienced and delighted. And well, it’s not such a bad connotation.
So when he says “Mark-the tow truck-we shouldn’t-,” it’s with very little conviction. Mark is pulling him out of his underwear with his perfect, perfect fingers and god, that never gets old.
“We can be quick,” Mark says in his ear. He seems to take Eduardo’s answering moan/grunt combination as an agreement. In a moment, he spits in his hand and wraps it around them both.
Their sex is usually much more advanced than this, but who fucking cares when it feels this good? Eduardo lets his head fall back against the car seat as they slide together, and it’s like heaven.
Eduardo knows he won’t last long, with Mark rocking against him and especially when he gets his tongue on the curve of Eduardo’s jaw. It’s been a while, since they’ve been fighting, and that’s Eduardo’s excuse for how soon he feels the desperate heat begin to build in his gut. He’s been with Mark long enough to recognize the signs that he’s not far behind, either.
Just when Eduardo’s about to reach the breaking point, something occurs to him and he grabs Mark’s hand frantically. “The upholstery,” he gasps.
Mark groans, frustrated, and stills his hand. Then his eyes light up and he gets off Eduardo’s lap (Eduardo whines at the loss), and, in one smooth motion, kneels on the floor of the car and takes Eduardo in his mouth. It only takes him one, two, three sucks before Eduardo is crying out and coming down his throat.
After he takes a moment to recover, he pushes Mark down on the seat and returns the favor, and it’s over before his legs can start to cramp from the awkward angle.
It’s not a very comfortable as far as post-coital goes, and there’s no room for cuddling. Eduardo notices that the windows have fogged up, and he starts to laugh at the ridiculous cliché. Mark starts laughing too, for whatever reason, and that’s how they are when they notice headlights coming up behind them a minute later.
They’re still giggling as they hurry to button up. Eduardo knows that they’re not exactly sublte when the people from Triple A come to their window and find them smirking, smoothing their rumpled shirts and wiping their mouths, but he doesn’t care much.
---
The tow truck brings the car to the nearest mechanic, and they spend the night at a nearby hotel, making up for the sex they haven’t had in the past couple of weeks. The next day, the mechanic calls Eduardo and says the engine is fine, they just needed more coolant (Eduardo tactfully abstains from pointing out to Mark that neither of them even know what coolant is).
After they pick up the car, Mark says they could still make it for part of their reservation at the resort. Eduardo says he doesn’t care about that and would be fine with just going home and spending the rest of the week there.
In the end, they decide to stay right where they are, at the hotel thirty miles from the ski resort.
They spend the whole week there, checking out the mediocre diners nearby, ordering room service and random On Demand movies, and enjoying the simple pleasure of fucking in a bed that’s not their own. It snows again a few more times, and in the mornings they wake up to a view of an unbroken blanket of white. Eduardo delights in it, and Mark delights in Eduardo, although he just says he'll enjoy getting back to the sun.
It’s the best vacation Eduardo’s ever had.
fin