fic: she's thunderstorms
Title: she's thunderstorms
Pairing(s): Mark/Eduardo
Rating: R
Warnings: Internalized homophobia, sexism, sex with dubious consent, gender identity crisis, non-linear timeline?
Word Count: 5,300~
Summary: Having sex with a guy turns Eduardo into a girl. It's complicated.
Author's Notes: Oh God, I am so sorry that this is late. I tried to write a fic that was tailored to your prompts, but I don't know how well I did. I am extremely sorry for the lack of actual porn. Ahead lies genderswap of the weird variety, boys with feelings, girls with feelings, nakedness, Sean Parker being a douchebag and other things. Happy holidays, Julia :)
Thank you so fucking much to hold_onhope for beta-ing and for helping me hash out all the complicated details. Deer, you are a LIFESAVER and this fic would have been in shambles without you ♥ Title from the Arctic Monkeys song.
Thanks also to widows for helping out at the start, even though the fic ended up being completely different.
four.
--
Some days, Mark wakes up and Eduardo is soft-boned, angles all smooth, small enough to fit in Mark’s arms. Other days, Eduardo is tall and broad, and his hands can hold Mark down and pin him to the bed.
(Mark is learning that it doesn’t matter what Eduardo’s body is-he lets himself be pushed down, every time, closes his eyes and obeys whether it is a girl hissing into his ear or a boy-it’s Eduardo, every time.)
--
It helps, infinitely, that they are both just figuring this out as they go along.
Eduardo tells him, once, when they are sitting outside with their feet in the pool, that he’d always been too scared to ever accept himself. That he didn’t think he was allowed to want to touch other men unless he was a girl-and it’s shitty, it’s awful. Eduardo knows. He wonders if that’s why this happened-why his body shifts from girl to boy to girl, fluid.
The universe has a way of messing with his life, but somehow he thinks it’s all right. He gets to have this, at least: Mark, and his hoodies, and how they will hang past his fingers on the days when he is in a different body (though he is starting to think that maybe it's not different-it’s still his, it’s not foreign, not anymore). The way Mark lights up at the sound of Eduardo’s laugh, high or low, or anywhere in between. Pancakes in the morning, Mark’s mouth on his cock or his fingers on Eduardo’s clit, on her breasts.
She’s learning that all she’s ever had to do is love herself. In the end, Eduardo is Eduardo, and he’s learning that now.
Mark loves her, loves him, loves Eduardo, and Mark is safe, a safe place in a cruel world, and Eduardo can bury his tired bones against him, can let him fuck her with her ankles locked daintily around his back.
--
On this particular morning, Eduardo is in the shower when Mark steps in, eyes half-closed, and wraps himself around her.
“I was thinking of getting my hair cut,” Eduardo says. She has to lean up on tip-toe to kiss Mark’s forehead, she’s so much smaller like this. It’s weird sometimes, having to change vantage points, but it’s nice to know that they always fit, no matter how much Eduardo’s body changes.
“Mm,” Mark says, “Talk later.”
“You’re terrible,” Eduardo says, “A terrible boyfriend-“
She cuts off in a gasp when Mark leans down to draw a nipple into his mouth, and he slides two fingers inside her where she’s already wet.
“You started without me,” he says, and there’s a bit of a whine in his voice. She just moans softly and pushes down on his clever, slick fingers.
“Talk later,” she exhales, and Mark shakes his head but leans down to kiss her all the same.
--
It’s not easy-it’s never been easy, and sometimes Eduardo has to hide under blankets, under lies, under layers and layers of things that Mark someday hopes to be allowed to touch, to delve into.
But always, Eduardo comes to him, and always, Mark strives to be what Eduardo needs.
--
three.
Mark’s phone rings at three in the morning and he scrambles to pick it up, bringing it up to his ear and barking out, “Wardo? Where the fuck are you?”
“Outside the house,” Wardo says, sounding exhausted, and hangs up. Mark swears, untangling himself from his headphones and pulling himself from his laptop. A glance at the window shows him just how dark it is outside, and he shivers and pulls his hoodie from the back of the chair before leaving his room. Everyone else is asleep or passed out, and he almost slips on the puddle of water in the hallway.
He remembers Wardo asking, “What did you mean, get left behind?” and slamming out the door. His phone’s been off for hours and Mark had gotten more and more pissed as time went on, but his relief that Wardo is back and that he’s okay drowns out any anger he might’ve had earlier.
He opens the door and swears again.
Wardo is standing with his thousand-dollar shoes in one hand, barefoot and looking tiny with his clothes hanging all over him.
“How,” Mark says, “the fuck did get yourself turned into a girl this time?”
“You are such a douchebag,” Wardo says, voice pitched high and eyes angry. He’s holding his arms braced around his chest. Mark takes his hoodie off and hands it to him, and resolutely doesn’t think of that one weekend they’d spent in Kirkland, and how he knows the soft feeling of Wardo’s breasts under his hands. It was a one-time thing. Eduardo has a girlfriend in New York. Mark has Facebook here, in Palo Alto, and just like that the anger is back again, burning in his chest.
But Eduardo is standing in front of him, and even though he’s holding himself straight, Mark can see the trembling in his hands. So he bites his tongue. He remembers red lines running down Eduardo’s thighs, like he’d been trying to scratch his skin off. That was months ago.
“I went-clubbing,” Eduardo offers as an explanation as they walk back to Mark’s room, side-stepping sleeping interns and puddles of rainwater and vomit on the floor. Eduardo has a look of disgust on his face that Mark’s grown familiar with these past dozen hours.
“You couldn’t have left the shoes behind?”
“These are Prada,” Eduardo says.
“And I’m the douchebag,” Mark mutters. He opens the door to his room and lets Eduardo totter in, obviously more than a bit drunk, and fall to the bed. He closes the door and when he looks up, Eduardo is crying.
“Shit,” Mark says.
“I hate this,” Eduardo says, hiccupping.
“Was it a guy?” Mark says and Eduardo nods.
“He wanted to suck my dick, so I let him. I threw up in the bathroom and when I stood up it was like, surprise! You’re a girl now!”
“You need to stop being so reckless,” Mark says. He doesn’t say, You have a girlfriend, you asshole, because he’s not going to pretend he wouldn't have touched Wardo had he wanted him to.
“You should’ve picked me up at the airport,” Eduardo counters, still sniffling, but he’s already slumping into the sheets, rubbing his face against the pillows sleepily. It jars Mark a bit, how much smaller his body is like this.
“Go to sleep, Wardo,” Mark says, and Eduardo doesn’t reply.
He pulls the covers up over Eduardo and hesitates before leaning down and pressing a kiss into his hair.
“Should’ve just been you…I would’ve let you,” Wardo mumbles when he pulls away, and Mark doesn’t know what to do with that.
--
two.
Eduardo is sitting on the sofa in the dorm room at Kirkland and looking down at his (small, delicate) hands, folded primly on his lap. When he moves to curl up closer against the arm of the couch, Mark catches the outline of breasts moving underneath the fabric of the same button-down Eduardo had been wearing last night.
It doesn’t fit him properly anymore, arm sleeves too long and dangling past the tips of his fingers. Eduardo crosses his arms uncomfortably across his chest, and it’s so fucking strange. Mark decides to pull his hoodie over his head and hand it to him, averting his eyes when Eduardo murmurs his thanks. He slides into it, wriggling around to make it fall into place, and Dustin eyes go wide as saucers before he coughs and looks away.
The whole thing is fucking bizarre. Mark thinks of Eduardo’s naked body under his last night, the wings of his shoulder blades and his broad, flat chest, his long, masculine fingers. His thick eyebrows look strange on his new, softer face, but the familiarity comforts Mark.
Dustin is the first one to speak up, saying, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you told your dad to fuck off when he said you had to go home this weekend for your grandfather’s birthday.”
“I did WHAT?” Eduardo says, jerking up from the couch before curling in on himself protectively. His voice goes high instead of strangled, the way it would have if he were-well. Mark winces.
“I must’ve been really fucking drunk last night,” Eduardo says blearily. He rubs a hand across his face, and he’s still wearing his family ring, loose now; it’s too big and clunky on his ring finger.
“Do you really not remember anything that happened last night?” Chris asks. He’s the one who’d freaked out the most about it this morning, because he’d caught Eduardo sneaking out of Mark’s room and had thought that Mark had actually brought a girl back to their room. Until Eduardo looked up at him and said, voice edging into slight hysteria, “Chris, I think I’ve turned into a girl.”
“Not much,” Eduardo says flatly. Mark closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Mark?” Chris asks, and Mark can’t help but think of the shape of Eduardo’s mouth last night, and how some things haven’t changed in Eduardo’s strange, new body: the curve of his eyebrows, the rise of his collarbones, his eyelashes.
Mark remembers clearly the stubble on Wardo’s face after the week of exams they’ve just gone through (remembers, acutely, the way it had rubbed on his skin, the way he’d arched into the feeling), and how his cheeks are now bare, smooth skin rising over sharp cheekbones. His eyes are the same, and they carefully avoid Mark’s own.
“We got drunk and I let him sleep in my bed,” Mark says easily, almost carelessly, and only catches the slight slump of relief that seeps into Eduardo because he’s waiting for it.
Chris sighs, runs a hand through his hair and says, “This is fucking insane,” which is a big deal coming from him.
“Dude,” Dustin says, “You have boobs now.” Eduardo rolls his eyes and bats away Dustin’s hands when he crows, “You guys do realize this is the first time we’ve had a person with boobs in our room right?”
“Shut the fuck up, Dustin,” Chris and Mark say.
Mark’s itching to go into his room and ignore the rest of the world until it decides to make fucking sense again, but last night Eduardo was a boy and now he’s a girl, and the only thing that happened in between was that they finally, finally, had sex after months of just furtively staring at each other and it was-well, it was definitely better than Mark jerking off by himself in the shower. He must’ve done something-this has got to be at least partly his fault.
“You’re surprisingly calm about this,” Chris says suddenly. He’s most definitely not calm about this.
“Um,” Eduardo says. He visibly squirms on the couch, fidgeting with the sleeves of Mark’s hoodie where they’re pooled at his wrists.
It takes Mark a second to get it, and he and Chris let out a sharp breath at the same time.
“Fuck,” Mark exhales, “It’s not the first time is it?”
“Oh my god,” Dustin suddenly yells, pointing an accusing finger at Mark.
“What,” Mark snaps, though he knows what Dustin’s going to say before he yells, “You two hooked up last night!”
Chris looks like he’s about to strangle someone. Eduardo’s face is pinched and tight, and he’s staring at his hands again.
“You two,” Chris spits out, “Get your shit together on the night before this,” here he gestures at Eduardo’s general direction, “happens, and you didn’t think it was important to tell us this?”
“I’m going to take a shower,” Eduardo announces loudly, and then pointedly, to Mark, “I’m going to need to borrow some clothes.”
Mark doesn’t need to be told twice.
--
one.
The first time it happens, Eduardo is 16 and drunk off his ass with the captain of the swim team-Jim, Jim something, it doesn't really matter when he's kissing down Eduardo's stomach with his hands rubbing up and down the insides of Eduardo's thighs. He wants this. He wants this, doesn't he? Of course he does. He does, he wants this beautiful boy and this beautiful boy wants him, and it doesn't matter that he is so spectacularly drunk right now.
Jim is all sandy hair and corded muscle, strong and forceful, someone who takes what he wants, and what he wants right now is Eduardo. When he pushes, Eduardo goes, and there's a dick in his mouth and that's fine--it's fine, really. He closes his eyes and takes it. He knows how to do this, it's fine. It's hazy and a bit scary and, fuck, Eduardo is so fucking drunk and he has no idea whether he wants this or not but it doesn't fucking matter.
Jim is the first boy to ever kiss him.
When he comes to, he is naked in a bed and his head hurts and he feels tiny. Literally tiny-smaller. He wakes up smaller and everything is strange and Eduardo realizes his body is not is own and for a single horrifying moment, his entire world spins.
"What's wrong, babe," the guy beside him slurs, like he didn't even realize that he'd gone to bed with a boy last night and now Eduardo is a girl, and he stumbles out of the bed and pulls on clothes that scratch at his skin and stretch across his chest and catches a cab home.
It is 7 am and he has the keys so he sneaks into his room and strips in front of the mirror, tracing the lines of his strange new body with hands that shake violently and he feels so wrong. He's scratching at his arms desperately, down the line of his thighs and along his-his breasts and his hips, scratching painful lines of red with his nails. He slides under his sheets and curls in on himself, convulsing and shaking and grinding his teeth until he is too tired to stay awake. He wakes up at dusk and he tucks his arms around himself, palms against his breast and then between his legs, and he shakes and he shakes and he shakes.
He has never felt so small in his life.
The next day, his mother knocks on his door to get him ready for school, and he wakes up with a flat chest and familiar fingers. Jim Stentham does not look at him in the hallway.
He convinces himself it was a dream, and doesn't think of the softness of that other body, the way it had rounded out in pleasant curves, doesn't think about red lines and the intense desire to peel off his skin and he doesn't at all wonder about the cruelty of boys when they are in the dark.
--
two.
“Are we going to talk about it?” Mark says, when Eduardo comes in, hair wet from the shower and wearing another one of Mark’s hoodies, a cleaner one. He’s shrunk about five inches so Mark’s sweatpants flop at his heels and pool on the floor as he walks.
Mark’s sitting at his computer desk but his laptop hasn’t even been switched on.
“What is there to talk about?” Eduardo asks. “I’m a girl now or, like, whatever. I hope I get back to normal soon because I don’t want to have to explain to my dad about how his deepest fears are actually coming true.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Mark says, and it’s a testament to how fucking weird this entire thing is that Eduardo turning into a girl isn’t the thing foremost on his mind.
“We hooked up last night?” Eduardo tries. He sits on Mark’s bed and bounces a bit, and then frowns and braces an arm around his chest because, oh, right, boobs.
“And you want to act like it never happened,” Mark says. He’s trying not to sound accusatory-or, even worse, hurt-but it comes out sounding like that anyway.
“Which is-fine-,” Mark starts to say.
“The first time this happened was the first time I had sex with a guy,” Eduardo says.
Mark’s mouth shuts closed.
“And last night was the second time,” Eduardo says and then he swallows and looks down and Mark sort of gets what this is.
It’s fucking messed up, is what this is, if the universe’s idea of a joke is to mess with Wardo’s body every time he has sex with a guy.
“Maybe your father put a curse on you,” Mark says. He means it to be a joke but Eduardo flinches like he’s been slapped.
“No,” Eduardo says, “no, it’s. I.” His hands compulsively latch on to any bare skin they can find and he trembles.
Mark sits down next to Eduardo and carefully pries one of his hands from his neck, sees the red lines from his nails trailing down his skin.
“You’re hurting yourself,” Mark says. His fingers twitch around Eduardo’s wrist but Eduardo grabs on to his hands before he can pull away.
“What if it doesn’t-What if I don’t-“ he says, and his voice is shaking so badly that Mark feels it shake against him too.
“Stop being stupid,” Mark says and Eduardo chokes out a laugh.
“The Phoenix punch party is tomorrow,” he says and Mark shrugs and says, “Skip it. Stay in with me,” and thinks he finally understands what people mean when they say someone smiles like the sun.
It’s familiar, the next part. Mark knows how to place a hand on the small of Eduardo’s back and let him lean forward and take the lead. Eduardo isn’t used to kissing people taller than him-and Mark is taller than him now, Christ, that’s really weird-so he makes a disgruntled noise and fists Mark’s shirt to pull him closer.
Mark doesn’t even think about it, just slides his hands underneath the hoodie and finds the swell of breasts underneath it. Eduardo jerks in his hold and pulls away.
“Fuck,” he mumbles.
“Sorry,” Mark says immediately and Eduardo shakes his head, takes Mark’s hand and puts it on his chest, “I meant fuck me.”
“If it works one way, it must work the other?” Mark asks, and Eduardo laughs.
He puts a hand on Mark’s crotch and smiles sweetly, and Mark goes, oh, he goes.
--
It doesn’t work, though not for lack of trying.
Eduardo spends the weekend in their dorm not doing the things he usually does, like cleaning up and cooking things. Chris says it’s good that he’s trying to show them something. He rambles on about gender roles until Eduardo interjects that he just doesn’t like moving around because his body feels weird, and it makes them all remember that they are living in a weird reality where their friend has turned into a girl. The whole thing is pretty surreal.
Eduardo punches Dustin in the ear every time he catches him staring at his chest, and he sprawls himself on Mark’s bed in the early mornings and listens to him code, like he always does.
The sex is strange, but good. Like, really good. He likes that Wardo makes the same noises he’d made on their first time, likes how easy it is for him to hook his ankles around Mark and pull him in deeper. Mark’s always liked messy sex, and Wardo gets really wet, and it’s-it’s weird but it’s not, somehow. It’s just sex with Wardo. It’s surprisingly uncomplicated.
On Monday morning, Mark throws his leg around Eduardo and is rewarded with sharp bone jutting against him, so he opens his eyes and is met with a familiar expanse of tan skin. Eduardo is drooling on the pillow, eyes still closed, but he’s definitely male again.
Mark takes a moment to study his body, comparing and contrasting and filing away the differences before throwing them all away and running his mouth down the flat plane of Wardo’s chest.
Wardo jolts awake and gasps, “Mark,” rough and low, and, fuck, Mark’s missed that.
It takes Wardo a beat but then he’s saying, “We can’t,” and pushing Mark’s hands away, “I might-“
Mark backs away and says, “Okay,” and watches Eduardo shake his head, “No, I mean, I want, you have to know I want to but we can’t risk it.”
“Wardo, I said okay,” Mark says and Eduardo’s face shutters. “Yeah,” he says, and that’s that.
Wardo sends him a really long email, after he’s slinked away like a coward. It talks about the relationship or whatever, and it makes everything formal and stilted. All Mark can get from it is that Eduardo is somehow willing to fuck him when he’s a girl, but needs to be drunk when he’s a guy.
But it’s okay, because Mark has an idea, and it’s going to be big. It’s going to be amazing. He deletes the email and texts Wardo, “I think I’ve come up with something.”
--
three.
Eduardo’s making coffee in the kitchen the next morning when Sean walks in and says, “Hey, gorgeous, where did you come from?” all sleek and predatory.
“What the fuck,” Eduardo mutters, half-asleep, still looking down at his coffee keeping his back to Sean, but apparently Sean doesn’t even recognize him.
“Did you come with Sammy and the boys last night? I think I’d have noticed a pretty thing like you here,” Sean continues.
“Go away,” Eduardo says, hands tightening around the mug of coffee in his hands. It’s not very hot, but he wishes it were. Sean is stepping in closer, crowding him against the corner now. He says, “Aw, come on baby, don’t be like that,” and something in Eduardo just snaps.
Eduardo knew from their first meeting that Sean Parker was untrustworthy and dangerous, but he’s now realizing that Sean is the type of person who feels like he is owed a woman’s attention, and that makes him disgusting.
He turns around, eyes narrowed, and throws the contents of the mug at Sean.
“Leave me alone,” Eduardo says, and doesn’t realize he’s raising his voice until Mark walks in as Sean is grabbing Eduardo’s shoulder in a painful grip and shaking him.
“Sean!” Mark barks out, and Eduardo takes the opportunity to duck away and get as much distance as he can. Blood is rushing into his head and he can’t hear anything except the muffled sounds of Mark shouting and telling Sean to leave.
“Come on, Mark, you’re going to choose this fucking bitch over me?” Sean is saying, face contorted in anger. “We can get prettier girls to spread their legs for you, man-“
Eduardo doesn’t even think, he’s pulling his arm back with every intent to strike Sean, but he jerks away with a yelp before Eduardo can even hit him.
“I think you should leave now,” Eduardo says and feels a rush of satisfaction when Sean trips over his feet on the way out.
“He can’t stay,” Eduardo says after he hears the front door being slammed, and feels cold settle into his chest when Mark makes a face.
“He didn’t really-“ Mark tries, and Eduardo shakes his head.
“He goes or I go, Mark.” He says it as calmly as he can, and it makes him fucking sick, how Mark looks away at that moment.
“I need you out here,” Mark says.
Eduardo can’t-he can’t breathe, and he can’t be in here right now, not in this body or in Mark’s clothes, in this awful kitchen with the coffee on the floor and the sunlight through the window dripping into the sink piled high with dirty dishes. Eduardo realizes, suddenly, that he can’t be in this house with all these men.
“I’m going back to New York,” he says to Mark, careful. “And then I’m going to email you my resignation letter. You can keep the nineteen thousand.”
It’s an easy decision to make, in the end. He can’t choose someone who wouldn’t choose him. He has enough self-respect for that, at least.
He leaves Mark’s hoodie in a pile on the bed.
Mark is waiting by the doorway when Eduardo finishes packing up, and he says, “I’m sorry.” Eduardo knows it’s the best he’ll ever get from Mark.
“Make Facebook awesome, okay?” he says, and Mark moves as if to hug him, as if to pull him close and tell him stay, but he only brushes Eduardo’s hair behind his ear and lets his fingers skitter down the side of Eduardo’s neck to rest atop his heart.
Mark says, “I will,” and Eduardo exhales and feels the press of Mark’s fingers against his skin. It’s a promise.
--
“Well, you do look hotter like this,” is all Christy says when she barges into Eduardo’s room and sees him sitting naked on top of the bed, soaking in the sunlight.
She takes him shopping, and they buy bras and panties and blouses and skirts and Christy teaches him how to put lipstick on.
“You’ll be okay,” she tells him, after it’s been a week and he’s still stuck in this body. It doesn’t feel like being stuck anymore. Eduardo opens the windows in his apartment in New York and eats good food with Christy and spends the summer in skirts and sandals. He lets his hair grow out.
He tells Christy he cheated on her in Palo Alto, “some guy in a club, and I was so drunk, I’m sorry, I’m so-“ and Christy just place a hand on his elbow, gentle, until he can stop babbling.
“Wardo,” she says, eyes soft, “I know you were in love with Mark the whole time.”
I still am, Eduardo thinks but doesn’t say. Christy probably already knows that too.
“And besides,” Christy continues, “You let me go shopping for you, and that was probably more fun than any sex we had-no offense. I just knew your ass would look great in a skirt.”
Eduardo throws a pillow at her.
--
One night, they’re fighting each other for sofa space and soy chicken in Eduardo’s apartment. They’re always fighting over something, scrambling and twisting around each other, all quick motions and bursts of energy.
Christy talks about her childhood in Cambodia, when she and her brothers would catch frogs by moonlight and climb mango trees when their fruits bloomed, bursting ripe and golden in the summer.
In return Eduardo tells her about getting punched by the Phoenix and what Mark said about it being “probably just a diversity thing.” When Christy laughs, she throws her head back and the light glints on her earrings. Eduardo’s been thinking of getting his ears pierced.
“Look at the two of us! The Phoenix would kill to have us interracial ladies in their stupid boys-only club,” Christy says, and doesn’t miss the way Eduardo’s smile falters just a bit.
“Hey,” Christy says. She’s spent weeks around Eduardo and watched him grow into this new body and learn to move in it again. He always used to walk like he didn’t quite know what to do with his limbs but now in this new body, he is flowing, graceful. “Use your words, Wardo,” Christy says, and Eduardo takes a breath.
“I just,” he starts, “I don’t know. I used to feel like-every time, I used to feel like my skin didn’t fit on right. But I feel okay now. I feel good. Like I don’t-I don’t even have to make it fit, you know?”
“And that’s good,” Christy says.
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. “It really is.”
“So how do you feel about pronouns?” Christy asks, and Eduardo is genuinely taken by surprise. He’s never thought about them. He’s always-he’s always just been Eduardo, no matter what body he’s in. His body can change, but he doesn’t have to. Maybe it can be a matter of consistency. Eduardo likes consistency.
“You don’t have to decide. Like, ever, if you don’t want to,” Christy says, and he nods.
“I always used to think I was weaker like this,” he says, “But I was wrong. I’m as strong as I need to be.”
Eduardo makes the decision.
The night, stripping in front of the mirror, she looks at herself.
She breathes.
--
Eduardo wakes up at the end of summer to rain against the window, and Christy laughs in delight when he falls out of the bed, legs and arms too long again.
--
Mark emails him about the Millionth Member Party, and Eduardo looks at it for a long while, reads and rereads and thinks about for a long while. He emails back, “Do you have space in your closet for my two sets of clothes?”
Mark calls him and says, “I’ve just bought a new closet.”
Eduardo laughs and feels something in him lighten. He closes his eyes and listens to Mark shuffle around on the other end, talking a mile a minute about Facebook and, “You’ve got to come out and see it, Wardo.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“I’m…really…I really missed you,” Mark is saying now, slow and careful.
Eduardo swallows and tells himself that maybe he can do this, that maybe he is allowed to have this now.
“Me too,” he says honestly, lets Mark’s sigh from the other end of the line sink into him.
He breathes.
--
four.
Mark walks into the kitchen and finds Eduardo flipping pancakes at the stove in nothing but a pair of sweatpants. He’d gone to sleep with his face tucked against Eduardo’s breasts last night but now he’s flat-chested, broad-shouldered--and Mark can't wait to be hoisted into those arms and be fucked into at some point today. Hopefully before lunch. Eduardo smiles at him and Mark remembers the sting of Eduardo’s teeth on his shoulder last night with a flutter of affection.
“These are going to burn and you’re going to starve,” Eduardo says, but he hums anyway when Mark presses his entire body against Eduardo’s back and rubs his cheek against Eduardo’s neck like an overgrown cat.
He slides his hands into Eduardo’s pants and-oh.
Eduardo makes a pleased noise and leans one hand against the kitchen counter.
“Panties,” Mark mumbles happily.
“Thought you’d enjoy them,” Wardo says, voice going breathless.
“You were too lazy to change when you woke up,” Mark says knowingly, and Eduardo scoffs. It trails off into a soft moan when Mark reaches around to press a hand to his crotch and rubs him, just once.
“Pancakes,” Eduardo reminds him, but lets Mark pull the sweatpants down anyway, steps out of them when Mark leans down to help him.
“S’cold,” Eduardo complains and Mark rubs his thighs.
“I’ll warm you right up,” Mark says and Eduardo has time to choke out a laugh and, “I can’t believe you just said that,” before Mark is kneeling in front of him and pressing soft kisses to his straining hard on. He presses his thumb up against the head of Eduardo’s cock where it’s straining against the cotton, fingers the lace that’s flush against Eduardo’s hipbone.
“No,” Eduardo gasps out, “Mark, I am not doing this in the kitchen.”
“I’m already on my knees,” Mark complains and Eduardo rolls his eyes. He points to the pancakes and says, “You can finish making these, for being so insufferable so early in the morning, and I’m going to wait in the bedroom for you.”
“You really get off on bossing me around,” Mark says.
“You like being bossed around,” Eduardo says fondly.
“Says the man in the panties,” Mark quips.
“Especially the man in the panties,” Eduardo says, “Respect the panties, Zuckerberg, and you’ll get what you want.”
“Mmhm,” Mark hums. He’s already just leaning against Eduardo’s thigh, eyes closed as Eduardo scratches at his scalp.
“I’m going now,” Eduardo says, after a minute, and he helps Mark up.
He doesn’t need to turn back as he walks away; he knows, with certainty, that Mark will follow.
Pairing(s): Mark/Eduardo
Rating: R
Warnings: Internalized homophobia, sexism, sex with dubious consent, gender identity crisis, non-linear timeline?
Word Count: 5,300~
Summary: Having sex with a guy turns Eduardo into a girl. It's complicated.
Author's Notes: Oh God, I am so sorry that this is late. I tried to write a fic that was tailored to your prompts, but I don't know how well I did. I am extremely sorry for the lack of actual porn. Ahead lies genderswap of the weird variety, boys with feelings, girls with feelings, nakedness, Sean Parker being a douchebag and other things. Happy holidays, Julia :)
Thank you so fucking much to hold_onhope for beta-ing and for helping me hash out all the complicated details. Deer, you are a LIFESAVER and this fic would have been in shambles without you ♥ Title from the Arctic Monkeys song.
Thanks also to widows for helping out at the start, even though the fic ended up being completely different.
four.
--
Some days, Mark wakes up and Eduardo is soft-boned, angles all smooth, small enough to fit in Mark’s arms. Other days, Eduardo is tall and broad, and his hands can hold Mark down and pin him to the bed.
(Mark is learning that it doesn’t matter what Eduardo’s body is-he lets himself be pushed down, every time, closes his eyes and obeys whether it is a girl hissing into his ear or a boy-it’s Eduardo, every time.)
--
It helps, infinitely, that they are both just figuring this out as they go along.
Eduardo tells him, once, when they are sitting outside with their feet in the pool, that he’d always been too scared to ever accept himself. That he didn’t think he was allowed to want to touch other men unless he was a girl-and it’s shitty, it’s awful. Eduardo knows. He wonders if that’s why this happened-why his body shifts from girl to boy to girl, fluid.
The universe has a way of messing with his life, but somehow he thinks it’s all right. He gets to have this, at least: Mark, and his hoodies, and how they will hang past his fingers on the days when he is in a different body (though he is starting to think that maybe it's not different-it’s still his, it’s not foreign, not anymore). The way Mark lights up at the sound of Eduardo’s laugh, high or low, or anywhere in between. Pancakes in the morning, Mark’s mouth on his cock or his fingers on Eduardo’s clit, on her breasts.
She’s learning that all she’s ever had to do is love herself. In the end, Eduardo is Eduardo, and he’s learning that now.
Mark loves her, loves him, loves Eduardo, and Mark is safe, a safe place in a cruel world, and Eduardo can bury his tired bones against him, can let him fuck her with her ankles locked daintily around his back.
--
On this particular morning, Eduardo is in the shower when Mark steps in, eyes half-closed, and wraps himself around her.
“I was thinking of getting my hair cut,” Eduardo says. She has to lean up on tip-toe to kiss Mark’s forehead, she’s so much smaller like this. It’s weird sometimes, having to change vantage points, but it’s nice to know that they always fit, no matter how much Eduardo’s body changes.
“Mm,” Mark says, “Talk later.”
“You’re terrible,” Eduardo says, “A terrible boyfriend-“
She cuts off in a gasp when Mark leans down to draw a nipple into his mouth, and he slides two fingers inside her where she’s already wet.
“You started without me,” he says, and there’s a bit of a whine in his voice. She just moans softly and pushes down on his clever, slick fingers.
“Talk later,” she exhales, and Mark shakes his head but leans down to kiss her all the same.
--
It’s not easy-it’s never been easy, and sometimes Eduardo has to hide under blankets, under lies, under layers and layers of things that Mark someday hopes to be allowed to touch, to delve into.
But always, Eduardo comes to him, and always, Mark strives to be what Eduardo needs.
--
three.
Mark’s phone rings at three in the morning and he scrambles to pick it up, bringing it up to his ear and barking out, “Wardo? Where the fuck are you?”
“Outside the house,” Wardo says, sounding exhausted, and hangs up. Mark swears, untangling himself from his headphones and pulling himself from his laptop. A glance at the window shows him just how dark it is outside, and he shivers and pulls his hoodie from the back of the chair before leaving his room. Everyone else is asleep or passed out, and he almost slips on the puddle of water in the hallway.
He remembers Wardo asking, “What did you mean, get left behind?” and slamming out the door. His phone’s been off for hours and Mark had gotten more and more pissed as time went on, but his relief that Wardo is back and that he’s okay drowns out any anger he might’ve had earlier.
He opens the door and swears again.
Wardo is standing with his thousand-dollar shoes in one hand, barefoot and looking tiny with his clothes hanging all over him.
“How,” Mark says, “the fuck did get yourself turned into a girl this time?”
“You are such a douchebag,” Wardo says, voice pitched high and eyes angry. He’s holding his arms braced around his chest. Mark takes his hoodie off and hands it to him, and resolutely doesn’t think of that one weekend they’d spent in Kirkland, and how he knows the soft feeling of Wardo’s breasts under his hands. It was a one-time thing. Eduardo has a girlfriend in New York. Mark has Facebook here, in Palo Alto, and just like that the anger is back again, burning in his chest.
But Eduardo is standing in front of him, and even though he’s holding himself straight, Mark can see the trembling in his hands. So he bites his tongue. He remembers red lines running down Eduardo’s thighs, like he’d been trying to scratch his skin off. That was months ago.
“I went-clubbing,” Eduardo offers as an explanation as they walk back to Mark’s room, side-stepping sleeping interns and puddles of rainwater and vomit on the floor. Eduardo has a look of disgust on his face that Mark’s grown familiar with these past dozen hours.
“You couldn’t have left the shoes behind?”
“These are Prada,” Eduardo says.
“And I’m the douchebag,” Mark mutters. He opens the door to his room and lets Eduardo totter in, obviously more than a bit drunk, and fall to the bed. He closes the door and when he looks up, Eduardo is crying.
“Shit,” Mark says.
“I hate this,” Eduardo says, hiccupping.
“Was it a guy?” Mark says and Eduardo nods.
“He wanted to suck my dick, so I let him. I threw up in the bathroom and when I stood up it was like, surprise! You’re a girl now!”
“You need to stop being so reckless,” Mark says. He doesn’t say, You have a girlfriend, you asshole, because he’s not going to pretend he wouldn't have touched Wardo had he wanted him to.
“You should’ve picked me up at the airport,” Eduardo counters, still sniffling, but he’s already slumping into the sheets, rubbing his face against the pillows sleepily. It jars Mark a bit, how much smaller his body is like this.
“Go to sleep, Wardo,” Mark says, and Eduardo doesn’t reply.
He pulls the covers up over Eduardo and hesitates before leaning down and pressing a kiss into his hair.
“Should’ve just been you…I would’ve let you,” Wardo mumbles when he pulls away, and Mark doesn’t know what to do with that.
--
two.
Eduardo is sitting on the sofa in the dorm room at Kirkland and looking down at his (small, delicate) hands, folded primly on his lap. When he moves to curl up closer against the arm of the couch, Mark catches the outline of breasts moving underneath the fabric of the same button-down Eduardo had been wearing last night.
It doesn’t fit him properly anymore, arm sleeves too long and dangling past the tips of his fingers. Eduardo crosses his arms uncomfortably across his chest, and it’s so fucking strange. Mark decides to pull his hoodie over his head and hand it to him, averting his eyes when Eduardo murmurs his thanks. He slides into it, wriggling around to make it fall into place, and Dustin eyes go wide as saucers before he coughs and looks away.
The whole thing is fucking bizarre. Mark thinks of Eduardo’s naked body under his last night, the wings of his shoulder blades and his broad, flat chest, his long, masculine fingers. His thick eyebrows look strange on his new, softer face, but the familiarity comforts Mark.
Dustin is the first one to speak up, saying, “Well, I guess it’s a good thing you told your dad to fuck off when he said you had to go home this weekend for your grandfather’s birthday.”
“I did WHAT?” Eduardo says, jerking up from the couch before curling in on himself protectively. His voice goes high instead of strangled, the way it would have if he were-well. Mark winces.
“I must’ve been really fucking drunk last night,” Eduardo says blearily. He rubs a hand across his face, and he’s still wearing his family ring, loose now; it’s too big and clunky on his ring finger.
“Do you really not remember anything that happened last night?” Chris asks. He’s the one who’d freaked out the most about it this morning, because he’d caught Eduardo sneaking out of Mark’s room and had thought that Mark had actually brought a girl back to their room. Until Eduardo looked up at him and said, voice edging into slight hysteria, “Chris, I think I’ve turned into a girl.”
“Not much,” Eduardo says flatly. Mark closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Mark?” Chris asks, and Mark can’t help but think of the shape of Eduardo’s mouth last night, and how some things haven’t changed in Eduardo’s strange, new body: the curve of his eyebrows, the rise of his collarbones, his eyelashes.
Mark remembers clearly the stubble on Wardo’s face after the week of exams they’ve just gone through (remembers, acutely, the way it had rubbed on his skin, the way he’d arched into the feeling), and how his cheeks are now bare, smooth skin rising over sharp cheekbones. His eyes are the same, and they carefully avoid Mark’s own.
“We got drunk and I let him sleep in my bed,” Mark says easily, almost carelessly, and only catches the slight slump of relief that seeps into Eduardo because he’s waiting for it.
Chris sighs, runs a hand through his hair and says, “This is fucking insane,” which is a big deal coming from him.
“Dude,” Dustin says, “You have boobs now.” Eduardo rolls his eyes and bats away Dustin’s hands when he crows, “You guys do realize this is the first time we’ve had a person with boobs in our room right?”
“Shut the fuck up, Dustin,” Chris and Mark say.
Mark’s itching to go into his room and ignore the rest of the world until it decides to make fucking sense again, but last night Eduardo was a boy and now he’s a girl, and the only thing that happened in between was that they finally, finally, had sex after months of just furtively staring at each other and it was-well, it was definitely better than Mark jerking off by himself in the shower. He must’ve done something-this has got to be at least partly his fault.
“You’re surprisingly calm about this,” Chris says suddenly. He’s most definitely not calm about this.
“Um,” Eduardo says. He visibly squirms on the couch, fidgeting with the sleeves of Mark’s hoodie where they’re pooled at his wrists.
It takes Mark a second to get it, and he and Chris let out a sharp breath at the same time.
“Fuck,” Mark exhales, “It’s not the first time is it?”
“Oh my god,” Dustin suddenly yells, pointing an accusing finger at Mark.
“What,” Mark snaps, though he knows what Dustin’s going to say before he yells, “You two hooked up last night!”
Chris looks like he’s about to strangle someone. Eduardo’s face is pinched and tight, and he’s staring at his hands again.
“You two,” Chris spits out, “Get your shit together on the night before this,” here he gestures at Eduardo’s general direction, “happens, and you didn’t think it was important to tell us this?”
“I’m going to take a shower,” Eduardo announces loudly, and then pointedly, to Mark, “I’m going to need to borrow some clothes.”
Mark doesn’t need to be told twice.
--
one.
The first time it happens, Eduardo is 16 and drunk off his ass with the captain of the swim team-Jim, Jim something, it doesn't really matter when he's kissing down Eduardo's stomach with his hands rubbing up and down the insides of Eduardo's thighs. He wants this. He wants this, doesn't he? Of course he does. He does, he wants this beautiful boy and this beautiful boy wants him, and it doesn't matter that he is so spectacularly drunk right now.
Jim is all sandy hair and corded muscle, strong and forceful, someone who takes what he wants, and what he wants right now is Eduardo. When he pushes, Eduardo goes, and there's a dick in his mouth and that's fine--it's fine, really. He closes his eyes and takes it. He knows how to do this, it's fine. It's hazy and a bit scary and, fuck, Eduardo is so fucking drunk and he has no idea whether he wants this or not but it doesn't fucking matter.
Jim is the first boy to ever kiss him.
When he comes to, he is naked in a bed and his head hurts and he feels tiny. Literally tiny-smaller. He wakes up smaller and everything is strange and Eduardo realizes his body is not is own and for a single horrifying moment, his entire world spins.
"What's wrong, babe," the guy beside him slurs, like he didn't even realize that he'd gone to bed with a boy last night and now Eduardo is a girl, and he stumbles out of the bed and pulls on clothes that scratch at his skin and stretch across his chest and catches a cab home.
It is 7 am and he has the keys so he sneaks into his room and strips in front of the mirror, tracing the lines of his strange new body with hands that shake violently and he feels so wrong. He's scratching at his arms desperately, down the line of his thighs and along his-his breasts and his hips, scratching painful lines of red with his nails. He slides under his sheets and curls in on himself, convulsing and shaking and grinding his teeth until he is too tired to stay awake. He wakes up at dusk and he tucks his arms around himself, palms against his breast and then between his legs, and he shakes and he shakes and he shakes.
He has never felt so small in his life.
The next day, his mother knocks on his door to get him ready for school, and he wakes up with a flat chest and familiar fingers. Jim Stentham does not look at him in the hallway.
He convinces himself it was a dream, and doesn't think of the softness of that other body, the way it had rounded out in pleasant curves, doesn't think about red lines and the intense desire to peel off his skin and he doesn't at all wonder about the cruelty of boys when they are in the dark.
--
two.
“Are we going to talk about it?” Mark says, when Eduardo comes in, hair wet from the shower and wearing another one of Mark’s hoodies, a cleaner one. He’s shrunk about five inches so Mark’s sweatpants flop at his heels and pool on the floor as he walks.
Mark’s sitting at his computer desk but his laptop hasn’t even been switched on.
“What is there to talk about?” Eduardo asks. “I’m a girl now or, like, whatever. I hope I get back to normal soon because I don’t want to have to explain to my dad about how his deepest fears are actually coming true.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” Mark says, and it’s a testament to how fucking weird this entire thing is that Eduardo turning into a girl isn’t the thing foremost on his mind.
“We hooked up last night?” Eduardo tries. He sits on Mark’s bed and bounces a bit, and then frowns and braces an arm around his chest because, oh, right, boobs.
“And you want to act like it never happened,” Mark says. He’s trying not to sound accusatory-or, even worse, hurt-but it comes out sounding like that anyway.
“Which is-fine-,” Mark starts to say.
“The first time this happened was the first time I had sex with a guy,” Eduardo says.
Mark’s mouth shuts closed.
“And last night was the second time,” Eduardo says and then he swallows and looks down and Mark sort of gets what this is.
It’s fucking messed up, is what this is, if the universe’s idea of a joke is to mess with Wardo’s body every time he has sex with a guy.
“Maybe your father put a curse on you,” Mark says. He means it to be a joke but Eduardo flinches like he’s been slapped.
“No,” Eduardo says, “no, it’s. I.” His hands compulsively latch on to any bare skin they can find and he trembles.
Mark sits down next to Eduardo and carefully pries one of his hands from his neck, sees the red lines from his nails trailing down his skin.
“You’re hurting yourself,” Mark says. His fingers twitch around Eduardo’s wrist but Eduardo grabs on to his hands before he can pull away.
“What if it doesn’t-What if I don’t-“ he says, and his voice is shaking so badly that Mark feels it shake against him too.
“Stop being stupid,” Mark says and Eduardo chokes out a laugh.
“The Phoenix punch party is tomorrow,” he says and Mark shrugs and says, “Skip it. Stay in with me,” and thinks he finally understands what people mean when they say someone smiles like the sun.
It’s familiar, the next part. Mark knows how to place a hand on the small of Eduardo’s back and let him lean forward and take the lead. Eduardo isn’t used to kissing people taller than him-and Mark is taller than him now, Christ, that’s really weird-so he makes a disgruntled noise and fists Mark’s shirt to pull him closer.
Mark doesn’t even think about it, just slides his hands underneath the hoodie and finds the swell of breasts underneath it. Eduardo jerks in his hold and pulls away.
“Fuck,” he mumbles.
“Sorry,” Mark says immediately and Eduardo shakes his head, takes Mark’s hand and puts it on his chest, “I meant fuck me.”
“If it works one way, it must work the other?” Mark asks, and Eduardo laughs.
He puts a hand on Mark’s crotch and smiles sweetly, and Mark goes, oh, he goes.
--
It doesn’t work, though not for lack of trying.
Eduardo spends the weekend in their dorm not doing the things he usually does, like cleaning up and cooking things. Chris says it’s good that he’s trying to show them something. He rambles on about gender roles until Eduardo interjects that he just doesn’t like moving around because his body feels weird, and it makes them all remember that they are living in a weird reality where their friend has turned into a girl. The whole thing is pretty surreal.
Eduardo punches Dustin in the ear every time he catches him staring at his chest, and he sprawls himself on Mark’s bed in the early mornings and listens to him code, like he always does.
The sex is strange, but good. Like, really good. He likes that Wardo makes the same noises he’d made on their first time, likes how easy it is for him to hook his ankles around Mark and pull him in deeper. Mark’s always liked messy sex, and Wardo gets really wet, and it’s-it’s weird but it’s not, somehow. It’s just sex with Wardo. It’s surprisingly uncomplicated.
On Monday morning, Mark throws his leg around Eduardo and is rewarded with sharp bone jutting against him, so he opens his eyes and is met with a familiar expanse of tan skin. Eduardo is drooling on the pillow, eyes still closed, but he’s definitely male again.
Mark takes a moment to study his body, comparing and contrasting and filing away the differences before throwing them all away and running his mouth down the flat plane of Wardo’s chest.
Wardo jolts awake and gasps, “Mark,” rough and low, and, fuck, Mark’s missed that.
It takes Wardo a beat but then he’s saying, “We can’t,” and pushing Mark’s hands away, “I might-“
Mark backs away and says, “Okay,” and watches Eduardo shake his head, “No, I mean, I want, you have to know I want to but we can’t risk it.”
“Wardo, I said okay,” Mark says and Eduardo’s face shutters. “Yeah,” he says, and that’s that.
Wardo sends him a really long email, after he’s slinked away like a coward. It talks about the relationship or whatever, and it makes everything formal and stilted. All Mark can get from it is that Eduardo is somehow willing to fuck him when he’s a girl, but needs to be drunk when he’s a guy.
But it’s okay, because Mark has an idea, and it’s going to be big. It’s going to be amazing. He deletes the email and texts Wardo, “I think I’ve come up with something.”
--
three.
Eduardo’s making coffee in the kitchen the next morning when Sean walks in and says, “Hey, gorgeous, where did you come from?” all sleek and predatory.
“What the fuck,” Eduardo mutters, half-asleep, still looking down at his coffee keeping his back to Sean, but apparently Sean doesn’t even recognize him.
“Did you come with Sammy and the boys last night? I think I’d have noticed a pretty thing like you here,” Sean continues.
“Go away,” Eduardo says, hands tightening around the mug of coffee in his hands. It’s not very hot, but he wishes it were. Sean is stepping in closer, crowding him against the corner now. He says, “Aw, come on baby, don’t be like that,” and something in Eduardo just snaps.
Eduardo knew from their first meeting that Sean Parker was untrustworthy and dangerous, but he’s now realizing that Sean is the type of person who feels like he is owed a woman’s attention, and that makes him disgusting.
He turns around, eyes narrowed, and throws the contents of the mug at Sean.
“Leave me alone,” Eduardo says, and doesn’t realize he’s raising his voice until Mark walks in as Sean is grabbing Eduardo’s shoulder in a painful grip and shaking him.
“Sean!” Mark barks out, and Eduardo takes the opportunity to duck away and get as much distance as he can. Blood is rushing into his head and he can’t hear anything except the muffled sounds of Mark shouting and telling Sean to leave.
“Come on, Mark, you’re going to choose this fucking bitch over me?” Sean is saying, face contorted in anger. “We can get prettier girls to spread their legs for you, man-“
Eduardo doesn’t even think, he’s pulling his arm back with every intent to strike Sean, but he jerks away with a yelp before Eduardo can even hit him.
“I think you should leave now,” Eduardo says and feels a rush of satisfaction when Sean trips over his feet on the way out.
“He can’t stay,” Eduardo says after he hears the front door being slammed, and feels cold settle into his chest when Mark makes a face.
“He didn’t really-“ Mark tries, and Eduardo shakes his head.
“He goes or I go, Mark.” He says it as calmly as he can, and it makes him fucking sick, how Mark looks away at that moment.
“I need you out here,” Mark says.
Eduardo can’t-he can’t breathe, and he can’t be in here right now, not in this body or in Mark’s clothes, in this awful kitchen with the coffee on the floor and the sunlight through the window dripping into the sink piled high with dirty dishes. Eduardo realizes, suddenly, that he can’t be in this house with all these men.
“I’m going back to New York,” he says to Mark, careful. “And then I’m going to email you my resignation letter. You can keep the nineteen thousand.”
It’s an easy decision to make, in the end. He can’t choose someone who wouldn’t choose him. He has enough self-respect for that, at least.
He leaves Mark’s hoodie in a pile on the bed.
Mark is waiting by the doorway when Eduardo finishes packing up, and he says, “I’m sorry.” Eduardo knows it’s the best he’ll ever get from Mark.
“Make Facebook awesome, okay?” he says, and Mark moves as if to hug him, as if to pull him close and tell him stay, but he only brushes Eduardo’s hair behind his ear and lets his fingers skitter down the side of Eduardo’s neck to rest atop his heart.
Mark says, “I will,” and Eduardo exhales and feels the press of Mark’s fingers against his skin. It’s a promise.
--
“Well, you do look hotter like this,” is all Christy says when she barges into Eduardo’s room and sees him sitting naked on top of the bed, soaking in the sunlight.
She takes him shopping, and they buy bras and panties and blouses and skirts and Christy teaches him how to put lipstick on.
“You’ll be okay,” she tells him, after it’s been a week and he’s still stuck in this body. It doesn’t feel like being stuck anymore. Eduardo opens the windows in his apartment in New York and eats good food with Christy and spends the summer in skirts and sandals. He lets his hair grow out.
He tells Christy he cheated on her in Palo Alto, “some guy in a club, and I was so drunk, I’m sorry, I’m so-“ and Christy just place a hand on his elbow, gentle, until he can stop babbling.
“Wardo,” she says, eyes soft, “I know you were in love with Mark the whole time.”
I still am, Eduardo thinks but doesn’t say. Christy probably already knows that too.
“And besides,” Christy continues, “You let me go shopping for you, and that was probably more fun than any sex we had-no offense. I just knew your ass would look great in a skirt.”
Eduardo throws a pillow at her.
--
One night, they’re fighting each other for sofa space and soy chicken in Eduardo’s apartment. They’re always fighting over something, scrambling and twisting around each other, all quick motions and bursts of energy.
Christy talks about her childhood in Cambodia, when she and her brothers would catch frogs by moonlight and climb mango trees when their fruits bloomed, bursting ripe and golden in the summer.
In return Eduardo tells her about getting punched by the Phoenix and what Mark said about it being “probably just a diversity thing.” When Christy laughs, she throws her head back and the light glints on her earrings. Eduardo’s been thinking of getting his ears pierced.
“Look at the two of us! The Phoenix would kill to have us interracial ladies in their stupid boys-only club,” Christy says, and doesn’t miss the way Eduardo’s smile falters just a bit.
“Hey,” Christy says. She’s spent weeks around Eduardo and watched him grow into this new body and learn to move in it again. He always used to walk like he didn’t quite know what to do with his limbs but now in this new body, he is flowing, graceful. “Use your words, Wardo,” Christy says, and Eduardo takes a breath.
“I just,” he starts, “I don’t know. I used to feel like-every time, I used to feel like my skin didn’t fit on right. But I feel okay now. I feel good. Like I don’t-I don’t even have to make it fit, you know?”
“And that’s good,” Christy says.
“Yeah,” Eduardo says. “It really is.”
“So how do you feel about pronouns?” Christy asks, and Eduardo is genuinely taken by surprise. He’s never thought about them. He’s always-he’s always just been Eduardo, no matter what body he’s in. His body can change, but he doesn’t have to. Maybe it can be a matter of consistency. Eduardo likes consistency.
“You don’t have to decide. Like, ever, if you don’t want to,” Christy says, and he nods.
“I always used to think I was weaker like this,” he says, “But I was wrong. I’m as strong as I need to be.”
Eduardo makes the decision.
The night, stripping in front of the mirror, she looks at herself.
She breathes.
--
Eduardo wakes up at the end of summer to rain against the window, and Christy laughs in delight when he falls out of the bed, legs and arms too long again.
--
Mark emails him about the Millionth Member Party, and Eduardo looks at it for a long while, reads and rereads and thinks about for a long while. He emails back, “Do you have space in your closet for my two sets of clothes?”
Mark calls him and says, “I’ve just bought a new closet.”
Eduardo laughs and feels something in him lighten. He closes his eyes and listens to Mark shuffle around on the other end, talking a mile a minute about Facebook and, “You’ve got to come out and see it, Wardo.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“I’m…really…I really missed you,” Mark is saying now, slow and careful.
Eduardo swallows and tells himself that maybe he can do this, that maybe he is allowed to have this now.
“Me too,” he says honestly, lets Mark’s sigh from the other end of the line sink into him.
He breathes.
--
four.
Mark walks into the kitchen and finds Eduardo flipping pancakes at the stove in nothing but a pair of sweatpants. He’d gone to sleep with his face tucked against Eduardo’s breasts last night but now he’s flat-chested, broad-shouldered--and Mark can't wait to be hoisted into those arms and be fucked into at some point today. Hopefully before lunch. Eduardo smiles at him and Mark remembers the sting of Eduardo’s teeth on his shoulder last night with a flutter of affection.
“These are going to burn and you’re going to starve,” Eduardo says, but he hums anyway when Mark presses his entire body against Eduardo’s back and rubs his cheek against Eduardo’s neck like an overgrown cat.
He slides his hands into Eduardo’s pants and-oh.
Eduardo makes a pleased noise and leans one hand against the kitchen counter.
“Panties,” Mark mumbles happily.
“Thought you’d enjoy them,” Wardo says, voice going breathless.
“You were too lazy to change when you woke up,” Mark says knowingly, and Eduardo scoffs. It trails off into a soft moan when Mark reaches around to press a hand to his crotch and rubs him, just once.
“Pancakes,” Eduardo reminds him, but lets Mark pull the sweatpants down anyway, steps out of them when Mark leans down to help him.
“S’cold,” Eduardo complains and Mark rubs his thighs.
“I’ll warm you right up,” Mark says and Eduardo has time to choke out a laugh and, “I can’t believe you just said that,” before Mark is kneeling in front of him and pressing soft kisses to his straining hard on. He presses his thumb up against the head of Eduardo’s cock where it’s straining against the cotton, fingers the lace that’s flush against Eduardo’s hipbone.
“No,” Eduardo gasps out, “Mark, I am not doing this in the kitchen.”
“I’m already on my knees,” Mark complains and Eduardo rolls his eyes. He points to the pancakes and says, “You can finish making these, for being so insufferable so early in the morning, and I’m going to wait in the bedroom for you.”
“You really get off on bossing me around,” Mark says.
“You like being bossed around,” Eduardo says fondly.
“Says the man in the panties,” Mark quips.
“Especially the man in the panties,” Eduardo says, “Respect the panties, Zuckerberg, and you’ll get what you want.”
“Mmhm,” Mark hums. He’s already just leaning against Eduardo’s thigh, eyes closed as Eduardo scratches at his scalp.
“I’m going now,” Eduardo says, after a minute, and he helps Mark up.
He doesn’t need to turn back as he walks away; he knows, with certainty, that Mark will follow.