Maze (you got me running through)
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--
Mark spots his mom through the window as the train pulls up to the platform, standing a little to the side in a flowery dress and one of the huge wrap-around wool cardigans she favors.
"That's my mom," he tells Eduardo, pointing at her. "The one who's wearing a whole sheep farm."
"She looks nice," Eduardo says earnestly, but Mark sees the way his hands fists nervously on his lap. "It's Karen, right?"
"Yeah," Mark says, as he pushes himself up to grab his bag from the overhead compartment. He wants to reassure Eduardo because his mom is nice, but before he can get the words out he's being jostled along toward the exit and he cranes his neck to make sure Eduardo's coming, too.
It's cold outside compared to the stuffy heat of the train and Mark shivers as he steps to the side to let people pass by as he waits for Eduardo to join him. Eduardo is the last person to disembark with his carry-on bag clutched in a white-knuckled grip and the stupid green scarf wrapped three times around his neck, picking his way carefully down the steep stairs.
They look like they come from different worlds, Mark thinks, as he grabs Eduardo's elbow to steer him in the right direction, with Eduardo in his impeccable overcoat, skinny jeans and leather boots, next to Mark's worn fleece, ill-fitting jeans and scuffed sneakers, and it makes him wonder what Eduardo is going to think of his family and their mismatching house. It's not that Mark's family is poor, because they aren't, but they also don't have money the way Eduardo's family seems to have.
"Welcome home boys," Mark's mom says as they step up to her, her eyes flitting lightning-quick over the way Mark's fingers are still curled around Eduardo's elbow. Mark drops his hand as if Eduardo's coat just burned him, but he knows it's too late when his mom steps forward to hug him, squeezing him hard around the ribs.
"My beautiful boy," she whispers against his ear, squeezing him harder for a moment before she lets Mark squirm out of her embrace, flushed and embarrassed.
"And you must be Eduardo," she says, grabbing Eduardo in a hug he clearly wasn't expecting, whispering something to him, too, something that makes him blush and squirm.
"Mom," Mark says reproachfully, tugging her away from Eduardo. "Don't embarrass him."
Eduardo ducks his chin and shifts his feet, looking overwhelmed but in a happy kind of way. "It's okay," he murmurs, cheeks flushed. "It's very nice to meet you Mrs. Zuckerberg."
Mark's mom laughs and reaches out to ruffle Eduardo's hair. "Please call me Karen," she says.
"Mom," Mark groans, pulling her away again. "If you're gonna be like this we're gonna get on the next train back to school."
"Oh, hush now," she says, grabbing both of them around the shoulders and steering them towards the exit. "You know you love it."
Mark glances at Eduardo who's furtively trying to fix his hair while still smiling in that tentatively pleased but completely overwhelmed way, and thinks that maybe they will.
--
The Zuckerberg household is in complete disarray when they arrive; there are cars spilling out from the driveway to line the street and inside the house chaos rules. Mark barely has time to kick off his shoes before he finds himself in the middle of a sibling group-hug that smells like vanilla and pumpkin spice, all three of his sisters jostling for the best hug position while Eduardo watches wide-eyed from the doorway.
"Get off me," Mark grouches, trying to wriggle away. "You're getting girl cooties all over my shirt."
Randi laughs and plants a smacking kiss against his cheek that Mark wipes away with the back of his hand. "Ugh," he says.
Then Donna, or maybe Arielle, spots Eduardo and before Mark can stop them they're hugging him, too.
"What is wrong with you?" Mark asks, pulling Arielle away. "I know for a fact you weren't raised in the monkey cage."
Donna laughs and says, "Introduce us to your friend," in a way that makes Mark want to punch her in the nose.
"I'm Eduardo," Eduardo says shyly, and they coo over him in a way that is frankly unbearable while Eduardo's cheeks blush bright red.
"Holy shit, he's hot," Randi whispers into Mark's ear, elbowing him in the side. "I didn't know you had it in you."
Mark huffs and elbows her back, but he can't help the way his stomach squirms happily. He's been home for less than five minutes, but it seems he's already out of the closet and getting praised for it. They're getting it all wrong, of course, but Mark kind of hopes that they won't be wrong forever.
--
It takes almost half an hour to get through the living room and up the stairs to Mark's room, because everyone demands hugs and everyone wants to fondle Eduardo. It's only a timely intervention by Mark's mom that finally lets them escape up the stairs with their bags.
"I'm sorry about them," Mark mutters, as he leads the way down the hallway toward his room. "They're insane."
"It's cool," Eduardo says, but he sounds a little shell-shocked.
"Uhm, so this is it," Mark says, pushing the door to his room open. "It's not very big."
Mark's room is small, with a slanted ceiling and only the bare essentials of furniture; a bed on the right hand side just inside the door, a bookshelf at the bottom of it, a small desk along the far wall below the narrow window and a closet squished into the corner next to the desk. With a cot set up for Eduardo in the open space beside the bed there's barely enough to room to walk and Mark tries to not be embarrassed about it as he squeezes past the beds to dump his bag on the floor by the desk.
Eduardo hovers uncertainly just inside the door until Mark gestures for him to come fully inside and close the door before someone comes upstairs to bother them again. He looks around furtively, eyes flitting over the indigo blue comforter covering Mark's bed, to the geeky posters taped to the slanted ceiling.
"It's nice," he says. "I like it."
Mark shrugs, because it's very much the room of a teenage nerd who spends way too much time in front of the computer. Half the books in his bookshelf are about code and the other half are literary classics, and the posters on his walls are all from more or less obscure sci-fi shows with a pamphlet from a production of Homer's Iliad thrown in for good measure. He wonders, idly, what Eduardo's room looks like. He imagines it being much larger than this and a lot less geeky, sleek and classy, like Eduardo himself.
Eduardo sits down gingerly at the bottom of Mark's bed, keeping his bag between his knees.
"Last summer I stayed with my mom's family in Brazil," he says, pulling on the address tag of his bag. "They're a lot like yours…" He smiles faintly. "Kind of loud and affectionate."
"Oh," Mark says, frowning, because somehow he thinks there's a story there.
"I… uh… I had a fight with my dad," Eduardo continues. "And… um… he…" He makes a face. "He wants me to apologize but I won't…." Eduardo looks up suddenly, eyes fierce. "I refuse to."
"Good," Mark says, because in his opinion Eduardo apologizes way too much.
Eduardo's cheeks flush and he stares down at the floor. "He wants me to apologize for who I am," he mumbles. "He found something out about me and now he wants me to… I don't know… Change? But I can't do that because… it's… I… I can't."
Mark's heart thumps hard against his ribcage, fast enough to make him feel dizzy, and he stares at the dejected slump of Eduardo's shoulders.
"Is that why you changed schools?" Mark asks, because he always wondered why Eduardo transferred so late, but he never found a good moment to ask.
Eduardo nods. "I… uh… It's because… uh… Mark, I'm…" He flushes crimson and pulls hard enough on the address tag to make it come off in his hand and Mark can guess what he's going to say, but he wants to hear it out loud, needs to hear it. "I'm gay," Eduardo finishes on a whisper and Mark's stomach flip-flops in a weird way that makes him worry about throwing up.
"I know I should have told you," Eduardo plows on. "Back when I moved into your room but I figured since Chris is gay you wouldn't have a problem and then… I never… there was never a good time and… I didn't want to…" He trails off, scrubbing a hand over his face. "Shit. I'm sorry, I should have just… I couldn't have picked a worse time and you probably regret bringing me home now but please don't hate me… because… I… Fuck."
"You what?" Mark asks, breathless and dizzy.
"I really like you," Eduardo whispers, too soft, almost, to be heard.
Mark's palms feel sweaty, and his face is flushed, and his heart is galloping through his chest like it's training for the Kentucky Derby, but he's not going to… he has to be sure.
"Like… in a gay way?" he asks roughly.
Eduardo flinches and curls in on himself, nodding miserably. "I'm sorry," he says.
"Okay," Mark says, sucking in a deep breath. "Okay. First, you have to stop apologizing for everything, it's not… you're fine, however you are. You can apologize if you like… hurt someone… but you're not allowed to apologize for being you anymore, okay? You have to stop that."
Eduardo nods but he looks a lot like he thinks that Mark's going to ask him to jump out the window next and that is simply not acceptable.
"And… uh… second, me, too… or maybe I'm bi, or pan, or whatever, but, yeah, I'm pretty gay about you."
Mark has a distinct feeling he's doing this all wrong and his cheeks are burning so hot he thinks he might be in danger of spontaneous combustion, but the way Eduardo looks up at him, eyes huge and shiny and mouth slightly open, makes him hope that maybe he's doing it a little bit right.
"And third…" he continues, staring back at Eduardo, "I'm pretty sure my entire family already thinks that you're my boyfriend and that would probably be a whole lot less awkward if you actually were… um… my… you know… whatever."
Mark trails off and waits for some kind of input from Eduardo's side of the room but Eduardo is still just staring at him in a way that makes Mark feel acutely uncomfortable because he just doesn't know what it means.
"It's okay if you don't want to," Mark offers gruffly with flaming cheeks and a tight ball of something at the pit of his stomach. His entire body itches to turn away from Eduardo, towards the desk and the computer he hasn't touched since summer. He literally wants nothing more than to disappear into a world where everything makes sense and he can write his own functions.
But he doesn't, because for once in his life he has something that is more important than code, more important than everything, and he can't afford to fuck it up by being, well, himself.
"I guess what I'm saying is…" Mark forces the words out past the sudden lump in his throat. "I really like you, too." He takes a deep breath. "In a gay way."
Eduardo crumbles, that is really the only word for it. He folds forward suddenly, hands coming up to catch his face, and he lets out this tiny broken noise, shoulders shaking, and Mark can't even tell if he's laughing or crying, and he certainly doesn't know what to do. For a wild vaguely horrifying second he seriously considers just turning his back on the entire situation, but then his stupid reckless, probably-gonna-finish-last-in-the-fucking-Derby heart has him spilling out of the chair and crawling across the floor in the most undignified manner there ever was.
"Wardo please," he says and now he's the one that sounds broken and the entire thing is just a mess of feelings that Mark is ill-equipped to handle.
Then he's at Eduardo's feet, shoulder to shoulder with his stupid bag and he reaches up to pull Eduardo's hands away from his face.
"Please," he says again, feeling stupid and breathless and Eduardo's face is wet and his eyes rimmed with red and Mark just wants to make him all better.
"We can… we can pretend it never happened," Mark says, words tripping all over each other. "I don't… I don't want that, but we can… if you… if that makes you okay because this is… this… I'm doing this all wrong but I'm really trying Wardo, I am, because I just… fuck… I just like you so very much."
It almost hurts to admit it; it makes Mark's throat feel raw and his stomach aches, but somehow he thinks that maybe he's been moving towards this very moment since that night he invited Eduardo into their room.
"I'm okay," Eduardo whispers, voice raw and choked. "Mark, I'm… I just don't know how to… I can't…"
Mark waits for the inevitable let down, bracing himself for the emotional blow with his fingers still wrapped tight around Eduardo's wrist.
"You want to be my whatever," Eduardo says and his eyes spill over again. "I can't… Mark, that's…."
Mark almost ruins it, the razor sharp barb forming at the tip of his tongue because he just can't take the suspense, but then Eduardo's breath hitches and his lips pull into a helpless smile and he hiccups," I'm just…so...o… ha…happy."
Eduardo pulls his hands free to wipe furiously at his face but the tears keep spilling over, painting wet tracks down his flaming cheeks. He's beautiful, Mark thinks, and he pushes himself up to kiss Eduardo squarely on the mouth. His lips are slick with spit and tears and probably snot and it's pretty disgusting but when Mark sits back on his haunches he licks his lips anyway, smiling helplessly.
Eduardo smiles back, wiping at his eyes again, and everything is a mess but it's the kind of mess that makes Mark's heart feel full. He shifts around until he's sitting with his back to bed and his legs stretched out under the cot, shoulder to knee with Eduardo's leg. He knots his hands in his lap, wiggles his toes and smiles stupidly at nothing at all. After a moment Eduardo pulls his bag away and slides down to sit next to Mark, his long legs stretching out alongside Mark's.
Mark looks at Eduardo's hands and the weird way he put his right one palm up against his thigh, almost as if he's waiting for something. He sneaks a glance at Eduardo's face, but he's looking in the other direction, flushed all the way down to the collar of his shirt. Mark looks at his hand again and after a moment he tentatively puts his own palm on top of it.
Eduardo's fingers immediately curl around his and Mark smiles so widely his cheeks actually hurt, because he got it right. Their hands are warm and damp and it's probably ridiculous to sit on the floor and hold hands, as if they're eight not eighteen, but Mark doesn't even care because there's this warmth blossoming in his chest and little tendrils of happy growing in his stomach and he's holding Eduardo's hand.
Of course that's when his mom opens the door with a complete lack of respect for personal privacy that Mark should have expected and cut off at the ankles by locking the door.
"Oh," she says, eyes widening slightly. "Sorry for interrupting." She doesn't sound sorry at all.
Eduardo tries to pull his hand back, but Mark tightens his fingers, holding on. He has no doubt whatsoever that she already noticed anyway.
"Did you want something?" Mark asks, pointedly polite.
"Just…" She looks at their linked hands, Mark can almost feel her gaze. "Dinner's in fifteen minutes."
"Okay," Mark says, giving her a look that is supposed to communicate his intense desire to be alone with Eduardo right this very second, but either she doesn't get it or she doesn't care because instead of going away she comes inside. Mark's horror knows no bounds.
"Is everything okay?" she asks, voice kind, but she's not looking at Mark.
"I'm fine," Eduardo says, voice only cracking a little. "I'm…" He pulls on his hand again and this time Mark lets it go. "I'm good."
Eduardo wipes at his face again and Mark's mom does her I'm-so-concerned-about-you look and Mark wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
"Yeah… yeah. I'm sure," Eduardo says. "I'm… I'm just a bit… overwhelmed."
He sounds embarrassed and Mark resolutely fumbles for his hand again, holding it tight when he finds it, because… because he wants to, okay? He liked the part where it was just the two of them holding hands and being ridiculous. He wants to go back to that part.
"Well, if you're sure…"
"I am," Eduardo says quickly. "Really, really sure."
"Okay then…"
Karen gives Mark a warm smile that he completely ignores because she's being a life-ruiner.
"Don't think we won't talk later," she says, eyes narrowing slightly.
"I can barely wait," Mark deadpans.
It's worth it for the way Eduardo stifles a scandalized giggle and squeezes Mark's fingers.
--
It's a bit awkward to be alone with Eduardo again, especially when Eduardo mutters something about the bathroom and disappears out the door, because then it's just Mark and he really doesn't want to be alone with his thoughts right now because they're ridiculous. He solves that by picking himself off the floor and waiting for Eduardo in the hallway, trying to not stare creepily at the bathroom door.
Noise wafts up the stairs; voices, laughter, occasional cries from his younger cousins, and the muted sound of the TV running in the background. Last year Mark spent most of his time camped out in his room with his computer because he enjoys family togetherness best from afar, but this noise has been a constant companion during every family holiday he can remember. It's the sound of family, of home and now Eduardo gets to share that with him. It's kind of weird, but in a good way.
The bathroom door opens and Mark looks up to watch Eduardo walk out. He looks put together in his skinny jeans and fitted t-shirt, but his mouth is still red from crying and his hair is wet along the hairline as if he splashed water on his face.
"You okay?" Mark asks awkwardly, because suddenly he feels stupid and tongue-tied.
"Yeah," Eduardo says, smiling at Mark in a way that he doesn't understand at all.
Eduardo walks closer and Mark doesn't move away, watching Eduardo approach with his heart banging and his mouth suddenly dry. Eduardo looks so sure of himself, as if he knows exactly how to do this while Mark doesn't have a fucking clue. The only experience Mark has to fall back on is Erica and in retrospect maybe their relationship wasn't exactly the standard he should strive for and also, she is a girl. He's sure the rules are different somehow when it's a boy.
"You look terrified," Eduardo says, still smiling that funny little smile.
"I am," Mark mutters, cheeks heating up.
Eduardo smiles even wider and darts a look around before he leans forward to brush their lips together. He straightens up again and Mark instinctively reaches out to grab his shirt.
"I don't know how to do this," he confesses.
"That's okay," Eduardo says, lifting his shoulder in a halfway shrug. "We'll figure it out together."
"Okay," Mark says, biting down on his lower lip. "That sounds… good."
They smile stupidly at each other and Eduardo's stomach is warm against his knuckles and everything is perfect for five seconds, then Mark's mom yells for them from the bottom of the stairs and they jump apart as if they'd just been caught making out. Eduardo laughs nervously and Mark scrubs a hand over his flaming face and everything is decidedly awkward.
"We should probably…" Mark says, jerking his head towards the stairs.
"Mhmm," Eduardo agrees, nodding profusely, and they head downstairs.
--
Dinner isn't awkward, which comes as a great surprise to Mark who had been expecting awkwardness off the charts. Eduardo is a bit tongue-tied at first, his knee pressed firmly against Mark's under the table, but he soon warms up, answering questions left and right with his usual sweetness while Mark shovels food into his mouth and listens intently to all of Eduardo's answers.
He would berate his entire family for pestering Eduardo, but he finds that there are a lot of things he doesn't know about Eduardo and he wants to know them all, even the pointless parts. It doesn't matter that Eduardo had his appendix removed when he was five, or that he was ten when he first moved to Miami, but Mark still clutches these new pieces of information to his chest as if they're a string of precious pearls and he's the pearl clutching type.
"So how did you meet?" Arielle asks, waving her fork in their general direction.
"At school," Mark says quickly, rolling his eyes.
"Mark saved me actually," Eduardo adds because he's a dumbass, and soon the entire embarrassing story is out in the open.
"I hate you," Mark mutters, tearing viciously into a piece of bread. He did not need his family to know just how ridiculous he is about Eduardo; it's enough that they already guessed.
"That's not even the best part though," Eduardo continues, completely unperturbed, and within minutes they know about the Halloween incident, too. It's a cute story, when told by Eduardo, but still embarrassing.
"I can't believe you dressed up," Randi says, and there's something weird in her eyes when she looks at Mark across the table.
"Someone had to save him from himself," Mark says sourly, trying to pretend he's not blushing a particularly glowing shade of crimson.
"He was amazing," Eduardo says, voice all soft and full of wonder, and Mark blushes some more. Any second now his mom will throw that baby picture of Mark in chaps, a cowboy hat, and nothing more on the table and this will officially be the most embarrassing night of his life.
"And I still haven't gotten a single call from Principal Sorkin," Mark's mom says, reaching across the table to pat Mark's hand. "I'm proud of you, baby."
"Mom," Mark whines, but of course she ignores him. This was such a terrible idea.
--
After dinner they end up in the living room and of course Mark's mom shows Eduardo that picture, and of course his sisters regale Eduardo with his most embarrassing childhood stories like that time he hit Donna with a pillow over the head just because he liked comforting her, and Eduardo laughs in all the right places, and coos over baby Mark, and generally looks like he's having a fantastic time so Mark can't even mind.
After thirty minutes of nonstop embarrassment Mark gives up and goes into the kitchen to help his dad with the clean up. He realizes that this might have been a tactical error on his part the moment his dad spots him. Suddenly his stomach is full of nervous butterflies.
"Help me dry," Mark's dad says, holding out a towel, and Mark cautiously approaches the sink.
There's a mountain of dishes already on the dish rack while the dishwasher chugs away and if Mark got to choose, the leftover dishes would wait in the sink until the washer was done, but Mark doesn't get to choose, and his dad is nothing if not neat.
Mark's dad hands him a glass and Mark dutifully starts drying it, wiping the towel quickly over the wet surface, as if drying faster will get him out of the uncomfortable conversation he knows is about to come.
"You like him," Edward says, giving Mark a sideways smile.
Mark shrugs, but he's pretty sure the way he blushes totally calls his bluff. "He's okay," he says flatly.
"Yeah," Edward agrees. "He is."
Mark waits for a couple of beats but nothing more seems to be forthcoming. "Was that your version of fatherly approval?" he asks, eyes narrowing.
"Always knew you were quick on the uptake," Edward shoots back, reaching out to ruffle Mark's hair with a wet hand before he can pull away.
Mark feels almost disappointed. "You don't care that I'm…" he trails off, biting nervously at his lower lip.
Edward actually looks disappointed at that, as if he's hurt by the mere notion. "You thought I would?"
"I don't know," Mark admits. "It's… I don't know."
"Do you care?"
Mark thinks it over for a moment. "No," he finally says, almost surprised when he realizes that it's true.
"Then it's all good… or did you want an updated version of the sex talk? Because I can certainly do that."
"God, no," Mark says, eyes widening.
Edward smirks. "Be careful, use condoms, keep it quiet."
"Dad," Mark whines. "We're not even… I mean… Shut up."
Edward laughs and pulls him into a one-armed hug, and it's embarrassing but Mark supposes it's pretty nice, too. Everyone's dad should be more like his dad; he's certain the world would be a better place that way.
"IloveyouDad," he mumbles into his dad's shirt, because he said it to his mom earlier and there needs to be a certain symmetry to these things.
Edward pulls away and gives him a wide-eyed look that is made entirely of sap. "I love you, too," he says gruffly, and for a horrifying moment Mark thinks that he's actually going to cry, but then he laughs again and shakes his head and says, "I think he's a lot more than okay," and Mark is simply never going to stop blushing.
--
Mark barely makes it into the living room before he's cornered by his mom and treated to another round of the talk. She drags him into his dad's office, sits him down on a chair and interrogates him about his intentions.
"Mom," he complains. "I'm not a villain."
"Of course not, darling," she says, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "I just don't want you boys to hurt each other."
Mark presses his lips together and thinks about Eduardo kissing him and taking it back and the horrible weeks where they were barely even friends.
"That's life though, isn't it?" he says. "Sometimes you end up hurting people even if you don't want to."
"Yeah," she says, giving him a peculiar smile. "You're right."
Mark can tell something mushy is forthcoming and he almost covers his ears, but in the end it isn't so bad. He blushes, of course, and stutters a couple of times, and wonders why both his parents seem to think he's a sex fiend, but it's okay. His mom seems so happy to finally be able to give him a real talk that he supposes it worth the embarrassment. It would be infinitely worse, he thinks, if no one wanted to give him the talk at all.
--
Eduardo's yawning when Mark is finally allowed to return to the living room, mouth politely covered by his hand, and he looks about as tired as Mark feels. This morning in their dorm room feels like it was years ago rather than hours, and dinner rests like a heavy lump in the pit of Mark's stomach, making his limbs heavy and his thoughts slow.
His sisters turned some movie on, probably something ridiculous and romantic, and the lights are turned down low, making Mark's eyelids heavy even before he claims the spot next to Eduardo on the couch. He wants to ask Eduardo if maybe he wants to head upstairs, but it just seems too obvious somehow, especially following the double helping of the sex talk he just received, so he just leans his head against the couch back and lets his eyes slip shut, stretching one of his hands out a little so that his knuckles rest against the side of Eduardo's thigh. He's asleep within minutes.
When Mark wakes up, his cheek is against Eduardo's bony shoulder and there's a small patch of drool on Eduardo's shirt. The TV is silent, Eduardo's cheek is against his hair, and Eduardo's hand has fallen on top of his between them. He blinks his eyes open to find his parents watching them from the other side of the coffee table.
"That is creepy," he grumbles, startling Eduardo awake.
Mark's mom laughs and his dad smiles and Mark blushes as if they've been caught having sex.
"We were just about to wake you," Mark's mom says, soft smile on her face.
Mark makes a discontented noise and pulls his hand from under Eduardo's to scrub at his face. "Creeps," he mutters.
This is exactly why taking Eduardo home was a terrible idea; Mark's entire family will have ammunition to mock him with for years to come. He sneaks a glance at Eduardo to find him blushing furiously with his lower lip stuck between his teeth. He looks like maybe he wants to apologize but can't find the words, which is just as well, because Mark doesn't want him to.
"Come on," he says under his breath. "Let's go upstairs."
"Okay," Eduardo says quickly, jumping up. "That's… let's do that."
Mark's mom laughs again, and Eduardo blushes some more, and Mark kind of really wants to hold his hand. He's getting quite fond of that, the hand holding. Eduardo launches into a lengthy rambling thank you speech that Mark interrupts by pushing him gently in the direction of the stairs.
"They get it, Wardo," he says. "Believe me, they're delighted to have you here."
Mark's parents says goodnight behind them, but Mark ignores them, he has to draw the line somewhere. Eduardo responds in kind, of course, and Mark has to more or less usher him up the stairs to stop him from exchanging further pleasantries with the creeps.
"I'm sorry about that," he mutters when they make it onto the second floor landing. "They're a bit creepy, I know."
"It's okay," Eduardo says quickly. "I like them."
He looks like he really means it, too, which makes Mark feel oddly proud of his parents, as if getting Eduardo to like them is some sort of accomplishment, even though Eduardo's default setting is to like everyone.
--
They take turns getting ready for the night. Mark goes first and then he sits awkwardly at the edge of his bed in his pajamas wondering what he's supposed to do now. His mouth tastes like toothpaste, his palms are sweaty, and his worn flannel pants are ripped at the knee. He pokes nervously at the hole, tracing the edges of it, while he wishes, quite fervently, that he was better at this sort of thing.
Should he lie down and scoot over to make space for Eduardo, or would that be presumptuous? Are they even going to share a bed? Mark's never shared a bed with anyone before, not since he was eight and had to share with Randi on an ill-advised family vacation. Maybe he should move altogether, sit at his desk, maybe poke around on the computer, anything to stop looking like a Victorian virgin short of a nightgown.
He imagines Eduardo dressed in one of those old fashioned nightgowns, tightly buttoned at the neck, spread out on a grand four-poster bed. He imagines crawling into bed with him and lifting the gown up to find that Eduardo is wearing nothing underneath. He's very smooth in his fantasy, suave, while Eduardo trembles with equal parts nerves and excitement, and Mark really needs to get a grip on himself.
He moves to the desk, but he can't be bothered to turn on the computer, and he realizes it might seem as if he's trying to distance himself, so he moves back to the bed. Then back to the desk, and to the bed, and he's just contemplating sitting on the fucking floor when Eduardo comes back from the bathroom. Eduardo's not wearing pajamas, just boxer briefs and a t-shirt, and Mark has seen him in less but the sight is still oddly thrilling.
He stares at the long golden expanse of Eduardo's legs and wonders why he never noticed just how perfect they are before. It never really occurred to him, he supposes, to ogle another man's legs, but now that they are right there he can't help himself. Eduardo's calves are lightly sprinkled with hair, but his thighs are smooth and hairless. Mark imagines running his hand over them, and his mouth suddenly feels dry.
Eduardo crouches down to put his clothes down on top of his bag and Mark tries really hard to not stare at way his boxer briefs pull tight over his ass. He fails. Not for the first time he's almost angry at Eduardo for being that attractive, because Mark is just not like that, at all. It never really bothered him before that he isn't effortlessly gorgeous like some people because it's not as if he looks at himself in the mirror and wants to kick his own face in, but he finds that it does bother him now, sitting on his childhood bed, in his childhood room, wearing pajama pants that are too short for him because he's had them since he was fifteen.
Eduardo straightens up and flaps a hand in the direction of the light switch. "Can I?" he asks.
"Of course," Mark says, and Eduardo promptly flicks it, plunging the room into darkness.
Mark hears rather than sees Eduardo moving, his eyes not yet accustomed to the darkness. Eduardo bangs into the fold-out bed and muffles a curse before he suddenly steps on Mark's toes.
"Oh," Mark says, tilting his head back to look up at the dark lump that is Eduardo.
"Move over," Eduardo says, partly impatient, partly fond, and Mark quickly crawls onto the bed, pressing himself up against the wall under the covers.
The bed dips with Eduardo's weight and then he's right there, his perfect legs brushing against Mark's under the duvet, his face just inches from Mark's on the pillows.
"Is this okay?" Eduardo asks, voice barely a whisper.
Mark can feel Eduardo's minty breath brushing across his face and he squeaks out a very undignified affirmative.
"Good," Eduardo murmurs, and then his hand is on Mark's ribs and one of his legs is between Mark's, and his lips, finally, are firmly planted on Mark's.
It's a bit weird at first. It's been a while since Mark really kissed someone aside from the quick pecks he's been sharing with Eduardo, and for the first few seconds Eduardo's tongue feels like a slimy alien invader, then Eduardo makes a noise and his other hand finds Mark's hair somehow and everything is wonderful.
Eduardo's lips are full and soft, and his waist under Mark's hand is warm and perfect. It's heady to be kissing like this on a bed that has never seen more action than Mark and his right hand; it's exhilarating, and within minutes Mark is painfully, embarrassingly hard. He tries to ignore it, kissing Eduardo deeper and clutching at his waist, but then Eduardo moves closer and Mark has to break the kiss to suck in a startled breath.
His heart is banging as if he just ran three miles and his dick is curving, hard and obvious, against Eduardo's thigh. Eduardo doesn't move, his thigh frozen in place and his hands still against Mark's skin. He dips his head slightly to press a kiss against Mark's jaw, the fingers of his left hand pressing flat against Mark's side.
"Can I touch you?" he asks breathlessly, thigh twitching minutely in between Mark's and that is probably the stupidest question Mark ever heard.
"Yeah," he whispers. "You can… anything. I want you to."
"Fuck," Eduardo gasps, his hand sliding down to curl over Mark's narrow hip.
Mark bites down on his lower lip with his breath catching obnoxiously in his throat. "Have you ever…"
Eduardo hesitates, ever so slightly, before he responds. "Yeah, I… uh…"
He trails off, and Mark fights his instinct to move away because Eduardo is allowed to have a past and it's probably beneficial for this relationship if one of them has a clue what they're doing.
"It's okay," Mark forces out, because it is. When he thinks about Eduardo being with someone else his stomach curdles with sour jealousy, but it's okay, too, because, well, it's Eduardo.
"It wasn't serious," Eduardo says. "It was… I just wanted my dad to notice, you know? I took Matt home and I fooled around with him right under my dad's nose and he didn't even…" Eduardo blows out a breath, fingers digging into Mark's flesh for a moment.
"It wasn't like this," he whispers, pressing his lips against Mark's cheek. "This is… you're different and we never… you know."
Mark suddenly feels hot all over because he can figure out what Eduardo means, and he prays to every deity he can think of that he'll be the one to have that eventually, that he'll be the only one to ever know what Eduardo looks like spread open and vulnerable, and that the same will be true for Eduardo.
"My dad noticed eventually," Eduardo murmurs, dipping his fingers in under the waistband of Mark's pajama pants. "And four months later I transferred across the country and met you."
It's probably the worst dirty talk there ever was, but then Eduardo's long fingers curl around Mark's dick and none of that even matters.
"Shit," Mark hisses, hips stuttering forward, because that's Eduardo's hand on his dick and he's going to last about five seconds.
"Uh," Eduardo says, fingers trailing uncertainly down the length of Mark's cock. "Uhm…"
"What?" Mark asks flatly, pulling away.
"Nothing," Eduardo says quickly, but then his hand finds Mark's dick again and he presses in closer rasping; "You're really fucking huge," against Mark's ear and it's all Mark can do to not come right away.
"Seriously," Eduardo breathes, forming his hand into a fist around the head. "It's like a tree trunk."
Mark knows for a fact that isn't true. He's never been the type to compare but he would have been blind to not notice he's a bit on the bigger side. He always kind of figured that part of it is because the rest of him is so small. He would argue the point, but then Eduardo moves his hand and his carefully thought out reply turns into a garbled moan.
"Yeah," Eduardo breathes against Mark's cheek. "Like that."
Mark really wants to be cool about it, like it's no big deal, but it only takes three firm strokes for Mark to shake apart at the seams, coming all over his stomach and Eduardo's fingers.
"Oh," Eduardo says, and Mark is so embarrassed he wants to crawl out of his skin.
"You told me I have a huge cock, okay?" he hisses. "You can't just say that and expect me to last."
Surprisingly, or maybe not, Eduardo laughs, a low, happy, chuckle puffed out against Mark's skin.
"God, Mark, you're so…" He starts, but he cuts himself off in favor of giving Mark a kiss while surreptitiously wiping his fingers against Mark's pajamas. Mark mutters a protest into Eduardo's mouth, but he's not that mad about it. He's happy and lethargic and he's got Eduardo's tongue in his mouth, which is pretty much the definition of good as far as Mark's concerned.
Then Eduardo shifts and his dick is a hard line against Mark's hip and Mark just has to touch it. He manages to worm his hand between them, cupping his palm over Eduardo's hard length, but that has his arm squished between their bodies, making further movement impossible. Not that Eduardo seems to mind, he shakes all over and pants against Mark's mouth and makes encouraging noises at the back of his throat.
Mark minds though because he wants to do this right and Eduardo's stupid quivering stomach is in the way. The solution, obviously, is to push Eduardo down on his back and pretty much climb on top of him.
"Mark," Eduardo moans and it's probably the single hottest utterance of Mark's name in the history of ever.
"Yeah," Mark breathes, fumbling to get his hand in under the waistband of Eduardo's boxer briefs. "Just a second."
Eduardo giggle-snorts but it turns into a weak groan when Mark finally, finally, gets his hand on his dick. It's a bit awkward and the angle is all wrong, but Eduardo's cock is rock hard and wet at the tip and he starts panting before Mark even manages a proper grip. It's difficult to work his hand and kiss Eduardo at the same time, but somehow Mark manages, even if he's not as much kissing Eduardo as he is licking sloppily at his mouth. Eduardo doesn't seem to mind; he opens his mouth wide and struggles for breath, gasping: "Your fucking hands," before he comes all over Mark's fist.
Mark wishes the lights were on and that maybe they'd taken a little more time, because he can hardly see Eduardo's face, let alone what he looks like when he comes and he wants to know, okay, even if it probably looks ridiculous. Instead he has to settle for listening to Eduardo's labored breaths as he slowly comes down from his high with his hand sticky and disgusting against Eduardo's hip and his mouth against Eduardo's cheek.
He wants to ask 'was that okay?' but it seems kind of ridiculously moot when his hand is all slick with how okay it was. It probably wasn't fantastic or anything, but there was an orgasm involved so it obviously wasn't bad.
"We should try to clean up?" Eduardo whispers, his cheek hot under Mark's mouth.
"Yeah," Mark mutters. "Uhm…"
There's Kleenex in his nightstand and they use a handful to wipe their hands and stomachs, discarding the thoroughly ruined sleepwear in a heap on the floor. Then they curl up together again but it feels weird to be without pants, and the moment Mark shifts so that his pubes brush against Eduardo's hip he starts blushing furiously.
"Maybe we should…"
"Yeah," Eduardo says quickly and they rummage around in the dark until they both find something to wear.
Then they curl up together again and Eduardo starts giggling and Mark can't help but to join in and moments later they're kissing again and fifteen minutes later there's another pile of dirty underwear on the floor. (The second time is just as messy and uncoordinated as the first time, but better somehow, because they're still laughing and still kissing and Mark doesn't feel half as uncertain.)
"I'm going to run out of underwear," Eduardo remarks when they return to bed the second time.
"It's okay," Mark answers sleepily. "I have lots."
Eduardo doesn't answer for a breathless minute and Mark starts thinking about backtracking because maybe that was the wrong thing to say, but then Eduardo presses his lips to Mark's throat and squeaks, "That would be… uhm… nice," and suddenly it's all Mark can think about.
Eduardo in his underwear, the elastic of Mark's loose boxers peeking out over the waistband of Eduardo's stupidly skinny jeans. The mental images alone are almost enough to get him hard again; he can't even imagine what the real deal would be like.
"Yeah," Eduardo mumbles, his voice a rumble against Mark's skin. "We're definitely doing that."
Mark falls asleep with a stupid smile still on his lips.
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