Maze (you got me running through)
Title: Maze (you got me running through)
Author: jeyhawk
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Beta: slasher48 and sbb23 (who bravely and awesomely tackled this in less than 24 hours)! <333
Word Count: 33,577
Disclaimer: Fiction. Not true. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.
Warnings: Mentions of bullying.
Summary: Boarding School AU. "Mark doesn't really notice him at first, maybe because Eduardo makes a point out of not being noticed, or maybe because Mark isn't the most observant guy, but within a week he finds his eyes drawn to Eduardo's face with unnerving regularity. It's almost like last year, when his eyes kept getting stuck on Erica's jawline, but it's different too, inexplicable, and Mark doesn't like things he can't explain."
Notes: A huge thanks to elizaria for alpha-reading and the title. I love you, babe! For the tsn-a-thon, team albright. :D
The first day back at school is always a mess; cars, kids, parents, bags and boxes everywhere, while harried RAs run around trying to get everyone sorted into the right dorm with a minimum amount of fuss, gritting their teeth already because they know it'll be another year of this. Some kids are already in their uniforms, probably freshmen, the knitted black vests surely hot in the late August heat wave, their faces flushed and necks sweaty above the collars of their light blue shirts. Mark's uniform is at the bottom of his bag and he won't put it on until he absolutely has to.
Mark has his mom drop him off at the gate, standing awkwardly to the side with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans while she pulls his bags from the trunk. Last year she insisted on escorting him to his room. He hopes the fact that he made her stop in a No Parking zone will prevent any such nonsense this year.
"I think that's everything," she says, dumping the second bag at Mark's feet. "Are you going to be okay from here?"
"Yes," Mark says quickly, "Absolutely. I'm good."
She smirks, as if she knows exactly what he's thinking. "Be good this year," she tells him, pulling him into a hard hug. "If I never have to talk to Principal Sorkin again it will be too soon."
"Of course," Mark mutters, rocking back on his heels.
She smiles and ruffles his curls. "Oh, there's Chris," she says, lifting her hand in a wave.
Mark cranes his neck to find Chris picking his way through the crowd, as lanky and immaculate as ever. The sun shines off his blond hair, making it look as if he has a halo, and when Mark turns back to his mom she looks smitten. He's pretty sure Chris is the son she’s always wished she had.
"Mrs. Zuckerberg," Chris says politely.
"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Karen?" She asks, smiling. "It's nice to see you again, Chris."
Mark rolls his eyes when they shake hands. If polite was a subject Chris would get straight A's. (He gets straight A's anyway, but that's beside the point.)
"Got your keys," Chris says, grabbing Mark's hand in the complicated handshake they spent three weeks perfecting during freshman year.
Mark nods. "Is Dustin here yet?"
A deafening shout of "MAAAAARKY" answers that question and Mark turns around to find Dustin running towards them with his arms outstretched. Mark considers side-stepping but he probably doesn't want Dustin to run face-first into his mom's car, so he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets instead, sliding one foot back to brace himself.
Dustin hits him square in the chest, wrapping his arms hard around Mark's torso. "Marky," he says. "Did you miss me? You did, didn't you? You missed me. Chrissy did. He said so."
Mark gives Chris a disappointed look. "You let him have coffee?"
"I'm not his keeper," Chris says quickly. "And… uh… he arrived like that."
Dustin lets Mark go and takes half a step back. "Karen," he says. "You look lovely as always."
Mark's mom laughs and ruffles Dustin's hair and Mark's chest feels a little funny. Maybe he's happy to be back after all.
--
"The Winklevii are back," Dustin says as they make their way across campus. "I think they grew."
"Awesome," Mark mutters, looking around for their familiar blond heads. He doesn't spot them, but he does see Erica Albright across the yard. She's talking to her friend Linda, mess of bags at her feet, and he looks away quickly, pretending he didn't see her at all.
"Oh, there's Divya," Dustin says, crinkling his nose, "And his goons."
Mark's jaw tightens; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are not his favorite people. As captains of the boy's crew team and descendants of a family of means, they think they are the school kings and no one dares to challenge them. Fincher Academy has a very strict policy against bullying, but it's easy to get away with it if you're popular, and the Winklevii are virtually untouchable.
Freshman year Mark went a few rounds against them - while Mark might not be a physical threat, a few mysteriously lost essays and missing grades taught them to not mess with him. He's not exactly their favorite person since then, but he easily thwarted Divya's lame attempts at hacking his computer, and they've been locked in a stalemate ever since. Mark knows they could easily beat the shit out of him and they know Mark could easily erase their entire online record. It's not ideal, but it works.
"Any new contenders?" Mark asks.
Every year the school tries to put someone new into their room and every year Mark makes sure they put in for a transfer within days. He's not a bully, but he's also not always a nice person, and he hardly thinks he is to blame for the fact that people don't get his sense of humor.
"There's only one new guy on our floor," Chris says, shaking his head. "A transfer from Miami, I think. They put him in with the Winklevii and Divya."
"Well, that's going to end well," Mark says dryly.
--
Eduardo Saverin, the new guy, turns out to be the perfect victim. He's soft-spoken and almost painfully polite, his every breath seemingly an excuse for his very existence. It's apparent within days that the Winklevii are making his life a living hell but it's just as apparent that he's not going to file a complaint, or do anything, really, but let them push him around.
He's in a lot of Mark's classes, sitting up front, seemingly soaking up the teacher's words like a sponge. It might be the hair, Mark thinks. Eduardo has the kind of hair that can soak up a lot of information.
Mark doesn't really notice him at first, maybe because Eduardo makes a point out of not being noticed, or maybe because Mark isn't the most observant guy, but within a week he finds his eyes drawn to Eduardo's face with unnerving regularity. It's almost like last year, when his eyes kept getting stuck on Erica's jawline, but it's different too, inexplicable, and Mark doesn't like things he can't explain.
--
"I don't like the new guy," he remarks one night, looking up from his laptop for long enough to gauge Chris's and Dustin's reactions.
"Eduardo?" Chris's eyebrows shoot up. "Why not?"
"Just what the poor guy needs," Dustin mutters, throwing his textbook aside, "Another person in his anti-club."
"Anti-club is not a word," Mark says. "And I don't know."
The thing is, he isn't sure he doesn't like Eduardo. He has feelings about Eduardo and he doesn't like that. Sometimes at night he finds himself straining his ears, as if he'll somehow be able to hear if the Winklevii are being mean to him through the wall, but the only thing he ever hears is Dustin jerking off.
It doesn't make sense, Mark isn't the protective type, and Eduardo’s never even said a word to him. Mark tried talking to him once, but Eduardo just looked at him with his huge stupid eyes and Mark walked away with a weird feeling at the pit of his stomach that he didn't care to examine further because he doesn't care… about Eduardo.
"He's cute," Chris says, folding his hands under his head. "I wonder what team he bats for."
Mark's stomach knots. "Don't…" he starts, but he cuts himself off because he doesn't know where that sentence ends.
Chris turns to look at him, eyes narrowed in that unnerving way that means he's going to say something Mark doesn't like. "Don't what?"
Mark shrugs and focuses very intently on his screen. The dorm Wi-Fi will cut out in thirty minutes and people are still wrong on the internet. He types up a lengthy comment and posts it, before he looks up again, only to find that Chris is still watching him.
"What?" he asks angrily.
His cheeks feel warm and he wonders if they turned the heat up; usually they keep the temperature at arctic levels.
"Nothing," Chris says, smirking in an annoying way, "Nothing at all."
--
Maybe a week later a slight commotion in the corridor wakes Mark, always a light sleeper. There's the sound of hushed voices, one angry and one pleading and then a door slams shut. The sound makes his heart jump, pulse speeding up, and when he strains his ears to hear over the sound of Chris's and Dustin's mingled breaths and occasional snores, something tells him someone's still in the hall.
Nothing happens and he's almost asleep again when he hears a soft knock, not on their door, but as if someone is knocking on the next door over. His heart jumps again and this time he slips out of bed, sneaking across the floor to press his ear to the door like a creeper. Someone is still out there for sure and without giving himself time to think about it he unlocks the door and pulls it open.
Eduardo is sitting with his back to the Winklevii's door, skinny legs pulled up and his forehead pressed against his bony knees. He doesn't notice Mark watching him, too wrapped up in his own misery. The sight makes Mark inexplicably angry, fists clenching at his sides. Is it too much to fucking ask for Eduardo to grow a fucking backbone?
"What are you doing?" he hisses.
Eduardo jumps, whipping his head around, and his mouth opens and closes without any sound coming out, cheeks flushing a dark crimson. "Sorry," he whispers. "I didn't mean to… I…"
"Shut the fuck up," Mark mutters. He's not going to listen to Eduardo apologizing for the fucking Winklevii. "And get in here. Those assholes aren't going to let you in and you can't sleep in the hall."
He steps back to hold the door open and Eduardo only hesitates for a moment before he climbs to his feet. His arms are covered in goosebumps, Mark notices, and for the first time in his life he seriously contemplates murder.
"I'm sorry," Eduardo whispers again when he slips through the crack in the door, stopping awkwardly in the middle of the floor when Mark shuts it, cutting off the light that falls in from the hallway.
Mark huffs, reaching out to curl his hand around Eduardo's elbow, leading him over to the unoccupied bed. Eduardo's skin is cold to the touch and Mark entertains a brief but fulfilling fantasy of running the Winklevii through with a sharp blade.
"Stop apologizing," he hisses, fumbling across the bed until he finds a corner of the comforter and can pull it aside. "And go to sleep."
He waits until Eduardo has climbed into the bed before he returns to his own, pulling the covers up to his ears to avoid the inevitable sound of Eduardo breathing; except Eduardo doesn't seem to be breathing because there's only silence coming from his corner of the room.
"You're allowed to breathe, you know," he says curtly.
Eduardo doesn't answer, but within moments Mark can hear the soft, too-fast pattern of his breaths, as if he's been holding them in for too long. Mark grumbles and turns over on his other side, and resolutely does not think about Eduardo in the Winklevii's room trying to pretend he doesn't exist, because for all he knows they've been feasting on tea and cookies having a jolly old time every night until this one.
He turns over again, glaring daggers in the general direction of Eduardo's bed. "You can put in for a transfer," he says angrily. "Your general presence probably won't annoy me too much."
He huffs and pulls the pillows over his head, angry with the world at large. Everything about Eduardo is so inexplicable and stupid. Mark doesn't like it one bit.
--
Mark wakes up to a hand shaking his shoulder.
"What?" he mumbles, trying to burrow deeper into the pillows.
"Mark," Chris whispers urgently. "Mark."
"Is the building on fire?" Mark asks into his mound of pillows.
"No, but…"
"Then I don't care."
Chris's fingers dig in harder. "Mark."
Mark growls low in his throat but he flops over on his back. "What?"
Chris makes huge eyes at him and gestures towards the corner. Mark blinks and slowly turns his head. Oh.
"He was in the hallway," Mark says.
Chris's eyes grow two sizes and he does something complicated with his mouth. Mark stares at the too-small lump under the covers, a barely-there rise; if it weren't for the tuft of dark hair sticking out Mark would think that Eduardo had left already. Even in his sleep Eduardo manages to be apologetic.
"I couldn't leave him in the hallway," Mark mutters.
Chris’s face softens. "Okay," he says and that's that.
--
The next time Mark wakes up Eduardo is gone.
"He took off like a thief in the night," Dustin says when Mark sits up. "I didn't even get to say hello."
"Hmm," Mark says, staring at the neatly made bed.
--
Mark doesn't see Eduardo again until his last class of the day, a social science elective. Eduardo sits up front as usual while Mark slouches in the back, scribbling down random notes occasionally that won't make the slightest lick of sense to him in the morning.
Eduardo seems twitchy somehow, not paying his usual rapt attention, and as soon as class lets out for the day he gathers his things in a haphazard mess and clutches them to his chest rather than taking the time to put them into his bag. He's probably trying to avoid Mark. Mark will have none of that.
"You're not going to put in for a transfer, are you?" Mark asks, sneaking up behind Eduardo. He can be really fast when he wants to; no one ever expects that of him.
Eduardo startles so hard he drops his books. Mark watches him pick them up, noting that even the back of Eduardo's neck can blush.
"Are you?" Mark repeats.
"No," Eduardo answers, barely more than a breath.
Mark sighs. "Why not?"
He thinks it's a valid question. Mark might be a bit prickly and Dustin is insane but Chris is an actual nice person, and even if they were jerks they'd still be better people than the Winklevii. Mark would never make anyone spend their night awkwardly crouching in the hall.
Eduardo straightens up, the books once again clutched to his chest. He doesn't answer but his eyes are full of desperation, as if maybe he wants Mark to say something. It's a novelty; people usually don't want Mark to talk to them.
It takes Mark maybe thirty seconds of staring into Eduardo's unnecessarily large eyes to figure it out. "You can't, can you?"
Eduardo ducks his chin. "My dad…" he starts, but cuts himself off immediately, "Cameron and Tyler are the right kind of people," he says instead, voice dull.
Mark wants to pretend he doesn't understand, but he does, of course he does; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, old money, athletes, destined to go places because their father will buy them a ticket.
Being their friend, their accomplice, might pay off in the future, and that is why people turn a blind eye to the Eduardos of the school, pretending they can't see the way they're climbing the walls to get away.
Eduardo's father is obviously an asshole, but Mark doesn't say that. Instead he says, "Huh," and at the back of his mind he starts working on a solution.
Mark knows that he will be great one day. He has the mind and talent for it and he's more than willing to put in the work. He will build his own fortune and he will reward his friends when he gets there. Betting on Mark now will pay off, he'll make sure of that, but being able to say five years in the future that he bet on the right wildcard won't really help Eduardo in the here and now.
Eduardo looks down, shifting his feet. "I better get going," he says, inching backward. "But… uh… thanks."
Mark watches him leave, head held high, and wonders how long it will take for the Winklevii to break him.
"Is everything okay?" Mr. D asks, from where he's wiping the whiteboard clean.
Mark likes Mr. D, he doesn't ask stupid questions or try to pretend he understands "what they are going through". It probably helps that Mr. D isn't fully into his thirties and kind of nice to look at, if you like the tweedy type.
"Not really," Mark says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "But I doubt that you can help."
Mr. D smiles, he often seems amused by Mark, but it's okay because it's not a condescending amusement.
"If you ever reach a point where you think I might be of assistance with your problem, don't hesitate to knock on my door," he says.
"Sure," Mark responds.
--
The problem niggles at Mark. It's a constant low-level annoyance, made worse by the fact that Eduardo's golden complexion fades to pale and then paler within the span of the next two weeks. He looks deathly ill, but Mark is willing to bet he's just exhausted; the bags under his eyes are large enough to hold Mark's entire wardrobe.
During those two weeks, Eduardo stays over twice in the Dino Suite (Dustin's name for their room that stuck like the velociraptor sticker on Mark's laptop - and he's still pissed about that thank you very much), but he's always gone before Mark wakes up.
"I could set their room on fire," Mark says thoughtfully. "They'd have to move then."
Chris stares at him long and hard. "No," he says.
"But…"
"No."
"You should romance him into our room," Dustin says. "With kisses and hugs and naughty touching."
"No," Mark says.
"I bet Chris would love to romance him…" Dustin's face is the very picture of innocence.
"I could set you on fire," Mark mutters.
"No," Chris says.
It's something of a status quo.
--
The problem with Mark's problem, he eventually realizes, is that it has no solution, because the problem isn't the problem, the conclusion is. Every possible scenario ends with Eduardo moving into the Dino suite - because that's Mark's endgame, Eduardo needs to be saved for his own good - but Eduardo moving into the Dino suite basically means that he failed. It's infuriating.
"We could kidnap him," Dustin suggests. "That way it wouldn't be his fault."
"We basically tried that," Chris points out. "He made the bed and left."
"Arson is still an option," Mark says darkly.
"NO," Chris says.
--
Eduardo stops paying attention in class. He still sits up front and stares straight ahead, but if the teacher asks him a question they have to repeat it three times to even get his attention and he never knows the answer. It's depressing to watch.
Mark takes to sitting next to him, and on the rare occasions they watch a movie in class, Eduardo will slump into him, fast asleep the moment the lights go out. It's uncomfortable, Eduardo is taller than Mark and seemingly made out of nothing but sharp angles, but for the duration of whatever movie they're watching Mark will barely breathe, and he won't move, even when Eduardo's hair tickles his neck.
One of those rare occasions happens in Mr. D's class and for once Eduardo doesn't wake up with the lights. He's still asleep with his head on Mark's shoulder, mouth open and hands loosely clasped on his lap, when Mr. D dismisses the rest of the class. Mark sits eerily still; Eduardo obviously needs every second of undisturbed sleep he can get.
"I take it you haven't solved your problem," Mr. D says when the rest of the students have left, nodding towards Eduardo.
"My problem doesn't have a solution," Mark says curtly.
"Want to tell me about it?"
"No."
Mr. D nods. "I'll see what I can do," he says, as if Mark spelled his problem out in bold letters.
Mark glances down at Eduardo's bony wrists, sticking out of his regulation blue shirt and thinks that maybe he didn't have to say anything; maybe Eduardo's appearance speaks for itself. It hurts his stomach a little to think about it, so he doesn't.
--
Two days later, on a Friday evening, Eduardo moves into the Dino Suite and the Winklevii into the corner triple they always coveted. Mark has no idea how Mr. D did it, but Future Mark will certainly remember to reward him. Present Day Mark will settle for curt thanks the next time he sees him in class.
Eduardo doesn't talk while he unpacks his things, carefully sorting shirts and underwear into the dresser and hanging everything else in the wardrobe. They all pretend they don't notice the slight tremble to his hands, or the way he moves as if he's about to keel over any second.
When Eduardo's done he pushes his bag in under the bed and sits down gingerly on the edge of it, eyes flitting quickly about the room. Then his cheeks color and he jumps up, riffling through the dresser for a t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. He grabs a towel and his toiletry bag from the closet and says something about a shower under his breath.
"Don't slip," Mark mutters, the words sneaking out unbidden.
The corners of Eduardo's mouth curl slightly. "I'll try not to," he says, ducking his chin.
Dustin saves his annoying cackle for when the door has fallen closed behind Eduardo, pointing his finger at Mark and making high-pitched noises of glee. Chris just smiles.
"Shut up," Mark grumbles, and goes back to the computer.
--
The first few days are tense because Eduardo won't speak unless spoken to, he won't touch anything that isn't his without explicit consent, and he jumps a mile if anyone happens to touch him. If it'd just been Mark and Eduardo, this would probably have continued until the end of time, because Mark doesn't know shit about fixing people, and Eduardo sleeps now so Mark's mission is more or less accomplished.
Luckily, it isn't up to Mark, and Chris and Dustin are both effortlessly social, and within a week they've cracked Eduardo's outer defenses and bridged the moat. This, of course, means that the noise level in the suite goes up a notch, one of the things that made Mark oppose a fourth roommate to begin with, but he finds that it's hard to mind when it's Eduardo.
One Friday after class Mark walks in to find all three of them on Dustin's bed, watching something on Chris's computer. Eduardo is the only one that looks up.
"Hey Mark," he says, lips curling into a shy smile.
"Wardo," Mark says, because Eduardo is a mouthful and he doesn't like Ed.
Eduardo's cheeks color and he drops his gaze. Mark wonders if maybe Wardo is some kind of insult in Portuguese, but then Eduardo's eyes dart up again and he bites on his lower lip and Mark thinks that it probably isn't.
"This is going to get old really fast," Chris mutters, without even looking up. Mark has no idea what he's talking about, but maybe Eduardo does because his cheeks get even pinker and he ducks his chin for real this time.
--
Dustin and Chris like to do things on the weekend, like window shopping, actual shopping or watching a movie. Mark likes to spend the weekends on the computer. Eduardo slept through the first weekend, but Mark thinks he's the type that likes to do things, and true to form, on Saturday after breakfast he starts gathering his things to go out with Chris and Dustin.
"You're not coming?" he asks, when Mark makes no move to go with them.
Mark glances up from the screen. "No."
"Oh." Eduardo fidgets with the strap on his bag. "I could stay, if you want."
When it's just the two of them Eduardo has taken it upon himself to fill the silence, and it's annoying because Mark can't stop listening. He pretends that he doesn't, but every damned thing Eduardo says is noted and filed away for future reference.
"Please don't," Mark mutters, because he has things to do and only a limited time to do them.
He looks up in time to catch Eduardo's slight flinch and Chris's disappointed look.
"I'll have lunch," he offers, because Eduardo worries about such things.
Eduardo nods and smiles slightly but it doesn’t reach his eyes. "Okay," he says.
--
True to his word, Mark does surface from the world of code in time for lunch, and while he's tempted to just wire back in, he puts the computer aside and heads down to the cafeteria. Eduardo would look so disappointed if he didn't and he will ask, of course he will.
Mark takes his tuna sandwich and Coke to an unoccupied table in the corner, digging in with as much gusto as anyone can devote to soggy bread. He doesn't look up when someone sits down at his table, not until a slim hand reaches across the tabletop and steals his drink.
"Hey," he says, looking up. It's Erica.
"Hey," she says, lips curling.
Mark frowns. He was under the impression that Erica wasn't going to talk to him again, even if he ended up being the last man on earth.
"That's mine," Mark says, nodding towards the can in Erica's hand.
"I know," she says, and drinks from it anyway.
She puts it back down on his tray and leans forward on her elbows.
"So," she says, "You and Eduardo?"
"Me and Eduardo, what?"
She smirks. "Oh, you know what I'm talking about."
Mark blinks at her and takes another bite from his sandwich.
"We're friends," he says, shrugging, because he likes to think that they are.
"Just friends?"
"Yes," Mark says curtly. He's not sure she's insinuating what he thinks she's insinuating, but if she is it's none of her business.
"But you like him," she says, pursing her lips. It's a statement, not a question, and Mark kind of wants to choke her with his sandwich. He used to like Erica before she broke up with him. She's clever and straightforward and she was always able to see right through his bullshit. Now, not so much.
"I thought you hated me," he says instead of answering, because he doesn't know the answer to that non-question so it doesn't seem fair that Erica should.
"Hate is a pointless emotion," she says with a shrug. "I was annoyed with you. Now, I'm not."
Mark hasn't spoken to her since before summer. "Why not?"
She smirks, reaching across the table to pull on one of his curls. "I always wanted a sassy gay friend," she says.
The tinkle of her laugh follows Mark all the way back to the dorm.
--
Eduardo, Chris and Dustin come back just before curfew, red-nosed and flushed from the bite of autumn cold. Mark looks up from his screen briefly to note that Eduardo looks cute in his wool overcoat and with a scarf wrapped around his long neck.
"Did you have dinner?" Eduardo asks.
Mark frowns. He only made promises about lunch. Eduardo rolls his eyes and pulls a plastic bag out of his backpack.
"Here," he says, dumping it next to Mark on the bed.
Mark looks inside; it's a tuna salad, a bottle of Red Bull and a package of Red Vines.
"Thanks," he says, pulling the salad out and prying the plastic fork from the lid.
He glances at Eduardo again. He has taken his coat off, but the scarf is still wrapped around his neck, dangling its yarn tassels down to his belt. It's almost unbearably cute. Mark digs into his salad and thinks that while he doesn't know shit about being sassy he's probably pretty gay.
--
On Sunday it starts snowing, which is massively unfair and disgusting in every way (it's October, damnit) except for Eduardo's childish and exuberant glee. He spends ten minutes standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his head tilted back and his mouth open, practically vibrating with happiness every time a snowflake lands in his mouth.
"You're an idiot," Mark tells him.
"It's snow," Eduardo says, turning his head to give Mark a wide-eyed look of wonder. "Snow."
There's snow clumped in his lashes, Mark notices, already melting into tiny droplets.
"Yes," Mark says dryly. "I know."
Eduardo giggles, actually giggles, and catches a snowflake on his tongue with a move worthy of a frog. He looks so happy that Mark can't even be mad at him for being a dork. He just propels Eduardo forward with a hand at the small of his back until he starts moving on his own.
It occurs to Mark that Eduardo, of Brazil and Miami, might never have seen snow before. He almost asks, but he doesn't want Eduardo to feel self-conscious about it even if he's an idiot. It's kind of nice to see him acting like a five-year-old when he's normally so composed, and he hasn't even tried to stuff snow down the front of Mark's hoodie like Dustin always does, which certainly counts in his favor.
"It's beautiful," Eduardo says, breath rising like mist from his lips. "Don't you think?"
"Yeah," Mark mutters, but he isn't looking at the snow.
--
By nightfall the entire campus is painted white by the wide strokes of a frosty brush. It'll probably be gone by morning, the first snow rarely lasts, but for the time being it's kind of nice to look at, all of the harsh edges rounded by puffy clouds of snow. Eduardo grabs his phone and heads outside to call home, probably to tell his mom about the snow, and Mark sits up a little straighter.
He's not worried, exactly, but Eduardo has the survival instincts of a newborn deer and the Winklevii didn't actually forget about him, they just moved him down on the target list. They will no longer go out of their way to mess with him, but they'll take a cheap shot any time they get the chance. Besides, whenever Eduardo calls home he ends up talking to his dad and Mark doesn't know many things about Eduardo Senior but even Mark can tell that he's a Grade A asshole who treats his son like shit.
--
Half an hour later Mark is officially worried. Curfew is looming on the horizon and Eduardo hadn’t even brought a coat. His eyes dart to the door every time he hears a sound out in the corridor, but it's never Eduardo and it's fucking cold outside, okay? He doesn't move, however, until Chris looks up from his book and frowns, saying, "He's not back yet?"
"I'll go look for him," Mark says, too fast, and shoves his laptop to the side.
Dustin snickers. "Mark Zuckerberg, social recluse and knight in shining armor," he says with a flourish.
"Fuck off," Mark mutters, cheeks heating up, but it doesn't stop his movement towards the door.
--
He finds Eduardo outside, on his knees in the snow, fumbling through the bushes by the door.
"What are you doing?" Mark asks angrily, because Eduardo looks cold, but fine, and he's pissed that Eduardo made him worry.
"My keycard," Eduardo says, looking up with his eyes full of panic. "They threw my keycard… I need to… I have to find it."
His teeth are practically clacking together and Mark can see him shivering, even from a distance. He's going to catch his death crawling around in the snow like that.
"You're being silly," Mark says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You can't see shit down there. Come inside and we'll look for it the morning, okay?"
It stopped snowing, but the air is still crisp and dry with cold, biting through Mark's hoodie and at his exposed face.
"I have to find it," Eduardo mumbles, renewing his struggle with the stiff bushes. "You don't… I never lose my keys. Not after… I don't."
Mark presses his lips together and huffs an angry breath through his nose, shuffling down the icy stairs in his flip-flops. Eduardo doesn't even look up when Mark crouches down beside him, his trembling fingers fluttering uselessly across the ground.
"Hey," Mark says, gentler now, reaching out to clasp Eduardo's shoulder. "Come on. I'm sure Dustin has a flashlight, okay? You're freezing."
Eduardo turns his head, eyes the size of saucers and lips blue with cold. "I never lose my keys," he whispers.
Mark's stomach clenches and he tugs gently on Eduardo's shoulder. "Come on," he says again and this time Eduardo lets himself be pulled to his feet. He sways, shivers wracking his thin frame, and his hands, where they hang limply at his sides, are an angry red and covered in scratches. His eyes stray back toward the bushes, but when Mark pulls him forward he follows.
--
"Jesus Christ," Chris hisses, when Mark leads Eduardo into the room, still with a good grip on his shirt. "What happened?"
"The fucking Winklevii threw his keycard into the bushes," Mark says tightly and he's so angry he doesn't know what to do with himself. "Dustin…"
"I'll find it," Dustin says quickly, jumping up from his bed and heading straight for his dresser. He pulls out a flashlight (of course he has one) and a pair of gloves before he disappears out the door.
Eduardo shudders out a sigh and visibly shakes himself, dislodging Mark's hand.
"I'm gonna have a shower," he mumbles, ducking his chin.
Mark stays in the middle of the floor, watching as Eduardo pulls out his pajamas and toiletry bag. He moves slowly, as if his joints are still frozen stiff, and he refuses to meet anyone's eyes. He pauses at the door, shoulder hunched and back stiff.
"Sorry," he mumbles and then he's gone.
Mark exchanges a helpless look with Chris, because he just doesn't know what to do with people when they're not okay, but he needs Eduardo to be okay. He needs him to smile, and giggle about snow, and mock wrestle with Dustin and act like he belongs.
Dustin comes back before Eduardo, just before curfew, triumphantly clutching Eduardo's keycard in his snowy-gloved hand.
"Found it," he exclaims, putting it down on Eduardo's desk with a flourish.
"Good," Mark says, movements jerky as he puts away his computer and changes into his pajamas.
"Where's Wardo?" Dustin asks.
"Shower," Mark says curtly, grabbing his toothbrush. He's still so angry, so helplessly, hopelessly angry, and he doesn't know what to make of that.
"Hey Mark," Chris says, when Mark heads for the door.
Mark pauses. "Yeah?"
"You did well," he says.
Mark huffs. He's not a child, he doesn't need Chris's validation, but he still breathes a little easier as he steps out into the hall.
--
Eduardo's still in the shower when Mark walks in, the mirrors foggy with steam and the air humid. He tries to not think about the fact that Eduardo is naked just a few feet away as he brushes his teeth, staring at his own blurry reflection. He can hear Eduardo talking to himself in Portuguese, a low murmur over the hum of streaming water. It sounds like he's berating himself and Mark doesn't know how to deal with that.
"Almost curfew," he says instead, scrubbing the back of his hand over his foamy mouth.
The shower cuts off. "Okay," Eduardo mumbles, voice weirdly ragged.
Mark wants to say something else, something comforting maybe, but he doesn't know what, and he doesn't want to make Eduardo uncomfortable by hovering while he gets dressed so he mumbles something that could be goodbye and goes back to the room. Mark is not mentally equipped to handle this kind of thing.
--
Eduardo slips in through the door, just before the RA makes his rounds, mumbling a silent goodnight and heading straight for bed. Moments later there's a knock on the door, and the RA, Tommy, sticks his head in for a quick headcount.
"Night boys," he says as he leaves. No one answers.
"I found your keycard," Dustin whispers into the darkness, once the door is fully closed.
"Thanks," Eduardo answers quietly. He still sounds subdued, like he did when he first moved in, and for a brief second Mark hates the Winklevii so much his stomach actually aches with it.
--
Mark wakes up in the middle of the night to find Eduardo sitting on the floor beside his bed with his shoulders against Mark's bedframe. He has his knees pulled up toward his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around his calves. One of Mark's hands is resting against his bony shoulder, unknowingly thrown there in his sleep.
"What are you doing?" Mark whispers.
Eduardo startles, sucking in a breath. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, scrambling away. "Shit… I'm… I couldn't… I shouldn't… I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Mark hisses. "Fuck, Wardo, I don't care if you creep on me in my sleep, okay?"
Eduardo falls silent and Mark knows he's still on the floor somewhere.
"I wasn't creeping," Eduardo mumbles after a moment. "I just… I couldn't sleep and I wanted us to be okay, so I was going to wake you but…"
"We're okay," Mark says quickly. "Of course we're okay. It wasn't your fault, okay. Those guys are assholes."
"Okay," Eduardo mumbles. "That's… thanks..."
Mark waits for him to continue, but after a moment Eduardo's bed creaks when he slips back into it and nothing more is said. It takes a long time for Mark to fall back to sleep.
--
Eduardo is almost himself in the morning, a little quieter maybe, and Chris pulls Mark aside after breakfast, warning him against doing something stupid. Mark huffs as if he has no idea what he's talking about, but when he gets back to the room he destroys the worm he got up to design in the wee hours of the morning and decides that revenge might be a dish best served cold. Mark can be patient if he wants to and one day he will be the one to laugh in their smug-ass faces.
The snow melts into depressing grayish slush and Mark has to put his flip-flops away for the time being, pulling out the brand new sneakers his mother got for him. Mark finds their sparkling newness particularly offensive, but after a couple of days of slush and rain they look almost like he's had them for years, even if they still chafe.
"I don't know how you do it," Eduardo remarks one evening.
"Do what?" Mark asks.
"Just…" Eduardo shrugs, flushing inexplicably. "Everything about you is just so… you."
He's looking at Mark's shoes, Mark realizes, discarded in a pile just inside the door.
"Well, some of us don't shine our shoes and iron our shirts every night," Mark mutters.
Eduardo flushes darker, ducking his chin. "That's not what I meant," he mumbles.
Mark wants to ask about it, but the door opens to let in Chris and Dustin, cheeks red with cold and hair damp. They're carrying bags from the costume shop downtown and the conversation turns to the looming Halloween party before Mark gets a chance to open his mouth.
He thinks about it again, after the lights have gone out, wondering what Eduardo might have meant. Mark is always himself because he doesn't know how to be anyone else. He's not like Eduardo or Chris, who know how to put up a front and can blend in like chameleons. He doesn't think there's anything particularly wrong with always being himself, he thinks that if the rest of the world has a problem with that they can just fuck off, and maybe that's what Eduardo meant, or maybe he was really just talking about Mark's shoes. Thinking about it is useless, and with an annoyed huff Mark rolls over on his side and wills himself to go to sleep.
--
Mark never attends the Halloween party, because wearing a costume is obligatory and he refuses to dress up. Instead he usually spends Halloween getting some work done on his computer and enjoying the rare silence that rests over the dorm like a comforting blanket.
This year's theme is horror movies, which in Mark's opinion is just as stupid as last year's theme of things that go bump in the night. Chris, Dustin, and Eduardo spend all the time leading up to the party talking about their costumes, and whatever other silly shit people talk about when they're going to a party, while Mark hunches over his computer trying to tune them out.
Then Friday rolls around and no one pays any attention in class, and there are silly decorations put up everywhere, and Mr. D even wears a pointy hat. Mark tries to ignore it all and thinks that if he were a movie character, he'd be The Grinch.
When classes let out Mark goes to the library and spends a couple of hours working on an assignment that's due after the weekend. The library is almost entirely deserted; it's just Mark, the librarians and maybe two other students. It's quiet, almost eerily so, and aside from a couple of displays with "Halloween-themed" books there are no decorations. Mark likes it.
On his way back to the dorms he stops by the cafeteria and has a brain matter sandwich (tuna), washing it down with a Coke. A group of zombies sits at the table next to him and on his way across campus he sees at least seven princesses, vaguely wondering what horror movie they fell out of.
A ghost tries to scare him in the hall (he thinks it's Billy from his Advanced CS class), two werewolves tumble out from the common room, and he bumps into Eric from two suites over whose costume idea seems to be BLOOD. It's all very ridiculous.
--
Eduardo is the only one still in the room when Mark walks in, sitting on the edge of his bed with a book open across his lap. He's already in costume, hair slicked back in a shiny wave over the crown of his head, face pale with powder and lips slick and red with something that looks like lip-gloss.
"Mark," he says, jumping up from the bed. "Hi."
He's wearing black slacks, a form-fitting black dress shirt and a long black cape with a stiff collar and blood red satin lining. Mark can't stop looking at his mouth.
"Hi," he mutters, dumping his bag at the edge of his bed. "I thought you'd be at the party by now."
"Yeah… I was… I thought…" Eduardo fidgets unhappily. "I… uh… Please come."
Mark blinks. "To the party?"
Eduardo nods, smiling tentatively. It's unfair, Mark thinks, that Eduardo can look like a million dollars even in a silly costume. There should be laws against being Eduardo's level of attractive.
Mark rolls his eyes. "I don't dress up," he says flatly.
Eduardo nods again. "Yeah… but I was thinking that… um… the theme is horror movies, right? So you could just go as… I don't know… Innocent victim number three. You wouldn't have to dress up for that."
Mark frowns, because that idea had never occurred to him.
"Please," Eduardo says softly, and Mark can tell his cheeks are pink under the powder.
"You really think they'll let me in like this?" Mark asks, gesturing down at his uniform.
"We could add a smear of blood to your cheek, or something," he says. "Or puncture wounds on your neck." He smiles shyly. "You could be one of my victims."
Mark thinks about the blessed silence and all the coding he could get done. He thinks about how much he doesn't like people and especially people in costume. He thinks about the last time he went to a party and ended up awkwardly leaning against the wall for an hour before he gave up and went home.
"Please," Eduardo says again. "I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself if I knew you were sitting here all alone."
"But I like being alone," Mark points out.
Eduardo's face falls and he fidgets again, cheeks practically glowing under his makeup now. "It was just an idea," he mumbles awkwardly, taking a tentative step towards the door. "I… uh… I'll get out of your hair then."
"Okay," Mark says decisively, because it was a stupid idea anyway, turning towards the bed to pull his laptop out of his backpack. "Have fun."
The only answer is the door closing after Eduardo's swishing cape.
--
Mark settles down on the bed and boots up his laptop. There's still noise in the hallway, but it's already dimming down and in an hour he's certain everything will be quiet and calm. He stretches his arms above his head and cracks his knuckles, anticipating an evening spent proving people wrong on the internet and maybe writing some code. Later, when everything is quiet, he might take the time to jerk off lazily in the shower and go to bed satisfied for once.
Mark's certain Eduardo only wanted him to come because he's the kind of person that feels bad if not everyone is included and also because he might have a slight touch of hero worship going on since Mark saved him from the Winklevii. He'll get over it and there's no doubt he'll have a lot more fun without Mark there to hang on his coattails.
Besides, he's probably the kind of person that has girls swarming around him at parties. He's ridiculously good looking and he has that vulnerable touch that a lot of girls seem to like, as if he's a puppy just waiting to get kicked. By the end of the night he'll probably have shared his lip-gloss with someone, until his lips are swollen and red from kissing rather than sticky color, and tomorrow morning he'll be holding hands with that someone under the breakfast table, looking adorably embarrassed and earnest about it. Eduardo's going to have a great time without Mark, there's really no doubt about that.
Mark thinks about Eduardo's lips, sweet and curved and sticky-red, and about the way his cheeks flushed under his makeup. He thinks about Eduardo saying, please, earnest, almost shy, and the way his hands fidgeted at his sides. He thinks about Eduardo sitting by his bed in the middle of the night because he wanted them to be okay, and because he's the only person that ever drew comfort from Mark's presence.
"Fuck it," Mark says to the universe at large and shoves his laptop to the side.
Dustin's bed is piled high with makeup and pieces of discarded costume. Mark gets up to eye it speculatively, staring at the small containers of theatre makeup and the tube of fake blood. It shouldn't be that hard to manage something that looks like a puncture wound.
--
Fifteen minutes later Mark's neck is scrubbed raw and there are fake blood smears on his collar. He stares angrily at himself in the mirror, because if there's one thing he hates, it's having to admit that he's just not good at something, even if that something is applying makeup. He almost discards the entire idea, but then he thinks about Eduardo's shy little smile and all the girls that are probably all up in his cape by now and pulls out his phone.
He scrolls through the contact list until he finds the entry that simply reads That Bitch and hits call.
Erica sounds breathless when she picks up, as if he caught her at the tail end of a laugh and he promptly disconnects. She calls back five seconds later.
"Seriously, Mark," she says. "What's your problem?"
"You sounded busy," Mark mutters.
She huffs out a loud breath. "What did you want, Mark?"
Erica has a way of saying Mark's name that makes it sound like an insult and she puts it to good use.
"I was thinking about going to the party," Mark says, stuffing his free hand deep into his pocket. "And I… uh… could use some… um… help."
There is a short silence. "Did I hear that right?" Erica asks. "You're asking me for help? With a costume, I assume. For the party you absolutely refused to take me to last year because, and I quote, 'dressing up was beneath you'?"
Mark winces. "Um… Yes?"
There is another silence and Mark almost thinks she hung up on him, but then she sighs long-sufferingly and says, "I'll be right there."
Mark will just never understand women.
--
Erica shows up twenty minutes later with a huge bag of makeup. She's dressed up like an evil doll with fake stitching in black all over her face and a huge plastic knife in her hand. It looks awesome and elaborate and Mark tells her as much with his hands stuffed into his pockets and a scowl on his face.
"Awww," Erica says, tilting her head to the side. "It's almost like you turned into a real boy."
"Fuck off," Mark mutters, cheeks heating up.
"Gayness suits you," Erica continues, unperturbed, and opens up her makeup bag. "So, I'm guessing that's your costume."
Mark nods.
"How creative of you," she says dryly.
Mark reminds himself that it's not nice to hit girls and that he was never that kind of douchebag.
"So…" She purses her lips. "Are we going for the terribly clichéd, but kind of sweet, vampire victim angle here?"
Mark nods again and tells his cheeks very firmly that they're not allowed to blush any brighter.
"Okay," Erica says, gesturing for Mark to come closer. "Let's see what I can do."
Ten minutes later, Mark's face is pale (well, paler) with powder, his lips tinted subtly blue and there's a creepily realistic puncture wound on the side of his neck. He stares at himself in the mirror and grudgingly admits that Erica did a good job.
"I know," she says smugly.
--
The party is held in the gymnasium, decorated for the occasion with spider webs and black and orange streamers, and Mark almost turns in the door. The place is packed with students and teachers in varying degrees of costume, and something loud and obnoxious, possibly by Michael Jackson, is blaring from the hidden speakers.
Mr. D. is standing at the door in his silly hat, now paired with a floor-length robe, as if he fell out of Harry Potter, and he turns his head to smile at Mark.
"Nice costume," he says and Mark bites back his instinctual, "I wish I could say the same," in favor of a quick nod.
Erica disappears into the crowd within seconds, seemingly swallowed by a group of zombies, while Mark edges his way along the wall. There are snacks and punchbowls set out on tables, guarded by sullen-looking RAs, and half the room has been dedicated to groups of tables and chairs, while the other half is a makeshift dance floor.
He brushes past someone in an awesome zombie princess costume, nearly bumps into a stray werewolf, and trips over the outstretched leg of a Winklevii in leggings, before he finally spots Eduardo, backed up against the wall and looking a bit lost with a cup of electric blue punch clutched between his hands.
There are no girls hanging from his cape, and Mark carefully inches closer, looking around just to make sure he isn't interrupting anything. He spots Dustin and Chris on the dance floor, flailing around like idiots, but thankfully they don't spot him. Mark would like as few people as possible to know about this temporary insanity.
Eduardo looks up when Mark is just a few feet away and his eyes widen in a way that would be comical if it weren’t so adorable.
"Mark," he says, blinking rapidly as if he doesn't quite believe his eyes. "You're here."
"Yeah… um…" Mark scrubs at the back of his neck, mindful of the makeup, and flushes helplessly. He can't even think of an excuse that isn't about Eduardo's face.
"I'll get you something to drink," Eduardo says, his words practically tumbling over each other and his eyes shining. "Wait right here. Don't move."
Mark pointedly finds a place deeper into the shadows to wait because he's not a dog, but he almost regrets it when Eduardo comes back and his face falls after he doesn't spot Mark right away.
"Wardo," Mark hisses, eyeing the dance floor nervously. "Over here."
Eduardo perks up again and he practically bounces over, the silly cape flapping around his legs.
"Here," he says, handing a cup of blue punch to Mark. "It's disgusting," he leans closer and whispers, "but Dustin spiked it."
Mark smirks, because of course he did, and takes a cautious sip from the rim. It is disgusting and sickly sweet, but he can taste the bitter tang of alcohol underneath the sugar. Eduardo moves to lean against the wall next to Mark, close enough that their shoulders brush.
"You look good," he says and when Mark glances at him, he's blushing again.
"Erica helped," Mark mutters, stuffing his free hand into his pocket, and if Eduardo hadn't been standing so close Mark would have missed his slight flinch.
"Oh," he says, moving slightly to the side so that they're no longer touching. "I saw her earlier. Her costume is awesome."
Mark shrugs. "I suppose," he says.
He wants to say something about how it's not like that, but then he isn't sure that this is like that either, so he settles for moving closer until their shoulders are brushing again, bumping Eduardo slightly so that he knows it's deliberate. He didn't even know that Eduardo knew about him and Erica, but maybe he's been asking around. The thought makes Mark feel a little warm inside and he scowls into his cup. Emotions are so ridiculous.
--
Even aided by alcohol, the party is just as boring as Mark thought it would be. They spend maybe an hour leaning against the wall, talking about people's costumes and drinking vile blueness, while Eduardo eyes the dance floor longingly.
"You can dance if you want to," Mark says magnanimously. "I'll wait here."
"Are you sure?" Eduardo asks, his eyes shining.
Mark nods. If Eduardo wants to make a fool of himself, Mark's not going to stop him.
"Okay." Eduardo hands Mark his cup and bites down on his lower lip. "Come get me if you get bored, okay?"
"Okay," Mark says.
Mark has every intention of not watching Eduardo dance, because no one looks good flopping around, but somehow he finds his eyes scanning the crowd for Eduardo anyway. He's at the far edge, in a haphazard circle with Chris and Dustin and few other people Mark recognizes from around. There's a lot of flopping and flailing going on in general, but Eduardo… Eduardo looks good. He doesn't flop and flail as much as he twists and turns and slithers, body gyrating in time with the beat.
The cape billows dramatically around him, his feet move effortlessly across the floor, and within minutes the circle has grown and Eduardo has somehow ended up in the middle of it. He doesn't even seem to notice, dancing with his eyes mostly closed and his face upturned, and Mark doesn't know how to look away.
He moves closer, drawn like a moth to a flame, until he's on the outskirts of the circle, swaying unevenly to make it seem as if he's dancing even when he's really not. Eduardo does some kind of twist-turn pirouette thing that should look ridiculous, but that actually makes people applaud and Mark finds his own hands picking up the rhythm in time with the others’.
Of course it draws attention, unwanted attention, and Mark notices the crowd parting, making way for two shiny blond heads out of the corner of his eye. Eduardo doesn't see them coming and Mark starts moving without the slightest clue as what to do. He ends up right in the Winklevii's way, lifting his chin defiantly, as if his scrappy frame is any kind of match for a double helping of 6'4” Meat-Mountain with Divya on the side.
Tyler, or maybe it's Cameron, walks right into Mark, as if he isn't even there, sending him sprawling across the floor with a well-aimed shoulder to the chest. Cameron, or maybe it's Tyler, trips over him, giving him a swift kick in the thigh on his way, and then Divya pretend-stumbles and spills punch all over Mark's face. It's not ideal and Mark's thigh really fucking hurts, but at least they don't have a chance to get to Eduardo, because within seconds the music cuts off and the dance floor is swarmed by teachers.
Mark notices Dustin pulling Eduardo away as he slowly pushes himself to his feet and wipes the punch from his face, while Chris steps up to his side, muttering, "I can't decide if that was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid," into his ear.
Next to them, the Winklevii are telling Mr. D. that it was all an unfortunate accident.
"Right, Mark?" Divya says, turning to give Mark a smug little smile.
"Right," Mark mutters, because he can see the warning in Divya's eyes.
"Are you okay?" Mr. D. asks. "Did you hit your head?"
"I'm fine," Mark says, his voice tightly clipped, "Just wet." He shifts his feet awkwardly with punch dripping from his hair. "Can I go?" he asks.
Everyone's looking and Mark feels like an idiot. He just wants to go back to the dorm, shower and then wire in until graduation.
"Yeah, yeah," Mr. D. says kindly. "Of course." Cameron, or Tyler, makes a move to leave as well and Mr. D.'s voice doesn't sound nearly as nice when he says, "Not you two. I think I'd like for you to stay a while longer."
Mark tries to hide his smile behind his hand, but he knows he hasn’t succeeded when Divya's eyes narrow in his direction.
"Don't you even think about pulling one of your little stunts," Divya hisses, stepping closer. "You won't be the one to pay."
Chris wisely stops Mark from punching Divya in the nose with a steel grip around his wrist. "Come on," he whispers urgently. "It's not worth it."
Mark lets himself be tugged away with his lips pressed tightly together. "If they lay one finger on him," he says darkly.
"You won't do a fucking thing," Chris hisses. "Because you'd get kicked out and Eduardo would never forgive himself."
Mark clenches his teeth together and doesn't say anything, because Chris is right and they both know it.
--
Dustin and Eduardo are already in the room when Chris and Mark walk in, sitting next to each other on Dustin's messy bed. Eduardo jumps up as soon the door closes behind them, arms stretched out as if he's going for a hug. Mark ignores him, heading straight for his dresser.
"I'm taking a shower," he says, keeping his back to the room in general and Eduardo specifically.
He doesn't want to do this in front of Chris and Dustin, he feels stupid enough just thinking about it. If it were just the two of them, he'd let Eduardo hug him or whatever ridiculous thing he wants to do, but it's not and Mark doesn't want to do this with an audience. It's bad enough that everyone knows he went to the party and that at least Chris and Dustin are clever enough to figure out why. It makes him feel exposed, as if just woke up naked in class, and he needs a moment to compose himself.
The dorm is still silent when Mark makes his way to the showers and he hopes that means that he hasn’t managed to ruin the party for everyone. He certainly wouldn't appreciate the entire student body hating him tomorrow just because he couldn't let the stupid Winklevii get to Eduardo. Logically Mark knows that whatever they had been planning to do to Eduardo to keep him from being the center of attention wouldn't have been worse than what they did to Mark, but Mark bounces back in a way that Eduardo just doesn't.
It's still pretty early when Mark walks back into the room, but no one comments when he crawls straight into bed and pulls the covers up to his ears. Eduardo is on his own bed and even though Mark can feel his worry, as if it's a palpable thing reaching across the room to poke at him, Eduardo doesn't say anything either.
--
Mark wakes up in the middle of the night and he's not very surprised to find Eduardo sitting on floor by his bed, slumped forward with his forehead resting against his knees. Mark just watches him for a moment, taking in the fragile curl of his neck and the dejected slump of his bony shoulders. Only the barest hint of light falls in through the window, making everything appear in shades of grey, and Eduardo's skin is startlingly white in the faint light.
"Wardo," Mark whispers, reaching out to touch his fingertips to Eduardo's back. "What are you doing?"
Eduardo startles, turning to look at Mark over his shoulder, eyes huge and shiny in the darkness. "I just wanted to…" he trails off and Mark can't tell if he's blushing.
"We're okay," Mark mutters, worrying at his lower lip. "We're always okay."
Eduardo turns further, so that he is on his hands and knees by the bed. "Yeah?" he asks, almost breathless.
"Yeah," Mark confirms and he doesn't know if he’s ever meant something quite as much.
Eduardo shifts and Mark thinks he's going to scurry back to his own bed, but instead Eduardo darts forward, pressing his lips to Mark's cheek in a dry kiss. Then he backs away, too fast for Mark to catch him, and moments later Mark hears him climbing into his own bed.
Mark's cheeks flush stupidly and his heart trips against his ribcage and against his better judgment he reaches up to touch his fingers to the spot that can still feel the imprint of Eduardo's lips.
--
NEXT →
Author: jeyhawk
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Beta: slasher48 and sbb23 (who bravely and awesomely tackled this in less than 24 hours)! <333
Word Count: 33,577
Disclaimer: Fiction. Not true. Not even a little bit. Not even at all.
Warnings: Mentions of bullying.
Summary: Boarding School AU. "Mark doesn't really notice him at first, maybe because Eduardo makes a point out of not being noticed, or maybe because Mark isn't the most observant guy, but within a week he finds his eyes drawn to Eduardo's face with unnerving regularity. It's almost like last year, when his eyes kept getting stuck on Erica's jawline, but it's different too, inexplicable, and Mark doesn't like things he can't explain."
Notes: A huge thanks to elizaria for alpha-reading and the title. I love you, babe! For the tsn-a-thon, team albright. :D
The first day back at school is always a mess; cars, kids, parents, bags and boxes everywhere, while harried RAs run around trying to get everyone sorted into the right dorm with a minimum amount of fuss, gritting their teeth already because they know it'll be another year of this. Some kids are already in their uniforms, probably freshmen, the knitted black vests surely hot in the late August heat wave, their faces flushed and necks sweaty above the collars of their light blue shirts. Mark's uniform is at the bottom of his bag and he won't put it on until he absolutely has to.
Mark has his mom drop him off at the gate, standing awkwardly to the side with his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans while she pulls his bags from the trunk. Last year she insisted on escorting him to his room. He hopes the fact that he made her stop in a No Parking zone will prevent any such nonsense this year.
"I think that's everything," she says, dumping the second bag at Mark's feet. "Are you going to be okay from here?"
"Yes," Mark says quickly, "Absolutely. I'm good."
She smirks, as if she knows exactly what he's thinking. "Be good this year," she tells him, pulling him into a hard hug. "If I never have to talk to Principal Sorkin again it will be too soon."
"Of course," Mark mutters, rocking back on his heels.
She smiles and ruffles his curls. "Oh, there's Chris," she says, lifting her hand in a wave.
Mark cranes his neck to find Chris picking his way through the crowd, as lanky and immaculate as ever. The sun shines off his blond hair, making it look as if he has a halo, and when Mark turns back to his mom she looks smitten. He's pretty sure Chris is the son she’s always wished she had.
"Mrs. Zuckerberg," Chris says politely.
"How many times do I have to tell you to call me Karen?" She asks, smiling. "It's nice to see you again, Chris."
Mark rolls his eyes when they shake hands. If polite was a subject Chris would get straight A's. (He gets straight A's anyway, but that's beside the point.)
"Got your keys," Chris says, grabbing Mark's hand in the complicated handshake they spent three weeks perfecting during freshman year.
Mark nods. "Is Dustin here yet?"
A deafening shout of "MAAAAARKY" answers that question and Mark turns around to find Dustin running towards them with his arms outstretched. Mark considers side-stepping but he probably doesn't want Dustin to run face-first into his mom's car, so he shoves his hands deeper into his pockets instead, sliding one foot back to brace himself.
Dustin hits him square in the chest, wrapping his arms hard around Mark's torso. "Marky," he says. "Did you miss me? You did, didn't you? You missed me. Chrissy did. He said so."
Mark gives Chris a disappointed look. "You let him have coffee?"
"I'm not his keeper," Chris says quickly. "And… uh… he arrived like that."
Dustin lets Mark go and takes half a step back. "Karen," he says. "You look lovely as always."
Mark's mom laughs and ruffles Dustin's hair and Mark's chest feels a little funny. Maybe he's happy to be back after all.
--
"The Winklevii are back," Dustin says as they make their way across campus. "I think they grew."
"Awesome," Mark mutters, looking around for their familiar blond heads. He doesn't spot them, but he does see Erica Albright across the yard. She's talking to her friend Linda, mess of bags at her feet, and he looks away quickly, pretending he didn't see her at all.
"Oh, there's Divya," Dustin says, crinkling his nose, "And his goons."
Mark's jaw tightens; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are not his favorite people. As captains of the boy's crew team and descendants of a family of means, they think they are the school kings and no one dares to challenge them. Fincher Academy has a very strict policy against bullying, but it's easy to get away with it if you're popular, and the Winklevii are virtually untouchable.
Freshman year Mark went a few rounds against them - while Mark might not be a physical threat, a few mysteriously lost essays and missing grades taught them to not mess with him. He's not exactly their favorite person since then, but he easily thwarted Divya's lame attempts at hacking his computer, and they've been locked in a stalemate ever since. Mark knows they could easily beat the shit out of him and they know Mark could easily erase their entire online record. It's not ideal, but it works.
"Any new contenders?" Mark asks.
Every year the school tries to put someone new into their room and every year Mark makes sure they put in for a transfer within days. He's not a bully, but he's also not always a nice person, and he hardly thinks he is to blame for the fact that people don't get his sense of humor.
"There's only one new guy on our floor," Chris says, shaking his head. "A transfer from Miami, I think. They put him in with the Winklevii and Divya."
"Well, that's going to end well," Mark says dryly.
--
Eduardo Saverin, the new guy, turns out to be the perfect victim. He's soft-spoken and almost painfully polite, his every breath seemingly an excuse for his very existence. It's apparent within days that the Winklevii are making his life a living hell but it's just as apparent that he's not going to file a complaint, or do anything, really, but let them push him around.
He's in a lot of Mark's classes, sitting up front, seemingly soaking up the teacher's words like a sponge. It might be the hair, Mark thinks. Eduardo has the kind of hair that can soak up a lot of information.
Mark doesn't really notice him at first, maybe because Eduardo makes a point out of not being noticed, or maybe because Mark isn't the most observant guy, but within a week he finds his eyes drawn to Eduardo's face with unnerving regularity. It's almost like last year, when his eyes kept getting stuck on Erica's jawline, but it's different too, inexplicable, and Mark doesn't like things he can't explain.
--
"I don't like the new guy," he remarks one night, looking up from his laptop for long enough to gauge Chris's and Dustin's reactions.
"Eduardo?" Chris's eyebrows shoot up. "Why not?"
"Just what the poor guy needs," Dustin mutters, throwing his textbook aside, "Another person in his anti-club."
"Anti-club is not a word," Mark says. "And I don't know."
The thing is, he isn't sure he doesn't like Eduardo. He has feelings about Eduardo and he doesn't like that. Sometimes at night he finds himself straining his ears, as if he'll somehow be able to hear if the Winklevii are being mean to him through the wall, but the only thing he ever hears is Dustin jerking off.
It doesn't make sense, Mark isn't the protective type, and Eduardo’s never even said a word to him. Mark tried talking to him once, but Eduardo just looked at him with his huge stupid eyes and Mark walked away with a weird feeling at the pit of his stomach that he didn't care to examine further because he doesn't care… about Eduardo.
"He's cute," Chris says, folding his hands under his head. "I wonder what team he bats for."
Mark's stomach knots. "Don't…" he starts, but he cuts himself off because he doesn't know where that sentence ends.
Chris turns to look at him, eyes narrowed in that unnerving way that means he's going to say something Mark doesn't like. "Don't what?"
Mark shrugs and focuses very intently on his screen. The dorm Wi-Fi will cut out in thirty minutes and people are still wrong on the internet. He types up a lengthy comment and posts it, before he looks up again, only to find that Chris is still watching him.
"What?" he asks angrily.
His cheeks feel warm and he wonders if they turned the heat up; usually they keep the temperature at arctic levels.
"Nothing," Chris says, smirking in an annoying way, "Nothing at all."
--
Maybe a week later a slight commotion in the corridor wakes Mark, always a light sleeper. There's the sound of hushed voices, one angry and one pleading and then a door slams shut. The sound makes his heart jump, pulse speeding up, and when he strains his ears to hear over the sound of Chris's and Dustin's mingled breaths and occasional snores, something tells him someone's still in the hall.
Nothing happens and he's almost asleep again when he hears a soft knock, not on their door, but as if someone is knocking on the next door over. His heart jumps again and this time he slips out of bed, sneaking across the floor to press his ear to the door like a creeper. Someone is still out there for sure and without giving himself time to think about it he unlocks the door and pulls it open.
Eduardo is sitting with his back to the Winklevii's door, skinny legs pulled up and his forehead pressed against his bony knees. He doesn't notice Mark watching him, too wrapped up in his own misery. The sight makes Mark inexplicably angry, fists clenching at his sides. Is it too much to fucking ask for Eduardo to grow a fucking backbone?
"What are you doing?" he hisses.
Eduardo jumps, whipping his head around, and his mouth opens and closes without any sound coming out, cheeks flushing a dark crimson. "Sorry," he whispers. "I didn't mean to… I…"
"Shut the fuck up," Mark mutters. He's not going to listen to Eduardo apologizing for the fucking Winklevii. "And get in here. Those assholes aren't going to let you in and you can't sleep in the hall."
He steps back to hold the door open and Eduardo only hesitates for a moment before he climbs to his feet. His arms are covered in goosebumps, Mark notices, and for the first time in his life he seriously contemplates murder.
"I'm sorry," Eduardo whispers again when he slips through the crack in the door, stopping awkwardly in the middle of the floor when Mark shuts it, cutting off the light that falls in from the hallway.
Mark huffs, reaching out to curl his hand around Eduardo's elbow, leading him over to the unoccupied bed. Eduardo's skin is cold to the touch and Mark entertains a brief but fulfilling fantasy of running the Winklevii through with a sharp blade.
"Stop apologizing," he hisses, fumbling across the bed until he finds a corner of the comforter and can pull it aside. "And go to sleep."
He waits until Eduardo has climbed into the bed before he returns to his own, pulling the covers up to his ears to avoid the inevitable sound of Eduardo breathing; except Eduardo doesn't seem to be breathing because there's only silence coming from his corner of the room.
"You're allowed to breathe, you know," he says curtly.
Eduardo doesn't answer, but within moments Mark can hear the soft, too-fast pattern of his breaths, as if he's been holding them in for too long. Mark grumbles and turns over on his other side, and resolutely does not think about Eduardo in the Winklevii's room trying to pretend he doesn't exist, because for all he knows they've been feasting on tea and cookies having a jolly old time every night until this one.
He turns over again, glaring daggers in the general direction of Eduardo's bed. "You can put in for a transfer," he says angrily. "Your general presence probably won't annoy me too much."
He huffs and pulls the pillows over his head, angry with the world at large. Everything about Eduardo is so inexplicable and stupid. Mark doesn't like it one bit.
--
Mark wakes up to a hand shaking his shoulder.
"What?" he mumbles, trying to burrow deeper into the pillows.
"Mark," Chris whispers urgently. "Mark."
"Is the building on fire?" Mark asks into his mound of pillows.
"No, but…"
"Then I don't care."
Chris's fingers dig in harder. "Mark."
Mark growls low in his throat but he flops over on his back. "What?"
Chris makes huge eyes at him and gestures towards the corner. Mark blinks and slowly turns his head. Oh.
"He was in the hallway," Mark says.
Chris's eyes grow two sizes and he does something complicated with his mouth. Mark stares at the too-small lump under the covers, a barely-there rise; if it weren't for the tuft of dark hair sticking out Mark would think that Eduardo had left already. Even in his sleep Eduardo manages to be apologetic.
"I couldn't leave him in the hallway," Mark mutters.
Chris’s face softens. "Okay," he says and that's that.
--
The next time Mark wakes up Eduardo is gone.
"He took off like a thief in the night," Dustin says when Mark sits up. "I didn't even get to say hello."
"Hmm," Mark says, staring at the neatly made bed.
--
Mark doesn't see Eduardo again until his last class of the day, a social science elective. Eduardo sits up front as usual while Mark slouches in the back, scribbling down random notes occasionally that won't make the slightest lick of sense to him in the morning.
Eduardo seems twitchy somehow, not paying his usual rapt attention, and as soon as class lets out for the day he gathers his things in a haphazard mess and clutches them to his chest rather than taking the time to put them into his bag. He's probably trying to avoid Mark. Mark will have none of that.
"You're not going to put in for a transfer, are you?" Mark asks, sneaking up behind Eduardo. He can be really fast when he wants to; no one ever expects that of him.
Eduardo startles so hard he drops his books. Mark watches him pick them up, noting that even the back of Eduardo's neck can blush.
"Are you?" Mark repeats.
"No," Eduardo answers, barely more than a breath.
Mark sighs. "Why not?"
He thinks it's a valid question. Mark might be a bit prickly and Dustin is insane but Chris is an actual nice person, and even if they were jerks they'd still be better people than the Winklevii. Mark would never make anyone spend their night awkwardly crouching in the hall.
Eduardo straightens up, the books once again clutched to his chest. He doesn't answer but his eyes are full of desperation, as if maybe he wants Mark to say something. It's a novelty; people usually don't want Mark to talk to them.
It takes Mark maybe thirty seconds of staring into Eduardo's unnecessarily large eyes to figure it out. "You can't, can you?"
Eduardo ducks his chin. "My dad…" he starts, but cuts himself off immediately, "Cameron and Tyler are the right kind of people," he says instead, voice dull.
Mark wants to pretend he doesn't understand, but he does, of course he does; Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, old money, athletes, destined to go places because their father will buy them a ticket.
Being their friend, their accomplice, might pay off in the future, and that is why people turn a blind eye to the Eduardos of the school, pretending they can't see the way they're climbing the walls to get away.
Eduardo's father is obviously an asshole, but Mark doesn't say that. Instead he says, "Huh," and at the back of his mind he starts working on a solution.
Mark knows that he will be great one day. He has the mind and talent for it and he's more than willing to put in the work. He will build his own fortune and he will reward his friends when he gets there. Betting on Mark now will pay off, he'll make sure of that, but being able to say five years in the future that he bet on the right wildcard won't really help Eduardo in the here and now.
Eduardo looks down, shifting his feet. "I better get going," he says, inching backward. "But… uh… thanks."
Mark watches him leave, head held high, and wonders how long it will take for the Winklevii to break him.
"Is everything okay?" Mr. D asks, from where he's wiping the whiteboard clean.
Mark likes Mr. D, he doesn't ask stupid questions or try to pretend he understands "what they are going through". It probably helps that Mr. D isn't fully into his thirties and kind of nice to look at, if you like the tweedy type.
"Not really," Mark says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "But I doubt that you can help."
Mr. D smiles, he often seems amused by Mark, but it's okay because it's not a condescending amusement.
"If you ever reach a point where you think I might be of assistance with your problem, don't hesitate to knock on my door," he says.
"Sure," Mark responds.
--
The problem niggles at Mark. It's a constant low-level annoyance, made worse by the fact that Eduardo's golden complexion fades to pale and then paler within the span of the next two weeks. He looks deathly ill, but Mark is willing to bet he's just exhausted; the bags under his eyes are large enough to hold Mark's entire wardrobe.
During those two weeks, Eduardo stays over twice in the Dino Suite (Dustin's name for their room that stuck like the velociraptor sticker on Mark's laptop - and he's still pissed about that thank you very much), but he's always gone before Mark wakes up.
"I could set their room on fire," Mark says thoughtfully. "They'd have to move then."
Chris stares at him long and hard. "No," he says.
"But…"
"No."
"You should romance him into our room," Dustin says. "With kisses and hugs and naughty touching."
"No," Mark says.
"I bet Chris would love to romance him…" Dustin's face is the very picture of innocence.
"I could set you on fire," Mark mutters.
"No," Chris says.
It's something of a status quo.
--
The problem with Mark's problem, he eventually realizes, is that it has no solution, because the problem isn't the problem, the conclusion is. Every possible scenario ends with Eduardo moving into the Dino suite - because that's Mark's endgame, Eduardo needs to be saved for his own good - but Eduardo moving into the Dino suite basically means that he failed. It's infuriating.
"We could kidnap him," Dustin suggests. "That way it wouldn't be his fault."
"We basically tried that," Chris points out. "He made the bed and left."
"Arson is still an option," Mark says darkly.
"NO," Chris says.
--
Eduardo stops paying attention in class. He still sits up front and stares straight ahead, but if the teacher asks him a question they have to repeat it three times to even get his attention and he never knows the answer. It's depressing to watch.
Mark takes to sitting next to him, and on the rare occasions they watch a movie in class, Eduardo will slump into him, fast asleep the moment the lights go out. It's uncomfortable, Eduardo is taller than Mark and seemingly made out of nothing but sharp angles, but for the duration of whatever movie they're watching Mark will barely breathe, and he won't move, even when Eduardo's hair tickles his neck.
One of those rare occasions happens in Mr. D's class and for once Eduardo doesn't wake up with the lights. He's still asleep with his head on Mark's shoulder, mouth open and hands loosely clasped on his lap, when Mr. D dismisses the rest of the class. Mark sits eerily still; Eduardo obviously needs every second of undisturbed sleep he can get.
"I take it you haven't solved your problem," Mr. D says when the rest of the students have left, nodding towards Eduardo.
"My problem doesn't have a solution," Mark says curtly.
"Want to tell me about it?"
"No."
Mr. D nods. "I'll see what I can do," he says, as if Mark spelled his problem out in bold letters.
Mark glances down at Eduardo's bony wrists, sticking out of his regulation blue shirt and thinks that maybe he didn't have to say anything; maybe Eduardo's appearance speaks for itself. It hurts his stomach a little to think about it, so he doesn't.
--
Two days later, on a Friday evening, Eduardo moves into the Dino Suite and the Winklevii into the corner triple they always coveted. Mark has no idea how Mr. D did it, but Future Mark will certainly remember to reward him. Present Day Mark will settle for curt thanks the next time he sees him in class.
Eduardo doesn't talk while he unpacks his things, carefully sorting shirts and underwear into the dresser and hanging everything else in the wardrobe. They all pretend they don't notice the slight tremble to his hands, or the way he moves as if he's about to keel over any second.
When Eduardo's done he pushes his bag in under the bed and sits down gingerly on the edge of it, eyes flitting quickly about the room. Then his cheeks color and he jumps up, riffling through the dresser for a t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. He grabs a towel and his toiletry bag from the closet and says something about a shower under his breath.
"Don't slip," Mark mutters, the words sneaking out unbidden.
The corners of Eduardo's mouth curl slightly. "I'll try not to," he says, ducking his chin.
Dustin saves his annoying cackle for when the door has fallen closed behind Eduardo, pointing his finger at Mark and making high-pitched noises of glee. Chris just smiles.
"Shut up," Mark grumbles, and goes back to the computer.
--
The first few days are tense because Eduardo won't speak unless spoken to, he won't touch anything that isn't his without explicit consent, and he jumps a mile if anyone happens to touch him. If it'd just been Mark and Eduardo, this would probably have continued until the end of time, because Mark doesn't know shit about fixing people, and Eduardo sleeps now so Mark's mission is more or less accomplished.
Luckily, it isn't up to Mark, and Chris and Dustin are both effortlessly social, and within a week they've cracked Eduardo's outer defenses and bridged the moat. This, of course, means that the noise level in the suite goes up a notch, one of the things that made Mark oppose a fourth roommate to begin with, but he finds that it's hard to mind when it's Eduardo.
One Friday after class Mark walks in to find all three of them on Dustin's bed, watching something on Chris's computer. Eduardo is the only one that looks up.
"Hey Mark," he says, lips curling into a shy smile.
"Wardo," Mark says, because Eduardo is a mouthful and he doesn't like Ed.
Eduardo's cheeks color and he drops his gaze. Mark wonders if maybe Wardo is some kind of insult in Portuguese, but then Eduardo's eyes dart up again and he bites on his lower lip and Mark thinks that it probably isn't.
"This is going to get old really fast," Chris mutters, without even looking up. Mark has no idea what he's talking about, but maybe Eduardo does because his cheeks get even pinker and he ducks his chin for real this time.
--
Dustin and Chris like to do things on the weekend, like window shopping, actual shopping or watching a movie. Mark likes to spend the weekends on the computer. Eduardo slept through the first weekend, but Mark thinks he's the type that likes to do things, and true to form, on Saturday after breakfast he starts gathering his things to go out with Chris and Dustin.
"You're not coming?" he asks, when Mark makes no move to go with them.
Mark glances up from the screen. "No."
"Oh." Eduardo fidgets with the strap on his bag. "I could stay, if you want."
When it's just the two of them Eduardo has taken it upon himself to fill the silence, and it's annoying because Mark can't stop listening. He pretends that he doesn't, but every damned thing Eduardo says is noted and filed away for future reference.
"Please don't," Mark mutters, because he has things to do and only a limited time to do them.
He looks up in time to catch Eduardo's slight flinch and Chris's disappointed look.
"I'll have lunch," he offers, because Eduardo worries about such things.
Eduardo nods and smiles slightly but it doesn’t reach his eyes. "Okay," he says.
--
True to his word, Mark does surface from the world of code in time for lunch, and while he's tempted to just wire back in, he puts the computer aside and heads down to the cafeteria. Eduardo would look so disappointed if he didn't and he will ask, of course he will.
Mark takes his tuna sandwich and Coke to an unoccupied table in the corner, digging in with as much gusto as anyone can devote to soggy bread. He doesn't look up when someone sits down at his table, not until a slim hand reaches across the tabletop and steals his drink.
"Hey," he says, looking up. It's Erica.
"Hey," she says, lips curling.
Mark frowns. He was under the impression that Erica wasn't going to talk to him again, even if he ended up being the last man on earth.
"That's mine," Mark says, nodding towards the can in Erica's hand.
"I know," she says, and drinks from it anyway.
She puts it back down on his tray and leans forward on her elbows.
"So," she says, "You and Eduardo?"
"Me and Eduardo, what?"
She smirks. "Oh, you know what I'm talking about."
Mark blinks at her and takes another bite from his sandwich.
"We're friends," he says, shrugging, because he likes to think that they are.
"Just friends?"
"Yes," Mark says curtly. He's not sure she's insinuating what he thinks she's insinuating, but if she is it's none of her business.
"But you like him," she says, pursing her lips. It's a statement, not a question, and Mark kind of wants to choke her with his sandwich. He used to like Erica before she broke up with him. She's clever and straightforward and she was always able to see right through his bullshit. Now, not so much.
"I thought you hated me," he says instead of answering, because he doesn't know the answer to that non-question so it doesn't seem fair that Erica should.
"Hate is a pointless emotion," she says with a shrug. "I was annoyed with you. Now, I'm not."
Mark hasn't spoken to her since before summer. "Why not?"
She smirks, reaching across the table to pull on one of his curls. "I always wanted a sassy gay friend," she says.
The tinkle of her laugh follows Mark all the way back to the dorm.
--
Eduardo, Chris and Dustin come back just before curfew, red-nosed and flushed from the bite of autumn cold. Mark looks up from his screen briefly to note that Eduardo looks cute in his wool overcoat and with a scarf wrapped around his long neck.
"Did you have dinner?" Eduardo asks.
Mark frowns. He only made promises about lunch. Eduardo rolls his eyes and pulls a plastic bag out of his backpack.
"Here," he says, dumping it next to Mark on the bed.
Mark looks inside; it's a tuna salad, a bottle of Red Bull and a package of Red Vines.
"Thanks," he says, pulling the salad out and prying the plastic fork from the lid.
He glances at Eduardo again. He has taken his coat off, but the scarf is still wrapped around his neck, dangling its yarn tassels down to his belt. It's almost unbearably cute. Mark digs into his salad and thinks that while he doesn't know shit about being sassy he's probably pretty gay.
--
On Sunday it starts snowing, which is massively unfair and disgusting in every way (it's October, damnit) except for Eduardo's childish and exuberant glee. He spends ten minutes standing in the middle of the sidewalk with his head tilted back and his mouth open, practically vibrating with happiness every time a snowflake lands in his mouth.
"You're an idiot," Mark tells him.
"It's snow," Eduardo says, turning his head to give Mark a wide-eyed look of wonder. "Snow."
There's snow clumped in his lashes, Mark notices, already melting into tiny droplets.
"Yes," Mark says dryly. "I know."
Eduardo giggles, actually giggles, and catches a snowflake on his tongue with a move worthy of a frog. He looks so happy that Mark can't even be mad at him for being a dork. He just propels Eduardo forward with a hand at the small of his back until he starts moving on his own.
It occurs to Mark that Eduardo, of Brazil and Miami, might never have seen snow before. He almost asks, but he doesn't want Eduardo to feel self-conscious about it even if he's an idiot. It's kind of nice to see him acting like a five-year-old when he's normally so composed, and he hasn't even tried to stuff snow down the front of Mark's hoodie like Dustin always does, which certainly counts in his favor.
"It's beautiful," Eduardo says, breath rising like mist from his lips. "Don't you think?"
"Yeah," Mark mutters, but he isn't looking at the snow.
--
By nightfall the entire campus is painted white by the wide strokes of a frosty brush. It'll probably be gone by morning, the first snow rarely lasts, but for the time being it's kind of nice to look at, all of the harsh edges rounded by puffy clouds of snow. Eduardo grabs his phone and heads outside to call home, probably to tell his mom about the snow, and Mark sits up a little straighter.
He's not worried, exactly, but Eduardo has the survival instincts of a newborn deer and the Winklevii didn't actually forget about him, they just moved him down on the target list. They will no longer go out of their way to mess with him, but they'll take a cheap shot any time they get the chance. Besides, whenever Eduardo calls home he ends up talking to his dad and Mark doesn't know many things about Eduardo Senior but even Mark can tell that he's a Grade A asshole who treats his son like shit.
--
Half an hour later Mark is officially worried. Curfew is looming on the horizon and Eduardo hadn’t even brought a coat. His eyes dart to the door every time he hears a sound out in the corridor, but it's never Eduardo and it's fucking cold outside, okay? He doesn't move, however, until Chris looks up from his book and frowns, saying, "He's not back yet?"
"I'll go look for him," Mark says, too fast, and shoves his laptop to the side.
Dustin snickers. "Mark Zuckerberg, social recluse and knight in shining armor," he says with a flourish.
"Fuck off," Mark mutters, cheeks heating up, but it doesn't stop his movement towards the door.
--
He finds Eduardo outside, on his knees in the snow, fumbling through the bushes by the door.
"What are you doing?" Mark asks angrily, because Eduardo looks cold, but fine, and he's pissed that Eduardo made him worry.
"My keycard," Eduardo says, looking up with his eyes full of panic. "They threw my keycard… I need to… I have to find it."
His teeth are practically clacking together and Mark can see him shivering, even from a distance. He's going to catch his death crawling around in the snow like that.
"You're being silly," Mark says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You can't see shit down there. Come inside and we'll look for it the morning, okay?"
It stopped snowing, but the air is still crisp and dry with cold, biting through Mark's hoodie and at his exposed face.
"I have to find it," Eduardo mumbles, renewing his struggle with the stiff bushes. "You don't… I never lose my keys. Not after… I don't."
Mark presses his lips together and huffs an angry breath through his nose, shuffling down the icy stairs in his flip-flops. Eduardo doesn't even look up when Mark crouches down beside him, his trembling fingers fluttering uselessly across the ground.
"Hey," Mark says, gentler now, reaching out to clasp Eduardo's shoulder. "Come on. I'm sure Dustin has a flashlight, okay? You're freezing."
Eduardo turns his head, eyes the size of saucers and lips blue with cold. "I never lose my keys," he whispers.
Mark's stomach clenches and he tugs gently on Eduardo's shoulder. "Come on," he says again and this time Eduardo lets himself be pulled to his feet. He sways, shivers wracking his thin frame, and his hands, where they hang limply at his sides, are an angry red and covered in scratches. His eyes stray back toward the bushes, but when Mark pulls him forward he follows.
--
"Jesus Christ," Chris hisses, when Mark leads Eduardo into the room, still with a good grip on his shirt. "What happened?"
"The fucking Winklevii threw his keycard into the bushes," Mark says tightly and he's so angry he doesn't know what to do with himself. "Dustin…"
"I'll find it," Dustin says quickly, jumping up from his bed and heading straight for his dresser. He pulls out a flashlight (of course he has one) and a pair of gloves before he disappears out the door.
Eduardo shudders out a sigh and visibly shakes himself, dislodging Mark's hand.
"I'm gonna have a shower," he mumbles, ducking his chin.
Mark stays in the middle of the floor, watching as Eduardo pulls out his pajamas and toiletry bag. He moves slowly, as if his joints are still frozen stiff, and he refuses to meet anyone's eyes. He pauses at the door, shoulder hunched and back stiff.
"Sorry," he mumbles and then he's gone.
Mark exchanges a helpless look with Chris, because he just doesn't know what to do with people when they're not okay, but he needs Eduardo to be okay. He needs him to smile, and giggle about snow, and mock wrestle with Dustin and act like he belongs.
Dustin comes back before Eduardo, just before curfew, triumphantly clutching Eduardo's keycard in his snowy-gloved hand.
"Found it," he exclaims, putting it down on Eduardo's desk with a flourish.
"Good," Mark says, movements jerky as he puts away his computer and changes into his pajamas.
"Where's Wardo?" Dustin asks.
"Shower," Mark says curtly, grabbing his toothbrush. He's still so angry, so helplessly, hopelessly angry, and he doesn't know what to make of that.
"Hey Mark," Chris says, when Mark heads for the door.
Mark pauses. "Yeah?"
"You did well," he says.
Mark huffs. He's not a child, he doesn't need Chris's validation, but he still breathes a little easier as he steps out into the hall.
--
Eduardo's still in the shower when Mark walks in, the mirrors foggy with steam and the air humid. He tries to not think about the fact that Eduardo is naked just a few feet away as he brushes his teeth, staring at his own blurry reflection. He can hear Eduardo talking to himself in Portuguese, a low murmur over the hum of streaming water. It sounds like he's berating himself and Mark doesn't know how to deal with that.
"Almost curfew," he says instead, scrubbing the back of his hand over his foamy mouth.
The shower cuts off. "Okay," Eduardo mumbles, voice weirdly ragged.
Mark wants to say something else, something comforting maybe, but he doesn't know what, and he doesn't want to make Eduardo uncomfortable by hovering while he gets dressed so he mumbles something that could be goodbye and goes back to the room. Mark is not mentally equipped to handle this kind of thing.
--
Eduardo slips in through the door, just before the RA makes his rounds, mumbling a silent goodnight and heading straight for bed. Moments later there's a knock on the door, and the RA, Tommy, sticks his head in for a quick headcount.
"Night boys," he says as he leaves. No one answers.
"I found your keycard," Dustin whispers into the darkness, once the door is fully closed.
"Thanks," Eduardo answers quietly. He still sounds subdued, like he did when he first moved in, and for a brief second Mark hates the Winklevii so much his stomach actually aches with it.
--
Mark wakes up in the middle of the night to find Eduardo sitting on the floor beside his bed with his shoulders against Mark's bedframe. He has his knees pulled up toward his chest and his arms wrapped tightly around his calves. One of Mark's hands is resting against his bony shoulder, unknowingly thrown there in his sleep.
"What are you doing?" Mark whispers.
Eduardo startles, sucking in a breath. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, scrambling away. "Shit… I'm… I couldn't… I shouldn't… I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing," Mark hisses. "Fuck, Wardo, I don't care if you creep on me in my sleep, okay?"
Eduardo falls silent and Mark knows he's still on the floor somewhere.
"I wasn't creeping," Eduardo mumbles after a moment. "I just… I couldn't sleep and I wanted us to be okay, so I was going to wake you but…"
"We're okay," Mark says quickly. "Of course we're okay. It wasn't your fault, okay. Those guys are assholes."
"Okay," Eduardo mumbles. "That's… thanks..."
Mark waits for him to continue, but after a moment Eduardo's bed creaks when he slips back into it and nothing more is said. It takes a long time for Mark to fall back to sleep.
--
Eduardo is almost himself in the morning, a little quieter maybe, and Chris pulls Mark aside after breakfast, warning him against doing something stupid. Mark huffs as if he has no idea what he's talking about, but when he gets back to the room he destroys the worm he got up to design in the wee hours of the morning and decides that revenge might be a dish best served cold. Mark can be patient if he wants to and one day he will be the one to laugh in their smug-ass faces.
The snow melts into depressing grayish slush and Mark has to put his flip-flops away for the time being, pulling out the brand new sneakers his mother got for him. Mark finds their sparkling newness particularly offensive, but after a couple of days of slush and rain they look almost like he's had them for years, even if they still chafe.
"I don't know how you do it," Eduardo remarks one evening.
"Do what?" Mark asks.
"Just…" Eduardo shrugs, flushing inexplicably. "Everything about you is just so… you."
He's looking at Mark's shoes, Mark realizes, discarded in a pile just inside the door.
"Well, some of us don't shine our shoes and iron our shirts every night," Mark mutters.
Eduardo flushes darker, ducking his chin. "That's not what I meant," he mumbles.
Mark wants to ask about it, but the door opens to let in Chris and Dustin, cheeks red with cold and hair damp. They're carrying bags from the costume shop downtown and the conversation turns to the looming Halloween party before Mark gets a chance to open his mouth.
He thinks about it again, after the lights have gone out, wondering what Eduardo might have meant. Mark is always himself because he doesn't know how to be anyone else. He's not like Eduardo or Chris, who know how to put up a front and can blend in like chameleons. He doesn't think there's anything particularly wrong with always being himself, he thinks that if the rest of the world has a problem with that they can just fuck off, and maybe that's what Eduardo meant, or maybe he was really just talking about Mark's shoes. Thinking about it is useless, and with an annoyed huff Mark rolls over on his side and wills himself to go to sleep.
--
Mark never attends the Halloween party, because wearing a costume is obligatory and he refuses to dress up. Instead he usually spends Halloween getting some work done on his computer and enjoying the rare silence that rests over the dorm like a comforting blanket.
This year's theme is horror movies, which in Mark's opinion is just as stupid as last year's theme of things that go bump in the night. Chris, Dustin, and Eduardo spend all the time leading up to the party talking about their costumes, and whatever other silly shit people talk about when they're going to a party, while Mark hunches over his computer trying to tune them out.
Then Friday rolls around and no one pays any attention in class, and there are silly decorations put up everywhere, and Mr. D even wears a pointy hat. Mark tries to ignore it all and thinks that if he were a movie character, he'd be The Grinch.
When classes let out Mark goes to the library and spends a couple of hours working on an assignment that's due after the weekend. The library is almost entirely deserted; it's just Mark, the librarians and maybe two other students. It's quiet, almost eerily so, and aside from a couple of displays with "Halloween-themed" books there are no decorations. Mark likes it.
On his way back to the dorms he stops by the cafeteria and has a brain matter sandwich (tuna), washing it down with a Coke. A group of zombies sits at the table next to him and on his way across campus he sees at least seven princesses, vaguely wondering what horror movie they fell out of.
A ghost tries to scare him in the hall (he thinks it's Billy from his Advanced CS class), two werewolves tumble out from the common room, and he bumps into Eric from two suites over whose costume idea seems to be BLOOD. It's all very ridiculous.
--
Eduardo is the only one still in the room when Mark walks in, sitting on the edge of his bed with a book open across his lap. He's already in costume, hair slicked back in a shiny wave over the crown of his head, face pale with powder and lips slick and red with something that looks like lip-gloss.
"Mark," he says, jumping up from the bed. "Hi."
He's wearing black slacks, a form-fitting black dress shirt and a long black cape with a stiff collar and blood red satin lining. Mark can't stop looking at his mouth.
"Hi," he mutters, dumping his bag at the edge of his bed. "I thought you'd be at the party by now."
"Yeah… I was… I thought…" Eduardo fidgets unhappily. "I… uh… Please come."
Mark blinks. "To the party?"
Eduardo nods, smiling tentatively. It's unfair, Mark thinks, that Eduardo can look like a million dollars even in a silly costume. There should be laws against being Eduardo's level of attractive.
Mark rolls his eyes. "I don't dress up," he says flatly.
Eduardo nods again. "Yeah… but I was thinking that… um… the theme is horror movies, right? So you could just go as… I don't know… Innocent victim number three. You wouldn't have to dress up for that."
Mark frowns, because that idea had never occurred to him.
"Please," Eduardo says softly, and Mark can tell his cheeks are pink under the powder.
"You really think they'll let me in like this?" Mark asks, gesturing down at his uniform.
"We could add a smear of blood to your cheek, or something," he says. "Or puncture wounds on your neck." He smiles shyly. "You could be one of my victims."
Mark thinks about the blessed silence and all the coding he could get done. He thinks about how much he doesn't like people and especially people in costume. He thinks about the last time he went to a party and ended up awkwardly leaning against the wall for an hour before he gave up and went home.
"Please," Eduardo says again. "I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself if I knew you were sitting here all alone."
"But I like being alone," Mark points out.
Eduardo's face falls and he fidgets again, cheeks practically glowing under his makeup now. "It was just an idea," he mumbles awkwardly, taking a tentative step towards the door. "I… uh… I'll get out of your hair then."
"Okay," Mark says decisively, because it was a stupid idea anyway, turning towards the bed to pull his laptop out of his backpack. "Have fun."
The only answer is the door closing after Eduardo's swishing cape.
--
Mark settles down on the bed and boots up his laptop. There's still noise in the hallway, but it's already dimming down and in an hour he's certain everything will be quiet and calm. He stretches his arms above his head and cracks his knuckles, anticipating an evening spent proving people wrong on the internet and maybe writing some code. Later, when everything is quiet, he might take the time to jerk off lazily in the shower and go to bed satisfied for once.
Mark's certain Eduardo only wanted him to come because he's the kind of person that feels bad if not everyone is included and also because he might have a slight touch of hero worship going on since Mark saved him from the Winklevii. He'll get over it and there's no doubt he'll have a lot more fun without Mark there to hang on his coattails.
Besides, he's probably the kind of person that has girls swarming around him at parties. He's ridiculously good looking and he has that vulnerable touch that a lot of girls seem to like, as if he's a puppy just waiting to get kicked. By the end of the night he'll probably have shared his lip-gloss with someone, until his lips are swollen and red from kissing rather than sticky color, and tomorrow morning he'll be holding hands with that someone under the breakfast table, looking adorably embarrassed and earnest about it. Eduardo's going to have a great time without Mark, there's really no doubt about that.
Mark thinks about Eduardo's lips, sweet and curved and sticky-red, and about the way his cheeks flushed under his makeup. He thinks about Eduardo saying, please, earnest, almost shy, and the way his hands fidgeted at his sides. He thinks about Eduardo sitting by his bed in the middle of the night because he wanted them to be okay, and because he's the only person that ever drew comfort from Mark's presence.
"Fuck it," Mark says to the universe at large and shoves his laptop to the side.
Dustin's bed is piled high with makeup and pieces of discarded costume. Mark gets up to eye it speculatively, staring at the small containers of theatre makeup and the tube of fake blood. It shouldn't be that hard to manage something that looks like a puncture wound.
--
Fifteen minutes later Mark's neck is scrubbed raw and there are fake blood smears on his collar. He stares angrily at himself in the mirror, because if there's one thing he hates, it's having to admit that he's just not good at something, even if that something is applying makeup. He almost discards the entire idea, but then he thinks about Eduardo's shy little smile and all the girls that are probably all up in his cape by now and pulls out his phone.
He scrolls through the contact list until he finds the entry that simply reads That Bitch and hits call.
Erica sounds breathless when she picks up, as if he caught her at the tail end of a laugh and he promptly disconnects. She calls back five seconds later.
"Seriously, Mark," she says. "What's your problem?"
"You sounded busy," Mark mutters.
She huffs out a loud breath. "What did you want, Mark?"
Erica has a way of saying Mark's name that makes it sound like an insult and she puts it to good use.
"I was thinking about going to the party," Mark says, stuffing his free hand deep into his pocket. "And I… uh… could use some… um… help."
There is a short silence. "Did I hear that right?" Erica asks. "You're asking me for help? With a costume, I assume. For the party you absolutely refused to take me to last year because, and I quote, 'dressing up was beneath you'?"
Mark winces. "Um… Yes?"
There is another silence and Mark almost thinks she hung up on him, but then she sighs long-sufferingly and says, "I'll be right there."
Mark will just never understand women.
--
Erica shows up twenty minutes later with a huge bag of makeup. She's dressed up like an evil doll with fake stitching in black all over her face and a huge plastic knife in her hand. It looks awesome and elaborate and Mark tells her as much with his hands stuffed into his pockets and a scowl on his face.
"Awww," Erica says, tilting her head to the side. "It's almost like you turned into a real boy."
"Fuck off," Mark mutters, cheeks heating up.
"Gayness suits you," Erica continues, unperturbed, and opens up her makeup bag. "So, I'm guessing that's your costume."
Mark nods.
"How creative of you," she says dryly.
Mark reminds himself that it's not nice to hit girls and that he was never that kind of douchebag.
"So…" She purses her lips. "Are we going for the terribly clichéd, but kind of sweet, vampire victim angle here?"
Mark nods again and tells his cheeks very firmly that they're not allowed to blush any brighter.
"Okay," Erica says, gesturing for Mark to come closer. "Let's see what I can do."
Ten minutes later, Mark's face is pale (well, paler) with powder, his lips tinted subtly blue and there's a creepily realistic puncture wound on the side of his neck. He stares at himself in the mirror and grudgingly admits that Erica did a good job.
"I know," she says smugly.
--
The party is held in the gymnasium, decorated for the occasion with spider webs and black and orange streamers, and Mark almost turns in the door. The place is packed with students and teachers in varying degrees of costume, and something loud and obnoxious, possibly by Michael Jackson, is blaring from the hidden speakers.
Mr. D. is standing at the door in his silly hat, now paired with a floor-length robe, as if he fell out of Harry Potter, and he turns his head to smile at Mark.
"Nice costume," he says and Mark bites back his instinctual, "I wish I could say the same," in favor of a quick nod.
Erica disappears into the crowd within seconds, seemingly swallowed by a group of zombies, while Mark edges his way along the wall. There are snacks and punchbowls set out on tables, guarded by sullen-looking RAs, and half the room has been dedicated to groups of tables and chairs, while the other half is a makeshift dance floor.
He brushes past someone in an awesome zombie princess costume, nearly bumps into a stray werewolf, and trips over the outstretched leg of a Winklevii in leggings, before he finally spots Eduardo, backed up against the wall and looking a bit lost with a cup of electric blue punch clutched between his hands.
There are no girls hanging from his cape, and Mark carefully inches closer, looking around just to make sure he isn't interrupting anything. He spots Dustin and Chris on the dance floor, flailing around like idiots, but thankfully they don't spot him. Mark would like as few people as possible to know about this temporary insanity.
Eduardo looks up when Mark is just a few feet away and his eyes widen in a way that would be comical if it weren’t so adorable.
"Mark," he says, blinking rapidly as if he doesn't quite believe his eyes. "You're here."
"Yeah… um…" Mark scrubs at the back of his neck, mindful of the makeup, and flushes helplessly. He can't even think of an excuse that isn't about Eduardo's face.
"I'll get you something to drink," Eduardo says, his words practically tumbling over each other and his eyes shining. "Wait right here. Don't move."
Mark pointedly finds a place deeper into the shadows to wait because he's not a dog, but he almost regrets it when Eduardo comes back and his face falls after he doesn't spot Mark right away.
"Wardo," Mark hisses, eyeing the dance floor nervously. "Over here."
Eduardo perks up again and he practically bounces over, the silly cape flapping around his legs.
"Here," he says, handing a cup of blue punch to Mark. "It's disgusting," he leans closer and whispers, "but Dustin spiked it."
Mark smirks, because of course he did, and takes a cautious sip from the rim. It is disgusting and sickly sweet, but he can taste the bitter tang of alcohol underneath the sugar. Eduardo moves to lean against the wall next to Mark, close enough that their shoulders brush.
"You look good," he says and when Mark glances at him, he's blushing again.
"Erica helped," Mark mutters, stuffing his free hand into his pocket, and if Eduardo hadn't been standing so close Mark would have missed his slight flinch.
"Oh," he says, moving slightly to the side so that they're no longer touching. "I saw her earlier. Her costume is awesome."
Mark shrugs. "I suppose," he says.
He wants to say something about how it's not like that, but then he isn't sure that this is like that either, so he settles for moving closer until their shoulders are brushing again, bumping Eduardo slightly so that he knows it's deliberate. He didn't even know that Eduardo knew about him and Erica, but maybe he's been asking around. The thought makes Mark feel a little warm inside and he scowls into his cup. Emotions are so ridiculous.
--
Even aided by alcohol, the party is just as boring as Mark thought it would be. They spend maybe an hour leaning against the wall, talking about people's costumes and drinking vile blueness, while Eduardo eyes the dance floor longingly.
"You can dance if you want to," Mark says magnanimously. "I'll wait here."
"Are you sure?" Eduardo asks, his eyes shining.
Mark nods. If Eduardo wants to make a fool of himself, Mark's not going to stop him.
"Okay." Eduardo hands Mark his cup and bites down on his lower lip. "Come get me if you get bored, okay?"
"Okay," Mark says.
Mark has every intention of not watching Eduardo dance, because no one looks good flopping around, but somehow he finds his eyes scanning the crowd for Eduardo anyway. He's at the far edge, in a haphazard circle with Chris and Dustin and few other people Mark recognizes from around. There's a lot of flopping and flailing going on in general, but Eduardo… Eduardo looks good. He doesn't flop and flail as much as he twists and turns and slithers, body gyrating in time with the beat.
The cape billows dramatically around him, his feet move effortlessly across the floor, and within minutes the circle has grown and Eduardo has somehow ended up in the middle of it. He doesn't even seem to notice, dancing with his eyes mostly closed and his face upturned, and Mark doesn't know how to look away.
He moves closer, drawn like a moth to a flame, until he's on the outskirts of the circle, swaying unevenly to make it seem as if he's dancing even when he's really not. Eduardo does some kind of twist-turn pirouette thing that should look ridiculous, but that actually makes people applaud and Mark finds his own hands picking up the rhythm in time with the others’.
Of course it draws attention, unwanted attention, and Mark notices the crowd parting, making way for two shiny blond heads out of the corner of his eye. Eduardo doesn't see them coming and Mark starts moving without the slightest clue as what to do. He ends up right in the Winklevii's way, lifting his chin defiantly, as if his scrappy frame is any kind of match for a double helping of 6'4” Meat-Mountain with Divya on the side.
Tyler, or maybe it's Cameron, walks right into Mark, as if he isn't even there, sending him sprawling across the floor with a well-aimed shoulder to the chest. Cameron, or maybe it's Tyler, trips over him, giving him a swift kick in the thigh on his way, and then Divya pretend-stumbles and spills punch all over Mark's face. It's not ideal and Mark's thigh really fucking hurts, but at least they don't have a chance to get to Eduardo, because within seconds the music cuts off and the dance floor is swarmed by teachers.
Mark notices Dustin pulling Eduardo away as he slowly pushes himself to his feet and wipes the punch from his face, while Chris steps up to his side, muttering, "I can't decide if that was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid," into his ear.
Next to them, the Winklevii are telling Mr. D. that it was all an unfortunate accident.
"Right, Mark?" Divya says, turning to give Mark a smug little smile.
"Right," Mark mutters, because he can see the warning in Divya's eyes.
"Are you okay?" Mr. D. asks. "Did you hit your head?"
"I'm fine," Mark says, his voice tightly clipped, "Just wet." He shifts his feet awkwardly with punch dripping from his hair. "Can I go?" he asks.
Everyone's looking and Mark feels like an idiot. He just wants to go back to the dorm, shower and then wire in until graduation.
"Yeah, yeah," Mr. D. says kindly. "Of course." Cameron, or Tyler, makes a move to leave as well and Mr. D.'s voice doesn't sound nearly as nice when he says, "Not you two. I think I'd like for you to stay a while longer."
Mark tries to hide his smile behind his hand, but he knows he hasn’t succeeded when Divya's eyes narrow in his direction.
"Don't you even think about pulling one of your little stunts," Divya hisses, stepping closer. "You won't be the one to pay."
Chris wisely stops Mark from punching Divya in the nose with a steel grip around his wrist. "Come on," he whispers urgently. "It's not worth it."
Mark lets himself be tugged away with his lips pressed tightly together. "If they lay one finger on him," he says darkly.
"You won't do a fucking thing," Chris hisses. "Because you'd get kicked out and Eduardo would never forgive himself."
Mark clenches his teeth together and doesn't say anything, because Chris is right and they both know it.
--
Dustin and Eduardo are already in the room when Chris and Mark walk in, sitting next to each other on Dustin's messy bed. Eduardo jumps up as soon the door closes behind them, arms stretched out as if he's going for a hug. Mark ignores him, heading straight for his dresser.
"I'm taking a shower," he says, keeping his back to the room in general and Eduardo specifically.
He doesn't want to do this in front of Chris and Dustin, he feels stupid enough just thinking about it. If it were just the two of them, he'd let Eduardo hug him or whatever ridiculous thing he wants to do, but it's not and Mark doesn't want to do this with an audience. It's bad enough that everyone knows he went to the party and that at least Chris and Dustin are clever enough to figure out why. It makes him feel exposed, as if just woke up naked in class, and he needs a moment to compose himself.
The dorm is still silent when Mark makes his way to the showers and he hopes that means that he hasn’t managed to ruin the party for everyone. He certainly wouldn't appreciate the entire student body hating him tomorrow just because he couldn't let the stupid Winklevii get to Eduardo. Logically Mark knows that whatever they had been planning to do to Eduardo to keep him from being the center of attention wouldn't have been worse than what they did to Mark, but Mark bounces back in a way that Eduardo just doesn't.
It's still pretty early when Mark walks back into the room, but no one comments when he crawls straight into bed and pulls the covers up to his ears. Eduardo is on his own bed and even though Mark can feel his worry, as if it's a palpable thing reaching across the room to poke at him, Eduardo doesn't say anything either.
--
Mark wakes up in the middle of the night and he's not very surprised to find Eduardo sitting on floor by his bed, slumped forward with his forehead resting against his knees. Mark just watches him for a moment, taking in the fragile curl of his neck and the dejected slump of his bony shoulders. Only the barest hint of light falls in through the window, making everything appear in shades of grey, and Eduardo's skin is startlingly white in the faint light.
"Wardo," Mark whispers, reaching out to touch his fingertips to Eduardo's back. "What are you doing?"
Eduardo startles, turning to look at Mark over his shoulder, eyes huge and shiny in the darkness. "I just wanted to…" he trails off and Mark can't tell if he's blushing.
"We're okay," Mark mutters, worrying at his lower lip. "We're always okay."
Eduardo turns further, so that he is on his hands and knees by the bed. "Yeah?" he asks, almost breathless.
"Yeah," Mark confirms and he doesn't know if he’s ever meant something quite as much.
Eduardo shifts and Mark thinks he's going to scurry back to his own bed, but instead Eduardo darts forward, pressing his lips to Mark's cheek in a dry kiss. Then he backs away, too fast for Mark to catch him, and moments later Mark hears him climbing into his own bed.
Mark's cheeks flush stupidly and his heart trips against his ribcage and against his better judgment he reaches up to touch his fingers to the spot that can still feel the imprint of Eduardo's lips.
--
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