[fanfiction] i'm so into you (but i'm way too smart for you) part 3
Sitting around and watching someone read is really boring, so after about five minutes Eduardo stands up to inspect the study. The walls are covered in bookshelves full of old, disintegrating books and framed pictures of Dustin, Mark, and Chris looking younger and decidedly more happy. He inspects all the pictures, occasionally glancing over to where Mark is bent over the journals and carefully reading every page. Once he's finished looking around the study, Eduardo picks an old, worn paperback from the bookshelves and settles back into the chair to read it.
They sit like that, both silent and reading, for a long time before Dustin (still dressed in the skirt and craft-explosion shirt) knocks on the doorframe and tells them that dinner is ready. Mark looks like he'd rather starve than go to dinner, but he trails after Dustin dutifully and Eduardo goes because he's hungry. He doesn't know why Mark seems so grim about dinner until they get there.
It's awkward.
Actually, that might be giving it too much credit. It's painful, because as far as both Dustin and Chris are concerned, there are only three people sitting at the table. They both blatantly ignore each other, and Eduardo can sense their annoyance at the fact that neither Mark or Eduardo wants to pick a side. Mark seems to be ignoring the fact that Chris and Dustin are ignoring each other, and Eduardo wonders how they function like this if it happens anything approaching frequently-which it seems like it does from the way everyone is comfortable with the situation. Eduardo shifts in his chair and eats his dinner.
Once the plates are in the sink and everyone's disappearing into different parts of the castle, Eduardo tags along after Mark because he figures that's safer than anywhere else. Mark heads back into the study, and Eduardo continues reading the book he'd picked up earlier while Mark pours over his journals. It's comfortable, and Eduardo thinks that he and Mark could really be friends if they stop being assholes to each other.
"Hey," Eduardo says, breaking the easy silence, "Do Chris and Dustin do that often?"
Mark looks up, pausing for a second before he sighs, "Yeah. They do this once every couple of months, because they both have this idea in their heads that the other person only likes them for their body. They're hopelessly in love with each other, though."
"I noticed."
There's a small smile on Mark's face, and it makes Eduardo smile too. He buries his face back in the paperback, some story about a starship officer who's realizing that he's likely to be killed as a redshirt. It was written before star travel had been really perfected, and Eduardo's amazed at how timeless the book is. He wonders what it was like to imagine things like star travel and cyberkinetics, how weird and primitive the world would feel to him while simultaneously being the most advanced it had ever been. It's weird to think that in a hundred years the place society is currently at will be horribly backwards too.
At some point, probably rather early in the morning, Mark and Eduardo end up stifling yawns and wandering back to their beds. When Eduardo wakes up and stumbles into the dining room, Dustin is the first person there. He's wearing a plaid dress with the same sort of flouncy skirt that he had on the other day, and Eduardo blinks at him before making himself a cup of tea.
"You look nice," Eduardo says while his tea is steeping, "The dress suits you."
Dustin positively beams as he drops an ice cube into his coffee, and Eduardo wants to ask him about the whole thing, but he doesn't. It's too early in the morning for that.
"What do you want for breakfast?"
Eduardo tosses the tea bag and yawns, curling his fingers around his mug and trying to make the words form on his tongue. Dustin drops another ice cube into his coffee.
"Omelettes?"
"Sure, I can do that."
Sipping at his coffee, Dustin wanders over to the fridge and starts pulling things out. Eduardo leans against the counter and sips at his tea while he watches Dustin cook. It's different from the precise and careful way Mark does most things. Dustin is humming and dancing to some tune Eduardo doesn't recognize, and he's about to dump some green onions into his egg mixture when he stops and turns to look at Eduardo.
"What do you want in your omelette? I forgot to ask."
"What are my options?"
"I dunno," Dustin shrugs, "We just got our vegetable ration in so there's a bunch of stuff in there. I don't even know what some of it is called."
There's something slightly off about what Dustin's just said, but Eduardo can't quite place what it is. Instead he scans through the items in the fridge and pulls out an onion and basket of mushrooms along with some spinach. Setting them on the counter, Dustin looks them all over carefully. He tastes the spinach carefully before chopping some of it and mixing everything together. Finishing off his tea, Eduardo rinses out the mug and pours orange juice in just as Dustin slides the omelette off onto a plate.
"One onion-mushroom-green stuff omelette for my man Eduardo."
"Spinach," Eduardo says absently.
"Right," Dustin nods, cracking open an egg, "that's what Chris keeps telling us."
"What do you mean?"
Dustin looks over as Eduardo takes the plate and fishes ketchup out of the fridge. He's frowning, and Eduardo worries that he's hit a sore spot when Dustin sighs and starts whipping up the eggs.
"Mark and I, we're not. Our families had a lot of trouble scraping together the money for school sometimes, and we didn't really get fresh food that often. We continued eating the freeze-dried rations and stuff until Chris got fed up and made us start eating fresh food, so it's only been a couple of years since I first saw stuff like spinach on a regular basis," Dustin shrugs, "I'm still not used to it, sometimes."
A slightly awkward silence falls over the dining room as Dustin drops his egg mixture into the frying pan and Eduardo takes a seat at the kitchen table. Eduardo wants to say something, but he's not sure what or how to phrase it. In the end, it doesn't matter because Chris walks into the room and the atmosphere goes from slightly awkward to downright chilly.
Focusing on eating his breakfast, Eduardo tries to ignore whatever's going on between Chris and Dustin.
Mark corners Dustin in the workshop after breakfast. Dustin's glancing toward the door like he's trying to calculate his chances of escaping, and Mark presses the button on the omniscreen that locks the doors. There's a resigned slope to Dustin's shoulders then, and Mark would feel bad, but he's honestly kind of sick of waiting for Dustin and Chris to sort themselves out.
"Look," Mark sighs, "You know I don't get involved in . . . whatever the fuck it is you've got with Chris, but we're best friends, right?"
"Of course," Dustin says, "Who else would be my best friend?"
There are a lot of things Mark could say to that, because Dustin makes friends more easily than Mark ever has and people still talk to him, even if they don't want to associate themselves with Mark. It's why sometimes Mark feels bad for cutting them off from the rest of society, until he remembers that Dustin and Chris came of their own free will and he's not keeping them. They choose to stay in the little world Mark has built for himself. Now isn't the time to bring any of that up, though, so Mark goes with the other answer.
"No one. Which is why, when I tell you what I'm about to, I want you to remember that no one knows you as well as I do and if this weren't seriously impacting your happiness and well-being I wouldn't bring it up."
Dustin shifts nervously, and Mark tries to . . . not sound accusatory. Or intimidating. It's kind of hard, because it's his default mode, but he tries and it probably comes across as constipation.
"You need to actually talk to Chris. I will beg for you to talk to Chris if that gets you two to sit down and talk about your feelings."
"Chris and I have nothing to talk about."
As much as he wants to, Mark doesn't grab Dustin by the shoulders and shake him to try and get him to see that he's full of bullshit. Instead, Mark takes a deep breath.
"Dustin. Dustin, you know I'd never ask you to do something unless it was important. This is important. Please talk to Chris. I'll . . . I'll do anything to get you guys back to somewhere where you don't hate each other."
"Anything?"
The tone in Dustin's voice is the one that usually makes Mark flinch because it never means anything good. Mark steels himself though and nods. It's possible that he wouldn't do some things-probably he wouldn't murder anyone-but he'll do anything that he thinks Dustin might ask.
"Yes, anything."
"If I have to sort my shit out, then you do too. Also you're coming to the market with me."
In terms of what Mark was expecting Dustin to ask for, it's surprisingly tame. Honestly, he and Eduardo have already mostly sorted their shit out. Sort of. It's better than it was, is the point, because they've acknowledge that actually they were being horrible to each other for no reason and Mark's almost done with the journals and they're in a good place. Even the fact that Dustin's dragging him to the market isn't that bad. Mark doesn't like going out in public, but he'll suffer through it for Dustin.
"Okay."
"Oh," Dustin grins, "and you're cooking dinner for the rest of the year."
Ah, there's the actual price. It's not that he hates cooking, per se, just that Dustin can be incredibly picky about what he will and won't eat at times, and there are only so many times Mark can eat spaghetti in a row before it drives him insane. If Dustin's not cooking, then Mark's going to have to get creative with what to cook and it's just something he'd rather not have to think about. Still, it's workable and at this point, Mark will take what he can get at this point.
"Is that it?"
There's a small pause, and Dustin looks away and fiddles with the edge of his dress. He looks nervous in a way Mark hasn't seen since the first time Dustin showed up at his house in a skirt. It makes Mark want to comfort him, but he's not sure what would be appropriate so he waits instead.
"Come with me," Dustin says finally, "when I talk to him."
He should probably say no, Mark knows, but leaving Dustin and Chris in a room together at this point would probably end badly.
"Sure."
Chris drags Eduardo with him to work on something after breakfast, and Eduardo trails along behind him. He feels like he should say something about the situation, but Eduardo's pretty sure that would be overstepping some kind of boundary. There's really not much he could say that wouldn't be wildly hypocritical either, even if he and Mark seem to be on good terms now. That's still new and fragile, though, so Eduardo's not sure how it'll work out in the long run.
"Sorry," Chris says abruptly, "about Dustin."
"What are you apologizing for?"
Chris shrugs, "Dustin can be. He's a handful sometimes. I don't even like him all the time."
"I don't think that's true."
As soon as the words are out of Eduardo's mouth, Chris stops and turns to look at him. He looks a little angry, or maybe defensive, but it evens out into resignation. He sighs and Eduardo can tell he's knows he's not fooling anyone. It makes Eduardo want to hug him and tell him it'll all be okay, but he's not sure if that would be awkward or not.
"It's not," Chris mumbles, "Even when I should hate him for what he does to me, I don't."
"I'm told that's how love works," Eduardo says, "If it makes you feel better, I think he likes you too. "
"He doesn’t."
The words sound so sure that Eduardo feels kind of bad for Chris. It’s sort of obvious, spending time watching Dustin and Chris interact, that they’re head over heels for each other. Eduardo doesn’t even know them that well and he’s aware of it in the same sort of peripheral way he's aware that Chris likes Mark more than he lets on and Mark isn't as unaware of the image he's created as he seems.
"Have you ever tried talking to him about it?"
Eduardo's expecting the answer to be no, or maybe yes, but he's not expecting the way Chris laughs. It's hysterical and a little broken, and Eduardo doesn't care if it's awkward to hug Chris. He tugs Chris forward and holds him close, smoothing his hair back and quieting him. Chris breathes deeply once, twice, and then he's himself again. Stepping away from Eduardo, Chris sighs.
"We don't talk about that stuff," Chris says, once he's gained his composure, "That's how Mark, Dustin, and I are. We don't talk about our feelings, and I'm pretty sure Mark tries his hardest not to have feelings. That's how we keep another Great Robot War from happening."
"That's stupid," Eduardo says before he can stop himself, "If anything, that just causes misunderstandings and possibly another war."
For a moment, Chris looks like he's going to argue about that, but then he sighs out and doesn't say anything at all. Eduardo waits, because that seems to be the way to deal with Chris most of the time, and Chris slumps.
"You're probably right. We're not," Chris runs a hand through his hair, "We were sixteen years old and we ruled the world. No one said we knew what we were doing."
"You've been doing an okay job," Eduardo offers, "I know it's not perfect, but you seem to be learning from your mistakes and trying to make the world better. I don't know if anyone should be expecting more than that from you."
Chris is going to say something when Dustin walks up, Mark trailing behind him. He tenses, and Eduardo steps to the side after seeing who's walked up. Mark slides into the space next to him like he belongs, both of them more focused on Chris and Dustin. Nothing happens for a moment, and then Dustin takes a step forward to close the space between him and Chris just a little.
"Apparently," he says, "we worried Mark to the point where he begged me to talk to you and sort ourselves out."
"Let me guess," Chris smiles, just the tiniest bit, "You're making him cook for the rest of the year and making him go shopping with you."
Mark shifts where he's standing next to Eduardo, but he doesn't move to break them up so Eduardo stays put too. He figures it's probably best to takes cues from Mark in this situation, given that Mark's known them for a lot longer. If Mark's not worried, then Eduardo shouldn't be.
"You know me so well," Dustin shakes his head, "Maybe that's the problem. I thought that since you knew me so well, I wouldn't have to. You know, tell you."
"Tell me what?"
Dustin looks away from Chris then, fingers crushing the edge of his dress in his hand. There's a moment of hesitation in Chris before he closes the space between him and Dustin, touching his fingers to Dustin's shoulder. It makes Dustin flinch slightly, and Eduardo's about to step forward when Mark holds out his arm to stop him.
"Dustin," Chris says quietly, "tell me what?"
"Do you remember what I said to you when we first met?"
"That you were going to be my friend whether I liked it or not."
"Nope," Dustin shakes his head again, "I said I was going to marry you, because no one had ever complimented my shirt before. You said I looked nice in it."
There's a complicated set of emotions running over Chris' face, like he's not sure what his face should be doing, and then he finally settles on complete surprise.
"Oh."
Once it looks like Chris gets what Dustin's just said, Mark wraps his fingers around Eduardo's wrist and tugs him away. Eduardo struggles for a moment, and then Chris dips to kiss Dustin and Eduardo comes more easily.
Once they're partway down the hall, Eduardo asks, "Are they going to be okay?"
"Probably," Mark shrugs, "I'm never sure with them."
"Where are we going?"
"The study. I promised Dustin something."
Eduardo's quiet after that until Mark tugs him into the study. The metal of his cyberkinetics warms in Mark's hand, and Mark is somewhat reluctant to let go. He'd fixed the arm when Eduardo first got to Skullcrusher Mountain because it had been a little banged up and very obviously a patch job done by someone who didn't have all the necessary equipment. Dustin had watched him do it and made terrible jokes about how Mark was robosexual, which was patently untrue. Mark just liked well-made things, and it annoyed him when he say things he could fix and make better. Generally, he just fixed them without asking permission. In general, he figured that it wouldn't matter that much if he fixed Eduardo's prosthetics. It was sort of standard when dignitaries and stuff came to visit.
"Dustin made me promise," Mark says, pushing away all the thoughts about Eduardo's cyberkinetics, "that I'd fix my relationship with you. You said you wanted to ask me questions."
"Chris said you try not to have feelings," Eduardo says, "why?"
The question catches Mark off-guard. He was expecting one of the countless questions in the journals or something similar to the question Eduardo first asked about why he started The Great Robot War. Leaning against his desk, Mark considers the question.
"Because it always seems to end badly," Mark says finally, "and I kept telling myself it was easier not to deal with them. It be as callous as everyone thought I was."
"You're not anything they say you are," Eduardo says as he sits in the chair in front of Mark's desk, "It's a mask and you know it is. You wanted everyone to hate you."
Mark shrugs, "I thought it was easier like that."
Silence settles in the room while Eduardo studies him. It's not exactly uncomfortable silence, but it still seems to take forever for Eduardo to come to a conclusion or think of his next question or whatever it is that he's thinking of.
"You're nothing like what I thought you'd be like," Eduardo says after a minute or maybe two, "I like you better than that Mark, though."
Mark frowns, "I don't know whether or not that's a compliment.
"It is," Eduardo laughs, "Although it's kind of a back-handed one."
Mark takes the moment to study Eduardo. He sees the Eduardo from the journals in the Eduardo sitting in front of him, but he also doesn't. The Eduardo in front of him is much more worn down, harder around the edges and with more walls. When he laughs, though, Mark can see a glimpse of the Eduardo who'd watched him from afar at school.
If he thinks about it, Mark remembers that Eduardo in the fuzzy way old memories always are. He remembers seeing someone who looked lonely, even though he smiled. If Mark hadn't been so wary of feelings and so into isolating himself from everyone that could hurt him, maybe they could have been friends. Maybe Eduardo would be in Dustin's place, and maybe Mark wouldn't have started The Great Robot War.
"Are you happy?"
The immediate answer Mark wants to give is of course, but the truth is a little more complicated than that and Eduardo seems like he wants actual answers and not standard ones. Mark pushes himself up to sit on the edge of his desk, tapping his heel against the metal.
"For a certain definition, yes," Mark says after thinking about it, "In the broader sense, not really. This isn't really what I imagined when I decided to take over the world."
"You didn't think about what would happen once you had it, did you?"
Mark raises an eyebrow, "Would you?"
Eduardo thinks about that, and Mark waits for him to find his answer. If he has to think about it, Mark assumes the answer is going to be no. That's the problem with having grand ideas like taking over the world: the aftermath becomes secondary and then, when you've got what you want, you don't know what to do with it. Mark still isn't sure what to do with it, if he's being honest. He tries, though, because that's what he's committed himself to doing. He likes to think the world is getting a little better, even if no one wants to admit it.
"I guess not," Eduardo says after a while, "but I've been thinking about it for five years, so maybe I can give you some advice. For starters, you probably shouldn't have holed yourself up in this place. You're out of touch with the people."
"Are you going to air your grievances now?"
He's not opposed to it, exactly, but Mark wants to know if he should be taking notes on what Eduardo's saying or not. There's a moment, and then Eduardo nods.
"Yes."
"Let me take notes for Chris to look at later, then."
Pressing his hand to the omniscreen in the corner of his desk, Mark calls up a virtual keyboard and a holoscreen. Eduardo watches, a little fascinated, and Mark settles himself in to type.
"Okay," he says, "Tell me what I'm doing wrong."
When Eduardo finally stops talking, and Mark finally stops typing, there's about a hundred ideas for things Mark could be doing to improve his rule and they're both a little exhausted. Mark's stomach chooses that moment to grumble, and it's suddenly really clear that they haven't eaten anything since breakfast.
"We should probably," Mark says, sweeping away the screen and keyboard he'd been using, "eat something. I guess it would be dinner."
"What about Chris and Dustin?"
Mark looks horrified for a second before he schools his face back to his regular neutral expression. It takes Eduardo a second to realize why, and then he has a hard time trying not to laugh. Eventually he settles on an amused smile, which earns him a glare from Mark.
"I'll call them."
Twisting to reach the omniscreen, Mark presses his palm to it and calls up and voice message program.
"We're having dinner now," Mark tells the program, "So get dressed and come join us."
Hitting the send button, Mark tells it to find Dustin and then exits out of the program. Eduardo watches him do it, fascinated with the way Mark is completely at ease with his systems. It's not that Eduardo hasn't seen holoscreens and systems just as complicated as Mark's, it's that he's never seen someone who's so comfortable in a system. It's extremely customized, levels and levels above what Eduardo normally comes in contact with, and Eduardo wonders if maybe Mark built it himself.
"Did you build the infrastructure of your house yourself?"
"Of course," Mark says, sliding off his desk, "I wouldn't have trusted it to anyone else."
The way he says it, like there would never be any other answer, reminds Eduardo why everyone thinks Mark is an arrogant asshole. Eduardo knows it's not that now, in the same way he knows that Mark's only pretending to be what everyone wanted him to be. Mark says things like that like there is no other answer, because to him there isn't. Of course he built the system that his house runs on. He could do it, so he did.
"Are you coming?"
Mark's paused the doorway, looking at Eduardo curiously, and Eduardo rises and walks over. Satisfied that Eduardo's going to follow him, Mark wanders down the halls until they get to the dining room. Chris and Dustin aren't there yet, but Eduardo's not entirely surprised. Mark doesn't even notice, if the way he wanders into the kitchen and starts pulling ingredients out is any indication. There's a dinner schedule, Eduardo's learned, because otherwise everyone fights over what to eat for dinner. There isn’t a breakfast schedule, because in general everyone eats breakfast foods. It might be that Chris doesn't eat the bacon or Dustin doesn't smother his hash browns in ketchup, but everyone gets fed with a minimum of fuss.
"I'm supposed to make burgers," Mark says, "which would be fine except Dustin is weird and particular about his. He usually makes his own and complains the whole way through."
"I'd offer to help," Eduardo laughs, "but I'm kind of useless in the kitchen. We had a cookbot. Actually, why don't you have a cookbot? Surely that would be easy to do."
"I like robots," Mark shrugs, "but I don't like feeling useless."
There's a certain set to Mark's shoulders that tells Eduardo he's probably had this conversation before, probably with Chris. Mark's not looking at him, instead focused on forming patties out of the hunk of ground beef he's pulled from the fridge, and Eduardo realizes that Mark doesn't think of robots the way everyone else does. They're not there to do everything for him; they're there to solve problems that he cannot solve on his own and make the world safer.
Eduardo's saved from having to comment on his newfound observation by Chris and Dustin meandering into the kitchen. They're relatively neatly put together, which makes Eduardo suspect that they actually put effort into looking like they haven't just fucked. Dustin wanders over to pester Mark, presumably about his burger, and Chris sits down next to Eduardo.
"Mark and I were talking," Eduardo says, because Mark is otherwise preoccupied, "and we have some ideas for policy changes. He took notes, so you can look over it later and see what's feasible and what's totally unrealistic. I think at least some of it is doable, though, because it's just about making Mark less of a recluse."
Chris stares at Eduardo for a long moment. It looks a lot like he's processing what's Eduardo's just said, and when he finally does, he shakes his head a little disbelievingly.
"You got Mark to agree to go outside, interact with people, and be less of a recluse."
"He said he'd try," Eduardo shrugs, "I think he's realized that he doesn't have to make the world hate him."
For a few moments, Chris doesn't do anything except open and close his mouth. Then he runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head.
"You must be magical," Chris settles on, "because I've been trying to get him to understand that for five years and I've never gotten through to him."
"Maybe you were presenting it in the wrong way," Eduardo says, glancing over at Mark, "Mark's pretty easy to convince once you figure out how."
Dustin comes over, balancing three plates and carefully setting them down before wandering back over to pester Mark some more. Eduardo looks down at his plate and is vaguely confused by the patty on a bun that's been presented to him until Dustin comes back over with a plate full of condiments and toppings, plonking it down in the center of the table as Mark wanders over with a plate that he sets down in front of Dustin.
"Here's your dinner, your highness."
"Thank you," Dustin says, trying for prim and proper but ending up somewhere near goofy, "I appreciate your efforts."
Mark rolls his eyes, and Eduardo tries not to smile as he piles toppings on his burger. Chris shakes his head at Dustin and Mark, who are arguing about something that happened at yeast three years ago, and the burger is weirdly perfect. The whole scene feels natural, and it's the first time in a long time (or maybe ever) that Eduardo's felt like he belonged somewhere.
He hopes it stays that way.
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