FIC: The Birthday of My Life (Mark/Eduardo)
2003
"We are going out for Wardo's birthday Friday, no arguments," Dustin's shouting in that annoying way that means he thinks Mark isn't listening. Just because Mark is coding doesn't mean he can't listen.
Mark stops coding just long enough to wave a dismissive hand at Chris and Dustin who are sitting in the living area watching a movie.
"I mean it, Mark," Dustin continues. "I am telling you this on Monday so you have no excuses about not knowing and trying to duck out! And get a fucking present too!"
Present - Wardo - Birthday - it streams right into the code. Twenty minutes later (amateur hacking at best) and he has it all taken care of.
Dustin's voice is sing-songy over Chris's low laughter. "Maaaarky, don't you pretend you can't -"
Mark slides on his headphones and slips back to the code.
+
They're giving Wardo his gifts before they go out. Wardo has a semi-shocked smile on his face; he seems completely amazed that everyone has remembered his birthday much less that he’s getting presents. "You guys really didn't have to," he keeps repeating.
Mark's confident his gift for Eduardo is the best. Chris got him some book and Dustin bought him a bottle of scotch. Boring. Mark hands over a single sheet of paper.
Everyone watches Wardo's eyes scan the paper. The smile never slips off his face, if anything, it gets even larger. He beams at Mark. "Mark, thanks. This is great."
"What is it?" Chris asks.
Wardo holds the paper up. "Mark enrolled me in a Fruit of the Month club."
A single beat of silence before Dustin exclaims "What in the fuck? Mark, is this a prank?"
Mark is puzzled. "What kind of terrible prank would that be? It's real. Wardo will now get a fresh, seasonal shipment of fruit once a month for the next year. I think April is kiwis."
"Mark, you do realize that Wardo is not your 80 year old aunt?" Dustin hisses, keeping one eye on Eduardo, who's still smiling.
"Mark, what I think Dustin means is," Chris pauses as if weighing his words very carefully. "Why did you choose such an unusual and expensive gift for a 19 year old college sophomore who has shown no real interest in fruit?"
Mark sighs. "You know how Wardo's always bugging me to eat real food, food not out of a can?"
Chris bursts out laughing while Dustin closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Mark, did you buy Wardo food he can bring you to eat?"
"No, of course not. I don't want to eat kiwis! Wardo," he waves at him. "Tell them."
"You guys," Eduardo begins, looking at Dustin and Chris, his voice conciliatory. "I - I mean, I wouldn't say I have an interest in fruit...but I do really enjoy fresh food and fruit and it’s hard to get at school and one night when Mark and I were discussing, um, life, I mentioned that and how it’s one of the things I miss the most about Miami-"
Eduardo trails off and turns to look at Mark. They lock eyes and Mark feels a familiar flush rise up his neck. There's that thing that sometimes happens between him and Wardo, that thing that when the two of them are in the middle of a conversation and everything else sort of fades out. Mark's only used to that happening with code, it still makes him antsy and, well, excited when it happens with another person.
"I can't believe you remembered," Wardo half-whispers.
one of the first nights they stayed up past dawn talking, telling each other endless stories about growing up.
Mark shrugs. "I'm glad you like it," he answers, somehow just as softly.
It feels like a very long time until Chris clears his throat. "Hey, so, we're meeting some people?" He sounds almost apologetic.
Eduardo folds up the Fruit of the Month club certificate and tucks it inside his jacket pocket. "Yeah. Um, thanks ... everyone. This is amazing."
The four of them head out and no one mentions what just happened until they're stumbling back to Kirkland much later that night: Chris and Dustin in the lead, Mark and Eduardo lagging towards the back.
"Hey Mark," Dustin calls out over his shoulder. "How did you afford all that damn fruit for Wardo?"
"Well, I actually just wrote this program that bypasses -"
"Dude!" Dustin interrupts. "Don't ruin the perfect present by revealing you didn't even pay for it!" He and Chris bust up laughing.
Eduardo grins at Mark, fuzzily, and slings an arm around Mark's shoulder, squeezing him close. "You'll have to try a kiwi," he whispers into Mark's ear.
Mark almost shudders.
It’s perfect.
2004
In the beginning of March they expand thefacebook to Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, and even fucking Yale. They're bi-coastal and broken out of the Ivy League.
Mark, Eduardo, Dustin, and Chris toast in the suite, clink Beck's bottles over delirious laughter. "Shit just got real!" Dustin crows.
This is happening. This is really, actually, totally happening.
In between still trying to attend class and keep thefacebook going and expanding the four of them run at a near constant state of exhaustion. Dustin and Mark code until they pass out at their computers. Chris is constantly working with student papers both answering questions and getting the party line out. Eduardo follows the stock market like a zealot, Mark knows he's doing something with trading, he has spreadsheets tracking how much money they have and forecasting how much more money they're going to need and when.
They're college students and businessmen and inventors and entrepreneurs and they can't even legally buy beer and this is really, actually, totally happening.
They don't have a party or a night out planned for Eduardo's birthday this year, but it's not like Mark has forgotten the date.
By 12:15 the changes are done. It's not particularly hard code. He shoots off a quick email to Wardo. He'll be up.
To: eduardo.saverin@harvard.edu
From: mark.zuckerberg@harvard.edu
Wardo,
I know everything is crazy lately but I just wanted to tell you how much... how much this year has totally rocked so far. I know it’s only going to get better.
Anyhow, happy birthday. Head over to thefacebook for your present. Think I'm gonna leave it up for a few hours, see how long it'll take Dustin to crack my code and how many press releases about errors Chris has to release tomorrow.
-M
It only takes ten minutes for Dustin to shriek in horror. "Mark," he screams in a voice that could raise the dead. "MARK! What did you do? Why can't I undo it? MARK! WHY IN THE FUCK IS THE SITE TOTALLY IN PORTUGUESE?!"
Mark smiles.
2007
2005 and Mark's been served papers and there are lawyers and it’s going to be messy and huge and Eduardo really is coming back for everything. Asshole. It's a bad day because Mark’s pretending it’s a regular day of no significance and Chris and Dustin are deliberately keeping their distance and the worst part is? Mark knows why. They feel the sting of missing Eduardo too, the betrayal of what happened. Asshole. He codes for over 30 hours and then he sleeps for two straight days.
2006 and they're fucking hemorrhaging money. Mark knows this is a temporary setback. People are pumping money in, the user count just keeps growing, Mark knows it's just a temporary setback, but holy shit, they are losing money hand over fist. And people want to buy them out, everyone wants to buy them out, and Sean's fucking billion dollars is a real thing now, a real possibility. But he won't sell, he can't sell, Facebook is what he has left and - he almost calls, God, he comes so close to calling. The words what do you think we should we do? choke in his throat. He drinks until he passes out instead.
By 2007 and he wants to do something. He's been planning this part for the past seven months. It's not a very complicated plan but, really, his adversary's not a very complicated guy. He's gotten lazy and sloppy, which happens when you take your money and power for granted. Now he's relying on just a few hedge funds to handle the majority of his investments and interests.
At first, Mark didn't think he had the stomach for this, for all this business intrigue and corporate espionage. But once he started thinking about it like code, like binary, it was really quite easy. A few hostile takeovers, a few amenable buyouts, and it all starts clicking into place. Mark has lots of money now and even more importantly, he has name recognition and that’s power, so he gets what he wants fairly easily. Besides, he's not trying to do anything dramatic or evil like ruin this man forever or anything. He just wants a little more control.
On Eduardo's birthday, Mark has the papers messengered to his office in Singapore. As the newly named investment manager of several hedge funds and trust companies, Eduardo Saverin now has complete control over 63% of his father's capital.
Mark doesn't sign the note.
happy birthday. now you don't have to look at him.
2008
2008 is kinda miserable. Chris left to change the world and right on New Year’s Day, Dustin tells him he'll be leaving by the end of the year. Mark thinks of clinking bottles in the suite at Kirkland, disbelieving laughter, the feeling that together the four of them could do anything. It feels like another lifetime.
Eduardo never responded to last year's package. Mark hasn't spoken to him directly since, well, since the night he walked out of Facebook. They don't cross paths at fundraisers or shareholder's meetings because Eduardo makes a point to never be in Mark's path.
Mark's not going to send any more birthday presents. Mark's going to stay out of the path.
So, he takes a week off. It's unheard of. The gossip in the office runs the gamut. He's dying. Chris got him a position in the Obama administration. He's going to Bhutan to pull a Bruce Wayne. If anyone connects the dots about the dates he's going to be gone, they all know better than to say anything.
The plan is to just stay in his house and not have any human contact but at the last minute he panics at the thought and books a ticket to Dublin. He's never been to Ireland before and he decides, randomly, that he wants to see the Book of Kells. He wants to try to read the Latin that's survived against all odds for over a thousand years; that kept something beautiful and important in the world simply because some people sat down and decided they were going to design and create and they weren't going to give up.
He tells Dustin where he's going the night before his flight leaves. "Um, Mark. You know that ... you're going to be in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, right?"
Of course he didn't know that. Why would he be thinking about a fake holiday that perpetuated cultural stereotypes just to encourage drinking that you could do any day of the week?
He could cancel, of course, but then he's still stuck in his house. So, he flies out to Dublin on the 13th and then spends most of the week hiding from other tourists and, much to his surprise, falling in love with Dublin. It's a city you can get lost in, a city full of history and stories. It feels urban and rural all at once. He wishes ... he wishes a lot of things.
On Eduardo's birthday, Mark waits in line with a huge mass of people to see the Book of Kells. He can't quite believe when he finally gets a glimpse and sees one of the pages on display is the opening of The Gospel of Mark.
It's a never ending, interlocking, intricate maze of knots and lines, as complicated as any binary code, with colors still bursting after all these years. He feels tears pricking the back of his eyes, fucking tears, but he can't help himself; it's just so beautiful. Someone spent countless hours on this, made this against all odds, someone believed in this.
Here's what Mark knows about the gospel that shares his name, what he learned when he vainly chose it as a subject for a freshman research paper in Intro to Religion: The Gospel of Mark is the only canonical gospel with "alternative endings". Which for all the academic and religious double-talk basically means one thing: no one is sure of the ending of Mark.
And standing there, with tears now spilling down his face, staring at this manuscript page, Mark feels like he understands.
+
He pushes his way out of Trinity Library, he only has a few hours left.
He has a basketful of kiwis delivered to Eduardo's apartment.
I'm ready to try a kiwi. Please find me if you ever want to split one. I'm so sorry for everything. I don't know the ending, but I want to find out. Happy Birthday.
+
His phone buzzes in the middle of the night. unknown caller. He can't let himself hope.
"Hello?"
Silence. "When I tracked the company down they said it was an order from Ireland. What could you possibly be doing in Ireland, Mark?"
Wardo.
"I - I'm on vacation," Mark answers truthfully.
"You went on vacation? You left Facebook voluntarily? You went to Ireland? You didn’t delegate this to an assistant? You sent the order yourself?” Wardo’s voice is incredulous, somewhat frantic.
“Are you...are you dying?" Eduardo's voice shakes on the last word.
"No. I just needed to get some space. I - I wanted to see the Book of Kells."
"The Book of Kells?" Eduardo parrots, still sounding dazed.
"Have you ever seen The Book of Kells?"
"I, uhm, no."
"You should. It's beautiful."
"Mark, what is this -" Eduardo's voice is unsure.
Mark cuts him off. "I just wanted to say happy birthday. And I'm sorry. That's all."
"You said more than that, though." Eduardo sounds accusatory.
"I meant all of it."
Mark hears Eduardo give a small, short gasp on the other end of the line.
"You just can't do this, Mark," he rasps.
"Come see The Book of Kells," Mark blurts.
"What?" Eduardo's voice is panicked.
"We can talk. I'm on vacation, we can talk. That's all."
Eduardo exhales hard. "I have a life, Mark. I can't just drop my fucking life, OK, because you finally took a vacation and because you send me birthday presents and because you listened to me five fucking years ago!" Eduardo is almost shouting now.
"I didn't ask you to drop your life," Mark says slowly. "I just want to talk to you, in person, face to face! Come to - come to Dublin. Neutral territory. Just to talk, that's all!"
"It doesn't work this way - you can't -"
Mark feels desperate, thinks of writing his own ending. His voice, his traitorous voice, is ragged. "Don't you ever want - don't you ever miss me?" He gulps. He says it. "I miss you."
He hears Wardo take several trembling breathes.
"This better be some fucking beautiful piece of paper, Mark."
+
Eduardo brings kiwis.
+
Mark decides they're going to open their international headquarters in Dublin. He'll make it happen before the end of the year.
2009
The hardest part is how slowly it happens. Mark hates slow. Mark has always hated slow. He doesn't talk slow, he doesn't think slow, he doesn't act slow, he doesn't move slow. But reconnecting with Eduardo? It's slow.
"Slow is good, Mark," Chris reassures him one night over the phone, a friendly chuckle in his voice. “Slow lasts.”
That's just a ridiculously false equivalency, but when he tries to tell Chris that just he laughs harder.
(Everyone is laughing more now, Mark has definitely noticed that. Everyone is laughing and talking more. Sometimes, Mark, Eduardo, Chris, and Dustin, flung all over the globe, have four-way video chats where they talk over each other about movies and politics and comics and video games and Mark can't believe it's actually happening, but it really, actually, totally is.)
+
Eduardo comes to Dublin. They hang out for three days.
On the second day, Eduardo gasps with wonder, actual wonder, when he sees The Book of Kells. Mark beams a little and doesn't notice at first that Eduardo has laced their fingers together. "Mark, it's so -" Eduardo whispers, reverently.
Mark looks down at their joined hands. He squeezes. "I know."
On the last day, they wander aimlessly around Dublin, talking and making sure not to hurry, to take it slow. After, Mark invited Eduardo up to his room, but Eduardo said he needed to pack and rest. They decided to head to the airport together the next morning.
An hour later, there was a knock on his door. Of course, it was Eduardo.
"Hey, I forgot one thing," he said, holding out a room-service platter with slices of kiwi.
Mark laughed, stepped aside to let him in. "Um, it looks ... "
Eduardo walked inside the room, set the platter down. "Slimy, right? But it's really good, forget the seeds."
Mark tried not to make a face, but Eduardo's laughter indicated to him he must have failed.
Eduardo picked up a kiwi slice, walked towards Mark. He held his hand out. "Try it, Mark," his voice was rough and Mark knew -
He opened his mouth, bit the kiwi out of Eduardo's hand. The taste was fine, but he swallowed quickly. Then, before Eduardo had a chance to even lower his hand, Mark leaned closer and sucked Wardo's finger into his mouth. The sticky sweetness of the kiwi mixed with something darker and saltier. Eduardo.
Eduardo pulled his finger out of Mark's mouth, grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him forward. Their mouths met in a sloppy kiss - finally.
Three days after Eduardo's birthday, Mark thinks he's the one who got a gift.
+
They talk on the phone, they text, they send emails, they Skype. Sometimes they even send Facebook messages. They try to meet up at least once a month, but they stay on other sides of the world as, step-by-step, they rediscover each other.
It’s not always easy. They fight; they get frustrated at being fourteen hours apart. But most of the time it’s so good. They have the same easy camaraderie Mark remembers from Harvard but now, now, they have much more.
Mark doesn't want to take anything for granted; Mark wants to appreciate every second of it. He doesn't know how to say, "Move here, your consulting and investing is more mobile." without sounding like a totally selfish asshole.
They spend Hanukkah in New Jersey with his family. He thinks his Mom is sort of hoping that Mark is going to kneel down and propose in front of the Menorah, but he and Wardo have already exchanged gifts.
(Independently, they selected almost identical gifts. Eduardo arranged a week long stay in Dublin, Mark a week in Galway. They decide they'll take both.)
Then it's 2009. Mark wishes his boyfriend lived on the same side of the earth as him but he still doesn't quite know how to ask in the right way.
And, God, does he want to do this in the right way.
New Year's is Dublin, the luxury of a whole week together with work only when they choose (and, yes, they sometimes choose to work - because they both love what they do and because it makes them sharper and happier and now they even get to exchange ideas and strategies - what do you think we should do? - and that makes it all even better.) and waking up in the same bed and long showers together in the morning and dinner together every night and Mark wants that so much more than he can even think to say.
January 8th Mark is alone again in Palo Alto that’s wrong and he knows it and it's just over two months until Wardo's birthday. It always comes back to Wardo's birthday, doesn't it?
He plans out a hundred great strategies. Big, romantic gestures. Complicated, clever schemes. None of them seems right, it's all cliché and not worthy.
"Mark," Dustin sighs one night over the phone. "You could ask Wardo to come live in a grass hut with you and he'd say yes. He's been in love with you for six fucking years and he thought the Fruit of the Month club was a cool present. Just. ask. him.
Mark flies into Singapore a day early. He knocks on Eduardo's door (even though he has a key) and holds out a pineapple.
"I'm this pineapple. I'm prickly and a little different and hard to slice and people try to sell watered down versions of what I do best. I guess I am kind of an acquired taste, but I am also a good ingredient. Wait, I think I'm off topic."
But Eduardo's grinning at him as if he hung the moon, as if he's making total sense, so Mark plows ahead.
"What I mean is: thank you for making me try kiwi. Thank you for giving me the money to start Facebook. Have I ever even fucking said that? Thank you for coming to Dublin. Thank you for this past year. I want every year to be like this. I want you to move to California. I am this pineapple and I am asking you to come to California."
Eduardo pulled the pineapple out of his hands, set it down carefully at his feet and grabbed Mark's hands, squeezed.
"I thought the pineapple would never ask."
+
They eat the pineapple in bed and take turns licking pineapple juice off each other. At 12:01 Mark murmurs it into Eduardo's ear. "Happy birthday." Eduardo hums with contentment and presses himself even closer to Mark.
+
Two months later, Dustin and Chris show up the day of the move-in, a surprise for Mark arranged by Eduardo.
Dustin is carrying a giant bowl of strawberries. "Congratulations," Dustin says handing the bowl to Mark. "You're the first people ever enrolled in the Fruit of the Month club for life. Chris worked out some kind of arrangement with them."
"We even paid for it," Chris says wryly.
Eduardo reaches over and picks a strawberry out of the bowl, taking a big bite and smiling at Mark with a sweet glint of promise in his eyes. Mark feels his heart thumping so hard in his chest it almost hurts.
It is May 14th. It's his birthday.
It's perfect.
2011
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
- from A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
+
"Do we really have to go all the way to Los Angeles for my birthday present?" Eduardo sighs.
"Is the man who spent a year on the entire other side of the world from me really going to start complaining about commutes?"
"Having a personal plane like this would have really helped with that."
The two of them are sitting on the comfortable couch installed in the back of their newly purchased personal plane. "Yes," Mark said, sliding over to the end of the couch where Wardo is sprawled out, leaning his head on Wardo's chest. "If only you'd had the money to buy one then. Oh, wait."
Eduardo laughs and plants a kiss in Mark’s curls. "This better be worth it."
+
"You - you - rented out Griffith Observatory?"
Mark smirks. "Well, we might have bought the L.A. Public Library a new branch. But I thought my fiancé the meteorology geek might like a really good view of the biggest full moon in 18 years that just happens to be occurring on his birthday."
"Mark," Eduardo threw his arms around his neck. "Griffith Observatory! A supermoon!"
"Happy birthday, Wardo. I hope you're happy, I can't re-arrange the universe every year," Mark teased.
Eduardo kissed him, laughed into his mouth. "You couldn't. But we could."
Mark has no doubt.
"We are going out for Wardo's birthday Friday, no arguments," Dustin's shouting in that annoying way that means he thinks Mark isn't listening. Just because Mark is coding doesn't mean he can't listen.
Mark stops coding just long enough to wave a dismissive hand at Chris and Dustin who are sitting in the living area watching a movie.
"I mean it, Mark," Dustin continues. "I am telling you this on Monday so you have no excuses about not knowing and trying to duck out! And get a fucking present too!"
Present - Wardo - Birthday - it streams right into the code. Twenty minutes later (amateur hacking at best) and he has it all taken care of.
Dustin's voice is sing-songy over Chris's low laughter. "Maaaarky, don't you pretend you can't -"
Mark slides on his headphones and slips back to the code.
+
They're giving Wardo his gifts before they go out. Wardo has a semi-shocked smile on his face; he seems completely amazed that everyone has remembered his birthday much less that he’s getting presents. "You guys really didn't have to," he keeps repeating.
Mark's confident his gift for Eduardo is the best. Chris got him some book and Dustin bought him a bottle of scotch. Boring. Mark hands over a single sheet of paper.
Everyone watches Wardo's eyes scan the paper. The smile never slips off his face, if anything, it gets even larger. He beams at Mark. "Mark, thanks. This is great."
"What is it?" Chris asks.
Wardo holds the paper up. "Mark enrolled me in a Fruit of the Month club."
A single beat of silence before Dustin exclaims "What in the fuck? Mark, is this a prank?"
Mark is puzzled. "What kind of terrible prank would that be? It's real. Wardo will now get a fresh, seasonal shipment of fruit once a month for the next year. I think April is kiwis."
"Mark, you do realize that Wardo is not your 80 year old aunt?" Dustin hisses, keeping one eye on Eduardo, who's still smiling.
"Mark, what I think Dustin means is," Chris pauses as if weighing his words very carefully. "Why did you choose such an unusual and expensive gift for a 19 year old college sophomore who has shown no real interest in fruit?"
Mark sighs. "You know how Wardo's always bugging me to eat real food, food not out of a can?"
Chris bursts out laughing while Dustin closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Mark, did you buy Wardo food he can bring you to eat?"
"No, of course not. I don't want to eat kiwis! Wardo," he waves at him. "Tell them."
"You guys," Eduardo begins, looking at Dustin and Chris, his voice conciliatory. "I - I mean, I wouldn't say I have an interest in fruit...but I do really enjoy fresh food and fruit and it’s hard to get at school and one night when Mark and I were discussing, um, life, I mentioned that and how it’s one of the things I miss the most about Miami-"
Eduardo trails off and turns to look at Mark. They lock eyes and Mark feels a familiar flush rise up his neck. There's that thing that sometimes happens between him and Wardo, that thing that when the two of them are in the middle of a conversation and everything else sort of fades out. Mark's only used to that happening with code, it still makes him antsy and, well, excited when it happens with another person.
"I can't believe you remembered," Wardo half-whispers.
one of the first nights they stayed up past dawn talking, telling each other endless stories about growing up.
Mark shrugs. "I'm glad you like it," he answers, somehow just as softly.
It feels like a very long time until Chris clears his throat. "Hey, so, we're meeting some people?" He sounds almost apologetic.
Eduardo folds up the Fruit of the Month club certificate and tucks it inside his jacket pocket. "Yeah. Um, thanks ... everyone. This is amazing."
The four of them head out and no one mentions what just happened until they're stumbling back to Kirkland much later that night: Chris and Dustin in the lead, Mark and Eduardo lagging towards the back.
"Hey Mark," Dustin calls out over his shoulder. "How did you afford all that damn fruit for Wardo?"
"Well, I actually just wrote this program that bypasses -"
"Dude!" Dustin interrupts. "Don't ruin the perfect present by revealing you didn't even pay for it!" He and Chris bust up laughing.
Eduardo grins at Mark, fuzzily, and slings an arm around Mark's shoulder, squeezing him close. "You'll have to try a kiwi," he whispers into Mark's ear.
Mark almost shudders.
It’s perfect.
2004
In the beginning of March they expand thefacebook to Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, and even fucking Yale. They're bi-coastal and broken out of the Ivy League.
Mark, Eduardo, Dustin, and Chris toast in the suite, clink Beck's bottles over delirious laughter. "Shit just got real!" Dustin crows.
This is happening. This is really, actually, totally happening.
In between still trying to attend class and keep thefacebook going and expanding the four of them run at a near constant state of exhaustion. Dustin and Mark code until they pass out at their computers. Chris is constantly working with student papers both answering questions and getting the party line out. Eduardo follows the stock market like a zealot, Mark knows he's doing something with trading, he has spreadsheets tracking how much money they have and forecasting how much more money they're going to need and when.
They're college students and businessmen and inventors and entrepreneurs and they can't even legally buy beer and this is really, actually, totally happening.
They don't have a party or a night out planned for Eduardo's birthday this year, but it's not like Mark has forgotten the date.
By 12:15 the changes are done. It's not particularly hard code. He shoots off a quick email to Wardo. He'll be up.
To: eduardo.saverin@harvard.edu
From: mark.zuckerberg@harvard.edu
Wardo,
I know everything is crazy lately but I just wanted to tell you how much... how much this year has totally rocked so far. I know it’s only going to get better.
Anyhow, happy birthday. Head over to thefacebook for your present. Think I'm gonna leave it up for a few hours, see how long it'll take Dustin to crack my code and how many press releases about errors Chris has to release tomorrow.
-M
It only takes ten minutes for Dustin to shriek in horror. "Mark," he screams in a voice that could raise the dead. "MARK! What did you do? Why can't I undo it? MARK! WHY IN THE FUCK IS THE SITE TOTALLY IN PORTUGUESE?!"
Mark smiles.
2007
2005 and Mark's been served papers and there are lawyers and it’s going to be messy and huge and Eduardo really is coming back for everything. Asshole. It's a bad day because Mark’s pretending it’s a regular day of no significance and Chris and Dustin are deliberately keeping their distance and the worst part is? Mark knows why. They feel the sting of missing Eduardo too, the betrayal of what happened. Asshole. He codes for over 30 hours and then he sleeps for two straight days.
2006 and they're fucking hemorrhaging money. Mark knows this is a temporary setback. People are pumping money in, the user count just keeps growing, Mark knows it's just a temporary setback, but holy shit, they are losing money hand over fist. And people want to buy them out, everyone wants to buy them out, and Sean's fucking billion dollars is a real thing now, a real possibility. But he won't sell, he can't sell, Facebook is what he has left and - he almost calls, God, he comes so close to calling. The words what do you think we should we do? choke in his throat. He drinks until he passes out instead.
By 2007 and he wants to do something. He's been planning this part for the past seven months. It's not a very complicated plan but, really, his adversary's not a very complicated guy. He's gotten lazy and sloppy, which happens when you take your money and power for granted. Now he's relying on just a few hedge funds to handle the majority of his investments and interests.
At first, Mark didn't think he had the stomach for this, for all this business intrigue and corporate espionage. But once he started thinking about it like code, like binary, it was really quite easy. A few hostile takeovers, a few amenable buyouts, and it all starts clicking into place. Mark has lots of money now and even more importantly, he has name recognition and that’s power, so he gets what he wants fairly easily. Besides, he's not trying to do anything dramatic or evil like ruin this man forever or anything. He just wants a little more control.
On Eduardo's birthday, Mark has the papers messengered to his office in Singapore. As the newly named investment manager of several hedge funds and trust companies, Eduardo Saverin now has complete control over 63% of his father's capital.
Mark doesn't sign the note.
happy birthday. now you don't have to look at him.
2008
2008 is kinda miserable. Chris left to change the world and right on New Year’s Day, Dustin tells him he'll be leaving by the end of the year. Mark thinks of clinking bottles in the suite at Kirkland, disbelieving laughter, the feeling that together the four of them could do anything. It feels like another lifetime.
Eduardo never responded to last year's package. Mark hasn't spoken to him directly since, well, since the night he walked out of Facebook. They don't cross paths at fundraisers or shareholder's meetings because Eduardo makes a point to never be in Mark's path.
Mark's not going to send any more birthday presents. Mark's going to stay out of the path.
So, he takes a week off. It's unheard of. The gossip in the office runs the gamut. He's dying. Chris got him a position in the Obama administration. He's going to Bhutan to pull a Bruce Wayne. If anyone connects the dots about the dates he's going to be gone, they all know better than to say anything.
The plan is to just stay in his house and not have any human contact but at the last minute he panics at the thought and books a ticket to Dublin. He's never been to Ireland before and he decides, randomly, that he wants to see the Book of Kells. He wants to try to read the Latin that's survived against all odds for over a thousand years; that kept something beautiful and important in the world simply because some people sat down and decided they were going to design and create and they weren't going to give up.
He tells Dustin where he's going the night before his flight leaves. "Um, Mark. You know that ... you're going to be in Dublin for St. Patrick's Day, right?"
Of course he didn't know that. Why would he be thinking about a fake holiday that perpetuated cultural stereotypes just to encourage drinking that you could do any day of the week?
He could cancel, of course, but then he's still stuck in his house. So, he flies out to Dublin on the 13th and then spends most of the week hiding from other tourists and, much to his surprise, falling in love with Dublin. It's a city you can get lost in, a city full of history and stories. It feels urban and rural all at once. He wishes ... he wishes a lot of things.
On Eduardo's birthday, Mark waits in line with a huge mass of people to see the Book of Kells. He can't quite believe when he finally gets a glimpse and sees one of the pages on display is the opening of The Gospel of Mark.
It's a never ending, interlocking, intricate maze of knots and lines, as complicated as any binary code, with colors still bursting after all these years. He feels tears pricking the back of his eyes, fucking tears, but he can't help himself; it's just so beautiful. Someone spent countless hours on this, made this against all odds, someone believed in this.
Here's what Mark knows about the gospel that shares his name, what he learned when he vainly chose it as a subject for a freshman research paper in Intro to Religion: The Gospel of Mark is the only canonical gospel with "alternative endings". Which for all the academic and religious double-talk basically means one thing: no one is sure of the ending of Mark.
And standing there, with tears now spilling down his face, staring at this manuscript page, Mark feels like he understands.
+
He pushes his way out of Trinity Library, he only has a few hours left.
He has a basketful of kiwis delivered to Eduardo's apartment.
I'm ready to try a kiwi. Please find me if you ever want to split one. I'm so sorry for everything. I don't know the ending, but I want to find out. Happy Birthday.
+
His phone buzzes in the middle of the night. unknown caller. He can't let himself hope.
"Hello?"
Silence. "When I tracked the company down they said it was an order from Ireland. What could you possibly be doing in Ireland, Mark?"
Wardo.
"I - I'm on vacation," Mark answers truthfully.
"You went on vacation? You left Facebook voluntarily? You went to Ireland? You didn’t delegate this to an assistant? You sent the order yourself?” Wardo’s voice is incredulous, somewhat frantic.
“Are you...are you dying?" Eduardo's voice shakes on the last word.
"No. I just needed to get some space. I - I wanted to see the Book of Kells."
"The Book of Kells?" Eduardo parrots, still sounding dazed.
"Have you ever seen The Book of Kells?"
"I, uhm, no."
"You should. It's beautiful."
"Mark, what is this -" Eduardo's voice is unsure.
Mark cuts him off. "I just wanted to say happy birthday. And I'm sorry. That's all."
"You said more than that, though." Eduardo sounds accusatory.
"I meant all of it."
Mark hears Eduardo give a small, short gasp on the other end of the line.
"You just can't do this, Mark," he rasps.
"Come see The Book of Kells," Mark blurts.
"What?" Eduardo's voice is panicked.
"We can talk. I'm on vacation, we can talk. That's all."
Eduardo exhales hard. "I have a life, Mark. I can't just drop my fucking life, OK, because you finally took a vacation and because you send me birthday presents and because you listened to me five fucking years ago!" Eduardo is almost shouting now.
"I didn't ask you to drop your life," Mark says slowly. "I just want to talk to you, in person, face to face! Come to - come to Dublin. Neutral territory. Just to talk, that's all!"
"It doesn't work this way - you can't -"
Mark feels desperate, thinks of writing his own ending. His voice, his traitorous voice, is ragged. "Don't you ever want - don't you ever miss me?" He gulps. He says it. "I miss you."
He hears Wardo take several trembling breathes.
"This better be some fucking beautiful piece of paper, Mark."
+
Eduardo brings kiwis.
+
Mark decides they're going to open their international headquarters in Dublin. He'll make it happen before the end of the year.
2009
The hardest part is how slowly it happens. Mark hates slow. Mark has always hated slow. He doesn't talk slow, he doesn't think slow, he doesn't act slow, he doesn't move slow. But reconnecting with Eduardo? It's slow.
"Slow is good, Mark," Chris reassures him one night over the phone, a friendly chuckle in his voice. “Slow lasts.”
That's just a ridiculously false equivalency, but when he tries to tell Chris that just he laughs harder.
(Everyone is laughing more now, Mark has definitely noticed that. Everyone is laughing and talking more. Sometimes, Mark, Eduardo, Chris, and Dustin, flung all over the globe, have four-way video chats where they talk over each other about movies and politics and comics and video games and Mark can't believe it's actually happening, but it really, actually, totally is.)
+
Eduardo comes to Dublin. They hang out for three days.
On the second day, Eduardo gasps with wonder, actual wonder, when he sees The Book of Kells. Mark beams a little and doesn't notice at first that Eduardo has laced their fingers together. "Mark, it's so -" Eduardo whispers, reverently.
Mark looks down at their joined hands. He squeezes. "I know."
On the last day, they wander aimlessly around Dublin, talking and making sure not to hurry, to take it slow. After, Mark invited Eduardo up to his room, but Eduardo said he needed to pack and rest. They decided to head to the airport together the next morning.
An hour later, there was a knock on his door. Of course, it was Eduardo.
"Hey, I forgot one thing," he said, holding out a room-service platter with slices of kiwi.
Mark laughed, stepped aside to let him in. "Um, it looks ... "
Eduardo walked inside the room, set the platter down. "Slimy, right? But it's really good, forget the seeds."
Mark tried not to make a face, but Eduardo's laughter indicated to him he must have failed.
Eduardo picked up a kiwi slice, walked towards Mark. He held his hand out. "Try it, Mark," his voice was rough and Mark knew -
He opened his mouth, bit the kiwi out of Eduardo's hand. The taste was fine, but he swallowed quickly. Then, before Eduardo had a chance to even lower his hand, Mark leaned closer and sucked Wardo's finger into his mouth. The sticky sweetness of the kiwi mixed with something darker and saltier. Eduardo.
Eduardo pulled his finger out of Mark's mouth, grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him forward. Their mouths met in a sloppy kiss - finally.
Three days after Eduardo's birthday, Mark thinks he's the one who got a gift.
+
They talk on the phone, they text, they send emails, they Skype. Sometimes they even send Facebook messages. They try to meet up at least once a month, but they stay on other sides of the world as, step-by-step, they rediscover each other.
It’s not always easy. They fight; they get frustrated at being fourteen hours apart. But most of the time it’s so good. They have the same easy camaraderie Mark remembers from Harvard but now, now, they have much more.
Mark doesn't want to take anything for granted; Mark wants to appreciate every second of it. He doesn't know how to say, "Move here, your consulting and investing is more mobile." without sounding like a totally selfish asshole.
They spend Hanukkah in New Jersey with his family. He thinks his Mom is sort of hoping that Mark is going to kneel down and propose in front of the Menorah, but he and Wardo have already exchanged gifts.
(Independently, they selected almost identical gifts. Eduardo arranged a week long stay in Dublin, Mark a week in Galway. They decide they'll take both.)
Then it's 2009. Mark wishes his boyfriend lived on the same side of the earth as him but he still doesn't quite know how to ask in the right way.
And, God, does he want to do this in the right way.
New Year's is Dublin, the luxury of a whole week together with work only when they choose (and, yes, they sometimes choose to work - because they both love what they do and because it makes them sharper and happier and now they even get to exchange ideas and strategies - what do you think we should do? - and that makes it all even better.) and waking up in the same bed and long showers together in the morning and dinner together every night and Mark wants that so much more than he can even think to say.
January 8th Mark is alone again in Palo Alto that’s wrong and he knows it and it's just over two months until Wardo's birthday. It always comes back to Wardo's birthday, doesn't it?
He plans out a hundred great strategies. Big, romantic gestures. Complicated, clever schemes. None of them seems right, it's all cliché and not worthy.
"Mark," Dustin sighs one night over the phone. "You could ask Wardo to come live in a grass hut with you and he'd say yes. He's been in love with you for six fucking years and he thought the Fruit of the Month club was a cool present. Just. ask. him.
Mark flies into Singapore a day early. He knocks on Eduardo's door (even though he has a key) and holds out a pineapple.
"I'm this pineapple. I'm prickly and a little different and hard to slice and people try to sell watered down versions of what I do best. I guess I am kind of an acquired taste, but I am also a good ingredient. Wait, I think I'm off topic."
But Eduardo's grinning at him as if he hung the moon, as if he's making total sense, so Mark plows ahead.
"What I mean is: thank you for making me try kiwi. Thank you for giving me the money to start Facebook. Have I ever even fucking said that? Thank you for coming to Dublin. Thank you for this past year. I want every year to be like this. I want you to move to California. I am this pineapple and I am asking you to come to California."
Eduardo pulled the pineapple out of his hands, set it down carefully at his feet and grabbed Mark's hands, squeezed.
"I thought the pineapple would never ask."
+
They eat the pineapple in bed and take turns licking pineapple juice off each other. At 12:01 Mark murmurs it into Eduardo's ear. "Happy birthday." Eduardo hums with contentment and presses himself even closer to Mark.
+
Two months later, Dustin and Chris show up the day of the move-in, a surprise for Mark arranged by Eduardo.
Dustin is carrying a giant bowl of strawberries. "Congratulations," Dustin says handing the bowl to Mark. "You're the first people ever enrolled in the Fruit of the Month club for life. Chris worked out some kind of arrangement with them."
"We even paid for it," Chris says wryly.
Eduardo reaches over and picks a strawberry out of the bowl, taking a big bite and smiling at Mark with a sweet glint of promise in his eyes. Mark feels his heart thumping so hard in his chest it almost hurts.
It is May 14th. It's his birthday.
It's perfect.
2011
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.
- from A Birthday by Christina Rossetti
+
"Do we really have to go all the way to Los Angeles for my birthday present?" Eduardo sighs.
"Is the man who spent a year on the entire other side of the world from me really going to start complaining about commutes?"
"Having a personal plane like this would have really helped with that."
The two of them are sitting on the comfortable couch installed in the back of their newly purchased personal plane. "Yes," Mark said, sliding over to the end of the couch where Wardo is sprawled out, leaning his head on Wardo's chest. "If only you'd had the money to buy one then. Oh, wait."
Eduardo laughs and plants a kiss in Mark’s curls. "This better be worth it."
+
"You - you - rented out Griffith Observatory?"
Mark smirks. "Well, we might have bought the L.A. Public Library a new branch. But I thought my fiancé the meteorology geek might like a really good view of the biggest full moon in 18 years that just happens to be occurring on his birthday."
"Mark," Eduardo threw his arms around his neck. "Griffith Observatory! A supermoon!"
"Happy birthday, Wardo. I hope you're happy, I can't re-arrange the universe every year," Mark teased.
Eduardo kissed him, laughed into his mouth. "You couldn't. But we could."
Mark has no doubt.