I'm Here (2/5)
title: I'm Here (2/5)
pairing: Mark/Eduardo
disclaimer: Based on the Social Network idea of Mark Eduardo, but in no way true. All from my own head.
fill: for this prompt, in which Mark and Eduardo are friends again after the settlement, and they are going to be more than friends, but Eduardo wants to take things slow. So, to ease his boredom, Mark strikes up a not entirely platonic relationship with Cameron Winklevoss.
A/N: Just a bit of silliness while I try and finish Part 5 of Bones.
Follow up to: Part 1
The thought of Mark with a Winklevoss keeps Eduardo up most of the night. He has only met the twins a few times when he was called in as a witness in their lawsuit with Mark. He had been hesitant, at first, to help Mark, but his desire to prove to everyone that the Winklevii and their friend had nothing to do with Facebook was too strong. He never knew them at Harvard, hadn’t even know what they looked like until they walked into the conference room with their lawyer. But what Cameron Winklevoss looks like is suddenly now all that Eduardo can think about.
Cameron Winklevoss is big. Like, huge. Like you have to tilt your head back to look him in the eye huge. And he is the kind of sickening, Abercrombie & Fitch handsome that anyone - straight or gay - appreciates. Eduardo doesn’t know - maybe Mark is in to that kind of thing. Personally Eduardo thinks that Mark and Cameron would look pretty dumb together. Too off-balance. Mark would look good with -
Do not finish that thought, Eduardo’s brain screams at itself. Mark would look good with anyone because Mark is pretty and he has those eyes that make him look like he can read your soul and just because when he stands next to you he is the exact right height to be able to rest his head on your should does not mean...
Eduardo has to remind himself daily - hourly, minutely, if he is actually with Mark - that he is angry. He is still angry and hurt and betrayed and just because Mark finally admitted that he has been harbouring the world’s most epically disguised crush on Eduardo does not mean that Eduardo is going to let all that other stuff go. Not yet. Eduardo still has some dignity. Not much, but some.
And so he and Mark have been going for coffee together, lunches, dinners in quietly expensive restaurants like the one that Eduardo is waiting in now. And they have talked, talked some things through, told each other what they want, what they want to happen. Both of them know where it is going. And both of them are waiting for Eduardo to forgive Mark because they do not want to start a relationship, a real, forever relationship when Eduardo still flinches every time that Facebook or Sean Parker is mentioned.
Mark said he would wait. As long as it took. He said he understood. All I want is for you to be happy, he had told Eduardo earnestly at one of their first meetings after their reconciliation. I would prefer it if that happiness involved me, and I think you would too. One day you will realise that you’re not mad at me any more, and then we can be together.
It had been those words that had made Eduardo realise how much Mark had grown up in the past couple of years. It had made him see how much Mark had matured. Maybe now, Eduardo thought, Mark was ready to board the Good Ship Gay and embark upon a proper relationship with his ex-best friend.
But now. Now Mark has gone on a date. With Cameron Winklevoss.
Eduardo feels sick.
***
Mark strolls in to the restaurant almost 20 minutes late, but Eduardo cannot be annoyed because Mark appears to have actually...made...an effort. He has on a crisp white shirt, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up, a black tie, pressed black trousers and actual polished shoes. Eduardo has the strangest urge to stand up and lick his cheek.
“We were supposed to meet at nine,” he says as Mark sits down without a word of apology.
Mark looks around the quiet restaurant, distracted. When he turns back to Eduardo, he frowns and says, “huh?”
“Nothing,” Eduardo sighs. He rests his elbows on the table and smiles when he imagines how his father would react to that.
“Right,” Mark replies, staring at a point just to the left of Eduardo’s head.
Eduardo is having trouble holding on to his irritation towards Mark right now when he looks so…so…delicious. His eyes are dark with tiredness, but they still gleam that ever-familiar blue that Eduardo has dreamt about so many times, and when Mark finally smiles awkwardly at him, he can feel the heat of attraction in the pit of his stomach that always seems to radiate downwards when they are together.
“You look nice,” Eduardo says, and Jesus Christ, Mark actually blushes, staring down at his knife and fork with forced attention.
“Right,” he mumbles again, as f he doesn’t believe a word that Eduardo is saying, and then, softly, like it is a secret, “you do, too.”
Now Eduardo is blushing, and he feels 15 again, as though he has lost control over all of his emotions. He has a million and one questions about Mark’s date with Cameron Winklevoss (why, he thinks, do I have to refer to him by his full name), but he wants to at least attempt to give off the impression that he hasn’t been thinking about it for the past 12 hours. Nonchalance is the key.
“So how was your date last night?”
The words burst out of his mouth before he can even begin to stop himself and he colours a deep, painfully hot red. He bites his lip, as if that can stop him from making an even bigger fool of himself.
“It wasn’t a date,” Mark replies calmly.
“Then what was it?”
“A…drink.”
“It was just you two,” Eduardo presses.
“Yeees…”
“And you went for a drink. Together. In a bar.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds kind of like a date.”
“We drank beer, Eduardo. We sat at opposite sides of the table. We didn’t hold hands or giggle at one another over jaunty cocktail umbrellas.”
“Have you been watching Sex and the City?”
Mark frowns. “What’s that?”
“You don’t know -? Wow, forget it,” Eduardo says, shaking his head. “Are you seeing him again?”
“Who?”
“Him.”
“You can say his name, you know. It isn’t going to make him appear out of thin air.”
Eduardo sighs. “Fine. Cameron Winklevoss. Now stop dodging the question, Mark.”
Mark looks up into Eduardo’s eyes with a look that says that brutal honesty is imminent. “Ok. Yes, I am probably going to see him again.”
The air drains from Eduardo’s lungs. He hadn’t expected this, he really hadn’t. He had assumed that it would be a one-time thing, some weird experiment that Mark was conducting about human interaction, or something. But he - he’s going to -
“Why?”
The question sounds so desperate and pained that Eduardo wishes he could grab hold of the word and swallow it back down.
“Why? Because he’s nice. Because he is incredibly smart and interesting. Because he appreciates what I’m doing. And because when he looks at me, he doesn’t look like he can’t decide whether to hit me in the face or not.”
Eduardo flushes. “I look like that?”
Mark shrugs, but Eduardo doesn’t miss the way that he won’t look him in the eye.
“And - shit - hang on. What? He appreciates you? What does that even mean?”
Mark nods. “He likes Facebook. He understands it now. It was the other two, Tyler and Divya Whateverhisnamewas that pushed for the lawsuit. Cameron, he - he appreciates the innovation behind Facebook, even if he does think that I took his idea. Something that he never mentioned once, by the way.”
“You think he’s serious?” Eduardo asks sceptically.
“About Facebook? Yes, I do. He looked…proud.”
“Proud? Seriously?”
“Yeah. He still thinks that the basis for Facebook was their idea, but the fact that we turned it into what it is makes him pleased for us. It’s a nice feeling, to actually be appreciated.” The ‘for once’ goes unsaid. “Besides, whatever we do, the Winklevii are inextricably linked to Facebook now. You Google them and Facebook comes up.”
But Eduardo has stopped listening. Mark said ‘we’. The fact that we turned it into what it is. Mark never used to say ‘we’. Facebook was always ‘I’ or ‘mine’. But now…now Facebook is ‘we’.
“Wardo? What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Eduardo says, shaking his head. Too many things are flying at him from all directions, Winklevosses and dates and that ‘we’.
They fall into an awkward silence, staring at their menus that had appeared at their table, until someone comes to take their order. Eduardo cannot get the image of Cameron Winklevoss handing Mark a bottle of beer out of his head, his fingers brushing against Mark’s as though he has any claim to Mark, any ties to him whatsoever. He hates guys that row crew.
Over the starters they tell each other about their day, Mark relaying some story about a new English kid that he has working with him and how utterly terrified she was at the start of the day compared to at the end of the day when she bumped fists with him and said ‘see you tomorrow, mate.’ Eduardo tries to explain about a new investment that he is making, but only ends up feeling self-conscious because Mark’s life sounds so much more fun and interesting than his. But Mark leans forward and listens with rapt attention, his eyes focusing in on Eduardo’s lips every now and then as if he is watching every word pass over them.
How different things are now, Eduardo realises. Before it was he who knew all the people, he who had the stories. Now Mark is the one who always has plans, who has stories about all the people he knows and the things he does. Has Mark become more exciting or has Eduardo become more boring? Being without Eduardo appears to have transformed Mark into a social butterfly, only with more sardonic quips and no patience. Being without Mark has turned Eduardo into an internet-stalking multi-millionaire recluse. Who got the better deal?
Eduardo is halfway through his steak when Mark drops his fork and says, with more passion than Eduardo has ever seen him muster before, “What are we doing here, Wardo?”
“Um,” he says around a mouthful of beef. “Eating?”
“No, I mean what are we doing? Going out for dinner and talking about shitty interns and what my sisters are up to? This is insane.”
And Mark looks kind of insane; his eyes are bright, almost feverish, and he is staring at Eduardo with unashamed desperation.
“Well,” Eduardo says, picking up his glass. “What do you want to be doing?”
Mark raises an eyebrow in such a lascivious way that it makes Eduardo choke on his drink. He splutters and clamps his napkin over his mouth, while Mark jumps up to smack him on the back. When Eduardo finally stops coughing, Mark puts a hand on his shoulder and says gently, “are you okay?”
Eduardo nods and shrugs him off, then immediately regrets it. Mark sits down, looking dejected. How is it that Eduardo can be so disgustingly jealous of even the thought of another man touching Mark, but when Mark touches him an insatiable anger bubbles up inside of him that he can’t control?
“Hey. Hey, Mark. Hey. I’m sorry, okay?” Eduardo says until Mark looks up. “I’m sorry. Just…hang on, okay? I’m getting there.”
“Are you?” Mark murmurs, shaking his head.
“Yes. Come on, Mark.” He reaches across the table as if to touch him, but at the last minute drops his hand. “Just…just give me…Just, Mark.”
But Mark is shaking his head again. “You want to know why I see Cameron? Really?”
Eduardo nods slowly, not sure if his answer really is yes.
“I see him because I need something to stop me thinking about you.”
With that, he stands up, pulls out his wallet and drops two hundred dollar bills on the table, and, for the second time in two days, walks away from Eduardo.
Continued.
pairing: Mark/Eduardo
disclaimer: Based on the Social Network idea of Mark Eduardo, but in no way true. All from my own head.
fill: for this prompt, in which Mark and Eduardo are friends again after the settlement, and they are going to be more than friends, but Eduardo wants to take things slow. So, to ease his boredom, Mark strikes up a not entirely platonic relationship with Cameron Winklevoss.
A/N: Just a bit of silliness while I try and finish Part 5 of Bones.
Follow up to: Part 1
The thought of Mark with a Winklevoss keeps Eduardo up most of the night. He has only met the twins a few times when he was called in as a witness in their lawsuit with Mark. He had been hesitant, at first, to help Mark, but his desire to prove to everyone that the Winklevii and their friend had nothing to do with Facebook was too strong. He never knew them at Harvard, hadn’t even know what they looked like until they walked into the conference room with their lawyer. But what Cameron Winklevoss looks like is suddenly now all that Eduardo can think about.
Cameron Winklevoss is big. Like, huge. Like you have to tilt your head back to look him in the eye huge. And he is the kind of sickening, Abercrombie & Fitch handsome that anyone - straight or gay - appreciates. Eduardo doesn’t know - maybe Mark is in to that kind of thing. Personally Eduardo thinks that Mark and Cameron would look pretty dumb together. Too off-balance. Mark would look good with -
Do not finish that thought, Eduardo’s brain screams at itself. Mark would look good with anyone because Mark is pretty and he has those eyes that make him look like he can read your soul and just because when he stands next to you he is the exact right height to be able to rest his head on your should does not mean...
Eduardo has to remind himself daily - hourly, minutely, if he is actually with Mark - that he is angry. He is still angry and hurt and betrayed and just because Mark finally admitted that he has been harbouring the world’s most epically disguised crush on Eduardo does not mean that Eduardo is going to let all that other stuff go. Not yet. Eduardo still has some dignity. Not much, but some.
And so he and Mark have been going for coffee together, lunches, dinners in quietly expensive restaurants like the one that Eduardo is waiting in now. And they have talked, talked some things through, told each other what they want, what they want to happen. Both of them know where it is going. And both of them are waiting for Eduardo to forgive Mark because they do not want to start a relationship, a real, forever relationship when Eduardo still flinches every time that Facebook or Sean Parker is mentioned.
Mark said he would wait. As long as it took. He said he understood. All I want is for you to be happy, he had told Eduardo earnestly at one of their first meetings after their reconciliation. I would prefer it if that happiness involved me, and I think you would too. One day you will realise that you’re not mad at me any more, and then we can be together.
It had been those words that had made Eduardo realise how much Mark had grown up in the past couple of years. It had made him see how much Mark had matured. Maybe now, Eduardo thought, Mark was ready to board the Good Ship Gay and embark upon a proper relationship with his ex-best friend.
But now. Now Mark has gone on a date. With Cameron Winklevoss.
Eduardo feels sick.
***
Mark strolls in to the restaurant almost 20 minutes late, but Eduardo cannot be annoyed because Mark appears to have actually...made...an effort. He has on a crisp white shirt, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up, a black tie, pressed black trousers and actual polished shoes. Eduardo has the strangest urge to stand up and lick his cheek.
“We were supposed to meet at nine,” he says as Mark sits down without a word of apology.
Mark looks around the quiet restaurant, distracted. When he turns back to Eduardo, he frowns and says, “huh?”
“Nothing,” Eduardo sighs. He rests his elbows on the table and smiles when he imagines how his father would react to that.
“Right,” Mark replies, staring at a point just to the left of Eduardo’s head.
Eduardo is having trouble holding on to his irritation towards Mark right now when he looks so…so…delicious. His eyes are dark with tiredness, but they still gleam that ever-familiar blue that Eduardo has dreamt about so many times, and when Mark finally smiles awkwardly at him, he can feel the heat of attraction in the pit of his stomach that always seems to radiate downwards when they are together.
“You look nice,” Eduardo says, and Jesus Christ, Mark actually blushes, staring down at his knife and fork with forced attention.
“Right,” he mumbles again, as f he doesn’t believe a word that Eduardo is saying, and then, softly, like it is a secret, “you do, too.”
Now Eduardo is blushing, and he feels 15 again, as though he has lost control over all of his emotions. He has a million and one questions about Mark’s date with Cameron Winklevoss (why, he thinks, do I have to refer to him by his full name), but he wants to at least attempt to give off the impression that he hasn’t been thinking about it for the past 12 hours. Nonchalance is the key.
“So how was your date last night?”
The words burst out of his mouth before he can even begin to stop himself and he colours a deep, painfully hot red. He bites his lip, as if that can stop him from making an even bigger fool of himself.
“It wasn’t a date,” Mark replies calmly.
“Then what was it?”
“A…drink.”
“It was just you two,” Eduardo presses.
“Yeees…”
“And you went for a drink. Together. In a bar.”
“Yes.”
“That sounds kind of like a date.”
“We drank beer, Eduardo. We sat at opposite sides of the table. We didn’t hold hands or giggle at one another over jaunty cocktail umbrellas.”
“Have you been watching Sex and the City?”
Mark frowns. “What’s that?”
“You don’t know -? Wow, forget it,” Eduardo says, shaking his head. “Are you seeing him again?”
“Who?”
“Him.”
“You can say his name, you know. It isn’t going to make him appear out of thin air.”
Eduardo sighs. “Fine. Cameron Winklevoss. Now stop dodging the question, Mark.”
Mark looks up into Eduardo’s eyes with a look that says that brutal honesty is imminent. “Ok. Yes, I am probably going to see him again.”
The air drains from Eduardo’s lungs. He hadn’t expected this, he really hadn’t. He had assumed that it would be a one-time thing, some weird experiment that Mark was conducting about human interaction, or something. But he - he’s going to -
“Why?”
The question sounds so desperate and pained that Eduardo wishes he could grab hold of the word and swallow it back down.
“Why? Because he’s nice. Because he is incredibly smart and interesting. Because he appreciates what I’m doing. And because when he looks at me, he doesn’t look like he can’t decide whether to hit me in the face or not.”
Eduardo flushes. “I look like that?”
Mark shrugs, but Eduardo doesn’t miss the way that he won’t look him in the eye.
“And - shit - hang on. What? He appreciates you? What does that even mean?”
Mark nods. “He likes Facebook. He understands it now. It was the other two, Tyler and Divya Whateverhisnamewas that pushed for the lawsuit. Cameron, he - he appreciates the innovation behind Facebook, even if he does think that I took his idea. Something that he never mentioned once, by the way.”
“You think he’s serious?” Eduardo asks sceptically.
“About Facebook? Yes, I do. He looked…proud.”
“Proud? Seriously?”
“Yeah. He still thinks that the basis for Facebook was their idea, but the fact that we turned it into what it is makes him pleased for us. It’s a nice feeling, to actually be appreciated.” The ‘for once’ goes unsaid. “Besides, whatever we do, the Winklevii are inextricably linked to Facebook now. You Google them and Facebook comes up.”
But Eduardo has stopped listening. Mark said ‘we’. The fact that we turned it into what it is. Mark never used to say ‘we’. Facebook was always ‘I’ or ‘mine’. But now…now Facebook is ‘we’.
“Wardo? What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Eduardo says, shaking his head. Too many things are flying at him from all directions, Winklevosses and dates and that ‘we’.
They fall into an awkward silence, staring at their menus that had appeared at their table, until someone comes to take their order. Eduardo cannot get the image of Cameron Winklevoss handing Mark a bottle of beer out of his head, his fingers brushing against Mark’s as though he has any claim to Mark, any ties to him whatsoever. He hates guys that row crew.
Over the starters they tell each other about their day, Mark relaying some story about a new English kid that he has working with him and how utterly terrified she was at the start of the day compared to at the end of the day when she bumped fists with him and said ‘see you tomorrow, mate.’ Eduardo tries to explain about a new investment that he is making, but only ends up feeling self-conscious because Mark’s life sounds so much more fun and interesting than his. But Mark leans forward and listens with rapt attention, his eyes focusing in on Eduardo’s lips every now and then as if he is watching every word pass over them.
How different things are now, Eduardo realises. Before it was he who knew all the people, he who had the stories. Now Mark is the one who always has plans, who has stories about all the people he knows and the things he does. Has Mark become more exciting or has Eduardo become more boring? Being without Eduardo appears to have transformed Mark into a social butterfly, only with more sardonic quips and no patience. Being without Mark has turned Eduardo into an internet-stalking multi-millionaire recluse. Who got the better deal?
Eduardo is halfway through his steak when Mark drops his fork and says, with more passion than Eduardo has ever seen him muster before, “What are we doing here, Wardo?”
“Um,” he says around a mouthful of beef. “Eating?”
“No, I mean what are we doing? Going out for dinner and talking about shitty interns and what my sisters are up to? This is insane.”
And Mark looks kind of insane; his eyes are bright, almost feverish, and he is staring at Eduardo with unashamed desperation.
“Well,” Eduardo says, picking up his glass. “What do you want to be doing?”
Mark raises an eyebrow in such a lascivious way that it makes Eduardo choke on his drink. He splutters and clamps his napkin over his mouth, while Mark jumps up to smack him on the back. When Eduardo finally stops coughing, Mark puts a hand on his shoulder and says gently, “are you okay?”
Eduardo nods and shrugs him off, then immediately regrets it. Mark sits down, looking dejected. How is it that Eduardo can be so disgustingly jealous of even the thought of another man touching Mark, but when Mark touches him an insatiable anger bubbles up inside of him that he can’t control?
“Hey. Hey, Mark. Hey. I’m sorry, okay?” Eduardo says until Mark looks up. “I’m sorry. Just…hang on, okay? I’m getting there.”
“Are you?” Mark murmurs, shaking his head.
“Yes. Come on, Mark.” He reaches across the table as if to touch him, but at the last minute drops his hand. “Just…just give me…Just, Mark.”
But Mark is shaking his head again. “You want to know why I see Cameron? Really?”
Eduardo nods slowly, not sure if his answer really is yes.
“I see him because I need something to stop me thinking about you.”
With that, he stands up, pulls out his wallet and drops two hundred dollar bills on the table, and, for the second time in two days, walks away from Eduardo.
Continued.