TSN: Domestic meme OT4-style
You may have seen the meme:
Give me a pairing and I will tell you:
who is the big spoon/little spoon
what is their favorite non-sexual activity
who uses all the hot water in the morning
what they order from take out
what is the most trivial thing they fight over
who does most of the cleaning
what has a season pass in their DVR
who controls the netflix queue
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working
who steals the blankets
who leaves their stuff around
who remembers to buy the milk
who remembers anniversaries
who is the big spoon/little spoon:
Depends on the order in which they go to bed - just because they have a huge bed in the master bedroom that can fit all four of them doesn't mean they actually always manage to be in bed at the same time. That's why they all have their own rooms too (and because some people need extra closet space), so they don't keep waking each other up accidentally.
Dustin in particular is a ridiculously light sleeper - great for making sure Mark doesn't sneak out of bed at night, less great for getting actual sleep when people can't help but stay up later or get up earlier than him. Yeah. College, with there not even being doors in the Kirkland suite, was hell. On nights before Wardo leaves for Singapore again they still all pile into the big bed, no matter who comes home when or has to get up at 5 am to catch their flight. Sometimes cuddling is more important than sleep, damnit.
In general, Mark is definitely the one who grumbles the most about being spooned, in a very 'the lady doth protest too much' way. Wardo never asks but sometimes has a tension in his shoulders, a certain slant to his mouth that betrays his need for some reassurance and comfort. Chris honestly doesn't care as long as no one steals the blankets (which still always happens, no matter who lies where). And Dustin actually prefers being an outer big spoon because of his habit of waking up and, while he's awake, going to the bathroom, or getting a glass of water.
what is their favorite non-sexual activity:
Cooking dinner and then eating in front of the tv on those evenings when they are all home on time (or early, for those not adhering to a normal workday).
Again, not that Mark would admit to this.
But Chris knows how to cook, like, he's really good at it, has books and can improvise and create freakish this combination should not work but it does meals, and Wardo likes to cook, how there are clear instructions and a specific order to follow and the instant gratification of doing the work and seeing the result right away, he says it's relaxing. Dustin just likes to eat (and makes very appreciative noises when doing so, which is why they let him get away with not helping much with the cutting and chopping and not even let him do the stirring unless it doesn't matter if he gets distracted and forgets to move the spoon until the pot is about to boil over). Mark has managed to kill off his taste buds long ago and couldn't care less about the food, but he kind of likes to sit at the table and watch Chris and Wardo over the top of his laptop as they move around the kitchen with rolled-up sleeves and sneak pieces of carrot or dip their fingers into some sauce and then lick it off or sometimes walk up to him with a spoon of something and ask him to test it (not that anyone would trust his judgment whether or not something needs more salt, but it's nice being asked, and it's nice the way their cheeks are flushed and Mark can feel the good mood radiating off them when they lean in to feed him whatever needs testing).
And the eating is nice too, balancing plates or bowls on their laps and bumping elbows, and later letting the dishes pile up on the living room table while they slump against each other, warm and sated and food heavy in their stomachs as they pretend to watch whatever is happening on the screen but end up talking through most of it.
who uses all the hot water in the morning:
…They are billionaires.
They could afford to buy a house with seven bedrooms (one huge master bedroom, single bedrooms for each of them and two guest rooms). They did have the foresight of also making sure they'd have an almost unlimited supply of hot water.
Well, probably almost.
So far they've never run out.
And that is after Wardo gets up first and spends an hour in the bathroom grooming and primming and doing who knows what (he's got his rituals, okay. Well, and he just needs to stand under the spray for half an hour in order to wake up and be able to function, but no one else needs to know that). Dustin stumbles in just when Wardo is putting the finishing touches to his hair and somehow manages to lure him back under the shower (which he totally only does to get Dustin to stop waxing poetry about how his golden skin would gleam and glisten under the spray of water, and how can he deprive Dustin of that sight). Chris actually knows better than to get anywhere near a wet, naked Dustin and his hair-ruining grabby hands and only crawls out of bed when he can hear them in the kitchen, Dustin whining about the lack of marshmallows in his Lucky Charms and Wardo making unhappy noises (not because of the marshmallows but because he caught sight of his hair in the reflective surface of the fridge and keeps fussing with it even though he fixed it just fine after Dustin let him out of the shower again).
And they do not talk about Mark's shower habits. Let it just be said that even if the laptop is said to be splash-proof it is still not able to withstand a three-hour coding session under the shower because Mark had an idea and got distracted. He knows that he has to uphold a certain level of personal hygiene or he is denied access to the master bedroom, that's enough.
what they order from take out:
Something different every night, from the traditional pizza with two pounds of cheese on top over some experimental ethnic food (the country of origin of which no one but Chris, who usually is also the one to find the flyers from these places, would be able to find on a map) to light salads and sandwiches. The point is that they get several different things so they can steal try each others' food.
Besides, no matter what they get, in the end there's always one container/box/whatever that's empty before the others are even opened, and one that somehow winds up forgotten and is discovered the next day, cold and untouched and its contents looking unappetizing to disgusting. If it's Mark who finds it he starts to eat it for breakfast (or lunch, or whatever time it is) until someone comes to take it away or tell him to at least heat it up. No. Tastebuds.
what is the most trivial thing they fight over:
Socks. Who is out of socks more often than not goes stealing someone else's socks out of their drawer so they end up out of socks too instead of doing the laundry.
Well, Mark just goes without socks when he's out, no matter the season. Besides, he knows Wardo will force a pair of his socks on him before he lets Mark leave the house and lose toes to frostbite, and when Wardo made him take them it's not like Mark can be blamed when Wardo runs out too and so be forced to do the laundry for the both of them - but while Wardo is at it, could he just throw in Mark's stuff with his, thanks. Chris keeps telling Wardo that Mark knows how to use the washing machine and does in fact do so when Wardo is in Singapore, but Mark routinely re-establishes Wardo's doubts by grabbing both white dry-clean-only dress shirts and dirty socks that need industrial strength washing powder whenever Wardo does demand he do the washing for once, so Wardo usually just sighs and tells him to at least sort his socks into piles of light and dark.
No one ever steals Dustin's socks because they are… well. If they weren't the right size you wouldn't believe socks like that even came for anyone over eight years. By now it's something of an inside joke. When they see some blindingly brightly coloured socks with juvenile designs they buy them and give them to Dustin. It also means they always see immediately when he is wearing someone else's socks.
And Chris has a lock on his sock drawer. No, he's not kidding. You don't know these people, they are devious, and there was that one time Wardo raided his drawer and then took off to Singapore for three weeks. He knows he didn't mean to and had planned to do laundry that weekend, but then something came up and he had to leave a week early, but still. It's a matter of principle. (Besides, Wardo would have had socks of his own if he didn't let Mark and Dustin get away with stealing his. How is Chris supposed to teach them anything about the sanctity of sock drawers when Wardo is being so in consequent?)
The non-trivial thing they fight over the most is Singapore.
With accusations, passive-aggressive little side blows, and underhanded attacks, until everybody feels miserable and tense. When it gets really bad they don't stop talking before they get to the point where Wardo says that he won't give up dividing his time between Palo Alto and Singapore because Singapore is where his job is, where his company is, and Mark counters that Wardo could work for Facebook, he does act as an outside consultant already, why not work for them properly, and Wardo bites out because he is not a part of Facebook, in case Mark has forgotten.
Those are the nights when Wardo retreats to his own bed, curled up in a tight ball, face to the wall and back to the world, defensive and vulnerable and hurt, Mark doesn't sleep at all but wires in and hides behind code, and Chris and Dustin know better (have learned the hard way) to let them be and fall asleep together (alone), Chris' nose buried in Dustin's hair and legs tangled together.
They are also the nights when Mark checks Wardo's schedule (it's not hacking when Wardo is just so unimaginative with his passwords), maybe sends an email to his assistant if there's something important that morning, and silently pads into his room half an hour before he has to get up, to watch the tense line of Wardo's curved spine under the blankets and then carefully climb onto the bed and curl himself around him, keeping the blankets and a hand-width of air between them and unsure of his welcome when he places one hand on Wardo's back and tries to feel his heartbeat through the layers of fabric.
Mark always moves slowly and takes care to not jostle the bed, so Wardo usually doesn't wake up until his alarm goes off. Sometimes he's awake when Mark comes in, giving himself away as he curls up tighter at the quiet snick of Mark closing the door behind him (but it's never closed to begin with, not on those nights).
Either way the night ends with the alarm, with Mark reaching back and turning it off and then waiting, and Wardo lying there some more even though now he has to be awake and eventually twisting, turning around in his cocoon of blankets until they face each other and their breaths mingle even before Mark scoots closer and gently brings their foreheads together.
Those are the mornings that Dustin and Chris have come and gone and are already having breakfast or maybe even left the house before Wardo and Mark trudge to the bathroom and stand under the shower together, and it's there, under the water, when Wardo wraps his arms around himself and tries to back up into the wall again that Mark follows and runs his hands over Wardo's arms, over his back, until he's holding Wardo in the circle of his arms and pretends he can't feel or hear his shuddering breaths under the spray of water, and where Wardo lets him and pretends he can't make out the words Mark mumbles into the skin of his neck as his fingers dig into his back just this side of painful, because with words they've only always managed to make matters worse, but this, silently, they can do.
who does most of the cleaning:
Dustin. No, seriously. Despite housing three or more college-aged males neither the suite nor that first Palo Alto house ever turned into a pigsty, and when they all finally properly moved in together and Wardo found out why he actually had to sit down and have a drink.
See, Chris is tidy, but he refuses to clean up after people. Mark only does what he absolutely has to, and even then tries to worm his way out of it and get Wardo to do it before he gets going. Wardo is anal and slightly obsessive-compulsive with his own stuff but always brings Mark things that then later both of them think the other should clean away. Dustin is the only one who is not only cleaning up his own stuff but also general messes. Also, he's made this super-awesome cleaning schedule with themed musical alarms and put it on all of their phones so everybody knows when it's their turn to clean the bathroom or take out the garbage or stuff. He even got this complicated algorithm to take into account when Wardo is in Singapore! Okay, he got Wardo to give it to him. Still. It's an awesome system, and Dustin might not mind the dishes but he refuses to pick Mark's weird jewfro curls out of the shower drain more often than absolutely necessary.
what has a season pass in their DVR:
They don't have one anymore. Officially because they tried but never had time to catch up with anything.
Unofficially because Wardo has a problem with the weather channel.
Addiction hurts everybody, not only the addict himself. They try to never let him have the remote either, and the times he does end up watching that channel the resulting fight to get him to quit is always ugly and dirty, and not in the sexy kind of way.
who controls the netflix queue:
They don't have Netflix either.
Apparently hacker honour trumps being billionaires. Chris has promised that if they do get caught he won't visit them in prison but will move with Wardo to Singapore instead. Dustin claims that getting convicted of pirating would be less damaging PR than a list of the movies they watch getting out somehow, and he doesn't trust Netflix' security. Wardo keeps buying DVDs, which Marks hrmphed at him for until that one time when the power was gone for sixteen hours and twenty-eight minutes (and the internet with it, oh, the pain) and they ended up watching movies on their laptops, moving from one to the next as their batteries ran out.
Every couple of weeks Mark puts movies on Wardo's laptop though and they videoconference and watch something together, Wardo in Singapore and Chris, Dustin, and Mark in Palo Alto. Hearing Wardo's laughter through the tinny speakers of a laptop is not as good as having him next to them, close enough to touch and feel the couch move as he throws back his head and for Dustin to lean in and nuzzle and rub his cheek over his exposed, stubbled neck like a cat and for Mark to pull his hand down to join Mark's into his hoodie pocket and for Chris to do that disgusting thing where he rolls his shoulders and turns his head until his neck gives an audible crack that makes Dustin pull a face and Wardo pull Chris between his legs for a massage, but it's better than doing it completely without him.
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working:
They don't rent, they own. And they don't call, they search for the best repairman for that specific problem online and contact them via their homepage. It is the 21st century.
who steals the blankets:
Okay, so, there are a bunch of blankets, because of the whole complicated four-guys-one-bed arrangement, like a blanket of blankets, so everybody can pull one up to his chin or push it down to his hips or wrap himself up in a blanket taco or find a gap between the blankets, see, there's this system, they did - okay, Wardo. Always.
Chris bitches about this regularly. He also suspects it's the main reason Wardo tries to get up first in the morning, so he's able to just slip out of the room before Chris wakes up enough to realize his feet are freezing again and let Chris mellow and literally warm up to him again by wallowing under the reclaimed blankets for some time before he gets up himself.
Still, no matter how many blankets they have on the bed and how often Dustin wakes up during the night to steal some back, in the morning Wardo crawls out from under a mountain of blankets no one should even be able to breathe under, let alone sleep peacefully, while the others make do with the scraps and the warmth through whichever limbs they've managed to push under Wardo's blanket sauna. They don't even know how he does it! He's one of those octopus sleepers and falls asleep wrapped around at least one of them, so you'd think they'd notice him move, but no, not even Dustin does. It's like all you need to do is blink and Wardo will have magically collected a pile of blankets on top of him.
He claims he just gets cold easily, it's his Brazilian heritage. That only seems to apply to blankets though, because apparently 65°F is a perfectly acceptable temperature for nude sunbathing.
Not that anyone is complaining, it's just weird (or sexily eccentric, as Dustin likes to call it).
They've also got a strict no cloths policy in the pool.
For those who don't burn lobster-red at the first sign of a stray sunbeam, that is. I.e. Chris and Wardo.
Because Wardo a) would probably take his clothes of anyway because he's secretly an exhibitionist (says Mark) or too vain to be able to stand tan lines (Chris) or wearing speedos slows him down and messes with his flow (Wardo), and b) long lithe limbs, golden tan, muscles moving smoothly and rhythmically under the flawless canvas of his skin, like a statue of Adonis come to life, only with a much nicer dick (Dustin, who is kind of obsessed with the way Wardo tans, which he says is a perfectly normal reaction for someone who himself has eternally milky skin; Mark disagrees and says that he doesn't give a fuck what Wardo's skin looks like as long as he gets to touch it).
And because Chris freckles. Like, even on his butt. It's fucking adorable. Sadly he's also a prude modest. But that' s adorable too.
Seriously, a private pool is the only way to go.
who leaves their stuff around:
Wardo always puts away his stuff when he's done with it, but before that he tends to spread ten thousand print-outs that somehow relate to whatever he's working on right now all over the house and just reshuffle them every now and then for three weeks because he's still working on this, guys, don't touch that, there's an order to his papers! He usually goes on a tidying frenzy the day before he leaves for Singapore again, trying to pack everything in an order that'll let him recreate the current optimized layout with as little effort as possible in his flat there. So they usually let him get away with it because they've grown to associate Wardo putting away his papers with Wardo leaving. Even though he could totally just put everything on his computer, who still works on paper anyway? No one! Well, aside from Wardo.
Mark… is bad at cleaning up after himself. Because as long as there's enough room for his laptop there is enough room. If the others need more space they can clear some for themselves. And Mark doesn't see why he should clear away those plates and bottles, yes, he ate the stuff, but Wardo is the one who put it there, Mark didn't ask for it, he did Wardo a favour eating it, so Wardo should also put the dishes away again. And he needs all those cables. And that's his pile of backup batteries, those have to stay within arm's reach too. And he needs that empty biro to chew on it when he's thinking. Same with that plastic dart, and the old drinking straw, and one leftover chopstick with the name of a Chinese place that closed down two years ago.
Chris sometimes tries to train Mark, citing Dustin's exemplary conduct as an ideal to emulate. Sadly Mark is immune (unless he wants to impress someone or Wardo is about to come back exhausted from a twenty-hour flight, has probably been up for twice as long, and should not come home to tut and pick up the tuna cans and candy wrappers surrounding Mark's work space)and instead takes great pleasure in pointing out all the times they've stumbled over the shoes Chris has left where he toed them off after a long day of running around the office because Dustin and Mark ignore all attempts at communication more subtle than a hand waving in front of their eyes when they are wired in. One flaw, okay, he's got one flaw, and no one ever lets him forget it. They wouldn't stumble over his shoes if they actually looked at where they were going. And he's still the best-functioning one of them anyway.
Dustin always insists that cleaning up and putting things away can wait until tomorrow, because it's late already and he's tired and just so comfortable right now, but he actually does do it the next day. He's, like, a saint. Also, gingers have souls too.
who remembers to buy the milk:
Milk? Usually Dustin. Lucky Charms junkie.
Also, you can order food online these days.
Actual grocery shopping, as in, physically going to a shop, they only do when they are planning on cooking, and then Chris usually has a list of what they need and insists on being a part of the shopping crew to hum and ah at different brands of pasta or fondle every last tomato in the store. And no, they will not go to Walmart, they'll go to that organic supermarket, it's not like they can't afford it.
who remembers anniversaries:
Programmed into Dustin's Awesome Schedule for Cleaning and Other Unpleasant Stuff. All of them. The good ones and the bad ones.
See, when they first started doing this, this thing, they just picked up where they left off from, with Wardo remembering everything because he's somehow afraid people will stop loving him if he ever forgets anything, Chris and Dustin remembering the big ones, like birthdays and Shark Week, and Mark maybe not quite forgetting his own birthday, but then getting caught up in that problem with the photo tagging system four days earlier and then just not explicitly remembering until Wardo stands in front of him that afternoon even though Wardo never picks them up at the office (he doesn't like to; being there makes him hang his head and slump his shoulders because he's afraid people will look at him and remember a time he'd rather not think about).
But, that's how they failed to notice the first time that anniversary rolled around, except for Wardo of course, who just happened to be in Singapore, and then happened to not pick up his phone or answer their emails, and they honestly just thought he was busy and sent him bitchy texts about ditching movie night (which wouldn't have been night at all because of the time difference), and it took Chris a throwaway comment from one of the people in HR how they just missed their chance to celebrate the anniversary of their first million users to figure it out. In their defense, Chris hadn't been there that time, and Dustin and Mark had done their best to make sure no one ever dared to remind them of that day. After the initial and inevitable gossip following their making-up Dustin had sent a roundmail banning all malicious comment on the fall-out of the Facebook Four, listing it as a firing offense (an idle threat, but still, working at Facebook could be very unpleasant when your boss and his right and left hand men were pissed at you).
So Chris did what he as most reasonable person in their group had to do, namely damage control.
Which boiled down to Mark and Dustin coming out of their programmers meeting to hastily scribbled post-it notes of gone to talk to Wardo, don't call, I'll call you on their desks and having three days to themselves to worry and panic and tell each other that repression might be a great coping mechanism, but only works when they are all doing it at the same time, and silently beat themselves up over being pissed at Wardo for not making time for movie night when he was probably in one of his no one cares about me, I am a failure of a human being and everybody would be happier without me funks. So. Yeah. That didn't work out too well.
Chris did come back with Wardo though. And then they talked about sightseeing in Singapore and showed Dustin and Mark photos of Wardo's flat which none of them had been at before (and apparently they hadn't seen any photos either, okay, so maybe they have been kind of unsupportive of this whole Singapore thing) and neither of them tried to mention anything really important because.
Look, they are good together, the four of them. Really good. And good for each other.
But there is baggage, and bad history, and they… just aren't good at talking about it. Whenever they try to talk they just end up making things worse. It's not that they don't make attempts at communication, they've tried, they really have, they just fail at it.
But as it turned out ignoring anything they couldn't talk about didn't work that much better either, and now they've adopted a way of handling things by skirting the edge between denial and making sure they all can have their alone time when they want to but also always know that they are not alonealone and no matter how bad things have been at some point they got over it and the good, the ways in which they work, are more important than the ways in which they don't.
Give me a pairing and I will tell you:
who is the big spoon/little spoon
what is their favorite non-sexual activity
who uses all the hot water in the morning
what they order from take out
what is the most trivial thing they fight over
who does most of the cleaning
what has a season pass in their DVR
who controls the netflix queue
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working
who steals the blankets
who leaves their stuff around
who remembers to buy the milk
who remembers anniversaries
who is the big spoon/little spoon:
Depends on the order in which they go to bed - just because they have a huge bed in the master bedroom that can fit all four of them doesn't mean they actually always manage to be in bed at the same time. That's why they all have their own rooms too (and because some people need extra closet space), so they don't keep waking each other up accidentally.
Dustin in particular is a ridiculously light sleeper - great for making sure Mark doesn't sneak out of bed at night, less great for getting actual sleep when people can't help but stay up later or get up earlier than him. Yeah. College, with there not even being doors in the Kirkland suite, was hell. On nights before Wardo leaves for Singapore again they still all pile into the big bed, no matter who comes home when or has to get up at 5 am to catch their flight. Sometimes cuddling is more important than sleep, damnit.
In general, Mark is definitely the one who grumbles the most about being spooned, in a very 'the lady doth protest too much' way. Wardo never asks but sometimes has a tension in his shoulders, a certain slant to his mouth that betrays his need for some reassurance and comfort. Chris honestly doesn't care as long as no one steals the blankets (which still always happens, no matter who lies where). And Dustin actually prefers being an outer big spoon because of his habit of waking up and, while he's awake, going to the bathroom, or getting a glass of water.
what is their favorite non-sexual activity:
Cooking dinner and then eating in front of the tv on those evenings when they are all home on time (or early, for those not adhering to a normal workday).
Again, not that Mark would admit to this.
But Chris knows how to cook, like, he's really good at it, has books and can improvise and create freakish this combination should not work but it does meals, and Wardo likes to cook, how there are clear instructions and a specific order to follow and the instant gratification of doing the work and seeing the result right away, he says it's relaxing. Dustin just likes to eat (and makes very appreciative noises when doing so, which is why they let him get away with not helping much with the cutting and chopping and not even let him do the stirring unless it doesn't matter if he gets distracted and forgets to move the spoon until the pot is about to boil over). Mark has managed to kill off his taste buds long ago and couldn't care less about the food, but he kind of likes to sit at the table and watch Chris and Wardo over the top of his laptop as they move around the kitchen with rolled-up sleeves and sneak pieces of carrot or dip their fingers into some sauce and then lick it off or sometimes walk up to him with a spoon of something and ask him to test it (not that anyone would trust his judgment whether or not something needs more salt, but it's nice being asked, and it's nice the way their cheeks are flushed and Mark can feel the good mood radiating off them when they lean in to feed him whatever needs testing).
And the eating is nice too, balancing plates or bowls on their laps and bumping elbows, and later letting the dishes pile up on the living room table while they slump against each other, warm and sated and food heavy in their stomachs as they pretend to watch whatever is happening on the screen but end up talking through most of it.
who uses all the hot water in the morning:
…They are billionaires.
They could afford to buy a house with seven bedrooms (one huge master bedroom, single bedrooms for each of them and two guest rooms). They did have the foresight of also making sure they'd have an almost unlimited supply of hot water.
Well, probably almost.
So far they've never run out.
And that is after Wardo gets up first and spends an hour in the bathroom grooming and primming and doing who knows what (he's got his rituals, okay. Well, and he just needs to stand under the spray for half an hour in order to wake up and be able to function, but no one else needs to know that). Dustin stumbles in just when Wardo is putting the finishing touches to his hair and somehow manages to lure him back under the shower (which he totally only does to get Dustin to stop waxing poetry about how his golden skin would gleam and glisten under the spray of water, and how can he deprive Dustin of that sight). Chris actually knows better than to get anywhere near a wet, naked Dustin and his hair-ruining grabby hands and only crawls out of bed when he can hear them in the kitchen, Dustin whining about the lack of marshmallows in his Lucky Charms and Wardo making unhappy noises (not because of the marshmallows but because he caught sight of his hair in the reflective surface of the fridge and keeps fussing with it even though he fixed it just fine after Dustin let him out of the shower again).
And they do not talk about Mark's shower habits. Let it just be said that even if the laptop is said to be splash-proof it is still not able to withstand a three-hour coding session under the shower because Mark had an idea and got distracted. He knows that he has to uphold a certain level of personal hygiene or he is denied access to the master bedroom, that's enough.
what they order from take out:
Something different every night, from the traditional pizza with two pounds of cheese on top over some experimental ethnic food (the country of origin of which no one but Chris, who usually is also the one to find the flyers from these places, would be able to find on a map) to light salads and sandwiches. The point is that they get several different things so they can steal try each others' food.
Besides, no matter what they get, in the end there's always one container/box/whatever that's empty before the others are even opened, and one that somehow winds up forgotten and is discovered the next day, cold and untouched and its contents looking unappetizing to disgusting. If it's Mark who finds it he starts to eat it for breakfast (or lunch, or whatever time it is) until someone comes to take it away or tell him to at least heat it up. No. Tastebuds.
what is the most trivial thing they fight over:
Socks. Who is out of socks more often than not goes stealing someone else's socks out of their drawer so they end up out of socks too instead of doing the laundry.
Well, Mark just goes without socks when he's out, no matter the season. Besides, he knows Wardo will force a pair of his socks on him before he lets Mark leave the house and lose toes to frostbite, and when Wardo made him take them it's not like Mark can be blamed when Wardo runs out too and so be forced to do the laundry for the both of them - but while Wardo is at it, could he just throw in Mark's stuff with his, thanks. Chris keeps telling Wardo that Mark knows how to use the washing machine and does in fact do so when Wardo is in Singapore, but Mark routinely re-establishes Wardo's doubts by grabbing both white dry-clean-only dress shirts and dirty socks that need industrial strength washing powder whenever Wardo does demand he do the washing for once, so Wardo usually just sighs and tells him to at least sort his socks into piles of light and dark.
No one ever steals Dustin's socks because they are… well. If they weren't the right size you wouldn't believe socks like that even came for anyone over eight years. By now it's something of an inside joke. When they see some blindingly brightly coloured socks with juvenile designs they buy them and give them to Dustin. It also means they always see immediately when he is wearing someone else's socks.
And Chris has a lock on his sock drawer. No, he's not kidding. You don't know these people, they are devious, and there was that one time Wardo raided his drawer and then took off to Singapore for three weeks. He knows he didn't mean to and had planned to do laundry that weekend, but then something came up and he had to leave a week early, but still. It's a matter of principle. (Besides, Wardo would have had socks of his own if he didn't let Mark and Dustin get away with stealing his. How is Chris supposed to teach them anything about the sanctity of sock drawers when Wardo is being so in consequent?)
The non-trivial thing they fight over the most is Singapore.
With accusations, passive-aggressive little side blows, and underhanded attacks, until everybody feels miserable and tense. When it gets really bad they don't stop talking before they get to the point where Wardo says that he won't give up dividing his time between Palo Alto and Singapore because Singapore is where his job is, where his company is, and Mark counters that Wardo could work for Facebook, he does act as an outside consultant already, why not work for them properly, and Wardo bites out because he is not a part of Facebook, in case Mark has forgotten.
Those are the nights when Wardo retreats to his own bed, curled up in a tight ball, face to the wall and back to the world, defensive and vulnerable and hurt, Mark doesn't sleep at all but wires in and hides behind code, and Chris and Dustin know better (have learned the hard way) to let them be and fall asleep together (alone), Chris' nose buried in Dustin's hair and legs tangled together.
They are also the nights when Mark checks Wardo's schedule (it's not hacking when Wardo is just so unimaginative with his passwords), maybe sends an email to his assistant if there's something important that morning, and silently pads into his room half an hour before he has to get up, to watch the tense line of Wardo's curved spine under the blankets and then carefully climb onto the bed and curl himself around him, keeping the blankets and a hand-width of air between them and unsure of his welcome when he places one hand on Wardo's back and tries to feel his heartbeat through the layers of fabric.
Mark always moves slowly and takes care to not jostle the bed, so Wardo usually doesn't wake up until his alarm goes off. Sometimes he's awake when Mark comes in, giving himself away as he curls up tighter at the quiet snick of Mark closing the door behind him (but it's never closed to begin with, not on those nights).
Either way the night ends with the alarm, with Mark reaching back and turning it off and then waiting, and Wardo lying there some more even though now he has to be awake and eventually twisting, turning around in his cocoon of blankets until they face each other and their breaths mingle even before Mark scoots closer and gently brings their foreheads together.
Those are the mornings that Dustin and Chris have come and gone and are already having breakfast or maybe even left the house before Wardo and Mark trudge to the bathroom and stand under the shower together, and it's there, under the water, when Wardo wraps his arms around himself and tries to back up into the wall again that Mark follows and runs his hands over Wardo's arms, over his back, until he's holding Wardo in the circle of his arms and pretends he can't feel or hear his shuddering breaths under the spray of water, and where Wardo lets him and pretends he can't make out the words Mark mumbles into the skin of his neck as his fingers dig into his back just this side of painful, because with words they've only always managed to make matters worse, but this, silently, they can do.
who does most of the cleaning:
Dustin. No, seriously. Despite housing three or more college-aged males neither the suite nor that first Palo Alto house ever turned into a pigsty, and when they all finally properly moved in together and Wardo found out why he actually had to sit down and have a drink.
See, Chris is tidy, but he refuses to clean up after people. Mark only does what he absolutely has to, and even then tries to worm his way out of it and get Wardo to do it before he gets going. Wardo is anal and slightly obsessive-compulsive with his own stuff but always brings Mark things that then later both of them think the other should clean away. Dustin is the only one who is not only cleaning up his own stuff but also general messes. Also, he's made this super-awesome cleaning schedule with themed musical alarms and put it on all of their phones so everybody knows when it's their turn to clean the bathroom or take out the garbage or stuff. He even got this complicated algorithm to take into account when Wardo is in Singapore! Okay, he got Wardo to give it to him. Still. It's an awesome system, and Dustin might not mind the dishes but he refuses to pick Mark's weird jewfro curls out of the shower drain more often than absolutely necessary.
what has a season pass in their DVR:
They don't have one anymore. Officially because they tried but never had time to catch up with anything.
Unofficially because Wardo has a problem with the weather channel.
Addiction hurts everybody, not only the addict himself. They try to never let him have the remote either, and the times he does end up watching that channel the resulting fight to get him to quit is always ugly and dirty, and not in the sexy kind of way.
who controls the netflix queue:
They don't have Netflix either.
Apparently hacker honour trumps being billionaires. Chris has promised that if they do get caught he won't visit them in prison but will move with Wardo to Singapore instead. Dustin claims that getting convicted of pirating would be less damaging PR than a list of the movies they watch getting out somehow, and he doesn't trust Netflix' security. Wardo keeps buying DVDs, which Marks hrmphed at him for until that one time when the power was gone for sixteen hours and twenty-eight minutes (and the internet with it, oh, the pain) and they ended up watching movies on their laptops, moving from one to the next as their batteries ran out.
Every couple of weeks Mark puts movies on Wardo's laptop though and they videoconference and watch something together, Wardo in Singapore and Chris, Dustin, and Mark in Palo Alto. Hearing Wardo's laughter through the tinny speakers of a laptop is not as good as having him next to them, close enough to touch and feel the couch move as he throws back his head and for Dustin to lean in and nuzzle and rub his cheek over his exposed, stubbled neck like a cat and for Mark to pull his hand down to join Mark's into his hoodie pocket and for Chris to do that disgusting thing where he rolls his shoulders and turns his head until his neck gives an audible crack that makes Dustin pull a face and Wardo pull Chris between his legs for a massage, but it's better than doing it completely without him.
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working:
They don't rent, they own. And they don't call, they search for the best repairman for that specific problem online and contact them via their homepage. It is the 21st century.
who steals the blankets:
Okay, so, there are a bunch of blankets, because of the whole complicated four-guys-one-bed arrangement, like a blanket of blankets, so everybody can pull one up to his chin or push it down to his hips or wrap himself up in a blanket taco or find a gap between the blankets, see, there's this system, they did - okay, Wardo. Always.
Chris bitches about this regularly. He also suspects it's the main reason Wardo tries to get up first in the morning, so he's able to just slip out of the room before Chris wakes up enough to realize his feet are freezing again and let Chris mellow and literally warm up to him again by wallowing under the reclaimed blankets for some time before he gets up himself.
Still, no matter how many blankets they have on the bed and how often Dustin wakes up during the night to steal some back, in the morning Wardo crawls out from under a mountain of blankets no one should even be able to breathe under, let alone sleep peacefully, while the others make do with the scraps and the warmth through whichever limbs they've managed to push under Wardo's blanket sauna. They don't even know how he does it! He's one of those octopus sleepers and falls asleep wrapped around at least one of them, so you'd think they'd notice him move, but no, not even Dustin does. It's like all you need to do is blink and Wardo will have magically collected a pile of blankets on top of him.
He claims he just gets cold easily, it's his Brazilian heritage. That only seems to apply to blankets though, because apparently 65°F is a perfectly acceptable temperature for nude sunbathing.
Not that anyone is complaining, it's just weird (or sexily eccentric, as Dustin likes to call it).
They've also got a strict no cloths policy in the pool.
For those who don't burn lobster-red at the first sign of a stray sunbeam, that is. I.e. Chris and Wardo.
Because Wardo a) would probably take his clothes of anyway because he's secretly an exhibitionist (says Mark) or too vain to be able to stand tan lines (Chris) or wearing speedos slows him down and messes with his flow (Wardo), and b) long lithe limbs, golden tan, muscles moving smoothly and rhythmically under the flawless canvas of his skin, like a statue of Adonis come to life, only with a much nicer dick (Dustin, who is kind of obsessed with the way Wardo tans, which he says is a perfectly normal reaction for someone who himself has eternally milky skin; Mark disagrees and says that he doesn't give a fuck what Wardo's skin looks like as long as he gets to touch it).
And because Chris freckles. Like, even on his butt. It's fucking adorable. Sadly he's also a prude modest. But that' s adorable too.
Seriously, a private pool is the only way to go.
who leaves their stuff around:
Wardo always puts away his stuff when he's done with it, but before that he tends to spread ten thousand print-outs that somehow relate to whatever he's working on right now all over the house and just reshuffle them every now and then for three weeks because he's still working on this, guys, don't touch that, there's an order to his papers! He usually goes on a tidying frenzy the day before he leaves for Singapore again, trying to pack everything in an order that'll let him recreate the current optimized layout with as little effort as possible in his flat there. So they usually let him get away with it because they've grown to associate Wardo putting away his papers with Wardo leaving. Even though he could totally just put everything on his computer, who still works on paper anyway? No one! Well, aside from Wardo.
Mark… is bad at cleaning up after himself. Because as long as there's enough room for his laptop there is enough room. If the others need more space they can clear some for themselves. And Mark doesn't see why he should clear away those plates and bottles, yes, he ate the stuff, but Wardo is the one who put it there, Mark didn't ask for it, he did Wardo a favour eating it, so Wardo should also put the dishes away again. And he needs all those cables. And that's his pile of backup batteries, those have to stay within arm's reach too. And he needs that empty biro to chew on it when he's thinking. Same with that plastic dart, and the old drinking straw, and one leftover chopstick with the name of a Chinese place that closed down two years ago.
Chris sometimes tries to train Mark, citing Dustin's exemplary conduct as an ideal to emulate. Sadly Mark is immune (unless he wants to impress someone or Wardo is about to come back exhausted from a twenty-hour flight, has probably been up for twice as long, and should not come home to tut and pick up the tuna cans and candy wrappers surrounding Mark's work space)and instead takes great pleasure in pointing out all the times they've stumbled over the shoes Chris has left where he toed them off after a long day of running around the office because Dustin and Mark ignore all attempts at communication more subtle than a hand waving in front of their eyes when they are wired in. One flaw, okay, he's got one flaw, and no one ever lets him forget it. They wouldn't stumble over his shoes if they actually looked at where they were going. And he's still the best-functioning one of them anyway.
Dustin always insists that cleaning up and putting things away can wait until tomorrow, because it's late already and he's tired and just so comfortable right now, but he actually does do it the next day. He's, like, a saint. Also, gingers have souls too.
who remembers to buy the milk:
Milk? Usually Dustin. Lucky Charms junkie.
Also, you can order food online these days.
Actual grocery shopping, as in, physically going to a shop, they only do when they are planning on cooking, and then Chris usually has a list of what they need and insists on being a part of the shopping crew to hum and ah at different brands of pasta or fondle every last tomato in the store. And no, they will not go to Walmart, they'll go to that organic supermarket, it's not like they can't afford it.
who remembers anniversaries:
Programmed into Dustin's Awesome Schedule for Cleaning and Other Unpleasant Stuff. All of them. The good ones and the bad ones.
See, when they first started doing this, this thing, they just picked up where they left off from, with Wardo remembering everything because he's somehow afraid people will stop loving him if he ever forgets anything, Chris and Dustin remembering the big ones, like birthdays and Shark Week, and Mark maybe not quite forgetting his own birthday, but then getting caught up in that problem with the photo tagging system four days earlier and then just not explicitly remembering until Wardo stands in front of him that afternoon even though Wardo never picks them up at the office (he doesn't like to; being there makes him hang his head and slump his shoulders because he's afraid people will look at him and remember a time he'd rather not think about).
But, that's how they failed to notice the first time that anniversary rolled around, except for Wardo of course, who just happened to be in Singapore, and then happened to not pick up his phone or answer their emails, and they honestly just thought he was busy and sent him bitchy texts about ditching movie night (which wouldn't have been night at all because of the time difference), and it took Chris a throwaway comment from one of the people in HR how they just missed their chance to celebrate the anniversary of their first million users to figure it out. In their defense, Chris hadn't been there that time, and Dustin and Mark had done their best to make sure no one ever dared to remind them of that day. After the initial and inevitable gossip following their making-up Dustin had sent a roundmail banning all malicious comment on the fall-out of the Facebook Four, listing it as a firing offense (an idle threat, but still, working at Facebook could be very unpleasant when your boss and his right and left hand men were pissed at you).
So Chris did what he as most reasonable person in their group had to do, namely damage control.
Which boiled down to Mark and Dustin coming out of their programmers meeting to hastily scribbled post-it notes of gone to talk to Wardo, don't call, I'll call you on their desks and having three days to themselves to worry and panic and tell each other that repression might be a great coping mechanism, but only works when they are all doing it at the same time, and silently beat themselves up over being pissed at Wardo for not making time for movie night when he was probably in one of his no one cares about me, I am a failure of a human being and everybody would be happier without me funks. So. Yeah. That didn't work out too well.
Chris did come back with Wardo though. And then they talked about sightseeing in Singapore and showed Dustin and Mark photos of Wardo's flat which none of them had been at before (and apparently they hadn't seen any photos either, okay, so maybe they have been kind of unsupportive of this whole Singapore thing) and neither of them tried to mention anything really important because.
Look, they are good together, the four of them. Really good. And good for each other.
But there is baggage, and bad history, and they… just aren't good at talking about it. Whenever they try to talk they just end up making things worse. It's not that they don't make attempts at communication, they've tried, they really have, they just fail at it.
But as it turned out ignoring anything they couldn't talk about didn't work that much better either, and now they've adopted a way of handling things by skirting the edge between denial and making sure they all can have their alone time when they want to but also always know that they are not alonealone and no matter how bad things have been at some point they got over it and the good, the ways in which they work, are more important than the ways in which they don't.