TSN: My Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Safety Boots (2/2)
Part 1
He's half sitting, half lying on the couch, everybody hovering around him, and Sean would wave them back and tell them to give him some room, but he's too busy pressing his hands to his chest where he can feel his heart beating in his chest through his wet t-shirt. Apparently it stopped. But Eduardo shocked him back to live like a defibrillator. Andrew told him that like it was supposed to be reassuring, but at least the attempted manslaughterer is standing separate from everybody else, keeping a hopefully safe distance now that there isn't water everywhere.
"Are you sure you shouldn't go to the hospital, just to be safe? Facebook did take out insurance, so we are covered." Mark is reaching out and brushing the tips of his fingers over Sean's shoulder, similar to how he earlier tried reaching out to Eduardo. Whom he is now keeping his distance from, so since he isn't actually smoking or burned Sean will consider what happened a win.
"No, I'm fine. No point ruining anyone's insurance rates for a couple of unnecessary tests just so some doctors can line their pockets."
They'd probably come knocking on Eduardo's door for reimbursement; with a talent like that Eduardo's probably got a no expenses spared private insurance for himself. Not that it matters, Sean has slightly singed feet as if he'd walked barefoot over a too-hot beach (and is so glad his socks were cotton and didn't fuse themselves to his feet like the soles of his shoes did the pavement) but is otherwise fine. Plus, and that's the important part, he not have health insurance himself and knows that doctors don't set you up with a bed and keep you overnight as a precaution in the hopes that someone's insurance will pay for it eventually. Besides, insurance claims mean an investigation, and when something happens in a house full of drunk college students the blame is usually laid at the feet of the one guy over 21, whether anything is his fault or not.
Eduardo rubs a hand over his face where he's standing satisfyingly far away from everybody else. At least he looks guilty.
"I usually have better control than that. I thought I was alone and safe to let some of it out. You surprised me! You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." So much for guilt.
Sean diplomatically doesn't mention that Eduardo clamped up when he was just surprised, and didn't actually lose his cool until he recognized Sean. Still, to be fair that might have been instinctive rather than intentional. Sean admits he has been needling and subtly undermining him since they met. In his defense, he thought Eduardo was harmless.
"Ah, but at least you changed Wardo's mind into staying the weekend!" Lauren tries to lighten the mood, awkwardly smiling at the handsome, wet stranger with electric hands who interrupted her evening of getting high. Higher. She remains entirely oblivious that she just put her foot in her mouth and tried to break the tension by reminding everybody of the previous tension, even as Dustin tries to swap at her and fails because he's on the other side of the couch.
"Staying to look after me? Aw, you really don't have to, Wardo." He doesn't; Sean isn't sure yet how comfortable he is with having Eduardo around and within sparking distance. Though he is slightly worried about another arrest and needing to get shocked back to life.
He's also slightly worried that he's only slightly worried and on top of that more than slightly intrigued. Is that a side effect?
"I'd rather not fly after this." Eduardo steps further into the room, away from the door that leads to outside. Tomorrow Sean will have to check the walkway to see if there's patch of glass there. Concrete is basically sand that's glued together, isn't it?
"You could; you have good control." Mark went to hover at Eduardo's shoulder while Sean wasn't looking, and why exactly is he hovering at Eduardo's shoulder now and not holding Sean's hand as he lies on the couch and ails?
…Also, is Mark even noticing that it almost sounds as if he's now trying to get Eduardo to leave, even if it is through a compliment?
That's good. There, Parker, get with the program. Focus. Eduardo has just been established as potentially dangerous. There's your angle.
"Nah, it's fine, stay, crash wherever." Subtle dig that Sean is more at home here than Eduardo. Good. Also possible implication that Eduardo might crawl into Sean's bed. Wait. No. Back on track. His heart keeps hammering in his chest. "Maybe one of the upstairs rooms, further away from the computers. Just in case." Smile the smile of the well-meaning, concerned friend.
"Wardo's fine, he's never fried a computer." Mark leans forward until his shoulder brushes past Eduardo's in a silent sign of trust, and it's cute, the same puppy love that had him vibrating with happiness earlier the night when he first laid eyes on Eduardo (before it became obvious Eduardo himself was anything but happy).
Okay, so Mark already knew about the nature of Eduardo's ability. Would have been more effective if he hadn't, but still, now that he's seen proof of danger it'll probably sink in how much he doesn't want Eduardo around. Sean will helpfully drive the point home too, just in case.
"He's fine? What about me? I died! I saw the light at the end of the tunnel! I had an out of body experience!" He might also still be slightly hysterical. Screw that, he's allowed. No one's tried to kill him before!
"I doubt that had anything to do with me," Eduardo mumbles while side-eyeing the bong lying abandoned in the corner of the couch, and, oh, yes, still a passive-aggressive little bitch (no offense to the fairer sex). But now it doesn't make Sean smile and poke and dig anymore, because suddenly it's not the complaints of someone who isn't even proper bark, let alone bite, now it's not that Eduardo can't, but that he won't. Suddenly it's impressive that Eduardo doesn't bark instead of weak.
Sean really doesn't want to be impressed, that makes it so much harder to focus on the fact that he wants to get rid of Eduardo.
***
He sleeps in the next day, because regular hours are for people with regular lives and because he died last night, and then stays in bed for another couple of hours in the hope that by then Eduardo will have decided that he's calm enough to fly and have left.
Then he sits up to fluff his pillow and screams because there's a red, branching burn snaking up his arm.
Of course no one comes running top check up on him, because these guys didn't stop what they were doing when their chimney fell into the pool, and Sean should probably feel honored they noticed when he got electrocuted to death in front of the house.
To death. And now he's got that thing on his arm that wasn't there last night. What if it's spreading? What if he's having a delayed reaction and in a couple of hours will be covered in third degree burns?
He clambers off the mattress that is his bed and trips twice on his way to the bathroom, where he gets caught in his shirt trying to pull it off the way he hasn't since middle school and Jennifer the cheerleader with the big eyes and the big… eyes.
It's huge. He's disfigured. Sean is never going to be able to have sex with the lights on without coming up with a story that doesn't equate to I poked something that I didn't realize was a hornet's nest.
The burn starts just above his wrist, with the tip of one spindly, zigzagging line that quickly branches out into an irregular dendritic pattern that trails up his arm and covers both his shoulders. Ironically it almost looks like frosting. Or lightning. And it hurts. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
He pushes off the sink and goes back to his room where he has to dig up his ventilator before he can breathe again, then he puts on pants and goes downstairs.
No one will want Eduardo around now. They can all see he's no good, the proof is right there on Sean's skin.
***
"Oh, Lichtenberg figure," Eduardo says when he looks up from his newspaper.
Oh? Sean is mutilated, he has been permanently damaged, and all Eduardo, who did the damage, has to say is oh? Why is he even still here? He should be gone, or at least leaving, but instead his bags are gone and he's leaning against the counter drinking coffee and reading the paper.
"You okay, man?" Eduardo sounds genuinely concerned, which is saying, something considering that, just a few hours ago, he dragged Sean's lifeless body into the house after shocking him into cardiac arrest, and afterwards seemed vaguely guilty for about ten minutes before he tried to put the blame on Sean. There's something seriously wrong with that guy.
"I'm not okay! Look at me!" Obediently everybody stops what they were doing and looks at Sean and his uncovered, grotesque body.
"Cool tattoo, dude. Does it glow in the dark?" Dustin's words fall into the silence, and sometimes Sean wonders about Dustin, he really does.
"It's a burn scar, Moskovitz, a painful disfigurement, not body modification." Sean takes another puff from his inhaler. He hates having to do that in front of people, but he hates feeling like he can breate even more.
"Now it hurts?" Ian frowns. "But weren't you okay yesterday? It's kinda late to worry now, dude, and you were the one who said you didn't need the hospital."
"I was in shock yesterday." He doesn't add that he mostly said that because he's broke and has no insurance.
"Sean," Eduardo says, all guilty puppy dog eyes and earnest face, "I'm sorry about yesterday. And the," he gestures at Sean, "the figures, they happen sometimes, they are nothing to worry about-"
"They are third-degree burns."
"First degree, and they are nothing to worry about." That's easy for Eduardo to say, he's standing there with rolled-up sleeves that show unmarred, flawless tan skin. "You didn't have any more cardiac problems, did you? And you were responsive right away yesterday and could talk, so there's probably no neurological damage. At least not from this."
Sean considers overdosing on his inhaler.
"Wardo's staying for the Thiel meeting," Mark heaps on while Sean is still reeling from the possibility of brain damage, and then turns around and puts on headphones as if he didn't just declare that a potentially fatal health hazard was moving in with them.
Everybody else takes that as the signal to return to whatever they've been doing, until the only one still looking at Sean is Eduardo, who eventually breaks his gaze when the phone next to him vibrates across the counter with an incoming message.
It's only then that Sean realizes he was looking back at Eduardo, and he remembers Mark's words, everybody who looks at him is Wardo's thing.
It's good coffee.
***
Eduardo, as it turns out, is a hoverer who spends all reasonable hours with spreadsheets on his laptop while also keeping Mark in his line of sight, and it's only when Eduardo has taken Dustin and the car grocery shopping that Sean can get some time alone with Mark.
"Why is he still here?" No point beating around the bush. It's a reasonable question, and Sean really wants to know the answer.
"He's staying for the Thiel meeting. He's the CFO, he should be here for the meeting, and there's not much point in flying to New York and then back here in three days." Mark says it like it's obvious, and for him it probably is - the whole summer he's wanted Eduardo out here pulling his weight, and now that he's here and making coffee and promising food that isn't pre-made, like some 50s housewife (and Sean knew he's been bribing people with food), it's easy for Mark to slip back into old habits.
This isn't Harvard though. They are not in college anymore, and there's more at stake here.
"Shouldn't he stay in a hotel? You've said it yourself, man, we are never down."
"What does that to do with Wardo." Mark doesn't even bother looking up from his screen, just marks and deletes a couple of lines of code and then keeps typing as if he doesn't see the point of this conversation any more than he does the question.
"If he sneezes he'll fry the network? And everything Facebook is on these computers here, so downtime is the best-case scenario, one screw-up might as well destroy the whole site."
Let alone the people, but Mark never was overly concerned with anybody's comfort and/or risk management. Usually Sean would applaud that, but this time it's his hide on the line, literally, and there's a difference between playing hard and fast with a business, or with people's lives. Sometimes Sean wants to throw it all over board, screw the long haul and sustainability and maneuvering Mark but never pushing, never persuading him blatantly enough that he'll notice. But Sean is too invested to burn his bridges now, and so he has to keep nudging and hinting and influencing.
"He won't." Mark reaches for the pack of Red Vines by his side, finds it empty, and instead chews on his lower lip, drawing it in and worrying it with his teeth. Sean would like to interpret this as doubt in Eduardo, but he's seen this often enough to know better.
"How can you know that? It's his thing, it's what he does. How can he not fizzle and sparkle and blow out a whole block's worth of fuse boxes?" That's not how it works; you don't turn your spark on and off, it just is, and Eduardo may be able to mediate the effects somewhat, regulate aim and outpour enough to be able to function in everyday life, try to avoid circumstances he knows he has trouble with, but he can't simply not.
"He won't. He's got it under control." Mark leans across the table and pulls over the headphones Andrew left lying there when he wired out, effectively declaring the conversation over.
"Mark, listen." Mark stops with the plug inches from the outlet, and his head tilts towards Sean, just a fraction, not looking at him, but not looking at the screen either.
"He electrocuted me." Sean speaks slowly, enunciates clearly, because how can this not sink in, how is this not a reason to not want t have Eduardo in the house with them.
"When you walked in on him doing a controlled release."
Mark's voice is beginning to sound strained, tired of Sean pushing the issue when Mark clearly wants him to drop it, and Sean knows he should give in, he's been so careful to appease Mark, but Eduardo isn't the victim here, even ignoring the fact that he's a useless CFO and a deadbeat friend, Eduardo isn't the victim here.
"He saw me! That was deliberate!"
"Case in point. He's got it under control. Let it go, Sean." He plugs the headphones in.
The discussion is over, and all Sean can do is damage control to make it look like Mark didn't completely disregard his justified concerns.
"Okay, okay. He can sleep here," he cedes, ignoring the fact that Eduardo already is sleeping here and no one bothered to ask Sean's permission or opinion on sleeping under one roof with the man who almost killed him. Granted, technically Eduardo is renting the house, and Sean's the one crashing, but by common law this place is Sean's. Still.
"Mark. You realize this isn't like a habit he can break or an impulse he can just not give into, right? This is a part of him. He can't turn it off and just not do it anymore than we can. It's what we are. I make people see what they want to see, you have no taste buds, and Eduardo is a high-voltage generator. He can't help it, he's dangerous." That's just how it is. Sean isn't a bad guy. He's an egoist, and he loathes Eduardo, but he has good reasons for that. He's even a bit impressed at this point, because living with a spark like that can't be easy, and learning to live with it when it manifested must have sucked, but that doesn't change the fact. Eduardo is dangerous.
Mark's fingers tighten white-knuckled around the headphones, and he hisses, "I guess you'll just have to resist the temptation to stick a fork into that particular power outlet."
Sean jerks back, straightening. Sore topic, obviously. Sean wonders if that is connected to the drunken hook-up he's been told about, or the fact that nothing came from it, but Mark is gone, wired in and no longer approachable.
He rolls his shoulders uneasily, and the lightning scar smarts at the movement (he's looked it up since, it'll disappear again in a couple of days). He should cut his losses. Leave Mark to his fate of getting burned to crisp and Facebook to disappear off the internet when their servers melt before Eduardo gives him arrhythmia or brain damage.
When he gets off the phone two hours earlier though he hasn't managed to find anything interesting, and, really, by now it would be a shame not to wait and see how the meeting with Thiel goes.
***
There are no one incidents, but Eduardo present turns out to be as much as a nuisance as Eduardo absent.
He continues to be always there, constantly checking numbers or importing numbers or compiling numbers, Sean has no idea where all those numbers are even coming from. He keeps an eye on the interns, always checks in on Mark, maybe trying to make up for having been in New York until now, disapproves of almost everything Sean does or suggests, and actually tells people to eat their vegetables or go to bed.
It's bizarre, because he seems more well-meaningly overbearing than controlling, and it doesn't fit with the image Sean had of him at all.
Eduardo's phone proves even more annoying than him and keeps buzzing with incoming texts and calls from his girlfriend at intervals that have Sean wonder how much allowance that girl gets. Instead of going somewhere private for a bit of phone-sex or at least sexting though Eduardo reluctantly but religiously read each and every text, answers few of them, and never takes any of her calls. He doesn't turn his phone off or leave it in the other room, ever, even though he tenses with apprehension every time it makes a sound, with the argument that he can't just ignore Christy because she can be very intimidating.
She didn't look very intimidating when Sean met her, all pretty face, petite frame, and easy smile, but with nails like those Christy probably gives as good as she gets. There's no way Eduardo doesn't light up like a sparkler during sex, 'controlled release' or not, which makes Sean wonder what exactly it is that cute, stubborn Christy gives that she's so unwilling to let go of what otherwise seems to be a pretty neglectful, crappy boyfriend because he has no choice but to take it. Sure, some people are into pain, for all he knows Christy might be, but Sean is not, and apparently sensitive (unless Sean is involved), clean-cut, eternally-suffering Eduardo is definitely not.
He catches himself watching Eduardo, from across the room, through windows, and he's beginning to suspect that the main reason why people keep looking at Eduardo is to figure him out. Eduardo doesn't seem dangerous. He doesn't act it. He can even laugh and joke and behave like a perfectly normal, well-adjusted, happy person. He's a hot mess and a loose cannon who could kill them and cowers at phones.
(The first time Sean sees Eduardo laugh he's outside with Mark, who is recounting the story of what happened with the zipline. Sean is watching them through the glass door, and at first Eduardo shakes his head, scraps of conversation floating inside, deposit and could have died - as if Mark would be keeping Eduardo around if he cared about that. Mark keeps talking though, arms close to his sides but hands flying, all gesticulation kept carefully close to the body, and not just because of the camcorder he holds in one hand; Mark's movements are always constrained and kept in the safe space of his own personal bubble. Then he holds up the camera and plays something to Eduardo. Sean can't see his face, but he sees when Eduardo throws his head back and laughs, loudly and unreserved, shoulders shaking, hands flailing uselessly, and mouth wide open to draw in gulping breaths that leave his chest heaving.
Mark stands still in front of him, camera held out, fingers for once calm, and just smiles at him, quietly and contentedly, with a flush on his cheeks that can't be from the sun that early in the day.
With the way Mark is looking at Eduardo, how can he not be his thing?
Sean drags his nails over the burn on his arm, but it doesn't distract him from the sudden dryness of his throat.)
***
It's Dustin who tries to explain the dynamics between Mark and Eduardo to Sean. Sean caught him when he was coming off coding duty one night and pushes a beer and some leftovers from dinner into his hands. They watch Eduardo talk to Mark when he tries to wire in together with Ian, whose shift it is, hand hovering over Mark's laptop.
They are meeting Thiel tomorrow, and turning in early is probably a good idea. Sean has reminded Mark of the meeting five minutes ago, and Mark just blinked at him, said, "yes," and went back to work.
"Someone's got to tell Mark when he's had enough, and Wardo is the only one he'll listen to." Bribable with food. Sean was right.
Sean eyes that hand distrustfully. It's too close to the laptop and too close to Mark, and he squints and watches for sparks. "Because Wardo is the one from whom it's a threat."
Dustin answers with his mouth full, bits of food falling out and back into his plate, "because it's a warning, and Mark knows Eduardo wouldn't forgive himself for a lapse. Eduardo can't lose control, and Mark won't make him."
Can't, Sean notes, not doesn't like Mark said. Sean is beginning to think that Mark of all people might very easily make Eduardo lose his precious control, he just doesn't want to, for whatever reason.
He cocks his head as, across the room, Mark closes his laptop. "So the threat's not what Wardo could do to Mark and Facebook, but how bad Wardo would feel about it?"
"Eduardo's got hang-ups about his thing. Mark thinks it's stupid to feel bad about something he can't change, and he won't enable Eduardo in shaming himself for something that's not wrong."
Sean tears his gaze away from the display on the other side of the room and stares at Dustin. "That is so reckless I don't even know what to say."
Dustin shrugs. "They are friends. Maybe you don't get that, but no matter how much they disagree, Eduardo has Mark's back, and Mark has his, even if it's to protect him from himself."
"Even at the cost of Facebook?" Because Sean is getting that now, that there's something between Mark and Eduardo, but Mark was almost ready to let Eduardo go for Facebook once, was ignoring his texts and filling his place with Sean.
"They both want what's best for Facebook," Dustin naively reiterates, something they've heard both of them say before when they were fighting.
Sean has heard that argument before though, right before irreconcilable differences.
"They don't agree on what that is though."
"No, but now that Eduardo is here they'll figure it out. You getting shocked was good for that at least." Dustin shrugs and walks away to slouch on the couch and watch some action movie that's on tv, and across the room Eduardo and Mark are going up the stairs, Mark tired and slumped and Eduardo with that hand now hovering in the small of Mark's back, twitching nervously but not touching.
It's like a dance. Lion tamer and lion, and Sean's not sure which is which. Mark, whom Sean has seen delight in antagonizing people just for the sake of it, will push and push Eduardo until he's clenched hands and working jaw and dark eyes, and then give, save his work and log out with a sigh instead of watching Eduardo explode, and Eduardo, who could destroy all the delicate innerworkings of Mark's creations with the blink of an eye, with one moment of weakness, by not even doing something but simply by not holding back what comes naturally, doesn't, just twists himself tighter and tighter while still seeking out this environment where the smallest slip in his self-control would have disastrous consequences.
They are caught in a system of check, counter-check, and balance, a system that shouldn't work and that, inevitably, will come crashing around them because there's no release, they are only pushing each other higher and higher, and Sean doesn't even want to watch from a safe distance, he wants to get all up in it and poke and prod and make their house of cards fall apart around him because when the crash comes it'll be a firework to rival the 4th of July. The fallout might just be worth the show, and Mark's and Eduardo's carefully composed symbiosis would be irreparably damaged.
Mark won't be able to forgive Eduardo for losing control, and Eduardo won't forgive Mark for making him.
And Sean will be there to slip into the gap left by the departure of Facebook's volatile ex-CFO and Mark's best friend of a tag-along and caretaker.
It's for the best that way.
***
Sean does put on his glasses for the meeting. Not to in any way appeal to Thiel or conform to society's rules and seem more respectable, but in case of fine print. That suit jacket he just happened to have hanging around.
Mark sits next to him, retreated in his own mind to avoid thinking about the meeting, and Eduardo is playing with his ring.
Relax, he considers telling them, we've got this, because this is finally the right ear, and Sean will be whispering in it any second now, but by now he strongly suspects that Eduardo doesn't respond to his suggestions and he doesn't want to risk a confrontation now should he catch up on a sudden and complete shift in Mark's mood, so he goes for distraction.
"This is where they filmed Towering Inferno." Granted, not one of his best.
The door opens and Thiel greets them, switches to first names right away, a good sign.
Sean's got this.
Then Peter introduces Maurice, who asks about when they expect to start turning in profit, and, when Sean smiles and deflects, puts his hand on Peter's arm and repeats the question.
Peter got himself an immune assistant.
Sean stumbles through his spiel, but he knows the gaps in his smokescreen are obvious for anyone looking.
This won't work.
***
They have no idea when they'll turn profit, because they have no plans on making Facebook profitable.
Their growth numbers are impressive though. Even more impressive are predictions of future growth by school, state, and for international users, and projected future income margin of users based on the majors listed in their profiles.
Sean has no idea where those numbers are coming from, but Eduardo has printout after printout to back his words up.
***
"I think that went well," Mark degrees in the car back to the house. Sean is driving; Mark and Eduardo still seemed too shell-shocked when they got to the car.
It did go well. They have another meeting in two days to sign the contract.
"What was that?" There goes Eduardo's shock too. "You scheduled this meeting, and you didn't even walk in prepared?"
Sean's neck prickles as he watches Eduardo wave his arms about in the rearview mirror, but he resists the urge to turn around. They just got half a million dollars, he refuses to crash the car now. "I didn't know he'd have an assistant with immunity."
"Yes, what a surprise, a man who runs a two-billion dollar hedge fund taking steps to make sure he doesn't fall prey to a con artist." How Eduardo can be so sarcastic and cranky when everything turned out perfectly fine is beyond Sean. The whole being a killjoy thing must be connected to his spark and the amount of suppressing he does. He's probably got ulcers too.
"It's suggestion, not mind control. I can't make people want something they aren't already interested in. There's nothing illegal about it, I'm just using the means at my disposal to their full extent and to my advantage. Everybody's doing it."
"We don't need it, we didn't need it. Facebook's growth numbers speak for themselves." There's pride in his voice. The only time Sean really saw (or heard) Eduardo express pride in Facebook and identify with the company was in New York, when they were talking about the Little Big Horn. Maybe that's because Eduardo wasn't fully behind Facebook until they landed an investment just now. Or they've just never talked about Facebook without immediately being sat each other's throats.
Still, as impressive as Eduardo's number juggling was, it only convinced Peter and Maurice because it got a chance to convince them. "And how did we manage to get this meeting during which you dazzled Peter with your impressing ability to memorize numbers, " he drawls, "hard work alone never got anyone anywhere."
Eduardo draws in a deep breath, getting ready for one of his monologues on business and rules. "It's the basis of-"
"Yeah, yeah, basis. As if anyone's gonna get a bag of flour when they can buy a cake. Tell me, Wardo, did they let you into Harvard before or after your father pulled his cheque book?" Eduardo may be impressed with himself right now, but, just in case his words aren't enough, Sean hopes his tone of voice explains what he thinks of Eduardo and how he got here.
Eduardo falls silent, but Mark answers for him. "Wardo's paying for Harvard himself."
"Uhuh. Inheritance?" Sean has met the kind. They also think they are paying for something themselves when they are paying with their 10k-per-month pocket money.
"Five thousand dollar loan, stock market, and a summer in front of the tv," Eduardo elaborates, smug, and Sean shuts up, mainly because he has no idea how one makes money watching tv but doesn't want to give Eduardo the satisfaction of asking, not now when he's already full enough of himself.
"But the Phoenix probably was a diversity thing," Mark continues, guilelessly. Eduardo squawks behind them. "What? You said so yourself."
***
They start popping corks and spraying champagne as soon as they are through the door. Sean didn't even know they had champagne. Eduardo must have bought it (so he must have had some faith in Facebook after all).
"You're staying, Wardo," Mark says when Eduardo turns on his phone again after for once turning it off during the meeting, and it erupts in beeps and rings.
Eduardo looks at the phone in his hands, and then at Mark and Sean standing before him, both splattered with champagne and drunk at two in the afternoon, at Mark's red, sticky lips, shining eyes, and the way he bounces even while he's standing still, and at Sean, whose mouth is still prickling with expensive champagne and who is holding the bottle out to Eduardo because it's his turn and he's already feeling like he's been hit by lightning anyway so who cares if the bottle is wet with condensation.
"I'm staying." He presses a button and holds the phone to his face, as far as Sean can tell taking one of Christy's calls for the first time since he flew out to California. He doesn't say anything though, and five second later he hangs up, eyebrows raised in confusion. "She broke up with me."
Mark glances over at Sean. Apparently Mark being Eduardo's best friend doesn't trump his unwillingness to delve into the jungle of appropriate reactions.
"That sucks, man." Sean holds out the bottle to him. This is the best he can do right now, he's too buzzed from getting the investment and drinking champagne on an empty stomach, and too new to not disliking Eduardo for anything else.
Eduardo blinks and drops his phone in his pocket before he takes the bottle. He seems a lot less heartbroken than people usually are after getting dumped.
"It's okay." He takes a too enthusiastic swig and ends up coughing. "To be honest, I was afraid what she'd do if I broke up with her. Even from the other side of the country."
He hands the bottle over to Mark, who gropes at it blindly while he continues to stare at Eduardo, puzzled by this diversion from the expected reaction to a break-up. "You liked Christy."
Eduardo snorts. He's so drunk. "Christy is crazy. She's actually psychotic. She's insanely jealous, she's irrational, and I'm frightened of her."
Mark can't think of anything better to do than look to Sean for assistance again, and Sean grabs the forgotten champagne from him and pushes it back to Eduardo, who accepts gratefully. More alcohol is always an appropriate reaction to trouble of any kind.
***
The party doesn't so much stop as slow down at some point, everybody coming down and remembering that it's the middle of the day and they still have to be awake for hours, and Sean finds himself in a chair on the veranda, watching the living room through the open door and nursing a drink in the hopes of avoiding a hangover by preventive use of hair of the dog.
They probably wouldn't have gotten the Thiel investment without Eduardo. Credit where credit is due, man, Sean is nothing if not fair. Well, he's not, but he's not a downright liar.
Eduardo and him, they got off on the wrong foot. Sean came to New York ready to dazzle and woe those promising young minds and make the most of their potential, and Eduardo was entirely unwilling to be dazzled. Sean didn't mind, because he figured out pretty quickly where the money and the power lay in that company, with Mark, and Mark was someone Sean could dazzle, who wanted to be dazzled, and, best of all, whom Sean did want to dazzle too, not just for the money, not because he could.
Mark had had a great idea, an even greater vision because he was so adamant not to compromise, and he was fucking ready to take the world by its horns and wrestle it, force it to acknowledge him, kneel down, and worship his genius. Mark, that Sean had no doubt after that first meeting, wanted to leave his mark in the world, screw the consequences, but beneath his cynic intellect he was still naïve enough that, while doing so, the world would in turn chew him up and spit him out.
Sean saw a lot of himself in Mark right away, and he'll admit to anyone who asks that he's more than a bit narcissistic. He's not in love with the guy, but he's definitely fond of him, and if Facebook should crash and burn he'll feel more than a little sorry.
Eduardo didn't interest Sean at all, and he wasn't impressed by him either.
Sean is a smokes and mirrors kind of guy, he likes it flashy, and everybody who's keeping quiet clearly doesn't have anything to say that's worth listening for. And Eduardo was just so dour, the whole evening through, like having had to wait for ten minutes or so in a fancy sushi bar weighted heavily enough on his hurt pride that it was worth poleaxing Sean, like his petty jealousy mattered more than the fact that Sean had connections and savvy and could open doors for them and get them places. Sure, Little Big Horn, great. Business 101, Sean has read Business for Dummies too.
Eduardo was just absent.
Mark may not be the easiest CEO, mainly because he doesn't want to have to deal with any actual CEOing, but, hey, that's why he'd been clever enough to get himself a partner who was supposed to know these things. And, from what Sean had seen, Eduardo just didn't cut it.
Eduardo is cutting it a little more now.
Now, Sean is aware that Eduardo actually knows his shit, and, despite being a grinch who doesn't know how to handle a big thing, knows Facebook. Not the code, not even the site itself, but the company details. Dreary, boring little things like making sure the interns actually have insurance while they are working in the party house Mark rented for them, and adjusting his projections of how long their money will last daily, based on the growth of their user base, server use, and predictions on when Mark will insist on buying more server space (which are in turn based on previous purchases).
And Eduardo actually stepping up to the plate and doing his part to sell Peter Thiel on them was helpful. Sean has no doubt that him and Mark could have managed without him, Thiel's interest was piqued enough that he'd have asked them back for another meeting (for which Sean would then have made sure to have the necessary numbers to get the nod of acceptance from Thiel's spoilsport of an immune assistant), but getting the investment right away, please come back in two days to sign the papers, was… good. Smooth.
All in all, everything is going surprisingly smoothly with Eduardo here. It's a surprise, and not a pleasant one, because it makes Sean doubt the wisdom having wanted him out of the company. They don't need him, they did fine without him for most of the summer, but, he has his uses. Strictly in the business sense, and when it comes to Mark. Because Facebook is Mark - it won't stay that way, the company will grow to the point where everybody is just a replacable cog in the machine, but right now, Facebook is Mark. And Mark is, against all reason, more content with a nagging, oversensitive, prissy Brazilian mother hen constantly on his case and interrupting his work to get him to eat or sleep or 'act like a normal human being'.
As if Eduardo, who is still wearing most of his suit and at some point went back to crunching his beloved numbers while everybody around him is celebrating their 500.000$ investment, has any idea what that means.
But somehow so far it works for them, and it's making Sean wonder if it's really 'so far' or if he shouldn't rather apply 'never change a winning team'.
Well, no point in wondering. Eduardo isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
He takes a sip from his drink - appletini, again (he's developing a taste for the stuff - either his taste buds have fallen prey to Stockholm Syndrome or that's some of the neurological damage he's been looking for, together with this newfound reluctant acceptance of Eduardo), and decides to browse his alcohol-blinkered gaze through the room to check up on the other half of his dynamic duo, but when he finds Mark, he is neither off in his own world doing his thing nor staring at Wardo like he can't figure out if Wardo is his safety net or a leash holding him back, instead Mark is already looking back at him when Sean's own gaze settles in him.
Sean wonders if he was visibly oozing malicious intent towards Eduardo, because Mark looks decidedly unhappy when he has every reason to still be riding the high of that morning, and when it's clear that Sean has caught Mark catching Sean glaring at Eduardo he narrows his eyes and makes his way over.
"I thought you didn't like Eduardo."
Ah, the egocentrism of youth. Sean snorts into his cup. "I don't." Of course by now Mark is so used to Eduardo and Sean aiming icy glares and careful barbs at each other over Mark's head that the moment they are too busy with celebrating their angel investment (Sean) respectively grounding themselves with routine (Eduardo) to do so he's not happy with that either.
Mark turns his head slowly to look at Eduardo, who's still entering numbers into a worksheet, and back to Sean. Sean raises a brow in question (it's cooler with one brow, he practiced for months when he was a kid until he had the necessary coordination for this), and gives Mark a once-over in return. Mark's eyes have cleared since their champagne binge and he's holding a glass of water, so the slowness of the movement must have been deliberate rather than alcohol-induced.
"That's not how you were looking at him." Mark tightens his fingers around his glass - Sean has spent enough time with him by now to know he wants to fidget nervously, brace himself somehow or ball his hands into fists, because for someone who likes to seek out confrontation Mark favours overly defensive postures, and then he just walks off and leaves Sean to stand there like some idiot who just got warned off by a jealous boyfriend.
It's entirely possible though that Mark is simply taking a page out of Eduardo's book of prissy jealousy because for once he is not the center of everybody's attention. This is Mark's show, and he doesn't like being sidelined. Hey, Sean gets it, he's a spotlight hogger himself, it's part of why he recognized that hunger in Mark. Narcissist, right?
Which leaves the question though, does Mark not want Sean to look at Eduardo however he thinks he was looking at him because he wants Sean to look at Mark, or was that a warning to not look at Eduardo like that?
Because Sean might enjoy looking at both of them, and it would be plain unfair if neither of them looked back because they were too busy always just barely missing it when they look at each other.
***
Sean wakes up in that pool chair, mouth dry, head filled with cotton but not pounding at least, and neck hurting. He blinks in the dark - there's no one in the living room, just one lonely lit-up laptop, so it has to be late enough to be early already, everybody long in bed except Sean whom they left outside. Assholes.
He'll blame the disorientation of just having woken up on how long it takes him to notice the reflection in the glass door. When he does, he first flinches, then turns around, slowly and avoiding any more sudden movements.
He's never seen Eduardo in the pool before. He hadn't wondered about it, just assumed that Eduardo and water didn't generally mix aside from mandatory cleaning and grooming. Though what he's looking at now - they do mix. It's definitely not advisable for anybody to join in, but they do mix.
Eduardo is standing at the far end of the pool, up to his hips in water, naked (or at least not wearing anything Sean can see from here), and the water is lit up around him, eerie, flickering electric blue, white where the bolts snake out of the water and dance over Eduardo's wet skin. His body is slack, relaxed, and the light around him pulses in irregular, unconscious intervals and almost silent snaps of electricity that can't have been enough to wake Sean.
Something shifts next to Sean, and he twists to see Mark, standing in front of the door, in the shadow by the wall where he must have missed him before.
Mark's presence probably woke him. It was Mark's turn doing the nightshift, and, where usually a bomb wouldn't be able to draw him out of his creative place when he's wired in, Eduardo drifting past in the dark room must have first caught his attention and then caused him to put down his headphones and leave his code.
He nods in Mark's direction, and he nods back, quietly stepping closer but careful to remain in the shadow of the house.
Eduardo is running his hands through the water, lightning branching from his fingers, shoulders hanging like the weight of the world has finally been lifted off them and head falling back, eyes closed in relaxation maybe, or looking up and away so he doesn't have to watch his own show, Sean can't tell, but head back and neck long and stretched and exposed either way, the odd ambitious flicker of light licking up the column of his throat.
Mark stares at Eduardo, like a moth staring at the flame, knowing it will get burned but unable to turn away, and Sean instinctively reaches out an arm and holds it across Mark's body, holding him back. He didn't have to, Mark doesn't try to take even one step closer, out of the cover of the house. Of course he doesn't, Mark is clever, he knows he can't touch, not when Eduardo is like this, probably didn't even need to learn his lesson about keeping his distance in the rain like Sean, and he knows he can only watch as long as they don't announce their presence to Eduardo and remind him that he isn't alone.
They stay like that, watching Eduardo do his thing, bend down and submerge his hands in the water to watch them glow there, stretch his arms and spark brightly like a firework, and neither of them can quietly scramble away without being noticed when the eldrich lights of Eduardo's spark die in the span between two heartbeats.
Sean is still blinking away the afterimages when Eduardo stands before them. He's still dripping wet (not naked though, wearing dark trunks or briefs) when he steps close, but nothing sparks up and Sean doesn't feel like putting distance between them anymore. Controlled release.
"I still don't like you." He has to clear his throat, rough with sleep, before he continues, but that needed saying first, to avoid a possible misunderstanding.
"We should have hate sex." It's the perfect solution. Everybody gets what they want, and no one has to resolve anything. And they can say no. If they say yes, then part of them, somehow, has to want to, so if Sean can make them it's because they let him. That's how it works.
"I don't hate anyone. But I would. The. I would." Sean can't make out Mark's face in the dark, and not even his glasses would help now. He wishes for Eduardo's handheld lightning back, and turns to wait for his response.
Eduardo is either thinking about his answer, or he likes letting people wait.
"I don't hate you." The tall, lean form of Eduardo shifts, one arm rubbing the other, and Sean waits for him to continue instead of pressing for elaboration. He did say he was in this for the long haul when he moved in with Mark, after all.
"I respect what you can do. You… were not wrong. You weren't right either. We got lucky, and you are a manipulative, egomaniac asshole. I don't hate you, and I can respect you. Grudgingly." The shade of Eduardo crosses his arms in front of his chest, done with his answer.
Sean can work with that. Everything can be twisted into something useful.
"Non-hate sex of grudging respect then." Sean smiles into the night and expects to have to wait again for Eduardo to make up his mind and state his position, but Mark makes an impatient noise instead and steps forward, hand locking around Eduardo's arm and pulling him in.
Sean can definitely work with that.
***
"I wouldn't be adverse to more hate sex-"
"I don't hate you," Eduardo mumbles into Mark's stomach where he's curled into the space between their legs because the mattress continues to be too small for three people, and kicks at Sean's foot in protest. Sean graciously lets this new act of violence slide because they are so close he can feel the words rumble in Eduardo's chest where his back presses against his hip, and for all he knows the kick was an accident (and because he's still coming down from the adrenaline- and endorphin-fuelled high he's been riding).
"…I wouldn't be adverse to more grudging respect sex," he continues, "in half an hour or so."
They are young and healthy, half an hour is more than enough to get it up again.
Mark snorts from his supine position next to Sean. Sean goes through the effort of opening his eyes and looking over, but Mark still has his arm thrown over his eyes, his face effectively hidden and giving away nothing while his fingers twitch faintly like their owner is getting restless already and they are trying to type phantom code.
Then Eduardo sighs, put-upon, and starts to move, shoulders and hips bumping into their legs as he turns to sit up. Sean feels like sighing himself and tries to savor the brush of naked skin, because if Eduardo is getting up and leaving now who knows when he'll manage to lure him into bed with them again. Eduardo doesn't stand though, he just sits between them and rests on one hand, holding the other up for Sean to see.
Then he smirks, honest to God smirks, and it's a scary smirk, devious and evil and boding no good, and reaches down.
Sean jerks away from the touch - he's not sensitive anymore but he's nowhere near ready to get back to business, and Eduardo is dangerous, so with that look he's not sure if it's in his best interest to-
Oh.
Oh.
That's a nice trick.
He gulps, mouth gone dry as all the fluids in his body decide they are needed elsewhere.
"You knew he could do that," he accuses.
He can feel Mark shrug next to him, and when Sean looks over this time, his arm isn't enough to cover up the smug look on his face.
Again, the art work.
He's half sitting, half lying on the couch, everybody hovering around him, and Sean would wave them back and tell them to give him some room, but he's too busy pressing his hands to his chest where he can feel his heart beating in his chest through his wet t-shirt. Apparently it stopped. But Eduardo shocked him back to live like a defibrillator. Andrew told him that like it was supposed to be reassuring, but at least the attempted manslaughterer is standing separate from everybody else, keeping a hopefully safe distance now that there isn't water everywhere.
"Are you sure you shouldn't go to the hospital, just to be safe? Facebook did take out insurance, so we are covered." Mark is reaching out and brushing the tips of his fingers over Sean's shoulder, similar to how he earlier tried reaching out to Eduardo. Whom he is now keeping his distance from, so since he isn't actually smoking or burned Sean will consider what happened a win.
"No, I'm fine. No point ruining anyone's insurance rates for a couple of unnecessary tests just so some doctors can line their pockets."
They'd probably come knocking on Eduardo's door for reimbursement; with a talent like that Eduardo's probably got a no expenses spared private insurance for himself. Not that it matters, Sean has slightly singed feet as if he'd walked barefoot over a too-hot beach (and is so glad his socks were cotton and didn't fuse themselves to his feet like the soles of his shoes did the pavement) but is otherwise fine. Plus, and that's the important part, he not have health insurance himself and knows that doctors don't set you up with a bed and keep you overnight as a precaution in the hopes that someone's insurance will pay for it eventually. Besides, insurance claims mean an investigation, and when something happens in a house full of drunk college students the blame is usually laid at the feet of the one guy over 21, whether anything is his fault or not.
Eduardo rubs a hand over his face where he's standing satisfyingly far away from everybody else. At least he looks guilty.
"I usually have better control than that. I thought I was alone and safe to let some of it out. You surprised me! You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." So much for guilt.
Sean diplomatically doesn't mention that Eduardo clamped up when he was just surprised, and didn't actually lose his cool until he recognized Sean. Still, to be fair that might have been instinctive rather than intentional. Sean admits he has been needling and subtly undermining him since they met. In his defense, he thought Eduardo was harmless.
"Ah, but at least you changed Wardo's mind into staying the weekend!" Lauren tries to lighten the mood, awkwardly smiling at the handsome, wet stranger with electric hands who interrupted her evening of getting high. Higher. She remains entirely oblivious that she just put her foot in her mouth and tried to break the tension by reminding everybody of the previous tension, even as Dustin tries to swap at her and fails because he's on the other side of the couch.
"Staying to look after me? Aw, you really don't have to, Wardo." He doesn't; Sean isn't sure yet how comfortable he is with having Eduardo around and within sparking distance. Though he is slightly worried about another arrest and needing to get shocked back to life.
He's also slightly worried that he's only slightly worried and on top of that more than slightly intrigued. Is that a side effect?
"I'd rather not fly after this." Eduardo steps further into the room, away from the door that leads to outside. Tomorrow Sean will have to check the walkway to see if there's patch of glass there. Concrete is basically sand that's glued together, isn't it?
"You could; you have good control." Mark went to hover at Eduardo's shoulder while Sean wasn't looking, and why exactly is he hovering at Eduardo's shoulder now and not holding Sean's hand as he lies on the couch and ails?
…Also, is Mark even noticing that it almost sounds as if he's now trying to get Eduardo to leave, even if it is through a compliment?
That's good. There, Parker, get with the program. Focus. Eduardo has just been established as potentially dangerous. There's your angle.
"Nah, it's fine, stay, crash wherever." Subtle dig that Sean is more at home here than Eduardo. Good. Also possible implication that Eduardo might crawl into Sean's bed. Wait. No. Back on track. His heart keeps hammering in his chest. "Maybe one of the upstairs rooms, further away from the computers. Just in case." Smile the smile of the well-meaning, concerned friend.
"Wardo's fine, he's never fried a computer." Mark leans forward until his shoulder brushes past Eduardo's in a silent sign of trust, and it's cute, the same puppy love that had him vibrating with happiness earlier the night when he first laid eyes on Eduardo (before it became obvious Eduardo himself was anything but happy).
Okay, so Mark already knew about the nature of Eduardo's ability. Would have been more effective if he hadn't, but still, now that he's seen proof of danger it'll probably sink in how much he doesn't want Eduardo around. Sean will helpfully drive the point home too, just in case.
"He's fine? What about me? I died! I saw the light at the end of the tunnel! I had an out of body experience!" He might also still be slightly hysterical. Screw that, he's allowed. No one's tried to kill him before!
"I doubt that had anything to do with me," Eduardo mumbles while side-eyeing the bong lying abandoned in the corner of the couch, and, oh, yes, still a passive-aggressive little bitch (no offense to the fairer sex). But now it doesn't make Sean smile and poke and dig anymore, because suddenly it's not the complaints of someone who isn't even proper bark, let alone bite, now it's not that Eduardo can't, but that he won't. Suddenly it's impressive that Eduardo doesn't bark instead of weak.
Sean really doesn't want to be impressed, that makes it so much harder to focus on the fact that he wants to get rid of Eduardo.
***
He sleeps in the next day, because regular hours are for people with regular lives and because he died last night, and then stays in bed for another couple of hours in the hope that by then Eduardo will have decided that he's calm enough to fly and have left.
Then he sits up to fluff his pillow and screams because there's a red, branching burn snaking up his arm.
Of course no one comes running top check up on him, because these guys didn't stop what they were doing when their chimney fell into the pool, and Sean should probably feel honored they noticed when he got electrocuted to death in front of the house.
To death. And now he's got that thing on his arm that wasn't there last night. What if it's spreading? What if he's having a delayed reaction and in a couple of hours will be covered in third degree burns?
He clambers off the mattress that is his bed and trips twice on his way to the bathroom, where he gets caught in his shirt trying to pull it off the way he hasn't since middle school and Jennifer the cheerleader with the big eyes and the big… eyes.
It's huge. He's disfigured. Sean is never going to be able to have sex with the lights on without coming up with a story that doesn't equate to I poked something that I didn't realize was a hornet's nest.
The burn starts just above his wrist, with the tip of one spindly, zigzagging line that quickly branches out into an irregular dendritic pattern that trails up his arm and covers both his shoulders. Ironically it almost looks like frosting. Or lightning. And it hurts. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
He pushes off the sink and goes back to his room where he has to dig up his ventilator before he can breathe again, then he puts on pants and goes downstairs.
No one will want Eduardo around now. They can all see he's no good, the proof is right there on Sean's skin.
***
"Oh, Lichtenberg figure," Eduardo says when he looks up from his newspaper.
Oh? Sean is mutilated, he has been permanently damaged, and all Eduardo, who did the damage, has to say is oh? Why is he even still here? He should be gone, or at least leaving, but instead his bags are gone and he's leaning against the counter drinking coffee and reading the paper.
"You okay, man?" Eduardo sounds genuinely concerned, which is saying, something considering that, just a few hours ago, he dragged Sean's lifeless body into the house after shocking him into cardiac arrest, and afterwards seemed vaguely guilty for about ten minutes before he tried to put the blame on Sean. There's something seriously wrong with that guy.
"I'm not okay! Look at me!" Obediently everybody stops what they were doing and looks at Sean and his uncovered, grotesque body.
"Cool tattoo, dude. Does it glow in the dark?" Dustin's words fall into the silence, and sometimes Sean wonders about Dustin, he really does.
"It's a burn scar, Moskovitz, a painful disfigurement, not body modification." Sean takes another puff from his inhaler. He hates having to do that in front of people, but he hates feeling like he can breate even more.
"Now it hurts?" Ian frowns. "But weren't you okay yesterday? It's kinda late to worry now, dude, and you were the one who said you didn't need the hospital."
"I was in shock yesterday." He doesn't add that he mostly said that because he's broke and has no insurance.
"Sean," Eduardo says, all guilty puppy dog eyes and earnest face, "I'm sorry about yesterday. And the," he gestures at Sean, "the figures, they happen sometimes, they are nothing to worry about-"
"They are third-degree burns."
"First degree, and they are nothing to worry about." That's easy for Eduardo to say, he's standing there with rolled-up sleeves that show unmarred, flawless tan skin. "You didn't have any more cardiac problems, did you? And you were responsive right away yesterday and could talk, so there's probably no neurological damage. At least not from this."
Sean considers overdosing on his inhaler.
"Wardo's staying for the Thiel meeting," Mark heaps on while Sean is still reeling from the possibility of brain damage, and then turns around and puts on headphones as if he didn't just declare that a potentially fatal health hazard was moving in with them.
Everybody else takes that as the signal to return to whatever they've been doing, until the only one still looking at Sean is Eduardo, who eventually breaks his gaze when the phone next to him vibrates across the counter with an incoming message.
It's only then that Sean realizes he was looking back at Eduardo, and he remembers Mark's words, everybody who looks at him is Wardo's thing.
It's good coffee.
***
Eduardo, as it turns out, is a hoverer who spends all reasonable hours with spreadsheets on his laptop while also keeping Mark in his line of sight, and it's only when Eduardo has taken Dustin and the car grocery shopping that Sean can get some time alone with Mark.
"Why is he still here?" No point beating around the bush. It's a reasonable question, and Sean really wants to know the answer.
"He's staying for the Thiel meeting. He's the CFO, he should be here for the meeting, and there's not much point in flying to New York and then back here in three days." Mark says it like it's obvious, and for him it probably is - the whole summer he's wanted Eduardo out here pulling his weight, and now that he's here and making coffee and promising food that isn't pre-made, like some 50s housewife (and Sean knew he's been bribing people with food), it's easy for Mark to slip back into old habits.
This isn't Harvard though. They are not in college anymore, and there's more at stake here.
"Shouldn't he stay in a hotel? You've said it yourself, man, we are never down."
"What does that to do with Wardo." Mark doesn't even bother looking up from his screen, just marks and deletes a couple of lines of code and then keeps typing as if he doesn't see the point of this conversation any more than he does the question.
"If he sneezes he'll fry the network? And everything Facebook is on these computers here, so downtime is the best-case scenario, one screw-up might as well destroy the whole site."
Let alone the people, but Mark never was overly concerned with anybody's comfort and/or risk management. Usually Sean would applaud that, but this time it's his hide on the line, literally, and there's a difference between playing hard and fast with a business, or with people's lives. Sometimes Sean wants to throw it all over board, screw the long haul and sustainability and maneuvering Mark but never pushing, never persuading him blatantly enough that he'll notice. But Sean is too invested to burn his bridges now, and so he has to keep nudging and hinting and influencing.
"He won't." Mark reaches for the pack of Red Vines by his side, finds it empty, and instead chews on his lower lip, drawing it in and worrying it with his teeth. Sean would like to interpret this as doubt in Eduardo, but he's seen this often enough to know better.
"How can you know that? It's his thing, it's what he does. How can he not fizzle and sparkle and blow out a whole block's worth of fuse boxes?" That's not how it works; you don't turn your spark on and off, it just is, and Eduardo may be able to mediate the effects somewhat, regulate aim and outpour enough to be able to function in everyday life, try to avoid circumstances he knows he has trouble with, but he can't simply not.
"He won't. He's got it under control." Mark leans across the table and pulls over the headphones Andrew left lying there when he wired out, effectively declaring the conversation over.
"Mark, listen." Mark stops with the plug inches from the outlet, and his head tilts towards Sean, just a fraction, not looking at him, but not looking at the screen either.
"He electrocuted me." Sean speaks slowly, enunciates clearly, because how can this not sink in, how is this not a reason to not want t have Eduardo in the house with them.
"When you walked in on him doing a controlled release."
Mark's voice is beginning to sound strained, tired of Sean pushing the issue when Mark clearly wants him to drop it, and Sean knows he should give in, he's been so careful to appease Mark, but Eduardo isn't the victim here, even ignoring the fact that he's a useless CFO and a deadbeat friend, Eduardo isn't the victim here.
"He saw me! That was deliberate!"
"Case in point. He's got it under control. Let it go, Sean." He plugs the headphones in.
The discussion is over, and all Sean can do is damage control to make it look like Mark didn't completely disregard his justified concerns.
"Okay, okay. He can sleep here," he cedes, ignoring the fact that Eduardo already is sleeping here and no one bothered to ask Sean's permission or opinion on sleeping under one roof with the man who almost killed him. Granted, technically Eduardo is renting the house, and Sean's the one crashing, but by common law this place is Sean's. Still.
"Mark. You realize this isn't like a habit he can break or an impulse he can just not give into, right? This is a part of him. He can't turn it off and just not do it anymore than we can. It's what we are. I make people see what they want to see, you have no taste buds, and Eduardo is a high-voltage generator. He can't help it, he's dangerous." That's just how it is. Sean isn't a bad guy. He's an egoist, and he loathes Eduardo, but he has good reasons for that. He's even a bit impressed at this point, because living with a spark like that can't be easy, and learning to live with it when it manifested must have sucked, but that doesn't change the fact. Eduardo is dangerous.
Mark's fingers tighten white-knuckled around the headphones, and he hisses, "I guess you'll just have to resist the temptation to stick a fork into that particular power outlet."
Sean jerks back, straightening. Sore topic, obviously. Sean wonders if that is connected to the drunken hook-up he's been told about, or the fact that nothing came from it, but Mark is gone, wired in and no longer approachable.
He rolls his shoulders uneasily, and the lightning scar smarts at the movement (he's looked it up since, it'll disappear again in a couple of days). He should cut his losses. Leave Mark to his fate of getting burned to crisp and Facebook to disappear off the internet when their servers melt before Eduardo gives him arrhythmia or brain damage.
When he gets off the phone two hours earlier though he hasn't managed to find anything interesting, and, really, by now it would be a shame not to wait and see how the meeting with Thiel goes.
***
There are no one incidents, but Eduardo present turns out to be as much as a nuisance as Eduardo absent.
He continues to be always there, constantly checking numbers or importing numbers or compiling numbers, Sean has no idea where all those numbers are even coming from. He keeps an eye on the interns, always checks in on Mark, maybe trying to make up for having been in New York until now, disapproves of almost everything Sean does or suggests, and actually tells people to eat their vegetables or go to bed.
It's bizarre, because he seems more well-meaningly overbearing than controlling, and it doesn't fit with the image Sean had of him at all.
Eduardo's phone proves even more annoying than him and keeps buzzing with incoming texts and calls from his girlfriend at intervals that have Sean wonder how much allowance that girl gets. Instead of going somewhere private for a bit of phone-sex or at least sexting though Eduardo reluctantly but religiously read each and every text, answers few of them, and never takes any of her calls. He doesn't turn his phone off or leave it in the other room, ever, even though he tenses with apprehension every time it makes a sound, with the argument that he can't just ignore Christy because she can be very intimidating.
She didn't look very intimidating when Sean met her, all pretty face, petite frame, and easy smile, but with nails like those Christy probably gives as good as she gets. There's no way Eduardo doesn't light up like a sparkler during sex, 'controlled release' or not, which makes Sean wonder what exactly it is that cute, stubborn Christy gives that she's so unwilling to let go of what otherwise seems to be a pretty neglectful, crappy boyfriend because he has no choice but to take it. Sure, some people are into pain, for all he knows Christy might be, but Sean is not, and apparently sensitive (unless Sean is involved), clean-cut, eternally-suffering Eduardo is definitely not.
He catches himself watching Eduardo, from across the room, through windows, and he's beginning to suspect that the main reason why people keep looking at Eduardo is to figure him out. Eduardo doesn't seem dangerous. He doesn't act it. He can even laugh and joke and behave like a perfectly normal, well-adjusted, happy person. He's a hot mess and a loose cannon who could kill them and cowers at phones.
(The first time Sean sees Eduardo laugh he's outside with Mark, who is recounting the story of what happened with the zipline. Sean is watching them through the glass door, and at first Eduardo shakes his head, scraps of conversation floating inside, deposit and could have died - as if Mark would be keeping Eduardo around if he cared about that. Mark keeps talking though, arms close to his sides but hands flying, all gesticulation kept carefully close to the body, and not just because of the camcorder he holds in one hand; Mark's movements are always constrained and kept in the safe space of his own personal bubble. Then he holds up the camera and plays something to Eduardo. Sean can't see his face, but he sees when Eduardo throws his head back and laughs, loudly and unreserved, shoulders shaking, hands flailing uselessly, and mouth wide open to draw in gulping breaths that leave his chest heaving.
Mark stands still in front of him, camera held out, fingers for once calm, and just smiles at him, quietly and contentedly, with a flush on his cheeks that can't be from the sun that early in the day.
With the way Mark is looking at Eduardo, how can he not be his thing?
Sean drags his nails over the burn on his arm, but it doesn't distract him from the sudden dryness of his throat.)
***
It's Dustin who tries to explain the dynamics between Mark and Eduardo to Sean. Sean caught him when he was coming off coding duty one night and pushes a beer and some leftovers from dinner into his hands. They watch Eduardo talk to Mark when he tries to wire in together with Ian, whose shift it is, hand hovering over Mark's laptop.
They are meeting Thiel tomorrow, and turning in early is probably a good idea. Sean has reminded Mark of the meeting five minutes ago, and Mark just blinked at him, said, "yes," and went back to work.
"Someone's got to tell Mark when he's had enough, and Wardo is the only one he'll listen to." Bribable with food. Sean was right.
Sean eyes that hand distrustfully. It's too close to the laptop and too close to Mark, and he squints and watches for sparks. "Because Wardo is the one from whom it's a threat."
Dustin answers with his mouth full, bits of food falling out and back into his plate, "because it's a warning, and Mark knows Eduardo wouldn't forgive himself for a lapse. Eduardo can't lose control, and Mark won't make him."
Can't, Sean notes, not doesn't like Mark said. Sean is beginning to think that Mark of all people might very easily make Eduardo lose his precious control, he just doesn't want to, for whatever reason.
He cocks his head as, across the room, Mark closes his laptop. "So the threat's not what Wardo could do to Mark and Facebook, but how bad Wardo would feel about it?"
"Eduardo's got hang-ups about his thing. Mark thinks it's stupid to feel bad about something he can't change, and he won't enable Eduardo in shaming himself for something that's not wrong."
Sean tears his gaze away from the display on the other side of the room and stares at Dustin. "That is so reckless I don't even know what to say."
Dustin shrugs. "They are friends. Maybe you don't get that, but no matter how much they disagree, Eduardo has Mark's back, and Mark has his, even if it's to protect him from himself."
"Even at the cost of Facebook?" Because Sean is getting that now, that there's something between Mark and Eduardo, but Mark was almost ready to let Eduardo go for Facebook once, was ignoring his texts and filling his place with Sean.
"They both want what's best for Facebook," Dustin naively reiterates, something they've heard both of them say before when they were fighting.
Sean has heard that argument before though, right before irreconcilable differences.
"They don't agree on what that is though."
"No, but now that Eduardo is here they'll figure it out. You getting shocked was good for that at least." Dustin shrugs and walks away to slouch on the couch and watch some action movie that's on tv, and across the room Eduardo and Mark are going up the stairs, Mark tired and slumped and Eduardo with that hand now hovering in the small of Mark's back, twitching nervously but not touching.
It's like a dance. Lion tamer and lion, and Sean's not sure which is which. Mark, whom Sean has seen delight in antagonizing people just for the sake of it, will push and push Eduardo until he's clenched hands and working jaw and dark eyes, and then give, save his work and log out with a sigh instead of watching Eduardo explode, and Eduardo, who could destroy all the delicate innerworkings of Mark's creations with the blink of an eye, with one moment of weakness, by not even doing something but simply by not holding back what comes naturally, doesn't, just twists himself tighter and tighter while still seeking out this environment where the smallest slip in his self-control would have disastrous consequences.
They are caught in a system of check, counter-check, and balance, a system that shouldn't work and that, inevitably, will come crashing around them because there's no release, they are only pushing each other higher and higher, and Sean doesn't even want to watch from a safe distance, he wants to get all up in it and poke and prod and make their house of cards fall apart around him because when the crash comes it'll be a firework to rival the 4th of July. The fallout might just be worth the show, and Mark's and Eduardo's carefully composed symbiosis would be irreparably damaged.
Mark won't be able to forgive Eduardo for losing control, and Eduardo won't forgive Mark for making him.
And Sean will be there to slip into the gap left by the departure of Facebook's volatile ex-CFO and Mark's best friend of a tag-along and caretaker.
It's for the best that way.
***
Sean does put on his glasses for the meeting. Not to in any way appeal to Thiel or conform to society's rules and seem more respectable, but in case of fine print. That suit jacket he just happened to have hanging around.
Mark sits next to him, retreated in his own mind to avoid thinking about the meeting, and Eduardo is playing with his ring.
Relax, he considers telling them, we've got this, because this is finally the right ear, and Sean will be whispering in it any second now, but by now he strongly suspects that Eduardo doesn't respond to his suggestions and he doesn't want to risk a confrontation now should he catch up on a sudden and complete shift in Mark's mood, so he goes for distraction.
"This is where they filmed Towering Inferno." Granted, not one of his best.
The door opens and Thiel greets them, switches to first names right away, a good sign.
Sean's got this.
Then Peter introduces Maurice, who asks about when they expect to start turning in profit, and, when Sean smiles and deflects, puts his hand on Peter's arm and repeats the question.
Peter got himself an immune assistant.
Sean stumbles through his spiel, but he knows the gaps in his smokescreen are obvious for anyone looking.
This won't work.
***
They have no idea when they'll turn profit, because they have no plans on making Facebook profitable.
Their growth numbers are impressive though. Even more impressive are predictions of future growth by school, state, and for international users, and projected future income margin of users based on the majors listed in their profiles.
Sean has no idea where those numbers are coming from, but Eduardo has printout after printout to back his words up.
***
"I think that went well," Mark degrees in the car back to the house. Sean is driving; Mark and Eduardo still seemed too shell-shocked when they got to the car.
It did go well. They have another meeting in two days to sign the contract.
"What was that?" There goes Eduardo's shock too. "You scheduled this meeting, and you didn't even walk in prepared?"
Sean's neck prickles as he watches Eduardo wave his arms about in the rearview mirror, but he resists the urge to turn around. They just got half a million dollars, he refuses to crash the car now. "I didn't know he'd have an assistant with immunity."
"Yes, what a surprise, a man who runs a two-billion dollar hedge fund taking steps to make sure he doesn't fall prey to a con artist." How Eduardo can be so sarcastic and cranky when everything turned out perfectly fine is beyond Sean. The whole being a killjoy thing must be connected to his spark and the amount of suppressing he does. He's probably got ulcers too.
"It's suggestion, not mind control. I can't make people want something they aren't already interested in. There's nothing illegal about it, I'm just using the means at my disposal to their full extent and to my advantage. Everybody's doing it."
"We don't need it, we didn't need it. Facebook's growth numbers speak for themselves." There's pride in his voice. The only time Sean really saw (or heard) Eduardo express pride in Facebook and identify with the company was in New York, when they were talking about the Little Big Horn. Maybe that's because Eduardo wasn't fully behind Facebook until they landed an investment just now. Or they've just never talked about Facebook without immediately being sat each other's throats.
Still, as impressive as Eduardo's number juggling was, it only convinced Peter and Maurice because it got a chance to convince them. "And how did we manage to get this meeting during which you dazzled Peter with your impressing ability to memorize numbers, " he drawls, "hard work alone never got anyone anywhere."
Eduardo draws in a deep breath, getting ready for one of his monologues on business and rules. "It's the basis of-"
"Yeah, yeah, basis. As if anyone's gonna get a bag of flour when they can buy a cake. Tell me, Wardo, did they let you into Harvard before or after your father pulled his cheque book?" Eduardo may be impressed with himself right now, but, just in case his words aren't enough, Sean hopes his tone of voice explains what he thinks of Eduardo and how he got here.
Eduardo falls silent, but Mark answers for him. "Wardo's paying for Harvard himself."
"Uhuh. Inheritance?" Sean has met the kind. They also think they are paying for something themselves when they are paying with their 10k-per-month pocket money.
"Five thousand dollar loan, stock market, and a summer in front of the tv," Eduardo elaborates, smug, and Sean shuts up, mainly because he has no idea how one makes money watching tv but doesn't want to give Eduardo the satisfaction of asking, not now when he's already full enough of himself.
"But the Phoenix probably was a diversity thing," Mark continues, guilelessly. Eduardo squawks behind them. "What? You said so yourself."
***
They start popping corks and spraying champagne as soon as they are through the door. Sean didn't even know they had champagne. Eduardo must have bought it (so he must have had some faith in Facebook after all).
"You're staying, Wardo," Mark says when Eduardo turns on his phone again after for once turning it off during the meeting, and it erupts in beeps and rings.
Eduardo looks at the phone in his hands, and then at Mark and Sean standing before him, both splattered with champagne and drunk at two in the afternoon, at Mark's red, sticky lips, shining eyes, and the way he bounces even while he's standing still, and at Sean, whose mouth is still prickling with expensive champagne and who is holding the bottle out to Eduardo because it's his turn and he's already feeling like he's been hit by lightning anyway so who cares if the bottle is wet with condensation.
"I'm staying." He presses a button and holds the phone to his face, as far as Sean can tell taking one of Christy's calls for the first time since he flew out to California. He doesn't say anything though, and five second later he hangs up, eyebrows raised in confusion. "She broke up with me."
Mark glances over at Sean. Apparently Mark being Eduardo's best friend doesn't trump his unwillingness to delve into the jungle of appropriate reactions.
"That sucks, man." Sean holds out the bottle to him. This is the best he can do right now, he's too buzzed from getting the investment and drinking champagne on an empty stomach, and too new to not disliking Eduardo for anything else.
Eduardo blinks and drops his phone in his pocket before he takes the bottle. He seems a lot less heartbroken than people usually are after getting dumped.
"It's okay." He takes a too enthusiastic swig and ends up coughing. "To be honest, I was afraid what she'd do if I broke up with her. Even from the other side of the country."
He hands the bottle over to Mark, who gropes at it blindly while he continues to stare at Eduardo, puzzled by this diversion from the expected reaction to a break-up. "You liked Christy."
Eduardo snorts. He's so drunk. "Christy is crazy. She's actually psychotic. She's insanely jealous, she's irrational, and I'm frightened of her."
Mark can't think of anything better to do than look to Sean for assistance again, and Sean grabs the forgotten champagne from him and pushes it back to Eduardo, who accepts gratefully. More alcohol is always an appropriate reaction to trouble of any kind.
***
The party doesn't so much stop as slow down at some point, everybody coming down and remembering that it's the middle of the day and they still have to be awake for hours, and Sean finds himself in a chair on the veranda, watching the living room through the open door and nursing a drink in the hopes of avoiding a hangover by preventive use of hair of the dog.
They probably wouldn't have gotten the Thiel investment without Eduardo. Credit where credit is due, man, Sean is nothing if not fair. Well, he's not, but he's not a downright liar.
Eduardo and him, they got off on the wrong foot. Sean came to New York ready to dazzle and woe those promising young minds and make the most of their potential, and Eduardo was entirely unwilling to be dazzled. Sean didn't mind, because he figured out pretty quickly where the money and the power lay in that company, with Mark, and Mark was someone Sean could dazzle, who wanted to be dazzled, and, best of all, whom Sean did want to dazzle too, not just for the money, not because he could.
Mark had had a great idea, an even greater vision because he was so adamant not to compromise, and he was fucking ready to take the world by its horns and wrestle it, force it to acknowledge him, kneel down, and worship his genius. Mark, that Sean had no doubt after that first meeting, wanted to leave his mark in the world, screw the consequences, but beneath his cynic intellect he was still naïve enough that, while doing so, the world would in turn chew him up and spit him out.
Sean saw a lot of himself in Mark right away, and he'll admit to anyone who asks that he's more than a bit narcissistic. He's not in love with the guy, but he's definitely fond of him, and if Facebook should crash and burn he'll feel more than a little sorry.
Eduardo didn't interest Sean at all, and he wasn't impressed by him either.
Sean is a smokes and mirrors kind of guy, he likes it flashy, and everybody who's keeping quiet clearly doesn't have anything to say that's worth listening for. And Eduardo was just so dour, the whole evening through, like having had to wait for ten minutes or so in a fancy sushi bar weighted heavily enough on his hurt pride that it was worth poleaxing Sean, like his petty jealousy mattered more than the fact that Sean had connections and savvy and could open doors for them and get them places. Sure, Little Big Horn, great. Business 101, Sean has read Business for Dummies too.
Eduardo was just absent.
Mark may not be the easiest CEO, mainly because he doesn't want to have to deal with any actual CEOing, but, hey, that's why he'd been clever enough to get himself a partner who was supposed to know these things. And, from what Sean had seen, Eduardo just didn't cut it.
Eduardo is cutting it a little more now.
Now, Sean is aware that Eduardo actually knows his shit, and, despite being a grinch who doesn't know how to handle a big thing, knows Facebook. Not the code, not even the site itself, but the company details. Dreary, boring little things like making sure the interns actually have insurance while they are working in the party house Mark rented for them, and adjusting his projections of how long their money will last daily, based on the growth of their user base, server use, and predictions on when Mark will insist on buying more server space (which are in turn based on previous purchases).
And Eduardo actually stepping up to the plate and doing his part to sell Peter Thiel on them was helpful. Sean has no doubt that him and Mark could have managed without him, Thiel's interest was piqued enough that he'd have asked them back for another meeting (for which Sean would then have made sure to have the necessary numbers to get the nod of acceptance from Thiel's spoilsport of an immune assistant), but getting the investment right away, please come back in two days to sign the papers, was… good. Smooth.
All in all, everything is going surprisingly smoothly with Eduardo here. It's a surprise, and not a pleasant one, because it makes Sean doubt the wisdom having wanted him out of the company. They don't need him, they did fine without him for most of the summer, but, he has his uses. Strictly in the business sense, and when it comes to Mark. Because Facebook is Mark - it won't stay that way, the company will grow to the point where everybody is just a replacable cog in the machine, but right now, Facebook is Mark. And Mark is, against all reason, more content with a nagging, oversensitive, prissy Brazilian mother hen constantly on his case and interrupting his work to get him to eat or sleep or 'act like a normal human being'.
As if Eduardo, who is still wearing most of his suit and at some point went back to crunching his beloved numbers while everybody around him is celebrating their 500.000$ investment, has any idea what that means.
But somehow so far it works for them, and it's making Sean wonder if it's really 'so far' or if he shouldn't rather apply 'never change a winning team'.
Well, no point in wondering. Eduardo isn't going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
He takes a sip from his drink - appletini, again (he's developing a taste for the stuff - either his taste buds have fallen prey to Stockholm Syndrome or that's some of the neurological damage he's been looking for, together with this newfound reluctant acceptance of Eduardo), and decides to browse his alcohol-blinkered gaze through the room to check up on the other half of his dynamic duo, but when he finds Mark, he is neither off in his own world doing his thing nor staring at Wardo like he can't figure out if Wardo is his safety net or a leash holding him back, instead Mark is already looking back at him when Sean's own gaze settles in him.
Sean wonders if he was visibly oozing malicious intent towards Eduardo, because Mark looks decidedly unhappy when he has every reason to still be riding the high of that morning, and when it's clear that Sean has caught Mark catching Sean glaring at Eduardo he narrows his eyes and makes his way over.
"I thought you didn't like Eduardo."
Ah, the egocentrism of youth. Sean snorts into his cup. "I don't." Of course by now Mark is so used to Eduardo and Sean aiming icy glares and careful barbs at each other over Mark's head that the moment they are too busy with celebrating their angel investment (Sean) respectively grounding themselves with routine (Eduardo) to do so he's not happy with that either.
Mark turns his head slowly to look at Eduardo, who's still entering numbers into a worksheet, and back to Sean. Sean raises a brow in question (it's cooler with one brow, he practiced for months when he was a kid until he had the necessary coordination for this), and gives Mark a once-over in return. Mark's eyes have cleared since their champagne binge and he's holding a glass of water, so the slowness of the movement must have been deliberate rather than alcohol-induced.
"That's not how you were looking at him." Mark tightens his fingers around his glass - Sean has spent enough time with him by now to know he wants to fidget nervously, brace himself somehow or ball his hands into fists, because for someone who likes to seek out confrontation Mark favours overly defensive postures, and then he just walks off and leaves Sean to stand there like some idiot who just got warned off by a jealous boyfriend.
It's entirely possible though that Mark is simply taking a page out of Eduardo's book of prissy jealousy because for once he is not the center of everybody's attention. This is Mark's show, and he doesn't like being sidelined. Hey, Sean gets it, he's a spotlight hogger himself, it's part of why he recognized that hunger in Mark. Narcissist, right?
Which leaves the question though, does Mark not want Sean to look at Eduardo however he thinks he was looking at him because he wants Sean to look at Mark, or was that a warning to not look at Eduardo like that?
Because Sean might enjoy looking at both of them, and it would be plain unfair if neither of them looked back because they were too busy always just barely missing it when they look at each other.
***
Sean wakes up in that pool chair, mouth dry, head filled with cotton but not pounding at least, and neck hurting. He blinks in the dark - there's no one in the living room, just one lonely lit-up laptop, so it has to be late enough to be early already, everybody long in bed except Sean whom they left outside. Assholes.
He'll blame the disorientation of just having woken up on how long it takes him to notice the reflection in the glass door. When he does, he first flinches, then turns around, slowly and avoiding any more sudden movements.
He's never seen Eduardo in the pool before. He hadn't wondered about it, just assumed that Eduardo and water didn't generally mix aside from mandatory cleaning and grooming. Though what he's looking at now - they do mix. It's definitely not advisable for anybody to join in, but they do mix.
Eduardo is standing at the far end of the pool, up to his hips in water, naked (or at least not wearing anything Sean can see from here), and the water is lit up around him, eerie, flickering electric blue, white where the bolts snake out of the water and dance over Eduardo's wet skin. His body is slack, relaxed, and the light around him pulses in irregular, unconscious intervals and almost silent snaps of electricity that can't have been enough to wake Sean.
Something shifts next to Sean, and he twists to see Mark, standing in front of the door, in the shadow by the wall where he must have missed him before.
Mark's presence probably woke him. It was Mark's turn doing the nightshift, and, where usually a bomb wouldn't be able to draw him out of his creative place when he's wired in, Eduardo drifting past in the dark room must have first caught his attention and then caused him to put down his headphones and leave his code.
He nods in Mark's direction, and he nods back, quietly stepping closer but careful to remain in the shadow of the house.
Eduardo is running his hands through the water, lightning branching from his fingers, shoulders hanging like the weight of the world has finally been lifted off them and head falling back, eyes closed in relaxation maybe, or looking up and away so he doesn't have to watch his own show, Sean can't tell, but head back and neck long and stretched and exposed either way, the odd ambitious flicker of light licking up the column of his throat.
Mark stares at Eduardo, like a moth staring at the flame, knowing it will get burned but unable to turn away, and Sean instinctively reaches out an arm and holds it across Mark's body, holding him back. He didn't have to, Mark doesn't try to take even one step closer, out of the cover of the house. Of course he doesn't, Mark is clever, he knows he can't touch, not when Eduardo is like this, probably didn't even need to learn his lesson about keeping his distance in the rain like Sean, and he knows he can only watch as long as they don't announce their presence to Eduardo and remind him that he isn't alone.
They stay like that, watching Eduardo do his thing, bend down and submerge his hands in the water to watch them glow there, stretch his arms and spark brightly like a firework, and neither of them can quietly scramble away without being noticed when the eldrich lights of Eduardo's spark die in the span between two heartbeats.
Sean is still blinking away the afterimages when Eduardo stands before them. He's still dripping wet (not naked though, wearing dark trunks or briefs) when he steps close, but nothing sparks up and Sean doesn't feel like putting distance between them anymore. Controlled release.
"I still don't like you." He has to clear his throat, rough with sleep, before he continues, but that needed saying first, to avoid a possible misunderstanding.
"We should have hate sex." It's the perfect solution. Everybody gets what they want, and no one has to resolve anything. And they can say no. If they say yes, then part of them, somehow, has to want to, so if Sean can make them it's because they let him. That's how it works.
"I don't hate anyone. But I would. The. I would." Sean can't make out Mark's face in the dark, and not even his glasses would help now. He wishes for Eduardo's handheld lightning back, and turns to wait for his response.
Eduardo is either thinking about his answer, or he likes letting people wait.
"I don't hate you." The tall, lean form of Eduardo shifts, one arm rubbing the other, and Sean waits for him to continue instead of pressing for elaboration. He did say he was in this for the long haul when he moved in with Mark, after all.
"I respect what you can do. You… were not wrong. You weren't right either. We got lucky, and you are a manipulative, egomaniac asshole. I don't hate you, and I can respect you. Grudgingly." The shade of Eduardo crosses his arms in front of his chest, done with his answer.
Sean can work with that. Everything can be twisted into something useful.
"Non-hate sex of grudging respect then." Sean smiles into the night and expects to have to wait again for Eduardo to make up his mind and state his position, but Mark makes an impatient noise instead and steps forward, hand locking around Eduardo's arm and pulling him in.
Sean can definitely work with that.
***
"I wouldn't be adverse to more hate sex-"
"I don't hate you," Eduardo mumbles into Mark's stomach where he's curled into the space between their legs because the mattress continues to be too small for three people, and kicks at Sean's foot in protest. Sean graciously lets this new act of violence slide because they are so close he can feel the words rumble in Eduardo's chest where his back presses against his hip, and for all he knows the kick was an accident (and because he's still coming down from the adrenaline- and endorphin-fuelled high he's been riding).
"…I wouldn't be adverse to more grudging respect sex," he continues, "in half an hour or so."
They are young and healthy, half an hour is more than enough to get it up again.
Mark snorts from his supine position next to Sean. Sean goes through the effort of opening his eyes and looking over, but Mark still has his arm thrown over his eyes, his face effectively hidden and giving away nothing while his fingers twitch faintly like their owner is getting restless already and they are trying to type phantom code.
Then Eduardo sighs, put-upon, and starts to move, shoulders and hips bumping into their legs as he turns to sit up. Sean feels like sighing himself and tries to savor the brush of naked skin, because if Eduardo is getting up and leaving now who knows when he'll manage to lure him into bed with them again. Eduardo doesn't stand though, he just sits between them and rests on one hand, holding the other up for Sean to see.
Then he smirks, honest to God smirks, and it's a scary smirk, devious and evil and boding no good, and reaches down.
Sean jerks away from the touch - he's not sensitive anymore but he's nowhere near ready to get back to business, and Eduardo is dangerous, so with that look he's not sure if it's in his best interest to-
Oh.
Oh.
That's a nice trick.
He gulps, mouth gone dry as all the fluids in his body decide they are needed elsewhere.
"You knew he could do that," he accuses.
He can feel Mark shrug next to him, and when Sean looks over this time, his arm isn't enough to cover up the smug look on his face.
Again, the art work.