[PART FOUR] CLOSED
THE SOCIAL NETWORK KINK MEME
ASK THE MODS * FAQ * DISCUSSION * RESEARCH * FILL LIST * PART ONE * PART ONE (OVERFLOW) * PART TWO * PART TWO (OVERFLOW) * PART THREE * (PART THREE (OVERFLOW)
GENERAL RULES;
IMPORTANT: please DO NOT post prompts about any non-public people as part of a prompt. for example: randi zuckerberg is fine ( Read more... )
ASK THE MODS * FAQ * DISCUSSION * RESEARCH * FILL LIST * PART ONE * PART ONE (OVERFLOW) * PART TWO * PART TWO (OVERFLOW) * PART THREE * (PART THREE (OVERFLOW)
GENERAL RULES;
IMPORTANT: please DO NOT post prompts about any non-public people as part of a prompt. for example: randi zuckerberg is fine ( Read more... )
Sean is Mark’s friend.
It’s hard to remember sometimes, with the girls and the drugs and everything else that threatens what Mark has built, but it’s true. He has his vices, but his virtues present themselves in their way. With the Thiel investment, for instance, or the way Sean talks him up to girls without mentioning his money (and sometimes his name; Mark still likes to pretend girls might want him, not what he can do for them), or the way he’ll force Mark to leave his office and go out for a real meal every once in a while.
So when Sean says he wants to throw Mark a party for his birthday, Mark says okay. And when Mark doesn’t recognize half the people in his living room (“It’s your birthday. Besides, this way you can get fucked up and not worry about where you’re waking up in the morning.”), he shrugs because it’s not that different from any of Sean’s parties.
When it’s over and all the people are gone, Sean stays to help him clean.
This, Mark doesn’t know what to do with. Sean is his friend, but he’s a certain kind of friend.
“You can leave.”
“Nah, it’s cool,” Sean says, empty red cups in hand.
“Really,” Mark says and watches him disappear into the kitchen. “I have someone who’ll do that tomorrow.” Even Mark’s stopped now, actually wanting to sleep for once. He thought about the two girls he saw Sean with throughout the night. “And what about those girls? Aren’t they waiting for you?”
Sean comes from the kitchen, but not empty handed. “I’ve got names, numbers and addresses in my phone.” He sets the box he was carrying on the coffee table. “And you still haven’t opened your present yet.”
Mark hasn’t opened any of his presents. “You didn’t have to stay -“
“Yes, I did,” Sean says. “Open your box.”
Mark ambles over to the black box. It’s wrapped with a blue bow and about the size of a small space heater. He lifts the top carefully, expecting something to spring out at him.
Nothing does. He pulls out the object inside. In his hands is a small, golden, oil lamp. It’s completely solid except for the small opening at the top. “Thank you?” he says.
“You’re welcome,” Sean replies, and he beams at Mark. “Now rub it.”
Mark almost drops it. “What?”
“Rub it,” Sean says. “You know, just a little - “and he makes a back and forth motion with his hand. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter where.”
It takes Mark a moment to catch up. He blames the drowsiness. “Oh, like Aladdin,” he says. “Cute. Why would you get this for me?” The street urchin makes good thing, maybe?
“You’ll see,” Sean says. “Just rub it,” and he moves his hand again.
So Mark does.
And then he is blind. A bright, white light flashes through the room and Mark can’t see anything. He squeezes his eyes shut, hoping the damage to his retinas isn’t too severe, and doesn’t open them again until he hears Sean say, “Holy shit.”
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“Oh, man, I can’t believe it worked,” Sean says. He’s clapping his hands like a seal, and Mark reaches out to stop him, but Sean is already moving towards the man.
“What worked?” Mark asks. “Who is this? Sean?”
Sean circles the guy, hands stilled, but mouth stretched wide in a grin.
“I was hoping for more of an I Dream of Jeannie thing, but still,” he says.
“That is the last time I doubt a carnival gypsy.”
He straightens the lapels of the guy’s jacket, and before he can pull away the guy (seriously, who is he?) has his wrists in a tight grip.
The man’s eyes narrow and he releases Sean. “You’re not my master,” he says quietly. His voice is slightly accented.
Sean’s smile turns wicked. “No. No, I’m not.” He points to Mark. “But he is.”
What?
Mark looks from the guy to Sean and back again. “Sean, can I talk to you?”
Sean shakes his head. “Actually, Mark, I have to go. I have friends waiting, but you guys have fun.”
Mark follows him to the door. “Sean, seriously, what - “
Sean spins on him, hands on his shoulders. “Mark, you’re a smart guy. There was a lamp. You stroked it. He showed up.” He hands slide down and squeeze Mark’s arms. “The only question you need to ask now is, what do I want?"
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“Rub it,” Sean says. “You know, just a little - “and he makes a back and forth motion with his hand. “I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter where.”
just made me burst out laughing.
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Mark spends the half hour immediately following Sean’s departure trying to prove how he did it. The light was clearly some kind of flash bulb, but Sean probably had the remote for that. He remembered pretty quickly that Sean wouldn’t let him anywhere near his bedroom (“it’s your birthday,” Sean had said. “You need to be with the people.” It didn’t take Mark long to realize it was code for “you can’t code on your birthday, I won’t let you”).
“Is that where you were?” Mark asks. “In my bedroom?” He checks the hallway like evidence will reveal itself. “I hope you didn’t touch anything. If there’s even a hint that you -“
“I came from the lamp.” It’s only the third thing he’s said since Sean left, the first being Eduardo when Mark asked his name; the second, a thunderous NO when Mark attempted to break the lamp to find out if his real gift was inside.
“You couldn’t have come from the lamp, you’re a fully grown man,” Mark says. He collapses on his sofa.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do here.” He flexes his fingers against his leg and doesn’t look at Eduardo. “Obviously, Sean thought I needed - something that, honestly, isn’t very clear to me, and he enlisted you to help, but whatever he’s paid you to do, I’ll pay you double not to.”
“I’m not here for money,” Eduardo says. He watches Mark from his place near the door, where he’s been since Mark began running scenarios in his head, checking in, under, and around pieces of furniture whenever an idea struck him.
“What are you here for then?” Mark asks with a roll of his eyes.
“What do you want?” Eduardo replies. “You wish it, I make it happen. It really is that simple.”
“Nothing is that simple,” Mark says. “And even if it were, for you to provide whatever I desire fast enough to make me believe you’re what you claim to be, would take meticulous planning on yours and Sean’s part. Not to mention, it would speak to a predictability in my character that does not exist.”
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Mark slides closer to his armrest. This is what Sean thinks he needs?
“I don’t want that from you,” he says. His voice cracks and he doesn’t know why. “I don’t, I don’t know why Sean would think I want that from you.”
The silence that follows feels heavy, weighing the room down. Mark wants to leave, he wants to sleep, he wants to code, he wants to be anywhere else in the world; but he can’t allow this stranger to stay in his house unattended.
Eduardo stands then, nodding to himself.
“This isn’t going to work,” he says. Mark sighs in relief.
“At least, not tonight.”
Mark looks up. “I told you, I don’t want you. Go back wherever Sean found you, and find someone else -“
“I can’t,” Eduardo says. He shrugs. “I heard you. I know what you want and what you don’t, but I can’t- “ He runs his fingers through his hair. It stays poofy.
“I can’t leave a master until I’ve fulfilled his wishes,” he says. He looks at Mark. “It’s only three things. A new TV. A new car. Your own personal theme tune, I don’t know. But if you don’t make your wishes, I can’t leave.”
Mark opens his mouth to respond because there’s role play, and then there is this, but Eduardo continues.
“I get that you don’t believe,” he says. “In fact, I like it better that way. It’s easier. But if there’s really nothing you want, nothing you wish for in the whole entire world,” his hands slide into his pockets, “then wish for anything, so we can both move on.”
Mark blinks. He also breathes. Instinctive, life-necessitated actions are all he is capable of right now. This guy is good. Mark would put him in TV spots for Facebook, if Facebook needed TV spots.
Eduardo smiles. “You should rest. We can talk in the morning.”
And then he is gone. There’s no flash of light, but there is also no Eduardo.
Shit.
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Mark doesn't sleep. He tries to code, but the word genie keeps interrupting his thoughts, until he saves what little he’s managed and starts to research. Most of what he finds concerns myths and Arabic traditions, The Thousand and One Nights, and Aladdin (and if Mark watches “Friend Like Me” on YouTube a couple of times, that’s nobody’s business). There’s a bit about the programming language, diapers, and other products that seem to have genie in the title just because someone liked the way it sounded. He tries “Eduardo” and “genie” together but that garners no results.
Shortly after 7am, Mark sets aside his laptop and rubs his eyes. He had been tired the night before, and this is the first night he can remember where the decision not to sleep didn’t involve Facebook in some way. He wonders if this was Sean’s plan. Create a situation that seems impossible, and leave it for Mark to figure out. It’s not a bad idea. It’s actually a perfect blend of something Sean would do and something Mark would enjoy.
He sinks back into his sofa and closes his eyes.
He doesn’t believe. Not only because of the impossibility, but because there is nothing Mark wants, except maybe for Facebook to continue to grow and succeed, and while he can’t predict the future, Mark knows that this will come to pass. (Dustin calls it his paternal instinct, but Dustin says a lot of ridiculous things.) If there is nothing Mark wants, why does he need a genie?
It takes a few minutes for the thought to fall into place, like the last piece of a puzzle that somehow ends up between the refrigerator and the kitchen counter.
Why does Mark need a genie if there is nothing he cannot buy for himself? Logic dictates that he does not. Just like that puzzle piece, which was probably kicked into that narrow space when you got up to answer the phone, or placed there by a younger sister who thinks watching you tear a room apart looking for it is funny - every illogical thing has to have some kind of logic behind it. And if that logic is flimsy, then the thing is proved false, and it creates an opening to learn the truth.
Mark leaps up - as much as drowsiness and lousy coordination will allow - and rushes to his bedroom. He grabs his phone off the nightstand and texts Dustin that he’ll be working from home during his sprint back to the sofa. He slides a bit on the hardwood floor, and abandons the phone to save the laptop before it crashes to the ground when he drops back into his seat. He rests the laptop on his knees, sparing the golden lamp on his coffee table a cursory glance, and starts to type.
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"(and if Mark watches “Friend Like Me” on YouTube a couple of times, that’s nobody’s business)" <--- So, I lol'd big time and then listened to "Friend Like Me", only not on youtube because I have the mp3 *whistles innocently*
I am excite for more! :D
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“This is ridiculous,” he mutters.
He rubs the lamp.
“Are you ready now?”
Mark startles, the lamp slipping from his fingers to roll under the coffee table. At least it didn’t break, he thinks. He turns to the voice - Eduardo’s voice - once again in front of the TV.
“How do you do that?” he asks before he can stop himself.
Eduardo once again wears a dark suit. Mark is fairly certain it’s not the same one from the day before.
“You summoned me,” Eduardo says. “Here I am.”
“Yes, but how?” Mark asks. “How do you get from there to here? If you are what you say you are, shouldn’t there be smoke or some kind of fire effect before you take shape? And what about size? How do you -“ Mark waves his hand around like the elusive word is just floating there, waiting for him to grab it “ - shrink yourself?”
“I don’t shrink myself,” Eduardo says. There’s something in his tone, like he wants to find Mark funny but won’t let himself. “I stay the same size.”
Mark bends to retrieve the lamp, grabbing his cell phone while he’s at it. He throws his phone on sofa and holds the lamp in both hands, like he is presenting an award. “You stay the same size?”
Eduardo smiles. “It’s bigger on the inside.”
Mark doesn’t know whether to be upset about the lie, or that he went with such an obvious (and classic, Mark will admit) reference.
Mark puts the lamp down, and hits power on his laptop. He waits for it the password prompt, types it in, and turns back to Eduardo. He’s moved to the fireplace now, inspecting the items that line the mantle.
“You were TIME’s Person of the Year?” he asks, awe in his voice. “That’s pretty awesome.”
“They should have given it to me earlier,” Mark says. “What about the light last night? If you can just appear, what was that?”
Eduardo shrugs, his back still to Mark. “I’ve learned over the years, people expect some flash the first time. So that’s what I give them.”
“How many years?” Mark asks. He strikes through the first question on his list, saved this morning and the first thing he saw when his screen booted up. It wasn’t a good explanation, but Mark could understand the logic.
“Many,” Eduardo says. The fireplace is bookended by two windows, and Eduardo stands before one. His hands slip from his pockets and he slowly raises the blinds, his thumbs and forefingers pulling the string, one after the other, like they’re trying to climb to the top and getting absolutely nowhere.
“Were you born this way?” Mark scrolls to question 8. “A genie, I mean.”
Eduardo sighs. He presses his hands to the glass, and the sun streaming through the window makes him look kind of - shimmery.
“You can wish for a friend, you know,” he says. He turns his head towards Mark, just a bit. “It can be someone you know, or someone you’ve wanted to be friends with, or someone new. Maybe you want to meet your best friend from 50 years in the future.”
“If I wanted to see my friends, I could call them,” Mark says.
“And if I wanted to play twenty questions, I wouldn’t keep asking you to make a damn wish,” Eduardo replies.
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“’Master’ is just an expression,” Eduardo says. He pushes off the window and lets the blinds drop. “It’s just a way of addressing someone whose name I don’t know. You only control when I’m out of the lamp, nothing more.”
He turns to face Mark fully, his hands back in his pockets. His jaw is tense, like he doesn’t want to speak.
“When you rub the lamp, it leaves an imprint on it and on me. So when I touched your friend, I knew he wasn’t the one. I assumed you were because no one else was in the room. Your behavior only confirmed it for me.”
“I could just be a suspicious person,” Mark says. “I am, in fact. Very suspicious.”
“Never would have guessed,” Eduardo says. His jaw relaxes and the corner of his lip rises in a smirk. This is the third time. The third time Mark has done or said something that has made Eduardo at least want to smile.
“You could just make a wish,” Eduardo adds. “If I can make it happen, then we’ll know for sure.”
“Or you could just touch me,” Mark says, and he doesn’t care how it sounds. “Much better than me wasting a wish.”
Eduardo raises an eyebrow. “Does that mean you believe me?”
Mark replays the words in his head. Shit. “No.”
“Then you should make the wish, wasteful or not,” Eduardo says. Mark opens his mouth to protest, but Eduardo keeps going. “If I touch you and I say you’re my master, the only way you’ll believe it is if you trust me. If you believe me. If you don’t then it doesn’t matter what I say, because you’ll think I’m lying. The wish is the only way.”
Mark replays this argument, tries to find the hole he needs to slip through. He can’t, so he does the next best thing. He redirects.
“What else does this imprint do?”
“Helps me cope with insufferable personalities,” Eduardo says. He shakes his head. “It helps me know you. The more time I spend with you, the better I get to know you. The better I can anticipate what you need, the better to interpret what your wishes mean. You have no idea how many people wish for lifetime supplies of things without thinking of what that actually means.”
“What do you mean, anticipate what I need?” Mark asks. He’s not trying to distract this time; the phrase caught his attention.
Eduardo smiles and walks slowly towards him. He draws one hand out of his pocket and Mark stumbles back, unsure. Eduardo snaps his fingers, and there - no bright light, no puff of smoke, just there - are a pair of eyeglasses.
If Mark’s neck didn’t support it, he’s pretty sure his head would be behind the sofa now, it snapped back that quickly.
Eduardo unfolds the stems, and leans forward to place them gently behind Mark’s ears. The blurriness around edges that aren’t his computer screen is something that Mark has gotten used to over the years. Having everything in focus - including the soft smile on Eduardo’s lips - is strange.
“You were squinting,” Eduardo says, his voice soft. Mark adds it to the list of things he doesn’t understand about him.
I swear, I will eventually manage a consistency with the subject line
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