fic: Verse, Chorus, and Such (Mark/Eduardo, Prompt 35)
Title: Verse, Chorus, and Such
Recipient: putana
Prompt Number: Prompt #35
Characters/Pairings: Eduardo/Mark
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Word Count: 7,000
Disclaimer: This fanwork is based on fictional representations of the characters in The Social Network; I make no claims of ownership of the characters or concepts.
Summary (or prompt scenario): (#35) Mark doesn't realize Eduardo loved him - or even had feelings for him - until Eduardo releases his debut album, Spring. Which seems to be about Eduardo's emotional journey from 'winter' (Eduardo being in love and having his heart broken) to moving on from Mark. This is a problem.
Verse, Chorus, and Such
They were in the smaller make-shift conference room and waiting on the server vendor, making halfhearted conversation over the hold music, when Sean suddenly cocked his head towards the speaker at the center of the table and mentioned, offhand, "This one always reminds me of that bitch who sucked my cousin off for coke."
"Mmm," Dustin said, which Mark had thought pretty much summed it up, until Andrew chimed in with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him the day after he'd given her mom a $500 bracelet for Christmas, and Dustin added that he always thought about the girl who'd copied his course notes all through Chem 21 while he brought her $5 coffee drinks, and kept promising they'd go out next weekend, except it turned out she totally had a boyfriend and laughed in Dustin's face when he asked her to dinner after finals.
And then Chris proclaimed, with authority, "He's the next Chris Daughtry."
"But, okay," Daniel interjected. He seemed to be doing a pretty decent job at CFO, according to Sean. There was just this tick where he said "okay" constantly and it was beginning to drive Mark up the wall. Whenever he bitched about it to Chris, though, Chris said to just let it go and maybe pretend not to hear it or something, and that he was pretty sure if it wasn't illegal then it was still highly unethical to fire someone for annoying word choice, and they had said were going to try not to do any more wildly unethical terminations. "I never get this next bit, where it goes on about the razorblade weight of forgetting."
Sean sighed dramatically and propped his chair back to lean for the mini-fridge handle. "It cannot be explained, my friend. Only experienced."
The single had been leaked two weeks before release and went viral almost immediately. There were already dozens of related videos on YouTube. First the typical covers and parodies, and then slide shows users put together of them and their faithless ex during better days, mixed with stock photos of stormy beaches and raindrops on roses and people crying with hair covering their faces. This, naturally, turned into a pretty great tragicomedy meme, as people started to mock their own pain with sad kitten gifs and MS Paint dinosaurs.
Mark had mostly tried to ignore it. As much as you could ignore anything that people plastered all over your wall and jam-packed message boards with.
"Hey," Andrew said, pausing in his and Dustin's joint construction of the meeting agenda into a paper airplane. "Didn't you guys live in room # 52, like back at school?"
*
And then the next day, this was on The Daily Show with John Stewart:
Eduardo walked onto the interview set, John standing up to shake his hand and then pulling him into an exaggerated hug before stepping back to proclaim, "I felt like you needed that." The audience shouted its approval as they both took a seat.
John drummed his fingers against the table and leaned back into his chair. "You are a very good looking man, I have to say."
"Thank you."
"And polite too! I'm having a hard time trying to picture someone letting this go. Luckily, we have a whole album to verify that."
Eduardo laughed. "We do!"
"So, for those of our audience who have been living under a rock, who might not be acquainted with this thing we like to call 'The Internets'," John said, making quote fingers, "why don't you explain what you're doing here."
"Uh, I wrote this song that everyone got pretty excited about."
The audience cheered.
"But this is your first public interview, is it not?"
"It is."
"Is there any particular reason why you chose our humble abode? I hear there's this little program called The Tonight Show that gets some very impressive viewing figures. And I am honor bound to admit he has better hair. You look like a man who'd appreciate some good hair."
Eduardo shot him a wry look. "Well, you called me personally."
"That, sir, is a spurious rumor and would be considered a complete and utter falsehood… if it wasn't the god's honest truth."
The audience cackled as John raised his hands. "Call it self-defense! I thought maybe getting to the bottom of this might get your insanely catchy song out of my head, so it might stop shattering my soul."
"My sincere apologies."
"No, no, it's good! Sometimes it's nice to have music that reminds you there are other people who feel just like you do when everything goes to shit, so you don't give up all your hopes and dreams of human dignity, desolate and alone, and start voting Republican." The crowd roared and Stewart mined sheepishly clamping a hand over his mouth. "I kid, I kid!"
"Seriously, I am an old man now, we all know this, and for over a decade now my go to love-did-me-wrong song has been Something I Can Never Have by this little band called Nine Inch Nails." He turned for a moment to encourage the audience's enthusiastic whoops. "You may have cried bitter, bitter tears to it once or a dozen times yourself. But I am admitting, right now, that it just may have been permanently supplanted."
Eduardo grinned and played with the sleeve of his jacket a little nervously. "That is an amazing compliment. Though now I'm a little afraid that Trent Rezner is going to have something to say about that."
"Don't worry, he's too busy sobbing his eyes dry like the rest of us." John picked up the CD. "Now let's talk about this thing. None of you out there can get your hands on it yet. Until -"
"Next Tuesday."
"Good, good. Well, my earlier comparison to Nine Inch Nails may be very apt, because, truly, I have not heard a series of songs this emotionally raw since Pretty Hate Machine. And let me tell you, when I saw a title like Spring, I was thinking - that song had to be a one off. But it is really, really not." This received loud applause from the crowd.
"I guess it's a little deceptive." There was a bemused quirk to Eduardo's mouth. "I suppose I thought... I wasn't prepared, at all, for--for how I was going to be feeling. For anything I kind of... ended up working through when making this album. So on that level, the title was intended to be disingenuous. But also not. To be honest, and this music was very much about honesty for me, about looking very honestly at the person I had been and the choices I'd made, coming to terms with what I'd lost. Honestly, after everything you hear on those tracks, the title is kind of a postscript. It's hope. Belief that I've come out the other side. That part of my life is behind me now."
"You know, I like that. That's--what you're saying is: this doesn't go on forever, even if it feels like it at the time. Afterward, the sun does come out."
"The sun does come out." Eduardo nodded approvingly.
"Now, why don't you tell us about how this came about…"
*
"Okay, really?," Daniel said, when Mark broke the break room TV remote with his coffee cup. "14 tracks about how you're a faithless hussy and how he's completely over you? That's just unnecessary."
"Yep, you're fired," Mark said. "And I'm not joking, so you can stop laughing now."
So Daniel stopped laughing, looking shaky and pale-pink as Chris glared over his shoulder at Mark while helping him box up his stuff.
At least, until Daniel turned to Mark and said, "Enjoy never being laid again, except by those ladies who write to serial killers," and then Chris tripped him on this way out the door, took Mark home for pizza and tequila shots, and had him solemnly promise not to sleep with any death row pen pals, except as a last resort, before they passed out on his living room couch.
*
"We don't have to go in," Mark said the next morning as Chris sniffed a crusty cream cheese container that he didn't remember purchasing, "I'm the boss, and I have the business cards and a nameplate to prove it, and I say we don't have to." Chris shrugged and began to smear it across their bagels. "I'm CEO," he insisted.
"She'll find us anyway," Chris said, clearly resigned and chewing with mild distaste. "She will find us, and blame us, and give us that look until we stop fidgeting, and there's nothing we can do about it."
And when Mark continued to cling to his counter-top, looking mulish, "She knows where you live and she will come here."
"We don't have to answer the door."
Chris just looked at him.
"She doesn't have a key."
Chris raised an eye brow.
"You know, we have no objective reason to assume this is even about me."
Yeah, Mark wasn't really buying that one either.
*
Once upon a time, when Chris had said maybe Facebook needed a full time legal counsel position if they wanted to stop giving the wrong people (e.g. the CIA, FBI, Commerce Department, Congress) the finger all the time, and mostly by accident, Mark had thought of that inquisitive and outspoken associate from the depositions from hell.
And since he hadn't figured out yet that people are always on their best behavior before they're your employees, and know all of your stupidest dark secrets, and would be such a pain in the ass to replace that they know you'd never bother -- he hired her.
So when they came in at nine, Marilyn had already called a meeting with the leadership team and the entirety of PR and was standing at the head of the table to more easily facilitate ominous looming.
"You will not offer information. You have no information. You have not met, or ever heard of, Eduardo Saverin unless I tell you that you have, and then I will write your responses for you and you will deliver them in a manner that does not make me want to track you down and rip out your spleen. And ladies and gentlemen, I went to law school, not medical school, and so I do not know where the spleen is located on the human body, but I am fully prepared to find it, through trial and error if necessary. But if somehow, somewhere, you are put in a situation in which you must admit to knowing Eduardo Saverin without making the company look very very stupid, then you will you answer the questions put to you with a sense of polite, disinterested surprise and you will tell them Mr Saverin was a valued employee who is spoken of well within the company and though you have not heard a note of his album because you are too busy being quirky, introverted software engineer geniuses, you are sure that it is expertly crafted, deeply sincere, and entirely unconnected to Facebook, Inc. Though we wish him well, in all his future endeavors."
Dustin raised his hand, because Dustin had no fear.
"Yes, Dustin?" said Marilyn wearily. Marilyn always said his name wearily, because she said that was how he made her feel, all the time, because he kept designing things that would make people angry, and then get lawyers, who would then include them in class action lawsuits, and then he didn't warn her, plus he disrupted every meeting with pointless commentary and yet kept coming to them though she'd ordered Mark to order him not to, and he was ruining her life.
"The spleen is located just below the rib cage, on the left hand side," Dustin said helpfully, and displayed a quickly penciled diagram. It looked much better than the rocket launcher and fleeing stick figures with fancy suits and poofy hair that Mark had been sketching. Though less so when Marilyn stabbed it with a fountain pen.
And then she told everybody else to leave the room and he tried not to shit his pants.
"I'd tell you not to make contact, but I know you and of course you've already fucked that up."
(So it wasn’t hard to find out that Eduardo was still in New York, and get the number. That does not necessarily mean that Mark actually woke up an hour before Chris to get a hold of Eduardo and demand that he retract everything ("I'm not going to retract my feelings, god why are you such an asshole?") and write a whole new album about how Mark was a perfectly nice guy who made perfectly understandable decisions that were very profitable, which was supposed to be the aim in business after all.
And if, hypothetically, that's exactly what he did -- it's not like she could prove anything.)
He slunk down a little in his chair as Marilyn looked like she could prove it.
Which seemed entirely possible, and this was because Marilyn scared everybody who wasn't Dustin -- but especially Mark, because he didn't really know how to handle women who were just as clever as him, incredibly capable in an area that he didn't understand but had to acknowledge was both intellectually challenging and absolutely crucial, and didn't take his shit.
The truly unfortunate part was that he honestly liked her, even when she was looking at him like he was mentally deficient, and he had this consistent feeling like she really believed in him, though she was always finding new ways to call him a dick.
Chris found this instinctual reaction to be "creepy and deeply Freudian." And though Mark was fairly confident that Freud had expressed little to no opinions on the significance of hiring a lawyer who kind of reminded you of this guy who could be super bitchy but also thought you were the most amazing person alive no matter how much you walked all over him - he probably had a point there, if you translated 'Freudian' as 'fucked up in the head in a psychologically creative fashion'.
"You once found me very impressive," Mark informed her.
"You are very impressive," Marilyn said. She tried to look stern, but the side of her mouth had begun to curl upwards. "But you need to stay away from him right now, at least until he's out of the public eye."
Something about his face made her sigh and disclaim, "Just be nicer next time. And don't fire another CFO for at least 36 months," rubbing her forehead in this way that made Mark think of the way Wardo would run his hands through his hair. "Go now. But first, hand me my purse. I need a Valium."
*
Simon, that advertising coordinator with big ears, was staking out the conference room door with Dave, who did something that required him to keep bringing Mark papers from Chris that he was to sign on penalty of vast nagging, and they tagged along at his heels as he made his way to the elevator. They both had vendor SOWs to approve and Mark slapped both documents against the wall and dashed his signature across them without even glancing at the contents, handing them back and daring them to object. Which of course they didn't, because (despite extraneous outlying variables to the contrary) he was CEO, bitch.
"I wonder how many fanboys out there know he's singing to a dude?" Simon said in a hushed voice as the doors dinged open.
"How you know he's singing to a dude?" Dave said loudly, and then Simon bumped his shoulder, and then they stared at him out of the corners of their eyes for the entire ride.
"I would fire you," Mark mentioned casually when they hit ground floor, "But I don't have additional lecture time set aside right now."
*
Sean had seated himself on the edge of Mark's desk as he waited for them to get out, tossing a stress ball with a faded MySQL logo back and forth from hand to hand. (He had been summarily banned from all meetings with any PR department attendees two years ago, because Marilyn said justifiable homicide was a really tricky defense to assemble and, "Zuckerberg's inability to risk assess keeps me busy enough, and yes I do know your first time, I type it into briefs all the time, but you will get it when you've earned it, and this week you made 2 interns stress-cry and you know those always turn into FMLA filings.")
"Mark, my dearest friend, the bro to my mance," he crooned, "I have three questions for you. "
"I thought Chris was your dearest friend," Dustin said.
Sean shrugged and swiveled his chair, winding his arm back to send the ball whizzing towards Dustin's chest. "He was doing the lunch run yesterday."
"Also, he hates you," Dustin grumbled crossly, rubbing at his ribs.
"One," Sean said, pointedly turning his chair back to face Mark and kicking at the table leg. "How many times did you go gay for him? Two: Does he do anal? Three: Why were we all not immediately informed of all the gory details? Also: He has a stupid cum face, right? He is way too good looking, that's like a requirement. "
"That's four."
"Shut up, Dustin," Andrew said and leaned in eagerly, but Mark had already clicked his laptop shut and was striding towards the exit.
"We are your friends and we care about your tragic gay life experiences!" Sean shouted at his back.
*
The truth was: after Mark had given up his best friend and enlisted an excellent (and pricey) legal team to bail his company president out of jail, smooth over that whole mess, and then defend him against the proceeding lawsuit from said former best friend, he honestly didn't expect to see Eduardo Saverin at all, ever again.
Except, naturally, for the course of two separate, yet equally exasperating, deposition sessions - during which, three years after he assumed Wardo was out of his life for good, they were seated together in a chilled, elegantly minimalist boardroom that traditionally only housed quarterly partner meetings for the firm, but Mark was kind of a big fucking deal. Eduardo's hair had looked sticky, his everything else looked profoundly miserable, Mark's stomach ached, his eyes kept doing this itching thing, and every time he called Sean to ask why they'd decided this was a bright idea instead of just settling in the first place, Sean's reasons always pissed him off.
It was pointless, and awful, and was fully intended to be very, very final. Eduardo had shaken his hand after the signing the papers and said, tonelessly, "I guess this is it," before walking out of Mark's life forever. Again.
In most ways, that seemed to hold pretty much true, though Mark saw him two more times in the proceeding year.
The first was when they almost ran into him on the last day of a web UX conference in Chicago. Eduardo was stepping into a sleek, black car as Mark and Chris jostled their way through the entrance, late as usual, and Mark had watched him get in, picking at a scab on his elbow, and said, "Do you think--he'll be fine, won't he?"
"He's got the settlement," said Chris, shaking the hand of someone who was probably important, but just looked like yet another jackass with a popped collar, skinny tie, and tennis shoes. "He's attached to a decent project, that natural language engine with what's his face who used to head up BeOS."
"But. He'll be fine."
Chris had eyed him as Mark pretended not to notice, and accepted the programs being thrust at their chests. "That doesn't sound fine to you?"
Mark shrugged. "No, it does."
"I thought so," was all that Chris had said, and sure it occurred to Mark (for just an instant) that if Wardo had been there and said it, he would have sounded quietly disappointed. Chris just sounded like he was a little hungry, though, and distracted by the guy at the Norton booth with the tight brown slacks, so that was that.
And then it was late November, and Sean had hired his admin on the basis of measurements over experience, and they were hustling through the corridors at LaGuardia, bumping drinks out of people's hands, searching the airport floor for their gate, and passed Eduardo heading towards baggage claim. (Who appeared calm, collected, and very much like a person who hadn't been given the wrong time, wrong flight number, and new combinations on both of their suitcases). And then--nothing. Mark had maybe brushed into him, faintly, in the crush of carry-on bags and bodies, and then he was gone, swallowed by the sound of mumbling voices and sensible shoes on tile, and within a month he'd dropped out of the tech sector, and Mark imagined -- when he thought about it occasionally -- that Eduardo must have moved on to some nebulous, more stable career in finance. Investment banking, probably. And maybe settled down in a steady, committed relationship with a consultant or art gallery curator who wore high heels to everything and bought expensive, uncomfortable furniture for their townhouse or Manhattan apartment.
But Eduardo had not been doing any of those things. Eduardo had finished his degree, then sat across that table with wet brown eyes that felt like bruises, and then tried to pick himself up and apparently failed, and did not settle down into a stable, sensible new job along with a stable, sensible new relationship. Eduardo had gone and dumped the 600 million into various interesting startup investments like it hurt too much to hold it and started supplementing his income by writing songs about how he had used to believe in fidelity and human decency until Mark ripped his still beating heart out of his chest with bare hands. And then simply wiped his hands and called it closure.
It was a little much to ask that Mark be at all prepared to deal with this series of events, no matter how much he normally excelled at ignoring the unplanned and inconvenient.
*
The worst part of this entire disastrous farce had to be that he couldn't escape it.
It wasn't that he was interested in Eduardo's musical analysis of the highs and lows of their erstwhile (and apparently way gayer than he'd thought) friendship.
It was that the rest of the world appeared to disagree with this point of view. Loudly and continuously.
He'd had HR cancel the music subscription for the office, but he had an unfortunate lack of control over other people's radios. And if it wasn't backing a car or men's clothing commercial, then it was an online multimedia ad, or talk show appearance, or interview promo.
"Neighbor's car pulling out of the driveway, in the background of the B of A call -- it's going live Thursday, twice during 1 Starbucks run, and it's 10am," Mark counted off before they started the month end projections, squeezing his temples.
"Broken On Entry?" Andrew hazarded, which was a reasonable assumption since the local Top 40 station had put it on unrelenting heavy rotation two weeks ago.
"No, fuck, the one about crying in the co-ed bathrooms after walking in on me and Erica."
"Oh, yeah, with the 'I'm over under you come on come on come on'?" Andrew loved that one. It was the reason Mark had instituted mandatory headphone use throughout the building, even behind closed doors. (Sometimes they got opened.)
"It's a popular song," Chris said, noncommittal, as Dustin shrieked, "The beat's intense, right?" and elbowed him aside so he and Andrew could bump fists.
"Fine, but how many times did he really wait outside for me in a thunderstorm?" Mark said, scowling, and, "That was a rhetorical question," when Dustin started ticking off the fingers of his right hand.
*
Except no, the worst thing was the album was good.
Not much longer and he was humming the songs on the drive to work, while waiting in front of the microwave, on the way to this office. They were fucking ear worms, the lot of them. And the rough breaks and hitched breaths in the vocals felt real, crackling through the speakers, while the lyrics successfully toed the line between melodrama and blunt outpouring.
It was exactly the kind of music that, originally (in some other far less bizarre world), Mark would have a CD of it in his car as well as loaded into iTunes, and he'd be driving everyone he knew completely insane by playing nothing but that one band for three weeks straight.
Liar's Month was the most offensive by far. Not only because, in hindsight, it was more than a little skeevy to have spent that last month placating Eduardo with lukewarm conciliatory olive branches of friendship while plotting his removal, but also there was the fact that it had this incredibly addictive hook, and Mark kept catching himself singing the middle section in the shower.
*
Of course, Mark was absolutely, 100% wrong. The worst turned out to be that even when the press delved into Eduardo Saverin’s past (and the guitarist's three failed rehab stints), despite all of their mutual acquaintances' dire predictions, nobody thought that it was him.
Nobody outside of the people who’d actually known Wardo gave Mark a second thought. No one thought he could possibly be important enough to merit that manner and level of emotion.
"Well, sweetheart," his mother broached, when he had to stop to get in a breath during a reasoned and mature recitation of his grievances, "you know we love you. But maybe a little humility might be good for you."
"I don't see how you'd possibly come to that conclusion," said Mark sullenly, and had an assistant call around to find out the exact date Eduardo was scheduled for the Tonight Show, tracked down his hotel room, and showed up to give him a piece of his mind.
"Mark, don't do this." Dustin had left him about 15 messages during the plane ride, but now Mark was regretting having called him back.
"Maybe I have questions."
"Maybe they're better left unanswered."
"Why?" said Mark suspiciously.
"I don't know. That's why it's better not to ask!"
"I'm just saying: Track 2, that doesn't sound like something you get over."
"Well, it depends when he--"
"I'm not checking any more of your fraudulent cries for help," Mark told him, and ignored Dustin's corresponding mutter of, "You're a cry for help," as he hung up.
It wasn't that he objected, exactly. It was fine. It was better this way. It wasn't as if Mark had anything to be bitter about, like he wanted Eduardo to keep pining after him forever, incapable of loving again and panting out four more minutes of provocative fantasy material that made people's skin tingle and got complaints from the Family Values Council and banned from MTV.
He just wanted to talk about it, to understand, really, except then when he snuck up the stairway and knocked on Eduardo's hotel room door and Eduardo opened it, the only thing Mark suddenly wanted to do was cry or plant his fist in Eduardo's stupid, familiar face.
And then he was shouting "ow" a lot and "my fucking hand, shit, shit, shit," and "goddamnit," because of course he wasn't going to cry, obviously, and then he missed.
"Mark", Eduardo said, ruefully, like he was trying very hard not to laugh.
"Well, you--you made it look all empowering," he defended obstinately and tucked his right arm into his chest
"I didn’t actually hit anyone."
"Neither did I. Oh, god, look at my knuckles. I type with these hands."
"You jerk off with that hand," Wardo said and then turned beet red, and Mark turned beet red, and then they stared at each other awkwardly until Mark remembered that he'd left the cab running so he should probably go stop being so rude.
Mark was a grown up now. Grownups care about unprovoked rudeness. And ballooning cab fares, even if they're insanely wealthy. At least, Chris was always telling him so.
*
"Actually, the worst part," Mark finally confessed to Sean, who had come over to pretend to admire his bruised and battered hand while actually stealing all his beer, "other than Marilyn--"
"Obviously," Sean concurred.
"--is that--"
"I saw Simon in the hallway," Sean added.
"Did he--"
"He talked to reporters."
"He keeps begging me to fire him."
"It's a fire-able offense."
"She wants him around to suffer," Mark explained. Sean hummed knowingly.
"The worst part is that I didn't get any sex out of this mess. I didn't even know he'd be up for it."
He hadn't even gotten a handjob. Not even a kiss, actually, if you didn't count the time they'd curled up drunkenly on the dorm sofa together and woken up with their legs intertwined, Wardo's hot breath against his face and how that breath slid across as they slowly separated.
Sean slurped loudly and stared at something over Mark's shoulder. "Don't tell anyone I ever told you this, on penalty of me writing 5 albums about how you're a lying jackass, but: I gotta say, the very worst thing about this would have to be if Eduardo really went through all the shit it sounds like he did, just because we wanted -- you know. I mean, you have to feel for the guy. That's fucked up."
*
"Sean told me," Chris said when he made his way into the kitchen (after asking Mark to please, please put on some pants). Mark had called in sick for five days in a row, working from home, and it looked like Chris had lost the coin toss. Or had been wanting to make a latte run anyway.
There had probably been an excellent reason why Mark had given him the security combination, but that reason was feeling pretty illusive. And rather short-sighted.
"Is that vanilla?" Mark snagged the smaller cup off the counter. It turned out to be some freaky cinnamon-toast deal, but caffeine was caffeine.
"Sean is a pathological liar and you hate his guts," he told Chris, who continued to glare at him. "Well, you do."
"Let me get this straight," Chris said and began drawing check marks into the air in that way that always made Dustin clutch his head and narrow his eyes into thin, resentful slits, "Error of judgment number one: you've finally stopped and really looked at Wardo, thus realizing he's unspeakably attractive. Number two: it's actually permeated through that walled off skull of yours that it's insanely romantic to be the subject of a series of extremely catchy and yet sincerely moving pop rock ballads, and now you've been recording his appearances on DVR, searching for him all over YouTube, and probably getting off to old pics. And now we come to illustrious life decision number 3, where you develop a huge crush on the guy you'd decided was dead weight that we'd all have nothing more to do with - you know, without the rest of us being consulted in the slightest."
Mark was more than a little taken aback at the inexplicable display of psychic powers (and so early in the morning), until it was explained that no, Chris had simply considered what the worst possible next step could be, as one of his best friends and the head of public relations for his company.
"And then I went to see him," Mark admitted and didn't duck fast enough when Chris threw a frozen breakfast burrito at his head.
*
Sling-Shot Sympathy was playing over the speakers at Urgent Care (the one about how he would have moved to San Paulo or Singapore if he thought it was something to outrun, if there was something to win here, some place to take him away from himself, some way to forget how when they met he fell head over heels immediately, fell in love with all the things and for all reasons that turned on him, that mean he deserved everything he got), and Chris was clearly not half as remorseful as he claimed to be, because he wouldn't let Mark go wait in the car. Even when Mark remarked that, with the new blackened (and potentially scratched!) eye and those sprained fingers on file, the doctor was totally going to think Chris was his dastardly, abusive boyfriend.
"Five minutes with you," Chris said, "and she'll understand."
"I hope you know, we've all noticed who you picked up that counting tick from," said Mark viciously.
Chris smiled with fake sweetness. "I'd rather talk about your crush."
"It's--an interest. I've taken an interest."
"You're interested."
"Mildly interested," Mark clarified, then felt compelled to elaborate, "In an intensely invested manner."
"Intensely invested mild interest," Chris said. "Yes, completely un-crush like."
Mark scoffed. "Because you could hold out longer."
"Hi, not a massive ball of insecurities and repression, thanks, nice to meet you," Chris said with a dismissive wave, "I would have nailed that boy within the first thirty minutes of our acquaintance if he'd given me half a chance. Hell, I almost gave him a bj at Sigma Thi's Halloween bash, but then he said your name and threw up on his shoes, and then it was just sort of depressing."
"When was this?"
"That's not the issue."
"It may not be the issue," Mark said heatedly, "but it's an issue."
"And just so you know," Chris continued, waving off his manly arm flailing. "I completely blame you for the fact that by this point we only engage in infrequent pained smalltalk, so there's no chance of rebound sex. Oh, don't give me that face. It's not like you have a chance in hell. I do own track 12."
*
The fact that he had a point did not at all discourage Mark from flying cross country again.
Eduardo only opened the door a slit this time, but Mark could still see that his head looked like a cyclone hit it. He must have sleeping pretty deeply, which explained why it took so much door pounding to get him there. Mark had been thinking it was just really great noise insulation. Or Eduardo was, you know, in the shower. All wet. And naked.
"I just wanted to say, good luck on Saturday Night Live. Because. Tomorrow's Saturday."
"Today is Saturday," Eduardo sighed. "It's 1:30."
Mark soldiered onward. "I wanted to say. That." He felt himself twitch. "It doesn't bother me."
"It doesn't bother you." Eduardo blinked at him.
"Your--Spring, your feelings for me. It's good."
Eduardo's voice tightened. "Well, I'm glad I have your permission."
"Come on, don't be a bitch," Mark said and the door shut with a clap.
He leaned back against it, taking in a deep breaths and banging his head every so often, and then did what any other reasonable sort-of-young man would do in his situation: he called his mother.
"Oh god," Mark said when she finally picked up. "Why did you let me stay so bad at this?"
"Baby," she mumbled drowsily, "do you know what time it is?"
But as his mother valued her sleep and was well acquainted with her son's stubbornness, she agreed to get Wardo's email from Wardo's mom, and also tell Wardo's mom that he had deep regrets and was much more mature now and also not entirely opposed to adopting if he and Wardo ended up getting gay-married. ("Actually, sweetheart, Anita never struck me as the grandmother type." "Okay, then tell her I hate babies.") And since she was a secret mom network ninja, it only took her about 30 hours.
When the first ten overtures were returned with a single blank email (subject: fuck off), it became clear that a more unconventional approach was required.
Mark would have to speak his language.
The only catch being that Mark had never tried to write music before, which wasn't too surprising since he possessed no artistic talent whatsoever and had always hated to do anything he couldn't succeed in. But everything he was actually fucking brilliant at was intrinsically tied up in everything that Eduardo admittedly had very good reasons to be super pissed off about, so Mark didn't see that he had much choice in the matter (unless he wanted to die alone and unloved, still listening Paper Thin Avalanche on repeat every night before bed).
So he created an anonymous, untraceable account with a name that would be really obvious to anyone who knows him and found this guy Jammal who lived about fifteen minutes away, despised Facebook with a fascinating intensity, had free time on Monday and Wednesday nights after D&D, owned an old electric guitar, and agreed to handle the instrumental bits.
They sat down, ordered a fuckton of pizza, and felt fairly impressed with themselves when they finished a song in just 6 days about all the times he'd done something and then got hung up thinking about how Wardo would have found that hilarious, but couldn't share it.
He didn't get another "fuck off" back and the emails didn't bounce, so he wrote another one about lazy afternoons in the dorms and all the signs that he'd missed, and how now he kept jerking off to the thought of them.
And then the one with the river metaphor that didn't really work, but what the hell.
Mark was just putting the finishing touches on the afternoons one when Andrew ventured, cautiously, "uh, I thought this was the meeting for the upcoming server migrations."
"No," Mark informed him. "This is a meeting to think of a good rhyme for 'self-disdain'. That's why Simon was not invited."
"Ha! Simon's still busted!" Dustin crowed.
"Maintain... Profane... To blame... Insane... in the membrane..." Lisa continued helpfully.
Dave frowned. "I still don't think that's a word."
*
It took him a bit longer to come up with the one about how that ill-advised thing he'd once had for Sean was only a temporary misstep and, frankly, more than a little mortifying now.
Jammal's guitar riff at the end was pretty wicked, though.
You had better not be behind this, Marilyn sent him after Eduardo's brief appearance on Headbanger's ball, but in all honesty Mark couldn't really say. Eduardo was looking a little pale and drawn, but it could have been food poisoning.
After Letterman and The Today Show, during which Eduardo answered questions almost listlessly, twisting his ring around his finger, Mark could say that he was almost definitely behind this, and he was also never going to admit that in Marilyn's presence for the rest of his life -- or until Wardo fell into his arms and swore that he'd been in complete denial about being completely over Mark and also he'd never sue them again. Whichever came first.
Then came the trainwreck of an interview on K-FII FM, which featured at least three times when he sounded on the verge of tears, and Mark really didn't know what Eduardo's problem was.
Anyone else would have been practically walking on air in his place, if the man of their dreams had been penning them desperate love songs. (Mark was indeed aware -- in the far back of his mind -- that he himself had been a twitchy, nervous wreck, but he was valiantly ignoring this fact).
Mark could only put up with this shit for four weeks, at which point he finally sat down and wrote a song about being a hopeless loser who ditched the best thing in his life in service of fame and fortune (and a really amazing, industry disrupting website that was almost worth it. Except, not really. Of course.) (Unless Wardo forgave him, in which case it was absolutely worth it - though Dustin, in his infinite wisdom, said to leave that part out.)
Then he uploaded it and embedded the mp3 in his profile, visible to the public and titled: Mom Thinks This Might Be Good for Me (By The Way, I’m Sorry) (An Apology Also To Chris Hughes, In Advance)
It was 8 minutes and 39 seconds long.
"It’s awful," Eduardo said when the receptionist buzzed him into the office. "I mean, they were all awful, but that’s--I may be familiar with the term caterwauling, but before today I had no idea what that truly meant."
"So you liked it," Mark said, though not internally as confident as he was attempting to project. At least confident enough that he wasn't hiding behind his chair.
"It's going to be in the late night monologues for weeks," Eduardo pointed out, "4chan is in hysterics. The entire social media world has collectively recoiled in disgust."
"You liked it," Mark proclaimed smugly.
"Yeah," Eduardo said, and placed his palms flat on the desk so that he could lean over it and press a soft kiss against the corner of Mark’s mouth. "I did."
He huffed against Mark's cheek after Mark turned his head to kiss him back, sliding an arm around his neck. "But I'm writing the next one."
/the end
Recipient: putana
Prompt Number: Prompt #35
Characters/Pairings: Eduardo/Mark
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Word Count: 7,000
Disclaimer: This fanwork is based on fictional representations of the characters in The Social Network; I make no claims of ownership of the characters or concepts.
Summary (or prompt scenario): (#35) Mark doesn't realize Eduardo loved him - or even had feelings for him - until Eduardo releases his debut album, Spring. Which seems to be about Eduardo's emotional journey from 'winter' (Eduardo being in love and having his heart broken) to moving on from Mark. This is a problem.
Verse, Chorus, and Such
They were in the smaller make-shift conference room and waiting on the server vendor, making halfhearted conversation over the hold music, when Sean suddenly cocked his head towards the speaker at the center of the table and mentioned, offhand, "This one always reminds me of that bitch who sucked my cousin off for coke."
"Mmm," Dustin said, which Mark had thought pretty much summed it up, until Andrew chimed in with a story about an ex-girlfriend who dumped him the day after he'd given her mom a $500 bracelet for Christmas, and Dustin added that he always thought about the girl who'd copied his course notes all through Chem 21 while he brought her $5 coffee drinks, and kept promising they'd go out next weekend, except it turned out she totally had a boyfriend and laughed in Dustin's face when he asked her to dinner after finals.
And then Chris proclaimed, with authority, "He's the next Chris Daughtry."
"But, okay," Daniel interjected. He seemed to be doing a pretty decent job at CFO, according to Sean. There was just this tick where he said "okay" constantly and it was beginning to drive Mark up the wall. Whenever he bitched about it to Chris, though, Chris said to just let it go and maybe pretend not to hear it or something, and that he was pretty sure if it wasn't illegal then it was still highly unethical to fire someone for annoying word choice, and they had said were going to try not to do any more wildly unethical terminations. "I never get this next bit, where it goes on about the razorblade weight of forgetting."
Sean sighed dramatically and propped his chair back to lean for the mini-fridge handle. "It cannot be explained, my friend. Only experienced."
The single had been leaked two weeks before release and went viral almost immediately. There were already dozens of related videos on YouTube. First the typical covers and parodies, and then slide shows users put together of them and their faithless ex during better days, mixed with stock photos of stormy beaches and raindrops on roses and people crying with hair covering their faces. This, naturally, turned into a pretty great tragicomedy meme, as people started to mock their own pain with sad kitten gifs and MS Paint dinosaurs.
Mark had mostly tried to ignore it. As much as you could ignore anything that people plastered all over your wall and jam-packed message boards with.
"Hey," Andrew said, pausing in his and Dustin's joint construction of the meeting agenda into a paper airplane. "Didn't you guys live in room # 52, like back at school?"
*
And then the next day, this was on The Daily Show with John Stewart:
Eduardo walked onto the interview set, John standing up to shake his hand and then pulling him into an exaggerated hug before stepping back to proclaim, "I felt like you needed that." The audience shouted its approval as they both took a seat.
John drummed his fingers against the table and leaned back into his chair. "You are a very good looking man, I have to say."
"Thank you."
"And polite too! I'm having a hard time trying to picture someone letting this go. Luckily, we have a whole album to verify that."
Eduardo laughed. "We do!"
"So, for those of our audience who have been living under a rock, who might not be acquainted with this thing we like to call 'The Internets'," John said, making quote fingers, "why don't you explain what you're doing here."
"Uh, I wrote this song that everyone got pretty excited about."
The audience cheered.
"But this is your first public interview, is it not?"
"It is."
"Is there any particular reason why you chose our humble abode? I hear there's this little program called The Tonight Show that gets some very impressive viewing figures. And I am honor bound to admit he has better hair. You look like a man who'd appreciate some good hair."
Eduardo shot him a wry look. "Well, you called me personally."
"That, sir, is a spurious rumor and would be considered a complete and utter falsehood… if it wasn't the god's honest truth."
The audience cackled as John raised his hands. "Call it self-defense! I thought maybe getting to the bottom of this might get your insanely catchy song out of my head, so it might stop shattering my soul."
"My sincere apologies."
"No, no, it's good! Sometimes it's nice to have music that reminds you there are other people who feel just like you do when everything goes to shit, so you don't give up all your hopes and dreams of human dignity, desolate and alone, and start voting Republican." The crowd roared and Stewart mined sheepishly clamping a hand over his mouth. "I kid, I kid!"
"Seriously, I am an old man now, we all know this, and for over a decade now my go to love-did-me-wrong song has been Something I Can Never Have by this little band called Nine Inch Nails." He turned for a moment to encourage the audience's enthusiastic whoops. "You may have cried bitter, bitter tears to it once or a dozen times yourself. But I am admitting, right now, that it just may have been permanently supplanted."
Eduardo grinned and played with the sleeve of his jacket a little nervously. "That is an amazing compliment. Though now I'm a little afraid that Trent Rezner is going to have something to say about that."
"Don't worry, he's too busy sobbing his eyes dry like the rest of us." John picked up the CD. "Now let's talk about this thing. None of you out there can get your hands on it yet. Until -"
"Next Tuesday."
"Good, good. Well, my earlier comparison to Nine Inch Nails may be very apt, because, truly, I have not heard a series of songs this emotionally raw since Pretty Hate Machine. And let me tell you, when I saw a title like Spring, I was thinking - that song had to be a one off. But it is really, really not." This received loud applause from the crowd.
"I guess it's a little deceptive." There was a bemused quirk to Eduardo's mouth. "I suppose I thought... I wasn't prepared, at all, for--for how I was going to be feeling. For anything I kind of... ended up working through when making this album. So on that level, the title was intended to be disingenuous. But also not. To be honest, and this music was very much about honesty for me, about looking very honestly at the person I had been and the choices I'd made, coming to terms with what I'd lost. Honestly, after everything you hear on those tracks, the title is kind of a postscript. It's hope. Belief that I've come out the other side. That part of my life is behind me now."
"You know, I like that. That's--what you're saying is: this doesn't go on forever, even if it feels like it at the time. Afterward, the sun does come out."
"The sun does come out." Eduardo nodded approvingly.
"Now, why don't you tell us about how this came about…"
*
"Okay, really?," Daniel said, when Mark broke the break room TV remote with his coffee cup. "14 tracks about how you're a faithless hussy and how he's completely over you? That's just unnecessary."
"Yep, you're fired," Mark said. "And I'm not joking, so you can stop laughing now."
So Daniel stopped laughing, looking shaky and pale-pink as Chris glared over his shoulder at Mark while helping him box up his stuff.
At least, until Daniel turned to Mark and said, "Enjoy never being laid again, except by those ladies who write to serial killers," and then Chris tripped him on this way out the door, took Mark home for pizza and tequila shots, and had him solemnly promise not to sleep with any death row pen pals, except as a last resort, before they passed out on his living room couch.
*
"We don't have to go in," Mark said the next morning as Chris sniffed a crusty cream cheese container that he didn't remember purchasing, "I'm the boss, and I have the business cards and a nameplate to prove it, and I say we don't have to." Chris shrugged and began to smear it across their bagels. "I'm CEO," he insisted.
"She'll find us anyway," Chris said, clearly resigned and chewing with mild distaste. "She will find us, and blame us, and give us that look until we stop fidgeting, and there's nothing we can do about it."
And when Mark continued to cling to his counter-top, looking mulish, "She knows where you live and she will come here."
"We don't have to answer the door."
Chris just looked at him.
"She doesn't have a key."
Chris raised an eye brow.
"You know, we have no objective reason to assume this is even about me."
Yeah, Mark wasn't really buying that one either.
*
Once upon a time, when Chris had said maybe Facebook needed a full time legal counsel position if they wanted to stop giving the wrong people (e.g. the CIA, FBI, Commerce Department, Congress) the finger all the time, and mostly by accident, Mark had thought of that inquisitive and outspoken associate from the depositions from hell.
And since he hadn't figured out yet that people are always on their best behavior before they're your employees, and know all of your stupidest dark secrets, and would be such a pain in the ass to replace that they know you'd never bother -- he hired her.
So when they came in at nine, Marilyn had already called a meeting with the leadership team and the entirety of PR and was standing at the head of the table to more easily facilitate ominous looming.
"You will not offer information. You have no information. You have not met, or ever heard of, Eduardo Saverin unless I tell you that you have, and then I will write your responses for you and you will deliver them in a manner that does not make me want to track you down and rip out your spleen. And ladies and gentlemen, I went to law school, not medical school, and so I do not know where the spleen is located on the human body, but I am fully prepared to find it, through trial and error if necessary. But if somehow, somewhere, you are put in a situation in which you must admit to knowing Eduardo Saverin without making the company look very very stupid, then you will you answer the questions put to you with a sense of polite, disinterested surprise and you will tell them Mr Saverin was a valued employee who is spoken of well within the company and though you have not heard a note of his album because you are too busy being quirky, introverted software engineer geniuses, you are sure that it is expertly crafted, deeply sincere, and entirely unconnected to Facebook, Inc. Though we wish him well, in all his future endeavors."
Dustin raised his hand, because Dustin had no fear.
"Yes, Dustin?" said Marilyn wearily. Marilyn always said his name wearily, because she said that was how he made her feel, all the time, because he kept designing things that would make people angry, and then get lawyers, who would then include them in class action lawsuits, and then he didn't warn her, plus he disrupted every meeting with pointless commentary and yet kept coming to them though she'd ordered Mark to order him not to, and he was ruining her life.
"The spleen is located just below the rib cage, on the left hand side," Dustin said helpfully, and displayed a quickly penciled diagram. It looked much better than the rocket launcher and fleeing stick figures with fancy suits and poofy hair that Mark had been sketching. Though less so when Marilyn stabbed it with a fountain pen.
And then she told everybody else to leave the room and he tried not to shit his pants.
"I'd tell you not to make contact, but I know you and of course you've already fucked that up."
(So it wasn’t hard to find out that Eduardo was still in New York, and get the number. That does not necessarily mean that Mark actually woke up an hour before Chris to get a hold of Eduardo and demand that he retract everything ("I'm not going to retract my feelings, god why are you such an asshole?") and write a whole new album about how Mark was a perfectly nice guy who made perfectly understandable decisions that were very profitable, which was supposed to be the aim in business after all.
And if, hypothetically, that's exactly what he did -- it's not like she could prove anything.)
He slunk down a little in his chair as Marilyn looked like she could prove it.
Which seemed entirely possible, and this was because Marilyn scared everybody who wasn't Dustin -- but especially Mark, because he didn't really know how to handle women who were just as clever as him, incredibly capable in an area that he didn't understand but had to acknowledge was both intellectually challenging and absolutely crucial, and didn't take his shit.
The truly unfortunate part was that he honestly liked her, even when she was looking at him like he was mentally deficient, and he had this consistent feeling like she really believed in him, though she was always finding new ways to call him a dick.
Chris found this instinctual reaction to be "creepy and deeply Freudian." And though Mark was fairly confident that Freud had expressed little to no opinions on the significance of hiring a lawyer who kind of reminded you of this guy who could be super bitchy but also thought you were the most amazing person alive no matter how much you walked all over him - he probably had a point there, if you translated 'Freudian' as 'fucked up in the head in a psychologically creative fashion'.
"You once found me very impressive," Mark informed her.
"You are very impressive," Marilyn said. She tried to look stern, but the side of her mouth had begun to curl upwards. "But you need to stay away from him right now, at least until he's out of the public eye."
Something about his face made her sigh and disclaim, "Just be nicer next time. And don't fire another CFO for at least 36 months," rubbing her forehead in this way that made Mark think of the way Wardo would run his hands through his hair. "Go now. But first, hand me my purse. I need a Valium."
*
Simon, that advertising coordinator with big ears, was staking out the conference room door with Dave, who did something that required him to keep bringing Mark papers from Chris that he was to sign on penalty of vast nagging, and they tagged along at his heels as he made his way to the elevator. They both had vendor SOWs to approve and Mark slapped both documents against the wall and dashed his signature across them without even glancing at the contents, handing them back and daring them to object. Which of course they didn't, because (despite extraneous outlying variables to the contrary) he was CEO, bitch.
"I wonder how many fanboys out there know he's singing to a dude?" Simon said in a hushed voice as the doors dinged open.
"How you know he's singing to a dude?" Dave said loudly, and then Simon bumped his shoulder, and then they stared at him out of the corners of their eyes for the entire ride.
"I would fire you," Mark mentioned casually when they hit ground floor, "But I don't have additional lecture time set aside right now."
*
Sean had seated himself on the edge of Mark's desk as he waited for them to get out, tossing a stress ball with a faded MySQL logo back and forth from hand to hand. (He had been summarily banned from all meetings with any PR department attendees two years ago, because Marilyn said justifiable homicide was a really tricky defense to assemble and, "Zuckerberg's inability to risk assess keeps me busy enough, and yes I do know your first time, I type it into briefs all the time, but you will get it when you've earned it, and this week you made 2 interns stress-cry and you know those always turn into FMLA filings.")
"Mark, my dearest friend, the bro to my mance," he crooned, "I have three questions for you. "
"I thought Chris was your dearest friend," Dustin said.
Sean shrugged and swiveled his chair, winding his arm back to send the ball whizzing towards Dustin's chest. "He was doing the lunch run yesterday."
"Also, he hates you," Dustin grumbled crossly, rubbing at his ribs.
"One," Sean said, pointedly turning his chair back to face Mark and kicking at the table leg. "How many times did you go gay for him? Two: Does he do anal? Three: Why were we all not immediately informed of all the gory details? Also: He has a stupid cum face, right? He is way too good looking, that's like a requirement. "
"That's four."
"Shut up, Dustin," Andrew said and leaned in eagerly, but Mark had already clicked his laptop shut and was striding towards the exit.
"We are your friends and we care about your tragic gay life experiences!" Sean shouted at his back.
*
The truth was: after Mark had given up his best friend and enlisted an excellent (and pricey) legal team to bail his company president out of jail, smooth over that whole mess, and then defend him against the proceeding lawsuit from said former best friend, he honestly didn't expect to see Eduardo Saverin at all, ever again.
Except, naturally, for the course of two separate, yet equally exasperating, deposition sessions - during which, three years after he assumed Wardo was out of his life for good, they were seated together in a chilled, elegantly minimalist boardroom that traditionally only housed quarterly partner meetings for the firm, but Mark was kind of a big fucking deal. Eduardo's hair had looked sticky, his everything else looked profoundly miserable, Mark's stomach ached, his eyes kept doing this itching thing, and every time he called Sean to ask why they'd decided this was a bright idea instead of just settling in the first place, Sean's reasons always pissed him off.
It was pointless, and awful, and was fully intended to be very, very final. Eduardo had shaken his hand after the signing the papers and said, tonelessly, "I guess this is it," before walking out of Mark's life forever. Again.
In most ways, that seemed to hold pretty much true, though Mark saw him two more times in the proceeding year.
The first was when they almost ran into him on the last day of a web UX conference in Chicago. Eduardo was stepping into a sleek, black car as Mark and Chris jostled their way through the entrance, late as usual, and Mark had watched him get in, picking at a scab on his elbow, and said, "Do you think--he'll be fine, won't he?"
"He's got the settlement," said Chris, shaking the hand of someone who was probably important, but just looked like yet another jackass with a popped collar, skinny tie, and tennis shoes. "He's attached to a decent project, that natural language engine with what's his face who used to head up BeOS."
"But. He'll be fine."
Chris had eyed him as Mark pretended not to notice, and accepted the programs being thrust at their chests. "That doesn't sound fine to you?"
Mark shrugged. "No, it does."
"I thought so," was all that Chris had said, and sure it occurred to Mark (for just an instant) that if Wardo had been there and said it, he would have sounded quietly disappointed. Chris just sounded like he was a little hungry, though, and distracted by the guy at the Norton booth with the tight brown slacks, so that was that.
And then it was late November, and Sean had hired his admin on the basis of measurements over experience, and they were hustling through the corridors at LaGuardia, bumping drinks out of people's hands, searching the airport floor for their gate, and passed Eduardo heading towards baggage claim. (Who appeared calm, collected, and very much like a person who hadn't been given the wrong time, wrong flight number, and new combinations on both of their suitcases). And then--nothing. Mark had maybe brushed into him, faintly, in the crush of carry-on bags and bodies, and then he was gone, swallowed by the sound of mumbling voices and sensible shoes on tile, and within a month he'd dropped out of the tech sector, and Mark imagined -- when he thought about it occasionally -- that Eduardo must have moved on to some nebulous, more stable career in finance. Investment banking, probably. And maybe settled down in a steady, committed relationship with a consultant or art gallery curator who wore high heels to everything and bought expensive, uncomfortable furniture for their townhouse or Manhattan apartment.
But Eduardo had not been doing any of those things. Eduardo had finished his degree, then sat across that table with wet brown eyes that felt like bruises, and then tried to pick himself up and apparently failed, and did not settle down into a stable, sensible new job along with a stable, sensible new relationship. Eduardo had gone and dumped the 600 million into various interesting startup investments like it hurt too much to hold it and started supplementing his income by writing songs about how he had used to believe in fidelity and human decency until Mark ripped his still beating heart out of his chest with bare hands. And then simply wiped his hands and called it closure.
It was a little much to ask that Mark be at all prepared to deal with this series of events, no matter how much he normally excelled at ignoring the unplanned and inconvenient.
*
The worst part of this entire disastrous farce had to be that he couldn't escape it.
It wasn't that he was interested in Eduardo's musical analysis of the highs and lows of their erstwhile (and apparently way gayer than he'd thought) friendship.
It was that the rest of the world appeared to disagree with this point of view. Loudly and continuously.
He'd had HR cancel the music subscription for the office, but he had an unfortunate lack of control over other people's radios. And if it wasn't backing a car or men's clothing commercial, then it was an online multimedia ad, or talk show appearance, or interview promo.
"Neighbor's car pulling out of the driveway, in the background of the B of A call -- it's going live Thursday, twice during 1 Starbucks run, and it's 10am," Mark counted off before they started the month end projections, squeezing his temples.
"Broken On Entry?" Andrew hazarded, which was a reasonable assumption since the local Top 40 station had put it on unrelenting heavy rotation two weeks ago.
"No, fuck, the one about crying in the co-ed bathrooms after walking in on me and Erica."
"Oh, yeah, with the 'I'm over under you come on come on come on'?" Andrew loved that one. It was the reason Mark had instituted mandatory headphone use throughout the building, even behind closed doors. (Sometimes they got opened.)
"It's a popular song," Chris said, noncommittal, as Dustin shrieked, "The beat's intense, right?" and elbowed him aside so he and Andrew could bump fists.
"Fine, but how many times did he really wait outside for me in a thunderstorm?" Mark said, scowling, and, "That was a rhetorical question," when Dustin started ticking off the fingers of his right hand.
*
Except no, the worst thing was the album was good.
Not much longer and he was humming the songs on the drive to work, while waiting in front of the microwave, on the way to this office. They were fucking ear worms, the lot of them. And the rough breaks and hitched breaths in the vocals felt real, crackling through the speakers, while the lyrics successfully toed the line between melodrama and blunt outpouring.
It was exactly the kind of music that, originally (in some other far less bizarre world), Mark would have a CD of it in his car as well as loaded into iTunes, and he'd be driving everyone he knew completely insane by playing nothing but that one band for three weeks straight.
Liar's Month was the most offensive by far. Not only because, in hindsight, it was more than a little skeevy to have spent that last month placating Eduardo with lukewarm conciliatory olive branches of friendship while plotting his removal, but also there was the fact that it had this incredibly addictive hook, and Mark kept catching himself singing the middle section in the shower.
*
Of course, Mark was absolutely, 100% wrong. The worst turned out to be that even when the press delved into Eduardo Saverin’s past (and the guitarist's three failed rehab stints), despite all of their mutual acquaintances' dire predictions, nobody thought that it was him.
Nobody outside of the people who’d actually known Wardo gave Mark a second thought. No one thought he could possibly be important enough to merit that manner and level of emotion.
"Well, sweetheart," his mother broached, when he had to stop to get in a breath during a reasoned and mature recitation of his grievances, "you know we love you. But maybe a little humility might be good for you."
"I don't see how you'd possibly come to that conclusion," said Mark sullenly, and had an assistant call around to find out the exact date Eduardo was scheduled for the Tonight Show, tracked down his hotel room, and showed up to give him a piece of his mind.
"Mark, don't do this." Dustin had left him about 15 messages during the plane ride, but now Mark was regretting having called him back.
"Maybe I have questions."
"Maybe they're better left unanswered."
"Why?" said Mark suspiciously.
"I don't know. That's why it's better not to ask!"
"I'm just saying: Track 2, that doesn't sound like something you get over."
"Well, it depends when he--"
"I'm not checking any more of your fraudulent cries for help," Mark told him, and ignored Dustin's corresponding mutter of, "You're a cry for help," as he hung up.
It wasn't that he objected, exactly. It was fine. It was better this way. It wasn't as if Mark had anything to be bitter about, like he wanted Eduardo to keep pining after him forever, incapable of loving again and panting out four more minutes of provocative fantasy material that made people's skin tingle and got complaints from the Family Values Council and banned from MTV.
He just wanted to talk about it, to understand, really, except then when he snuck up the stairway and knocked on Eduardo's hotel room door and Eduardo opened it, the only thing Mark suddenly wanted to do was cry or plant his fist in Eduardo's stupid, familiar face.
And then he was shouting "ow" a lot and "my fucking hand, shit, shit, shit," and "goddamnit," because of course he wasn't going to cry, obviously, and then he missed.
"Mark", Eduardo said, ruefully, like he was trying very hard not to laugh.
"Well, you--you made it look all empowering," he defended obstinately and tucked his right arm into his chest
"I didn’t actually hit anyone."
"Neither did I. Oh, god, look at my knuckles. I type with these hands."
"You jerk off with that hand," Wardo said and then turned beet red, and Mark turned beet red, and then they stared at each other awkwardly until Mark remembered that he'd left the cab running so he should probably go stop being so rude.
Mark was a grown up now. Grownups care about unprovoked rudeness. And ballooning cab fares, even if they're insanely wealthy. At least, Chris was always telling him so.
*
"Actually, the worst part," Mark finally confessed to Sean, who had come over to pretend to admire his bruised and battered hand while actually stealing all his beer, "other than Marilyn--"
"Obviously," Sean concurred.
"--is that--"
"I saw Simon in the hallway," Sean added.
"Did he--"
"He talked to reporters."
"He keeps begging me to fire him."
"It's a fire-able offense."
"She wants him around to suffer," Mark explained. Sean hummed knowingly.
"The worst part is that I didn't get any sex out of this mess. I didn't even know he'd be up for it."
He hadn't even gotten a handjob. Not even a kiss, actually, if you didn't count the time they'd curled up drunkenly on the dorm sofa together and woken up with their legs intertwined, Wardo's hot breath against his face and how that breath slid across as they slowly separated.
Sean slurped loudly and stared at something over Mark's shoulder. "Don't tell anyone I ever told you this, on penalty of me writing 5 albums about how you're a lying jackass, but: I gotta say, the very worst thing about this would have to be if Eduardo really went through all the shit it sounds like he did, just because we wanted -- you know. I mean, you have to feel for the guy. That's fucked up."
*
"Sean told me," Chris said when he made his way into the kitchen (after asking Mark to please, please put on some pants). Mark had called in sick for five days in a row, working from home, and it looked like Chris had lost the coin toss. Or had been wanting to make a latte run anyway.
There had probably been an excellent reason why Mark had given him the security combination, but that reason was feeling pretty illusive. And rather short-sighted.
"Is that vanilla?" Mark snagged the smaller cup off the counter. It turned out to be some freaky cinnamon-toast deal, but caffeine was caffeine.
"Sean is a pathological liar and you hate his guts," he told Chris, who continued to glare at him. "Well, you do."
"Let me get this straight," Chris said and began drawing check marks into the air in that way that always made Dustin clutch his head and narrow his eyes into thin, resentful slits, "Error of judgment number one: you've finally stopped and really looked at Wardo, thus realizing he's unspeakably attractive. Number two: it's actually permeated through that walled off skull of yours that it's insanely romantic to be the subject of a series of extremely catchy and yet sincerely moving pop rock ballads, and now you've been recording his appearances on DVR, searching for him all over YouTube, and probably getting off to old pics. And now we come to illustrious life decision number 3, where you develop a huge crush on the guy you'd decided was dead weight that we'd all have nothing more to do with - you know, without the rest of us being consulted in the slightest."
Mark was more than a little taken aback at the inexplicable display of psychic powers (and so early in the morning), until it was explained that no, Chris had simply considered what the worst possible next step could be, as one of his best friends and the head of public relations for his company.
"And then I went to see him," Mark admitted and didn't duck fast enough when Chris threw a frozen breakfast burrito at his head.
*
Sling-Shot Sympathy was playing over the speakers at Urgent Care (the one about how he would have moved to San Paulo or Singapore if he thought it was something to outrun, if there was something to win here, some place to take him away from himself, some way to forget how when they met he fell head over heels immediately, fell in love with all the things and for all reasons that turned on him, that mean he deserved everything he got), and Chris was clearly not half as remorseful as he claimed to be, because he wouldn't let Mark go wait in the car. Even when Mark remarked that, with the new blackened (and potentially scratched!) eye and those sprained fingers on file, the doctor was totally going to think Chris was his dastardly, abusive boyfriend.
"Five minutes with you," Chris said, "and she'll understand."
"I hope you know, we've all noticed who you picked up that counting tick from," said Mark viciously.
Chris smiled with fake sweetness. "I'd rather talk about your crush."
"It's--an interest. I've taken an interest."
"You're interested."
"Mildly interested," Mark clarified, then felt compelled to elaborate, "In an intensely invested manner."
"Intensely invested mild interest," Chris said. "Yes, completely un-crush like."
Mark scoffed. "Because you could hold out longer."
"Hi, not a massive ball of insecurities and repression, thanks, nice to meet you," Chris said with a dismissive wave, "I would have nailed that boy within the first thirty minutes of our acquaintance if he'd given me half a chance. Hell, I almost gave him a bj at Sigma Thi's Halloween bash, but then he said your name and threw up on his shoes, and then it was just sort of depressing."
"When was this?"
"That's not the issue."
"It may not be the issue," Mark said heatedly, "but it's an issue."
"And just so you know," Chris continued, waving off his manly arm flailing. "I completely blame you for the fact that by this point we only engage in infrequent pained smalltalk, so there's no chance of rebound sex. Oh, don't give me that face. It's not like you have a chance in hell. I do own track 12."
*
The fact that he had a point did not at all discourage Mark from flying cross country again.
Eduardo only opened the door a slit this time, but Mark could still see that his head looked like a cyclone hit it. He must have sleeping pretty deeply, which explained why it took so much door pounding to get him there. Mark had been thinking it was just really great noise insulation. Or Eduardo was, you know, in the shower. All wet. And naked.
"I just wanted to say, good luck on Saturday Night Live. Because. Tomorrow's Saturday."
"Today is Saturday," Eduardo sighed. "It's 1:30."
Mark soldiered onward. "I wanted to say. That." He felt himself twitch. "It doesn't bother me."
"It doesn't bother you." Eduardo blinked at him.
"Your--Spring, your feelings for me. It's good."
Eduardo's voice tightened. "Well, I'm glad I have your permission."
"Come on, don't be a bitch," Mark said and the door shut with a clap.
He leaned back against it, taking in a deep breaths and banging his head every so often, and then did what any other reasonable sort-of-young man would do in his situation: he called his mother.
"Oh god," Mark said when she finally picked up. "Why did you let me stay so bad at this?"
"Baby," she mumbled drowsily, "do you know what time it is?"
But as his mother valued her sleep and was well acquainted with her son's stubbornness, she agreed to get Wardo's email from Wardo's mom, and also tell Wardo's mom that he had deep regrets and was much more mature now and also not entirely opposed to adopting if he and Wardo ended up getting gay-married. ("Actually, sweetheart, Anita never struck me as the grandmother type." "Okay, then tell her I hate babies.") And since she was a secret mom network ninja, it only took her about 30 hours.
When the first ten overtures were returned with a single blank email (subject: fuck off), it became clear that a more unconventional approach was required.
Mark would have to speak his language.
The only catch being that Mark had never tried to write music before, which wasn't too surprising since he possessed no artistic talent whatsoever and had always hated to do anything he couldn't succeed in. But everything he was actually fucking brilliant at was intrinsically tied up in everything that Eduardo admittedly had very good reasons to be super pissed off about, so Mark didn't see that he had much choice in the matter (unless he wanted to die alone and unloved, still listening Paper Thin Avalanche on repeat every night before bed).
So he created an anonymous, untraceable account with a name that would be really obvious to anyone who knows him and found this guy Jammal who lived about fifteen minutes away, despised Facebook with a fascinating intensity, had free time on Monday and Wednesday nights after D&D, owned an old electric guitar, and agreed to handle the instrumental bits.
They sat down, ordered a fuckton of pizza, and felt fairly impressed with themselves when they finished a song in just 6 days about all the times he'd done something and then got hung up thinking about how Wardo would have found that hilarious, but couldn't share it.
He didn't get another "fuck off" back and the emails didn't bounce, so he wrote another one about lazy afternoons in the dorms and all the signs that he'd missed, and how now he kept jerking off to the thought of them.
And then the one with the river metaphor that didn't really work, but what the hell.
Mark was just putting the finishing touches on the afternoons one when Andrew ventured, cautiously, "uh, I thought this was the meeting for the upcoming server migrations."
"No," Mark informed him. "This is a meeting to think of a good rhyme for 'self-disdain'. That's why Simon was not invited."
"Ha! Simon's still busted!" Dustin crowed.
"Maintain... Profane... To blame... Insane... in the membrane..." Lisa continued helpfully.
Dave frowned. "I still don't think that's a word."
*
It took him a bit longer to come up with the one about how that ill-advised thing he'd once had for Sean was only a temporary misstep and, frankly, more than a little mortifying now.
Jammal's guitar riff at the end was pretty wicked, though.
You had better not be behind this, Marilyn sent him after Eduardo's brief appearance on Headbanger's ball, but in all honesty Mark couldn't really say. Eduardo was looking a little pale and drawn, but it could have been food poisoning.
After Letterman and The Today Show, during which Eduardo answered questions almost listlessly, twisting his ring around his finger, Mark could say that he was almost definitely behind this, and he was also never going to admit that in Marilyn's presence for the rest of his life -- or until Wardo fell into his arms and swore that he'd been in complete denial about being completely over Mark and also he'd never sue them again. Whichever came first.
Then came the trainwreck of an interview on K-FII FM, which featured at least three times when he sounded on the verge of tears, and Mark really didn't know what Eduardo's problem was.
Anyone else would have been practically walking on air in his place, if the man of their dreams had been penning them desperate love songs. (Mark was indeed aware -- in the far back of his mind -- that he himself had been a twitchy, nervous wreck, but he was valiantly ignoring this fact).
Mark could only put up with this shit for four weeks, at which point he finally sat down and wrote a song about being a hopeless loser who ditched the best thing in his life in service of fame and fortune (and a really amazing, industry disrupting website that was almost worth it. Except, not really. Of course.) (Unless Wardo forgave him, in which case it was absolutely worth it - though Dustin, in his infinite wisdom, said to leave that part out.)
Then he uploaded it and embedded the mp3 in his profile, visible to the public and titled: Mom Thinks This Might Be Good for Me (By The Way, I’m Sorry) (An Apology Also To Chris Hughes, In Advance)
It was 8 minutes and 39 seconds long.
"It’s awful," Eduardo said when the receptionist buzzed him into the office. "I mean, they were all awful, but that’s--I may be familiar with the term caterwauling, but before today I had no idea what that truly meant."
"So you liked it," Mark said, though not internally as confident as he was attempting to project. At least confident enough that he wasn't hiding behind his chair.
"It's going to be in the late night monologues for weeks," Eduardo pointed out, "4chan is in hysterics. The entire social media world has collectively recoiled in disgust."
"You liked it," Mark proclaimed smugly.
"Yeah," Eduardo said, and placed his palms flat on the desk so that he could lean over it and press a soft kiss against the corner of Mark’s mouth. "I did."
He huffed against Mark's cheek after Mark turned his head to kiss him back, sliding an arm around his neck. "But I'm writing the next one."
/the end