[Fic]: Good Bros Don't Cuddle (2a/?)
Title: Good Bros Don’t Cuddle
Fandom: The Social Network
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Eduardo didn’t expect to learn about Mark’s first time, nor did he expect himself to freak out over it. Nevertheless, it began with a game of Never Have I Ever.
Disclaimer: TSN and its characters are not mine.
By the time Eduardo got back to his room, it was roughly 7 or 8 in the morning; he wasn’t sure, but he did have a rough estimate because he passed Andrew on the way. Eduardo rarely saw Andrew because Andrew participated in many sport clubs, but they talked to each other once in a while because they both wanted to get in the Phoenix.
“Hey Eduardo,” Andrew greeted. This guy always woke up early for a morning jog, “How’s it going?” He looked at Eduardo’s rumpled state and grinned, “Had fun last night?”
“Yeah,” Eduardo lied, wanting a shower and an aspirin and having no patience to deal with people right now.
“Who’s the chick?”
“There is no chick.” Then, worrying that he might sound a little too harsh, Eduardo offered Andrew a sheepish smile.
Andrew nodded, accepting that answer.
“How about you?” Eduardo asked politely.
“As good as I’ll ever be,” and just when Eduardo thought it was the end of all conversation, Andrew continued, and Eduardo was forced to turn and walked backward to hear what else he had to say. The movement made his throbbing head even worse, but Eduardo wasn’t going to try and destroy what little neighboring relationship they had.
“There was a guy looking for you yesterday,” said Andrew. “He was hovering outside your door for several hours until Peter threatened to call security. He didn’t leave until I told him you were out with friends.”
“How did you know?” asked Eduardo. “I thought I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
“I didn’t,” Andrew shrugged. “I just wanted to get rid of him because he was making the whole floor uncomfortable. Why? Is he someone important?” And here Andrew curled his lips as if the thought of the stranger being someone significant was too funny for words. But then again, Andrew was one of those guys who seemed alright but secretly thought he was better than everyone else. On a good day, Andrew was alright, but on a bad day, Andrew perched on his high chair and told everyone to go get some, like he did because he had a girlfriend. Which apparently Eduardo should be jealous for not having.
Eduardo was too tired to deal with this. He spent most of last night sleeping in the Kirkland Junior Common Room and he really wanted the familiarity and peace of his room now. “I can’t think of anyone,” he said, hoping that this would cut the conversation short. “Thanks though.”
“No prob,” said Andrew, and, because he was a talkative bastard who didn’t know when to shut up, even though the person in front of him really want a shower and a way to get rid of his annoying headache, he kept talking. “Hey, you found your jacket.”
Eduardo glanced down at his favorite North Face jacket, suddenly realizing that he had it on. That was strange. Just last week, he was searching everywhere for it, knocking on doors and asking people if it was mixed up in their laundry. But he woke up this morning and it was draped over his shoulders. Did he find it yesterday and wear it to meet Mark and his gang? Eduardo couldn’t remember, and his headache was not going to take care of itself.
“Yeah” was all Eduardo could say.
“Well, I’ll see you later, Eduardo,” Andrew waved before heading off, and Eduardo said a grateful, “See you” before returning to his room, taking a shower, and forgetting about the weird things surrounding his life for now.
***
After he properly showered, aspirined, and napped, Eduardo woke up around 10 to go to his 11 AM Econ lecture. His headache was gone, but there was a heavy exhaustion that settled in his bones, and Eduardo had to wait about fifteen minutes before he could get up and get dressed.
The worse thing about being awake now, was that clarity allowed Eduardo to digest the horrors of yesterday. He suddenly realized that he was being an idiot yesterday, storming out on his friends, storming out on Mark. Eduardo felt embarrassed. Worse, Chris was in his Econ class, and Eduardo was going to have to face Chris asking for an explanation of yesterday’s episode of Days of Our Lives, Harvard Edition.
Better Chris than Dustin though, especially better than Mark. Eduardo knew that he couldn’t look Mark in the face right now.
He had it carefully planned out. If he came into lecture three minutes later than he usually did, right when class began, he could feign politeness and sat in the back, near the exit, instead of his usual seat next to Chris. Then, just when lecture end, he will bolt for the door. Chris avoiding plan, success.
Dustin was easy to avoid because Eduardo didn’t have any class with him. Mark, on the other hand, shared math with Eduardo, but Eduardo knew that Mark liked to sit in the middle-ish rows, toward the back, and if Eduardo used the same strategy he was going to use with Chris, except now he had to sit in the front row instead, next to the front exit, he could avoid Mark easily too.
So engrossed was Eduardo in his thoughts that he almost tripped on his feet when someone called his name across the quad.
“Eduardo! Hey man!” Billy jogged up to him.
Eduardo figured it would be rude and cowardly if he sped up and pretended that he didn’t hear Billy (even though he was tempted to), but he wasn’t going to stop and wait for Billy. He just continued walking on until the other catch up to him.
“Hey,” said Billy, slowing to a steady walk next to Eduardo, panting slightly from the exertion. Honestly, it wasn’t that far of a distance. Eduardo could run much farther than that without losing his breath. Eduardo was clearly a faster runner than Billy could ever be.
(Okay, so maybe he resented Billy slightly, but really, why was it so easy for Billy to get along quickly with Mark, Dustin, and Chris? Eduardo brought Billy along because Billy was supposed to be his allies last night.)
“Man, what happened yesterday?” asked Billy. “What’s with the random storming out?”
“I was just tired,” Eduardo said, and he knew it was a weak answer too, but this was Billy Olson and he really didn’t care.
“OoooKay,” said Billy. “Whatever you say, man.” He didn’t believe Eduardo, of course, but it didn’t really matter. They walked in silence, and just when Eduardo was about to say that he had to go to class so he’ll see Billy later, Billy startled him with, “Do you have a problem with, you know, gay people?”
Eduardo just stared at him in shock. “What?”
“I mean, not that I’m accusing you of being a homophobic douchebag or anything, but you don’t seem that comfortable with us fooling around yesterday….” Billy trailed off.
“I..I don’t hate gays, are you crazy?” Eduardo hissed, checking for passerby who might eavesdrop. He didn’t have a problem with gays, he didn’t. He didn’t care if some guys liked to…do things to each other, he didn’t, except if one of those guys was Mark, because the thought of Mark…not wearing clothes and letting other guys touched him was…wrong. In fact, the thought of anyone getting too comfortable with Mark, anyone who Mark would smile at or thank after …doing stuff, or, god forbid, cuddle with, was incredibly, incredibly wrong.
(Not that Eduardo ever thought about Mark…doing stuff.)
“That’s not what I meant,” said Billy. “If you’re not comfortable with it, we’ll just all cuddle when you’re not around like yesterday.”
“What?” Eduardo glared at Billy, and something in his tone made Billy backed off. “You guys cuddled? With Mark?” Eduardo loomed forward and Billy took another step back, hands raised in placation.
“Hey, I was just joking,” Billy chuckled nervously. “We didn’t cuddle. Mark doesn’t even let me touch him, let alone cuddle. ” Then, he added for good measure. “Not that I’ve try touching him or anything.”
Eduardo glared at Billy, trying to see if he could read dishonesty from Billy’s stupid face. Billy must have read something from his face because next thing Eduardo knew; the coward shook his head, said something about being late to class, and headed off. Good riddance.
(Ok, so Eduardo had to admit that Billy wasn’t a bad guy, but all of this cuddling with Mark business wasn’t making Eduardo very happy.)
The thing was, Eduardo hoped to avoid everyone who witnessed his moment of stupidity last night. He completely forgot about Billy, but the fact that he bumped into Billy must be a bad premonition of what to come because he narrowly dodged Chris, who strategically sat in another seat as to catch Eduardo as he left. Eduardo barely managed to avoid Dustin, who was stationed in the dining commons, eyes scanning the premise for his prey.
By the time he arrived to his math lecture, Eduardo was ready for his plan of avoiding Mark to fail miserably.
When Eduardo arrived, however, he was surprised to find that Mark wasn’t in class yet. He stood at the entrance, momentarily shocked because he had been running various scenario of awkward and horrific interactions in his head, from Mark giving him the Glare of Death for not sitting with him, to the Tone of Banishment, ‘Don’t bother coming to my suite to hang out anymore,’ or, even worse, the We Need To Talk About Our Feelings seriousness (highly unlikely, but a possibility. 0.000001%, but still a possibility).
Yet, the fact that Mark wasn’t there was…anticlimactic, to be honest.
As a result, Eduardo found himself doing the opposite of what he expected to do: He actually sat in their usual spot and strained his neck every time someone came in the class, hoping that it was Mark. Mark always arrived to class earlier than Eduardo, and the disruption of this normal routine was making Eduardo worried. Suddenly, he was more concerned about Mark’s wellbeing than his plan to avoid awkwardness.
Minutes went by, and lecture began. Still no Mark.
Fuck.
All this preparations and fear and worry and Eduardo never expected that Mark would avoid him first. He grew anxious because Mark had never tried to avoid him before. Mark would give him space, yes, but straight-out avoiding him, never.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Eduardo managed to screw up their friendship. Fuck, he knew he should have kept a tighter grip on his stupidity because Mark must have known what Eduardo felt about him, or maybe Mark was pissed off because he thought Eduardo was a homophobic bastard or something, which he wasn’t, he swear-
The sound of the back door creaking open and then sliding shut startled Eduardo from his internal rambling. He whipped his head back so fast that his neck ached, but it didn’t matter because there Mark was, shuffling down the stairs to sit next to Eduardo.
“Where were you?” Eduardo whispered as Mark pulled his laptop from his backpack.
“Overslept,” Mark replied. “Stayed up late.”
“Oh,” Eduardo said, wondering what kept Mark up so late. But then he wished that he didn’t because he didn’t want to think about what Mark might be up to with Chris and Dustin. And Billy.
Sure, Mark didn’t seem to be mad at him, actually, Eduardo had trouble deciphering what Mark could be feeling 99% of the time, but if he had to take a guess now, Mark probably wasn’t angry. Probably. Maybe. Possibly.
Eduardo braced himself for a showdown when lecture was over.
But when class ended and they began packing up, Mark’s demeanor didn’t change. No epic showdown was imminent then, but….
“You coming over for dinner tonight?” Mark asked.
Eduardo almost collapsed in relief. He knew what this meant. Mark was offering a truce, a ‘okay, let’s forget about what happened last night and move on,’ a ‘yes, we are still friends’ message. Mark didn’t want to talk about last night either.
Yet, even though this was something that Eduardo wanted, he couldn’t help but feel disappointed, as if a part of him wanted Mark to mention last night. Which was ridiculous, because Eduardo didn’t want to change the status quo, didn’t want to change their friendship into something else. He didn’t. But the important part was: Part of him did feel that way.
This was a dangerous road he was treading on.
“I’m actually going out with a bunch of guys from the Investors’ Club tonight,” said Eduardo, making a note to call Trevor and the guys right away.
No, Eduardo was not avoiding Mark. He just needed some space right now.
“Alright,” Mark said, and then he gave Eduardo this look that Eduardo couldn’t decipher. Eduardo suddenly felt as if he was ripping something apart, but he couldn’t figure out why.
When Mark turned to leave, Eduardo had a strange urge to stop him, but he didn’t.
***
Most of the guys on the Investor’s Club already had plans, but at least Trevor said that he was coming along with two other friends not from the club. Eduardo was fine with that. Frankly, he didn’t care who Trevor brought.
He was waiting outside of Chutney’s when he spotted Trevor heading his way.
“Hey man,” Trevor greeted. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much. You?”
“It’s been good. Oh, Jessica finally called me back a few minutes ago.” Everyone in the Investor’s Club knew who Jessica was, or at least, as much as Trevor was willing to tell them. It was always Jessica this and Jessica that, but when someone asked if she was his girlfriend yet, Trevor always said that he was working on it. That had been going on for three months.
“What did she say?” Eduardo asked.
“She was going with some friends to Charlie’s Kitchen and asked if I wanted to come along,” Trevor replied with a grimace.
“Really?” Eduardo felt bad because Trevor was here instead. He did call out of the blue. “Hey, you should go and call her back.”
“I don’t want to ditch you man,” said Trevor, although his expression said that he would much rather tail after Jessica.
“Just go,” Eduardo urged even if he didn’t really feel the enthusiasm. “Maybe after all this time, you could finally call Jessica your girlfriend.”
Trevor looked like he was considering it. “Well, she did say that she wanted her friends to meet me.”
“See? You have to go.”
“You think so?” asked Trevor. “Do you think it means something that she want me to meet her friends?”
“Definitely,” said Eduardo. Honestly, he didn’t have a clue, but it was better to sound encouraging. “You have to go; you don’t want to miss this kind of opportunity.”
But Trevor was not convinced. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” Eduardo replied. “I’ll just get to-go and come back to my dorm to study for a quiz tomorrow.”
“If you’re sure,” Trevor still sounded hesitant, but Eduardo knew that he already made a choice. It was Jessica after all. “Oh hey, the two guys that I was talking about are coming here. Are you okay with eating with them alone? I could call them to cancel if you want.”
“No, its fine. I don’t mind meeting new people,” said Eduardo. “Just go.”
“If you’re sure.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Then Trevor was off, fumbling with his cell phone as he practically ran across the street. Eduardo was definitely going to tease him about it later.
But the main issue was, Eduardo was now alone. He didn’t want to eat alone, but he didn’t want to eat with complete strangers either. Maybe he should have asked Trevor to call the other two guys and cancelled.
“Eduardo!” a familiar voice called him.
Oh no.
Eduardo spotted them right away: Dustin and Chris weaving through the streets toward him, Chris with a wave and Dustin with a ridiculous expression on his face. Great.
“Hey guys,” Eduardo greeted as they approached him. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re meeting up with someone for dinner. Trevor Tarkovsky,” Dustin replied.
“What are you doing here?” asked Chris.
“Wait, you guys know Trevor?”
“Yeah, he’s in my political economy class,” said Chris.
“Oh,” Eduardo didn’t know that, but he wasn’t surprised because Chris knew everyone. “Well, Trevor had to head off to meet up with this girl.” He hoped to stall for as much time as possible to formulate an exit strategy. It would be tough because Dustin was stealthier than he looked, and Chris had secret powers. He just did. Escape from Chris was a rare occurrence. Mark managed to do it once, but only because he hadn’t shower for a month.
“Jessica, right?” said Chris. “Are you the friend he was supposed to be meeting?”
“Yeah,” Eduardo admitted, figuring that lying to Chris the secret weapon would be a bad idea. Eduardo liked keeping his life. “How do you know Trevor, Dustin?”
Stall for time. Stall for time. Stall for time.
“I don’t,” Dustin replied. “I’m just tagging along.”
Suddenly, there was something very wrong with this picture. Eduardo frowned. “So where’s Mark?” He tried for a casual voice, hoping that he didn’t sound as desperate as he felt. Eduardo had come to expect Mark to materialize whenever Dustin and Chris were around, and his absence was making Eduardo anxious.
“He left to check out HEM,” Dustin answered. “I would go too but all of their shifts conflict with my physics lab.”
“What’s HEM?” That sounded familiar, but Eduardo didn’t remember what is was.
“Harvard Engineering Mentors.”
Ah, now he remembered. “Why?”
“Maybe he wants to impress someone,” said Dustin.
Chris shot him a look.
“What? It’s true,” Dustin said.
Eduardo would gape if he was in a more private setting without the eyes of Dustin and Chris because he couldn’t imagine Mark trying to help high school kids with math and physics. Now, Eduardo would love to ponder this further, but Dustin and Chris just shot each other more secretive looks. Before Eduardo could turn on his heels and escape, they both started forward, and Chris hook an arm around Eduardo’s left while Dustin on the right.
“We need to talk,” they said in unison.
Eduardo was doomed. Doomed.
***
This was intense.
They were inside the restaurant, waiting for their order, and Chris had tactfully chosen to sit right across from Eduardo while Dustin flanked on Eduardo’s side to block any attempt at escaping. Eduardo cursed his luck. Chris was very good at interrogation, not because he screamed or tortured people like those old Hollywood movies. There was something about his eyes and his voice that made people blurt out everything and take out wallet pictures of their puppies to show him.
Eduardo vowed to remain strong. He did not have pictures of puppies in his wallet, but he did have pictures of Mark and him from that one trip to Boston, which neither Dustin nor Chris will ever find out about. Mark didn’t even know about them. Nor will any of the guys know about that one time he stood in line with an old lady when she showed him pictures of her granddaughter, and he had showed her those pictures of Mark and him.
“Is he, what do you kids call each other these days…” She frowned in concentration. “Boyfriend? Partner?”
“He’s a very good friend,” Eduardo said, and left it at that.
So no, Dustin, Chris, and Mark will never see these pictures. But back to the present situation:
Chris folded his arms. “So, why have you been avoiding us?”
Before he could deny this allegation, Dustin added. “We have report from Billy Olson that you were spotted early this morning.” He put his hand under his chin. “What do you have to say about this?”
Eduardo blinked. “I was heading to class.”
“Dustin, what does this have to do with anything?” asked Chris.
“Nothing,” Dustin grinned. “I just want to be bad cop, you know? Since you’re the good cop.”
Chris slapped a hand to his forehead, and Eduardo couldn’t help it. He laughed.
Dustin beamed at this. He patted Eduardo on the shoulder. “Good to see you so relaxed, man. You were pretty tense there. You know that you have nothing to worry about, right?”
“We’re just worried about you,” said Chris.
And then Chris made such a gentle and understanding expression that Eduardo just wanted to tell him everything, but he couldn’t because he didn’t have words to describe this thing with Mark, whatever it was.
He kept his hands away from his pocket, just in case he found the urge to take out his wallet.
“It’s nothing,” Eduardo said, feeling guilty for making them worried. Now that he thought about it, avoiding them was stupid of him. They were good friends, putting effort in trying to reach out and communicate with him. It made Eduardo felt ashamed of even thinking that he was left out of the Chris-Dustin-Mark loop.
“At least we’re calm about it,” said Dustin. “You should have seen Mark last night.”
Eduardo frowned. “What happened?”
“He went to your place to look for you,” said Chris. “Gone for about two hours. Came back, grabbed his jacket, and left again. He came back about 10 minutes later without his jacket, and when we asked, he didn’t say anything. We just assumed that you guys worked things out, but then you avoided us this morning, and we realized that wasn’t the case.”
“No, we didn’t talk,” said Eduardo. Finally, the strangeness of the morning came back to him, Andrew’s talk about the loiter in their building, the reappearance of his missing jacket….
“Yeah, we figured,” said Dustin. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” said Eduardo. He didn’t know what to think with all of this new information. Mark went looking for him?
Dustin looked like he wanted to say something, but Chris’s look stopped him. “Just tell us whenever you’re ready,” Chris said gently.
Eduardo nodded, grateful for the space to sort his feelings out, but also glad that someone was there for him. “Yeah.” He wished that he had every figured out because he really wanted to explain it to his friends, helping them understand and even wipe off that concerned look they kept giving him. But at the same time, these were his feelings, his issues, and Eduardo didn’t know whether or not he was being selfish by wanting to keep them inside for only himself. These were his problems to deal with, not Chris’s or Dustin’s, or Mark’s.
Nevertheless, it was kind of Chris and Dustin. “Thanks guys.”
Chris smiled, while Dustin said. “Aww, no prob. I would totally go for a hug right now, but I really need to pee.”
Eduardo chuckled. Chris just shook his head. “Then go. You don’t have to advertise it to the restaurant.”
“But I was going to give you guys the whole story about how badly I needed to go, but Chris kept getting-”
“Just go already,” Chris shoved Dustin’s shoulder.
“Ok ok,” Dustin put up both of his hands placatingly. “I’ll be right back.” And then Dustin was gone, disappearing behind the crowd of people and the line waiting to order their food.
“Alright,” said Chris, his serious tone snapped Eduardo out of the comfortable bubble he’d built. “You need to talk to Mark.” Chris’s shoulders relaxed, however, as if he was waiting for Dustin to leave to tell Eduardo this.
Eduardo stared at Chris, feeling disoriented with Chris’s sudden change in mood. “Wait, what?” He probably sounded very stupid right now, but Chris was being weird and that threw Eduardo off.
“You need to talk to Mark, Eduardo,” Chris repeated, leaning forward and lowering his voice so that only Eduardo could hear.
“I don’t-” Eduardo began, but Chris continued. “I understand that you might be confused with your feelings toward Mark, but you should be straightforward with him. Tell him that you’re confused. He deserves at least this much.”
“But,” Eduardo swallowed. “How can I even tell him when I don’t even know what I’m supposed to tell him?”
“Try to communicate with him, Eduardo. Mark may be a genius, but he doesn’t understand people the way others do. Even knowing that you’re confused would be enough for him, just so he doesn’t get the wrong idea,” Chris glanced at the direction that Dustin disappeared to, as if Dustin was going to materialize by their side at any moment.
“I don’t know,” Eduardo sighed. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
There was moment of silence between them, and then Chris sighed. Eduardo suddenly realized how tired Chris looked, how reserved he had been, how he had to wait until Dustin left to tell Eduardo this, and that worried Eduardo. “Chris, is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” Chris rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s fine.”
Eduardo wanted to point out that no, everything didn’t look as if it was fine, but Chris began speaking again. “I was hoping that I didn’t have to tell you this.”
“Tell me what?” Eduardo asked gently, a part of him curious, but another part didn’t want to know if it would pain Chris to tell him.
“It’s…it’s confusing as hell trying to figure out if someone is interested in you, Eduardo. Especially if that someone is a friend. Because-” Chris paused, searching for the next words, and Eduardo was alarmed because he’d never seen Chris like this, ever. Chris shook it off, however, and continued on. “It’s important that you two communicate with each other, even if it’s to say that you’re confused, so that you two won’t get hurt down the road.”
“I understand,” said Eduardo. That made sense. Sort of. Eduardo wanted to disagree with Chris. Sometimes, it was best not to reveal his feelings because what if Mark didn’t feel the same, what if Eduardo did say it, and then their friendship would be awkward. Mark didn’t even like to deal with his own feelings, let alone Eduardo’s. “I just…I don’t know what I’m feeling right now, and I really don’t want to hurt Mark by giving him a false alarm or bother him with…whatever this is.”
“Don’t block Mark out because you think you’re protecting him, because you’re not,” said Chris. “Don’t pity-protect him because that’s just a way for you to protect yourself.”
Eduardo was shocked at the sudden aggression. This was not Chris. Something was wrong. “I don’t pity Mark,” Eduardo said slowly. “Chris, is everything alright with Dustin?”
Chris froze.
That was enough for Eduardo to guess. Eduardo felt horrible. He didn’t even notice the tension between Chris and Dustin, how Chris was struggling all this time and Eduardo didn’t even see or ask what was wrong. He didn’t even know if Dustin was suffering too. Eduardo had been so absorbed in his own issues that he didn’t even notice that his friends were not as happy as they seemed.
Eduardo wanted to say something like, “I’m sorry.” He wanted Chris to talk to him, but then Chris looked away, and Eduardo spotted Dustin walking back toward them, so he just said. “Yeah, I’ll talk to Mark.”
Chris gave him a grateful look.
Part 2b.