[fic] somewhere in the crowd there's you
Title: somewhere in the crowd there's you
Author: daisysusan
Fandom: The Social Network
Genre: Angst, romance
Paring: Chris/Dustin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~6,500
Summary: As it turns out, even the most stable relationship is hard when you're two time zones and a five hour flight away from your boyfriend; or, Chris goes to work for the Obama campaign. This story exists in the same universe as in other words, but there's nothing there you need to know.
Notes: (1) All my thanks to the lovely opheliahyde for reading this over and telling me, basically, where it sucked, and also to alexthegreat for providing suggestions and putting up with my babble about this. (2) The title is from the ABBA song Super Trouper, for which I really have no excuse. (3) I am always, always open to constructive criticism. (4) Now with a soundtrack here, added 7/26/11.
Disclaimer: This story is about the fictional representations of these characters from the movie The Social Network, and is in no way a reflection on these actual people. I am making no money from this and am in no way affiliated with the movie itself. Also, seriously, if you found this by googling yourself, abort now, this is not a drill.
somewhere in the crowd there's you
Dustin knows that most people think their relationship is disgustingly stable. Eduardo has commented on it a few times, and besides, well, Dustin isn't stupid. He knows that going months-once, memorably, they went almost a year; Mark was timing them-without fighting with Chris is unusual.
People call it sweet.
And it is, though Dustin's a little biased in that he always thinks Chris is sweet.
The problem is that they fight so little that they're not good at it. Well, obviously they can fight, but they're not good at the aspect of it where they can be in a fight and still be totally and obviously in love.
(This is where Mark and Eduardo have them beat. The two of them fight … Dustin's not sure it would be a lot, but they're around him and Chris all the time and that makes it feel like a lot.)
So yeah, they're not very good at integrating their fights into their everyday lives. Mark and Eduardo can be in a fight about something and Eduardo still shows up to take Mark home from work and they still kiss each other goodbye and generally act disgustingly in love; it’s like they can separate the fight from the rest of their relationship.
Chris and Dustin can’t, not really. It’s not that they work really hard at not fighting and then have tons of repressed stuff that pours out or anything, it’s just that they’re not used to being in a fight.
What it all means, though, is that when Chris gets a job offer from the Obama campaign, things go … badly.
--
Dustin is fully prepared to admit that he overreacted.
He’s also prepared to acknowledge that he was being selfish. And that he said some stuff that sounded unnecessarily ultimatum-y, like he was making Chris choose between him and the campaign.
Which he definitely, definitely didn’t mean.
But Dustin’s starting to think that Chris took him at his word. (Or his implication or whatever.) They haven’t spoken beyond a few terse words for several days now, but-and this is really stupid, because he should be mad that his boyfriend is considering moving to fucking Chicago-but he misses him. Chris has slept in the guest room for the last two nights, leaving Dustin alone in their bedroom, and, well-
-this morning, Dustin woke up with his face buried in Chris’s pillow. Surrounded by the smell of Chris’s shampoo, he ached a little with the loneliness.
Dustin wonders, vaguely, if it’s love or codependence, to feel that way.
He doesn’t want to force an apology on Chris, because Chris is right to be mad at him. And he knows that if Chris wants to keep avoiding him, that’s okay, too.
Mostly Dustin just wants to be able to hug him and sleep next to him even though they haven’t figured everything out yet.
--
To: chris.hughes@facebook.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
Sorry
Chris,
I am so sorry for making it sound like you had to choose between me and the Obama job. That’s not what I meant at all. I love you and I will continue to love you no matter what you choose. It’s entirely your choice.
Dustin
PS - I do realize this is a pathetic way to apologize. I just didn’t want to pressure you.
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chris.hughes@facebook.com
re: Sorry
Thank you. I just need to think through everything.
I love you, too.
Chris
--
That night, Chris crawls into bed next to him.
Dustin opens his mouth, wanting to ask if they’re okay, if Chris has made up his mind about what to do, if they can just snuggle for a little while because he misses sleeping curled up with him.
Before he can speak, though, Chris does. “I haven’t figured everything out yet, babe. But we shouldn’t let that fight screw everything else up.”
They fall asleep tangled together, but Dustin is alone when he wakes up the next morning. Stuck to his forehead is a post-it note that says, in neat cursive that could only be Chris’s, I’ve gone for a run to try and sort my head out. Love you.
It takes Chris a long time to get his head sorted out, long enough that Dustin is left just this side of panicking. They don’t talk a lot; Dustin doesn’t want to pressure him and Chris doesn’t seem to be seeking out his opinion. Mostly Dustin is just proud of himself for not begging him to stay. He remembers, all too well, being across the country from Chris and how painfully lonely he was, even before he knew what it felt like to fall asleep with his head tucked into the curve of Chris’s neck or wake up to see his usually impeccable hair disheveled and tousled.
One morning, after what feels like an eternity but is actually more like a week, Chris appears in front of Dustin’s desk with his face serious and heavy.
“Can you do lunch today?” he asks.
“I, uh,” Dustin answers. He glances down at his calendar, because he’s an adult now, a responsible corporate executive with things he has to do. “Yeah, I’m free for lunch.”
“Let’s go somewhere nice,” Chris says, and Dustin feels his stomach drop like he just swallowed a seriously toxic amount of lead and it’s pressing through him toward the ground.
They end up at a classy place not too far from the office, filled with men in suits and boasting a wine list so expensive Dustin’s eyes bug out a little bit. They both ought to be out of their elements, he knows, but Chris has taken this-to good wine and trendy restaurants and expensive suits-like a fish to water.
(He would be lying if he said he didn’t like it.)
“I’m sorry I’ve been distant over the last few days,” Chris begins. “I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking.”
Dustin moves to grab Chris’s hand, but even before he’s thought the action through, he feels warm fingers lace through his. “The one thing I haven’t been able to take into account,” he continues, “is your opinion.”
“I didn’t want to pressure you,” Dustin replies, thinking miserably of his initial reaction and Chris’s justifiable anger.
“It’s not pressuring me if I ask for your input,” Chris says softly.
Looking down at the table, at their joined hands, Dustin swallows. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he starts, twisting his free hand in the napkin. “No, that’s not right. I know what to tell you, I just don’t want to say it.”
“Dustin …” Chris trails off, running his thumb across the back of Dustin’s hand.
“You have to go,” Dustin says. “You’ll regret it if you don’t, and I’d rather miss you for a little while than be the reason you regret not doing something you really want to do.”
Chris squeezes his fingers and smiles gently. “Thank you.”
--
Dustin flies with Chris to Chicago; he says it’s to help him with his stuff and with settling into a new apartment, but really, it’s because he isn’t quite ready for Chris to leave.
The apartment, comfortable but not decadent, already feels like something of Chris’s by the time Dustin slides into bed next to him on the first night there-careful and sleek and modern, without the touches of homeyness (Chris would say sloppiness) that Dustin brings to their house in Palo Alto.
He likes it, of course (he likes everything to do with Chris, really), but it makes his stomach hurt a little to think of the impending separation. They haven’t talked about it much-Dustin is avoiding it subject, really; he doesn’t want to do something thoughtless, if heartfelt, like begging Chris not to go. And outside of discussing their feelings about everything, there wasn’t too much to work through.
But when Chris, who usually lets him initiate the cuddling, curls around him like a nuzzly starfish and kisses his cheek drowsily, it occurs to Dustin that he probably isn’t the only one of them dreading months of cold beds and missed good-morning kisses.
(Unfortunately, that becomes really easy to forget.)
--
Dustin drinks more with Chris gone.
Not, like, alcoholic more or anything. Just … a bit more. An extra beer or two when he’s playing video games with Mark or an extra glass of wine at the events he gets dragged to, nothing more.
He works more, too, longer hours and later nights and sometimes he goes in on the weekends like Mark.
(The drinking and the working aren’t always mutually exclusive.)
But Dustin is older now than the last time he was in Palo Alto and Chris wasn’t, and he can see the patterns in his own behavior. He drinks when he feels Chris’s absence most pointedly-at the dinners where there should be a comforting arm around his waist as they schmooze, hanging out at Mark’s where they should be all losing to Chris’s video game goddery. He works to avoid being at home without Chris to drag him away from the computer (or to be dragged away from his own computer; being a workaholic goes both ways with them) or cook dinner while Dustin sits on the counter and chops things on command or get mad at him for making fun of the stupid movies he seems to love.
It’s not like they aren’t talking or anything-the calls Chris nearly every day, letting their conversations drag into silence for hours while they do other things, and they Skype regularly (because some things are more fun over webcam than the phone)-but it’s not the same as having an actual in-the-flesh Chris who is huggable and snuggle-able and, eminently, overwhelmingly missable.
So Dustin is a little lonely.
That’s not even close to being a good excuse for what he does.
He wakes up the morning after his transgression to a splitting headache and a phone flashing 1 new voicemail at him. In a nauseating flash, he remembers the night before-drinking at the benefit dinner, going home afterward and wishing Chris were home so they could strip each other from their obscenely expensive tuxedos and have slightly tipsy sex with fingers scrambling for purchase against sweaty skin and mouths pressed together sloppily. Dustin remembers not being able to purge the image of Chris, naked and wanting and trusting, from his mind, and how it made him hurt, somewhere behind his heart and in the pit of his stomach.
He remembers pouring himself a screwdriver-honestly, it was more vodka than orange juice-despite having already had several drinks at the dinner, hoping to pass out from alcohol and exhaustion before he had the chance to do anything stupid.
It didn’t work.
Instead, he drunk-dialed Chris (not an entirely new phenomenon) and left what he now remembers is a rambling voicemail about how much he missed him, and wanted him to come home, and how life sucked without him around. And Dustin is pretty sure it got worse.
“Fuck,” he says into the silent, empty bedroom.
Rather than torture himself, he reaches for his phone and plays Chris’s voicemail. It’s only a few minutes old.
“What the fuck, Dustin?” the message opens. “You called me, drunk, in the middle of the night, to make me feel guilty for being here, and then lectured me-almost incoherently, I might add-about how I never call you, it’s always you calling me.”
Dustin swears again. That wasn’t something he’d ever really intended to bring up.
“I’ve been busy, if you haven’t picked up on that,” Chris’s voice continues, tinny and off-pitch through the phone. “Everything I’m working on is understaffed and underfunded and I really, really want to do a good job. This is important.”
A curl up anger rises up in him as the message ends. “I’ll talk to you later, Dustin. I have a meeting.”
--
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
This message has no content.
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
You know that’s not what I meant. I just have a lot to do right now, and it feels like the fate of the world rests on it. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call you as much as you’d like.
Need to pay attention to this meeting now; the Senator is here.
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
Well I’m glad that you’re paying attention to SOMEONE.
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
I’m sorry, that was jealous and petty. I shouldn’t have said that.
To: dustin.moskovtiz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
Nice of you to realize that. We’ll talk later.
--
Chris doesn’t call him later.
--
After that, Dustin cuts back on the drinking. He’s really not interested in making things even worse by repeating the drunk dialing incident, and not just because he thinks the only way to make things worse from not speaking is being broken up.
He quickly discovers that not drinking and not calling Chris for hours leaves him with a lot of spare time.
The spare time turns into work time quickly, entirely out of desire to not think about Chris. Before long, Dustin is putting in hours a lot like Mark’s when facebook was first taking off. It’s easier, though, than sitting around his house and thinking about how long it’s been since he talked to Chris.
Obviously, Chris doesn’t want to talk to Dustin as much as Dustin wants to talk to him.
--
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: duskin.moskovitz@facebook.com
(no subject)
Is there any reason you haven’t called?
To: dustin.moskovtiz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: (no subject)
I’m busy, Dustin. We’ve talked about this. I can’t talk to you on the phone constantly because I’m trying to get a man elected President.
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: (no subject)
What, and I’m not busy? But I’m making time to talk to you. It would be nice for you to make an effort too.
--
Three days later, Chris still hasn’t answered the email. Dustin deletes the thread from his inbox so he won’t stare at it guiltily anymore.
--
They still talk on the phone sometimes, but it’s not like it was when Chris first left. They don’t linger on the phone, needing to get back to work but reluctant to say goodbye, narrating their everyday lives over the airwaves. Instead, the calls a short and tense, ending most frequently when Chris announces that he has a meeting to go to, but sometimes when Dustin needs to wire in and says so, instead of putting it off for as long as possible.
Dustin starts deliberately ignoring the calls-leaving his phone on silent after meetings so they’ll go to voicemail; it’s not like Chris calls much anyway.
In fact, Chris hardly calls at all unless Dustin calls him first and leaves a voicemail message and even that is hardly a guarantee.
He tries not to think about it, because thinking about it makes him feel like he’s going to throw up.
--
At the end of one exceptionally long week, Eduardo shows up at the office and, instead of making for Mark’s desk, he just stands in front of Dustin’s, waiting for him to look up from his computer.
“Mark’s not here,” Dustin mumbles, focused on his code.
“I know,” Eduardo answers. “He’s at home, watching a TV and bitching that the good Thai place doesn’t deliver.”
He looks up.
“You, on the other hand, are still at the office at 8:30 on Friday night, even though I have it on very good authority that you finished all your work when you stayed until almost 10 every night this week.”
“Whatever,” Dustin says.
“No, not whatever.” Eduardo reaches around him and turns off his computer before Dustin can raise a hand to stop him. “Tonight, you’re coming over and having dinner with me and Mark. Then we’re going to watch a movie. You’re going to do something other than working or moping for a few hours. It’ll be good for you.”
--
Dustin flops back against the couch, head resting on the cushions between Mark and Eduardo. He drains the last drops from his second beer-and his last, he’s been cut off by Eduardo who apparently heard about the drunk dialing fiasco-and gestures vaguely with the empty bottle.
“I have an idea,” he announces.
“Huh?” says Eduardo.
“Yeah, an idea for something …” he answers, trailing off.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mark sit up straighter. “Tell me more,” he says.
--
He spends all day Saturday making lists and sketching templates, papers and whiteboards strewn around the living room. Mark comes over for a few hours, flopping across the couch and throwing out occasional suggestions but mostly just watching, eerily still and quiet, as Dustin turns a flash of anger-driven inspiration into a usable concept.
By the time he stops scrawling ideas and functions across the whiteboards, drained but satisfied, Mark is dozing on the sofa and Dustin-for the first time in what feels like weeks-wants to do nothing more than call Chris.
He eyes his phone, lying abandoned on the coffee table, and thinks about how awkward the last phone call was, full of uncomfortable pauses when Chris tried not to ramble about his job and Dustin had to bite his tongue to keep from filling them with reminders of how lonely he was.
Compromising with himself, he reaches for the phone and sends a text message; hey. can you talk? it says.
Moments later, the phone rings. Dustin snatches it off the table and ducks into the backyard before answering it.
“Hi,” Chris says softly.
Dustin can’t keep himself from smiling at the phone. “Hi yourself,” he answers. “How are you?”
He hears the distorted sound of a soft exhale. “I’m better now,” Chris says, almost shy. “I missed your voice.”
His heart turns over, and he feels something suspiciously like a lump growing in his throat. “I miss you, too.”
There’s a brief pause, then he hears, “How are you doing?”
Dustin sighs. “I’m doing a lot better.” He hesitates. “I started a new project today.”
“For facebook?”
“No, it’s totally independent.”
“Oh wow, babe, that’s awesome.” Dustin can practically hear Chris smiling at him, and it’s making his heart do stupid things again. “Wanna tell me about it?”
He grins, because this is why he called, to brag a little and get Chris’s input and ramble like they’re sitting across from each other at the dinner table, not halfway across the country. “It’s a web application to make business collaboration easier, so that there’s less disconnect between groups and individuals.”
“How does that work?”
--
They talk for two hours, and the conversation doesn’t lapse into silence once.
--
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
Question
How are you going to integrate email into the application?
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: Question
Haven’t worked it out yet. Call me tonight?
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: Question
Does 8:30 your time work?
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: Question
Sounds good. Love you.
--
This time, Chris actually calls him.
--
From there, things improve. They actually talk, about their jobs and their lives and the people Chris gets to meet in Chicago and Mark’s peculiar habits, and they try not to talk too much about how they miss each other or the lingering strangeness of sleeping in an empty bed.
Dustin gets used to falling asleep with the phone pressed to his face, the soft sound of Chris’s breathing in his ear.
Of course, there’s plenty they just never talk about-Dustin’s clinginess (at least he knows what he is), Chris’s tendency to bury all his feelings in work-but Dustin is too relieved to be talking again to really care.
He plans the surprise for the weekend before Chris’s birthday; going during the week, he suspects, would be a bad idea.
--
Dustin is smiling broadly as he knocks on the door to Chris’s apartment.
“Surprise!” he says as soon as it opens.
Chris’s mouth hangs open, emotions skittering across his face-shock, confusion, happiness-before he smiles as wide as Dustin and pulls him into a crushing hug.
“Happy early birthday,” Dustin whispers into his ear as he’s yanked into the apartment and pressed again the door in a bruising kiss.
They don’t break apart until it’s absolutely necessary for their continued survival to breathe, and even then Dustin keeps his arm curled tight around Chris’s waist and reaches forward to drop a soft kiss against the side of his neck.
“It’s good to see you,” Chris says quietly.
“God, I know,” Dustin answers.
Then they’re kissing again, unusually desperate, and Chris is pushing him harder against the door and fumbling with his pants, and Dustin is running his hands through Chris’s hair in a futile attempt to pull him even closer despite there being no space between them at all.
An embarrassingly short time later, they’re sitting with their backs against the door, messy and smiling, Chris’s head tipped onto Dustin’s shoulder and their fingers laced together.
“If we’re going to cuddle,” Dustin says, “Shouldn’t we at least move to the couch?”
He feels Chris laugh against his neck, and the words are warm again his skin. “I can’t believe we literally could not keep our hands off each other long enough to get out of the doorway.”
“Still classier than our first time.” Dustin snorts. “You know, I’m pretty sure Mark still has that couch.”
Chris’s shoulders shake silently.
--
They end up curled together on the couch, dozing and whispering, until Chris sits up partway and twists around towards the clock.
“Shit,” he says.
“Huh?” Dustin asks, more asleep than awake.
“Shit shit shit,” Chris continues helpfully.
Dustin rubs his eyes. “What wrong?”
“I have a dinner that I need to go to tonight.” Chris climbs off the couch and starts looking around. “Do you know where my pants are?” he asks.
Burying his face in the cushions, Dustin gestures vaguely toward the door. “Over there, I think?”
He listens to the rustling for a while, feels Chris brush a kiss across the top of his head. “I’m going to shower. I’ll wake you up before I leave.”
An in-determinate amount of time later, Dustin surfaces from a fuzzy dream about drunk panda bears to the touch of Chris’s hand against his shoulder and breath against his ear. “Dustin,” he says. “Dustin, wake up. I need to leave.”
Dustin reaches up to grab the hand against his shoulder, running his thumb over the back of Chris’s hand. “Do you have to?” he whines softly.
“Yeah,” Chris answers. “Yeah, I do. The Senator is going to be there, I can’t miss it.”
“Oh,” Dustin says. “Have fun, then? I’ll see you when you get home.”
--
Much, much later, Dustin hears the door of the apartment open. He’s curled into bed-Chris’s bed, really-coding and absently appreciating the comforting knowledge that he’ll get to sleep next to his boyfriend.
“I’m in bed,” he calls.
Chris’s head appears in the doorway. “Hey babe,” he says, smiling. “I thought you’d be asleep.”
“I was waiting for you,” Dustin answers.
“You didn’t need to do that.” Chris drops his briefcase onto the floor and takes off his jacket. He looks at it appraisingly, like he’s pondering whether it’s worth the trouble of hanging it up. After a moment, he tosses it on top of his briefcase and says, "I really have missed seeing you every night."
Dustin closes his eyes for a long moment. “I missed you, too,” he says.
He doesn’t open his eyes again until the bed dips next to him and Chris crawls in. He’s still wearing his boxers, but the rest of his suit is strewn a little haphazard over the chair that lives in the corner. Dustin sets his laptop on the floor and slips all the way under the covers.
Before he even has time to close his eyes, Chris is curled around him, face pressed into his neck and an arm wrapped around his waist.
--
The next morning, Dustin wakes up to an empty bed. For a split second, before he remembers where he is, it feels almost normal. There's no post-it stuck to his forehead, though, no Chris sitting at his computer at the desk, and it aches a little.
Once he's dragged himself from the warm bed and Chris-scented pillows, Dustin stumbles into the kitchen to make some coffee. There, he sees that Chris has left him a note.
Dustin, it says, I'm sorry, but I have to go into work today. It's a crazy weekend with the Senator in town, so I probably won't be home until pretty late. There's food in the fridge and a really good coffee shop around the corner. I'll call you this afternoon.
Opening cabinets at random in search of a coffee mug, Dustin tries to keep resentment from bubbling up in his throat. He knew all along that Chris was busy, it's not like that's something he wasn't anticipating; just getting to see him a little bit is an improvement over the last couple of months. But the feeling is there, poorly hidden by sleepiness and the comforting sense of just being around Chris.
He ignores it, and sits down with his coffee and his laptop, because he has something to work on as well. The basic outline of what he wants to do is starting to come together and-well, he's not staying up all night coding and designing and scheming, but he understands why Mark did, now. Before, he always thought it was just Mark being Mark, too single-minded and obsessive to something go, to recognize that sometimes the needs of the body come before those of the brain.
But now? It makes sense, the drive to to just keep creating because the idea is there and his fingers just can't keep up. The inspiration comes faster than he can code it, but he understands.
(For all that he loves facebook, it was never his.)
It's helping him understand Chris, too.
Sure, what's driving Chris isn't the same, exactly, but Dustin understands him better nonetheless.
Still, there's a trace of resentment that lingers, when he thinks that Chris blew him off last night and then again today, both times for work and-he loves his work but he's never blown Chris off for it, not once.
Around mid-afternoon, Chris calls him. They talk, quick and to-the-point; Chris says he'll be home late because he needs to finish the project he's working on and Dustin says he understands, because he does.
--
Chris doesn't get home until 1:30 AM.
--
Sunday goes pretty much the same way; Chris leaves before Dustin wakes up and works all day. He does get home earlier-5:30, not the middle of the night-but Dustin has already spent two days on the couch and, really, he flew five hours to see his boyfriend, not sit around and code.
He really doesn’t want to start a fight-another fight-but sitting around and thinking about how he came to visit Chris and is instead getting to know his couch very well, well, it makes him a little tetchy.
So when Chris pulls his laptop out after dinner, saying he has some emails to answer, Dustin-well, Dustin kind of snaps.
“I came here to visit you, Chris,” he says, feeling the bitterness creep into his voice. “I miss getting to see you, but you’re never even around. It’s been really nice getting to know your apartment, but I’d like to spend some time with you.”
Chris slams his laptop shut. “I’m busy, Dustin,” he answers. “If you had actually talked to me before you came out here, I would have been able to tell you that this was a bad weekend, but apparently that didn’t occur to you.”
“I’m sorry I wanted to surprise you for your birthday!” Dustin rebukes, more loudly than he intended. “I though you might actually be happy to see me for the first time in months, but apparently I was wrong.”
“I am happy to see see,” Chris insists. “I just wish you would talk to me about things before you dive in headfirst.”
“Surprise, Chris, surprise. It wouldn’t have worked if I ran it by you first!”
As soon as he says it, Dustin can practically feel Chris trying to keep from rolling his eyes.
“That was so entirely not the point,” he says.
“Really? It wasn’t?” Dustin wants to backtrack the minute he feels the cold sarcasm dripping off the words, but they just keep coming. “It’s obviously my fault that you’re too obsessed with your job to take a few hours off. That was definitely all me.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Chris says, “Did it even occur to you that I’d rather work than just sit around and mope constantly?”
For a moment, Dustin chokes on his rebuttal. He remembers staying late at work, burying himself in projects he should have delegated instead of facing an empty house and an imposingly large bed. But he’s still seething with anger, and it supplies him with words.
“Not everyone is quite as good at ignoring their feelings as you are, Christopher. I mean, personally, I can’t just stop feeling something because it’s unpleasant or inconvenient. But God, it must be nice to be able to do that.”
“Jesus fucking Chris.” Dustin feels Chris’s glare drilling into his eyes but he doesn’t break contact, doesn’t back down. “Jesus fucking Christ, at least one of us can deal with our feelings in a way that doesn’t involve binge-drinking or Mark-like work habits!”
Dustin can’t help it; he rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, your work habits are pretty Mark-like these days. You’re even more interested in ignoring people you care about to work than he is!”
“It’s a bit easier to spend time with your significant other when you’re in the same state, you know.”
“Well, I wasn’t the one who decided to leave!”
Silence fills the room.
Dustin’s thoughts are a constant stream of shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.
“Shit, Chris, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he babbles. “I really didn’t.”
He stops talking; the words aren’t making Chris look any less pained.
“I think you should go back home,” Chris says. His voice is shaking. “I can’t deal with this.”
Dustin feels like something has broken loose and is crawling around his stomach. He also feels a little like he’s going to throw up.
“Are we breaking up?” he asks weakly.
“I … I don’t know,” Chris answers.
--
Outside the window, Chicago is fading into the hazy whiteness of clouds. The sprawling city is still partially visible, the tiny tracks of roads and highways crisscrossing each other, dotted with the minuscule splotches of buildings.
Dustin doesn’t really see it.
He stares out at the wing, watching the flaps rise and fall.
Usually, he naps on planes. (After living in a house full of perpetually-high programmers, he’s learned to sleep anywhere.)
But today? He’s afraid of what he’ll see behind his eyelids; probably Chris’s face, twisted with hurt and close to tears.
Dustin kind of never wants to see that again.
He’s not really sure how to keep it from happening, though.
He’s not really sure if they’re even together.
--
This time, they really don’t talk at all; it’s not like before, when they would go a few days without speaking and then have terse conversations.
They are literally not talking at all.
In a weird way, that does make it a little easier to put Chris out of his mind and not miss him, Dustin realizes. Maybe that’s what Chris has been doing all along, letting him slip into out-of-sight, out-of-mind. It makes a twisted kind of sense, though Dustin is pretty sure Chris has the upper hand at that game. It’s a little difficult to forget about him when his presence still oozes from every room of their house.
It’s not like they’re officially broken-up or anything. At least, he doesn’t think they are. He really doesn’t want them to be.
But he’s trying a new thing where he’s not going to be clingy, because apparently that was pissing Chris off.
So Dustin doesn’t call, not even once. He sends one text message when he gets back to Palo Alto-I should never have gotten mad at your for taking the Obama job. I’m sorry and I love you-and Chris doesn’t answer, but Dustin doesn’t let himself obsess.
(Much.)
He goes out with friends but doesn’t get smashed, and plays video games with Mark and Eduardo, and works late Monday through Thursday so that he can have Fridays off to start piecing together his own company.
It’s … it’s an existence.
--
When the phone rings at some hour too early to be called morning but too late to be called night, Dustin answers without looking. He mumbles something that could generously be called a greeting. Maybe.
There’s silence on the other end, but only for a moment.
“I miss you,” he hears Chris say. “Every day. All the time.”
“Oh,” Dustin breathes.
Chris just keeps talking. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was hoping that not thinking about you at all would make it easier. It was a shitty thing of me to do.” There’s a pause, and he laughs wryly. “It didn’t even work.”
Dustin feels himself smile a little. “I get it. And you’re right, it doesn’t really work.” He curls onto his side, resting the phone against his cheek. “You know I’m not mad at you for taking the job, right?”
“I know,” Chris says.
He closes his eyes and just talks. It’s too late for attempts at dignity, anyway. “I’m really proud of you, you know. The stuff you’re doing is amazing. I don’t know anyone else who could have pulled it off.”
“Dustin,” he hears over his rambling. “Dustin, shut up.”
“Huh?” he says.
“I just … I haven’t told you that I love you in a while and I thought you might want to be listening. Because I do love you.”
Hearing Chris say it for the first time in so long makes Dustin’s stomach feel it’s unclenching. It relaxes muscles he didn’t even know were tense, and he smiles.
“I love you, too,” he answers.
--
The next morning, at the totally reasonable hour of 10:30 AM, Dustin’s phone starts playing Honey Honey and buzzing loudly against his desk.
Three interns look at him suspiciously and at least one programmer starts laughing.
Dustin ignores them all.
“Hey,” he says into the phone.
“Hi,” Chris answers. “I decided to try something new and actually call you.”
Dustin grins broadly. “So far, I like it a lot.”
“It’s all right so far, I guess.” Dustin can imagine the quiet smile he knows Chris wears when they’re together, intimate and warm and comforting. Even through the playfulness of Chris’s words, he can hear it, and he feels himself smiling back.
There’s a lull in the banter, and then Chris starts speaking again, his voice hesitant.
“I can’t apologize enough for the way I treated you, Dustin. I am so sorry. It was unfair and selfish and inconsiderate, and you deserve to be treated a lot better than that. I-I didn’t anticipate it being as hard as it was to be here by myself or how much I’d miss you. But that’s not an excuse. I’m just really, really sorry.”
Dustin definitely isn’t about to cry. At all.
“Chris, really, it’s okay,” he says. “I completely understand why you acted the way you did, and I should have been more considerate about you wanting some distance. Honestly, I was just being clingy because I miss you too. What you did made sense; don’t hold it against yourself because I don’t.”
“Thank you,” Chris says softly. “And I don’t tell you enough, but you are a wonderful person, Dustin Moskovitz.”
Dustin is actually legitimately so happy it hurts.
--
He’s pretty sure this is what long-distance relationships are supposed to be like, full of late-night phone calls until they both fall asleep and long, rambling email chains during the day-less distracting than talking-and a mildly horrifying amount of webcam sex.
(Not that there’s really such a thing as a horrifying amount of sex; Dustin generally operates on the more-is-more principle there.)
It’s not quite as bad as he’d feared.
--
To: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
Hey you
Do you want to come visit for the election? It’ll be pretty hectic but it should also be exciting.
- C
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
re: Hey you
That sounds awesome! I’ll be there.
- D-MAN
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
fwd: Your American Airlines Flight
Does this look okay? I don’t want to be in your hair right before the election.
--Show Quoted Text--
To: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: fwd: Your American Airlines Flight
That looks great. I can’t wait to see you. :)
--
It’s a little weird, sitting around with all the campaign staffers to watch the election. They’re still working frantically, emailing and texting and still managing to watch the TVs everywhere like hawks. A big clock is ticking down the seconds until the polls close in California.
Chris looks up from his computer, and laces his fingers through Dustin’s. His eyes are shut tight, like even looking at the clock might jinx things. Dustin is almost afraid to think what’s going to happen in 30-29-28 seconds, because there’s no way California was ever going to go for McCain and he did his part ensuring that it didn’t.
For a split second, Dustin hopes he voted for the right person, but then he feels Chris’s fingers tighten around his and snaps back to reality.
The clock flashes zero.
After a few moments, he hears the CNN anchor saying, “It’s now eight o’clock on the West Coast, so the polls there have closed.”
There’s a pause. Chris is still squeezing his hand so hard it hurts, but Dustin barely notices.
“We are now able,” the anchor says, “To call the state of California for Senator Obama.”
For a split second, Chris sits deadly still.
Then he’s out of his chair and throwing his arms around Dustin, burying his face in his neck. Dustin can feel Chris’s smile pressing into his skin and his breath as he whispers, “Shit, we did it.”
Across the room, someone pops a bottle of champagne, and the giddiness sets in.
Dustin winds his arms around Chris’s waist and actually spins him, hearing him laugh against his ear.
“You did it,” he says, and presses a kiss to his cheek.
--
Chris stays late to finish sending emails and they miss the trolley to Grant Park. When they step out into the cool night, their hands still twined together, though, the alternative is obvious. They take off running down the street.
By the time they get to the park, they’re both horribly out of breath, leaning against each other and too giddy to stop laughing. Chris’s painfully wide smile is catching, and Dustin can’t stop watching him.
At the end of the speech, Chris turns to him and says, “You know, this was awesome, but I think I’m ready to go home.”
Dustin kisses him, because he doesn’t have words for the feeling in his heart and because it’s probably the best night of Chris’s life and because that’s what you do when the person you love is coming home.
Author: daisysusan
Fandom: The Social Network
Genre: Angst, romance
Paring: Chris/Dustin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~6,500
Summary: As it turns out, even the most stable relationship is hard when you're two time zones and a five hour flight away from your boyfriend; or, Chris goes to work for the Obama campaign. This story exists in the same universe as in other words, but there's nothing there you need to know.
Notes: (1) All my thanks to the lovely opheliahyde for reading this over and telling me, basically, where it sucked, and also to alexthegreat for providing suggestions and putting up with my babble about this. (2) The title is from the ABBA song Super Trouper, for which I really have no excuse. (3) I am always, always open to constructive criticism. (4) Now with a soundtrack here, added 7/26/11.
Disclaimer: This story is about the fictional representations of these characters from the movie The Social Network, and is in no way a reflection on these actual people. I am making no money from this and am in no way affiliated with the movie itself. Also, seriously, if you found this by googling yourself, abort now, this is not a drill.
somewhere in the crowd there's you
Dustin knows that most people think their relationship is disgustingly stable. Eduardo has commented on it a few times, and besides, well, Dustin isn't stupid. He knows that going months-once, memorably, they went almost a year; Mark was timing them-without fighting with Chris is unusual.
People call it sweet.
And it is, though Dustin's a little biased in that he always thinks Chris is sweet.
The problem is that they fight so little that they're not good at it. Well, obviously they can fight, but they're not good at the aspect of it where they can be in a fight and still be totally and obviously in love.
(This is where Mark and Eduardo have them beat. The two of them fight … Dustin's not sure it would be a lot, but they're around him and Chris all the time and that makes it feel like a lot.)
So yeah, they're not very good at integrating their fights into their everyday lives. Mark and Eduardo can be in a fight about something and Eduardo still shows up to take Mark home from work and they still kiss each other goodbye and generally act disgustingly in love; it’s like they can separate the fight from the rest of their relationship.
Chris and Dustin can’t, not really. It’s not that they work really hard at not fighting and then have tons of repressed stuff that pours out or anything, it’s just that they’re not used to being in a fight.
What it all means, though, is that when Chris gets a job offer from the Obama campaign, things go … badly.
--
Dustin is fully prepared to admit that he overreacted.
He’s also prepared to acknowledge that he was being selfish. And that he said some stuff that sounded unnecessarily ultimatum-y, like he was making Chris choose between him and the campaign.
Which he definitely, definitely didn’t mean.
But Dustin’s starting to think that Chris took him at his word. (Or his implication or whatever.) They haven’t spoken beyond a few terse words for several days now, but-and this is really stupid, because he should be mad that his boyfriend is considering moving to fucking Chicago-but he misses him. Chris has slept in the guest room for the last two nights, leaving Dustin alone in their bedroom, and, well-
-this morning, Dustin woke up with his face buried in Chris’s pillow. Surrounded by the smell of Chris’s shampoo, he ached a little with the loneliness.
Dustin wonders, vaguely, if it’s love or codependence, to feel that way.
He doesn’t want to force an apology on Chris, because Chris is right to be mad at him. And he knows that if Chris wants to keep avoiding him, that’s okay, too.
Mostly Dustin just wants to be able to hug him and sleep next to him even though they haven’t figured everything out yet.
--
To: chris.hughes@facebook.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
Sorry
Chris,
I am so sorry for making it sound like you had to choose between me and the Obama job. That’s not what I meant at all. I love you and I will continue to love you no matter what you choose. It’s entirely your choice.
Dustin
PS - I do realize this is a pathetic way to apologize. I just didn’t want to pressure you.
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chris.hughes@facebook.com
re: Sorry
Thank you. I just need to think through everything.
I love you, too.
Chris
--
That night, Chris crawls into bed next to him.
Dustin opens his mouth, wanting to ask if they’re okay, if Chris has made up his mind about what to do, if they can just snuggle for a little while because he misses sleeping curled up with him.
Before he can speak, though, Chris does. “I haven’t figured everything out yet, babe. But we shouldn’t let that fight screw everything else up.”
They fall asleep tangled together, but Dustin is alone when he wakes up the next morning. Stuck to his forehead is a post-it note that says, in neat cursive that could only be Chris’s, I’ve gone for a run to try and sort my head out. Love you.
It takes Chris a long time to get his head sorted out, long enough that Dustin is left just this side of panicking. They don’t talk a lot; Dustin doesn’t want to pressure him and Chris doesn’t seem to be seeking out his opinion. Mostly Dustin is just proud of himself for not begging him to stay. He remembers, all too well, being across the country from Chris and how painfully lonely he was, even before he knew what it felt like to fall asleep with his head tucked into the curve of Chris’s neck or wake up to see his usually impeccable hair disheveled and tousled.
One morning, after what feels like an eternity but is actually more like a week, Chris appears in front of Dustin’s desk with his face serious and heavy.
“Can you do lunch today?” he asks.
“I, uh,” Dustin answers. He glances down at his calendar, because he’s an adult now, a responsible corporate executive with things he has to do. “Yeah, I’m free for lunch.”
“Let’s go somewhere nice,” Chris says, and Dustin feels his stomach drop like he just swallowed a seriously toxic amount of lead and it’s pressing through him toward the ground.
They end up at a classy place not too far from the office, filled with men in suits and boasting a wine list so expensive Dustin’s eyes bug out a little bit. They both ought to be out of their elements, he knows, but Chris has taken this-to good wine and trendy restaurants and expensive suits-like a fish to water.
(He would be lying if he said he didn’t like it.)
“I’m sorry I’ve been distant over the last few days,” Chris begins. “I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking.”
Dustin moves to grab Chris’s hand, but even before he’s thought the action through, he feels warm fingers lace through his. “The one thing I haven’t been able to take into account,” he continues, “is your opinion.”
“I didn’t want to pressure you,” Dustin replies, thinking miserably of his initial reaction and Chris’s justifiable anger.
“It’s not pressuring me if I ask for your input,” Chris says softly.
Looking down at the table, at their joined hands, Dustin swallows. “I don’t know what to tell you,” he starts, twisting his free hand in the napkin. “No, that’s not right. I know what to tell you, I just don’t want to say it.”
“Dustin …” Chris trails off, running his thumb across the back of Dustin’s hand.
“You have to go,” Dustin says. “You’ll regret it if you don’t, and I’d rather miss you for a little while than be the reason you regret not doing something you really want to do.”
Chris squeezes his fingers and smiles gently. “Thank you.”
--
Dustin flies with Chris to Chicago; he says it’s to help him with his stuff and with settling into a new apartment, but really, it’s because he isn’t quite ready for Chris to leave.
The apartment, comfortable but not decadent, already feels like something of Chris’s by the time Dustin slides into bed next to him on the first night there-careful and sleek and modern, without the touches of homeyness (Chris would say sloppiness) that Dustin brings to their house in Palo Alto.
He likes it, of course (he likes everything to do with Chris, really), but it makes his stomach hurt a little to think of the impending separation. They haven’t talked about it much-Dustin is avoiding it subject, really; he doesn’t want to do something thoughtless, if heartfelt, like begging Chris not to go. And outside of discussing their feelings about everything, there wasn’t too much to work through.
But when Chris, who usually lets him initiate the cuddling, curls around him like a nuzzly starfish and kisses his cheek drowsily, it occurs to Dustin that he probably isn’t the only one of them dreading months of cold beds and missed good-morning kisses.
(Unfortunately, that becomes really easy to forget.)
--
Dustin drinks more with Chris gone.
Not, like, alcoholic more or anything. Just … a bit more. An extra beer or two when he’s playing video games with Mark or an extra glass of wine at the events he gets dragged to, nothing more.
He works more, too, longer hours and later nights and sometimes he goes in on the weekends like Mark.
(The drinking and the working aren’t always mutually exclusive.)
But Dustin is older now than the last time he was in Palo Alto and Chris wasn’t, and he can see the patterns in his own behavior. He drinks when he feels Chris’s absence most pointedly-at the dinners where there should be a comforting arm around his waist as they schmooze, hanging out at Mark’s where they should be all losing to Chris’s video game goddery. He works to avoid being at home without Chris to drag him away from the computer (or to be dragged away from his own computer; being a workaholic goes both ways with them) or cook dinner while Dustin sits on the counter and chops things on command or get mad at him for making fun of the stupid movies he seems to love.
It’s not like they aren’t talking or anything-the calls Chris nearly every day, letting their conversations drag into silence for hours while they do other things, and they Skype regularly (because some things are more fun over webcam than the phone)-but it’s not the same as having an actual in-the-flesh Chris who is huggable and snuggle-able and, eminently, overwhelmingly missable.
So Dustin is a little lonely.
That’s not even close to being a good excuse for what he does.
He wakes up the morning after his transgression to a splitting headache and a phone flashing 1 new voicemail at him. In a nauseating flash, he remembers the night before-drinking at the benefit dinner, going home afterward and wishing Chris were home so they could strip each other from their obscenely expensive tuxedos and have slightly tipsy sex with fingers scrambling for purchase against sweaty skin and mouths pressed together sloppily. Dustin remembers not being able to purge the image of Chris, naked and wanting and trusting, from his mind, and how it made him hurt, somewhere behind his heart and in the pit of his stomach.
He remembers pouring himself a screwdriver-honestly, it was more vodka than orange juice-despite having already had several drinks at the dinner, hoping to pass out from alcohol and exhaustion before he had the chance to do anything stupid.
It didn’t work.
Instead, he drunk-dialed Chris (not an entirely new phenomenon) and left what he now remembers is a rambling voicemail about how much he missed him, and wanted him to come home, and how life sucked without him around. And Dustin is pretty sure it got worse.
“Fuck,” he says into the silent, empty bedroom.
Rather than torture himself, he reaches for his phone and plays Chris’s voicemail. It’s only a few minutes old.
“What the fuck, Dustin?” the message opens. “You called me, drunk, in the middle of the night, to make me feel guilty for being here, and then lectured me-almost incoherently, I might add-about how I never call you, it’s always you calling me.”
Dustin swears again. That wasn’t something he’d ever really intended to bring up.
“I’ve been busy, if you haven’t picked up on that,” Chris’s voice continues, tinny and off-pitch through the phone. “Everything I’m working on is understaffed and underfunded and I really, really want to do a good job. This is important.”
A curl up anger rises up in him as the message ends. “I’ll talk to you later, Dustin. I have a meeting.”
--
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
This message has no content.
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
You know that’s not what I meant. I just have a lot to do right now, and it feels like the fate of the world rests on it. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to call you as much as you’d like.
Need to pay attention to this meeting now; the Senator is here.
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
Well I’m glad that you’re paying attention to SOMEONE.
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
I’m sorry, that was jealous and petty. I shouldn’t have said that.
To: dustin.moskovtiz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: did you just imply that nothing I do is important?
Nice of you to realize that. We’ll talk later.
--
Chris doesn’t call him later.
--
After that, Dustin cuts back on the drinking. He’s really not interested in making things even worse by repeating the drunk dialing incident, and not just because he thinks the only way to make things worse from not speaking is being broken up.
He quickly discovers that not drinking and not calling Chris for hours leaves him with a lot of spare time.
The spare time turns into work time quickly, entirely out of desire to not think about Chris. Before long, Dustin is putting in hours a lot like Mark’s when facebook was first taking off. It’s easier, though, than sitting around his house and thinking about how long it’s been since he talked to Chris.
Obviously, Chris doesn’t want to talk to Dustin as much as Dustin wants to talk to him.
--
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: duskin.moskovitz@facebook.com
(no subject)
Is there any reason you haven’t called?
To: dustin.moskovtiz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: (no subject)
I’m busy, Dustin. We’ve talked about this. I can’t talk to you on the phone constantly because I’m trying to get a man elected President.
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: (no subject)
What, and I’m not busy? But I’m making time to talk to you. It would be nice for you to make an effort too.
--
Three days later, Chris still hasn’t answered the email. Dustin deletes the thread from his inbox so he won’t stare at it guiltily anymore.
--
They still talk on the phone sometimes, but it’s not like it was when Chris first left. They don’t linger on the phone, needing to get back to work but reluctant to say goodbye, narrating their everyday lives over the airwaves. Instead, the calls a short and tense, ending most frequently when Chris announces that he has a meeting to go to, but sometimes when Dustin needs to wire in and says so, instead of putting it off for as long as possible.
Dustin starts deliberately ignoring the calls-leaving his phone on silent after meetings so they’ll go to voicemail; it’s not like Chris calls much anyway.
In fact, Chris hardly calls at all unless Dustin calls him first and leaves a voicemail message and even that is hardly a guarantee.
He tries not to think about it, because thinking about it makes him feel like he’s going to throw up.
--
At the end of one exceptionally long week, Eduardo shows up at the office and, instead of making for Mark’s desk, he just stands in front of Dustin’s, waiting for him to look up from his computer.
“Mark’s not here,” Dustin mumbles, focused on his code.
“I know,” Eduardo answers. “He’s at home, watching a TV and bitching that the good Thai place doesn’t deliver.”
He looks up.
“You, on the other hand, are still at the office at 8:30 on Friday night, even though I have it on very good authority that you finished all your work when you stayed until almost 10 every night this week.”
“Whatever,” Dustin says.
“No, not whatever.” Eduardo reaches around him and turns off his computer before Dustin can raise a hand to stop him. “Tonight, you’re coming over and having dinner with me and Mark. Then we’re going to watch a movie. You’re going to do something other than working or moping for a few hours. It’ll be good for you.”
--
Dustin flops back against the couch, head resting on the cushions between Mark and Eduardo. He drains the last drops from his second beer-and his last, he’s been cut off by Eduardo who apparently heard about the drunk dialing fiasco-and gestures vaguely with the empty bottle.
“I have an idea,” he announces.
“Huh?” says Eduardo.
“Yeah, an idea for something …” he answers, trailing off.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Mark sit up straighter. “Tell me more,” he says.
--
He spends all day Saturday making lists and sketching templates, papers and whiteboards strewn around the living room. Mark comes over for a few hours, flopping across the couch and throwing out occasional suggestions but mostly just watching, eerily still and quiet, as Dustin turns a flash of anger-driven inspiration into a usable concept.
By the time he stops scrawling ideas and functions across the whiteboards, drained but satisfied, Mark is dozing on the sofa and Dustin-for the first time in what feels like weeks-wants to do nothing more than call Chris.
He eyes his phone, lying abandoned on the coffee table, and thinks about how awkward the last phone call was, full of uncomfortable pauses when Chris tried not to ramble about his job and Dustin had to bite his tongue to keep from filling them with reminders of how lonely he was.
Compromising with himself, he reaches for the phone and sends a text message; hey. can you talk? it says.
Moments later, the phone rings. Dustin snatches it off the table and ducks into the backyard before answering it.
“Hi,” Chris says softly.
Dustin can’t keep himself from smiling at the phone. “Hi yourself,” he answers. “How are you?”
He hears the distorted sound of a soft exhale. “I’m better now,” Chris says, almost shy. “I missed your voice.”
His heart turns over, and he feels something suspiciously like a lump growing in his throat. “I miss you, too.”
There’s a brief pause, then he hears, “How are you doing?”
Dustin sighs. “I’m doing a lot better.” He hesitates. “I started a new project today.”
“For facebook?”
“No, it’s totally independent.”
“Oh wow, babe, that’s awesome.” Dustin can practically hear Chris smiling at him, and it’s making his heart do stupid things again. “Wanna tell me about it?”
He grins, because this is why he called, to brag a little and get Chris’s input and ramble like they’re sitting across from each other at the dinner table, not halfway across the country. “It’s a web application to make business collaboration easier, so that there’s less disconnect between groups and individuals.”
“How does that work?”
--
They talk for two hours, and the conversation doesn’t lapse into silence once.
--
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
Question
How are you going to integrate email into the application?
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: Question
Haven’t worked it out yet. Call me tonight?
To: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: Question
Does 8:30 your time work?
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustin.moskovitz@facebook.com
re: Question
Sounds good. Love you.
--
This time, Chris actually calls him.
--
From there, things improve. They actually talk, about their jobs and their lives and the people Chris gets to meet in Chicago and Mark’s peculiar habits, and they try not to talk too much about how they miss each other or the lingering strangeness of sleeping in an empty bed.
Dustin gets used to falling asleep with the phone pressed to his face, the soft sound of Chris’s breathing in his ear.
Of course, there’s plenty they just never talk about-Dustin’s clinginess (at least he knows what he is), Chris’s tendency to bury all his feelings in work-but Dustin is too relieved to be talking again to really care.
He plans the surprise for the weekend before Chris’s birthday; going during the week, he suspects, would be a bad idea.
--
Dustin is smiling broadly as he knocks on the door to Chris’s apartment.
“Surprise!” he says as soon as it opens.
Chris’s mouth hangs open, emotions skittering across his face-shock, confusion, happiness-before he smiles as wide as Dustin and pulls him into a crushing hug.
“Happy early birthday,” Dustin whispers into his ear as he’s yanked into the apartment and pressed again the door in a bruising kiss.
They don’t break apart until it’s absolutely necessary for their continued survival to breathe, and even then Dustin keeps his arm curled tight around Chris’s waist and reaches forward to drop a soft kiss against the side of his neck.
“It’s good to see you,” Chris says quietly.
“God, I know,” Dustin answers.
Then they’re kissing again, unusually desperate, and Chris is pushing him harder against the door and fumbling with his pants, and Dustin is running his hands through Chris’s hair in a futile attempt to pull him even closer despite there being no space between them at all.
An embarrassingly short time later, they’re sitting with their backs against the door, messy and smiling, Chris’s head tipped onto Dustin’s shoulder and their fingers laced together.
“If we’re going to cuddle,” Dustin says, “Shouldn’t we at least move to the couch?”
He feels Chris laugh against his neck, and the words are warm again his skin. “I can’t believe we literally could not keep our hands off each other long enough to get out of the doorway.”
“Still classier than our first time.” Dustin snorts. “You know, I’m pretty sure Mark still has that couch.”
Chris’s shoulders shake silently.
--
They end up curled together on the couch, dozing and whispering, until Chris sits up partway and twists around towards the clock.
“Shit,” he says.
“Huh?” Dustin asks, more asleep than awake.
“Shit shit shit,” Chris continues helpfully.
Dustin rubs his eyes. “What wrong?”
“I have a dinner that I need to go to tonight.” Chris climbs off the couch and starts looking around. “Do you know where my pants are?” he asks.
Burying his face in the cushions, Dustin gestures vaguely toward the door. “Over there, I think?”
He listens to the rustling for a while, feels Chris brush a kiss across the top of his head. “I’m going to shower. I’ll wake you up before I leave.”
An in-determinate amount of time later, Dustin surfaces from a fuzzy dream about drunk panda bears to the touch of Chris’s hand against his shoulder and breath against his ear. “Dustin,” he says. “Dustin, wake up. I need to leave.”
Dustin reaches up to grab the hand against his shoulder, running his thumb over the back of Chris’s hand. “Do you have to?” he whines softly.
“Yeah,” Chris answers. “Yeah, I do. The Senator is going to be there, I can’t miss it.”
“Oh,” Dustin says. “Have fun, then? I’ll see you when you get home.”
--
Much, much later, Dustin hears the door of the apartment open. He’s curled into bed-Chris’s bed, really-coding and absently appreciating the comforting knowledge that he’ll get to sleep next to his boyfriend.
“I’m in bed,” he calls.
Chris’s head appears in the doorway. “Hey babe,” he says, smiling. “I thought you’d be asleep.”
“I was waiting for you,” Dustin answers.
“You didn’t need to do that.” Chris drops his briefcase onto the floor and takes off his jacket. He looks at it appraisingly, like he’s pondering whether it’s worth the trouble of hanging it up. After a moment, he tosses it on top of his briefcase and says, "I really have missed seeing you every night."
Dustin closes his eyes for a long moment. “I missed you, too,” he says.
He doesn’t open his eyes again until the bed dips next to him and Chris crawls in. He’s still wearing his boxers, but the rest of his suit is strewn a little haphazard over the chair that lives in the corner. Dustin sets his laptop on the floor and slips all the way under the covers.
Before he even has time to close his eyes, Chris is curled around him, face pressed into his neck and an arm wrapped around his waist.
--
The next morning, Dustin wakes up to an empty bed. For a split second, before he remembers where he is, it feels almost normal. There's no post-it stuck to his forehead, though, no Chris sitting at his computer at the desk, and it aches a little.
Once he's dragged himself from the warm bed and Chris-scented pillows, Dustin stumbles into the kitchen to make some coffee. There, he sees that Chris has left him a note.
Dustin, it says, I'm sorry, but I have to go into work today. It's a crazy weekend with the Senator in town, so I probably won't be home until pretty late. There's food in the fridge and a really good coffee shop around the corner. I'll call you this afternoon.
Opening cabinets at random in search of a coffee mug, Dustin tries to keep resentment from bubbling up in his throat. He knew all along that Chris was busy, it's not like that's something he wasn't anticipating; just getting to see him a little bit is an improvement over the last couple of months. But the feeling is there, poorly hidden by sleepiness and the comforting sense of just being around Chris.
He ignores it, and sits down with his coffee and his laptop, because he has something to work on as well. The basic outline of what he wants to do is starting to come together and-well, he's not staying up all night coding and designing and scheming, but he understands why Mark did, now. Before, he always thought it was just Mark being Mark, too single-minded and obsessive to something go, to recognize that sometimes the needs of the body come before those of the brain.
But now? It makes sense, the drive to to just keep creating because the idea is there and his fingers just can't keep up. The inspiration comes faster than he can code it, but he understands.
(For all that he loves facebook, it was never his.)
It's helping him understand Chris, too.
Sure, what's driving Chris isn't the same, exactly, but Dustin understands him better nonetheless.
Still, there's a trace of resentment that lingers, when he thinks that Chris blew him off last night and then again today, both times for work and-he loves his work but he's never blown Chris off for it, not once.
Around mid-afternoon, Chris calls him. They talk, quick and to-the-point; Chris says he'll be home late because he needs to finish the project he's working on and Dustin says he understands, because he does.
--
Chris doesn't get home until 1:30 AM.
--
Sunday goes pretty much the same way; Chris leaves before Dustin wakes up and works all day. He does get home earlier-5:30, not the middle of the night-but Dustin has already spent two days on the couch and, really, he flew five hours to see his boyfriend, not sit around and code.
He really doesn’t want to start a fight-another fight-but sitting around and thinking about how he came to visit Chris and is instead getting to know his couch very well, well, it makes him a little tetchy.
So when Chris pulls his laptop out after dinner, saying he has some emails to answer, Dustin-well, Dustin kind of snaps.
“I came here to visit you, Chris,” he says, feeling the bitterness creep into his voice. “I miss getting to see you, but you’re never even around. It’s been really nice getting to know your apartment, but I’d like to spend some time with you.”
Chris slams his laptop shut. “I’m busy, Dustin,” he answers. “If you had actually talked to me before you came out here, I would have been able to tell you that this was a bad weekend, but apparently that didn’t occur to you.”
“I’m sorry I wanted to surprise you for your birthday!” Dustin rebukes, more loudly than he intended. “I though you might actually be happy to see me for the first time in months, but apparently I was wrong.”
“I am happy to see see,” Chris insists. “I just wish you would talk to me about things before you dive in headfirst.”
“Surprise, Chris, surprise. It wouldn’t have worked if I ran it by you first!”
As soon as he says it, Dustin can practically feel Chris trying to keep from rolling his eyes.
“That was so entirely not the point,” he says.
“Really? It wasn’t?” Dustin wants to backtrack the minute he feels the cold sarcasm dripping off the words, but they just keep coming. “It’s obviously my fault that you’re too obsessed with your job to take a few hours off. That was definitely all me.”
“Oh for God’s sake,” Chris says, “Did it even occur to you that I’d rather work than just sit around and mope constantly?”
For a moment, Dustin chokes on his rebuttal. He remembers staying late at work, burying himself in projects he should have delegated instead of facing an empty house and an imposingly large bed. But he’s still seething with anger, and it supplies him with words.
“Not everyone is quite as good at ignoring their feelings as you are, Christopher. I mean, personally, I can’t just stop feeling something because it’s unpleasant or inconvenient. But God, it must be nice to be able to do that.”
“Jesus fucking Chris.” Dustin feels Chris’s glare drilling into his eyes but he doesn’t break contact, doesn’t back down. “Jesus fucking Christ, at least one of us can deal with our feelings in a way that doesn’t involve binge-drinking or Mark-like work habits!”
Dustin can’t help it; he rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, your work habits are pretty Mark-like these days. You’re even more interested in ignoring people you care about to work than he is!”
“It’s a bit easier to spend time with your significant other when you’re in the same state, you know.”
“Well, I wasn’t the one who decided to leave!”
Silence fills the room.
Dustin’s thoughts are a constant stream of shit-shit-shit-shit-shit.
“Shit, Chris, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he babbles. “I really didn’t.”
He stops talking; the words aren’t making Chris look any less pained.
“I think you should go back home,” Chris says. His voice is shaking. “I can’t deal with this.”
Dustin feels like something has broken loose and is crawling around his stomach. He also feels a little like he’s going to throw up.
“Are we breaking up?” he asks weakly.
“I … I don’t know,” Chris answers.
--
Outside the window, Chicago is fading into the hazy whiteness of clouds. The sprawling city is still partially visible, the tiny tracks of roads and highways crisscrossing each other, dotted with the minuscule splotches of buildings.
Dustin doesn’t really see it.
He stares out at the wing, watching the flaps rise and fall.
Usually, he naps on planes. (After living in a house full of perpetually-high programmers, he’s learned to sleep anywhere.)
But today? He’s afraid of what he’ll see behind his eyelids; probably Chris’s face, twisted with hurt and close to tears.
Dustin kind of never wants to see that again.
He’s not really sure how to keep it from happening, though.
He’s not really sure if they’re even together.
--
This time, they really don’t talk at all; it’s not like before, when they would go a few days without speaking and then have terse conversations.
They are literally not talking at all.
In a weird way, that does make it a little easier to put Chris out of his mind and not miss him, Dustin realizes. Maybe that’s what Chris has been doing all along, letting him slip into out-of-sight, out-of-mind. It makes a twisted kind of sense, though Dustin is pretty sure Chris has the upper hand at that game. It’s a little difficult to forget about him when his presence still oozes from every room of their house.
It’s not like they’re officially broken-up or anything. At least, he doesn’t think they are. He really doesn’t want them to be.
But he’s trying a new thing where he’s not going to be clingy, because apparently that was pissing Chris off.
So Dustin doesn’t call, not even once. He sends one text message when he gets back to Palo Alto-I should never have gotten mad at your for taking the Obama job. I’m sorry and I love you-and Chris doesn’t answer, but Dustin doesn’t let himself obsess.
(Much.)
He goes out with friends but doesn’t get smashed, and plays video games with Mark and Eduardo, and works late Monday through Thursday so that he can have Fridays off to start piecing together his own company.
It’s … it’s an existence.
--
When the phone rings at some hour too early to be called morning but too late to be called night, Dustin answers without looking. He mumbles something that could generously be called a greeting. Maybe.
There’s silence on the other end, but only for a moment.
“I miss you,” he hears Chris say. “Every day. All the time.”
“Oh,” Dustin breathes.
Chris just keeps talking. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was hoping that not thinking about you at all would make it easier. It was a shitty thing of me to do.” There’s a pause, and he laughs wryly. “It didn’t even work.”
Dustin feels himself smile a little. “I get it. And you’re right, it doesn’t really work.” He curls onto his side, resting the phone against his cheek. “You know I’m not mad at you for taking the job, right?”
“I know,” Chris says.
He closes his eyes and just talks. It’s too late for attempts at dignity, anyway. “I’m really proud of you, you know. The stuff you’re doing is amazing. I don’t know anyone else who could have pulled it off.”
“Dustin,” he hears over his rambling. “Dustin, shut up.”
“Huh?” he says.
“I just … I haven’t told you that I love you in a while and I thought you might want to be listening. Because I do love you.”
Hearing Chris say it for the first time in so long makes Dustin’s stomach feel it’s unclenching. It relaxes muscles he didn’t even know were tense, and he smiles.
“I love you, too,” he answers.
--
The next morning, at the totally reasonable hour of 10:30 AM, Dustin’s phone starts playing Honey Honey and buzzing loudly against his desk.
Three interns look at him suspiciously and at least one programmer starts laughing.
Dustin ignores them all.
“Hey,” he says into the phone.
“Hi,” Chris answers. “I decided to try something new and actually call you.”
Dustin grins broadly. “So far, I like it a lot.”
“It’s all right so far, I guess.” Dustin can imagine the quiet smile he knows Chris wears when they’re together, intimate and warm and comforting. Even through the playfulness of Chris’s words, he can hear it, and he feels himself smiling back.
There’s a lull in the banter, and then Chris starts speaking again, his voice hesitant.
“I can’t apologize enough for the way I treated you, Dustin. I am so sorry. It was unfair and selfish and inconsiderate, and you deserve to be treated a lot better than that. I-I didn’t anticipate it being as hard as it was to be here by myself or how much I’d miss you. But that’s not an excuse. I’m just really, really sorry.”
Dustin definitely isn’t about to cry. At all.
“Chris, really, it’s okay,” he says. “I completely understand why you acted the way you did, and I should have been more considerate about you wanting some distance. Honestly, I was just being clingy because I miss you too. What you did made sense; don’t hold it against yourself because I don’t.”
“Thank you,” Chris says softly. “And I don’t tell you enough, but you are a wonderful person, Dustin Moskovitz.”
Dustin is actually legitimately so happy it hurts.
--
He’s pretty sure this is what long-distance relationships are supposed to be like, full of late-night phone calls until they both fall asleep and long, rambling email chains during the day-less distracting than talking-and a mildly horrifying amount of webcam sex.
(Not that there’s really such a thing as a horrifying amount of sex; Dustin generally operates on the more-is-more principle there.)
It’s not quite as bad as he’d feared.
--
To: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
Hey you
Do you want to come visit for the election? It’ll be pretty hectic but it should also be exciting.
- C
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
re: Hey you
That sounds awesome! I’ll be there.
- D-MAN
To: chughes@gmail.com
From: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
fwd: Your American Airlines Flight
Does this look okay? I don’t want to be in your hair right before the election.
--Show Quoted Text--
To: dustinisgreat@gmail.com
From: chughes@gmail.com
re: fwd: Your American Airlines Flight
That looks great. I can’t wait to see you. :)
--
It’s a little weird, sitting around with all the campaign staffers to watch the election. They’re still working frantically, emailing and texting and still managing to watch the TVs everywhere like hawks. A big clock is ticking down the seconds until the polls close in California.
Chris looks up from his computer, and laces his fingers through Dustin’s. His eyes are shut tight, like even looking at the clock might jinx things. Dustin is almost afraid to think what’s going to happen in 30-29-28 seconds, because there’s no way California was ever going to go for McCain and he did his part ensuring that it didn’t.
For a split second, Dustin hopes he voted for the right person, but then he feels Chris’s fingers tighten around his and snaps back to reality.
The clock flashes zero.
After a few moments, he hears the CNN anchor saying, “It’s now eight o’clock on the West Coast, so the polls there have closed.”
There’s a pause. Chris is still squeezing his hand so hard it hurts, but Dustin barely notices.
“We are now able,” the anchor says, “To call the state of California for Senator Obama.”
For a split second, Chris sits deadly still.
Then he’s out of his chair and throwing his arms around Dustin, burying his face in his neck. Dustin can feel Chris’s smile pressing into his skin and his breath as he whispers, “Shit, we did it.”
Across the room, someone pops a bottle of champagne, and the giddiness sets in.
Dustin winds his arms around Chris’s waist and actually spins him, hearing him laugh against his ear.
“You did it,” he says, and presses a kiss to his cheek.
--
Chris stays late to finish sending emails and they miss the trolley to Grant Park. When they step out into the cool night, their hands still twined together, though, the alternative is obvious. They take off running down the street.
By the time they get to the park, they’re both horribly out of breath, leaning against each other and too giddy to stop laughing. Chris’s painfully wide smile is catching, and Dustin can’t stop watching him.
At the end of the speech, Chris turns to him and says, “You know, this was awesome, but I think I’m ready to go home.”
Dustin kisses him, because he doesn’t have words for the feeling in his heart and because it’s probably the best night of Chris’s life and because that’s what you do when the person you love is coming home.