Bones (7a/10)
title: Bones (7a/10)
pairing: Mark/Eduardo
disclaimer: Based on the Social Network idea of Mark Eduardo, but in no way true. All from my own head.
A/N: I'm going away on Thursday, possibly for the whole summer, so I am aiming to get this whole story completed before then. Expect lots of updates in the next couple of days.
PLEASE NOTE: Everything that I write about leukemia and chemotherapy comes from Wikipedia and copious Google searches, so it is no doubt entirely inaccurate.
Follow up to: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
As it has a habit of doing, time passes.
Eduardo stays with Mark, leaving only to go home and shower or change his clothes or force himself to eat something even though his stomach constantly feels full, heavy with worry. The days in hospital pass much the same way that the first did; even on his ‘rest days’ Mark is sick, over and over and over, until Eduardo thinks that he will never, ever be able to shake the image of Mark’s now spidery thin hands clinging on to the edge of the toilet bowl, his body heaving, eyes screwed tight shut in pain. Eduardo tries to help; he sits with him and rubs his back and talks, constantly talks, but it feels useless. Mark is wasting away.
When he isn’t being violently ill, Mark lounges in his chair or, more often than not, on the bed. His family comes, sometimes as a group, sometimes individually. One evening, all three of his sisters show up and while Mark looks pleased, it clearly exhausts him. He has asked his friends not to come; he doesn’t want anyone else to see him looking so unwell. When he and Eduardo are alone, late at night when neither of them can sleep - Mark on his bed, Eduardo curled up on the surprisingly comfortable sofa - or mid-afternoon before the bustle of examinations and visits from Dr Lewis, they play cards or chess, but because Mark struggles to concentrate for long, mostly they just talk. It is as though they are getting to know one another again, discovering everything about each other. And Eduardo falls in love with Mark all over again, every single day.
They talk about everything, like they have never talked before. Eduardo always used to feel as though he was speaking at Mark, like he wasn’t really paying attention. But now…now Mark’s eyes follow Eduardo’s lips as they move, and he laughs softly at the things Eduardo says. Now the conversation is two-sided, and the topic ranges from hazy memories of drunken nights at Harvard to more painful, serious things - things they have avoided before - like Wardo, what did you do…after? After the fight. After you found out.
Eduardo tries to explain, but he doesn’t want Mark to know how much it destroyed him. He avoids mentioning the sleepless nights, the hot ball of rage that settled in his broken heart. He tells Mark about how he went home, to his parent’s house, to the sun and sand, but how he’d run off back to New York after two days of his father’s furious, disappointed silence. He tells Mark about how he went back to Harvard for the spring term, but he doesn’t mention the missed calls and ignored texts from people he used to be friends with. He doesn’t explain how eventually the calls and messages and emails filtered into nothing when he ignored them for long enough. He doesn’t say that Mark was the only person that he ever cared about, even though he still feels the same way. Mark looks as if he knows the story is cut full of holes, but mercifully he doesn’t push it.
When his course of treatment is over, Mark goes back to the picture-perfect house that he bought for his parents rather than to his apartment. Eduardo visits him as often as he thinks is socially acceptable, a morning here, an afternoon there, until one evening, as he is getting ready to go home, Mark grabs his arm and says, ‘Wardo, just. Come back tomorrow. Okay?” And Eduardo stays after that, sleeping in the guest bedroom next to Mark’s, laying awake deep into the night imagining Mark on the other side of the wall, his heart hammering loud in his chest. They go for walks together, wandering slowly around the neighbourhood, and Eduardo can almost kid himself into believing that they are a real couple. But every time that he manages to work up the nerve to say something to Mark, to confess, to express, some voice in the back of his mind asks, what if you’re wrong? What if he doesn’t want you that way? And he can’t, he just can’t make a mistake now. So Eduardo waits.
As the next week of treatment looms, Mark sinks slowly into a painful, wordless depression. He allows no discussion of the upcoming days of chemotherapy, and starts to find ways of not seeing his family. When he does see them, he is sharp with them to the point of almost being cruel. He snaps at his mom, refuses to spend time with his sisters and avoids his father altogether. It is as though he is slipping back into his old self, the Mark Zuckerberg that people admired, but never befriended. Only Eduardo is allowed to go into his bedroom, and that is only because Eduardo doesn’t leave when Mark tells him to.
“What’s going on?” Eduardo asks the evening before Mark goes back into hospital. He is lying on Mark’s bed, pretending to watch the television, but really only watching Mark.
Mark doesn’t look away from his computer. Despite being so tired that he can’t even sit up straight, he somehow still finds the energy to work. His fingers move slower over the keyboard, but Eduardo has seen him emailing huge chunks of code over to the Facebook offices and nothing, not the doctors telling him to rest, not Dustin refusing to allow the use of any work he sends, not the fact that he is going to be receiving chemotherapy the next day, can stop him.
“What?” He asks finally.
“Why are you being so…heartless? You really upset your mom earlier when you told her to get out. She just wanted to see how you were.”
Mark doesn’t reply, but Eduardo sees his shoulders move slightly in a shrug.
“It really doesn’t bother you?” Eduardo asks, sitting up. “You can really stand to treat your family like this?”
“Just leave it, okay?”
“No, I don’t think so. I can’t watch you talking to people - people who love you and are trying to help you - like they don’t matter!”
Mark spins around on his chair, his eyes fierce. “Your complete inability to let this go is really quite astounding, Wardo.”
“Shut up,” Eduardo spits, moving to the edge of the bed. ”Just shut up. Stop trying to act like you’re not scared by all of this -“
“I’m not scared.”
“Bullshit. I can see it on your face. I can see, Mark. You’re pushing everyone away because you think it’ll make it easier.”
“Make what easier? You have no idea what I’m going through. What the fuck could make this easier?”
“You think if you push everyone away it won’t hurt if you’re going to lose them.”
Mark opens his mouth to retaliate, but then Eduardo’s word seem to hit him, one at a time, like arrows. He slowly leans back in his chair, his eyes black with tiredness and defeat.
“No,” he murmurs. “I’m pushing them away so that it won’t hurt them when they lose me.”
Now it is Eduardo’s turn to pale with shock.
“What?” He chokes out. “Mark. What is - what is that supposed to mean?”
Mark stands up and slowly moves to sit by Eduardo on the bed. “Let’s be realistic Wardo. It isn’t going well. I’m just…well, look at me.”
Eduardo looks up, ashamed of the sudden tears stinging in his eyes, but not hiding them.
“Look at me,” Mark repeats. "I’m getting worse. You see it, I know you do. My family does too. You all watch me, calculating how much more I can deteriorate before I stop being able to walk or talk or think. I cannot stand to see that look on my mom’s face. That look - shit. If the cancer wasn’t doing it for her, that look would kill me.”
Eduardo cannot think - he refuses to let himself think about this. Mark…Mark is just having a bad day. He doesn’t really believe…he can’t…this isn’t possible…
“If there was a way I could let this happen without it hurting any of them, I would do anything for that. But I haven’t been able to think of one. Apart from this. Maybe if they hate me a little bit, they won’t be so sad when it happens.”
“Please, Mark-“Eduardo says, reaching out to touch him, but dropping his hand at the last moment. Tears tumble down his cheeks, but both he and Mark ignore them.
“But I have already made you hate me once,” Mark says, his voice matter-of-fact, as if he has thought about this before, long and hard. “And I’m pretty certain that I couldn’t do it again. Not now…not now that I've realised…”
He gazes at Eduardo for a long moment, before dragging his eyes away. What? Realised what? Eduardo wants to scream, but his throat has closed up and he is still struggling to understand what Mark is really telling him.
“No,” Mark says finally. “I can’t have you hating me again. Hurt too much. And I like having you around.”
“Mark,” Eduardo breathes, and maybe it is the only word he knows anymore, but he has to force something out, say something, anything, anything. “You think you’re going to die.”
They look at each other, both a little stunned to hear the words aloud. Then, slowly, Mark nods.
“No,” Eduardo moans, and his body just caves; he leans forward, pressing his face into Mark’s shoulder. This cannot be real. If he tries hard enough, he knows he can stop this…just stop this happening…
“You know the statistics, Wardo. I don’t really stand a chance.”
“That means nothing,” Eduardo says fiercely against the fabric of Mark’s sweater.
“I can feel it, though. It’s too much. I just know.”
“No.” Eduardo pulls away and stands up, angry. “No. I refuse to let you think like this. You’re just…you’re tired. You’re going to be fine. It’s going to take a while, but-“
“Wardo.“
“-the treatment will work and then you-“
“Wardo.“
“-will be fine and we-“
“Eduardo!”
Eduardo stops dead and looks at Mark. His eyes are bright.
“Come here.” He touches the bed beside him. Eduardo sits down, his fists clenched to stop his hands from shaking.
“What?” Eduardo finally sighs.
“You can’t tell my parents what I just told you,” he says. Eduardo opens his mouth to protest, but Mark holds up his hand. “If it comes to it, I need someone one my side. Someone who understands.”
“What? Jesus, Mark. I’m not just going to let you die.”
“I didn’t say that. I just…I really need someone who knows how I feel right now. And you’ve always known. Haven’t you?”
And it’s like a slap in the face, this knowledge that Mark knows, Mark knows how Eduardo feels, and yet he has done nothing. But Eduardo nods, slowly, in agreement.
“Just…stick with me, okay? Promise me.”
Eduardo stares dumbly. He doesn’t know what Mark is asking of him - does he expect Eduardo to step aside and, if the worst happens, to just…let it?
“Mark…”
“Promise me. You know I wouldn’t ask this of anyone.” And it’s true; Mark never asked for anything. “Promise me you won’t back out when it gets rough - rougher than this. I’m going to need you.”
It’s such an un-Mark thing to say and Eduardo doesn’t fully know what he is agreeing to, but he knows that he would stay with Mark until the very end - no matter when that might come or how painful it is going to be. He nods, and Mark - in a display of affection more powerful than anything Eduardo has ever experienced before - takes Eduardo in his arms, and they hug. It’s awkward, and Mark is obviously uncomfortable, but this is more than he has ever given Eduardo before, and it is more than Eduardo can handle.
Continued
pairing: Mark/Eduardo
disclaimer: Based on the Social Network idea of Mark Eduardo, but in no way true. All from my own head.
A/N: I'm going away on Thursday, possibly for the whole summer, so I am aiming to get this whole story completed before then. Expect lots of updates in the next couple of days.
PLEASE NOTE: Everything that I write about leukemia and chemotherapy comes from Wikipedia and copious Google searches, so it is no doubt entirely inaccurate.
Follow up to: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
As it has a habit of doing, time passes.
Eduardo stays with Mark, leaving only to go home and shower or change his clothes or force himself to eat something even though his stomach constantly feels full, heavy with worry. The days in hospital pass much the same way that the first did; even on his ‘rest days’ Mark is sick, over and over and over, until Eduardo thinks that he will never, ever be able to shake the image of Mark’s now spidery thin hands clinging on to the edge of the toilet bowl, his body heaving, eyes screwed tight shut in pain. Eduardo tries to help; he sits with him and rubs his back and talks, constantly talks, but it feels useless. Mark is wasting away.
When he isn’t being violently ill, Mark lounges in his chair or, more often than not, on the bed. His family comes, sometimes as a group, sometimes individually. One evening, all three of his sisters show up and while Mark looks pleased, it clearly exhausts him. He has asked his friends not to come; he doesn’t want anyone else to see him looking so unwell. When he and Eduardo are alone, late at night when neither of them can sleep - Mark on his bed, Eduardo curled up on the surprisingly comfortable sofa - or mid-afternoon before the bustle of examinations and visits from Dr Lewis, they play cards or chess, but because Mark struggles to concentrate for long, mostly they just talk. It is as though they are getting to know one another again, discovering everything about each other. And Eduardo falls in love with Mark all over again, every single day.
They talk about everything, like they have never talked before. Eduardo always used to feel as though he was speaking at Mark, like he wasn’t really paying attention. But now…now Mark’s eyes follow Eduardo’s lips as they move, and he laughs softly at the things Eduardo says. Now the conversation is two-sided, and the topic ranges from hazy memories of drunken nights at Harvard to more painful, serious things - things they have avoided before - like Wardo, what did you do…after? After the fight. After you found out.
Eduardo tries to explain, but he doesn’t want Mark to know how much it destroyed him. He avoids mentioning the sleepless nights, the hot ball of rage that settled in his broken heart. He tells Mark about how he went home, to his parent’s house, to the sun and sand, but how he’d run off back to New York after two days of his father’s furious, disappointed silence. He tells Mark about how he went back to Harvard for the spring term, but he doesn’t mention the missed calls and ignored texts from people he used to be friends with. He doesn’t explain how eventually the calls and messages and emails filtered into nothing when he ignored them for long enough. He doesn’t say that Mark was the only person that he ever cared about, even though he still feels the same way. Mark looks as if he knows the story is cut full of holes, but mercifully he doesn’t push it.
When his course of treatment is over, Mark goes back to the picture-perfect house that he bought for his parents rather than to his apartment. Eduardo visits him as often as he thinks is socially acceptable, a morning here, an afternoon there, until one evening, as he is getting ready to go home, Mark grabs his arm and says, ‘Wardo, just. Come back tomorrow. Okay?” And Eduardo stays after that, sleeping in the guest bedroom next to Mark’s, laying awake deep into the night imagining Mark on the other side of the wall, his heart hammering loud in his chest. They go for walks together, wandering slowly around the neighbourhood, and Eduardo can almost kid himself into believing that they are a real couple. But every time that he manages to work up the nerve to say something to Mark, to confess, to express, some voice in the back of his mind asks, what if you’re wrong? What if he doesn’t want you that way? And he can’t, he just can’t make a mistake now. So Eduardo waits.
As the next week of treatment looms, Mark sinks slowly into a painful, wordless depression. He allows no discussion of the upcoming days of chemotherapy, and starts to find ways of not seeing his family. When he does see them, he is sharp with them to the point of almost being cruel. He snaps at his mom, refuses to spend time with his sisters and avoids his father altogether. It is as though he is slipping back into his old self, the Mark Zuckerberg that people admired, but never befriended. Only Eduardo is allowed to go into his bedroom, and that is only because Eduardo doesn’t leave when Mark tells him to.
“What’s going on?” Eduardo asks the evening before Mark goes back into hospital. He is lying on Mark’s bed, pretending to watch the television, but really only watching Mark.
Mark doesn’t look away from his computer. Despite being so tired that he can’t even sit up straight, he somehow still finds the energy to work. His fingers move slower over the keyboard, but Eduardo has seen him emailing huge chunks of code over to the Facebook offices and nothing, not the doctors telling him to rest, not Dustin refusing to allow the use of any work he sends, not the fact that he is going to be receiving chemotherapy the next day, can stop him.
“What?” He asks finally.
“Why are you being so…heartless? You really upset your mom earlier when you told her to get out. She just wanted to see how you were.”
Mark doesn’t reply, but Eduardo sees his shoulders move slightly in a shrug.
“It really doesn’t bother you?” Eduardo asks, sitting up. “You can really stand to treat your family like this?”
“Just leave it, okay?”
“No, I don’t think so. I can’t watch you talking to people - people who love you and are trying to help you - like they don’t matter!”
Mark spins around on his chair, his eyes fierce. “Your complete inability to let this go is really quite astounding, Wardo.”
“Shut up,” Eduardo spits, moving to the edge of the bed. ”Just shut up. Stop trying to act like you’re not scared by all of this -“
“I’m not scared.”
“Bullshit. I can see it on your face. I can see, Mark. You’re pushing everyone away because you think it’ll make it easier.”
“Make what easier? You have no idea what I’m going through. What the fuck could make this easier?”
“You think if you push everyone away it won’t hurt if you’re going to lose them.”
Mark opens his mouth to retaliate, but then Eduardo’s word seem to hit him, one at a time, like arrows. He slowly leans back in his chair, his eyes black with tiredness and defeat.
“No,” he murmurs. “I’m pushing them away so that it won’t hurt them when they lose me.”
Now it is Eduardo’s turn to pale with shock.
“What?” He chokes out. “Mark. What is - what is that supposed to mean?”
Mark stands up and slowly moves to sit by Eduardo on the bed. “Let’s be realistic Wardo. It isn’t going well. I’m just…well, look at me.”
Eduardo looks up, ashamed of the sudden tears stinging in his eyes, but not hiding them.
“Look at me,” Mark repeats. "I’m getting worse. You see it, I know you do. My family does too. You all watch me, calculating how much more I can deteriorate before I stop being able to walk or talk or think. I cannot stand to see that look on my mom’s face. That look - shit. If the cancer wasn’t doing it for her, that look would kill me.”
Eduardo cannot think - he refuses to let himself think about this. Mark…Mark is just having a bad day. He doesn’t really believe…he can’t…this isn’t possible…
“If there was a way I could let this happen without it hurting any of them, I would do anything for that. But I haven’t been able to think of one. Apart from this. Maybe if they hate me a little bit, they won’t be so sad when it happens.”
“Please, Mark-“Eduardo says, reaching out to touch him, but dropping his hand at the last moment. Tears tumble down his cheeks, but both he and Mark ignore them.
“But I have already made you hate me once,” Mark says, his voice matter-of-fact, as if he has thought about this before, long and hard. “And I’m pretty certain that I couldn’t do it again. Not now…not now that I've realised…”
He gazes at Eduardo for a long moment, before dragging his eyes away. What? Realised what? Eduardo wants to scream, but his throat has closed up and he is still struggling to understand what Mark is really telling him.
“No,” Mark says finally. “I can’t have you hating me again. Hurt too much. And I like having you around.”
“Mark,” Eduardo breathes, and maybe it is the only word he knows anymore, but he has to force something out, say something, anything, anything. “You think you’re going to die.”
They look at each other, both a little stunned to hear the words aloud. Then, slowly, Mark nods.
“No,” Eduardo moans, and his body just caves; he leans forward, pressing his face into Mark’s shoulder. This cannot be real. If he tries hard enough, he knows he can stop this…just stop this happening…
“You know the statistics, Wardo. I don’t really stand a chance.”
“That means nothing,” Eduardo says fiercely against the fabric of Mark’s sweater.
“I can feel it, though. It’s too much. I just know.”
“No.” Eduardo pulls away and stands up, angry. “No. I refuse to let you think like this. You’re just…you’re tired. You’re going to be fine. It’s going to take a while, but-“
“Wardo.“
“-the treatment will work and then you-“
“Wardo.“
“-will be fine and we-“
“Eduardo!”
Eduardo stops dead and looks at Mark. His eyes are bright.
“Come here.” He touches the bed beside him. Eduardo sits down, his fists clenched to stop his hands from shaking.
“What?” Eduardo finally sighs.
“You can’t tell my parents what I just told you,” he says. Eduardo opens his mouth to protest, but Mark holds up his hand. “If it comes to it, I need someone one my side. Someone who understands.”
“What? Jesus, Mark. I’m not just going to let you die.”
“I didn’t say that. I just…I really need someone who knows how I feel right now. And you’ve always known. Haven’t you?”
And it’s like a slap in the face, this knowledge that Mark knows, Mark knows how Eduardo feels, and yet he has done nothing. But Eduardo nods, slowly, in agreement.
“Just…stick with me, okay? Promise me.”
Eduardo stares dumbly. He doesn’t know what Mark is asking of him - does he expect Eduardo to step aside and, if the worst happens, to just…let it?
“Mark…”
“Promise me. You know I wouldn’t ask this of anyone.” And it’s true; Mark never asked for anything. “Promise me you won’t back out when it gets rough - rougher than this. I’m going to need you.”
It’s such an un-Mark thing to say and Eduardo doesn’t fully know what he is agreeing to, but he knows that he would stay with Mark until the very end - no matter when that might come or how painful it is going to be. He nods, and Mark - in a display of affection more powerful than anything Eduardo has ever experienced before - takes Eduardo in his arms, and they hug. It’s awkward, and Mark is obviously uncomfortable, but this is more than he has ever given Eduardo before, and it is more than Eduardo can handle.
Continued