Bones (8/10)
title: Bones (8/10)
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:
Unfortunately I haven’t had time to write part 9, so hopefully I’ll be able to get is posted ASAP whilst I’m away. Part 10 is written though and, yeah. I’m really pleased with it. I just wanted to thank you all so much for your comments - this is a really tough thing to both write and read about, and you’ve all been so sweet to me. I appreciate every word you all say.
PLEASE NOTE: Everything that I write about leukemia and chemotherapy comes from Wikipedia and copious Google searches, so it is no doubt entirely inaccurate.
“He’s terrified,” Eduardo tells Dustin and Chris as they sit together in the basement cafeteria of the Facebook offices. “He won’t talk to anyone about it. It’s like he’s…shutting down, or something. He went to his lawyer and wrote out a new will.”
“Yeah, but that’s just Mark,” Dustin says. “He’s systematic. I bet he’s researched every single stage of the operation.”
Eduardo nods tiredly. “He has. It isn’t helping. The odds are not in our favour.”
Dustin and Chris smile at one another and Eduardo frowns. “What?”
“You said ‘our’,” Chris explains. “The odds are not in our favour.”
“Like you’re a part of him,” Dustin adds, and it is clearly something the two of them have discussed many times away from Eduardo and Mark.
Eduardo sighs. His whole body feels as though it is going to give in at any second, and he feels guilty for that because Mark is currently in hospital, undergoing his pre-op chemotherapy, his body being ravaged by poisonous chemicals, but he can’t help it. He slumps forward, resting his head on his forearms.
“I think it’s more that he is a part of me,” Eduardo tells the tabletop, and he doesn’t care that he sounds desperately sad and broken and alone, because of every word is true.
***
“After the operation, Mark is going to need your support more than ever.”
Eduardo looks around him, at Mark’s parents on one side, at his three sisters on the other. He turns back to Dr Lewis.
“The two to four weeks following the transplant are the most critical. The high-dose chemotherapy he has been given will have destroyed his bone marrow, crippling his immune system. While we wait for the transplanted bone marrow to migrate to the cavities of the large bones and engraft, and then to begin producing normal blood cells, Mark will be incredibly susceptible to infection, as well as excessive bleeding.”
“Why would he be bleeding?” Karen asks, her voice shaking.
“For leukaemia patients, even a shaving cut can be dangerous,” Dr Lewis explains gently. “Multiple antibiotics and blood transfusions will be administered to help prevent and fight infection. Transfusions of platelets will be given to prevent bleeding.”
“Does it mean we can’t see him?” Eduardo asks, panicking at the mere thought of leaving Mark to go through this alone.
“Not at all. However, extraordinary precautions must be taken to minimize his exposure to viruses and bacteria. Staff and visitors will wash their hands with antiseptic soap and will have to wear protective gloves and masks whilst in his room. And no flowers or fresh fruit, as they often carry bacteria that could pose a risk of infection.”
“When will we know?” Randi, Mark’s older sister, asks.
“If the treatment is a success?” Dr Lewis confirms.
“Yes.”
“Well, blood samples will be taken daily to determine whether or not engraftment occurred and to monitor organ function. When the transplanted bone marrow finally engrafts and begins producing normal blood cells, Mark will gradually be taken off antibiotics, and blood and platelet transfusions should no longer be required. Once the bone marrow is producing a sufficient number of healthy red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, he will be discharged, provided no other complications develop. Bone marrow transplant patients are generally in hospital for four to eight weeks. They then continue recovery at home. For the first few weeks after leaving the hospital, Mark may be too weak to do much more than sleep, sit up and walk a bit around the house. There will be frequent visits to the hospital to monitor his progress. During this time, the risk of infection is still quite great. Mark, and any visitors, will be advised to wear protective masks.” Dr Lewis folds his hands together and looks at them squarely. “It can take up to a year for the new bone marrow to function normally.”
“Yes,” Eduardo says, having already discovered all this through his copious Google searches. “But when will we know? When will we be told, for definite, that things are going to be okay?”
Dr Lewis smiles, possibly at Eduardo’s forced optimism. “I should be able to tell him when he is discharged from hospital whether or not the treatment has done what we hope it will.”
***
The morning that Mark is due to go into hospital to begin the transplant, Eduardo wakes early. He slept fitfully, tossing and turning, unable to think of anything but Mark. He goes for a run to try and wear some of the thoughts of what Mark is about to endure out of his head, and he showers for a long time, the water burning hot. Mark had told his family point blank that Eduardo was taking him to the hospital, not them, and while Eduardo felt guilty and knew that it was all mixed up, he couldn’t bring himself to argue.
A half hour before they are due to set off, Mark still hasn’t appeared out of his bedroom, and Eduardo, already on the verge of frenzied worry, goes to see if he’s okay.
“Mark?” He knocks softly and pushes open the bedroom door, expecting to see Mark packed and ready to go, maybe sat at his laptop, but instead Mark is lying in bed, the blankets pulled up to his chest, one arm thrown over his eyes.
“Mark!” Eduardo says, going into the room and closing the door behind him. “What are you doing? We’re going to be late.”
“Didn’t you get the memo?” Mark says, his voice blank, and quiet with sleepiness. “I’m not going.”
“What?”
“I’m not going.”
“Right. Good one, Mark. Get up.”
“No. I know I said all that stuff about not wanting to die and about fighting this thing, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s not worth the effort.”
Stunned, Eduardo can only say, “but-”
“No. No buts. I don’t like it. I hate being in hospital. I don’t want any more treatment. It hurts, and I’m not going again.”
Eduardo goes to the edge of the bed, his legs unsteady, his body suddenly very cold, and sits down. “That’s probably not such a good idea.”
Mark drops his arm to his side and glares at Eduardo. “Why not?”
“Because this operation is the only thing that is going to stop you from dying.”
Mark sighs and rolls onto his side, away from Eduardo. “What do I care? I’ve left my legacy. I changed the world. Billions of people know what I’ve done. Who the fuck is going to remember what you have done? Maybe you should be thinking about that instead of pissing me off.”
Eduardo closes his eyes, trying to keep calm. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He understands that a lot of patients get angry during their treatment; they become disillusioned because the treatment hurts more than the cancer does. They stop believing that it is helping. They give up. But Mark never gave up on anything in his whole life, and Eduardo isn’t going to let that start now.
“Wardo-“ Mark says, turning, seeming to realise how cutting his words were.
“You sound like an arrogant child,” Eduardo tells him brutally.
“I think I deserve to be arrogant,” Mark retorts.
“Maybe,” Eduardo agrees. “But it doesn’t mean that you should be.”
“Whatever,” he mumbles, turning away again.
“Are you giving up?” Eduardo has to ask, and even voicing it makes his soul shiver.
“No…I’m just…”
“You’re giving up. You’re not…you’re not fighting anymore.”
Mark shrugs and murmurs, into his pillow, “I don’t think I can.”
“Why?”
Mark turns back, his eyes blazing, and struggles to sit up. “Because it hurts, Wardo. I am hurting. I cannot deal with it. Every single part of my body hurts. My bones hurt. Can you imagine that? Can you even imagine feeling something so deeply? Nothing is worth going through this, not even being alive.”
Yes, I can imagine it, Eduardo thinks as the pain of Mark’s words cuts deeply into his bones. I can feel it.
“What about…everything?” Eduardo asks dumbly.
“Everything what? I have nothing. Facebook is its own thing now. It will always work. I have nothing.” Exhausted, he sits back against the headboard, his pale shoulders slumping.
“What about me?” Eduardo asks softly, avoiding eye contact.
“What about you? You’re only here because I’m sick. I don’t have you.”
He sounds so bitter that it astonishes Eduardo. It’s just so…obvious. The way Mark feels…it’s written in ink on the soft skin of his face and in the pale blue-grey of his eyes. In the regret in his words. Eduardo thinks of Mark’s mom, weeks ago, telling him that Mark would never make the first move. This is his thing to do.
“What if…what if you did?”
“Huh?”
“What if…”Eduardo looks up, straight into Mark’s confused eyes. “What if you did have me?”
And Mark’s face, his body, his whole being, just softens, as if Eduardo’s words have touched him to his very core.
“Oh,” Mark whispers; hope flutters in Eduardo’s chest and Mark looks like someone else altogether, someone gentler. He has his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
“What do you think?” Eduardo murmurs nervously.
Mark’s eyes are wide as he stammers, “I…I don’t…”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, shifting closer, taking one of his hands. He notices that Mark is trembling. “Mark. The way I feel about you…It’s not…It’s not how you have always thought, and I’ve always been too…well, scared I guess, and I was sure you wouldn’t…I mean, you’re so honest about everything so you would have said if you were…but now…if I never told you how I feel-“ he closes his eyes, pained at the very idea, “-if I lost you, I don’t think I could live with myself. Do you have any idea what I’m saying?”
He looks up at Mark, expecting to see that ever-familiar raised-eyebrow-blank-stare, but Mark…is…smiling.
“You think I didn’t know?” Mark asks, still smiling, and Eduardo blushes furiously.
“You knew?”
“Of course. Our entire graduating year knew, Wardo. You were always so…touchy. Remember in the dining hall that time, we had to go to a lecture and I didn’t want to go so I figured you’d just go on your own, but instead you stood up and picked me up, right out of my seat, and pushed me out of the room. People used to call me Mrs Saverin after that.”
“Shit,” Eduardo breathes out as years of believing that his obsessive adoration of Mark was a closely guarded secret comes crashing down around him.
“Yeah. I figured either you liked me, or you were just a creep. I sort of preferred the first idea.”
“But…you never said anything?” Mortified, his voice still tilts up at the end, like he’s asking a question. Had Mark ever said anything, in his unique Mark way?
“Well, I didn’t realise that I felt the same way until you’d already gone.”
Felt…the…same.
Eduardo is certain in that moment that three words have never meant so much, ever, in the history of spoken word. He looks at Mark, his cheeks still faintly pink with embarrassment, and Mark looks back. Something physically, measurably, changes between them in that moment.
“You…felt…the same?” The words even taste good.
Mark shrugs casually. “Yeah. After you found out…after you left, I felt…empty, kind of. I missed you and it hurt and it wasn’t missing like you miss your parents when you’re away from home. I missed just being near you - and I hope you appreciate this because it is more sentimental then I ever get - and I missed the way you talked, the sound of your voice.” He winces, as if he knows how Jane Austen he sounds. He shakes his head and says, “I guess that sounds really gay. I mean, literally gay.”
Eduardo grins. “No. It’s good. I like it.”
Mark smiles back, but then his face turns serious. “I was thinking… I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it seems to be the next logical step. You should kiss me.”
It is such a Mark proposition, open and honest and wanting, and if Eduardo’s heart hadn’t possibly imploded in his chest, he would have laughed. His hands tighten around Mark’s involuntarily and he forces himself to whisper, “really?”
Mark nods, looking a little nervous himself.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, moving closer, shifting on the mattress nearer to Mark, who manages to sit up straighter, his eyes expectant.
“Okay,” he repeats, touching Mark’s face with the tips of his fingers, then pressing his palm against his cheek. He leans forward slowly, unsure, expecting Mark to burst out laughing at any second, but no, there it is, lips brushing together, and holy shit.
That is all he does, at first. He touches his lips to Mark’s lightly, the kiss of a butterfly landing on a blade of grass, an elbow brushing a stranger’s on the train. It is closed mouth and gentle and lasts no longer than a second, but that second changes everything.
“Mark?” Eduardo whispers, their faces still close together.
“Mmm?” Mark breathes, his eyes closed. He is smiling slightly.
“Is this - is this okay?”
“Yeah. I think - I think maybe - it’s perfect.”
So Eduardo presses his lips to Mark’s again, this time more firmly, and then at the same time their mouths open and it is awkward for a moment, noses knocking together, until they tilt their heads, and then the contact of tongues and Eduardo thinks this is how I am going to die. But then Mark brings a hand up and curls it around Eduardo’s neck, and he thinks I don’t mind. Their lips separate slightly and Eduardo takes a gasp of air just as Mark exhales heavily and suddenly Eduardo is full of him, the taste and essence of Mark, and it burns, his whole body is burning, but nothing has ever felt so perfectly promising and he never wants to let this moment go.
Eventually, though, they have to move apart. They stare at one another, breathing heavily, and Eduardo realises that this was the best way for it to happen. A moment of honesty between friends, and a kiss - that kiss - that wasn’t anything especially beautiful or romantic, but it was real and passionate and theirs alone.
“Are you still giving up?” Eduardo asks softly, and Mark raises his chin defiantly, grits his teeth and pushes himself out of bed.
Eduardo watches him, his lips still tingling, and he thinks, he’s doing that for me.
It feels almost as good as the kiss.
***
Eduardo is at a loose end when Mark is taken in for the transplant. He had planned to stay at the hospital and simply wait, but Mark told him - ordered him - not to, and Eduardo could never deny him anything. He promises to go back that evening with Mark’s family, when he is allowed visitors, and he kissed him, but it felt too sad, like they were kissing goodbye.
Eduardo drives and drives, until the kicking in his chest and the sharp pain in his stomach becomes too much. He pulls over to the side of the road and manages to get out of the car just in time to throw up on the dusty ground. He staggers back and slumps in the driver’s seat, feeling emptier, but the pain is no less. He’d just left Mark there, and he wasn’t there to know how things were going, or to see Mark if anything went wrong. He knows the treatment is just like the chemo, but Mark hated chemotherapy and Eduardo’s brain won’t stop providing images of Mark’s body slumped on the bathroom floor, weak and exhausted.
What would Eduardo’s life be without Mark? He realises, as he stares out of the front window, that he wouldn’t have a life without Mark. And the most painful thing is that he wouldn’t want one. Before he met Mark he was perfectly content with just being okay. But with Mark…things got clearer. It was if he had a problem with his eyesight, and it was fine, he could manage it, but then someone offered him a pair of glasses and suddenly he could see. There was a life outside of trying to please his father, and Mark represented all of that. And now…now Mark represents a future. A future that Eduardo wants so desperately he would kill for it. If Mark died, Eduardo wouldn’t survive. His heart would just give in.
Eduardo leans his head forward against his arms wrapped around the steering wheel.
“Please,” he whispers, to whichever almighty power happens to be listening to him in that moment. “Please. Let him be okay. Please let him be okay. I need him. Please. I can’t…I just…I need him. Please.”
He lets himself go, desperate sobs heaving through him. He gives himself these few minutes to let himself really feel before he has to put on the brave face again. If Mark knew how scared he was, this wouldn’t work. He needs to be strong enough so that Mark, if he wants, can hold on to him.
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:
Unfortunately I haven’t had time to write part 9, so hopefully I’ll be able to get is posted ASAP whilst I’m away. Part 10 is written though and, yeah. I’m really pleased with it. I just wanted to thank you all so much for your comments - this is a really tough thing to both write and read about, and you’ve all been so sweet to me. I appreciate every word you all say.
PLEASE NOTE: Everything that I write about leukemia and chemotherapy comes from Wikipedia and copious Google searches, so it is no doubt entirely inaccurate.
“He’s terrified,” Eduardo tells Dustin and Chris as they sit together in the basement cafeteria of the Facebook offices. “He won’t talk to anyone about it. It’s like he’s…shutting down, or something. He went to his lawyer and wrote out a new will.”
“Yeah, but that’s just Mark,” Dustin says. “He’s systematic. I bet he’s researched every single stage of the operation.”
Eduardo nods tiredly. “He has. It isn’t helping. The odds are not in our favour.”
Dustin and Chris smile at one another and Eduardo frowns. “What?”
“You said ‘our’,” Chris explains. “The odds are not in our favour.”
“Like you’re a part of him,” Dustin adds, and it is clearly something the two of them have discussed many times away from Eduardo and Mark.
Eduardo sighs. His whole body feels as though it is going to give in at any second, and he feels guilty for that because Mark is currently in hospital, undergoing his pre-op chemotherapy, his body being ravaged by poisonous chemicals, but he can’t help it. He slumps forward, resting his head on his forearms.
“I think it’s more that he is a part of me,” Eduardo tells the tabletop, and he doesn’t care that he sounds desperately sad and broken and alone, because of every word is true.
***
“After the operation, Mark is going to need your support more than ever.”
Eduardo looks around him, at Mark’s parents on one side, at his three sisters on the other. He turns back to Dr Lewis.
“The two to four weeks following the transplant are the most critical. The high-dose chemotherapy he has been given will have destroyed his bone marrow, crippling his immune system. While we wait for the transplanted bone marrow to migrate to the cavities of the large bones and engraft, and then to begin producing normal blood cells, Mark will be incredibly susceptible to infection, as well as excessive bleeding.”
“Why would he be bleeding?” Karen asks, her voice shaking.
“For leukaemia patients, even a shaving cut can be dangerous,” Dr Lewis explains gently. “Multiple antibiotics and blood transfusions will be administered to help prevent and fight infection. Transfusions of platelets will be given to prevent bleeding.”
“Does it mean we can’t see him?” Eduardo asks, panicking at the mere thought of leaving Mark to go through this alone.
“Not at all. However, extraordinary precautions must be taken to minimize his exposure to viruses and bacteria. Staff and visitors will wash their hands with antiseptic soap and will have to wear protective gloves and masks whilst in his room. And no flowers or fresh fruit, as they often carry bacteria that could pose a risk of infection.”
“When will we know?” Randi, Mark’s older sister, asks.
“If the treatment is a success?” Dr Lewis confirms.
“Yes.”
“Well, blood samples will be taken daily to determine whether or not engraftment occurred and to monitor organ function. When the transplanted bone marrow finally engrafts and begins producing normal blood cells, Mark will gradually be taken off antibiotics, and blood and platelet transfusions should no longer be required. Once the bone marrow is producing a sufficient number of healthy red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, he will be discharged, provided no other complications develop. Bone marrow transplant patients are generally in hospital for four to eight weeks. They then continue recovery at home. For the first few weeks after leaving the hospital, Mark may be too weak to do much more than sleep, sit up and walk a bit around the house. There will be frequent visits to the hospital to monitor his progress. During this time, the risk of infection is still quite great. Mark, and any visitors, will be advised to wear protective masks.” Dr Lewis folds his hands together and looks at them squarely. “It can take up to a year for the new bone marrow to function normally.”
“Yes,” Eduardo says, having already discovered all this through his copious Google searches. “But when will we know? When will we be told, for definite, that things are going to be okay?”
Dr Lewis smiles, possibly at Eduardo’s forced optimism. “I should be able to tell him when he is discharged from hospital whether or not the treatment has done what we hope it will.”
***
The morning that Mark is due to go into hospital to begin the transplant, Eduardo wakes early. He slept fitfully, tossing and turning, unable to think of anything but Mark. He goes for a run to try and wear some of the thoughts of what Mark is about to endure out of his head, and he showers for a long time, the water burning hot. Mark had told his family point blank that Eduardo was taking him to the hospital, not them, and while Eduardo felt guilty and knew that it was all mixed up, he couldn’t bring himself to argue.
A half hour before they are due to set off, Mark still hasn’t appeared out of his bedroom, and Eduardo, already on the verge of frenzied worry, goes to see if he’s okay.
“Mark?” He knocks softly and pushes open the bedroom door, expecting to see Mark packed and ready to go, maybe sat at his laptop, but instead Mark is lying in bed, the blankets pulled up to his chest, one arm thrown over his eyes.
“Mark!” Eduardo says, going into the room and closing the door behind him. “What are you doing? We’re going to be late.”
“Didn’t you get the memo?” Mark says, his voice blank, and quiet with sleepiness. “I’m not going.”
“What?”
“I’m not going.”
“Right. Good one, Mark. Get up.”
“No. I know I said all that stuff about not wanting to die and about fighting this thing, but I’ve changed my mind. It’s not worth the effort.”
Stunned, Eduardo can only say, “but-”
“No. No buts. I don’t like it. I hate being in hospital. I don’t want any more treatment. It hurts, and I’m not going again.”
Eduardo goes to the edge of the bed, his legs unsteady, his body suddenly very cold, and sits down. “That’s probably not such a good idea.”
Mark drops his arm to his side and glares at Eduardo. “Why not?”
“Because this operation is the only thing that is going to stop you from dying.”
Mark sighs and rolls onto his side, away from Eduardo. “What do I care? I’ve left my legacy. I changed the world. Billions of people know what I’ve done. Who the fuck is going to remember what you have done? Maybe you should be thinking about that instead of pissing me off.”
Eduardo closes his eyes, trying to keep calm. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that. He understands that a lot of patients get angry during their treatment; they become disillusioned because the treatment hurts more than the cancer does. They stop believing that it is helping. They give up. But Mark never gave up on anything in his whole life, and Eduardo isn’t going to let that start now.
“Wardo-“ Mark says, turning, seeming to realise how cutting his words were.
“You sound like an arrogant child,” Eduardo tells him brutally.
“I think I deserve to be arrogant,” Mark retorts.
“Maybe,” Eduardo agrees. “But it doesn’t mean that you should be.”
“Whatever,” he mumbles, turning away again.
“Are you giving up?” Eduardo has to ask, and even voicing it makes his soul shiver.
“No…I’m just…”
“You’re giving up. You’re not…you’re not fighting anymore.”
Mark shrugs and murmurs, into his pillow, “I don’t think I can.”
“Why?”
Mark turns back, his eyes blazing, and struggles to sit up. “Because it hurts, Wardo. I am hurting. I cannot deal with it. Every single part of my body hurts. My bones hurt. Can you imagine that? Can you even imagine feeling something so deeply? Nothing is worth going through this, not even being alive.”
Yes, I can imagine it, Eduardo thinks as the pain of Mark’s words cuts deeply into his bones. I can feel it.
“What about…everything?” Eduardo asks dumbly.
“Everything what? I have nothing. Facebook is its own thing now. It will always work. I have nothing.” Exhausted, he sits back against the headboard, his pale shoulders slumping.
“What about me?” Eduardo asks softly, avoiding eye contact.
“What about you? You’re only here because I’m sick. I don’t have you.”
He sounds so bitter that it astonishes Eduardo. It’s just so…obvious. The way Mark feels…it’s written in ink on the soft skin of his face and in the pale blue-grey of his eyes. In the regret in his words. Eduardo thinks of Mark’s mom, weeks ago, telling him that Mark would never make the first move. This is his thing to do.
“What if…what if you did?”
“Huh?”
“What if…”Eduardo looks up, straight into Mark’s confused eyes. “What if you did have me?”
And Mark’s face, his body, his whole being, just softens, as if Eduardo’s words have touched him to his very core.
“Oh,” Mark whispers; hope flutters in Eduardo’s chest and Mark looks like someone else altogether, someone gentler. He has his bottom lip caught between his teeth.
“What do you think?” Eduardo murmurs nervously.
Mark’s eyes are wide as he stammers, “I…I don’t…”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, shifting closer, taking one of his hands. He notices that Mark is trembling. “Mark. The way I feel about you…It’s not…It’s not how you have always thought, and I’ve always been too…well, scared I guess, and I was sure you wouldn’t…I mean, you’re so honest about everything so you would have said if you were…but now…if I never told you how I feel-“ he closes his eyes, pained at the very idea, “-if I lost you, I don’t think I could live with myself. Do you have any idea what I’m saying?”
He looks up at Mark, expecting to see that ever-familiar raised-eyebrow-blank-stare, but Mark…is…smiling.
“You think I didn’t know?” Mark asks, still smiling, and Eduardo blushes furiously.
“You knew?”
“Of course. Our entire graduating year knew, Wardo. You were always so…touchy. Remember in the dining hall that time, we had to go to a lecture and I didn’t want to go so I figured you’d just go on your own, but instead you stood up and picked me up, right out of my seat, and pushed me out of the room. People used to call me Mrs Saverin after that.”
“Shit,” Eduardo breathes out as years of believing that his obsessive adoration of Mark was a closely guarded secret comes crashing down around him.
“Yeah. I figured either you liked me, or you were just a creep. I sort of preferred the first idea.”
“But…you never said anything?” Mortified, his voice still tilts up at the end, like he’s asking a question. Had Mark ever said anything, in his unique Mark way?
“Well, I didn’t realise that I felt the same way until you’d already gone.”
Felt…the…same.
Eduardo is certain in that moment that three words have never meant so much, ever, in the history of spoken word. He looks at Mark, his cheeks still faintly pink with embarrassment, and Mark looks back. Something physically, measurably, changes between them in that moment.
“You…felt…the same?” The words even taste good.
Mark shrugs casually. “Yeah. After you found out…after you left, I felt…empty, kind of. I missed you and it hurt and it wasn’t missing like you miss your parents when you’re away from home. I missed just being near you - and I hope you appreciate this because it is more sentimental then I ever get - and I missed the way you talked, the sound of your voice.” He winces, as if he knows how Jane Austen he sounds. He shakes his head and says, “I guess that sounds really gay. I mean, literally gay.”
Eduardo grins. “No. It’s good. I like it.”
Mark smiles back, but then his face turns serious. “I was thinking… I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and it seems to be the next logical step. You should kiss me.”
It is such a Mark proposition, open and honest and wanting, and if Eduardo’s heart hadn’t possibly imploded in his chest, he would have laughed. His hands tighten around Mark’s involuntarily and he forces himself to whisper, “really?”
Mark nods, looking a little nervous himself.
“Okay,” Eduardo says, moving closer, shifting on the mattress nearer to Mark, who manages to sit up straighter, his eyes expectant.
“Okay,” he repeats, touching Mark’s face with the tips of his fingers, then pressing his palm against his cheek. He leans forward slowly, unsure, expecting Mark to burst out laughing at any second, but no, there it is, lips brushing together, and holy shit.
That is all he does, at first. He touches his lips to Mark’s lightly, the kiss of a butterfly landing on a blade of grass, an elbow brushing a stranger’s on the train. It is closed mouth and gentle and lasts no longer than a second, but that second changes everything.
“Mark?” Eduardo whispers, their faces still close together.
“Mmm?” Mark breathes, his eyes closed. He is smiling slightly.
“Is this - is this okay?”
“Yeah. I think - I think maybe - it’s perfect.”
So Eduardo presses his lips to Mark’s again, this time more firmly, and then at the same time their mouths open and it is awkward for a moment, noses knocking together, until they tilt their heads, and then the contact of tongues and Eduardo thinks this is how I am going to die. But then Mark brings a hand up and curls it around Eduardo’s neck, and he thinks I don’t mind. Their lips separate slightly and Eduardo takes a gasp of air just as Mark exhales heavily and suddenly Eduardo is full of him, the taste and essence of Mark, and it burns, his whole body is burning, but nothing has ever felt so perfectly promising and he never wants to let this moment go.
Eventually, though, they have to move apart. They stare at one another, breathing heavily, and Eduardo realises that this was the best way for it to happen. A moment of honesty between friends, and a kiss - that kiss - that wasn’t anything especially beautiful or romantic, but it was real and passionate and theirs alone.
“Are you still giving up?” Eduardo asks softly, and Mark raises his chin defiantly, grits his teeth and pushes himself out of bed.
Eduardo watches him, his lips still tingling, and he thinks, he’s doing that for me.
It feels almost as good as the kiss.
***
Eduardo is at a loose end when Mark is taken in for the transplant. He had planned to stay at the hospital and simply wait, but Mark told him - ordered him - not to, and Eduardo could never deny him anything. He promises to go back that evening with Mark’s family, when he is allowed visitors, and he kissed him, but it felt too sad, like they were kissing goodbye.
Eduardo drives and drives, until the kicking in his chest and the sharp pain in his stomach becomes too much. He pulls over to the side of the road and manages to get out of the car just in time to throw up on the dusty ground. He staggers back and slumps in the driver’s seat, feeling emptier, but the pain is no less. He’d just left Mark there, and he wasn’t there to know how things were going, or to see Mark if anything went wrong. He knows the treatment is just like the chemo, but Mark hated chemotherapy and Eduardo’s brain won’t stop providing images of Mark’s body slumped on the bathroom floor, weak and exhausted.
What would Eduardo’s life be without Mark? He realises, as he stares out of the front window, that he wouldn’t have a life without Mark. And the most painful thing is that he wouldn’t want one. Before he met Mark he was perfectly content with just being okay. But with Mark…things got clearer. It was if he had a problem with his eyesight, and it was fine, he could manage it, but then someone offered him a pair of glasses and suddenly he could see. There was a life outside of trying to please his father, and Mark represented all of that. And now…now Mark represents a future. A future that Eduardo wants so desperately he would kill for it. If Mark died, Eduardo wouldn’t survive. His heart would just give in.
Eduardo leans his head forward against his arms wrapped around the steering wheel.
“Please,” he whispers, to whichever almighty power happens to be listening to him in that moment. “Please. Let him be okay. Please let him be okay. I need him. Please. I can’t…I just…I need him. Please.”
He lets himself go, desperate sobs heaving through him. He gives himself these few minutes to let himself really feel before he has to put on the brave face again. If Mark knew how scared he was, this wouldn’t work. He needs to be strong enough so that Mark, if he wants, can hold on to him.
Continued.