Fic: Pleased To Meet You (TSN, Mark/Eduardo) [2/2]
Part 1
It's 2 am when Eduardo wakes in the middle of the night in Mark's bed, his mouth dry. It's not an unusual occurrence. He usually has a midnight drink when he's at home, and he figures that it's no big deal if he grabs some water from the Brita filter from the kitchen refrigerator, even if Mark has his own minifridge stocked with beer and Mountain Dew. That's just like Mark, all alcohol and caffeine and no water at all. Mark's up and about as well, if the empty bed next to Eduardo is anything to go by.
But then again, Mark's as nocturnal as a person with a nine-to-five job can be. On weekends, Eduardo only really gets to see him around dawn and dusk. He sleeps through most of the rest of the day.
Eduardo climbs out of bed and pads down the hallway, careful not to make any of the ancient wooden floorboards creak. It's not until Eduardo is just outside the doorway to the kitchen that he hears the low murmur of voices. Mark is talking to one of the other guys who comes by from time to time -- Billy? -- his arms crossed over his chest, face as blank as normal. From Eduardo's angle, it almost looks like Billy's crying, or maybe it has something to do with the drugs he's usually on when Eduardo sees him.
"Look, Zuck, man, it's not gonna--" Billy says, twitching every other word.
"It's really not," Mark says. His own voice is steady and calm, but his eyes are cold and dark. Dangerous is not a word that Eduardo would have ever used to describe Mark before, but that's all Eduardo can think of when he looks at Mark now. There's a particular set to Mark's jaw that Eduardo's never seen before, a laser focus to his attention. It makes something cold creep down Eduardo's spine, and Eduardo's sure it has to be a trick of the light, because Mark's just some guy who can eviscerate you with his tongue. He wouldn't actually hurt anyone.
"Come on, man. It's no big deal. You said so yourself." Billy pleads. His eyes are huge and terrified.
Mark shrugs. "It's your mess. You clean it up. I'm going to get some sleep."
Eduardo ducks away, heading back to Mark's room before Mark can catch him lurking. It wouldn't do to interrupt a private moment, especially not when Mark is dealing out the tough love. Eduardo fakes being asleep as Mark finally crawls back into bed, keeping his breathing even and his eyes closed. He wonders what's going on with Billy, wonders why he came to Mark for help.
----
Mark doesn't talk about Billy much at all, but he does start pulling weird hours. He'll be at home playing Halo against Dustin after dinner with Red Vines hanging out of his mouth, and the phone will ring, and then Mark will be out the door in ten seconds flat, without so much as a goodbye. It ruins more than one date with Eduardo, and Eduardo tries not to get too frustrated by it. Mark's just doing his job, after all. Mayor Winklevoss must be a demanding boss.
The first time it happens, Eduardo's asleep when Mark's ringtone jerks him awake. He's out of bed and reaching for his discarded pants before he realizes that it's Mark's phone that's ringing from the nightstand. Mark doesn't even get out of bed. A hand just shoots out from underneath the covers to grab the phone. "Zuckerberg," he says, voice still groggy with sleep. "Yeah, okay.... Right now?.. Yes... I'm at home, but I can make it out there."
He drags himself out of bed, somewhat reluctantly, but he's pulling on work clothes -- grabbing a pair of slacks out of the closet and buttoning up his shirt. It looks sloppy, but Mark doesn't seem to care, and Eduardo doesn't have the energy to fix any of it for him.
"What the hell, Mark?" Eduardo says, eyes half-closed, not fully awake yet "What the fuck do they need you to do at four o'clock in the morning?" He climbs back onto the bed, because it doesn't seem like he needs to be awake right now.
Mark says, "Don't worry about it. Go back to sleep. It's stupid." He's always like this about work, Eduardo thinks, but it's too fucking early for him to flesh the idea out. Maybe he'll ask Mark about it in the morning.
Mark slips out out the door, leaving Eduardo alone in the quiet room. As soon as Eduardo closes his eyes again, he's asleep.
---
"The mayor's testing him, I think," Dustin says with a shrug. He's cleaning his gun, the pieces spread out over the kitchen table. Eduardo has no idea why Dustin even has a gun, but he's learned not to ask too many questions around the apartment. Sean will give him weird looks whenever he asks what they're doing, like Eduardo's a piece of dog shit that got stuck on someone's shoe. It doesn't help that Sean likes to throw the fact that he and Mark hooked up once into Eduardo's face whenever he can. Eduardo had shown up around seven, mostly because he and Mark had plans to eat bad pizza and watch trashy action movies, but Dustin had said that something came up at the last moment and that Mark should be back any second now. That was three hours ago.
"Testing him in what?" Eduardo says. "Mark's probably better with computers than anyone else in that entire building. What's there to prove?"
Sean snorts, rolls his eyes.
"Do you have a problem with me?" Eduardo says, only just resisting the urge to give Sean a shove, because he seriously doesn't know what else Sean has a problem with. He wants this out in the open, so this passive-aggressive bullshit won't be in the air every single time they're in the same room. Eduardo spent enough of his childhood being that weird kid with the weird accent who didn't celebrate Christmas along with everyone else. He's learned how to handle bullies.
Sean says, "I have no idea why you're even here, man. Can't you be somewhere else while Mark's gone?" He stands up, and he doesn't make any move to punch Eduardo in the face. "Whatever, dudes. I'm heading out." He grabs his coat and disappears down the stairs to the front door.
"No, really, what's going on with Mark?" Eduardo asks, because Dustin would know. Dustin also works for the mayor, and he understands Mark better than most of them do.
Dustin says, "It's not really my place to say. He doesn't really like to talk about it." Eduardo wants to laugh, because it must be a big deal if Dustin isn't willing to talk about this, but he is willing to talk about that time Mark tried to impress some of the other freshmen Harvard girls with the fact that he got a 1600 on his SATs. Eduardo likes Dustin, but then again, he's always liked Dustin. Dustin can actually annoy Mark in a way that gets Mark annoyed instead of just bored, and he has a laundry list of places to get cheap and delicious food in the greater Boston area, at least one for each neighborhood.
"I just wish he'd let me in a little more," Eduardo says. Sometimes, it feels like Mark isn't even trying. Eduardo can't be the only one who cares. He has to cling to that.
Dustin grunts sympathetically.
The front door swings open again. Mark's back. His suit is rumpled, and his hair is more of a mess than usual. His lips are pulled into a tight line, like he's exhausted and trying not to show it.
"How'd it go?" Dustin asks. He's looking up, and he's looking a little worried.
"Fine," Mark says, and there's nothing in his voice that contradicts him. "It went fine."
----
There's a blizzard one Wednesday in February. Eduardo can't see more than a foot outside the window, and everything closes down for the day, including Eduardo's bank and City Hall.
Mark sleeps through most of the morning, like he always does, curled up underneath the covers with his comforter nearly pulled all the way over his head. Eduardo makes tea in the kitchen, listening to the howling of the wind outside. They're in Eduardo's apartment, so there aren't any roommates, stray friends, or loud televisions. Eduardo can almost breathe in the silence, the white sheet that has descended over the world.
Eduardo does some reading, some work on his laptop, but then Mark rolls out of bed, and all Eduardo's good intentions fall by the wayside. They have slow, drawn out sex underneath the covers, Mark fucking Eduardo with steady even thrusts until Eduardo whimpers into his pillow, his fingers gripping the sheets.
The power cuts out sometime mid afternoon, and Eduardo brings out his ancient deck of cards. They play the kid games he learned at boarding school like Spit and Egyptian Rat Screw on Eduardo's bed, the bright white light from the snow streaming in through the window. Mark has sharp eyes and quick reflexes, and for a guy that emotionally distant, he's a surprisingly sore winner. Eduardo tells Mark his whole life story, tells Mark about his sister, about Brazil and Florida and Chicago. It spills out of him all at once, like he needs to do this while they're trapped here, unable to escape. Mark listens with dark, quiet eyes, and then he tells Eduardo about his own three sisters, about New York and New Hampshire and Boston.
It's like getting a glimpse into Mark, like getting a chance to see the gears turning inside his head, and it makes Eduardo's chest feel tight. It feels like a gift.
At the end of the night, Mark lays flat on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. Eduardo has always loved the way Mark looks in the soft light of his bedside lamp, the way it highlights the flat planes of his chest, the angles of his body. He has knobbly knees, Eduardo notices. Eduardo curls a hand around Mark's hip, and he says, "When I have the money, I'm going to buy an island, and then it can always be like this."
"That makes no sense. We'd be bored out of our minds within the first week," Mark says, but he can't entirely hide his smile.
In morning, the snow stops and the roads clear. Mark disappears out the front door, the hood of his hoodie pulled over his head, and as Eduardo watches him go, he feels like he's lost something, even if he doesn't know what that is.
---
The TV at work is playing a speech from Mayor Winklevoss, something about the next election. He's a tall, handsome man, with blond hair and a politician's winning smile, and he's talking the usual talk about improving quality of life across the whole city and bringing opportunities to those in need. Sarah is half-listening to the speech as she organizes some files, and Eduardo ends up watching it over her shoulder. The man can give a speech, that's for sure. He's got a steady, strong delivery, and there's just enough emotion behind his words to be convincing. Eduardo is charmed almost despite himself.
"He's going to win, isn't he?" Eduardo says. He thinks about what would happen to Mark if Mayor Winklevoss loses. Probably nothing. Mark's not particularly political, and he's low enough on the totem pole that they probably wouldn't bother replacing him.
Sarah snorts and shakes her head. "Like he'd let anyone else win."
Eduardo doesn't really know what to make of that, so he just shrugs and goes back to work.
He's got pages and pages of reports to read and clients to deal with. His boss seems to like him, but Eduardo sometimes wishes he were more productive. Sarah likes to roll her eyes and call him an obsessive perfectionist, but Eduardo knows that isn't the whole truth. His father disapproves of the way Eduardo basically dropped out of business school to take the offer for a mid-level job at a bank, even if it's impressive for a recent college graduate. Eduardo can't afford to fuck this all up now, not when his entire life is riding on it.
There are times when he wonders whether or not it was the right decision, whether or not it would have made more sense to go straight for the degree and the life his father set out for him. His life would be different, that's for sure. He wouldn't He'd probably be in class right now, or he'd be in the middle of networking with his classmates, and his parents would be a lot happier with him. During his hellish summer interning at Lehman, Christy had laughed at him a lot about that. "It's not your parents' life, you know?" she had said, twining their fingers together. "No matter what they might tell you." She liked to talk about that a lot while they were dating, about venturing out, doing her own thing, even if she was only there because her parents made her get an internship too.
Eduardo hadn't quite believed her at the time, but he thinks he understands her now. He's making his own way in the world, carving out his own pocket of it. He doesn't think he'll ever be quite free of his parents and their expectations, but he's figured out what he wants, and he thinks he's figured out how to get it. He's got his job, and he's got Mark, and he's got Boston, and sometimes he'll walk through the Common by himself with the leaves crunching underneath his feet, and he knows he won't regret anything at all.
---
A week later, Eduardo finds dark bruises on Mark's ribs.
"What happened?" he asks, as Mark pulls off his t-shirt. Mark's skin is so pale that they really stand out, livid purples and blues.
Mark shrugs. "It doesn't matter," he says in a voice that means that Eduardo won't get anything else out of him about it. He straddles Eduardo's lap and kisses him, and his mouth tastes like mint mouthwash. His skin smells like soap.
Eduardo flips them over so that Mark's underneath him, all skinny limbs and messy hair. He kisses Mark again, because he's been thinking about Mark all day, about the weird quirk of his lips, and the angles of his shoulders, and the slight curve of his ass. He doesn't realize he's put a hand on one of Mark's bruises until Mark hisses through his teeth, eyes going dark and sharp. He looks the way he did talking to Billy Olsen, dangerous, even though Eduardo knows that Mark isn't. It something of a rush, seeing Mark like this right now, like Eduardo has a grenade underneath his hands, ready to explode any at any moment.
"Come on," Mark says, voice going rough and low. Eduardo can feel Mark's erection pressing against his hip, can see the bob of Mark's Adam's apple. He presses a hand against the bruise again, watches as Mark's lips curl into a snarl, watches Mark become someone else before his eyes. Mark's hands grab onto Eduardo's shoulders, and Eduardo wants more, wants to see how deep it goes, wants to--
He pulls back, trying to catch his breath, trying not to look at Mark's face or at Mark's ribs, trying not to remember the fucked up thrill of seeing the knife-edge of Mark's personality rise to the surface. Eduardo feels a little sick, because he shouldn't be getting off on this sort of shit. Everything about this is wrong, because he wants the Mark he sees every day, the one who gets into long rants about the outdated city computer systems, the one who can't quite hide his smile.
"Sorry, I just--" Eduardo says around the lump in his throat.
"What the fuck, Wardo?" Mark says, and when Eduardo looks at him, he looks more like himself, blank-faced and calm, steady in ways that Eduardo can't be.
"Nothing," Eduardo says, forcing a smile back onto his face. "It's nothing." He kisses Mark again, and this time he's careful to avoid the bruises.
---
It doesn't happen again.
Mark's the way he always is in bed, eager and selfish and giving in turns, and Eduardo doesn't see that expression -- the cold, dark one -- cross Mark's face. There are times when he'll walk into a room, just in time to watch Mark clam up, smoothing his face into something calm, mock-innocent, but that's not the same. It's nothing like seeing it clear as day, all of that written all over Mark's face.
Eduardo tries to put it out of his mind, and for the most part, it works.
(But sometimes, when he's by himself, he'll wonder what it would be like to see it again. He doesn't think Mark would ever really hurt him, but Eduardo does wonder sometimes whether or not, under the right circumstances, he could push Mark until he's close to that point. On one of the nights when Mark is busy with work, Eduardo jerks off to the memory of the curl of Mark's mouth, the hard, flinty look in Mark's eyes, and he mostly feels disgusted with himself when he comes.)
The days pass, and Mark gets even busier. He's angling for a promotion at work, it seems, but he doesn't talk about it with anyone but Dustin. Or Sean. But Eduardo spends most of his days trying to pretend that Sean doesn't exist. And that he doesn't have Mark's ear when it comes to well, anything that Mark won't tell Eduardo. Sean, the fuck up who never bothered to attempt college. Sean, who must have a fucking pharmacy in his room, considering the number of times Eduardo has seen him on something.
The heat spikes in July, and the humidity spikes with it. Mark's apartment doesn't have AC, which means that Sean is constantly bitching and moaning, and Dustin sets up camp in front of the rickety old fan in the kitchen, hogging all of the breeze to himself. Eduardo would say Mark is cold-blooded, but that's not entirely correct. He just doesn't seem to feel temperature changes the way other people do. In the summer, he'll put on a t-shirt and shorts like everyone else, but he doesn't seem to notice when his face and neck are covered in a fine sheen of sweat.
Chris starts spending more time around the apartment, mostly showing up to play some Halo and throw around trash talk with Dustin. Sometimes Mark talks to him, too, their heads bent over a map of the city arguing about things that Eduardo doesn't really quite follow. Eduardo likes Chris, though, likes his easy way with people and his Southern charm and the way he actually drinks coffee, unlike anyone else who lives in the apartment. Eduardo buys a coffee machine for them, a cheap Target one so that it matches everything else in the apartment, and at least he knows someone else can get some use out of it.
Mark's apartment feels like a second home. When Eduardo has bad days at work, or ends up talking to his father for more than five minutes at a time, he'll spend the evening at Mark's place, where Mark will let him in, no questions asked. On those nights, Mark will nudge over a controller or he'll sit in bed with a laptop, and Eduardo can sit there and read or work or just stare out the window, and no one will ask Eduardo for something he's not willing to give.
---
Mark gets his promotion it seems, because soon enough they can afford to rent out the apartment above them too, taking over the third floor of the drafty old house. The upstairs apartment is Mark's now, a place all to himself. Sean moves into Mark's old room. It's not so much a new apartment as an annex onto their old one, and Eduardo learns to tell the difference between Dustin's light footsteps and Mark's heavier ones on the stairs that connect them.
"You could--" Mark says after a month. "You practically live here anyway, and now there's a lot more space. It's not as nice as your current place, but I thought--"
Eduardo didn't really know anyone in the city when he first moved here so he hadn't looked for roommates, but now, when he goes back to his own apartment, it feels too quiet, too empty. It's nothing like the weird constant hustle and bustle of people coming in and out of Mark's apartment. Eduardo hadn't realized how much he needed to live with other people after years and years of dorm until he got it back. "You're here," Eduardo says. "That's good enough for me."
Eduardo doesn't actually have much in his apartment. Most of that stuff is at his parent's place in Florida, and he's lived the life of a boarding school kid, which means that he packs light and doesn't take much with him.
Mark's new rooms are smaller than the one on the second floor. The roof slants low in places, and as the days get warmer, it seems to hold onto the heat. But Eduardo can walk through the apartment and feel Mark in it, in the computer equipment scattered on his desk, in the pads of half-finished doodles, in the hoodies on the floor and the flip-flops next to the doorway.
Eduardo's suits join Mark's in the closet. His own brand of shaving cream sits next to Mark's on the bathroom sink. Eduardo's Wall Street Journal subscription starts showing up on Mark's doorstep. His life rearranges itself around Mark's patterns.
He wakes up to Mark's snores in the mornings, and he falls asleep to the hum of Mark's desktop at night, and sometimes he looks at Mark, bent over his computer screen, brow furrowed, fingers flying over the keys, and Eduardo thinks, yeah, this must be what it's like to be in love.
---
The only problem with living with Mark is Sean. Eduardo has hated Sean from the very first moment they met, and it's becoming clearer and clearer that the feeling is mutual. Sean watches Eduardo with suspicious eyes and a cruel twist of his lips. He touches Mark casually -- an arm around Mark's shoulders, a pat on Mark's head -- in a way that even Dustin and Chris don't attempt, and he makes snide references to trust fund kids whenever Eduardo is around.
"You think you know Mark?" Sean says one night when Mark is gone on one of his late-night business meetings. "You don't know jack shit about Mark." He's right up in Eduardo's face, and his smile is practically a sneer. Eduardo had thought it might be a good idea to gets some of his work done in the kitchen, but apparently he was wrong. Really wrong.
He clenches his fists, tries to keep his hands still. "It doesn't really matter, does it? He still chose me. He chooses me every fucking day." He doesn't have to be a fucking genius to see the way Sean hoards every bit of Mark's attention, every wide-eyed nod and whispered secret. He doesn't have to be a fucking genius to see the way Sean gloats over it, this piece of Mark that Eduardo's apparently not meant to have.
Fuck that. Sean had his chance at Mark and he blew it.
Sean laughs. That asshole actually has the audacity to laugh at him. "You really have no idea. It's cute. really cute. But it's not going to save you in the end."
Eduardo barely even realizes he's doing it, but it only takes him a second to grab a fistful of Sean's faded old t-shirt and shove Sean against the nearest wall. "It drives you nuts, doesn't it? That I don't know whatever the fuck you think I need to know about Mark, and he still wants to be with me."
Sean stands there, smirking, and Eduardo wants to kick his face in, just so he can wipe that expression off Sean's face. He wants to see Sean bent over, bleeding all over the floor, whimpering in pain. He wants to be the person who put Sean there. "No fucking idea," Sean says again. "It's got to be killing you inside, too." He laughs, brittle and hard, but he's looking at Eduardo like he can see all of Eduardo's sick, depraved throughts.
And it's not even worth it anymore. Eduardo lets Sean go, all the anger draining out of him. "Whatever," Eduardo says, stepping away. His hands are shaking. He doesn't know what the hell came over him, except that it was Sean, and it was Sean talking the same shit he always does.
Eduardo used to be a much better person than this.
---
Eduardo wakes to a scream of pain. It's sudden and loud in the night, and he's panicking before he realizes that it's not coming from Mark's side of the bed. It's dark in the room, and it takes a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the lighting. Mark isn't here.
There are frantic, muffled voices coming from the kitchen downstairs. Eduardo can barely pick out what they're saying, much less who any of them are.
"I told you we needed to take him straight to the hospital--"
"No, but there's--"
"-- doctors will want --"
"- Zuck knows what to--"
"-- can't remove the --"
"-- bleeding over--"
"-- go right now."
Once, at an AEPi party in college, one of the brothers stepped on some broken glass from a beer bottle with his bare feet. They'd had to call an ambulance, and they were cleaning the blood out of the carpeting for months. It had seemed like a big deal at the time, everyone freaking out everywhere, but in the end, it hadn't been that bad in the end. He'd needed a few stitches and a lot of bandages, but he was back home, resting the next day.
Whatever it is, Mark can handle it. He's not on his side of the bed, so he's probably already downstairs, working it out with the others.
Eduardo turns so that he's facing the window and not the doorway. The talking moves outside and he can hear a car start in front of the house. Eduardo hopes they get whoever it is to a hospital in time. He closes his eyes and drifts off into sleep.
---
Mark's always been something of a workaholic, but now he's barely ever leaving the office before 7pm. Eduardo misses him, but he mostly just ends up matching Mark's workaholic tendencies and staying at work late himself. Eduardo blames it on the upcoming election. Mark gets back to the apartment sleepy and annoyed, a tension simmering underneath his skin. He usually relaxes after an orgasm (or two), and while Eduardo doesn't exactly mind being Mark's version of stress relief, he's kind of worried about Mark's overall mental health.
Dustin shrugs when Eduardo asks him about it. "That's kind of just how Mark is," he says. "He doesn't really understand the meaning of slowing the fuck down."
And Eduardo has to laugh at that, because it's really true.
Mayor Winklevoss wins the election handily which causes all kinds of eyerolling around Eduardo's office from how utterly predictable it is. Dustin throws an impromptu celebratory party in the apartment. Eduardo somehow ends up so drunk he throws up all over their bathroom upstairs. He probably shouldn't have taken up Sean's challenge to a drinking contest, because really, his alcohol tolerance really isn't what it used to be in college. At least he can say that he won. Since Mark and Eduardo are the only people who live on the third floor, and Eduardo is still trying to fight off a really horrific hangover, Mark's the one responsible for cleaning up the mess.
"I've seen much more disgusting stuff than this in a bathroom," Mark says, rolling his eyes. "I lived with three sisters, remember?" He pauses for a moment, giving Eduardo a quiet look. "You really don't have to take Sean's bait, you know."
"He's such an asshole," Eduardo whines. It's embarrassing what a bad headache can do for his mental age.
Mark frowns at that. "Yeah. He's really-- I need to talk to him about that."
Eduardo wants to kiss him, but he still kind of has vomit-mouth, and he doesn't think Mark would appreciate that at all. As a thank you, he lets Mark blow him underneath his desk at work, and he only just manages to not embarrass himself when he gets an unexpected phone call halfway through. For a guy who's so closed off, Mark has a strangely intense exhibitionist streak.
Eduardo tells his sister about Mark, tells his mother about his new apartment and his friends and about how much he loves it here in Boston. He stutters out a quick mention of Mark to his father, who doesn't hate Mark on principle, it seems. Eduardo can tell that he's more upset that Mark's a college dropout with unclear future plans than he is about the fact that Mark has a penis.
Mark gets called out more often these days, and he always takes them outside, where he won't be overheard. Dustin gets a shiner on his left cheek from a bar fight, apparently. Chris ends up with a broken wrist a few weeks later. Sean continues to be Sean, but he and Mark are arguing these days. Eduardo doesn't know what it's about, but he can hear the way Mark's voice goes flat and hard when he mentions Sean's name. Eduardo tries not really smug about that, but he's pretty sure he fails.
"Is it me, or are you guys really accident-prone?" Eduardo says as he watches Chris awkwardly navigate his way around the coffee machine with a cast on.
Mark just shrugs and goes back to his computer. He's been glued to that thing for the past four weeks. He's apparently angling for another promotion soon. That would seem ridiculous to Eduardo, except that he knows how intense Mark is about his work, and he knows how fucking brilliant Mark is, and he knows that when Mark gets his mind set on something, he won't let anything stand in his way.
---
One night, Mark comes home angry, grim and intense, quiet. He walks right past Dustin, right past Eduardo, right past Chris, and goes straight for the alcohol. He yanks open the refrigerator door with more emotion than Eduardo has ever seen on his face.
"Fuck this," Mark says. He downs half of his beer in one chug, and then he walks back outside, leaving everyone else behind in stunned silence.
Eduardo starts to go after him, but Dustin waves him off. "I've got this one," he says. "It's probably about work." He disappears out the door, following Mark.
It feels like they talk outside forever, but it's only really about half an hour. Eduardo sits at the kitchen table with a copy of Freakonomics that his sister insisted that he read, even though he hates pop-econ books. He keeps checking the clock, listening the steady tick of the second hand.
When they come back inside, Mark is more settled again, more like himself. "We're going to do this," Mark says to Dustin, steady and sure. He's got an idea in his head, and he's not about to let it go anytime soon.
Dustin grins. "Sure thing, boss," he says. Dustin usually only calls Mark 'boss' as a joke with an undertone of teasing mockery when he thinks Mark is being a douche (which is often).
It's different this time. Eduardo can't quite put his finger on what it is, but it's different. Something's changed in the air. Something's changed in Mark, and Eduardo can feel something cold tighten around his chest. There's no going back from this, Eduardo knows, and he doesn't even understand what's going on.
"Fuck them," Mark says. "They're a bunch of morons who can't see past their own outdated piece-of-shit system." He looks right at Dustin. "We can do better." There's a light in his eyes right now, like something's come alive inside him. Eduardo's never seen it before.
He stands next to Mark, places a hand on his shoulder. He wants to know what's going on in Mark's head, wants to open it up like a book and read the pages and pages inside. He remembers what Sean said, about how he doesn't know Mark at all, and sometimes it feels so true it hurts. "Hey," Eduardo says. He gives Mark's shoulder a squeeze.
Mark ignores him.
---
Eduardo has never had much love for Sean, but it's still a surprise when he just disappears one morning. Eduardo passes by Sean's room on his way to the kitchen, and it's empty. except for the desk, a chair, and the remnants of the bed. It's been stripped clean of sheets. Things have been weird with Sean lately. Mark's eyes don't fix on Sean when he enters the room anymore, and Sean makes snide comments about Mark's work habits more often these days, but this is still sudden.
Mark is sitting at the kitchen table with dark bags underneath his eyes and a can of Red Bull in one hand. Chris is on the phone to someone, and it doesn't look like he's gotten much sleep either. Dustin is face down on the couch, snoring into the cushions.
"What happened?" Eduardo says.
There's a mass of papers spread out over the kitchen table covered in Mark's messy handwriting, and Mark is staring at them intently. "I think we've managed to figure out where they're--" he blinks once, twice, and then looks up, still riding high on the caffeine. "Oh, you mean Sean. He went to Palo Alto."
Sean likes to run his mouth. If he'd been planning on going to Palo Alto, it would have been all he could talk about for months. But for all Eduardo knows, Sean met some girl at a party and decided to follow her all the way back to California. "Okay," Eduardo says. He would have thought Mark would be more upset about one of his closest friends leaving so suddenly, but Mark's also pulled an all-nighter for something and kept Dustin and Chris awake with him. That might count as upset in Mark's book. Eduardo isn't sure.
Mark kisses him, his eager, jittery hands sliding into Eudardo's hair. "It's going to be amazing," he says against Eduardo's lips. "You're going to have to see it, Wardo."
Sometimes, Eduardo thinks they must be speaking a different language, that they must be from different fucking planets. "Okay," he says, resting his hands on Mark's hips. "Okay, I will."
---
They're out on the porch, and Mark is talking bullshit about changing everything. It's night, and it's cold, and Eduardo doesn't really know why they're outside. Mark wanted to talk while Dustin and his closest fifty friends are having a house party upstairs. The heavy bass of the music drifts down, but other than that, he and Mark can actually hear each other talk.
"I need your help," Mark says. "Dustin and I have some money saved up, but it's not going to be enough for what we need to do." His eyes are quiet, cold, flinty. He's lost in his idea again, the one he only half-talks about around Eduardo. It's the one that keeps him up all night and leaves him twitchy and exhausted in the mornings, and Eduardo is so terrified that Mark is going to just .
Eduardo's been making good money investing in his free time. He's got a lot more spare cash now that he's living with Mark, and he figured that setting up his own 'fuck you' fund is not a bad idea, especially if his father ever actually cuts him off the way he keeps threatening to. The fund is pretty large now, creeping close to a million dollars. Some people knit in their free time. Eduardo likes making money. "Is this a computer thing?" Eduardo asks. "Because I'd be willing to invest in--"
"It's not a computer thing," Mark says, cutting him off.
"Then what's the money for, Mark?" Eduardo says. The words feel heavy on his tongue, because if it's not a computer thing--
Mark's stare is steady, unblinking. "You know exactly what the money is for, Wardo."
Eduardo hadn't understood any of it until this moment, but he realizes that he's known all along. He's known it in Mark's weird hours and the half-whispered jokes about Mayor Winklevoss and the gun that Dustin still cleans on the kitchen table. He's known it in the way Mark looks sometimes, like he wouldn't even blink if he had to cut you open. It feels like Eduardo has built these perfect, high walls around himself, but Mark has just put holes in them, and everything is spilling in. Eduardo doesn't know how to keep it all out.
If he gives Mark the money, there's no going back from this. He can't unlearn the things he's learned. He can't go back to pretending that Mark is just some low-level aide in the mayor's office. If he gives Mark the money, he'll be complicit in everything Mark does with it. Everything.
He looks at Mark. The porch light illuminate the sharp angles of his face, the grim line of his mouth. Eduardo wonders how he could have ever seen Mark and thought he looked young. Mark has seen things that would give Eduardo nightmares for weeks.
"I'm not a part of this," Eduardo says. "You know that." Mark must really be hard up for cash if he's coming to Eduardo for this, and Eduardo loves Mark. Eduardo loves Mark so much it makes his teeth ache, and Mark never asks Eduardo for anything that Eduardo isn't willing to give.
"I know," Mark says. "It's just the money. You won't ever have to know what happens to it. I can return it to you, with interest, in a year."
Eduardo closes his eyes. He doesn't even want to look at Mark right now. "Okay," he says, and he can hear his voice shake. "You can have it. I'll set up a joint account in the morning."
Mark doesn't say anything to that, but he leans in and kisses Eduardo, steady and firm. The first time Eduardo kissed Mark, he was on this porch. The sun had been high in the sky, and Mark's lips had tasted like apple and cinnamon, and it had been good, really good.
When Eduardo opens his eyes, Mark is already gone.
FIN.