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The first time they get caught, it’s because Mark is watching a movie with Eduardo that is really fucking boring, and Eduardo has his brow furrowed in concentration and his button-down shirt open at the collar, and Mark wants to put his mouth in the dip of his throat. He’s never been all that good at denying himself the things he wants.
“Mark, what—” Eduardo says in this breathless little voice, the words vibrating against Mark’s lips, and his sentence breaks off when Mark bites him sharply.
“Keep watching if you want,” Mark murmurs, and Eduardo lets a strangled laugh; Mark supposes he might be sending some mixed messages considering that he’s undoing each button of Eduardo’s shirt and slipping it off his shoulders as he speaks.
“Your faith in my ability to multitask is—probably misplaced,” Eduardo says, shifting around as Mark rakes his teeth lightly over Eduardo’s collarbone. His shirt is caught around his wrists, and there’s a flush spreading down his chest, and he looks—fuck. Mark slides down to his knees in one move, pushing Eduardo’s legs apart and settling between them. “Mark,” Eduardo hisses, darting a look toward the door which they didn’t lock because they’d just been planning to watch a movie before Mark got distracted (really, it’s Eduardo’s fault for—for having that face), but Mark ignores him and pops the button on his pants and slides the zipper down.
Eduardo’s protests die out immediately as soon as Mark gets his mouth on Eduardo’s cock, and his thighs go tense under Mark’s hands. “Mark, Mark, fuck,” Eduardo says, voice wavering.
It’s about then that the door bangs open and an unsuspecting Chris walks inside.
“Whoa!” Chris gapes at them in utter shock for a moment. Mark pulls off of Eduardo’s cock because it’s polite, he supposes; but he stays where he is, knees on the floor and bracketed by Eduardo’s thighs, mouth only inches from Eduardo’s lap, eyeing Chris a little balefully. Chris shakes his head sharply. “That—oh my god, I did not need to see that,” he says in a kind of a yelp, shielding his eyes with one hand and darting inside. “Fuck, I need my binder, I’ll be out in a sec. I’m happy for you guys, really, but put a fucking sock on the doorknob!”
Eduardo makes a strangled noise of mortification and tries to push Mark away with one hand, but Mark can see his hips thrust up a little bit, his other hand tightening in the fabric of the couch. Hmmm. Interesting. Mark leans down to suck his cock back into his mouth again, and shivers a little at the ragged, gut-punched breath Eduardo lets out.
“Or really, just a sign that says ‘We’re fucking in here’ will do,” Chris calls out before he slams the door shut behind him and leaves them alone again.
“Mark, I can’t believe you,” Eduardo says, but his voice is wobbling all over the place, and his free hand is fisting in Mark’s hair now, and he has his head thrown back against the couch; basically, he looks anything but upset.
Mark pulls off. He waits for Eduardo’s helplessly indignant noise before he starts jerking him off, and then he says, with his whole body thrumming with knowing he’s right, “Did you like getting caught, Wardo? Did you like Chris seeing me suck you off, the way you want it so much?” Eduardo makes a high, frantic noise. His eyes are trained on Mark and so, so dark. “I think you did. I know you did,” Mark says flatly, and Eduardo chokes on Mark’s name and comes all over his hand, trembling through it like Mark knocked all the control out of him. Jesus.
“Fuck,” Eduardo says weakly, after a minute. His breath is still audibly fast. “Get up here.” Mark needs no other persuasion to scramble into his lap and let Eduardo get some of his own back.
“I did like it,” Eduardo says later, much later, a whisper of a confession when they’re falling asleep and he probably thinks he can get away with pretending he believes Mark can’t hear him.
Mark hears him.
*
This starts a—well, a pattern, of sorts.
*
It’s Dustin, after that—who knows they’re sleeping together, thanks to Chris, but probably doesn’t expect to walk in and see this: Eduardo at Mark’s desk chair, legs sprawled out, Mark straddling him and doing his level best to make him come without getting his clothes off.
“I’d come over there and high-five you right now, Mark, but you look kind of busy,” Dustin says, grinning wildly. “You too, Wardo, way to go.”
Eduardo lets out a noise that might be a laugh or maybe a groan of distress, and hides his face in Mark’s neck. Mark holds him in with a hand on the back of his head, and shoots Dustin a pointed look. Eduardo’s face feels hot, probably from the blood rushing to it, but he keeps running his mouth over Mark’s skin, tongue flicking out to taste every now and again. Mark grits his teeth to hold in any sounds he might make (Dustin would never let him hear the end of it) and grinds down, working his hips against Eduardo’s as the chair creaks a little.
“I’m going, I’m going,” Dustin says, flapping a hand at them. “I know when I’m not wanted!”
“News to me,” Mark mutters, even as he’s running his nails roughly through Eduardo’s hair because he knows it’ll make him let out this low sound that cracks down the middle. Mark does it again just to hear it one more time. Dustin blows them a kiss and then flashes them a pair of thumbs up, and underneath Mark’s running thoughts of Dustin get the fuck out of here, Eduardo likes people walking in on us and maybe I do too, but I really don’t want you here when I’m about to come in my pants and make horrifying faces as I do, he’s maybe a little pleased that Dustin is pleased for them.
“Mark,” Eduardo says desperately, both hands on Mark’s ass and pulling him down hard to grind their cocks together, and yeah, after that Mark’s too busy kissing Eduardo and coming to really notice whether or not Dustin actually leaves.
*
Really, the problem is that they’re just having so much sex. Which is—not much of a problem, actually. It’s not something Mark ever really expected to happen to him. But Eduardo and his stupid face and his long legs and his polite, soft voice that likes to scream Mark’s name—Mark can’t keep away from him, and his impulse control has always been limited at best, so they end up having sex everywhere.
They get caught more than half the time, but Mark doesn’t embarrass easily, and the way Eduardo makes noises of mortification but goes pink all over in a way that has nothing to do with embarrassment, well—it’s not exactly a deterrent.
*
They’re under a tree one time. Mark didn’t know people even did that, but Eduardo is apparently all kinds of inspiring.
It starts out innocently enough. Eduardo has something to read for one of his classes and it’s actually nice out for once, and apparently Mark has been tipping toward the “death warmed over” end of the scale recently. Eduardo tells him very firmly, “You’re going outside with me,” and Mark says something along the lines of, “I have a project to work on, I don’t have time to frolic in the sunshine or whatever you’re planning,” and then Eduardo says even more firmly, “You’re going to come outside and take a nap, Mark.” And Mark goes. Because—whatever. Eduardo’s face.
So Eduardo finds a tree that is miraculously unoccupied, with not too many people around, and settles down with his book and his legs all stretched out, and then he looks at Mark and fucking pats his thigh. What. Mark glares at him but finds himself lying down with his head on Eduardo’s leg anyway. It’s kind of nice, actually, though Mark isn’t about to tell Eduardo that. Mark sleeps to recharge, mainly, he sleeps so he can get up and accomplish other things; he doesn’t really relax and enjoy taking a nap, and Eduardo’s hand is running through his hair carefully, and Eduardo’s leg is pretty comfortable under Mark’s head.
Maybe he’d even manage to fall asleep like this, the sound of Eduardo turning pages above his head, Eduardo’s hand resting warm against his face, except—he’s kind of distantly exhausted from doing too much on too little sleep, but not really tired. His mind won’t turn off and let him sleep, and also. Eduardo had an early class this morning, and Mark was immersed in the project he has due, and they didn’t have sex this morning. Mark is distinctly aware of that, especially when he can feel Eduardo’s thigh muscles flexing under his cheek.
Mark makes his mind up and scoots his head a little closer, turns a bit, presses his mouth to the crease between hip and thigh. Breathes out against the fabric, and then scoots up a little more until his mouth is over Eduardo’s cock.
Eduardo locks up, goes absolutely still for a moment. Mark waits, tongues the line of the zipper on his jeans.
“Fuck,” Eduardo says breathlessly, and drops his book, grabbing Mark by the hair in the same instant. “Mark, we can’t—”
“Is there anyone around?” Mark asks quietly, sliding a hand under Eduardo’s shirt to rest flat-palmed against his stomach.
“No,” Eduardo breathes.
“That’s a shame,” Mark says. Eduardo hisses a breath through his teeth, and Mark rises up until he’s kneeling next to Eduardo. He puts his mouth against Eduardo’s ear, and pops the button on his jeans, and he has his hand around Eduardo’s cock when he says, “This was a good idea, Wardo. Very relaxing.”
Eduardo laughs, a sound that stutters when Mark rubs his thumb over the head of his cock. “Asshole,” Eduardo says fondly, and tips his head back against the tree with his eyes falling shut.
Mark kisses the corner of his mouth, makes Eduardo turn his head to the side a little so he can kiss him fully while he jerks him off. Eduardo still has his eyes closed, but Mark doesn’t, so he sees the girl—short, blond, backpack slung over her shoulder and headphones on—starting to walk past them. He sees her catch sight of them and stop, mouth falling open for a moment; Mark just stares right back at her, and works his hand around Eduardo’s cock a couple more times.
Surprisingly, the girl just closes her mouth and looks kind of amused, before winking at him and continuing on her way. Huh. Okay, then.
Mark says, “Wardo. Open your eyes.”
Eduardo does, instantly. He sees the disappearing back of the girl, and Mark watches him realize—the direction she’d been coming from, she’d seen, she’d seen them—
Eduardo falls apart under Mark’s hands, biting his own lip until it bleeds a little.
Mark says, afterward, “I made sure you didn’t come on your book.”
“How considerate of you,” Eduardo says, grinning a little. His lip is swollen. Mark has to kiss him for it.
*
Sometimes it’s Eduardo who starts it, too. Like when he waits for Mark outside his classroom, smiling at everyone who walks by like the polite, well-mannered person he is; and none of them know that in thirty seconds Eduardo will drag Mark into a deserted hallway, and shove him up against the wall, and kiss him so sloppily and hungrily that their mouths make wet smacking noises when they part. Having sex in a place that open would be too much for them, but Eduardo has no problem pressing Mark into the wall with the line of his body, and thrusting his cock against Mark’s hip, and sucking a vivid, throbbing bruise onto Mark’s throat.
Mark puts his hand at the base of Eduardo’s back and yanks him in closer, tugs on Eduardo’s hair with his free hand. Once in a while someone comes down that hallway, shooting them looks that vary from shock, to annoyance, to yeah, nice job man. Mark watches them go with his eyes half-lidded, and Eduardo keeps his face in Mark’s neck and pants hotly against his skin.
This public-sex thing they’re doing—they don’t really talk about it. It happens a lot, partly because Eduardo likes it so much he forgets about manners and appropriate behavior and all that other shit he’s had drilled into him, and Mark loves watching him fall apart, loves knowing he’s the one to do it and everyone else knows that too; but mainly it happens because, well. They can’t keep their hands off each other. Eduardo walks around looking like—like someone Mark never thought he’d get to have, and why would he wait an hour or two to get back to one of their rooms? Fuck, sometimes ten minutes is too long to wait, Mark needs to get his hands on him now, and Eduardo looks at him exactly the same way. They can’t exactly get wildly athletic in the places they duck into, so mostly it’s quick, fumbling handjobs and sloppy blowjobs where Mark tries to see how fast he can make Eduardo come down his throat, and whether or not his knees will give afterward (they do; Eduardo slides all wobbly to the floor, but Mark catches him, fully aware that he looks smug as fuck at the moment, but Eduardo doesn’t seem to mind).
They’ve also kind of got this thing for bathrooms.
Like this one time they’re all four of them out, and Eduardo just shoots Mark a look over the top of his fork, resting it against his lower lip and mouthing it slightly. Mark stares at his mouth intently, eyes narrowing a little. Dustin tells him sometimes that he gets this creepy-as-fuck reptilian look on his face when he’s concentrating on something, but whatever—that look always makes Eduardo go pink when he’s the subject of it, a slow flush spreading down his neck, eyes going dark. Like now.
“Bathroom,” Eduardo says by way of explanation when he gets up, and shoots Mark another hot-eyed look before walking away. Mark doesn’t even bother waiting for a minute and making some excuse, he knows they’re about the farthest thing possible from subtle.
Chris has his face in his hands. Dustin just grins at him. “Go on, Mark, you don’t want to be late for your bathroom tryst.”
“I don’t think the honeymoon period is supposed to last three months,” Chris mutters, and rolls his eyes a little when Mark just shrugs unapologetically. He does look kind of amused, though.
Mark walks into the bathroom to find Eduardo leaning against the counter.
“Hi,” Eduardo says, grinning a little.
“That was shockingly subtle, the way you left there,” Mark says, smirking.
“I try,” Eduardo says, and his eyes flare gratifyingly hot when Mark shoves a trashcan in front of the door and walks toward him. It probably won’t hold against anyone really determined to get inside, but maybe they’ll try it and think the door’s jammed and leave.
Mark forgets, sometimes, that Eduardo is a lot taller than him and pretty strong too—he remembers it now, though, when Eduardo puts his hands under Mark’s thighs and lifts him up onto the counter. “Fuck, Wardo,” Mark says quietly, and he has never been more glad to be wearing sweatpants, because Eduardo just shoves them down with ease and gets a hand around his cock, and it’s fucking amazing. Eduardo jerks him off with single-minded intensity, and Mark tips his head back against the mirror, watches Eduardo’s hand work and his tongue flick out to wet his lips again and again.
Mark doesn’t know how long they’ve been in there, but he jolts a little when someone twists the doorknob and then bangs on the door. Eduardo’s eyes lock onto his for a frozen moment, and then he’s twisting his wrist, and leaning in to bite Mark’s nipple through his t-shirt, and Mark can’t stop himself from making this strangled sound that is so loud.
The banging stops.
It’s so incredibly obvious what they’re doing in here, everyone’s going to know when they walk out; everyone will see Eduardo and Mark, and they’ll know, they’ll know that Eduardo is with Mark—
Mark’s shirt is a lost cause when they’re finished.
“It’s more hole than shirt anyway,” Eduardo tells him, and balls it up and puts it in the trash. He gives his jacket to Mark instead, and Mark zips it up over his bare skin. It’s too long in the arms, too long everywhere, really, but it makes Eduardo stare at him kind of distractedly. It smells like Eduardo, and Mark shivers a little.
There’s a guy waiting a few feet away from the door when they exit. He kind of smirks at them both and tips his head toward them before going inside. With the number of times this has happened, Mark would think that by now Eduardo would get over his embarrassment, would stop flushing up and squirming a little. But he doesn’t. And it’s not that he’s ashamed, it’s that Eduardo believes in things like standards of behavior in public, things Mark doesn’t usually bother with, and when Eduardo forgets himself and just does what he wants, it’s probably a little—jarring. Like Mark is changing him a little, making him loosen up. Mark likes that idea. He bets Eduardo does too.
Once they’re back at their table, Eduardo puts his hand against the back of Mark’s neck and keeps running his thumb over it, again and again. Mark leans into the touch.
“I can’t decide if you two are adorable or revolting,” Chris says dryly, eyeing them sidelong.
“Adoravolting?” Dustin suggests. “Redorable.”
“I just had sex and you two didn’t,” Mark says complacently. “I want another drink.”
Chris and Dustin both tease him a little more, but Mark just feels the way Eduardo knocks his forehead against Mark’s shoulder, laughing.
Mark puts his hand on Eduardo’s leg and keeps it there.
*
It’s not just—Mark likes touching Eduardo in all ways, really. Non-sexual ways too. Sometimes he gets distracted or lost in his coding, and he likes having Eduardo’s leg thrown over his own in a distant reminder in the back of his mind that Eduardo is still there. Like knowing he has something to return to.
Eduardo reads with his head on Mark’s lap, sometimes; jabs Mark’s hand with his chopsticks and grins at him with sauce on his chin, and then lets Mark lick it off a second later. When Mark has a class and Eduardo doesn’t, Eduardo will walk him there with a hand on his back, and Mark yanks his head down to kiss him thoroughly before he goes inside.
Mark gets intense headaches sometimes, and Eduardo will spend an hour in his bedroom with the lights off, rubbing gentle circles over his temples and kissing his hair. Sometimes Eduardo kisses his hair even when he doesn’t have a headache, in public, for no reason. People look at them. Mark likes it, with a deep possessive thrill; tips his chin up and thinks at all of them, He’s mine.
He just likes people looking. He likes seeing them want what they’re not going to have. Because Eduardo is Mark’s, and Eduardo wants people to watch him belonging to Mark.
*
And then Eduardo goes home over break.
*
It’s two weeks Mark spends without him, pretending that he is so much more functional than he really is. It’s two weeks that crawl, two weeks of jerking himself off and thinking about Eduardo, making do with phone calls that start to inexplicably decline.
It’s only two weeks, though, Mark tells himself. Eduardo will be back and everything will go back to normal.
*
Eduardo comes back. Things don’t go back to normal.
*
Mark doesn’t know it, but this is the beginning of the end.
*
Eduardo comes back looking worn, stretched thin, uneasy around the eyes. He smiles at Mark, but it’s a strained smile. He kisses him but it’s hesitant.
The first time after Eduardo is back that Mark tries to have sex with Eduardo somewhere that isn’t the privacy of his room, Eduardo jerks his hand out of Mark’s grasp, and then looks immediately apologetic. He says carefully, “My—my father—” and then stops.
Mark looks at him, blank-faced. He knows Eduardo has not told his parents about Mark, beyond the fact that Mark is his friend. That’s all right. Mark hasn’t told his parents either, though not out of fear of their reaction or anything—no, they’re just nosy as hell, and they’d pester Eduardo to death if Mark said anything. He has a feeling his sister might suspect something, though. But Eduardo—Eduardo is afraid of his father’s words and disappointment, an ingrained lifelong fear he’s grown up with. He doesn’t talk about it much, but Mark can see it in the way he goes closed-off and straight-backed whenever he gets on the phone with his father.
Eduardo looks off-balance and ashamed of himself, like he knows how ridiculous it is to worry that somehow his dad is going to hear all the way in Florida that his son likes to fuck Mark Zuckerberg in bathrooms and hallways and all over the place, really. It’s completely irrational. But he still doesn’t look like he’s planning to follow Mark anytime soon.
“Okay,” Mark says flatly, and walks with him back to his room. It’s fine. Eduardo just needs some time to switch over from the persona he uses to deal with his father. To remember that he’s allowed to do what he wants here. It’ll be fine.
*
It is fine, for a while.
They just have sex in one of their rooms now, instead of wherever they can find enough time to get at each other. It’s not like Mark doesn’t like having sex in a bed. Having sex in a bed means that he gets to stretch Eduardo out, completely naked and golden all over, and he gets to slick his fingers and put them inside Eduardo one at a time, so slow, patient and steady until Eduardo is swearing at Mark in Portuguese and begging him to go faster. It means he can fuck Eduardo and make him cry out, and he can lie down with him afterward while they catch their breath. Mark likes having sex in beds.
But Eduardo still pulls back in public, just a little bit. Just enough for Mark to notice. He is not so easy with his affection; throws an arm around Mark still, but does not let his fingers linger against Mark’s jawline in a caress.
Mark wonders what Eduardo’s father could have said to him, what could have left such a mark that Eduardo is still carrying it around weeks afterward. Does he suspect that Eduardo likes guys? Does he suspect it’s Mark? Mark knows that Eduardo talks about him a lot, he’s heard him on the phone with his mother and recognizes his own name through the Portuguese. Mark doesn’t like what happens to Eduardo when he talks to his father. He can only imagine what their conversations must be like in person.
Whatever it is that happened, Eduardo is still walking around looking a little shadowed, and he’s pulling away from Mark. Mark doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t know what to say, and anyway, Eduardo should come to him first. Eduardo always wants to know everything that’s on Mark’s mind, he should know he can come to Mark.
He should know.
*
And the thing is, Mark is under no illusion that he’s some kind of a catch. Well, he knows that he’s incredibly intelligent and quite frankly above the intellectual level of most people around him. But he’s aware that even if others see that, they usually find it outweighed by his lack of social awareness, his awkward way of going through life, and his, well, his brutal honesty. Eduardo seems to like him exactly as he is, and that makes Eduardo nothing more than the most baffling anomaly Mark has ever encountered.
So the fact is that Eduardo could do better for himself, or at least better by other people’s standards. By his father’s standards. It would be easier, no doubt. There are plenty of girls who stand around giggling inanely at Eduardo and watching him with nothing less than a predatory look in their eyes, and if Eduardo were to take up with one of them, that would set his father’s suspicions to rest. Any of them would be easier to be with than Mark, too; they wouldn’t say they’d meet him at one time and forget until it’s three hours too late. They would know the right things to say at all times. They’d be nice.
So what’s there to stop Eduardo? Mark doesn’t really know, and it’s—more frightening than he expects.
(He’s never reacted well to fear. Fear makes him defensive, angry; this kind of fear means that he’s handed too much of himself over to another person, given them the power to wound him. He’s never been comfortable with that.)
They don’t talk about it.
Mark falls asleep with Eduardo’s hand wrapped around his wrist, wakes with Eduardo curling fully into him like he doesn’t do much anymore, and they still don’t talk about it.
*
(Years later, Mark will wonder why they were both so fucking stupid. All it would have taken was a real conversation and they could have made it work. Instead, there was Mark waiting around for Eduardo to leave him, wanting to hurt before he got hurt; and then there was Eduardo, perpetually unsure of his place in Mark’s life, if it was just sex or if Mark wanted him around always. And between wobbling in his relationships with his father and Mark both, he drew back and chose his father, because he had eighteen years of learning how to stay in his father’s good graces, at least. He knew how to make his father proud of him. Mark was harder. Mark was uncertain.
Eduardo will tell Mark this and Mark will just gape at him, because—he’d spent all that time feeling like his feelings were written clear across his forehead, that his desperate possessiveness plainly translated to I want to keep you forever, and—he’d gotten used to Eduardo knowing him better than anyone else could.
“I was really easy for you,” Eduardo will say, a little dry, a little vulnerable, “I didn’t—I didn’t know if that was why you wanted me. Because I was there and we were already friends and I would have done—anything.”
Then Mark will have to kiss him, and kiss him again, and mourn wasted time as he counts the beat of Eduardo’s pulse under his fingertips. “We were really stupid,” he says fervently. “Let’s not do that again.”
And Eduardo will laugh a little, bright and breathless, and christ they were stupid to let this fall apart, but somehow they made it here anyway; and Mark will give his all to make sure they stay this way for good.)
*
Only, that is yet to come.
*
Now it is a slow splintering apart, too much silence, an inability to work past fear of being laughed at; and Mark throws himself into his classes and his projects and spends less and less time with Eduardo, and Eduardo—lets him.
Eduardo’s going to leave him, of course he’s going to leave him, why would he stay with Mark who will make things so difficult for him with his father? Eduardo is going to leave him, and Mark will not let him say it first.
“I think we should stop. Sleeping together,” Mark says stiffly one day, and finds he can’t quite look Eduardo in the face while he’s saying it. “We haven’t been anyway, lately, and—if either of us wants someone else we should be free to do that.”
“Oh,” Eduardo says after a beat, very quietly. Mark looks up at Eduardo, but he’s looking down so Mark can’t really see his eyes. “You—okay, then.”
Okay then. That’s clear enough. If Eduardo had really wanted—
Anyway. It’s decidedly awkward for a while, and Chris and Dustin tiptoe around the pair of them with worried glances and sad eyes, and some part of Mark is afraid that he’s just lost all of Eduardo entirely, but—Eduardo doesn’t seem inclined to go anywhere. He wanders around shooting Mark slightly wary looks, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t leave. And the subset of people who actually like Mark is so small, he’d be a total moron to eliminate even one of them, so somehow they make the best friends thing work.
Even if it’s still awkward. Even if Mark catches Eduardo staring at his mouth sometimes, hot-eyed, before he jerks away guiltily and stammers something off-topic. Even if Mark sees people making out in hallways and has to set his shoulders against the burn of memory. Awkwardness fades, and so does memory, and they get past it all, eventually.
*
And then comes Erica (who is funny and smart and uncomplicated, until he goes and breaks that too).
And then Christy (who sets off all his frightening ever-present jealousy and possessiveness, because he is in a bathroom stall listening to Eduardo come from the other side of a wall, listening to him make noises that belong to Mark), and then thefacebook becomes just Facebook, because Sean fucking Parker, and everything is moving too fast and spiraling out of control and Mark can’t split his energy between two things and make them both mediocre, he has to pick one and make it fucking extraordinary, and. He picks Facebook.
He picks Facebook, and then Eduardo is smashing his laptop and walking away and facing him across a table with his hair slicked back and his armor up, staring at him with all that blind disbelieving hurt in his eyes and Mark’s hands are shaking but he hides them under the table, and he won’t ever get to push Eduardo against a wall and kiss him in front of everyone ever again. This is what it feels like when something is really broken.
*
Except, it’s just that—
Eduardo is the one thing that he cannot predict, cannot map, cannot make sense of, and when it turns out years later that broken can be mended with some effort, Mark’s never been more glad to be wrong in his life.
*
Okay, so, it’s not like Mark makes it a habit to regularly stalk Eduardo’s Facebook page or anything. For one thing, it’s been a few years and Mark doesn’t actually spend all his time thinking about Eduardo. He’s even dated a little, and it’s been—nice. For another, Eduardo’s Facebook page is pretty minimal at best. Anyone visiting it would walk away with only the barest idea of who he is, the outer meaningless shell; they wouldn’t know that behind all of Eduardo’s carefully cultivated refinement lurks someone who is as dorky as Dustin on his best day. They wouldn’t know what Eduardo looks like when he’s fallen asleep on top of his notebook and wakes up with ink smeared on his cheek. They wouldn’t know one tenth of what makes him up. Mark knows all of these things already, and he wants to know everything he’s missed in the years that have passed, everything he wasn’t there to witness firsthand, but he’s not going to find that on Eduardo’s Facebook page.
He still checks it once in a while, though, when he’s drunk or nostalgic (or lonely).
He doesn’t usually find much, so when he’s poking around this time, it takes him almost a full minute to realize what he’s looking at: a new picture that’s been uploaded, of Eduardo with his arm around a shorter, blond man. They’re both smiling kind of shyly at the camera, and Mark feels his breath catch against an unexpected block in his throat. That is not—that is not a platonic kind of half-embrace; that is the look of shared intimacy. Mark has known the weight of that arm curled around his shoulders, fingers on his skin.
Mark stares and stares and breathes.
Fuck. Where is all of Eduardo’s hesitance now? Where is his fear of his father, why is he defying him with this guy, why didn’t he with Mark?.
Mark closes the page and codes for the rest of the day, typing until his fingers ache and his shoulders are too tight and his eyes burn a little with the strain. Dustin and Chris shoot him slightly worried looks over the next few days, so presumably they saw Eduardo’s page at some point. Mark just ignores it, though, for the most part—ignoring things is something of a specialty of his, pushing them into some corner of his mind until the time when he absolutely has to deal with it.
And it’s not—there’s a part of him that is happy for Eduardo, because Mark’s seen first-hand the shadows that have been left behind by buckling under his father’s rules, and if this means that Eduardo has moved past needing approval and is living for himself, Mark is happy. He wants him to do well.
There’s also the ugly, jealous part of him that snarls at the sight of Eduardo’s hands on someone that isn’t him; the part of him that fucked Eduardo loudly in bathrooms and sucked bruises into his neck and made him walk with his collar open to let everyone see; the part that thinks mine, mine, mine, that has never learned to share or to be gracious in defeat. Mark knows that part of himself, accepts it, has no illusions about who he is; he is thoroughly familiar with his worst self.
But he’s trying—trying to act in ways that don’t get him on academic probation or dumped in bars or left with the broken pieces of a laptop in front of him, ways that used to make Eduardo beam at him proudly, like he’s getting closer to becoming a functional human being. It’s an ongoing process. So he holds on to the part of himself that is happy for Eduardo; he gets drunk at home but he doesn’t write scathing diatribes for everyone to see; only once does he give in to the urge to look up the other guy in the picture (Jeremy Wright, 27, graduated with a degree in mathematics, has a younger brother, likes foreign movies, he and Eduardo probably have intelligent mathematical conversations and then watch Portuguese movies together and then have incredibly athletic sex, fuck).
And then Mark just pushes it all to the back of his mind and keeps going.
This is something like progress.
*
There’s a shareholders’ meeting a few months later, and Mark’s been very careful to avoid Eduardo’s Facebook page all that time, so it’s a little bit of a shock to see Eduardo right there in front of him. It’s always a bit of a shock seeing Eduardo in person, though they never really interact beyond a few carefully bland civilities (civilities that gut Mark deeper than anger ever would), but even more so this time. Eduardo comes to the meeting as impeccably dressed as usual, smiles at people and holds the door open, gaze skating over Mark without a stutter. Mark stares at Eduardo surreptitiously through the entire meeting, trying to see if there is anything visibly different about him; if somehow his confidence sits in the line of his shoulders, if there is contentment in the languid movements of his wrists as he writes. Mark remembers the words People don’t walk around with a sign saying—, and he looks at Eduardo and wonders are you happy?.
Part of him hopes he is. The other part wants, viciously, for Eduardo to be miserable with anyone who isn’t him; he wants Eduardo to miss Mark like a hole’s been carved out of him, he wants Eduardo to come back to him. Mark wants a lot of things he can’t have, because Mark does not have it in him to make the first move, to put himself out there so he can be wounded. That is why he turned away from Erica’s table and didn’t apologize right there years ago, why he’s spent the past few years letting Eduardo smile at him politely and blankly at events like they don’t even know each other, instead of saying I’m sorry, come back, I need you. He said I need you once and it went unheard; he won’t do it again. He can’t. That is Mark, and he can’t change.
Mark blinks and realizes the room is almost empty. The meeting must have ended while he was stuck in his thoughts, and the last couple of people leave while Mark turns back to his laptop. He’s only been working for another few minutes or so before the door opens again, and Mark somehow knows, he knows without even looking up who it is; so when he finally does look up and sees Eduardo standing in the middle of the room, it’s not as big of a shock as it could be. It’s not a shock, but something still jolts inside him, because it’s just the two of them there and Mark has no words.
“Left my jacket behind,” Eduardo says, grabbing it and shaking it a little in an unnecessary gesture of see?. Mark nods, bites his lip hard.
Eduardo stares at him for a moment with his face unreadable, turns as if to leave and makes Mark’s fingers stutter against his keyboard, but then he just—stops. Mark looks at the tense line of his back and thinks turn around, turn around, say something, you know I’ve never been able to do this part.
Like he heard him, Eduardo spins around, still clutching his jacket in one hand, and he says, words coming fast, “Why were you staring at me?”
“What?” Mark says, tendrils of slight panic shooting through him.
“You were staring at me through the whole meeting,” Eduardo says, face working kind of uncertainly like he can’t decide between looking angry and confused.
So much for Mark’s supposed surreptitiousness.
“I was—sorry,” Mark says, half-shrugging, and he sees Eduardo apparently settle on anger at Mark’s non-answer; and because Mark can’t stop thinking about it, and he’s a little tired and is currently lacking his verbal filter, and Eduardo initiated contact, he says stiffly, “How’s your boyfriend?” It’s possible he maybe spits the last word out like he doesn’t want it in his mouth.
Eduardo freezes with a strange look on his face. “My—boyfriend?” he says slowly. “You mean Jeremy?”
Mark kind of hopes that Eduardo is not running around with an abundance of boyfriends, so, yeah. He nods jerkily.
“We broke up,” Eduardo says, still in that strange, slow way. “It was—amicable.” Of course it was. This is Eduardo, who might be the only person in the world who could make the words I want to stay friends actually work; the two of them were so fucking amicable, weren’t they? They did it so civilly, got over their awkwardness so well that Mark remembers thinking we can get through anything. Except they couldn’t.
“You put the pictures up online,” Mark says in this voice that sounds curiously detached to his own ears. “I can’t imagine your father was too pleased by that.”
“I don’t know that anything I could do would please him. I just stopped trying,” Eduardo says, and Mark is listening hard, so he can hear the sudden absence of—something in his voice. An edge, maybe, that had been there before. This isn’t angry-Eduardo, or stingingly-polite-Eduardo; this is an Eduardo who sounds like he’s talking to Mark, almost like they had before.
Mark is listening but he is determinedly not looking at Eduardo, because he has the sudden feeling that everything is written all over his face—his helpless jealousy, the fear of breathing wrong and scattering this delicate communication that is more than they’ve had in years. But his mouth, he’s got about as much chance of stopping it as he does an oncoming train, and it opens up against his will and the words spill out, “Took you long enough, didn’t it. Was he that special, then?” His hands are curled into fists on top of the desk, knuckles white; his voice is calm and shakes only a little, but that little bit is more than enough for Eduardo to latch onto.
Eduardo exhales, a sound that slices through the air. “It wasn’t him,” Eduardo says very quietly, and against his will Mark looks up, loses himself in the intensity of Eduardo’s gaze. “I just—grew up.” Mark swallows, and Eduardo looks at him, looks into him, like he’s seeing something he never expected. He sinks into a chair right in front of Mark.“Mark, you—back at Harvard. Why did you say we should stop sleeping together?” Eduardo asks, and his voice is hesitant, and Mark can’t breathe.
Mark coughs to unblock his throat, and says flatly, “I told you. It wasn’t working, and we—if one of us wanted someone else—”
“Yeah, but was that meant for me, or for you?” Eduardo interrupts, leaning in like he knows he’s on the right track, like Mark has a secret and Eduardo wants to hold it in his hands. “You started dating Erica pretty soon afterward.”
Mark frowns. “I didn’t want to—we’d stopped sleeping together at that point and Erica was nice, so I didn’t see why I shouldn’t date her. But I didn’t leave you with the intention of getting with anyone else.”
“But you thought I wanted to,” Eduardo says, voice ringing with certainty. His eyes are very, very intent.
“Of course I thought you wanted to,” Mark spits out, suddenly so tired of this conversation. His skin feels too tight and his head is throbbing, and he can’t handle this right now. “You wanted to make your father proud, and he wanted you to date girls. He wanted you to find a vapid little wife and carry on the name and forget that you like to fuck guys. Of course you would want someone else. I just—ended it so it wouldn’t drag on forever.”
Eduardo doesn’t look away from Mark’s eyes even once. Mark can feel his face start to burn at the close scrutiny, at everything he’s no doubt broadcasting. “And Facebook?” Eduardo says carefully. “Why did you push me out, Mark?”
“I thought I had to choose between you and Facebook,” Mark says wearily. “And I chose Facebook, because with Facebook I came first.”
There is a beat of silence, and then Eduardo leans back in his seat and covers his face with one hand. Mark blindly hits a few keys on his laptop to avoid looking at him. The air is too thick around them.
“You thought I wanted to date other people, and I thought you didn’t really—care,” Eduardo says with a little laugh that sounds more pained than amused. “Clearly, neither of us can think at all.”
Mark looks at him sharply, something that tastes uncomfortably like hope rising in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says, because at this point it’s all that remains to be said, and he’s already laid himself open for Eduardo to see everything inside him. “That it—that it happened this way.”
Eduardo just looks at him for a moment, before rising to his feet. “I need you to stand up, Mark,” he says, and Mark’s getting to his feet before he knows what he’s doing. He wonders for a moment, half-hysterically, if Eduardo’s going to punch him.
Instead, Eduardo reaches out and yanks Mark toward his chest, wrapping one arm around his back, his free hand coming up to cradle Mark’s head. Mark freezes in place, caught completely off-guard, and it isn’t until Eduardo runs a thumb behind his ear that all the tension melts out of Mark in one giant wave. He lets himself mold to the line of Eduardo’s body, lets Eduardo tighten his arm around him, and when he puts his nose against his shirt and inhales Eduardo’s distinctive scent, Mark will deny to his dying day that his eyes start to burn a little bit.
“I’m sorry too,” Eduardo whispers into his ear, and Mark shivers a little at the vibration. “I was a coward, and then after that I never really listened to what you were trying to tell me.”
Some part of Mark is aware that they’re hugging extremely closely in the middle of an office full of people who take nosiness to a new level; the rest of him tells that part to go fuck itself.
“You know, when you came here today, I really just expected to stare at you a little and then maybe have Chris subtly grill you about your love life,” Mark says, the words muffled against Eduardo’s chest, and he can feel the vibration of the laugh Eduardo lets out in response.
“Disappointed?” Eduardo says dryly, finally letting Mark out of the circle of his arms, and Mark ignores the urge to just stay there all day.
He has a feeling that he and Eduardo can’t rely on believing that certain things are implicit, obvious; look where that got them. So he grabs for Eduardo’s hand and says quietly, “Anything but,” and watches the slow, perfect dawn of a smile on Eduardo’s face.
*
They reconnect hesitantly, hanging out at Mark’s place whenever Eduardo flies in (Eduardo starts flying in more and more often; Mark picks him up at the airport every time). It’s slow-going; tentative, awkward, and Mark is so fucking glad it’s happening at all. He wants more than they have right now, he wants everything, but he’s willing to wait for them to rebuild themselves from the ground-up, stronger than before.
A few months after they’ve started hanging out again, Eduardo walks into Mark’s office and plants his hands on Mark’s desk and says without preamble, “So I know you told me to come over and watch a movie with you tonight, but would you be terribly disappointed if I came over and we had sex instead?”
Mark knocks over a paperweight.
It hits the ground with a thud, and Mark stares stupidly at it for a second before jerking his head up to stare stupidly at Eduardo instead. Eduardo looks a little smug that he’s apparently killed Mark’s brain, but his ears are also going a little pink.
“I—frankly, I thought I’d have to do some more groveling before we got around to that,” Mark says honestly, and Eduardo’s eyes go a little sad.
“Actually, I think it’s my turn for the groveling this time,” Eduardo says a little quietly, biting his lip.
Mark wets his lips unconsciously, and feels his skin prickle at the way Eduardo watches his tongue move. “Or we could just agree that our respective guilts cancel each other out and get to the sex part?” Mark suggests, and watches Eduardo’s mouth curve in a warm smile in answer.
“I like that idea,” Eduardo agrees. “You—when are you done here?” His eyes are going kind of dark, and Mark—Mark hasn’t seen him like this in so long. He hasn’t been allowed, and now he is, and he’d probably go home with Eduardo right now even if he had the most important meeting of his life scheduled. As it is, it’s an easy day, and Mark needs to suck Eduardo off as of yesterday, so.
“Now,” Mark says decisively, shutting things down and gathering his stuff together. Eduardo gapes at him a little, probably understandably—it is only three in the afternoon, and Mark takes the term ‘workaholic’ to a frightening new level—but he seems to be underestimating his own considerable lure.
“Really?” Eduardo says, sounding kind of shyly pleased, and Mark is taking a step forward to kiss him before he even realizes it. He stops himself in time, though—he still doesn’t know how sure Eduardo is about this, and kissing him in the Facebook offices is asking this to go public fast. He doesn’t—he doesn’t want to fuck this up again.
“Let’s go?” Mark offers, and pretends his aborted move was just a step toward the door, nothing else. Eduardo eyes him with an assessing look, though, and Mark has forgotten what it feels like to be known this instinctively, this thoroughly. It scares him.
“Yeah,” is all Eduardo says, but then he puts his hand on Mark’s lower back, a searing touch even through Mark’s shirt, and propels Mark forward, and forward, and through the door, and then stops him when they’re right out in the open in front of a score of unabashedly curious, interested eyes.
“Wardo, what,” Mark starts, except that is when Eduardo cups his face in one hand and tips it upward a little, stroking a thumb down Mark’s cheek, and Mark’s heart is already pounding by the time their mouths meet. Eduardo still wears the same cologne is Mark’s first thought, because the warm, familiar smell of it is right there and it makes a wave of heat roll down Mark’s body. Eduardo keeps it slow, doesn’t let it turn desperate like it could, but he’s so fucking thorough that Mark doesn’t realize he’s fisted his hands in Eduardo’s shirt and gone up onto his toes to kiss him harder until they finally pull apart.
Someone shouts “About damn time!” and Mark is entirely unsurprised when he turns around to see that it’s Dustin, who is grinning at them wildly and possibly looking a little teary-eyed. Mark supposes he could cut back on his frequent grumbling threats to fire Dustin for a couple of weeks or so, at least.
Everyone else is staring at them with varying degrees of amusement, although a few of the interns are eyeing him warily like they think he’s been replaced by his evil twin or something. Or, well, his PDA-friendly twin, he supposes. Whatever. It’s good to know he can inspire a healthy sense of fear in someone.
Mark looks up and sees that Eduardo’s ears have gone pink, and he’s got that look of squirming, pleased embarrassment that Mark remembers so well, but he also looks completely resolute. “This won’t be like last time,” he says very seriously, for Mark’s ears alone. “It took me a while, but I know there has to be a point where I stop letting my father dictate what I can and can’t do, and I—I want this too much to let it go again. I want you, and I’m sorry I ever tried to hide it.”
Mark stares at him for a moment before wrapping his fingers around Eduardo’s wrist and dragging him out the door. He has no problem with people knowing how he feels about Eduardo, and it’s not like it wasn’t blatantly obvious from him practically climbing Eduardo like a tree out there that he’s more than a little invested in him, but there are certain things he’s not about to say with Dustin leering at them and presumably taking notes to share with Chris later.
Except: “Mark?” Eduardo says, sounding a little uncertain, and okay, that’s pretty much the last thing Mark wanted. They are neither one of them all that good at communicating things (that might actually be the understatement of the century), but this—Mark will learn, to keep this.
So he stops in his tracks, not quite out of the building but away from everyone else. And the words are there on the tip of his tongue with no reason not to say them and every reason to; because he doesn’t have to be scared of opening himself up, because he does not lose a single thing by saying it, because he will gain everything important. Because it’s unexpectedly easy.
He says, “I love you, Wardo. It wasn’t just sex back at Harvard and it isn’t now. Although the sex was a definite plus.” Okay, so he’s only got so much romance within him. Eduardo knew that already.
Eduardo’s smiling, though, so wide his eyes crinkle with it, and he leans in to kiss Mark again: two short, smacking kisses, one right after the other like he can’t pull away from Mark for too long. “We should probably make sure it’s still good before we go any further, then,” Eduardo says, looking at Mark through sly, half-lidded eyes.
“What, are you going to change your mind if it sucks?” Mark says dryly, and then groans when he realizes the opening he’s left. “No—”
“I was hoping for some sucking, actually,” Eduardo says at once, grinning around the words, and Mark makes a face and shoves him forward to start walking again.
“Please stop hanging out with Dustin immediately,” Mark says flatly.
Eduardo just laughs, clear and delighted, and that is the sound Mark has missed most of all.
*
When they get to Mark’s place, Mark has barely shut the door behind them before Eduardo pushes him up against it so hard his breath leaves him in one shocked gasp. Eduardo’s lips part in an incipient apology, but Mark cuts it off at the pass, kisses him and winds an arm around Eduardo’s neck to keep him there, so close he can’t ever leave.
They frantically rid themselves of half their clothing right there against the door, and Mark thinks of Eduardo kissing him in front of everyone, so happy and unafraid, and he thinks about anyone else ever putting their hands on him, and he can’t help himself; leans forward and bites Eduardo’s throat, ungentle, sucks blood to the surface of skin to leave something of himself behind. Eduardo says “Fuck,” a wavering, wanting sound, and slaps the door next to Mark’s head, open-palmed. The sound rings in Mark’s ears, and he takes his mouth away from Eduardo’s neck, turns the two of them around, and falls to his knees.
“Mark,” Eduardo says fervently, and the look on his face is too much; Mark puts his face against Eduardo’s thigh and just breathes in, grounding himself, lets Eduardo run his fingers through Mark’s hair and say his name again like it’s something to be savored.
Mark sucks Eduardo off against his front door as slowly as he can; he’s never before been so grateful for his particular brand of stubbornness, because a part of him just wants to swallow Eduardo’s cock down and choke on it and make Eduardo’s knees give, but a larger part of him wants it never to end, wants to make it last forever, even if it takes all of his considerable willpower. He mouths at Eduardo’s cock through his briefs for a while, then relents and sucks the head into his mouth when Eduardo lets out something that sounds almost like a sob. Mark keeps pulling off to put his mouth on the insides of Eduardo’s thighs, rake his teeth against his hipbone, unable to stop the urge to just have all of Eduardo’s body under his lips. Eduardo pulls his hair a little too sharply on accident, and he swears at Mark and pleads with him in the same breath; Mark finally lets him come after what feels like forever, swallowing it all, keeping him in his mouth and sucking softly until Eduardo lets out a shaky noise of enough and pushes his head away unsteadily.
“You’re going to fuck me now,” Eduardo says, looking exactly how Mark feels—a little wild, still so damn hungry for it, and Mark says breathlessly, “Yes, yeah, come on,” and shoves Eduardo in the direction of his bedroom, dropping the rest of their clothes along the way.
Eduardo falls back onto his bed, all tan limbs and dark eyes, and Mark mutters, “Your legs are ridiculous,” while he fumbles for a condom and lube, and really means they’re making me lose my mind.
“Sweet-talker,” Eduardo says with a little murmur of laughter in his voice, like he knows exactly what Mark meant. If Mark looks at him properly, his crinkled-up eyes and his brilliant smile and his hands that are stroking over his own chest to pinch his nipples, Mark will probably do something incredibly embarrassing—like drop everything and just rub himself off against Eduardo’s thigh and come all over his golden skin in thirty seconds flat—so he determinedly keeps his eyes on his hands as he slicks his fingers up with lube.
Mark’s patience is nonexistent at this point; he still stretches Eduardo carefully with his fingers, because the last thing he wants to do is hurt him, but when Eduardo starts clenching down around his fingers and making little panting noises and telling Mark to hurry the fuck up already, Mark is unable to keep teasing him until he’s begging again. Some other time, then.
When Mark finally slides into him, Eduardo lets out a most likely involuntary noise of relief; and the way he sounds, it’s nothing to do with the fact that Mark is finally fucking him, everything to do with the relief Mark feels too—that they are here, together. Mark grits his teeth and waits for Eduardo to adjust and for the rush of heat washing over him to recede enough that he won’t totally embarrass himself.
“Mark,” Eduardo breathes, eyes huge, fingers twisted in the sheets.
“Can I—” Mark says in this awful, agonized voice, because this is going to be over so fast, and he’d like to actually fuck Eduardo a little before he comes.
“Yeah, come on—” Eduardo says, and that’s enough for Mark; he pulls out and thrusts back in, letting out a ragged sound of need, and he tries to go slow at first, but pretty soon he’s fucking Eduardo in earnest, and it’s amazing. Eduardo’s head is thrown back, neck bared; Mark can see the bruise forming from when he bit him, and when Eduardo catches his eye, he presses his fingers against the purple smudge and looks at Mark like he’s everything.
When Mark comes, it reverberates down to his bones; he’s shaking, and Eduardo strokes his face through it and says in a broken voice “Mark, Mark, jesus,” and Mark just breathes in until he can feel his fingers again.
Eduardo cries out, sharp and abbreviated, when Mark wraps his hand around Eduardo’s cock and runs his thumb over the head. Now that Mark’s head isn’t clouded by his imminent orgasm, he remembers things—like how Eduardo liked to watch his hands move, how he liked it when Mark twisted his hand like that, how he shivered helplessly when Mark would tell him things in a cool, controlled voice, like: “Come with me to work tomorrow, and wear your shirt open at the neck so that everyone can see that you’re mine,” Mark says, and Eduardo says Mark’s name like a revelation, eyes slamming shut, and he comes all over his stomach. Mark works him through it until Eduardo is hissing a little and batting at Mark’s hand.
Mark pulls out carefully, and then gets rid of the condom and goes to get something to clean them both up. When he gets back, Eduardo is lying with his legs still spread and one hand on his chest, languid and eyes half-lidded, and when Mark wipes his stomach and between his thighs and then leans in to kiss him, he opens right up for Mark.
Mark falls onto the bed next to him, and runs his fingers over Eduardo’s collarbone because he can. “Well?” he says after a moment, and at Eduardo’s slightly confused look, he adds, “you were intending to pass judgment on the sex we just had, remember? Good enough to stick around for?” And Mark is at least ninety percent not serious, but Eduardo must hear the under-ten percent of irrational uncertainty, because he’s reaching out immediately to yank Mark halfway onto his chest.
“Looking for an ego boost?” Eduardo says, his teasing tone at odds with the decidedly fond smile on his face. “I can’t feel my legs, Mark. I think we’ve still got it.”
Mark can feel a smug grin pull at his lips. Eduardo rolls his eyes at him, and tugs on his hair a little. “Of course,” Eduardo says thoughtfully, “there will be frequent reviews. We should just practice a lot, to be safe.”
Mark idly flicks Eduardo’s nipple with his thumbnail, relishing the slight hiss and squirm Eduardo can’t hold in. “Yeah, that’s going to be a real problem,” he says, and lets Eduardo kiss the smirk off his face.
*
Mark orders Chinese for dinner, and Eduardo sucks orange-chicken sauce from Mark’s fingers, cheeks hollowing a little.
Mark spills rice and sauce all over the arm of his couch when he shoves Eduardo down to straddle him, but whatever, he’ll buy a new couch if he has to. It’s worth it.
*
They go to bed at ten with no expectation to actually sleep until much later. They just can’t stop touching each other, trading lazy, wet kisses until their mouths are swollen and numb. Eduardo pulls away only long enough to gasp in air, and then he’s pressing back in, licking at the corners of Mark’s mouth and putting his hand against Mark’s lower back, scratching lightly with his nails. Mark runs his fingers up Eduardo’s thigh, and when he gets close to his cock, Eduardo squirms a little, cheeks flushed a brilliant pink.
“Give me another one?” Mark whispers in his ear, fisting Eduardo’s cock and jerking him off as slowly as he can, gentle. “For me, just one more.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, eyes wild, trembling, “I—yes.”
*
Eduardo drags Mark into the shower the next morning and kisses him under the water, fingers skating slick over his back and pressing carefully inside him. Mark puts his forehead against Eduardo’s chest and pants for breath. Eduardo cleans him thoroughly, and then he shuts the shower off and pushes Mark out of the bathroom and onto his bed, where he proceeds to eat him out just as thoroughly; he is slow and enthusiastic, sucking at Mark’s skin and licking and pushing his tongue inside until Mark is so wet and his thighs are trembling and he’s bitten his lip until it’s almost bleeding.
After Eduardo makes him choke out a please and come all over himself, they have to shower again.
*
Mark goes to work in a t-shirt and khaki shorts. Eduardo wears a button-down shirt and dress pants, but when he reaches for a tie, Mark shoots him a flat, narrow-eyed look that makes his fingers fumble and his ears go pink. He leaves the tie off and the first two buttons of his shirt undone, and when Mark presses a thumb into the vivid bruise on his throat, Eduardo lets out a noise that sounds anything but pained.
When they go into the Facebook offices, all eyes swing toward them like they’re magnetic north. Eduardo stumbles a little, still looking kind of pink, but Mark is viscerally aware of the slight hitch in Eduardo’s stride, the hand he puts at Mark’s back without a thought, and it all culminates so he’s basically walking around with what he knows is an obscenely self-satisfied look on his face.
He sees a few eyes latch immediately onto the mark on Eduardo’s neck like sharks scenting blood in the water, and he lets them look for a few seconds before he clears his throat and announces, “I know my personal life is endlessly entertaining for you all, since you seem to have been operating under the misapprehension that I didn’t have one. But get back to work.”
There are a few laughs, a couple of pointed smirks, and then Mark sees Dustin waving his arms at them frantically in a get over here motion. Chris is standing next to him looking kind of—relaxed around the edges, kind of happy.
When they get over there, Chris eyes them both for a moment, and then says very seriously, “If you two fuck this up again, I will bury you both under my rosebushes.” And then he yanks them into a hug that Dustin wriggles his way into as well, and Eduardo laughs giddily, and Mark—Mark grumbles but makes absolutely no move to escape.
He’s got a second chance at this. He doesn’t intend to waste it.
*
Things go surprisingly smoothly after that, and Chris doesn’t have to resort to threats again; even his slightly wary looks end after a while, quickly replaced by a quiet sort of happiness whenever he looks at them. Mark feels a little guilty sometimes—he’d known that he missed Eduardo, and he knew that Chris and Dustin still saw Eduardo sometimes when he and Mark weren’t talking, but he hadn’t really thought about how much they might miss the four of them. Back at Harvard they’d been a unit, something nearly unassailable. Mark’s not generally one for sentiment so he’d never voice it, but they’d been—family. He knows it cost them that when Chris and Dustin stayed with Mark after the split, and coming together again feels like something is finally locking properly into place.
Dustin is, of course, ecstatic from the start, but one night he drops his customary exuberance with Mark and says in an unusually serious tone, “Mark, just—I know things don’t always work out in relationships, but whatever happens, just don’t let it get like it was again. Don’t let it fall apart, for all of us. Please.”
Because the thing is, they are all of them older now; older, with the shine worn off, a little more cynical and a little more cautious and, maybe, a little bit wiser. In Harvard they hadn’t known how spectacularly things could shatter, and they do now, but—strangely, Mark has a little more reassurance now. When you’ve faced the worst of what could happen, anything else seems surmountable. So he and Eduardo aren’t always perfect together; but when they fight and Mark says something sharp and nasty to cover his sudden panic of what if he leaves, what if he leaves and he spends the rest of the day throwing himself into his work, he always comes home with an apology on his tongue and finds Eduardo the same. Eduardo takes him to bed and presses kisses to the corners of Mark’s eyes and whispers I’m not going anywhere, and every time they do this, Mark thinks—they’ve come this far. They can get past anything.
Chris asks them one day when they’re all hanging out, after Mark and Eduardo have been dating for a couple of months, “So, how do you guys want to tell people about this? Don’t give me that look, Mark, thinking about this shit is what you pay me for.” And, okay, Mark kind of has been expecting a question like this, because Chris is not happy unless he has contingency plans for his contingency plans.
Mark leans into Eduardo’s side and draws his feet up on the couch, mouth quirking. “Can’t we just do what we did back at Harvard?” he asks, shrugging. “Simple, and it worked pretty well.”
Chris stares at him. “What, just run around having sex everywhere and let people catch you in compromising positions because you’re too lazy to put together a statement?” Chris says, sounding increasingly horrified with each word. “Uh, how about no.”
Dustin is cackling into his hand, and Eduardo tucks his own laugh into Mark’s shoulder. “I don’t know, I kind of like that idea,” he says, words muffled a little. Mark fits his hand against the back of Eduardo’s head, tugs at his hair, smirks.
“Kill me, please,” Chris sighs. He’s smiling, though, watching Mark’s fingers run through Eduardo’s hair carefully.
On any given day, Mark would rather gouge his own eyes out than do an interview of any sort, and mostly, Chris feels the same (Mark does not crumble under probing questions; Mark goes frighteningly articulate and blank-faced and incisive, and then Chris has to come in and do frantic damage control, and really—on the whole it’s been agreed that it’s best if Mark doesn’t speak to interviewers any more than necessary). This doesn’t mean that Mark doesn’t want to tell people about him and Eduardo. Mark actually wants to fuck Eduardo until he goes slack-mouthed and glowingly satisfied with it, and then take him out and parade him around everywhere so people can see him with Mark (slapping a giant neon TAKEN sign on his back would probably be overkill, but some things deserve as much certainty as possible). Chris probably wouldn’t go for that idea, though, so an interview seems imminent in their future.
“Whatever,” Mark grumbles. “Set something up.”
“Okay,” Chris says with his tongue between his teeth, making a note. “Please, let Eduardo do most of the talking. I’d say ‘all’ if I thought we could get away with it.”
“Agreed,” Eduardo and Dustin say in unison, and Mark rolls his eyes when they all stare at him with varying smirks on their faces.
“I don’t know why you’re expecting me to disagree,” he says dryly. “When have I ever given you the impression I enjoy talking about things like this?”
“What, you don’t want to tell everyone how you’re madly in love with me?” Eduardo teases, fingers curling warm against the back of Mark’s neck. There’s a flash of something in his eyes, though—Mark remembers Chris calling this their ‘honeymoon period’ back at Harvard, and it’s the same for them now: they can’t keep their hands off each other, but even with all they’ve done before, Mark feels how new this still is, how—raw. They’re still feeling their way out with each other, stumbling on each other’s edges and backtracking, falling into bed to avoid talking about things and then waking up in the middle of the night to talk about them anyway, because they’re still so scared of fucking this up again. They both sometimes need—reassurance.
(Eduardo’s is in the way Mark tries, again and again, to voice the words that don’t come to him naturally; it’s in him trying. Mark’s is in the look on Eduardo’s face when he stops mid-argument and forces himself to breathe, calm down, and listen to what Mark is trying to tell him; it’s in the way he tells Mark time and again I’m not going anywhere, the way he calls his mother and tells her quietly and firmly that he’s dating Mark, and he’s happy, and his father’s input on the matter is both unnecessary and unwanted.)
So Mark says a little dryly, “I think having that conversation with one person is kind of my limit, and that position’s filled,” and even Dustin’s loud awwwww and Chris’s stifled laugh can’t take away the spreading warmth in his chest at the surprised smile lighting Eduardo’s face up.
They do the interview, though Chris, with his unerring insight, doesn’t set it up until a month and a half later—he must see that something in Mark needs to be sure, needs to wait until he is certain throughout that this is going to last.
They’ve been making this work with Eduardo flying in more and more often, and Mark goes out to visit him sometimes as well, but it still feels like they have something of an escape clause, one foot out the door; Mark can’t deal with the uncertainty of it, finds himself blurting out one day, “Move back here. With—with me, ideally, but I’d settle for the same state.” He bites his tongue as soon as the words escape him, but he doesn’t backtrack, because he meant it.
Eduardo’s eyes go wide, but then he stumbles forward to put his hands on Mark’s face and say breathlessly, “Yes, okay,” and Mark finds he can breathe normally again.
“Yes to—” he starts, clarifying, and Eduardo interrupts him with a laugh and says, “Yes, I’ll move in with you, idiot.”
Maybe they should wait a little longer before jumping into this part, but—Mark just wants this. He wants to stop hesitating. When they fight, he doesn’t want to feel like Eduardo has somewhere else he can disappear to; he wants this to be their place, the only place, something they will both work at and fight to keep whole.
Mark wants to stop sending Eduardo off and counting the days until his return by the feel of the empty space in his bed.
So after that they do the interview and answer the questions that come their way, and when they leave, Mark hesitates for only a blink’s time before grabbing Eduardo’s hand and holding on all the way home.
*
“If I go innocently into a bathroom and find you guys naked again, I’m sending you both my therapy bills,” Dustin informs them some weeks later.
“I doubt you’ve gone anywhere innocently in your life,” Mark retorts, but privately acknowledges that Dustin may possibly have a point.
Because Mark remembers Harvard, remembers the constant itch under his skin that would only ever partially fade when he had his hands on Eduardo, the need that never went away completely; and this is a hundred times worse. Now there is the knowledge that this is it for both of them, only it’s more like a breathless hope than anything so concrete as knowledge; it’s as if they are constantly reaffirming it with hands and mouth, like if they stop touching each other for ten minutes they might forget that this is real, and happening, and will remain.
A lot of things are different from when they did this last. They’re more visible when they go out, now; and when Mark stops them in the middle of the sidewalk and goes up on his toes and kisses Eduardo until they’re panting for breath, he knows there will be pictures online, and his body thrums with the satisfaction of knowing that they will be seen everywhere.
“They’re all going to know,” Mark whispers in Eduardo’s ear, fingers on the back of his neck, and he lays his thumb against Eduardo’s thudding pulse as he continues, “no one’s got a chance with you anymore, right, Wardo?”
Eduardo swallows, turns his face into Mark’s hand. Says a little hoarsely, “Yeah, Mark—I’m yours.” And it’s a spike of lust slamming into Mark, a rush of something else that snarls through him with claws, and Mark knows—love can be gentle and comfortable, made up of things like finding Eduardo’s clothes tangled with his in the laundry, or falling asleep with his head on Eduardo’s shoulder when they watch movies on a Sunday afternoon; but love can also be something raw, not comfortable, wanting to own someone and swallow them whole until they become a part of you. He wants every part of Eduardo there is, wants it with a fervor that almost frightens him a little, except—Eduardo looks right into him and repeats, softer but no less sure, “I’m yours,” because Eduardo sees him and wants all of him in return. At that moment, Mark wants nothing more than to say fuck it all and take Eduardo back home, or hell, pull him into an alleyway, somewhere he can get his hand on Eduardo’s cock and jerk him off hard and fast until Mark’s name is all he has on his tongue; but because he is an adult and is trying to live up to that, he kisses Eduardo one more time, quickly, and says with a voice almost unrecognizably rough, “We—let’s go to dinner.”
Because, see, Mark’s not an idiot and he has managed to learn responsibility somewhere along the way in these years, so he knows he can’t actually do all the things he wants to do to Eduardo; before, when they were faceless, he wouldn’t have hesitated to drag Eduardo into that alleyway or into the bathroom stall of the restaurant they’re in and make him scream Mark’s name. He hadn’t hesitated. He knows he can’t do that now—while imagining the headlines that would follow and Chris’s ensuing fits is kind of hilarious, he doesn’t actually want to give Chris a heart attack before he’s thirty.
But that doesn’t mean he has to take his hands off Eduardo completely when they’re out. It doesn’t mean that he can’t still make it inescapably clear that Eduardo is his and his alone, and anyone else who wants him can just hate Mark for the rest of his life, because that’s how long he intends to keep him. It just means getting creative. Now, when they go out, Eduardo drinks wine until he’s leaning toward the reckless side of tipsy, and slides his foot up Mark’s shin, and flirts with him so blatantly it makes their waiter blush a little. Mark holds Eduardo’s gaze and tells him things like when we get home I’m going to fuck you in front of the mirror in our bedroom, make you see yourself like I do and maybe I’ll make you come first with just my fingers, just loud enough that one or two people in their vicinity can hear and go wide-eyed, just quiet enough that he can pretend it’s only meant for the two of them. Eduardo’s mouth always falls a little open, and he hisses “Mark,” but Mark just watches the working of his throat as he swallows, the flexing of his fingers around his glass, and knows what he’s really feeling.
Maybe this will calm down with time; maybe this consuming need that crackles between them will abate once their bodies understand what they’ve been telling each other: that they don’t need to steal moments, they don’t need to pack a thousand touches into the space of a breath, they can leave each other be for a time, because they have forever for this.
Mark doesn’t really think so, though. When Eduardo wraps an arm around his shoulders and Mark turns his head to nuzzle at Eduardo’s wrist, tongue flicking out to trace a vein, he can’t imagine ever getting so used to the catch of Eduardo’s breath and the dark heat of his eyes that he’d let this fade even an iota.
*
“It’s not just you,” Eduardo tells him one night in their bed, buries the words in the dip of Mark’s lower back, waits for Mark to groan and shove his hips against the bed before Eduardo slides his fingers back into Mark. “I’ve always—I’ve always wanted more of you than you give to anyone else,” he continues, sounding a little shy, like he’s confessing something. “I want everything. I want to have you. The thought of anyone else getting to—it makes me so—”
Mark knows; he hadn’t thought Eduardo really understood it, the fierce possessiveness that takes root in Mark, that makes him want to get his hands on Eduardo in public to show everyone else what they can’t have. He hadn’t thought Eduardo got it, until the day when Sean came to visit the offices, and Eduardo had played nice for the length of one very awkward conversation, before abruptly dragging Mark into a bathroom and locking the door with fire in his eyes and fucking Mark over the counter until Mark came all over the sink and saw stars. Afterward, Eduardo had tried to slink out of the bathroom with Mark, looking a little mortified, until he saw Sean smirking at them gleefully; and then his back straightened and his hand went on the back of Mark’s neck, and yes, Mark knows exactly what he means, and if they’re both feeling like this, like even forever’s not long enough for what they want from each other, then—
Eduardo reaches out and grabs a condom, and Mark makes up his mind and flips over and grabs Eduardo’s wrist. There is something sweet and certain splitting open in his chest, the kind of certainty that comes to his fingers when he sits at a computer, that he is learning to trust in when he looks at Eduardo; and he holds Eduardo’s eyes with his own when he says intently, “Wardo,” and flicks the condom out of Eduardo’s hand.
Eduardo gets it instantly. His eyes widen and he stares for a moment before saying in a voice that shakes a little, “Mark—”
Mark tells him absolutely, “I want you to,” and lets Eduardo press kisses into his hairline, and slicks Eduardo’s cock with lube when it looks like Eduardo’s hands might be shaking too much to do it himself.
When Eduardo sinks into him, he makes a low, broken sound, says reverently, “Mark, Mark,” and Mark thinks about the fact that Eduardo is going to come inside him, and he didn’t even know he wanted it this much; he jerks himself off almost brutally, bites down on his lip so he doesn’t let any embarrassing sounds escape, but when he gets close he can’t stop himself from blurting in a strained voice, “Would you just fucking—” and Eduardo says breathlessly, “Yes, yes,” and leans down to kiss him over and over, never-ending and perfect and shattering.
They both come way too fast, way too soon, but that’s no surprise; afterward, Eduardo slides his fingers back inside Mark, slick and easy, and Mark shifts on the bed, makes an involuntary sound that comes out soft and hitching and still a little needy. Eduardo’s fingers are wet when he pulls them out, and he kisses the inside of Mark’s knee and says, “God, you—I love you, you know that?”
“Stop it,” Mark grumbles half-heartedly, “you’re getting feelings all over the bed.”
Eduardo laughs, and ducks his head, and Mark doesn’t say anything about how his eyes look a little wet; just tugs Eduardo down into his side and says right into his ear where it can’t be missed, “I love you too. Also, it’s my turn next time.”
Eduardo shivers, and Mark can feel it up and down the length of his body where they’re pressed together. “Is next time soon?” Eduardo asks, grinning a little and looking unexpectedly young.
“Next time’s whenever I get it up again,” Mark says with a smirk, and they both look down at his cock at the same time.
“I can work with that,” Eduardo announces, and straddles Mark smoothly with a delighted smile to do just that.
*
Sometimes Eduardo just holds his hand while they’re out, and that’s—nice, in a way that makes Mark squirm a little because he wants it, because he doesn’t know what to do with it, because this is the part he always manages to fuck up.
The first step in not fucking this up is probably to let it happen, though, so Mark lets Eduardo rub a thumb over his wrist, and lace their fingers together; after a while, he starts grabbing for Eduardo’s hand first, and Eduardo smiles at him with his eyes lit up, and Mark stumbles a little at the thought that, fuck, they might actually make this functional-relationship thing work.
There’s a picture that some watchful photographer managed to capture of the two of them: they’re fully decent, actually (Mark has wondered on more than one occasion if they’d be caught on camera with their clothes off; they’ve been lucky yet), and they’re not even kissing. But it’s clear that they’ve just pulled away from a kiss, Eduardo’s knuckles brushing against the side of Mark’s face, Mark’s hands fisted in the front of Eduardo’s jacket.
Mark is smiling in the picture, like he’s forgotten how to guard himself. Like Eduardo has made him forget that he is Mark Zuckerberg, turned him into someone who can look like that. Mark didn’t know his face could even make an expression that uncomplicatedly happy.
Eduardo’s face is open, transformed—looking at the picture, Mark doesn’t know if he wants to stare at that gaze forever or hide from it. He isn’t sure he can live up to everything he sees there.
There’s an arm wrapping around him from behind and a chin resting on his shoulder; Eduardo’s voice is warm in Mark’s ear when says, “That one’s my favorite.”
Mark curls his fingers around Eduardo’s wrist and doesn’t say anything in response.
Later, he cuts out the picture and pins it to the wall above his desk. Thinks, I created Facebook, I can make him look at me like that for the rest of our lives, and later, when Eduardo sees it and yanks Mark away from his laptop and kisses him until his mouth is numb, he lets himself believe it.
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