As A Monolith (Mark/Eduardo, PG-13)
TITLE: As A Monolith
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Mark/Eduardo
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
NOTES: I almost never write fic, but this just sort of wrote itself. Pre-movie slash. Hope you enjoy! Feedback is always appreciated. x-posted to mark_eduardo and socialnetwrkfic.
The thing is, Eduardo knows Mark isn’t gay, and he’s fine with it. Despite some initial confusion - mostly due to Mark’s social awkwardness making him somewhat less than a chick magnet - Eduardo had managed to deduce heterosexuality through the observation of an increasingly ill-advised series of dates with women, and he’s confident enough in his assessment that he doesn’t feel the need to confirm it through actually asking Mark. Mark isn’t gay, and Eduardo gets that. When asked about himself (after all, it’s 2003, people ask that kind of stuff now) he generally responds with some version of, “Gay? I’m Brazilian! Did you think the whole Latin lover stereotype was a joke?” - always delivered with a cocky grin and a wink, and carefully avoiding the direct response while implying the default. The fact is, Eduardo has messed around with guys on more than one drunken - or sober - occasion, but that can be excused as simple sluttiness and opportunism. He wouldn’t be the first person to jump into bed with a willing partner and throw concerns like “preference” by the wayside for a quick lay. More relevantly, though, Eduardo looks at guys, and sometimes they look pretty good to him. Sometimes Mark looks pretty good to him. Leaving aside the worrying idea that this might mean Eduardo’s actual taste in men runs towards scrawny curly-haired nerdboys, he’s not sure if this, Mark’s mercurial appeal, is more about men or more about Mark. Eduardo doesn’t know if he’s bi-curious, or bisexual, or just sexually liberated, but he does know Mark isn’t. And that’s fine.
Which makes his current situation all the more baffling.
Mark had knocked on his door earlier that night and barged in without waiting for a response, an apparent refugee from the latest in the ill-advised-dates-with-girls-from-state-schools series he was currently working through. “Wardo,” he asked - obliviously ignoring, to Eduardo’s amusement, the fact that Eduardo was home alone at 10:30 on a Saturday night for no good reason - “why are so many women such total bitches?”
Eduardo didn’t answer, just closed the door behind Mark, picked his hoodie off the floor where he’d dropped it, and draped it over the radiator. It was encrusted in snow and would leave a puddle.
Four hours later, Wardo was sprawled across his bed because Mark had commandeered his spinny chair. Wardo liked to collapse into it, let all his long limbs sprawl to their full extent, and use the momentum of the sprawl to make lazy circles, but that would be far too relaxed for Mark. Mark had braced his heels on the wheel rack and rested his beer on his knees, and he was twisting back and forth over a one-foot radius like the agitator of a washing machine. His rapid movements were starting to seriously damage Eduardo’s calm.
“I have had sex with many women,” Mark said, for what by Eduardo’s count was the fourth time that night. He had drunk a very large number of Eduardo’s beers, eaten three of his individually-wrapped string cheeses, and was now making quick work of a fourth cheese and an nth beer. He stabbed forward with the cheese to punctuate his sentence, briefly irritating Eduardo further by the stupid way he ate it. Rather than peeling the strips like a sensible person, he took big bites and gnawed chunks. He swore it tasted better.
Cheese-related frustrations aside, Eduardo pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and nodded. “You have had sex with a not inconsiderable number of women.”
“Yes. More than five.”
“And less than seven.”
“All right. Six.” Mark paused. “I have had sex with six women.” He paused again to consider the number, still twisting back and forth at what had to be rapidly approaching light speed. “That’s respectable, isn’t it?”
Wardo exhaled heavily. The rotations were definitely becoming tiresome. “Yes, Mark. Yes. It was respectable the last time you asked me and it will be respectable the next time you ask me and I swear to god - ” - he lunged forward and grabbed Mark’s knees as he rotated in Eduardo’s direction - “if you don’t stop spinning I’ll kill you with my hands.”
At his sudden rapid motion the room began spinning unsettlingly and Wardo wobbled, giving the lie to what was already a fairly empty threat. He leaned forward a little more, putting more pressure on Mark’s kneecaps to steady himself, and shook his head.
“Wardo?”
Mark’s voice was uncertain, and Eduardo took that as an invitation to step off. He leaned back, righting himself on the bed. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Just. Um. Can you come sit here? Please?” He gestured to the rest of the bed and laughed uneasily. “It’s just, the spinning. How can you move that fast when you’re that drunk and it’s almost three AM?”
Mark levered himself across the small space and sat on the edge of the bed by Eduardo’s waist, holding his bottle in both hands between his knees. “Psychologists have found that gesturing when you talk is your brain’s way of organizing all the information you have to say. That’s what the spinning is.”
Wardo lifted his head, one eyebrow raised. “Gesturing with your whole body?”
Mark shrugged. “I have a lot to say.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds, then, “Wardo?”
Eduardo sighed again. “Yeah.”
“How many people have you had sex with?”
Eduardo stilled momentarily, noting the noun - “people,” not “women.” He didn’t ask about it, and he didn’t ask Mark to define “sex” either, because sex with a girl and sex with a guy were slightly different animals, and while Wardo had definitely done the first, whether or not he had done the second was up for debate. And if you counted the things he’d done with guys then you had to rethink the things he’d done with girls, and the whole thing got muddled. So he assumed the most conventional definition and said, “Three.”
“Three.”
“Yeah.”
“What about … other stuff?”
Wardo sighed explosively. “I don’t know, Mark, I stopped keeping track of that when I was younger. Seven? Ten? More? Why?”
Mark shifted uncomfortably. “I just. I mean, I’ve had sex with six women. But not much. More. With others. And I just wonder about. Things.” Eduardo waited, but Mark didn’t say any more, and he wasn’t looking at Eduardo’s face. Unsure of how to parse a sentence so close to actual gibberish, Wardo opted instead to lay back in silence and stare at the stains on the ceiling. How did a ceiling even get stained? Had the room’s previous residents invented anti-gravity boots?
Then, again, “Wardo?” from much closer. Eduardo directed his eyes back towards Mark, and saw that he’d shifted in a circle to face him, sitting cross-legged on his bed.
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever. Um.” There was a pause, while Mark stared straight ahead, concentration plain on his face. “I just.” And then he leaned forward and practically fell on Eduardo’s mouth. Which brought him to his current predicament: why is Mark kissing him if Mark isn’t gay?
Eduardo wraps his hands around Mark’s shoulders in a position that could be taken as pushing him off or pulling him closer, depending on the pull- or push-ee’s point of view, and kisses back tentatively. It’s a bad kiss, Mark all awkward pressure with his hands in his lap of all places, and Eduardo trying not to respond with too much excitement lest it be taken the wrong way, but it suffices for the moment. After a few seconds Mark pulls off and stares at Eduardo, his cheeks bright red.
“Um,” he says. “Hi.”
Wardo raises an eyebrow. “…Hi, Mark,” he says, hands still loosely around Mark’s shoulders. “Was there something you wanted to ask me about?”
Mark swallows. “Have you ever done … other stuff … with a guy? Because I know you’ve come back from going home with more people than can be accounted for by three girls, none of whom you dated seriously, and why wouldn’t you be having sex whenever you go home with someone, right, so I thought you maybe had, but I wasn’t sure and I was afraid that if I asked you’d get mad so I thought I would just. Um. Try that.” He pauses, then adds, “To see.”
It all comes out in one quick breath and Eduardo is suddenly laughing, hands involuntarily squeezing Mark’s shoulders tighter, and Mark takes the unintentional movement as a cue to lean forward again, and he winds up bent nearly double at the waist with his head on Eduardo’s chest, hands awkwardly crushed between his torso and his legs. “Here,” Wardo says, “for fuck’s sake, Mark, you can stretch out. Just - here, and move your legs - yeah,” it shouldn’t be difficult, but of course Mark wouldn’t know how to do this part well, and despite having sex with six women it’s questionable whether he’s had sex more than ten times (a fact which Wardo was kind enough to leave out in their earlier conversation). Finally they settle, Eduardo lying prone and Mark on his own right side, head on Eduardo’s chest and left hand resting very lightly on his stomach. Wardo’s left arm is around Mark’s shoulders, hand curling protectively around the left one.
“Yes,” he says, finally. “I have done other stuff with guys. Counting guys, I have had sex with. Uh. …Seven people.” He pauses, realizing suddenly that he’s just counted more guys than girls. “Wow.” He shakes his head slightly, returning to the moment, and says, “So. Why did you want to know? What was it you wanted to … see?” He grins and raises an eyebrow at the top of Mark’s head.
Wardo feels rather than sees Mark shrug, and then Mark sort of sits up over his right arm so he can look Wardo in the face, and Wardo’s expression melts into one of thoughtful listening. “I’m not very good with women, in case you hadn’t noticed. Tonight with Lena was a fiasco, she - well, it doesn’t matter, but it was a fiasco, and I just thought … things are always so good with you. So … “He trails off, but the fingers on Wardo’s abs are pressing harder, and he’s not looking away.
Mark’s not getting off that easily, though (and Wardo winces inwardly at the pun echoing around his own skull). “So what?” he asks, not belligerent, just questioning. He waits a second, but Mark doesn’t seem immediately inclined to answer, so he says, “Here’s the thing. I’ve gone to bed with girls, and I’ve gone to bed with guys, and it’s always fun. But if you want to do this it can’t just be going to bed. You’re my best friend.” He pauses, lets that sink in, continues. “I like girls, but I like guys too. I mean I like guys.” It’s the first time he’s admitted it, even in his own head, and he’s shocked by its truth as it comes out of his mouth. “I like having sex with guys not just because it’s sex but because I. I like how guys look. Too,” he finishes somewhat lamely. This is coming out wrong, and Mark’s expression hasn’t changed. He tries again, saying an internal prayer of thanks for the many beers that are allowing him to say this without dying of mortification at some point mid-sentence. “You are my best friend and that’s great, but if you only want to have sex with me because you think it would work better than being with a woman, and not because you like how I look, and not because you’re interested in actual sex with a guy - which means another dick - “ - and that’s the part for which the many beers were needed, because if anyone wrote this script for Wardo he’d blanch at that line - “then this is not worth it.” There. That’s it. It’s out.
Mark nods, thinking, biting his lower lip in concentration. Wardo’s arm is still around his shoulders, hand still cradling the left one, and he very tentatively lets his fingers explore the muscles of Mark’s upper arm. Mark’s fingers are moving, very lightly, over Wardo’s abs, and he forces himself to focus on the conversation and not those touches, because despite his speech, if the best Mark can come up with is “I’m not sure,” Wardo will take it. He’s wanted this for longer than he previously realized, and anyway, anyone touching him like that would be enough to get him going.
Finally Mark nods, once, to himself, and says, “Yeah. I see what you mean.” He pauses. “I.” Stops. Thinks. “You are my best friend and I am not stupid and I am not blind,” he says with finality. “You are obviously handsome - “ - only Mark, in his eternal off-base clunkiness, could get away with using a word like handsome and not sound like a total idiot - “ - and I would be a liar if I said I hadn’t noticed. I mean. Noticed.” He stops again. He’s not seductive but he hasn’t moved and he’s slowly, gently working his hand lower, possibly without noticing. It’s all Wardo can do not to either bend him over backwards; grab his hand and move it decisively south; or shove him out of touching distance and force him to have this conversation in a less distracting position. But he does none of the above, since each of those involves him not getting something he wants (answers or touches, respectively) and instead sits there, counting to one hundred in French in his head, which he hasn’t taken since he was fourteen, and listening to Mark scramble for words.
“I don’t know if I like guys as a monolith,” Mark says. “But I think I like you. As a monolith. In the way you mean.” He swallows again. “Is that okay?” he asks. “I understand if it’s not.”
Wardo shakes his head, smiling, his breathing now openly faster. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”
Mark grins. It’s rare to see him lit up like this, and Wardo briefly considers not grabbing him right away and enjoying the sight, but quickly dismisses that as sheer stupidity. He yanks Mark down, pulls him on top of himself, roots both hands in his curly hair and kisses him with all the excitement he held back earlier. Mark kisses back with equal enthusiasm, if less skill, and inexpertly tangles their legs together. Eduardo shifts, demonstrating how this is done, and Mark quickly catches on.
Say what you will about Mark Zuckerberg, but a slow learner he is not.
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: Mark/Eduardo
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.
NOTES: I almost never write fic, but this just sort of wrote itself. Pre-movie slash. Hope you enjoy! Feedback is always appreciated. x-posted to mark_eduardo and socialnetwrkfic.
The thing is, Eduardo knows Mark isn’t gay, and he’s fine with it. Despite some initial confusion - mostly due to Mark’s social awkwardness making him somewhat less than a chick magnet - Eduardo had managed to deduce heterosexuality through the observation of an increasingly ill-advised series of dates with women, and he’s confident enough in his assessment that he doesn’t feel the need to confirm it through actually asking Mark. Mark isn’t gay, and Eduardo gets that. When asked about himself (after all, it’s 2003, people ask that kind of stuff now) he generally responds with some version of, “Gay? I’m Brazilian! Did you think the whole Latin lover stereotype was a joke?” - always delivered with a cocky grin and a wink, and carefully avoiding the direct response while implying the default. The fact is, Eduardo has messed around with guys on more than one drunken - or sober - occasion, but that can be excused as simple sluttiness and opportunism. He wouldn’t be the first person to jump into bed with a willing partner and throw concerns like “preference” by the wayside for a quick lay. More relevantly, though, Eduardo looks at guys, and sometimes they look pretty good to him. Sometimes Mark looks pretty good to him. Leaving aside the worrying idea that this might mean Eduardo’s actual taste in men runs towards scrawny curly-haired nerdboys, he’s not sure if this, Mark’s mercurial appeal, is more about men or more about Mark. Eduardo doesn’t know if he’s bi-curious, or bisexual, or just sexually liberated, but he does know Mark isn’t. And that’s fine.
Which makes his current situation all the more baffling.
Mark had knocked on his door earlier that night and barged in without waiting for a response, an apparent refugee from the latest in the ill-advised-dates-with-girls-from-state-schools series he was currently working through. “Wardo,” he asked - obliviously ignoring, to Eduardo’s amusement, the fact that Eduardo was home alone at 10:30 on a Saturday night for no good reason - “why are so many women such total bitches?”
Eduardo didn’t answer, just closed the door behind Mark, picked his hoodie off the floor where he’d dropped it, and draped it over the radiator. It was encrusted in snow and would leave a puddle.
Four hours later, Wardo was sprawled across his bed because Mark had commandeered his spinny chair. Wardo liked to collapse into it, let all his long limbs sprawl to their full extent, and use the momentum of the sprawl to make lazy circles, but that would be far too relaxed for Mark. Mark had braced his heels on the wheel rack and rested his beer on his knees, and he was twisting back and forth over a one-foot radius like the agitator of a washing machine. His rapid movements were starting to seriously damage Eduardo’s calm.
“I have had sex with many women,” Mark said, for what by Eduardo’s count was the fourth time that night. He had drunk a very large number of Eduardo’s beers, eaten three of his individually-wrapped string cheeses, and was now making quick work of a fourth cheese and an nth beer. He stabbed forward with the cheese to punctuate his sentence, briefly irritating Eduardo further by the stupid way he ate it. Rather than peeling the strips like a sensible person, he took big bites and gnawed chunks. He swore it tasted better.
Cheese-related frustrations aside, Eduardo pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and nodded. “You have had sex with a not inconsiderable number of women.”
“Yes. More than five.”
“And less than seven.”
“All right. Six.” Mark paused. “I have had sex with six women.” He paused again to consider the number, still twisting back and forth at what had to be rapidly approaching light speed. “That’s respectable, isn’t it?”
Wardo exhaled heavily. The rotations were definitely becoming tiresome. “Yes, Mark. Yes. It was respectable the last time you asked me and it will be respectable the next time you ask me and I swear to god - ” - he lunged forward and grabbed Mark’s knees as he rotated in Eduardo’s direction - “if you don’t stop spinning I’ll kill you with my hands.”
At his sudden rapid motion the room began spinning unsettlingly and Wardo wobbled, giving the lie to what was already a fairly empty threat. He leaned forward a little more, putting more pressure on Mark’s kneecaps to steady himself, and shook his head.
“Wardo?”
Mark’s voice was uncertain, and Eduardo took that as an invitation to step off. He leaned back, righting himself on the bed. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Just. Um. Can you come sit here? Please?” He gestured to the rest of the bed and laughed uneasily. “It’s just, the spinning. How can you move that fast when you’re that drunk and it’s almost three AM?”
Mark levered himself across the small space and sat on the edge of the bed by Eduardo’s waist, holding his bottle in both hands between his knees. “Psychologists have found that gesturing when you talk is your brain’s way of organizing all the information you have to say. That’s what the spinning is.”
Wardo lifted his head, one eyebrow raised. “Gesturing with your whole body?”
Mark shrugged. “I have a lot to say.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds, then, “Wardo?”
Eduardo sighed again. “Yeah.”
“How many people have you had sex with?”
Eduardo stilled momentarily, noting the noun - “people,” not “women.” He didn’t ask about it, and he didn’t ask Mark to define “sex” either, because sex with a girl and sex with a guy were slightly different animals, and while Wardo had definitely done the first, whether or not he had done the second was up for debate. And if you counted the things he’d done with guys then you had to rethink the things he’d done with girls, and the whole thing got muddled. So he assumed the most conventional definition and said, “Three.”
“Three.”
“Yeah.”
“What about … other stuff?”
Wardo sighed explosively. “I don’t know, Mark, I stopped keeping track of that when I was younger. Seven? Ten? More? Why?”
Mark shifted uncomfortably. “I just. I mean, I’ve had sex with six women. But not much. More. With others. And I just wonder about. Things.” Eduardo waited, but Mark didn’t say any more, and he wasn’t looking at Eduardo’s face. Unsure of how to parse a sentence so close to actual gibberish, Wardo opted instead to lay back in silence and stare at the stains on the ceiling. How did a ceiling even get stained? Had the room’s previous residents invented anti-gravity boots?
Then, again, “Wardo?” from much closer. Eduardo directed his eyes back towards Mark, and saw that he’d shifted in a circle to face him, sitting cross-legged on his bed.
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever. Um.” There was a pause, while Mark stared straight ahead, concentration plain on his face. “I just.” And then he leaned forward and practically fell on Eduardo’s mouth. Which brought him to his current predicament: why is Mark kissing him if Mark isn’t gay?
Eduardo wraps his hands around Mark’s shoulders in a position that could be taken as pushing him off or pulling him closer, depending on the pull- or push-ee’s point of view, and kisses back tentatively. It’s a bad kiss, Mark all awkward pressure with his hands in his lap of all places, and Eduardo trying not to respond with too much excitement lest it be taken the wrong way, but it suffices for the moment. After a few seconds Mark pulls off and stares at Eduardo, his cheeks bright red.
“Um,” he says. “Hi.”
Wardo raises an eyebrow. “…Hi, Mark,” he says, hands still loosely around Mark’s shoulders. “Was there something you wanted to ask me about?”
Mark swallows. “Have you ever done … other stuff … with a guy? Because I know you’ve come back from going home with more people than can be accounted for by three girls, none of whom you dated seriously, and why wouldn’t you be having sex whenever you go home with someone, right, so I thought you maybe had, but I wasn’t sure and I was afraid that if I asked you’d get mad so I thought I would just. Um. Try that.” He pauses, then adds, “To see.”
It all comes out in one quick breath and Eduardo is suddenly laughing, hands involuntarily squeezing Mark’s shoulders tighter, and Mark takes the unintentional movement as a cue to lean forward again, and he winds up bent nearly double at the waist with his head on Eduardo’s chest, hands awkwardly crushed between his torso and his legs. “Here,” Wardo says, “for fuck’s sake, Mark, you can stretch out. Just - here, and move your legs - yeah,” it shouldn’t be difficult, but of course Mark wouldn’t know how to do this part well, and despite having sex with six women it’s questionable whether he’s had sex more than ten times (a fact which Wardo was kind enough to leave out in their earlier conversation). Finally they settle, Eduardo lying prone and Mark on his own right side, head on Eduardo’s chest and left hand resting very lightly on his stomach. Wardo’s left arm is around Mark’s shoulders, hand curling protectively around the left one.
“Yes,” he says, finally. “I have done other stuff with guys. Counting guys, I have had sex with. Uh. …Seven people.” He pauses, realizing suddenly that he’s just counted more guys than girls. “Wow.” He shakes his head slightly, returning to the moment, and says, “So. Why did you want to know? What was it you wanted to … see?” He grins and raises an eyebrow at the top of Mark’s head.
Wardo feels rather than sees Mark shrug, and then Mark sort of sits up over his right arm so he can look Wardo in the face, and Wardo’s expression melts into one of thoughtful listening. “I’m not very good with women, in case you hadn’t noticed. Tonight with Lena was a fiasco, she - well, it doesn’t matter, but it was a fiasco, and I just thought … things are always so good with you. So … “He trails off, but the fingers on Wardo’s abs are pressing harder, and he’s not looking away.
Mark’s not getting off that easily, though (and Wardo winces inwardly at the pun echoing around his own skull). “So what?” he asks, not belligerent, just questioning. He waits a second, but Mark doesn’t seem immediately inclined to answer, so he says, “Here’s the thing. I’ve gone to bed with girls, and I’ve gone to bed with guys, and it’s always fun. But if you want to do this it can’t just be going to bed. You’re my best friend.” He pauses, lets that sink in, continues. “I like girls, but I like guys too. I mean I like guys.” It’s the first time he’s admitted it, even in his own head, and he’s shocked by its truth as it comes out of his mouth. “I like having sex with guys not just because it’s sex but because I. I like how guys look. Too,” he finishes somewhat lamely. This is coming out wrong, and Mark’s expression hasn’t changed. He tries again, saying an internal prayer of thanks for the many beers that are allowing him to say this without dying of mortification at some point mid-sentence. “You are my best friend and that’s great, but if you only want to have sex with me because you think it would work better than being with a woman, and not because you like how I look, and not because you’re interested in actual sex with a guy - which means another dick - “ - and that’s the part for which the many beers were needed, because if anyone wrote this script for Wardo he’d blanch at that line - “then this is not worth it.” There. That’s it. It’s out.
Mark nods, thinking, biting his lower lip in concentration. Wardo’s arm is still around his shoulders, hand still cradling the left one, and he very tentatively lets his fingers explore the muscles of Mark’s upper arm. Mark’s fingers are moving, very lightly, over Wardo’s abs, and he forces himself to focus on the conversation and not those touches, because despite his speech, if the best Mark can come up with is “I’m not sure,” Wardo will take it. He’s wanted this for longer than he previously realized, and anyway, anyone touching him like that would be enough to get him going.
Finally Mark nods, once, to himself, and says, “Yeah. I see what you mean.” He pauses. “I.” Stops. Thinks. “You are my best friend and I am not stupid and I am not blind,” he says with finality. “You are obviously handsome - “ - only Mark, in his eternal off-base clunkiness, could get away with using a word like handsome and not sound like a total idiot - “ - and I would be a liar if I said I hadn’t noticed. I mean. Noticed.” He stops again. He’s not seductive but he hasn’t moved and he’s slowly, gently working his hand lower, possibly without noticing. It’s all Wardo can do not to either bend him over backwards; grab his hand and move it decisively south; or shove him out of touching distance and force him to have this conversation in a less distracting position. But he does none of the above, since each of those involves him not getting something he wants (answers or touches, respectively) and instead sits there, counting to one hundred in French in his head, which he hasn’t taken since he was fourteen, and listening to Mark scramble for words.
“I don’t know if I like guys as a monolith,” Mark says. “But I think I like you. As a monolith. In the way you mean.” He swallows again. “Is that okay?” he asks. “I understand if it’s not.”
Wardo shakes his head, smiling, his breathing now openly faster. “Yes,” he says. “Yes.”
Mark grins. It’s rare to see him lit up like this, and Wardo briefly considers not grabbing him right away and enjoying the sight, but quickly dismisses that as sheer stupidity. He yanks Mark down, pulls him on top of himself, roots both hands in his curly hair and kisses him with all the excitement he held back earlier. Mark kisses back with equal enthusiasm, if less skill, and inexpertly tangles their legs together. Eduardo shifts, demonstrating how this is done, and Mark quickly catches on.
Say what you will about Mark Zuckerberg, but a slow learner he is not.