[big bang][tsn] call & response / part 3 (final)
A CHANCE
So enough of this terror/ we deserve to know light/ and grow evermore lighter and lighter
-joanna newsome, sawdust and diamonds
-
The light is dim. Eduardo’s arms feel heavy when he moves them across cool bedsheets, squinting his eyes. He listens for the low hum of computers; expects to see the sickly glow of a monitor but finds nothing. He doesn’t know where he is.
He tries to remember. What is the last thing he did?
Anxiety claws at him when he can’t think of the answer, and that fear alone has him swinging his legs off the edge of the bed, finding a doorway and heading out.
Eduardo has to slide his fingertips down the hallway in order to find his way. Everything is very bright, and when he breathes the air rushed in so cool and quick that he coughs. He struggles for a normal breathing pattern, finds the door, and swings it open.
Out here it’s even brighter. He squints against sunlight that invades the room from all angles until he can make out two blurry figures just past the windows - walls? One of them sees him and Eduardo has to fight the urge to flee, blinking rapidly; the figure only leans forward and gives the other one a nudge.
Moments later and Mark is standing clearly in the doorway, and it feels like all the air has left Eduardo’s lungs. He stumbles forward.
“Woah woah! What?” Mark’s skittered forward to catch Eduardo before could fall, one hand splayed on Eduardo’s chest and the other gripping unsteadily around his waist.
“Mark?”
“Yeah, you - of course.”
This is his house. His house in Summerland. The last thing Eduardo remembers is - failing. The constricting, agonizing knowledge that he’d failed Mark again, that the moment he’d set foot in the Lower Realm, he was never meant to come back. He was meant here - there - with Mark.
“How?” is all he can say, and Mark smiles at him, wide and happy and brighter even than the sunlight of Eduardo’s Summerland.
“Wardo, we did it.” He laughs, releasing his hold on Eduardo’s waist to take a step back, fingers lingering on the front of Eduardo’s shirt.
He’s confused, but unable to tear his eyes away from Mark, returning the smile with his heart thumping loud and warm in his ears; he had thought he would never feel summer again, and here it is, and here Mark is, and for the first time since he died - maybe for the first time in his life - Eduardo knows that he’s done something right. Something worth doing, and not just for his own sake.
Nanda moves into his peripheral vision, the porch door swinging gently shut behind her just as Eduardo reaches out to press his palm against the curve of Mark’s jaw. His skin is warm and healthy, exactly like Eduardo had always wanted to see him: taking care of himself. His last memory of Mark was the gaunt, haunted figure of the Lower Realm. In Eduardo’s opinion, he’s looking at a miracle.
“How?” he says again, not sure exactly what he means by it, but Mark rolls his eyes.
“It wasn’t easy. I mean, I did it, obviously, but if Dustin could learn to code in three days then I can learn incorporeal transport, even with your lazy ass slowing me down.”
Eduardo narrows his eyes. “’Lazy ass?’”
“What he’s trying to say is that he brought both of you back to Summerland, but trying to navigate to a place you’ve never experienced is difficult enough as it is. Doing so with a soul who believes that he needs to stay put, well. But he managed it.”
“It was just like finding the right code. Where would Eduardo Saverin want to spend the rest of eternity?”
With you.
A wry smile flickers across Mark’s features for a moment, as if he knows.
“Unfortunately I don’t speak in computer language, Nanda, could you…?”
“According to your guide, he expected you to return but instead Mark came dragging you behind out of the house.”
“And I was not crying.”
Eduardo pats him on the cheek. “You were crying. That much, I remember.” Mark scowls.
“As I was saying,” Nanda says, coughing dramatically, “Whatever happened inside the house was enough to give Mark awareness of his surroundings.”
“And I didn’t like it.”
“Let her tell the story, Mark.”
“You weren’t lost yet, you’re very lucky. But there’s no way you could have traveled back to Summerland on your own. You couldn’t recall it even after Chris’s prompting, and Mark had nothing to reference.”
Eduardo nods. “He couldn’t feel it.”
“He could, eventually. It was in you.”
Mark steps around to face Eduardo, going up on his toes to press a cool hand across Eduardo’s eyesight. “Like this,” he mumbles.
Eduardo tries to imagine it. Forgets where he is - forgets the City - forgets everything but the hollow and barren Lower Realm, focusing in on Mark before him. He forgets about his eyes, about Mark’s hand; he lets everything fall away save for the soul in front of him, feeling for him the way he had when he’d managed to let go of his body’s trappings. And there - something resonates, like a humming sound, or an answer to the question Eduardo was asking with his entire being. And then Mark’s hand slides from his eyes, and they’re no longer in the same place they were before.
“Is this… your Summerland?”
“Sure. And yours.”
“How is that possible? I mean, we aren’t - “
“Soulmates? No. I checked, just to make sure, but no. That would have made things too easy. But I wanted to be here and couldn’t find a map. I had to use yours.”
“My memory.”
“I had to know where I was going. My afterlife and yours got a little bit mixed together, I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? Mark, I went through Hell for you, why would I do that if I didn’t want - “
Mark leans up on his toes and kisses him.
It’s quick, but Mark is so warm - he hearkens after him, but Mark shakes his head.
“Sorry. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Do what?” Eduardo uses their closeness to wrap his arm around Mark’s lower back. “Kiss me?”
“No. Deserve it.”
Eduardo leans in for another kiss, thinking in the back of his head about bodies and how he could hold on to his for a little while longer, if it’s going to be like this. If it means he’ll always be able to know that Mark is only a step away.
He pulls back after a minute to say, “You always deserved it,” into the hair curling over Mark’s ear, and Mark nods.
“I know. Now I know.”
Another long minute later and Mark steps back, eyes bright. “Want me to show you?”
“Show me what?”
“Facebook. In the City - the records - I had to look us up and did you know that they can trace every impact that a person has had on other souls? It’s like - Wardo, the network map, do you remember it? It’s like that but it’s mine. It’s huge. Do you want to see it?”
Every impact Facebook had on every soul. Eduardo nods. “Of course I want to see it,” he says, offering out a hand for Mark to take. “Mark. Show me Facebook.”
Maybe he’d never made any mistakes in life, after all. Maybe he was always meant to follow Mark’s lead.
fin
-
1 While unfortunately I couldn't make this as visual as the film version, much of the philosophy is taken from the novel that the film is based off. Therefore, a lot of this can be attributed to Richard Matheson and the research he did for his book.
2 If you haven't already, take a look at the BEAUTIFUL art for this fic! SERIOUSLY, GO, YOU WON'T REGRET IT.
by mao_square and , by speak_me_fair <3