fic: city of blinding lights, 2/2
continued from here
seven. --- (monroe, louisiana, july tenth)
Okay, so. Northern Louisiana? Might have been a mistake.
Mark had known he wanted to avoid New Orleans, nothing against the city personally, but when he thinks of New Orleans he thinks of color and noise and cheer, a city that has so much character it’s spilling out of every crack and crevice.
And like he’d said in Montana, he doesn’t like gumbo. He likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and his nana’s latkes.
Yeah. He’s sure there’s a rich history, and probably not too many vampires (oh god Dustin’s obsession with True Blood will probably never go away--) but this is making him itch more.
He’d thought it would be less. He’s more east, isn’t he?
Not really, whispers the niggling voice inside of him, the one Mark always so conveniently ignores. Stop playing with technicalities.
“Fuck off,” he says out loud, to the steering wheel of his car, and thumps the dashboard. And then after a moment, Mark laughs. He’s just told himself to fuck off. Priorities, man, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t even have those anymore.
This is ridiculous, he tells himself. He’s just driven 18 hours straight down I-70, flagrantly defying requests like don’t do anything stupid and don’t forget to sleep. He could have stopped in Kansas, in Wichita, gotten another anonymous hotel room so he wasn’t staring at pavement and headlights.
Kansas is really big. It’s really fucking big. You drive and drive and all that you see in front of you is more Kansas. Poor Dorothy, Mark thinks, and laughs hysterically. Poor Toto.
He pretty much passes out after that.
-
Mark’s phone rings in the early morning when he’s in the middle of a dream that seems to be mostly memory.
He rolls over and gropes for the device. Eduardo Saverin, it says, and 4:47 AM, which is absurdly early. His head feels stuffed full of cotton wool. He hits the button and answers it.
“Wardo? It’s still dark out.”
“Mark, where are you.” Eduardo’s voice is worried, concern threading through it in a way Mark hasn’t heard since he was sick the end of freshman year and Eduardo spent two days making sure he ate soup and stayed hydrated after he threw up seven times in four hours. “Mark, seriously, everyone is really worried, I’ve been getting texts from Dustin and Chris for hours-- are you still in Colorado?”
“Nnnn.” His mouth is sticky. “I don’t know where I am.”
“You don’t know--”
“No, no, I do, it’s okay, ‘m just asleep. I’m in Monroe.”
“Monroe?” Eduardo sounds a little relieved, now that he’s, like, ensured that Mark hasn’t been kidnapped or whatever for his billion dollars and his lame car. “Monroe what, Mark. Where.”
“Louisiana,” Mark says thickly. “I was gonna stop in Kansas, but then I thought I would never get out of Kansas so I kept driving. Did you know how much of Kansas there is? I guess it makes sense that Dorothy wanted to go to Oz.”
“Mark, that’s like a twenty hour drive, you idiot.”
Mark yawns. “I guess. It seemed like less when I was actually doing it.”
“I was worried,” Eduardo says quietly. “You-- you dropped off the map, I was worried.”
“It’s okay,” Mark says. He shifts, curls into his pillow. The mattress crackles below him. “Go back to sleep, Wardo, s’okay. I’m okay.”
Eduardo exhales on the other side of the line, then there’s a soft click. Mark pictures him, pictures him in his Harvard sweatshirt and jeans soft from washing, until he falls back asleep. He’ll call Dustin and Chris in the morning.
-
Chris calls him at a much more reasonable hour.
“Sorry for freaking you guys out, okay,” says Mark pre-emptively. “I will be more considerate next time.”
Chris sighs, and then laughs. “Mark,” he says fondly. “You’re so-- you. Sometimes I forget.”
“Okay,” Mark says. “Yes. I am. I’m going to go get lunch now.”
“Go for it,” says Chris. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Yeah,” says Mark. He looks at the phone in his hand for a moment. “Hey, Chris, you know what? Eduardo was worried about me.”
Chris pauses. “Is that a good thing?”
“Could be,” Mark says. “Or maybe not. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” says Chris. “You think about it.” He hangs up.
Mark still wants to get the hell out of Louisiana.
North, he thinks, and begins to head up toward Nashville.
eight --- (lancaster, kentucky, july twelfth)
There’s something surprisingly comfortable about Kentucky. Mark thinks it probably has to do with thoughts of drinking bourbon in college and coding, or with memories reading Hunter S. Thompson when he was a teenager and his laptop overheated.
It might be comfortable, but it also rains the entire time he’s in the state.
Technically he’s in the South, but it isn’t the Deep South, it isn’t romanticized or strictly not romanticized, whichever reality the tourist picks.
There isn’t much in the town, but he gets a decent slice of pizza at a place called Hamilton Avenue Pizza, which is in a one-storey house that has a porch with a rocking chair on it, and Mark appreciates that after endless rounds of California Pizza Kitchen, he really does. He sits on the covered porch and scarfs it down with a cup of sweet tea.
This is really just another reminder that Dustin needs to learn how to cook if he’s going to keep spending almost every fucking night he’s not on a doomed date over at Mark’s place despite having his own house with food and a pool and a ridiculous Jacuzzi bath thing.
The people he encounters are friendly. They smile, but it’s pretty clear that they don’t know who he is. Which is-- it’s nice. At Harvard Mark had had infamy, now he’s famous, kind of famous, whatever. Here he’s just another Yankee tourist passing through.
Mark’s hand goes automatically to his pocket so he can text Eduardo that, but maybe not.
What the hell, you’d like New York for that too. I know you didn’t like the city when we went for a weekend in college, but no one cares who you are in New York.
Another one buzzes through. Unless you’re Derek Jeter. Maybe.
Mark laughs, sends a smiley face (ugh, when did he become the sort of person who sends emoticons in text, why is he a twelve year old girl) and tucks his phone back into his front pocket.
He’s definitely going to keep going north. But maybe he’ll come back here sometime.
nine --- (erie, pennsylvania, july fourteenth)
“How long were you driving for this time?” Mark can picture Dustin, splayed over his couch with the TV and his laptop both on, phone cradled between neck and shoulder. “Cause Mark, you promised us you wouldn’t drive for hours and do stupid shit, and I gotta say I don’t have a lot of faith in that right now. Not that I don’t have faith in you-- I totally do when it comes to computers and getting that weird projector in Conference Room C to work, but I don’t have faith when it comes to you sleeping and eating like a normal person, and also when it comes to you not scaring reporters who are well-intentioned, even when they are asking about your love life.”
“It was eight hours,” Mark says crossly. His current motel room has eye-searing wallpaper and the springs on the bed are stabbing into his spine, but he’s here and he’s too lazy to move, also, Dustin’s voice and tendency to speak in paragraphs are becoming grating fairly quickly. “I’m not a total idiot.”
“No, just like, seventy percent,” Dustin responds. “Wait, so where are you now?”
Mark stretches. “Um. Somewhere in Pennsylvania.”
“You don’t know where you are? Why the fuck did you even spend money on a GPS then? Are you going to hike the Appalachain Trail next and live off the land eating twigs and blueberries and shit, and then write a blog about it? Reclusive Facebook Founder Goes Into the Wild?”
“No, I do, give me a second. It’s Pennsylvania, I’m in Erie, Pennsylvania. By Lake Erie.”
“You know, I could have guessed that one,” Dustin says. “So what’s it like being near a great lake?”
“It’s really big,” Mark says, and they both laugh because shit, it’s obvious, but it’s also fucking funny.
“That’s why they call it a great lake.” Dustin is chortling, full belly laughs making their way down the phone line. “I kinda feel like I’m missing an opportunity for sexual innuendos here, Mark, I got to say.”
“Nothing off the top of my head,” Mark responds. “It’s disappointing. I’m losing my touch.”
“Maybe we’re getting mature,” Dustin says mock-seriously. “Anyways. On that note, this is your obligatory repetitive warning to not get into any car crashes from falling asleep at the wheel because Chris will kick your ass and he’ll do it more effectively than I will. Seriously Mark, he’s been working out.”
“Fuck you, I’m a perfectly good driver, also who says I haven’t been going to the gym too?” Mark says automatically, though the last part is a lie and both of them know it-- Facebook: created and initially populated by skinny nerds-- and he hangs up the phone.
He remembers when it was Eduardo who would hover, telling Mark not to stay up all night and code. Now that seems to have been replaced by a tag-team of Dustin and Chris combining mother hen behavior they probably learned off Wikipeda and late-night sitcoms reruns plus years of knowing Mark into one fucking dangerous combination.
Also, Mark is one of those people who both appreciates and hates being looked after, so yeah. This new situation swings constantly between somewhat appreciated and really pathetic.
Lake Erie is pretty cool, but once you look at it for a while, it’s a lot of placid water with no horizon in sight. There isn’t much to do anymore.
Where should I go next?
And it’s Eduardo who answers, a text while Mark is eating surprisingly decent kung pao chicken and drinking his third Coke at a Chinese place he picked because it was closest to the motel: you should come here.
Here is New York, loud and noisy and sticky-hot with July heat, a crush of tourists and locals and dogs and kids, parks full of people and sprinklers and farmers’ markets, subways crowded and smelling like disgusting soup, air thick and sun reflecting off sidewalks, making his spine prickle. Here is seeing Eduardo face to face with no buffer. Here is public transportation and losing the comfort of his Saturn and his GPS’s tinny, accented, Giles-y voice.
Here is also an invitation.
Where should I stay? Mark responds, after a moment’s consideration. He knows what he’s expecting-- it’s a big city, there’s lots of hotels to choose from-- but instead Eduardo says : stay with me.
Okay, Mark taps out, fingers trembling. He did not expect this when he woke up in the morning, and it’s terrifying and a blessing all at once. Thank you.
I’ll see you in the morning, Eduardo responds.
Well.
He’s fine with driving all night anyways. It’s just another eight hours and there’s coffee and no traffic, Mark says to the Dustin-voice at the back of his head, so fuck you very much, I’ll be fine.
ten. --- (new york, new york, united states, july fifteenth)
They meet in Midtown.
They meet by Rockefeller Center and there’s no ice because it’s the middle of July, but Mark remembers what it was like in winter with the ice skaters and Eduardo with flushed cheeks clutching a cup of hot chocolate, watching people speed around in circles and he was wearing a Harvard scarf and a big down jacket, had said how there never was winter like this in Miami and it was his first real winter, it was still a fantastic novelty. Mark remembers that as July presses down on him, and Eduardo buys them both soft-serve ice cream from a Mr. Softee truck like the mature adult he is, and they find a quiet corner amidst the bustle, a set of stairs, an open public park to sit and talk and--
No.
They meet at the Le Pain Quotidien on 19th and Broadway, all the tables outside are full, and their waitress is blonde. It took Mark thirty minutes to find a parking spot, and the first thing that Eduardo says to him is, “I can’t believe you drive a Saturn.”
Mark says, “my mom was afraid I would crash a Lamborghini,” which is true, and Eduardo laughs.
He’s wearing jeans and a navy blue polo shirt, and Mark thinks that he must be roasting slowly because Mark is in old cargo shorts and, in his head, swiftly calculating the chances of heatstroke. The elastic around his hips is also shot; the waistband is going and he’s in a Harvard t-shirt that might belong to Dustin because it’s a little too big in the shoulders, and his feet are sweaty in his sandals.
“Would you like a menu?” the waitress asks, grabbing the check from the loud group beside them. Mark thinks really hard about how much he hates communal tables and how apparently all of Manhattan’s got a sudden craving for mint lemonade and chocolate croissants.
She’s going through the specials, which he tuned out after the mention of chilled zucchini soup, and it’s like--
“you’re here,” Eduardo says, and Mark raises his eyebrows and shrugs and yeah, he is.
“Two iced teas and I guess the bread basket,” he tells the waitress, who bustles off, snagging the menus, and Mark is sitting in a French-ish cafe literally inches away from Eduardo Saverin because communal tables are designed to make things awkward, and they are going to have a conversation.
“So I guess Facebook hasn’t exploded since you’ve been away, huh,” Eduardo says, and while it’s definitely tinged with something, Mark laughs.
“Yeah, but if the entire front page is replaced by an embedded Youtube video of a cat walking on a piano, we know who to blame,” he says in response. Eduardo smiles and leans forward on his elbows.
“Dustin’s sense of humor has only matured, I see,” he says.
“It’s Dustin,” Mark says fondly. “Dick jokes, lolcats, and mother hen behavior are kind of his thing.”
“Not the mother hen behavior,” Eduardo says, and his eyebrows kind of twitch. “That’s new.”
“Maybe,” Mark bites his lip. Dustin being almost an Eduardo-substitute has become so familiar since the lawsuit, since it became so obvious that Sean wasn’t up to the job and Chris was going to eventually leave them both behind for a greater cause. “Though it’s upsetting that my friends all think I need a keeper, but, I guess he was, you know, sort of--”
“You can say taking over for me,” Eduardo says. “I can connect the dots.”
Mark shifts in his seat, crossing his legs. “Yeah. A little. I know.”
(They meet in Soho amidst a crush of summer tourists on the Sex and the City tour eating cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery and Mark complains about how sweet the frosting is and Eduardo just laughs and drags him into the bakery to prove that they’re still good, it’s not a problem, and when he gets a smear of purple buttercream on his upper lip for a moment it looks like Eduardo wants to lick it off--
no.
They are in a cafe on 19th Street and there is a toddler who is crying and Mark is taking a sip of lukewarm tap water because he can’t think of anything to say.)
Eduardo takes a sip of water too, and Mark kind of can’t stop looking at his lips. But he’s not gonna say that out loud, he can’t, so instead he says, “I was really glad when you called me when I was in Montana.” And through some freak miracle that must have been the right thing to say because Eduardo’s eyebrow goes up and he sets his glass down, says, “yes?” and Mark nods a little frantically.
“I mean it was confusing. That you called. But I liked it.”
“Mark--”
“I don’t know if you felt guilty or if you were obligated or whatever but I was really glad, even if that’s a completely idiotic thing to be happy about--”
“Mark.”
“Yes.”
“I called because I missed you.” Eduardo takes a sip of water, his movements controlled, deliberate. His voice is measured and deliberate too. “You fucker.”
The thing about sitting next to each other is that now their knees are practically touching, and Mark doesn’t know what exactly to do with that, and the tone of Eduardo’s voice is fond, or fondly exasperated, and he’s still thinking about Eduardo’s lips and how this is not the time to be thinking about Eduardo’s lips.
“Here’s your tea,” the waitress says, suddenly reappearing. Mark’s past ten days have been filled with waitresses, and advice from waitresses, and while it’s mostly been solicited, he is also very glad that this one just whisks away to tend to her other tables.
“I’m a fucker?” he asks through dry lips, taking a sip of tea for fortification, and Eduardo’s eyes are dark and full of intent.
“Yes,” Eduardo says. “You goddamned are. And you’re a confusing, tricky bastard too, and you go from being a good friend to an utterly terrible one, and once, Mark, once upon a time on the 4th of July you took off and spent more than ten days driving yourself across the country on what I can only figure is a criminally stupid amount of sleep. You didn’t go to New Orleans, you went to Monroe. You didn’t stop to rest through the entire state of Kansas. And because I am just as insane as you are, I missed you.”
“Me too,” Mark agrees, because what else can he do? But more than that, what else does he want to do? “God, Wardo, I thought I would get used to you not being there, except I never did.”
“A couple of days ago, Chris told me that he always thought you and I were a textbook case of codependency,” Eduardo says wryly, a smile quirking around his lips.
“Like he and Dustin were any better sometimes,” and reminiscing about college should be awkward, but instead it’s just soft nostalgia, the good kind, that kind that makes both of them smile.
“Yeah. Okay.” Eduardo smiles. “Are we going to order food besides bread and jam?”
Mark shrugs. “We should, I guess. It would be rude not to.”
Eduardo orders a salad. Mark gets two pastries, and Eduardo shakes his head.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Mark says. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay,” Eduardo says. His head snaps up, suddenly, and he looks Mark dead in the eye. “Mark.”
“You look super intense right now, is this a thing?”
“I don’t want to do this here.”
Mark could say ‘what’, he could just question Eduardo and press him, but-- “okay. We won’t.”
“It’s not-- it’s too crowded.”
“It’s anonymous, like you said.” Mark feels obligated to point that out. “It should be okay.”
“Some things don’t need to be out where everyone can see them,” Eduardo says dryly. “We can go back to my place later. I have some things I need to say.”
Mark glances down at his hands, wrapped around the glass, clenched. “That’s fair,” he says. “That’s good. We should do that.”
Eduardo nods. He is still so measured.
-
Eduardo’s apartment is probably large for New York but it would be small for anywhere else, with a worn leather couch and nice hardwood floors. There’s only one bedroom, small, but it has a walk-in closet and Eduardo doesn’t mind because there’s a walk-in closet. It’s well-lit and looks out over the back of the block, so he can have a modicum of privacy and quiet.
Mark isn’t thirsty, but he still takes some water when Eduardo offers. He’s perched on the end of one of the dining room chairs, and Eduardo is-- there’s no other word for it, really-- Eduardo is hovering.
He sits, finally, pulls out one of the other chairs and sinks into it, and Mark speaks up.
“I want to know what I’m doing here.” It could be taken as rude, and it is, on its own merits, but Eduardo looks at him and apparently understands that it’s just a statement, because he sighs.
“To be honest, I don’t know why,” he says.
“I like your apartment,” Mark offers up in lieu of anything else. Wardo’s answering smile is an afterthought. He still looks conflicted. “Hey. Wardo--”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Mark continues. “We can just, I don’t know, sit quietly or something.” And hey, Mark thinks the world would be awesome if everyone just took some time out of their day to sit quietly and stare at the floor. There would probably be less conflict.
Eduardo laughs. “We could. God, Mark--” he pauses, looks at Mark.
Mark is still watching the shape of Eduardo’s mouth, has been doing so pretty continuously since lunch, even though watching other people eat salad isn’t necessarily very attractive. Eduardo’s brow creases.
“Why are you staring at my mouth?”
“I’m not staring at your mouth.”
Eduardo raises an eyebrow, and it’s achingly familiar, it’s his traditional are you fucking kidding me here Mark look. “Yes, you are. You’ve been doing it, except I couldn’t figure out what was going on at first.” He bites his lip, and watches as Mark’s eyes follow the motion. “There! See? You just did it again.”
“It’s not--” Mark looks up at the sound of Eduardo’s chair dragging against the wood. He’s pulling himself closer, like they’re back at the goddamned communal table, except this is an apartment and there is plenty of personal space. “You’re sitting very close to me.”
“Because you are ridiculous,” Eduardo says. “And we never talked about this kind of thing even when we should have-- Mark, we had the chance to, once, and I totally blew past it, that was all me. But it was the same in the other direction too, and then there was Sean and California and fucking Facebook, okay, and I never knew what to do.”
“So once you found out I was going on vacation you used it as an excuse to start talking to me again?”
“It’s stupid,” Eduardo says, in the same sort of tone one might say ‘your face is stupid’. “I don’t know. Nostalgia and stupidity are probably pretty close together. And-- I did miss you. I hated you for such a long time, and then one day, it just-- went away. It started seeming insignificant, which isn’t-- god, it’s ridiculous when I say it, right? It all seemed like such a big deal back then, but now it’s been seven years, you take off on the Fourth of July, and being civil with each other at dotcom events stopped being enough to satisfy the part of me that was-- that was best friends with you.”
Mark sits up a little bit straighter, ankles neatly crossed. “I like you talking to me,” he says. “And I was looking at your mouth.”
“This is the worst pick-up line ever,” Eduardo says, “but I’m going to put it out there: there’s more you can do than just look at my mouth.”
Maybe it’s a good thing that they are sitting so very close together, because it is ridiculously easy for Mark to lean in those few inches and press his lips to Eduardo’s. Eduardo’s lips are cool, soft, and his mouth opens easily when Mark wraps his hand around the back of his head, the other dropping to Eduardo’s waist. It’s-- it’s exploratory, questioning, good but tentative, and Mark presses a little harder, tries to make it deeper. It already means enough, and though he hadn’t realized it, he’s been waiting.
He’d thought about this is college. He wasn’t repressed or anything, had thought about kissing Eduardo when it was late and they were studying. He’d thought about how easy it would be, and how hard it could be, and he’d never done it.
To be fair, he’d also pictured Eduardo, mouth pink and wet and wrapped around his dick, when he was in the shower jacking off, which is not something Mark is necessarily going to tell anyone unless the next five minutes go extraordinarily well.
“Mark.” Eduardo pulls back and his mouth is like Mark had pictured seven years ago. “Stop thinking.”
“I’m not,” Mark says, which is complete and total bullshit, but there you go. “I mean, I’m thinking about you. And college. And why we didn’t kiss in college.”
“I came close to it,” Eduardo says. “There was this one time-- you probably don’t remember.”
Mark twists his leg around Eduardo’s; their ankles touch. “Try me.”
“It was one of those late night study sessions and I made you stop to watch the sunrise,” Eduardo says. “I wanted to go up to the roof, but you didn’t want to put on shoes. I think that was when I first realized that I wanted you, you know? Even though you, frankly, needed a shower and had no idea about appropriate winter footwear. I wanted to push you down on top of all the econ textbooks and make out with you.”
“Fuck the winter, I’m stronger than hail and a cold wind,” Mark says immediately. Eduardo laughs. “And I would have totally let you-- but on top of the econ texts? That’s dirty, Wardo, that is not an appropriate use of school materials.”
“Pent up frustration,” Eduardo says. “Which, speaking of, come here, asshole.” He pulls Mark to him again and seals their lips together. It’s warm and sloppy and searching, and Eduardo’s hand is dancing around the hem of Mark’s t-shirt, which he totally approves of. It’s like, this is what kissing should be like, someone pressed up against you because you can’t touch each other enough, hands and mouths all over. Someone he finds himself sucking and nipping along Eduardo’s jaw, then at the sensitive spot under his ear-- Eduardo hisses and his hips buck up; Mark feels a thrill dart up his spine, he did that-- and Eduardo is trying to pull him out of his shirt.
“Couch,” Mark gasps, and they both try to stand up at the same time and tumble to the floor. “Ow.” And then they both burst out laughing because they are tangled on the floor, and there’s a sharp pain where he banged his elbow, and Eduardo like, hit his face on Mark’s shoulder and there’s going to be a bruise on his cheekbone, how did this even happen, and Mark laughs even harder.
“Okay,” says Eduardo, giggling like a maniac, “this is a clear sign that you should take off your shirt.”
Mark rolls his eyes and pulls it off, then begins attacking Eduardo’s button down-- fucking buttons, they are a ludicrous. He says as much and Eduardo starts giggling even harder until he’s practically choking.
“This is even better than it would have been that night,” Mark murmurs abruptly, pulling Wardo’s shirt from his shoulders. The sun spills across them, turning Eduardo’s skin golden and Mark’s blindingly white.
“This is good,” Eduardo says. “We’re not done talking, but this is good.”
Mark mutters something that is most likely talking later, sex now, or maybe that’s just where his brain is, because they’re kissing again and kind of crawling over to the rug, and he’s going to end up with rug burn on his knees and elbows and not care; he’ll wear it like a badge of pride: I got the guy.
“Stop thinking,” Eduardo says, climbing on top of his, pressing his shoulder down. Mark’s arms come up automatically to wrap around Wardo’s back, and he says “okay,” and it really, finally, is.
eleven. --- (new york, new york, united states, july sixteenth)
Mark wakes up in a bed that is not his own, which isn’t unfamiliar to him at this point. But it’s significantly softer than any of the motel beds, and there’s a warm body next to him, strange limbs flung over his torso.
Eduardo leans over to kiss him sleepily, and grimaces. “God, you have the worst morning breath,” he says, sticking his tongue out and making a face. “Ugh, did you even brush your teeth last night?”
“This is why morning sex is illogical,” Mark says, and then kind of wishes he hadn’t, because morning sex would be awesome, and he’s comfortable, and getting up away from the warmth to brush his teeth is seriously unappealing. Then again, so is a mouth that tastes like old socks.
“I don’t know,” Eduardo says, eyeing him speculatively. “I bet we could make it work.” He slides a hand down Mark’s chest, teasing and slow. “I’m not totally opposed.”
A pause.
“Just don’t breathe on me--” and Mark hits him with a pillow, and then neither of them speak for quite a while.
twelve. --- (brooklyn, new york, united states, july sixteenth)
For his second day in New York, Eduardo takes Mark to the beach.
They get into a splash fight, standing ankle-deep in the Atlantic, and when Eduardo kisses him, he tastes like salt and sun and the promise of something good.
seven. --- (monroe, louisiana, july tenth)
Okay, so. Northern Louisiana? Might have been a mistake.
Mark had known he wanted to avoid New Orleans, nothing against the city personally, but when he thinks of New Orleans he thinks of color and noise and cheer, a city that has so much character it’s spilling out of every crack and crevice.
And like he’d said in Montana, he doesn’t like gumbo. He likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and his nana’s latkes.
Yeah. He’s sure there’s a rich history, and probably not too many vampires (oh god Dustin’s obsession with True Blood will probably never go away--) but this is making him itch more.
He’d thought it would be less. He’s more east, isn’t he?
Not really, whispers the niggling voice inside of him, the one Mark always so conveniently ignores. Stop playing with technicalities.
“Fuck off,” he says out loud, to the steering wheel of his car, and thumps the dashboard. And then after a moment, Mark laughs. He’s just told himself to fuck off. Priorities, man, he’s pretty sure he doesn’t even have those anymore.
This is ridiculous, he tells himself. He’s just driven 18 hours straight down I-70, flagrantly defying requests like don’t do anything stupid and don’t forget to sleep. He could have stopped in Kansas, in Wichita, gotten another anonymous hotel room so he wasn’t staring at pavement and headlights.
Kansas is really big. It’s really fucking big. You drive and drive and all that you see in front of you is more Kansas. Poor Dorothy, Mark thinks, and laughs hysterically. Poor Toto.
He pretty much passes out after that.
-
Mark’s phone rings in the early morning when he’s in the middle of a dream that seems to be mostly memory.
He rolls over and gropes for the device. Eduardo Saverin, it says, and 4:47 AM, which is absurdly early. His head feels stuffed full of cotton wool. He hits the button and answers it.
“Wardo? It’s still dark out.”
“Mark, where are you.” Eduardo’s voice is worried, concern threading through it in a way Mark hasn’t heard since he was sick the end of freshman year and Eduardo spent two days making sure he ate soup and stayed hydrated after he threw up seven times in four hours. “Mark, seriously, everyone is really worried, I’ve been getting texts from Dustin and Chris for hours-- are you still in Colorado?”
“Nnnn.” His mouth is sticky. “I don’t know where I am.”
“You don’t know--”
“No, no, I do, it’s okay, ‘m just asleep. I’m in Monroe.”
“Monroe?” Eduardo sounds a little relieved, now that he’s, like, ensured that Mark hasn’t been kidnapped or whatever for his billion dollars and his lame car. “Monroe what, Mark. Where.”
“Louisiana,” Mark says thickly. “I was gonna stop in Kansas, but then I thought I would never get out of Kansas so I kept driving. Did you know how much of Kansas there is? I guess it makes sense that Dorothy wanted to go to Oz.”
“Mark, that’s like a twenty hour drive, you idiot.”
Mark yawns. “I guess. It seemed like less when I was actually doing it.”
“I was worried,” Eduardo says quietly. “You-- you dropped off the map, I was worried.”
“It’s okay,” Mark says. He shifts, curls into his pillow. The mattress crackles below him. “Go back to sleep, Wardo, s’okay. I’m okay.”
Eduardo exhales on the other side of the line, then there’s a soft click. Mark pictures him, pictures him in his Harvard sweatshirt and jeans soft from washing, until he falls back asleep. He’ll call Dustin and Chris in the morning.
-
Chris calls him at a much more reasonable hour.
“Sorry for freaking you guys out, okay,” says Mark pre-emptively. “I will be more considerate next time.”
Chris sighs, and then laughs. “Mark,” he says fondly. “You’re so-- you. Sometimes I forget.”
“Okay,” Mark says. “Yes. I am. I’m going to go get lunch now.”
“Go for it,” says Chris. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Yeah,” says Mark. He looks at the phone in his hand for a moment. “Hey, Chris, you know what? Eduardo was worried about me.”
Chris pauses. “Is that a good thing?”
“Could be,” Mark says. “Or maybe not. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” says Chris. “You think about it.” He hangs up.
Mark still wants to get the hell out of Louisiana.
North, he thinks, and begins to head up toward Nashville.
eight --- (lancaster, kentucky, july twelfth)
There’s something surprisingly comfortable about Kentucky. Mark thinks it probably has to do with thoughts of drinking bourbon in college and coding, or with memories reading Hunter S. Thompson when he was a teenager and his laptop overheated.
It might be comfortable, but it also rains the entire time he’s in the state.
Technically he’s in the South, but it isn’t the Deep South, it isn’t romanticized or strictly not romanticized, whichever reality the tourist picks.
There isn’t much in the town, but he gets a decent slice of pizza at a place called Hamilton Avenue Pizza, which is in a one-storey house that has a porch with a rocking chair on it, and Mark appreciates that after endless rounds of California Pizza Kitchen, he really does. He sits on the covered porch and scarfs it down with a cup of sweet tea.
This is really just another reminder that Dustin needs to learn how to cook if he’s going to keep spending almost every fucking night he’s not on a doomed date over at Mark’s place despite having his own house with food and a pool and a ridiculous Jacuzzi bath thing.
The people he encounters are friendly. They smile, but it’s pretty clear that they don’t know who he is. Which is-- it’s nice. At Harvard Mark had had infamy, now he’s famous, kind of famous, whatever. Here he’s just another Yankee tourist passing through.
Mark’s hand goes automatically to his pocket so he can text Eduardo that, but maybe not.
What the hell, you’d like New York for that too. I know you didn’t like the city when we went for a weekend in college, but no one cares who you are in New York.
Another one buzzes through. Unless you’re Derek Jeter. Maybe.
Mark laughs, sends a smiley face (ugh, when did he become the sort of person who sends emoticons in text, why is he a twelve year old girl) and tucks his phone back into his front pocket.
He’s definitely going to keep going north. But maybe he’ll come back here sometime.
nine --- (erie, pennsylvania, july fourteenth)
“How long were you driving for this time?” Mark can picture Dustin, splayed over his couch with the TV and his laptop both on, phone cradled between neck and shoulder. “Cause Mark, you promised us you wouldn’t drive for hours and do stupid shit, and I gotta say I don’t have a lot of faith in that right now. Not that I don’t have faith in you-- I totally do when it comes to computers and getting that weird projector in Conference Room C to work, but I don’t have faith when it comes to you sleeping and eating like a normal person, and also when it comes to you not scaring reporters who are well-intentioned, even when they are asking about your love life.”
“It was eight hours,” Mark says crossly. His current motel room has eye-searing wallpaper and the springs on the bed are stabbing into his spine, but he’s here and he’s too lazy to move, also, Dustin’s voice and tendency to speak in paragraphs are becoming grating fairly quickly. “I’m not a total idiot.”
“No, just like, seventy percent,” Dustin responds. “Wait, so where are you now?”
Mark stretches. “Um. Somewhere in Pennsylvania.”
“You don’t know where you are? Why the fuck did you even spend money on a GPS then? Are you going to hike the Appalachain Trail next and live off the land eating twigs and blueberries and shit, and then write a blog about it? Reclusive Facebook Founder Goes Into the Wild?”
“No, I do, give me a second. It’s Pennsylvania, I’m in Erie, Pennsylvania. By Lake Erie.”
“You know, I could have guessed that one,” Dustin says. “So what’s it like being near a great lake?”
“It’s really big,” Mark says, and they both laugh because shit, it’s obvious, but it’s also fucking funny.
“That’s why they call it a great lake.” Dustin is chortling, full belly laughs making their way down the phone line. “I kinda feel like I’m missing an opportunity for sexual innuendos here, Mark, I got to say.”
“Nothing off the top of my head,” Mark responds. “It’s disappointing. I’m losing my touch.”
“Maybe we’re getting mature,” Dustin says mock-seriously. “Anyways. On that note, this is your obligatory repetitive warning to not get into any car crashes from falling asleep at the wheel because Chris will kick your ass and he’ll do it more effectively than I will. Seriously Mark, he’s been working out.”
“Fuck you, I’m a perfectly good driver, also who says I haven’t been going to the gym too?” Mark says automatically, though the last part is a lie and both of them know it-- Facebook: created and initially populated by skinny nerds-- and he hangs up the phone.
He remembers when it was Eduardo who would hover, telling Mark not to stay up all night and code. Now that seems to have been replaced by a tag-team of Dustin and Chris combining mother hen behavior they probably learned off Wikipeda and late-night sitcoms reruns plus years of knowing Mark into one fucking dangerous combination.
Also, Mark is one of those people who both appreciates and hates being looked after, so yeah. This new situation swings constantly between somewhat appreciated and really pathetic.
Lake Erie is pretty cool, but once you look at it for a while, it’s a lot of placid water with no horizon in sight. There isn’t much to do anymore.
Where should I go next?
And it’s Eduardo who answers, a text while Mark is eating surprisingly decent kung pao chicken and drinking his third Coke at a Chinese place he picked because it was closest to the motel: you should come here.
Here is New York, loud and noisy and sticky-hot with July heat, a crush of tourists and locals and dogs and kids, parks full of people and sprinklers and farmers’ markets, subways crowded and smelling like disgusting soup, air thick and sun reflecting off sidewalks, making his spine prickle. Here is seeing Eduardo face to face with no buffer. Here is public transportation and losing the comfort of his Saturn and his GPS’s tinny, accented, Giles-y voice.
Here is also an invitation.
Where should I stay? Mark responds, after a moment’s consideration. He knows what he’s expecting-- it’s a big city, there’s lots of hotels to choose from-- but instead Eduardo says : stay with me.
Okay, Mark taps out, fingers trembling. He did not expect this when he woke up in the morning, and it’s terrifying and a blessing all at once. Thank you.
I’ll see you in the morning, Eduardo responds.
Well.
He’s fine with driving all night anyways. It’s just another eight hours and there’s coffee and no traffic, Mark says to the Dustin-voice at the back of his head, so fuck you very much, I’ll be fine.
ten. --- (new york, new york, united states, july fifteenth)
They meet in Midtown.
They meet by Rockefeller Center and there’s no ice because it’s the middle of July, but Mark remembers what it was like in winter with the ice skaters and Eduardo with flushed cheeks clutching a cup of hot chocolate, watching people speed around in circles and he was wearing a Harvard scarf and a big down jacket, had said how there never was winter like this in Miami and it was his first real winter, it was still a fantastic novelty. Mark remembers that as July presses down on him, and Eduardo buys them both soft-serve ice cream from a Mr. Softee truck like the mature adult he is, and they find a quiet corner amidst the bustle, a set of stairs, an open public park to sit and talk and--
No.
They meet at the Le Pain Quotidien on 19th and Broadway, all the tables outside are full, and their waitress is blonde. It took Mark thirty minutes to find a parking spot, and the first thing that Eduardo says to him is, “I can’t believe you drive a Saturn.”
Mark says, “my mom was afraid I would crash a Lamborghini,” which is true, and Eduardo laughs.
He’s wearing jeans and a navy blue polo shirt, and Mark thinks that he must be roasting slowly because Mark is in old cargo shorts and, in his head, swiftly calculating the chances of heatstroke. The elastic around his hips is also shot; the waistband is going and he’s in a Harvard t-shirt that might belong to Dustin because it’s a little too big in the shoulders, and his feet are sweaty in his sandals.
“Would you like a menu?” the waitress asks, grabbing the check from the loud group beside them. Mark thinks really hard about how much he hates communal tables and how apparently all of Manhattan’s got a sudden craving for mint lemonade and chocolate croissants.
She’s going through the specials, which he tuned out after the mention of chilled zucchini soup, and it’s like--
“you’re here,” Eduardo says, and Mark raises his eyebrows and shrugs and yeah, he is.
“Two iced teas and I guess the bread basket,” he tells the waitress, who bustles off, snagging the menus, and Mark is sitting in a French-ish cafe literally inches away from Eduardo Saverin because communal tables are designed to make things awkward, and they are going to have a conversation.
“So I guess Facebook hasn’t exploded since you’ve been away, huh,” Eduardo says, and while it’s definitely tinged with something, Mark laughs.
“Yeah, but if the entire front page is replaced by an embedded Youtube video of a cat walking on a piano, we know who to blame,” he says in response. Eduardo smiles and leans forward on his elbows.
“Dustin’s sense of humor has only matured, I see,” he says.
“It’s Dustin,” Mark says fondly. “Dick jokes, lolcats, and mother hen behavior are kind of his thing.”
“Not the mother hen behavior,” Eduardo says, and his eyebrows kind of twitch. “That’s new.”
“Maybe,” Mark bites his lip. Dustin being almost an Eduardo-substitute has become so familiar since the lawsuit, since it became so obvious that Sean wasn’t up to the job and Chris was going to eventually leave them both behind for a greater cause. “Though it’s upsetting that my friends all think I need a keeper, but, I guess he was, you know, sort of--”
“You can say taking over for me,” Eduardo says. “I can connect the dots.”
Mark shifts in his seat, crossing his legs. “Yeah. A little. I know.”
(They meet in Soho amidst a crush of summer tourists on the Sex and the City tour eating cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery and Mark complains about how sweet the frosting is and Eduardo just laughs and drags him into the bakery to prove that they’re still good, it’s not a problem, and when he gets a smear of purple buttercream on his upper lip for a moment it looks like Eduardo wants to lick it off--
no.
They are in a cafe on 19th Street and there is a toddler who is crying and Mark is taking a sip of lukewarm tap water because he can’t think of anything to say.)
Eduardo takes a sip of water too, and Mark kind of can’t stop looking at his lips. But he’s not gonna say that out loud, he can’t, so instead he says, “I was really glad when you called me when I was in Montana.” And through some freak miracle that must have been the right thing to say because Eduardo’s eyebrow goes up and he sets his glass down, says, “yes?” and Mark nods a little frantically.
“I mean it was confusing. That you called. But I liked it.”
“Mark--”
“I don’t know if you felt guilty or if you were obligated or whatever but I was really glad, even if that’s a completely idiotic thing to be happy about--”
“Mark.”
“Yes.”
“I called because I missed you.” Eduardo takes a sip of water, his movements controlled, deliberate. His voice is measured and deliberate too. “You fucker.”
The thing about sitting next to each other is that now their knees are practically touching, and Mark doesn’t know what exactly to do with that, and the tone of Eduardo’s voice is fond, or fondly exasperated, and he’s still thinking about Eduardo’s lips and how this is not the time to be thinking about Eduardo’s lips.
“Here’s your tea,” the waitress says, suddenly reappearing. Mark’s past ten days have been filled with waitresses, and advice from waitresses, and while it’s mostly been solicited, he is also very glad that this one just whisks away to tend to her other tables.
“I’m a fucker?” he asks through dry lips, taking a sip of tea for fortification, and Eduardo’s eyes are dark and full of intent.
“Yes,” Eduardo says. “You goddamned are. And you’re a confusing, tricky bastard too, and you go from being a good friend to an utterly terrible one, and once, Mark, once upon a time on the 4th of July you took off and spent more than ten days driving yourself across the country on what I can only figure is a criminally stupid amount of sleep. You didn’t go to New Orleans, you went to Monroe. You didn’t stop to rest through the entire state of Kansas. And because I am just as insane as you are, I missed you.”
“Me too,” Mark agrees, because what else can he do? But more than that, what else does he want to do? “God, Wardo, I thought I would get used to you not being there, except I never did.”
“A couple of days ago, Chris told me that he always thought you and I were a textbook case of codependency,” Eduardo says wryly, a smile quirking around his lips.
“Like he and Dustin were any better sometimes,” and reminiscing about college should be awkward, but instead it’s just soft nostalgia, the good kind, that kind that makes both of them smile.
“Yeah. Okay.” Eduardo smiles. “Are we going to order food besides bread and jam?”
Mark shrugs. “We should, I guess. It would be rude not to.”
Eduardo orders a salad. Mark gets two pastries, and Eduardo shakes his head.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Mark says. “I’m hungry.”
“Okay,” Eduardo says. His head snaps up, suddenly, and he looks Mark dead in the eye. “Mark.”
“You look super intense right now, is this a thing?”
“I don’t want to do this here.”
Mark could say ‘what’, he could just question Eduardo and press him, but-- “okay. We won’t.”
“It’s not-- it’s too crowded.”
“It’s anonymous, like you said.” Mark feels obligated to point that out. “It should be okay.”
“Some things don’t need to be out where everyone can see them,” Eduardo says dryly. “We can go back to my place later. I have some things I need to say.”
Mark glances down at his hands, wrapped around the glass, clenched. “That’s fair,” he says. “That’s good. We should do that.”
Eduardo nods. He is still so measured.
-
Eduardo’s apartment is probably large for New York but it would be small for anywhere else, with a worn leather couch and nice hardwood floors. There’s only one bedroom, small, but it has a walk-in closet and Eduardo doesn’t mind because there’s a walk-in closet. It’s well-lit and looks out over the back of the block, so he can have a modicum of privacy and quiet.
Mark isn’t thirsty, but he still takes some water when Eduardo offers. He’s perched on the end of one of the dining room chairs, and Eduardo is-- there’s no other word for it, really-- Eduardo is hovering.
He sits, finally, pulls out one of the other chairs and sinks into it, and Mark speaks up.
“I want to know what I’m doing here.” It could be taken as rude, and it is, on its own merits, but Eduardo looks at him and apparently understands that it’s just a statement, because he sighs.
“To be honest, I don’t know why,” he says.
“I like your apartment,” Mark offers up in lieu of anything else. Wardo’s answering smile is an afterthought. He still looks conflicted. “Hey. Wardo--”
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Mark continues. “We can just, I don’t know, sit quietly or something.” And hey, Mark thinks the world would be awesome if everyone just took some time out of their day to sit quietly and stare at the floor. There would probably be less conflict.
Eduardo laughs. “We could. God, Mark--” he pauses, looks at Mark.
Mark is still watching the shape of Eduardo’s mouth, has been doing so pretty continuously since lunch, even though watching other people eat salad isn’t necessarily very attractive. Eduardo’s brow creases.
“Why are you staring at my mouth?”
“I’m not staring at your mouth.”
Eduardo raises an eyebrow, and it’s achingly familiar, it’s his traditional are you fucking kidding me here Mark look. “Yes, you are. You’ve been doing it, except I couldn’t figure out what was going on at first.” He bites his lip, and watches as Mark’s eyes follow the motion. “There! See? You just did it again.”
“It’s not--” Mark looks up at the sound of Eduardo’s chair dragging against the wood. He’s pulling himself closer, like they’re back at the goddamned communal table, except this is an apartment and there is plenty of personal space. “You’re sitting very close to me.”
“Because you are ridiculous,” Eduardo says. “And we never talked about this kind of thing even when we should have-- Mark, we had the chance to, once, and I totally blew past it, that was all me. But it was the same in the other direction too, and then there was Sean and California and fucking Facebook, okay, and I never knew what to do.”
“So once you found out I was going on vacation you used it as an excuse to start talking to me again?”
“It’s stupid,” Eduardo says, in the same sort of tone one might say ‘your face is stupid’. “I don’t know. Nostalgia and stupidity are probably pretty close together. And-- I did miss you. I hated you for such a long time, and then one day, it just-- went away. It started seeming insignificant, which isn’t-- god, it’s ridiculous when I say it, right? It all seemed like such a big deal back then, but now it’s been seven years, you take off on the Fourth of July, and being civil with each other at dotcom events stopped being enough to satisfy the part of me that was-- that was best friends with you.”
Mark sits up a little bit straighter, ankles neatly crossed. “I like you talking to me,” he says. “And I was looking at your mouth.”
“This is the worst pick-up line ever,” Eduardo says, “but I’m going to put it out there: there’s more you can do than just look at my mouth.”
Maybe it’s a good thing that they are sitting so very close together, because it is ridiculously easy for Mark to lean in those few inches and press his lips to Eduardo’s. Eduardo’s lips are cool, soft, and his mouth opens easily when Mark wraps his hand around the back of his head, the other dropping to Eduardo’s waist. It’s-- it’s exploratory, questioning, good but tentative, and Mark presses a little harder, tries to make it deeper. It already means enough, and though he hadn’t realized it, he’s been waiting.
He’d thought about this is college. He wasn’t repressed or anything, had thought about kissing Eduardo when it was late and they were studying. He’d thought about how easy it would be, and how hard it could be, and he’d never done it.
To be fair, he’d also pictured Eduardo, mouth pink and wet and wrapped around his dick, when he was in the shower jacking off, which is not something Mark is necessarily going to tell anyone unless the next five minutes go extraordinarily well.
“Mark.” Eduardo pulls back and his mouth is like Mark had pictured seven years ago. “Stop thinking.”
“I’m not,” Mark says, which is complete and total bullshit, but there you go. “I mean, I’m thinking about you. And college. And why we didn’t kiss in college.”
“I came close to it,” Eduardo says. “There was this one time-- you probably don’t remember.”
Mark twists his leg around Eduardo’s; their ankles touch. “Try me.”
“It was one of those late night study sessions and I made you stop to watch the sunrise,” Eduardo says. “I wanted to go up to the roof, but you didn’t want to put on shoes. I think that was when I first realized that I wanted you, you know? Even though you, frankly, needed a shower and had no idea about appropriate winter footwear. I wanted to push you down on top of all the econ textbooks and make out with you.”
“Fuck the winter, I’m stronger than hail and a cold wind,” Mark says immediately. Eduardo laughs. “And I would have totally let you-- but on top of the econ texts? That’s dirty, Wardo, that is not an appropriate use of school materials.”
“Pent up frustration,” Eduardo says. “Which, speaking of, come here, asshole.” He pulls Mark to him again and seals their lips together. It’s warm and sloppy and searching, and Eduardo’s hand is dancing around the hem of Mark’s t-shirt, which he totally approves of. It’s like, this is what kissing should be like, someone pressed up against you because you can’t touch each other enough, hands and mouths all over. Someone he finds himself sucking and nipping along Eduardo’s jaw, then at the sensitive spot under his ear-- Eduardo hisses and his hips buck up; Mark feels a thrill dart up his spine, he did that-- and Eduardo is trying to pull him out of his shirt.
“Couch,” Mark gasps, and they both try to stand up at the same time and tumble to the floor. “Ow.” And then they both burst out laughing because they are tangled on the floor, and there’s a sharp pain where he banged his elbow, and Eduardo like, hit his face on Mark’s shoulder and there’s going to be a bruise on his cheekbone, how did this even happen, and Mark laughs even harder.
“Okay,” says Eduardo, giggling like a maniac, “this is a clear sign that you should take off your shirt.”
Mark rolls his eyes and pulls it off, then begins attacking Eduardo’s button down-- fucking buttons, they are a ludicrous. He says as much and Eduardo starts giggling even harder until he’s practically choking.
“This is even better than it would have been that night,” Mark murmurs abruptly, pulling Wardo’s shirt from his shoulders. The sun spills across them, turning Eduardo’s skin golden and Mark’s blindingly white.
“This is good,” Eduardo says. “We’re not done talking, but this is good.”
Mark mutters something that is most likely talking later, sex now, or maybe that’s just where his brain is, because they’re kissing again and kind of crawling over to the rug, and he’s going to end up with rug burn on his knees and elbows and not care; he’ll wear it like a badge of pride: I got the guy.
“Stop thinking,” Eduardo says, climbing on top of his, pressing his shoulder down. Mark’s arms come up automatically to wrap around Wardo’s back, and he says “okay,” and it really, finally, is.
eleven. --- (new york, new york, united states, july sixteenth)
Mark wakes up in a bed that is not his own, which isn’t unfamiliar to him at this point. But it’s significantly softer than any of the motel beds, and there’s a warm body next to him, strange limbs flung over his torso.
Eduardo leans over to kiss him sleepily, and grimaces. “God, you have the worst morning breath,” he says, sticking his tongue out and making a face. “Ugh, did you even brush your teeth last night?”
“This is why morning sex is illogical,” Mark says, and then kind of wishes he hadn’t, because morning sex would be awesome, and he’s comfortable, and getting up away from the warmth to brush his teeth is seriously unappealing. Then again, so is a mouth that tastes like old socks.
“I don’t know,” Eduardo says, eyeing him speculatively. “I bet we could make it work.” He slides a hand down Mark’s chest, teasing and slow. “I’m not totally opposed.”
A pause.
“Just don’t breathe on me--” and Mark hits him with a pillow, and then neither of them speak for quite a while.
twelve. --- (brooklyn, new york, united states, july sixteenth)
For his second day in New York, Eduardo takes Mark to the beach.
They get into a splash fight, standing ankle-deep in the Atlantic, and when Eduardo kisses him, he tastes like salt and sun and the promise of something good.