144. fic: with pressure and time.
i finally decided it was time to post this fic on my lj as well. originally posted at tsn_springfest here and also posted at ao3 here.
with pressure and time.
the social network. mark/eduardo, background chris/dustin. nc-17. 8300 words.
mark and eduardo are just friends, no really. (shut up, dustin. and you too, sean.)
notes: much thanks to grim_lupine, who listened to me ramble about this fic for ages and then read over it for me. you’re too lovely, dear. ♥ the title is from pressure and time by rival sons.
It started pretty much the night after Eduardo moved to California, or the morning after that night if you wanted to get more technical about it.
Dustin invited Eduardo over for a night of video games and catching up, or a ‘WELCOME HOME WARDO’ party according to the banner Dustin had hung up in his living room, never mind that Eduardo had technically never called Palo Alto home before.
And really, Eduardo thought as he walked into the living room to find two other people waiting on the couch, he only had himself to blame for not thinking that ‘catching up’ to Dustin would also include Chris and...Mark.
(The numerous bottles of wine and an open cooler filled with beer-settled on a towel in the middle of the hardwood floor next to the coffee table-were definitely expected though, as was Dustin’s ridiculous large LCD TV and the Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox arranged underneath it.)
Mark didn’t say anything, staring at him from over the back of the sofa for just a moment before turning back to the TV where it looked like they’d been watching Psych, which was one of Dustin’s favorite shows, given by the sheer number of quotes he used daily taken from it.
Eduardo chewed on his bottom lip, looking at the back of Mark’s head, the way the curls were all matted, before smiling at Chris and waving off his and Dustin’s worried and apologetic look.
“Hey, guys,” Eduardo said, walking around the sofa and settling down on the soft cushions, sinking in next to Mark. (Dustin obviously went for couches that made it feel as if you’d never be able to escape; the thing was about as wide as it was tall and gave easily.)
He reached over and grabbed a beer from the cooler, popping off the cap easily with his ring, a well practiced move, handing it over to an empty-handed Mark before grabbing one for himself.
Mark smirked at him with the corner of his mouth, out of sight of Chris and Dustin on the other side of the couch.
He didn’t bother saying thank you. The ass.
“I still hate you, you know,” Eduardo told him.
“Sure you do,” replied Mark, nudging Eduardo’s knee with the bottom of his longneck, leaning against his side for a second before moving away again. “I hate you too-you and your stupid Armani suits.”
“Prada,” Eduardo corrected. “And I’ve moved up from them. Bespoke is where it’s at now.”
“The best jobs are the ones that don’t make you wear suits, discourage them even.”
“Just because you suffer from Peter Pan syndrome in terms of your clothing doesn’t mean the rest of us should. I’m pretty sure I remember you wearing that shirt at Harvard,” Eduardo said, pointing at Mark’s murky gray shirt that’d probably once been blue. It had stains along the hem and a tear in the shoulder.
“And I couldn’t be expected to dress up for you, now could I? My best t-shirts are for Facebook and you know, G8 meetings. Been invited to any of those recently?”
“Fuck off,” Eduardo responded.
“Ouch,” Mark deadpanned. “That actually hurt my feelings.”
“You forget, you don’t have any feelings.”
Eduardo looked over to see Dustin and Chris following their conversation with mildly horrified expressions on their faces. Dustin’s eyes looked enormous, they were so wide, and his hands covering his mouth as well as half his face. He looked like a little kid watching his parents fight, nervous and unsure of what to do.
Chris was positioned like he was ready to leap up and separate Mark and Eduardo if he had to.
Eduardo tried to keep a straight face as long as possible but he’d never been able to do that as well as Mark had. He managed a few seconds longer before bursting out laughing, leaning his head on Mark’s shoulder and smiling at Dustin and Chris from behind his neck, through his curls.
“Okay, wow,” Dustin said. He looked remarkably like an owl, eyes wide and blinking slowly. “Did the two of you make up without telling me?”
Mark sighed, leaning back and sullenly taking several large gulps of his beer, avoiding looking at anyone, staring at his lap, obviously not wanting to talk about it.
It was rather understandable really, Eduardo thought. Dustin would probably want to talk about feelings and Mark didn’t deal well with those.
“We...may have started talking again,” Eduardo said when it was clear that no one else was going to speak.
“But when? And how? And why didn’t you tell me?” Dustin’s hands were flailing again by the end, nearly taking out one of Chris’s eyes.
Chris grabbed Dustin’s wrists and pressed them down onto his lap. Still, he said, “Well, we want answers.”
When Eduardo didn’t answer fast enough, and Dustin pinched his leg with his toes too many times, Mark replied for them. “It was last month. I was in Singapore for that meeting. Eduardo was there too. We knew he was moving to California. And thought it was time to...talk.”
“The alcohol certainly helped,” Eduardo added, laughing.
“Yes, alcohol,” Mark said eagerly. He chugged the rest of his beer and grabbed another, handing it to Eduardo first to open it for him.
“Alright,” Dustin said, bouncing in place. “Alcohol and video games. I say it’s time for Mario Kart. I should forewarn y’all though, I am the Wii master. You know that’s right!”
“I’m pretty sure that’s your over-inflated ego speaking, Dustin,” Chris told him.
“You must be out of your damn mind!” And yeah, it was like it was Dustin’s goal in life to somehow become a real life embodiment of Shawn’s personality and Gus’s catch-phrases.
Eduardo grinned, listening to Chris and Dustin go back and forth.
The rest of the night was a bit of a blur filled with alcohol, video games-and Dustin’s obnoxious cheering or loud booing whenever Chris won, which was surprisingly often, although Eduardo remembered then that Chris had been a bit of a video game ninja at Harvard-and delivered pizza. Lots of laughter as well.
Even Mark had cracked a smile on occasion. Although that was a bit unfair of him to think, Eduardo knew. Mark had always been remarkably free with his smiles, at least for him, when alcohol was involved.
Eduardo wasn’t sure what happened exactly but he woke up to a splitting headache and loud giggling in his ear.
“Aw,” he heard Dustin say. “Aren’t you two just fucking adorable?”
He heard a groan, felt it rumble against his face as he tiredly rubbed his cheek against the soft cotton he felt underneath it. Eduardo froze when he noticed an arm wrapped around his back, his legs tangled with someone else’s, and the soft ruffle of breath against his forehead.
There was another loud giggle and Eduardo slowly blinked his eyes open to see Dustin staring down at him, holding a bowl of cereal and grinning far too brightly.
A blanket fell off his shoulders as he moaned, clutching his head, and sat up, leaning against the back of the couch and trying to avoid kicking Mark who was stretched out along the edge.
“Are you sure there’s not something else you two are forgetting to tell me?” Dustin said with a sly wink. “Did you guys renew your friendship and add something more?”
The innuendo in his voice made Eduardo’s head hurt even more.
Eduardo groaned, flopping back onto the couch. Mark let out a pained oomph when Eduardo accidentally elbowed him in the gut, landing half on top of him.
He patted Mark’s stomach in apology before rolling over onto his side to face the back of the couch and try to block out the daylight streaming through the ridiculous floor to ceiling windows that Dustin had facing his backyard.
Dustin laughed again as Mark pulled the blanket up to cover both him and Eduardo. He started loudly crunching his cereal-probably some horribly sugar filled nonsense that’d end up rotting his teeth by the time he reached forty-and settled onto his armchair. He turned on the TV and started watching his Sunday morning cartoons.
Eduardo had never hated the fact that Dustin never seemed to get hangovers more than in that moment.
“I do have a guest room, you know,” Dustin said to them. “And it’s even empty since Sean picked Chris up last night. I guess one of you can take it.”
Eduardo could feel Mark moving away from his back, rolling off the couch and clambering to his feet, quickly moving out of the room and taking the blanket with him.
He was determined not to be the one left in the room with Dustin as he watched what sounded like The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Eduardo knew what Dustin was like when he watched that show. He had many a caps-lock and exclamation point-filled email to prove it.
He stumbled down the hallway after Mark.
“Or you know!” Dustin shouted after them. “You can totally share the bed if you’re fine with that. I know some people are. Boyfriends, for example.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Eduardo said. He was hungover and tired and he could already hear Dustin squealing at the TV. A bed, located in a room on the opposite side of the house as the living room, sounded very appealing at the moment.
Besides, he and Mark had apparently shared a couch the night before-never mind the numerous times Eduardo had fallen asleep in Mark’s bed back at Harvard-so there was nothing odd about it.
Nothing at all.
Eduardo didn’t really make much of it at first, Dustin’s boyfriend gibe.
It was just Dustin being...Dustin.
Mark hadn’t said anything about it when they’d woken up later that morning wrapped around each other once again, just mumbled something about needing to go to Facebook and stumbled to the bathroom, so Eduardo didn’t either.
His brain had been so hazy from too much beer, wine, and an unfortunate series of tequila shots that he hadn’t even properly remembered it at the time anyway.
He moaned, massaging his temples, and pressed his face into his pillow. There was a reason Eduardo didn’t drink that much in one night anymore, he remembered. A very good reason.
Mark left the bathroom a few minutes later, a bit of toothpaste on the corner of his mouth, waving an offhanded goodbye to Eduardo, cursing about being late, never mind that he was the boss and technically couldn’t really be late.
Eduardo grunted a goodbye to Mark, turning his head to the side to speak, and also breathe.
He left Dustin’s a little while later and life went on. Eduardo adjusted to life in California, busy unpacking at his new place and making sure his new office was up-to-speed. Which involved a rather heated phone call to his ISP until finally Dustin came by to set it up properly for him.
Dustin was an awesome friend.
He didn’t see Mark for two weeks until one afternoon he was waiting to meet with a potential client, Mr Rodriguez, at an Italian restaurant. Eduardo sighed, looking away from the window and the people passing by down the street to check his watch.
Mr Rodriguez was already twenty minutes late and tardiness was something Eduardo still didn’t like, one of his major pet peeves it could be said. (It was, quite often. Eduardo’s friends all liked to tease him about it.) His cell rang a couple minutes later and Mr Rodriguez’s assistant apologized, saying he was ill and unable to make it to the meeting.
Eduardo sighed again and waved a waiter over. He was starving and may as well eat since he was already here.
Just then Mark walked into the restaurant, his face buried in his phone, furiously texting someone. He scowled as he looked up when the maitre d came up to him. He started to march over to one of the smaller tables.
“Mark,” Eduardo called, waving his arm to get his attention.
Eduardo watched as Mark glowered around the room suspiciously, trying to figure out just who had called his name, before he noticed Eduardo in the corner by the window.
He could actually see Mark’s shoulders relax as he muttered something to the maître d’ and hurried over to Eduardo’s table.
Mark slowed his pace down considerably by the time he actually reached the table though, sliding into the seat across from Eduardo as nonchalantly as he possibly could, slumping over like he didn’t care, that he wasn’t glad that Eduardo was there.
“So what’re you doing outside of Facebook-in the middle of the day, at that?”
Mark glared at his phone and mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” Eduardo asked, feeling a smile stretch across his face as Mark kept trying to avoid his eyes.
“My assistant kicked me out of the office.”
Eduardo laughed. He figured it was something like that to be honest. He remembered Mark talking about his assistant before in Singapore when he was bitching about having to come to the symposium. Melissa, Mark’s assistant-a forty-something woman who typed eighty words per minute, was militantly organized, and didn’t take shit from anyone-had refused to take it off his schedule.
(“You’re marginally less awful than everyone else here; I guess I can hang out with you,” Eduardo remembered Mark had said to him that first night in Singapore, marching over with a grimace on his face, looking uncomfortable in a suit and loosened tie, as he tossed back a flute of champagne and placed the empty glass on a passing attendant’s tray.
When Eduardo had been too surprised to respond, he’d let out a very put upon breath and continued.
“How’re you and all that,” he asked, no inflection to his voice, giving no sign that he’d realized it was the first time the two of them had talked alone in, well, a very long time.
Eduardo had stared at him for a few seconds before shaking his head, laughing a little. He grabbed another two flutes of champagne, handing one to Mark and taking one for himself. “I have a feeling we’ll need alcohol for this.”
Mark had arched his eyebrows, his usual expression of mild derision prevalent on his face.
Eduardo chugged down his champagne. “At least I’m definitely going to need it.”)
“Shut up,” Mark said, glaring at him, before grabbing his vibrating phone and sending out another angry text. “I’m going to fire her. And Dustin. He helped.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the boss. They shouldn’t be able to kick you out.”
Mark scowled again. “I know. But apparently, Melissa was willing to go on strike if I didn’t leave her alone and ‘take my beastly attitude out for lunch and leave it there.’” He tried to speak in a mocking, high-pitched voice for the last phrase.
Eduardo smiled brightly at the attempt, holding in a giggle. Mark’s monotone voice was so not made for it.
“Fuck off,” Mark said.
“Let’s order you some food,” Eduardo said, ignoring his statement and nodding to the passing waitress. “You still like stuffed ravioli, right? Maybe it’ll actually help get you out of that bad mood.”
Mark reached across the table to punch him in the shoulder but still allowed Eduardo order lunch for the both of them.
The meal was surprisingly relaxed as they chatted about new developments at Facebook and different game prototypes Eduardo had seen coming across his desk. Mark even asked after how Eduardo was settling into Palo Alto and nodded along when Eduardo talked about some of his investments, making an attempt to not look bored by it all, which admittedly mostly failed but Eduardo appreciated the effort.
As the meal went on, Eduardo found himself deftly avoiding Mark’s fork to steal a couple pieces of ravioli from his plate. When Mark frowned down at his plate, Eduardo pushed some of his alfredo onto it to make up for stealing the ravioli and shared some of the Italian cream cake he’d ordered for dessert, asking the waitress to bring by an extra fork.
When Eduardo looked out the window to the the sky darkening as he’d expected, from the weather reports he’d checked that morning, he noticed someone with a camera standing on the sidewalk a few feet away from the window, taking photos of Mark and him.
Mark turned to see what Eduardo was looking at and frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “You’ll have to get used to that here. For some reason people care about what I do.”
“They’re probably just surprised to see you outside of the office,” said Eduardo, turning away from the window to focus back on Mark.
“Yeah, well, you’re going to have it worse than me soon, considering you’re all...you.” Mark waved his hand in the air towards Eduardo.
Eduardo laughed it off, deciding not to go into how Mark was the actual, properly famous one, the public face of Facebook.
By the time they left the restaurant, the clouds had opened and rain was pouring down.
Eduardo opened the umbrella he’d been carrying all day and stepped out toward the sidewalk. He turned back when he noticed Mark wasn’t beside him. Instead he was standing just outside the restaurant entrance, pulling his hood up and zipping his hoodie all the way.
“Honestly, Mark,” Eduardo said, sounding very beleaguered as he walked closer. “Did you not see the weather report this morning?”
Mark arched an eyebrow pointedly. “You were always the one going on about the weather report, talking shit about hurricanes or whatever-the-fuck, and obsessively watching the Weather Channel, Wardo. Not me.”
“I would think the storm clouds would’ve been warning enough then. The sky has been really quite gray all day,” Eduardo responded. “But then, you’ve never really noticed anything not your computer, have you?”
Even as he sniped at Mark, Eduardo grinned and stepped even closer, moving his umbrella over so Mark was shielded from the rain as well. He reached over and pulled Mark’s hood back slightly to better see his face and tugged the strings slightly, making sure Mark’s neck was fully covered, as his fingers trailed down a bit.
He could see Mark try to frown at him but a smile tugging at the side of his mouth belied the attempt.
Eduardo opened his mouth, not sure what he wanted to say, but a flash distracted him and he looked over to see the photographer again. When he turned back to Mark, he saw that Mark had pulled his hood low again.
“I should head back to the office,” Mark said. “I’ll see you later.”
Eduardo smiled, feeling unsure as Mark moved back and his voice went flat.
Mark shoved his shoulder with a closed fist. “Really, I’ll see you soon. I’m pretty sure Dustin’s planning a housewarming party for you.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one to plan that if it’s at my house?” Eduardo asked.
Mark’s incredulous look and arched eyebrows were answer enough.
Eduardo didn’t think anything of the photographer until the next day when the guys came over to his place for the ‘housewarming party’, or the opportunity to drink beer and eat a bunch of junk food and trash Eduardo’s living room-although Dustin did have another banner made for the evening.
Chris arrived a half-hour after Dustin with Sean and a folder. He left Sean at the couch and went over to Eduardo in the kitchen. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” he asked.
Eduardo blinked at him. “Did Dustin put you up to this?” he asked after a minute.
“No,” Chris said, sounding confused at the question. He shook his head and set the folder down on the island counter. “These did.”
He opened the folder and Eduardo saw that it was pictures of him and Mark from lunch the day before.
“Do you want to tell me why there’s a Valleywag article about a lunch meeting between you and Mark becoming an, and I quote, ‘intimate dinner’ that involved candlelight as the two of you talked for hours?”
“Um,” Eduardo said. The waitress had brought around a candle a few hours into their meal, he vaguely remembered.
“And then you walked him to his car, holding an umbrella over his head?” Chris said.
“It was raining and he didn’t have one of his own!”
“And really, Eduardo?” Chris added, pushing a photo towards him. He saw it was one from when he’d been tugging on Mark’s hoodie strings.
It did look remarkably intimate, Eduardo thought as he picked up the photo and down at it. The way Eduardo’s free hand had been resting on Mark’s chest, strings tangled in his fingers and the actual soft look on Mark’s face with the hint of a smile on his mouth as he looked at Eduardo.
“Okay,” Eduardo said. “That looks like we were on a date but we weren’t! And I’d know, I was fucking there!”
Eduardo started mumbling to himself in Portuguese, running his hands through his hair. He’d have to call his mãe soon before she read about it online. Or rather, before his brother sent her a link. Oh god, Eduardo thought. His brother would be calling soon. Eduardo’s brother loved to fulfill the teasing big brother role. Too much.
“Wardo,” Chris said quietly, placing a hand on his wrist. “You know you can actually talk to me if you want, right?”
He had that understanding look on his face, somehow even more perfected over the years.
Eduardo shook his head. “We were just catching up,” he insisted. “We, Mark, I, yeah, it’s nothing. Now, we better head back or I’m pretty sure Dustin will silly string my living room.”
The subject was dropped for the night although Eduardo noticed Chris watching him and Mark throughout the night.
It kept happening after that however.
Dustin insisted that he and Mark had to go with him to see the latest blockbuster film and later more pictures showed up online. In a good number of them, Dustin had been cropped out of the image. He sent Eduardo a number of emails with D: faces in them afterwards.
Mark had almost knocked Eduardo out with a bottle of Mountain Dew, he’d been waving his arms about so wildly as he ranted about the idiocy of modern media.
Eduardo couldn’t help but notice that he’d been a bit flushed though as he asked Eduardo if he wanted Mark to eviscerate them all.
“I mean, really. Drawing jizz on our faces? I can destroy Perez Hilton’s site. They won’t even be able to trace it back to me. I swear.”
Then, another day, Eduardo went by the Facebook offices because he had a day off and Mark didn’t understand the concept. To be fair though, Eduardo should’ve expected pictures of that visit to show up online. All of Mark’s employees were expected to use Facebook after all and a good number of them had camera phones.
A favorite picture from that trip seemed to be one from when he and Mark had been walking around the offices, Mark giving Eduardo a tour, a small smile on his face. A king surveying his domain, really, although the photos made it look like he’d been smiling because Eduardo was next to him.
Worse was that from the angle of the photo, it’d looked like they were actually holding hands.
Another series of pictures that made rounds across the internet after that trip involved Sean Parker. Eduardo could feel his teeth grind against each other as he thought about it. Sean Parker who apparently lived in Palo Alto and still liked to pop by the Facebook offices on occasion.
Eduardo could deal with less comments about him looking like a serial killer whenever Sean was around Mark even if he really did still hate Sean. (He had no plans to murder the douchebag though. Eduardo wasn’t going to jail for that shit.
He did allow himself a petty moment-okay maybe a full minute or two-to imagine hiring a professional hitman to do the job. He had more than enough money for it now after all.)
“You know,” Sean said slowly with a sleazy grin, sitting across the table from him in a restaurant a few weeks or so after they’d first bumped into each other at Facebook. He was obviously waiting for Eduardo to ask him to continue.
And god, why was Eduardo even talking with this asshole? Oh, that’s right. Apparently Mark was still friends with him or something and he liked to come around the Facebook offices every once in awhile. And he was allowed in.
Also, Sean had decided that he and Eduardo should become new best buds and had followed him out the offices and to the local Mediterranean restaurant that Eduardo had been wanting to try, off of Chris and the other-better, Eduardo couldn’t help but add, feeling petty and justified in being so in his own mind-Sean’s recommendation.
Eduardo had sighed when he saw Sean’s car following him but he refused to change his plans just because of that asshole. He went into the restaurant and ordered his meal, sighing again when Sean followed him, telling the waiter to make the appetizers for two.
“You know,” Sean repeated, dragging out the words as long as possible.
“What, Sean?” Eduardo asked, finally deciding to humor him. Sean’s ridiculous begging face had been about to put him off his yalanji.
Sean waited for Eduardo to take a bite of tabbouleh before saying, “I know for a fact that Mark hasn’t gotten laid recently.”
Eduardo choked on his mouthful of parsley and tomatoes, coughing harshly.
Sean pushed his glass of water over with a smirk and Eduardo tried to glare at him as best as he could through his watering eyes.
“Oh god, oh god,” Eduardo finally managed to say. “Why the fuck would you know that? And why the hell would you think that I would want to know?” he demanded, leaning forward and whispering harshly, looking around the restaurant to make sure that no one had heard them.
(God knows with Eduardo’s luck lately, there’d be a group of reporters at the next table ready to upload another story onto Valleywag. Eduardo was already dreading the likely photos of him and Sean at his lunch and around the Facebook offices. Who knew what awful captions would show up online this time?)
“Are you saying you’re not actually interested in hitting that?” Sean asked, reaching new, truly epic levels of sleaze.
“I like...spending time with him, yes,” Eduardo said, which was the absolute truth. He and Mark had fun together, much more than Eduardo had even thought possible when they’d first started talking again after that drunken night in Singapore.
He liked how their friendship was somehow already so much better than it had been at Harvard, even before the algorithm, Facemash, and final clubs. He liked how Mark was more open with his smiles, feeling free to show affection in little ways, nudges and laughing smirks for the most part, but Eduardo would take that.
Eduardo liked how he felt free to yell at Mark when he was being awful and knew that it wouldn’t mean Mark being sullen.
Well, not for too long anyway.
It was still Mark after all.
“But I have no plans to ‘hit that,’” he continued, trying to add as much derision as possible into his voice.
It fell short going by the look on Sean’s face but that was just Sean fucking Parker. He always had that stupid, smug expression on his face; he probably slept with that expression still on his face.
“If you say so,” Sean said, taking a large bite of his gyro and chewing with his mouth open obnoxiously, probably just to irritate Eduardo. “So anyway, we’re going clubbing tonight.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Dustin, the marrieds, and Mark already said yes.”
“Did you annoy them into it?”
“Some people actually know how to have fun, you know.”
“Mark?” Eduardo said, raising his eyebrows.
“So some persuasion may have been needed,” Sean admitted. He glowered when Eduardo burst out laughing, his head tossed back.
Eduardo could only imagine what fucked up persuasion techniques Sean would think suitable. He frowned then, trying to get rid of the images running through his mind.
Going by the growing smirk on Sean’s face, he could tell what Eduardo was thinking. He leered at Eduardo. “You want me to persuade you, baby?” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
Eduardo didn’t even have to try to make his expression as disgusted as possible. “It’s like you’re trying to give me nightmares. Maybe I should just move to New York. Business would be good there.”
“You’d miss it here; you’d miss Mark, and Dustin and Chris and even me, don’t front.”
“I’d like to debate the ‘missing you’ point.”
“The important thing is we’re going out and so are you,” Sean said, speaking over him, sounding very determined. It was a tone of voice that allowed for no argument and said that Sean would be willing to drag Eduardo out of his house if necessary.
And that’s how Eduardo ended up in a club off Castro in San Francisco that night against his better judgment. At least Sean hadn’t lied about Dustin, Chris and Sean, and Mark being there as well. (He had lied about there being foam machines though, thank god. And there was no glow-in-the-dark paint involved in the interior decorating.)
Mark was sitting in a booth with Sean when Eduardo arrived. He could see Dustin flailing already on the dance floor when Sean pointed him out and Chris was at the bar with his Sean.
“Wardo,” Mark called to him as he approached the booth and sat down. “You’re here.” He had a wide, dopey grin on his face and slid across the bench to lean against Eduardo’s side.
Eduardo blinked down at Mark, his face tucked into Eduardo’s shoulder, before glancing up at Sean across the table and arching his eyebrows.
“We may have had a few tequila shots before you arrived.”
Well, that explained it. Mark had always reacted strongly to tequila.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Mark said to him, mumbling into the side of Eduardo’s neck.
Eduardo couldn’t help but shiver at Mark’s breath brushing his skin, the words feeling cool compared to the heated air of the club.
Sean coughed loudly and gave Eduardo a pointed look. He felt his cheeks start to burn.
It was just the heat, Eduardo told himself as he looked away from Sean to focus back on Mark.
“Ugh,” Mark groaned, trying to sit up and failing, slumping back against Eduardo. “I want to go to Facebook. Need to make sure the new programmers don’t do something stupid.”
“Those new programmers have been working for you for three months now, Mark,” said Sean. “And they haven’t screwed up yet. They’ve been fucking awesome actually so stop your bitching and looking for excuses to leave. You need to relax. All work and no play makes Mark get the crazy eyes.”
Eduardo really hated it when he happened to agree with Sean about something. But he did have a point.
Mark glowered at Sean, as much as he could so drunk anyway, before speaking to Eduardo again. “It’s not so bad, going out, when you’re here.”
Eduardo didn’t know how to respond to that, words caught in his throat, so he just wrapped his arm around Mark’s shoulders again and squeezed lightly.
He looked over as Chris and Sean came back to the table, carrying a tray of beers and shots for them all, Dustin trailing behind them, and didn’t even mind when he saw a few bright flashes coming from some other tables, knowing there’d be some new speculation on the internet later.
As expected, the next day the new pictures and articles showed up online. Although he had to admit he hadn’t expected CNN’s melodramatic retrospective on the ‘heartwarming renewal’ of their broken friendship.
He didn’t let any of it stop him from spending time with Mark, refused to let it. He had fun with Mark. He liked hanging out with him at Facebook or at one of their-or Dustin or Chris’s and god forbid, sometimes even Sean’s-places. He liked movie nights at their houses or at the theater when Mark could be dragged out.
Eduardo liked eating out at restaurants, tasting the different foods and enjoying the dining experience, and he didn’t want to do it alone.
And really, if he hadn’t dragged Mark to the mall to buy some new clothes, he’d have ended up wearing sweatpants and basketball shorts with holes in them to work until they were so worn they just fell off him. (Mark had claimed he could just get his assistant to go shopping for him but Melissa had just stared at him when he’d suggested it before looking back at her computer and continuing to type.
Eduardo refused to let him hire someone just to do his shopping for him. He also refused to let Mark wait for Chanukah and his mom to buy him new clothes as gifts.)
Mark was his friend. They all-even Sean fucking Parker which Eduardo sometimes still couldn’t believe-were his friends. Eduardo wasn’t going to stop spending time with them because the media seemed to get it in their heads that the Facebook fallout and reconciliation had the makings of some sort of modern-day Harlequin romance.
After awhile though, it did calm down. There were only so many different ways to discuss pictures of Mark and Eduardo standing side-by-side after all. (Although Sean did sometimes try to instigate things by posting pictures of Mark and Eduardo at various supposed-to-be private gatherings onto his Twitter.
At least he had until Eduardo made sure to confiscate his phone-and the second one he’d bought after the first night-every time they had a video game or whatever-excuse-we’re-using-to-hang-out night.)
But then Mark decided he wanted to get a dog.
He insisted that Eduardo go with him to the breeders when he went to pick up Beast, who really was the least beastly-looking puppy Eduardo thought he had ever seen but Mark had an attachment to the name.
Eduardo had always liked dogs, used to imagine getting a puppy as a Chanukah gift, but he’d never had one of his own. His mother was allergic and then after he left home, he was always too busy, worked too much, to feel it was fair to get a dog of his own that’d just be left alone.
Mark and he had talked about how both of them wanted a dog a few months before, one night when when Mark had come over to Eduardo’s apartment after work and they’d ended up watching Star Wars and drinking a few beers.
He was glad Mark decided to get Beast after that conversation, that he had decided he could take some time off work-or away from the offices at least, to work from home, his computer never far-to acclimate and train him.
So after Mark bought Beast, Eduardo found himself at Mark’s house more often than not. Beast was adorable though, Eduardo thought. It’d be odd not to want to see him. Especially now when Mark was trying to teach him how to fetch. Beast was too cute when he was trying to run, flopping onto his stomach after few faltering steps.
He went to visit Beast so much so that Mark gruffly handed him a key one afternoon without a word, annoyed to have been pulled away from his computer to go open the door. (Mark had had Eduardo’s spare key for months by that point, ever since Eduardo had moved to Palo Alto practically.
He certainly wasn’t going to give it to Dustin no matter how many times he asked. Eduardo knew if he did, he’d come back to his apartment one day to find streamers everywhere.)
Eduardo smiled as he flipped to the key on his ring, opened the door, and walked into Mark’s house. Beast barked happily, running to Eduardo, shaking in place as he waited for Eduardo to pat his leg and allow him to jump up.
It was amazing really, how fast Mark was able to train Beast.
But then again Beast was a good dog, Eduardo thought as he walked into the living room, Beast on his heels. He saw Mark distractedly nod at him from where he was sitting on his armchair, laptop at hand as expected.
He settled onto the couch, made sure Mark was busy staring at his laptop, before patting the couch and letting Beast jump up beside him. He scratched him behind his ears, smiling and unable to stop a small laugh as he watched one of Beast’s legs start jerking wildly.
Mark peered at the two of them and frowned when he saw Beast on the furniture. He just shook his head though, not saying anything.
He’d probably come to expect it by this point. Eduardo liked sneaking Beast onto the couch whenever he came over. The exasperated huffs Mark always let out when he noticed were hilarious.
Besides, Eduardo was determined to completely break him of his stupid no-dogs-on-the-couch rule soon. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ziplock bag of treats, handing one to Beast.
“I saw that. You spoil him.”
“He deserves it,” Eduardo said looking at Mark with a grin. “Putting up with you as a owner. You’re a mean dad who doesn’t give him enough treats. Isn’t that right, Beasty boy? Your daddy is mean.” Eduardo said to the puppy, scratching beneath his chin. “You should get all the treats.”
“If I give him all the treats you think he should get, he’d never be able to learn to roll over. Because he’d be too fat. From all the treats,” Mark told him. “And if I’m the mean dad, you’re the too soft one that’s going to end up spoiling him until he refuses to eat anything but steak.”
“We could afford to feed him steak,” Eduardo said. “We could keep him in filet mignon and ribeye for life.”
He didn’t touch upon Mark calling him Beast’s other dad though he couldn’t help but think of the emails Sean had been sending him, the paparazzi pictures of Mark and Eduardo walking Beast and at the park together.
Eduardo hadn’t needed Sean’s elaborately detailed comments to get the implication behind each of the photos. And he really hadn’t needed all the baby gifts-sent in a bassinet even-that Sean, and Dustin, he was sure of it, the idea just screamed of Dustin’s influence, had had delivered to his apartment.
Mark had also received emails with the pictures, Eduardo knew. He’d seen them open on Mark’s laptop although Mark hadn’t said anything when he saw Eduardo looking. He’d turned bright red and quickly exited out of the email though.
Just then Beast jumped off the couch and started sniffing around the coffee table. “I think it’s time for Beast to go out,” Eduardo said, looking over at Mark. “Let’s go to the park.”
Mark sighed long-sufferingly but closed his laptop without further complaint and stepped into his flip-flops, snapping his fingers for Beast to come as he took his leash off a hook by the front door.
“Dog park?” Mark asked as he opened the door and waited for Eduardo to step out in front of him.
“Hm,” Eduardo hummed thoughtfully. The dog park was nice but it was a bit of a drive away and the weather was nice that late afternoon. “Maybe the other park instead. It’s nice out.”
The park Eduardo was talking about wasn’t that far away, just at the front of Mark’s neighborhood, so they walked there, Beast tugging his leash as he walked in front of them, trying to sniff everything along the way.
It was surprisingly quiet at the park, only a few people milling around.
When they went to the dog park, Mark usually sat on one of the benches and took out his iPad or phone, looking up to check on Beast and Eduardo every couple minutes. This time though Mark held onto Beast’s leash and walked with the two of them.
Eduardo tried not to flush when he felt Mark’s hand brush against the back of his fingers every few steps. He expected Mark to pull away after the second time it happened but he didn’t, instead turning to Eduardo and asking him about his day.
He smiled as Mark nodded along with him for a minute, offering some comments, before interrupting to talk out some problems with Facebook.
It was a little while before Eduardo could see when Mark realized what he’d done. He froze in his tracks, looking at Eduardo with a vaguely guilty look. Eduardo just laughed and nudged him in the side, guiding him along and urging him to continue.
There was a time before when Eduardo might have been angry about that, might’ve thought that that meant Mark didn’t care at all but Eduardo knew better now. He knew that Mark did listen but that sometimes he was so excited about things with Facebook, so proud, that he felt the need to share immediately as well.
Still Mark hesitated until Eduardo said, “Go on. Tell me how horrible your new programmers are.”
“They’re really great,” Mark said with a grin.
Eduardo could feel his breath hitch for a second. Mark’s face completely changed, become so open somehow, whenever he smiled.
They kept talking as they walked around the meandering path through the park, Beast running to the end of his leash sniffing different patches of grass before clambering back to Mark and Eduardo.
It was on one of these runarounds that Beast ended up going around Eduardo’s legs, tangling him in the leash. Eduardo laughed as he nearly fell, having to grasp Mark’s shoulder to keep his balance.
“Ugh, Beast,” Mark groaned, crouching down to help untangle the lead from around Eduardo’s legs, trying to keep Beast from running around and making it even worse.
“You going to do this every time, eh, boy?” Eduardo said, patting Beast’s head as he stepped out of the leash. “One of these days I’m going to fall flat on my face and break my nose. You’ll be sorry then.”
Beast didn’t look troubled at all by the thought. He just looked up at Eduardo and Mark with his tongue lolling and panting happily, his entire body shaking with the force of how hard his tail was wagging.
Eduardo tried frowning at Beast but it was a pointless exercise; somehow Mark had gotten the most adorable puppy in the world. “Oh, come here you,” he said, picking Beast up and leaning against Mark’s side so he could reach over to lick his cheek as well.
Mark sighed. “I’ve been trying to train him out of that, you know.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo replied. “That was silly of you to try.”
Mark shook his head but leaned back against Eduardo’s side, placing his hand on Eduardo’s hip as he went to nuzzle his face against Beast’s fur, because Mark really was a big softie inside.
Eduardo felt a shiver run up his spine as Mark settled against him for a moment before he reached over to take Beast out of Eduardo’s arms and place him back on the ground. Beast stared up at them plaintively for a moment before running off towards a new patch of grass.
“You make a lovely family.”
Eduardo jumped at the words, looking around to see a little old lady watching him and Mark, holding the leash of her own dog, a tiny Chihuahua that was barking at Beast who looked mildly terrified by the tiny dog.
The woman tugged on her leash, shushing her dog, as Eduardo looked around to make sure she was talking to the two of them.
“Sorry?” he said.
“I just thought I’d tell you that you make a lovely family. And puppy makes three, yes?”
Eduardo opened his mouth, closing it with a snap a few seconds later, not sure how to respond.
It struck him then, how much he wouldn’t mind Mark being his family, his boyfriend, how much they kind of actually already were, the way they acted. With the amount of time they spent together, Eduardo going to Mark’s house pretty much every day, going out to dinner and movies with him even without Dustin, Chris or either of the Seans.
God, if Sean-fucking, Eduardo couldn’t help but add in his mind-Parker could hear his thoughts, Eduardo would never hear the end of it.
He turned to Mark for help but he was standing stiff at his side. Eduardo could see him watching him from the corner of his eye.
“Um, thank you,” Eduardo said after an awkward moment. She looked so sincere that he couldn’t find it in his heart to correct her, to tell her that Mark was a good friend but had no intention of dating Eduardo.
Mark nodded at the woman, offering his own terse thanks.
She nodded at them before guiding her dog away.
“I think we can head back now,” Mark said a minute later when Eduardo didn’t speak. He took Beast’s leash from Eduardo and began walking out of the park, waiting for Eduardo to catch up with him.
They were quiet as they walked the short distance to Mark’s house, Eduardo opening the door as Mark was busy untangling the leash from around his legs.
The silence was uneasy as they settled in the living room, sinking into Mark’s unbelievably comfortable couch and turning on the television to some random show.
“I’m sorry,” Eduardo finally said.
Mark looked at him at those words. “Why?”
“Um, you know,” replied Eduardo. “The woman thinking we were dating. And all the articles talking about us dating. How Dustin and Sean constantly tease us about how married we are.”
He trailed off, unsure, when Mark just kept looked at him, barely blinking.
“It’s probably my fault?” Eduardo added on. “I mean, I’m probably bothering you, coming over all the time. I can stop if you want. I mean, at least until the stories blow over or something. If you want.”
Mark stared at him then. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally saying, his words spoken slowly, as if to make sure Eduardo understood. “I like you being here. I like going out with you. You think I’d go out to see Disney movies in a crowded theater full of kids with just anyone?”
“It was a Pixar movie!” Eduardo said. “I thought you’d like that.”
“I did, Wardo. The movie wasn’t that bad,” Mark said. “And you know, you were there.”
Eduardo swallowed hard. “What?” he said, the word coming out more a strangled whisper than anything else.
Mark let out a frustrated noise before saying, “You’re ridiculous,” and leaning over to press his mouth against Eduardo’s.
He froze in shock at the first touch of Mark’s lips against his before sighing and wrapping his fingers around Mark’s curls, tilting his head slightly to better the angle of the kiss.
“You get it now,” Mark asked a minute later when they finally moved apart to breathe; the sarcasm in his voice was made less effective by how breathy he sounded.
Eduardo nodded a few times before reaching to pull Mark closer again.
They had to pull apart just a few minutes later when Beast jumped onto the couch beside them and started whining for attention.
Eduardo laughed as he reached over to scratch behind Beast’s ears.
“I guess we’ll have to continue this later,” Mark said with a quirk of his lips. “The kid demands our attention now. You know he wouldn’t be like this if you didn’t spoil him so much.”
He shoved Mark’s shoulder lightly but they settled onto the couch easily, leaning against each other, Beast stretched across their laps.
Out of all the articles and newscasts that came out in the following weeks, after the first photos of Mark and Eduardo kissing during another walk in the park were published, Eduardo’s favorite was the ten-page spread in The Advocate that Chris had arranged for them.
He had a couple photos from the shoot framed on his desk at work and on the mantelpiece at Mark’s house, at their home.
(A couple other photos showed up above the fireplace after the guys had invited themselves over for a ‘Yay! it’s Wardo’s move-in day!’ party.
The first picture was from the Advocate photoshoot at the Facebook offices. It wasn’t one of Mark and Eduardo though, instead there was Dustin and Sean wearing rainbow pins and ridiculous expressions, Chris shaking his head in the background, a hint of a smile seen behind his raised hand.
The second was one of Mark and Eduardo from months before, when Eduardo had first started visiting Mark and the others at Facebook. He and Mark were standing near each other, and looking at the photo now, the way they were looking at each other, Eduardo really didn’t understand how it took him so long to realize his feelings for Mark, Mark’s feelings for him.
It was a great photograph of the two of them which was why he kept it up on the mantle, along with the other picture.
He did throw out the Post-it note that had been attached to the frame, however, Took you long enough, idiots written across it.)
with pressure and time.
the social network. mark/eduardo, background chris/dustin. nc-17. 8300 words.
mark and eduardo are just friends, no really. (shut up, dustin. and you too, sean.)
notes: much thanks to grim_lupine, who listened to me ramble about this fic for ages and then read over it for me. you’re too lovely, dear. ♥ the title is from pressure and time by rival sons.
It started pretty much the night after Eduardo moved to California, or the morning after that night if you wanted to get more technical about it.
Dustin invited Eduardo over for a night of video games and catching up, or a ‘WELCOME HOME WARDO’ party according to the banner Dustin had hung up in his living room, never mind that Eduardo had technically never called Palo Alto home before.
And really, Eduardo thought as he walked into the living room to find two other people waiting on the couch, he only had himself to blame for not thinking that ‘catching up’ to Dustin would also include Chris and...Mark.
(The numerous bottles of wine and an open cooler filled with beer-settled on a towel in the middle of the hardwood floor next to the coffee table-were definitely expected though, as was Dustin’s ridiculous large LCD TV and the Wii, Playstation 3, and Xbox arranged underneath it.)
Mark didn’t say anything, staring at him from over the back of the sofa for just a moment before turning back to the TV where it looked like they’d been watching Psych, which was one of Dustin’s favorite shows, given by the sheer number of quotes he used daily taken from it.
Eduardo chewed on his bottom lip, looking at the back of Mark’s head, the way the curls were all matted, before smiling at Chris and waving off his and Dustin’s worried and apologetic look.
“Hey, guys,” Eduardo said, walking around the sofa and settling down on the soft cushions, sinking in next to Mark. (Dustin obviously went for couches that made it feel as if you’d never be able to escape; the thing was about as wide as it was tall and gave easily.)
He reached over and grabbed a beer from the cooler, popping off the cap easily with his ring, a well practiced move, handing it over to an empty-handed Mark before grabbing one for himself.
Mark smirked at him with the corner of his mouth, out of sight of Chris and Dustin on the other side of the couch.
He didn’t bother saying thank you. The ass.
“I still hate you, you know,” Eduardo told him.
“Sure you do,” replied Mark, nudging Eduardo’s knee with the bottom of his longneck, leaning against his side for a second before moving away again. “I hate you too-you and your stupid Armani suits.”
“Prada,” Eduardo corrected. “And I’ve moved up from them. Bespoke is where it’s at now.”
“The best jobs are the ones that don’t make you wear suits, discourage them even.”
“Just because you suffer from Peter Pan syndrome in terms of your clothing doesn’t mean the rest of us should. I’m pretty sure I remember you wearing that shirt at Harvard,” Eduardo said, pointing at Mark’s murky gray shirt that’d probably once been blue. It had stains along the hem and a tear in the shoulder.
“And I couldn’t be expected to dress up for you, now could I? My best t-shirts are for Facebook and you know, G8 meetings. Been invited to any of those recently?”
“Fuck off,” Eduardo responded.
“Ouch,” Mark deadpanned. “That actually hurt my feelings.”
“You forget, you don’t have any feelings.”
Eduardo looked over to see Dustin and Chris following their conversation with mildly horrified expressions on their faces. Dustin’s eyes looked enormous, they were so wide, and his hands covering his mouth as well as half his face. He looked like a little kid watching his parents fight, nervous and unsure of what to do.
Chris was positioned like he was ready to leap up and separate Mark and Eduardo if he had to.
Eduardo tried to keep a straight face as long as possible but he’d never been able to do that as well as Mark had. He managed a few seconds longer before bursting out laughing, leaning his head on Mark’s shoulder and smiling at Dustin and Chris from behind his neck, through his curls.
“Okay, wow,” Dustin said. He looked remarkably like an owl, eyes wide and blinking slowly. “Did the two of you make up without telling me?”
Mark sighed, leaning back and sullenly taking several large gulps of his beer, avoiding looking at anyone, staring at his lap, obviously not wanting to talk about it.
It was rather understandable really, Eduardo thought. Dustin would probably want to talk about feelings and Mark didn’t deal well with those.
“We...may have started talking again,” Eduardo said when it was clear that no one else was going to speak.
“But when? And how? And why didn’t you tell me?” Dustin’s hands were flailing again by the end, nearly taking out one of Chris’s eyes.
Chris grabbed Dustin’s wrists and pressed them down onto his lap. Still, he said, “Well, we want answers.”
When Eduardo didn’t answer fast enough, and Dustin pinched his leg with his toes too many times, Mark replied for them. “It was last month. I was in Singapore for that meeting. Eduardo was there too. We knew he was moving to California. And thought it was time to...talk.”
“The alcohol certainly helped,” Eduardo added, laughing.
“Yes, alcohol,” Mark said eagerly. He chugged the rest of his beer and grabbed another, handing it to Eduardo first to open it for him.
“Alright,” Dustin said, bouncing in place. “Alcohol and video games. I say it’s time for Mario Kart. I should forewarn y’all though, I am the Wii master. You know that’s right!”
“I’m pretty sure that’s your over-inflated ego speaking, Dustin,” Chris told him.
“You must be out of your damn mind!” And yeah, it was like it was Dustin’s goal in life to somehow become a real life embodiment of Shawn’s personality and Gus’s catch-phrases.
Eduardo grinned, listening to Chris and Dustin go back and forth.
The rest of the night was a bit of a blur filled with alcohol, video games-and Dustin’s obnoxious cheering or loud booing whenever Chris won, which was surprisingly often, although Eduardo remembered then that Chris had been a bit of a video game ninja at Harvard-and delivered pizza. Lots of laughter as well.
Even Mark had cracked a smile on occasion. Although that was a bit unfair of him to think, Eduardo knew. Mark had always been remarkably free with his smiles, at least for him, when alcohol was involved.
Eduardo wasn’t sure what happened exactly but he woke up to a splitting headache and loud giggling in his ear.
“Aw,” he heard Dustin say. “Aren’t you two just fucking adorable?”
He heard a groan, felt it rumble against his face as he tiredly rubbed his cheek against the soft cotton he felt underneath it. Eduardo froze when he noticed an arm wrapped around his back, his legs tangled with someone else’s, and the soft ruffle of breath against his forehead.
There was another loud giggle and Eduardo slowly blinked his eyes open to see Dustin staring down at him, holding a bowl of cereal and grinning far too brightly.
A blanket fell off his shoulders as he moaned, clutching his head, and sat up, leaning against the back of the couch and trying to avoid kicking Mark who was stretched out along the edge.
“Are you sure there’s not something else you two are forgetting to tell me?” Dustin said with a sly wink. “Did you guys renew your friendship and add something more?”
The innuendo in his voice made Eduardo’s head hurt even more.
Eduardo groaned, flopping back onto the couch. Mark let out a pained oomph when Eduardo accidentally elbowed him in the gut, landing half on top of him.
He patted Mark’s stomach in apology before rolling over onto his side to face the back of the couch and try to block out the daylight streaming through the ridiculous floor to ceiling windows that Dustin had facing his backyard.
Dustin laughed again as Mark pulled the blanket up to cover both him and Eduardo. He started loudly crunching his cereal-probably some horribly sugar filled nonsense that’d end up rotting his teeth by the time he reached forty-and settled onto his armchair. He turned on the TV and started watching his Sunday morning cartoons.
Eduardo had never hated the fact that Dustin never seemed to get hangovers more than in that moment.
“I do have a guest room, you know,” Dustin said to them. “And it’s even empty since Sean picked Chris up last night. I guess one of you can take it.”
Eduardo could feel Mark moving away from his back, rolling off the couch and clambering to his feet, quickly moving out of the room and taking the blanket with him.
He was determined not to be the one left in the room with Dustin as he watched what sounded like The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Eduardo knew what Dustin was like when he watched that show. He had many a caps-lock and exclamation point-filled email to prove it.
He stumbled down the hallway after Mark.
“Or you know!” Dustin shouted after them. “You can totally share the bed if you’re fine with that. I know some people are. Boyfriends, for example.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself,” Eduardo said. He was hungover and tired and he could already hear Dustin squealing at the TV. A bed, located in a room on the opposite side of the house as the living room, sounded very appealing at the moment.
Besides, he and Mark had apparently shared a couch the night before-never mind the numerous times Eduardo had fallen asleep in Mark’s bed back at Harvard-so there was nothing odd about it.
Nothing at all.
Eduardo didn’t really make much of it at first, Dustin’s boyfriend gibe.
It was just Dustin being...Dustin.
Mark hadn’t said anything about it when they’d woken up later that morning wrapped around each other once again, just mumbled something about needing to go to Facebook and stumbled to the bathroom, so Eduardo didn’t either.
His brain had been so hazy from too much beer, wine, and an unfortunate series of tequila shots that he hadn’t even properly remembered it at the time anyway.
He moaned, massaging his temples, and pressed his face into his pillow. There was a reason Eduardo didn’t drink that much in one night anymore, he remembered. A very good reason.
Mark left the bathroom a few minutes later, a bit of toothpaste on the corner of his mouth, waving an offhanded goodbye to Eduardo, cursing about being late, never mind that he was the boss and technically couldn’t really be late.
Eduardo grunted a goodbye to Mark, turning his head to the side to speak, and also breathe.
He left Dustin’s a little while later and life went on. Eduardo adjusted to life in California, busy unpacking at his new place and making sure his new office was up-to-speed. Which involved a rather heated phone call to his ISP until finally Dustin came by to set it up properly for him.
Dustin was an awesome friend.
He didn’t see Mark for two weeks until one afternoon he was waiting to meet with a potential client, Mr Rodriguez, at an Italian restaurant. Eduardo sighed, looking away from the window and the people passing by down the street to check his watch.
Mr Rodriguez was already twenty minutes late and tardiness was something Eduardo still didn’t like, one of his major pet peeves it could be said. (It was, quite often. Eduardo’s friends all liked to tease him about it.) His cell rang a couple minutes later and Mr Rodriguez’s assistant apologized, saying he was ill and unable to make it to the meeting.
Eduardo sighed again and waved a waiter over. He was starving and may as well eat since he was already here.
Just then Mark walked into the restaurant, his face buried in his phone, furiously texting someone. He scowled as he looked up when the maitre d came up to him. He started to march over to one of the smaller tables.
“Mark,” Eduardo called, waving his arm to get his attention.
Eduardo watched as Mark glowered around the room suspiciously, trying to figure out just who had called his name, before he noticed Eduardo in the corner by the window.
He could actually see Mark’s shoulders relax as he muttered something to the maître d’ and hurried over to Eduardo’s table.
Mark slowed his pace down considerably by the time he actually reached the table though, sliding into the seat across from Eduardo as nonchalantly as he possibly could, slumping over like he didn’t care, that he wasn’t glad that Eduardo was there.
“So what’re you doing outside of Facebook-in the middle of the day, at that?”
Mark glared at his phone and mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” Eduardo asked, feeling a smile stretch across his face as Mark kept trying to avoid his eyes.
“My assistant kicked me out of the office.”
Eduardo laughed. He figured it was something like that to be honest. He remembered Mark talking about his assistant before in Singapore when he was bitching about having to come to the symposium. Melissa, Mark’s assistant-a forty-something woman who typed eighty words per minute, was militantly organized, and didn’t take shit from anyone-had refused to take it off his schedule.
(“You’re marginally less awful than everyone else here; I guess I can hang out with you,” Eduardo remembered Mark had said to him that first night in Singapore, marching over with a grimace on his face, looking uncomfortable in a suit and loosened tie, as he tossed back a flute of champagne and placed the empty glass on a passing attendant’s tray.
When Eduardo had been too surprised to respond, he’d let out a very put upon breath and continued.
“How’re you and all that,” he asked, no inflection to his voice, giving no sign that he’d realized it was the first time the two of them had talked alone in, well, a very long time.
Eduardo had stared at him for a few seconds before shaking his head, laughing a little. He grabbed another two flutes of champagne, handing one to Mark and taking one for himself. “I have a feeling we’ll need alcohol for this.”
Mark had arched his eyebrows, his usual expression of mild derision prevalent on his face.
Eduardo chugged down his champagne. “At least I’m definitely going to need it.”)
“Shut up,” Mark said, glaring at him, before grabbing his vibrating phone and sending out another angry text. “I’m going to fire her. And Dustin. He helped.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the boss. They shouldn’t be able to kick you out.”
Mark scowled again. “I know. But apparently, Melissa was willing to go on strike if I didn’t leave her alone and ‘take my beastly attitude out for lunch and leave it there.’” He tried to speak in a mocking, high-pitched voice for the last phrase.
Eduardo smiled brightly at the attempt, holding in a giggle. Mark’s monotone voice was so not made for it.
“Fuck off,” Mark said.
“Let’s order you some food,” Eduardo said, ignoring his statement and nodding to the passing waitress. “You still like stuffed ravioli, right? Maybe it’ll actually help get you out of that bad mood.”
Mark reached across the table to punch him in the shoulder but still allowed Eduardo order lunch for the both of them.
The meal was surprisingly relaxed as they chatted about new developments at Facebook and different game prototypes Eduardo had seen coming across his desk. Mark even asked after how Eduardo was settling into Palo Alto and nodded along when Eduardo talked about some of his investments, making an attempt to not look bored by it all, which admittedly mostly failed but Eduardo appreciated the effort.
As the meal went on, Eduardo found himself deftly avoiding Mark’s fork to steal a couple pieces of ravioli from his plate. When Mark frowned down at his plate, Eduardo pushed some of his alfredo onto it to make up for stealing the ravioli and shared some of the Italian cream cake he’d ordered for dessert, asking the waitress to bring by an extra fork.
When Eduardo looked out the window to the the sky darkening as he’d expected, from the weather reports he’d checked that morning, he noticed someone with a camera standing on the sidewalk a few feet away from the window, taking photos of Mark and him.
Mark turned to see what Eduardo was looking at and frowned. “Yeah,” he said. “You’ll have to get used to that here. For some reason people care about what I do.”
“They’re probably just surprised to see you outside of the office,” said Eduardo, turning away from the window to focus back on Mark.
“Yeah, well, you’re going to have it worse than me soon, considering you’re all...you.” Mark waved his hand in the air towards Eduardo.
Eduardo laughed it off, deciding not to go into how Mark was the actual, properly famous one, the public face of Facebook.
By the time they left the restaurant, the clouds had opened and rain was pouring down.
Eduardo opened the umbrella he’d been carrying all day and stepped out toward the sidewalk. He turned back when he noticed Mark wasn’t beside him. Instead he was standing just outside the restaurant entrance, pulling his hood up and zipping his hoodie all the way.
“Honestly, Mark,” Eduardo said, sounding very beleaguered as he walked closer. “Did you not see the weather report this morning?”
Mark arched an eyebrow pointedly. “You were always the one going on about the weather report, talking shit about hurricanes or whatever-the-fuck, and obsessively watching the Weather Channel, Wardo. Not me.”
“I would think the storm clouds would’ve been warning enough then. The sky has been really quite gray all day,” Eduardo responded. “But then, you’ve never really noticed anything not your computer, have you?”
Even as he sniped at Mark, Eduardo grinned and stepped even closer, moving his umbrella over so Mark was shielded from the rain as well. He reached over and pulled Mark’s hood back slightly to better see his face and tugged the strings slightly, making sure Mark’s neck was fully covered, as his fingers trailed down a bit.
He could see Mark try to frown at him but a smile tugging at the side of his mouth belied the attempt.
Eduardo opened his mouth, not sure what he wanted to say, but a flash distracted him and he looked over to see the photographer again. When he turned back to Mark, he saw that Mark had pulled his hood low again.
“I should head back to the office,” Mark said. “I’ll see you later.”
Eduardo smiled, feeling unsure as Mark moved back and his voice went flat.
Mark shoved his shoulder with a closed fist. “Really, I’ll see you soon. I’m pretty sure Dustin’s planning a housewarming party for you.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one to plan that if it’s at my house?” Eduardo asked.
Mark’s incredulous look and arched eyebrows were answer enough.
Eduardo didn’t think anything of the photographer until the next day when the guys came over to his place for the ‘housewarming party’, or the opportunity to drink beer and eat a bunch of junk food and trash Eduardo’s living room-although Dustin did have another banner made for the evening.
Chris arrived a half-hour after Dustin with Sean and a folder. He left Sean at the couch and went over to Eduardo in the kitchen. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?” he asked.
Eduardo blinked at him. “Did Dustin put you up to this?” he asked after a minute.
“No,” Chris said, sounding confused at the question. He shook his head and set the folder down on the island counter. “These did.”
He opened the folder and Eduardo saw that it was pictures of him and Mark from lunch the day before.
“Do you want to tell me why there’s a Valleywag article about a lunch meeting between you and Mark becoming an, and I quote, ‘intimate dinner’ that involved candlelight as the two of you talked for hours?”
“Um,” Eduardo said. The waitress had brought around a candle a few hours into their meal, he vaguely remembered.
“And then you walked him to his car, holding an umbrella over his head?” Chris said.
“It was raining and he didn’t have one of his own!”
“And really, Eduardo?” Chris added, pushing a photo towards him. He saw it was one from when he’d been tugging on Mark’s hoodie strings.
It did look remarkably intimate, Eduardo thought as he picked up the photo and down at it. The way Eduardo’s free hand had been resting on Mark’s chest, strings tangled in his fingers and the actual soft look on Mark’s face with the hint of a smile on his mouth as he looked at Eduardo.
“Okay,” Eduardo said. “That looks like we were on a date but we weren’t! And I’d know, I was fucking there!”
Eduardo started mumbling to himself in Portuguese, running his hands through his hair. He’d have to call his mãe soon before she read about it online. Or rather, before his brother sent her a link. Oh god, Eduardo thought. His brother would be calling soon. Eduardo’s brother loved to fulfill the teasing big brother role. Too much.
“Wardo,” Chris said quietly, placing a hand on his wrist. “You know you can actually talk to me if you want, right?”
He had that understanding look on his face, somehow even more perfected over the years.
Eduardo shook his head. “We were just catching up,” he insisted. “We, Mark, I, yeah, it’s nothing. Now, we better head back or I’m pretty sure Dustin will silly string my living room.”
The subject was dropped for the night although Eduardo noticed Chris watching him and Mark throughout the night.
It kept happening after that however.
Dustin insisted that he and Mark had to go with him to see the latest blockbuster film and later more pictures showed up online. In a good number of them, Dustin had been cropped out of the image. He sent Eduardo a number of emails with D: faces in them afterwards.
Mark had almost knocked Eduardo out with a bottle of Mountain Dew, he’d been waving his arms about so wildly as he ranted about the idiocy of modern media.
Eduardo couldn’t help but notice that he’d been a bit flushed though as he asked Eduardo if he wanted Mark to eviscerate them all.
“I mean, really. Drawing jizz on our faces? I can destroy Perez Hilton’s site. They won’t even be able to trace it back to me. I swear.”
Then, another day, Eduardo went by the Facebook offices because he had a day off and Mark didn’t understand the concept. To be fair though, Eduardo should’ve expected pictures of that visit to show up online. All of Mark’s employees were expected to use Facebook after all and a good number of them had camera phones.
A favorite picture from that trip seemed to be one from when he and Mark had been walking around the offices, Mark giving Eduardo a tour, a small smile on his face. A king surveying his domain, really, although the photos made it look like he’d been smiling because Eduardo was next to him.
Worse was that from the angle of the photo, it’d looked like they were actually holding hands.
Another series of pictures that made rounds across the internet after that trip involved Sean Parker. Eduardo could feel his teeth grind against each other as he thought about it. Sean Parker who apparently lived in Palo Alto and still liked to pop by the Facebook offices on occasion.
Eduardo could deal with less comments about him looking like a serial killer whenever Sean was around Mark even if he really did still hate Sean. (He had no plans to murder the douchebag though. Eduardo wasn’t going to jail for that shit.
He did allow himself a petty moment-okay maybe a full minute or two-to imagine hiring a professional hitman to do the job. He had more than enough money for it now after all.)
“You know,” Sean said slowly with a sleazy grin, sitting across the table from him in a restaurant a few weeks or so after they’d first bumped into each other at Facebook. He was obviously waiting for Eduardo to ask him to continue.
And god, why was Eduardo even talking with this asshole? Oh, that’s right. Apparently Mark was still friends with him or something and he liked to come around the Facebook offices every once in awhile. And he was allowed in.
Also, Sean had decided that he and Eduardo should become new best buds and had followed him out the offices and to the local Mediterranean restaurant that Eduardo had been wanting to try, off of Chris and the other-better, Eduardo couldn’t help but add, feeling petty and justified in being so in his own mind-Sean’s recommendation.
Eduardo had sighed when he saw Sean’s car following him but he refused to change his plans just because of that asshole. He went into the restaurant and ordered his meal, sighing again when Sean followed him, telling the waiter to make the appetizers for two.
“You know,” Sean repeated, dragging out the words as long as possible.
“What, Sean?” Eduardo asked, finally deciding to humor him. Sean’s ridiculous begging face had been about to put him off his yalanji.
Sean waited for Eduardo to take a bite of tabbouleh before saying, “I know for a fact that Mark hasn’t gotten laid recently.”
Eduardo choked on his mouthful of parsley and tomatoes, coughing harshly.
Sean pushed his glass of water over with a smirk and Eduardo tried to glare at him as best as he could through his watering eyes.
“Oh god, oh god,” Eduardo finally managed to say. “Why the fuck would you know that? And why the hell would you think that I would want to know?” he demanded, leaning forward and whispering harshly, looking around the restaurant to make sure that no one had heard them.
(God knows with Eduardo’s luck lately, there’d be a group of reporters at the next table ready to upload another story onto Valleywag. Eduardo was already dreading the likely photos of him and Sean at his lunch and around the Facebook offices. Who knew what awful captions would show up online this time?)
“Are you saying you’re not actually interested in hitting that?” Sean asked, reaching new, truly epic levels of sleaze.
“I like...spending time with him, yes,” Eduardo said, which was the absolute truth. He and Mark had fun together, much more than Eduardo had even thought possible when they’d first started talking again after that drunken night in Singapore.
He liked how their friendship was somehow already so much better than it had been at Harvard, even before the algorithm, Facemash, and final clubs. He liked how Mark was more open with his smiles, feeling free to show affection in little ways, nudges and laughing smirks for the most part, but Eduardo would take that.
Eduardo liked how he felt free to yell at Mark when he was being awful and knew that it wouldn’t mean Mark being sullen.
Well, not for too long anyway.
It was still Mark after all.
“But I have no plans to ‘hit that,’” he continued, trying to add as much derision as possible into his voice.
It fell short going by the look on Sean’s face but that was just Sean fucking Parker. He always had that stupid, smug expression on his face; he probably slept with that expression still on his face.
“If you say so,” Sean said, taking a large bite of his gyro and chewing with his mouth open obnoxiously, probably just to irritate Eduardo. “So anyway, we’re going clubbing tonight.”
“No, we’re not.”
“Dustin, the marrieds, and Mark already said yes.”
“Did you annoy them into it?”
“Some people actually know how to have fun, you know.”
“Mark?” Eduardo said, raising his eyebrows.
“So some persuasion may have been needed,” Sean admitted. He glowered when Eduardo burst out laughing, his head tossed back.
Eduardo could only imagine what fucked up persuasion techniques Sean would think suitable. He frowned then, trying to get rid of the images running through his mind.
Going by the growing smirk on Sean’s face, he could tell what Eduardo was thinking. He leered at Eduardo. “You want me to persuade you, baby?” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
Eduardo didn’t even have to try to make his expression as disgusted as possible. “It’s like you’re trying to give me nightmares. Maybe I should just move to New York. Business would be good there.”
“You’d miss it here; you’d miss Mark, and Dustin and Chris and even me, don’t front.”
“I’d like to debate the ‘missing you’ point.”
“The important thing is we’re going out and so are you,” Sean said, speaking over him, sounding very determined. It was a tone of voice that allowed for no argument and said that Sean would be willing to drag Eduardo out of his house if necessary.
And that’s how Eduardo ended up in a club off Castro in San Francisco that night against his better judgment. At least Sean hadn’t lied about Dustin, Chris and Sean, and Mark being there as well. (He had lied about there being foam machines though, thank god. And there was no glow-in-the-dark paint involved in the interior decorating.)
Mark was sitting in a booth with Sean when Eduardo arrived. He could see Dustin flailing already on the dance floor when Sean pointed him out and Chris was at the bar with his Sean.
“Wardo,” Mark called to him as he approached the booth and sat down. “You’re here.” He had a wide, dopey grin on his face and slid across the bench to lean against Eduardo’s side.
Eduardo blinked down at Mark, his face tucked into Eduardo’s shoulder, before glancing up at Sean across the table and arching his eyebrows.
“We may have had a few tequila shots before you arrived.”
Well, that explained it. Mark had always reacted strongly to tequila.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Mark said to him, mumbling into the side of Eduardo’s neck.
Eduardo couldn’t help but shiver at Mark’s breath brushing his skin, the words feeling cool compared to the heated air of the club.
Sean coughed loudly and gave Eduardo a pointed look. He felt his cheeks start to burn.
It was just the heat, Eduardo told himself as he looked away from Sean to focus back on Mark.
“Ugh,” Mark groaned, trying to sit up and failing, slumping back against Eduardo. “I want to go to Facebook. Need to make sure the new programmers don’t do something stupid.”
“Those new programmers have been working for you for three months now, Mark,” said Sean. “And they haven’t screwed up yet. They’ve been fucking awesome actually so stop your bitching and looking for excuses to leave. You need to relax. All work and no play makes Mark get the crazy eyes.”
Eduardo really hated it when he happened to agree with Sean about something. But he did have a point.
Mark glowered at Sean, as much as he could so drunk anyway, before speaking to Eduardo again. “It’s not so bad, going out, when you’re here.”
Eduardo didn’t know how to respond to that, words caught in his throat, so he just wrapped his arm around Mark’s shoulders again and squeezed lightly.
He looked over as Chris and Sean came back to the table, carrying a tray of beers and shots for them all, Dustin trailing behind them, and didn’t even mind when he saw a few bright flashes coming from some other tables, knowing there’d be some new speculation on the internet later.
As expected, the next day the new pictures and articles showed up online. Although he had to admit he hadn’t expected CNN’s melodramatic retrospective on the ‘heartwarming renewal’ of their broken friendship.
He didn’t let any of it stop him from spending time with Mark, refused to let it. He had fun with Mark. He liked hanging out with him at Facebook or at one of their-or Dustin or Chris’s and god forbid, sometimes even Sean’s-places. He liked movie nights at their houses or at the theater when Mark could be dragged out.
Eduardo liked eating out at restaurants, tasting the different foods and enjoying the dining experience, and he didn’t want to do it alone.
And really, if he hadn’t dragged Mark to the mall to buy some new clothes, he’d have ended up wearing sweatpants and basketball shorts with holes in them to work until they were so worn they just fell off him. (Mark had claimed he could just get his assistant to go shopping for him but Melissa had just stared at him when he’d suggested it before looking back at her computer and continuing to type.
Eduardo refused to let him hire someone just to do his shopping for him. He also refused to let Mark wait for Chanukah and his mom to buy him new clothes as gifts.)
Mark was his friend. They all-even Sean fucking Parker which Eduardo sometimes still couldn’t believe-were his friends. Eduardo wasn’t going to stop spending time with them because the media seemed to get it in their heads that the Facebook fallout and reconciliation had the makings of some sort of modern-day Harlequin romance.
After awhile though, it did calm down. There were only so many different ways to discuss pictures of Mark and Eduardo standing side-by-side after all. (Although Sean did sometimes try to instigate things by posting pictures of Mark and Eduardo at various supposed-to-be private gatherings onto his Twitter.
At least he had until Eduardo made sure to confiscate his phone-and the second one he’d bought after the first night-every time they had a video game or whatever-excuse-we’re-using-to-hang-out night.)
But then Mark decided he wanted to get a dog.
He insisted that Eduardo go with him to the breeders when he went to pick up Beast, who really was the least beastly-looking puppy Eduardo thought he had ever seen but Mark had an attachment to the name.
Eduardo had always liked dogs, used to imagine getting a puppy as a Chanukah gift, but he’d never had one of his own. His mother was allergic and then after he left home, he was always too busy, worked too much, to feel it was fair to get a dog of his own that’d just be left alone.
Mark and he had talked about how both of them wanted a dog a few months before, one night when when Mark had come over to Eduardo’s apartment after work and they’d ended up watching Star Wars and drinking a few beers.
He was glad Mark decided to get Beast after that conversation, that he had decided he could take some time off work-or away from the offices at least, to work from home, his computer never far-to acclimate and train him.
So after Mark bought Beast, Eduardo found himself at Mark’s house more often than not. Beast was adorable though, Eduardo thought. It’d be odd not to want to see him. Especially now when Mark was trying to teach him how to fetch. Beast was too cute when he was trying to run, flopping onto his stomach after few faltering steps.
He went to visit Beast so much so that Mark gruffly handed him a key one afternoon without a word, annoyed to have been pulled away from his computer to go open the door. (Mark had had Eduardo’s spare key for months by that point, ever since Eduardo had moved to Palo Alto practically.
He certainly wasn’t going to give it to Dustin no matter how many times he asked. Eduardo knew if he did, he’d come back to his apartment one day to find streamers everywhere.)
Eduardo smiled as he flipped to the key on his ring, opened the door, and walked into Mark’s house. Beast barked happily, running to Eduardo, shaking in place as he waited for Eduardo to pat his leg and allow him to jump up.
It was amazing really, how fast Mark was able to train Beast.
But then again Beast was a good dog, Eduardo thought as he walked into the living room, Beast on his heels. He saw Mark distractedly nod at him from where he was sitting on his armchair, laptop at hand as expected.
He settled onto the couch, made sure Mark was busy staring at his laptop, before patting the couch and letting Beast jump up beside him. He scratched him behind his ears, smiling and unable to stop a small laugh as he watched one of Beast’s legs start jerking wildly.
Mark peered at the two of them and frowned when he saw Beast on the furniture. He just shook his head though, not saying anything.
He’d probably come to expect it by this point. Eduardo liked sneaking Beast onto the couch whenever he came over. The exasperated huffs Mark always let out when he noticed were hilarious.
Besides, Eduardo was determined to completely break him of his stupid no-dogs-on-the-couch rule soon. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small ziplock bag of treats, handing one to Beast.
“I saw that. You spoil him.”
“He deserves it,” Eduardo said looking at Mark with a grin. “Putting up with you as a owner. You’re a mean dad who doesn’t give him enough treats. Isn’t that right, Beasty boy? Your daddy is mean.” Eduardo said to the puppy, scratching beneath his chin. “You should get all the treats.”
“If I give him all the treats you think he should get, he’d never be able to learn to roll over. Because he’d be too fat. From all the treats,” Mark told him. “And if I’m the mean dad, you’re the too soft one that’s going to end up spoiling him until he refuses to eat anything but steak.”
“We could afford to feed him steak,” Eduardo said. “We could keep him in filet mignon and ribeye for life.”
He didn’t touch upon Mark calling him Beast’s other dad though he couldn’t help but think of the emails Sean had been sending him, the paparazzi pictures of Mark and Eduardo walking Beast and at the park together.
Eduardo hadn’t needed Sean’s elaborately detailed comments to get the implication behind each of the photos. And he really hadn’t needed all the baby gifts-sent in a bassinet even-that Sean, and Dustin, he was sure of it, the idea just screamed of Dustin’s influence, had had delivered to his apartment.
Mark had also received emails with the pictures, Eduardo knew. He’d seen them open on Mark’s laptop although Mark hadn’t said anything when he saw Eduardo looking. He’d turned bright red and quickly exited out of the email though.
Just then Beast jumped off the couch and started sniffing around the coffee table. “I think it’s time for Beast to go out,” Eduardo said, looking over at Mark. “Let’s go to the park.”
Mark sighed long-sufferingly but closed his laptop without further complaint and stepped into his flip-flops, snapping his fingers for Beast to come as he took his leash off a hook by the front door.
“Dog park?” Mark asked as he opened the door and waited for Eduardo to step out in front of him.
“Hm,” Eduardo hummed thoughtfully. The dog park was nice but it was a bit of a drive away and the weather was nice that late afternoon. “Maybe the other park instead. It’s nice out.”
The park Eduardo was talking about wasn’t that far away, just at the front of Mark’s neighborhood, so they walked there, Beast tugging his leash as he walked in front of them, trying to sniff everything along the way.
It was surprisingly quiet at the park, only a few people milling around.
When they went to the dog park, Mark usually sat on one of the benches and took out his iPad or phone, looking up to check on Beast and Eduardo every couple minutes. This time though Mark held onto Beast’s leash and walked with the two of them.
Eduardo tried not to flush when he felt Mark’s hand brush against the back of his fingers every few steps. He expected Mark to pull away after the second time it happened but he didn’t, instead turning to Eduardo and asking him about his day.
He smiled as Mark nodded along with him for a minute, offering some comments, before interrupting to talk out some problems with Facebook.
It was a little while before Eduardo could see when Mark realized what he’d done. He froze in his tracks, looking at Eduardo with a vaguely guilty look. Eduardo just laughed and nudged him in the side, guiding him along and urging him to continue.
There was a time before when Eduardo might have been angry about that, might’ve thought that that meant Mark didn’t care at all but Eduardo knew better now. He knew that Mark did listen but that sometimes he was so excited about things with Facebook, so proud, that he felt the need to share immediately as well.
Still Mark hesitated until Eduardo said, “Go on. Tell me how horrible your new programmers are.”
“They’re really great,” Mark said with a grin.
Eduardo could feel his breath hitch for a second. Mark’s face completely changed, become so open somehow, whenever he smiled.
They kept talking as they walked around the meandering path through the park, Beast running to the end of his leash sniffing different patches of grass before clambering back to Mark and Eduardo.
It was on one of these runarounds that Beast ended up going around Eduardo’s legs, tangling him in the leash. Eduardo laughed as he nearly fell, having to grasp Mark’s shoulder to keep his balance.
“Ugh, Beast,” Mark groaned, crouching down to help untangle the lead from around Eduardo’s legs, trying to keep Beast from running around and making it even worse.
“You going to do this every time, eh, boy?” Eduardo said, patting Beast’s head as he stepped out of the leash. “One of these days I’m going to fall flat on my face and break my nose. You’ll be sorry then.”
Beast didn’t look troubled at all by the thought. He just looked up at Eduardo and Mark with his tongue lolling and panting happily, his entire body shaking with the force of how hard his tail was wagging.
Eduardo tried frowning at Beast but it was a pointless exercise; somehow Mark had gotten the most adorable puppy in the world. “Oh, come here you,” he said, picking Beast up and leaning against Mark’s side so he could reach over to lick his cheek as well.
Mark sighed. “I’ve been trying to train him out of that, you know.”
“Yeah,” Eduardo replied. “That was silly of you to try.”
Mark shook his head but leaned back against Eduardo’s side, placing his hand on Eduardo’s hip as he went to nuzzle his face against Beast’s fur, because Mark really was a big softie inside.
Eduardo felt a shiver run up his spine as Mark settled against him for a moment before he reached over to take Beast out of Eduardo’s arms and place him back on the ground. Beast stared up at them plaintively for a moment before running off towards a new patch of grass.
“You make a lovely family.”
Eduardo jumped at the words, looking around to see a little old lady watching him and Mark, holding the leash of her own dog, a tiny Chihuahua that was barking at Beast who looked mildly terrified by the tiny dog.
The woman tugged on her leash, shushing her dog, as Eduardo looked around to make sure she was talking to the two of them.
“Sorry?” he said.
“I just thought I’d tell you that you make a lovely family. And puppy makes three, yes?”
Eduardo opened his mouth, closing it with a snap a few seconds later, not sure how to respond.
It struck him then, how much he wouldn’t mind Mark being his family, his boyfriend, how much they kind of actually already were, the way they acted. With the amount of time they spent together, Eduardo going to Mark’s house pretty much every day, going out to dinner and movies with him even without Dustin, Chris or either of the Seans.
God, if Sean-fucking, Eduardo couldn’t help but add in his mind-Parker could hear his thoughts, Eduardo would never hear the end of it.
He turned to Mark for help but he was standing stiff at his side. Eduardo could see him watching him from the corner of his eye.
“Um, thank you,” Eduardo said after an awkward moment. She looked so sincere that he couldn’t find it in his heart to correct her, to tell her that Mark was a good friend but had no intention of dating Eduardo.
Mark nodded at the woman, offering his own terse thanks.
She nodded at them before guiding her dog away.
“I think we can head back now,” Mark said a minute later when Eduardo didn’t speak. He took Beast’s leash from Eduardo and began walking out of the park, waiting for Eduardo to catch up with him.
They were quiet as they walked the short distance to Mark’s house, Eduardo opening the door as Mark was busy untangling the leash from around his legs.
The silence was uneasy as they settled in the living room, sinking into Mark’s unbelievably comfortable couch and turning on the television to some random show.
“I’m sorry,” Eduardo finally said.
Mark looked at him at those words. “Why?”
“Um, you know,” replied Eduardo. “The woman thinking we were dating. And all the articles talking about us dating. How Dustin and Sean constantly tease us about how married we are.”
He trailed off, unsure, when Mark just kept looked at him, barely blinking.
“It’s probably my fault?” Eduardo added on. “I mean, I’m probably bothering you, coming over all the time. I can stop if you want. I mean, at least until the stories blow over or something. If you want.”
Mark stared at him then. He opened and closed his mouth a few times before finally saying, his words spoken slowly, as if to make sure Eduardo understood. “I like you being here. I like going out with you. You think I’d go out to see Disney movies in a crowded theater full of kids with just anyone?”
“It was a Pixar movie!” Eduardo said. “I thought you’d like that.”
“I did, Wardo. The movie wasn’t that bad,” Mark said. “And you know, you were there.”
Eduardo swallowed hard. “What?” he said, the word coming out more a strangled whisper than anything else.
Mark let out a frustrated noise before saying, “You’re ridiculous,” and leaning over to press his mouth against Eduardo’s.
He froze in shock at the first touch of Mark’s lips against his before sighing and wrapping his fingers around Mark’s curls, tilting his head slightly to better the angle of the kiss.
“You get it now,” Mark asked a minute later when they finally moved apart to breathe; the sarcasm in his voice was made less effective by how breathy he sounded.
Eduardo nodded a few times before reaching to pull Mark closer again.
They had to pull apart just a few minutes later when Beast jumped onto the couch beside them and started whining for attention.
Eduardo laughed as he reached over to scratch behind Beast’s ears.
“I guess we’ll have to continue this later,” Mark said with a quirk of his lips. “The kid demands our attention now. You know he wouldn’t be like this if you didn’t spoil him so much.”
He shoved Mark’s shoulder lightly but they settled onto the couch easily, leaning against each other, Beast stretched across their laps.
Out of all the articles and newscasts that came out in the following weeks, after the first photos of Mark and Eduardo kissing during another walk in the park were published, Eduardo’s favorite was the ten-page spread in The Advocate that Chris had arranged for them.
He had a couple photos from the shoot framed on his desk at work and on the mantelpiece at Mark’s house, at their home.
(A couple other photos showed up above the fireplace after the guys had invited themselves over for a ‘Yay! it’s Wardo’s move-in day!’ party.
The first picture was from the Advocate photoshoot at the Facebook offices. It wasn’t one of Mark and Eduardo though, instead there was Dustin and Sean wearing rainbow pins and ridiculous expressions, Chris shaking his head in the background, a hint of a smile seen behind his raised hand.
The second was one of Mark and Eduardo from months before, when Eduardo had first started visiting Mark and the others at Facebook. He and Mark were standing near each other, and looking at the photo now, the way they were looking at each other, Eduardo really didn’t understand how it took him so long to realize his feelings for Mark, Mark’s feelings for him.
It was a great photograph of the two of them which was why he kept it up on the mantle, along with the other picture.
He did throw out the Post-it note that had been attached to the frame, however, Took you long enough, idiots written across it.)