FIC: hearts too big to fit our beds
title: hearts too big to fit our beds
rating: pg
pairing: mark/eduardo
disclaimer: this is fiction. no harm intended. for love, not profit.
summary: morning sweetness & introspection. pure fluff. happy birthday (finally!), xxcozmicstar! (1,880 words)
Mark wakes up early.
He opens his eyes, still half in the fog of a good dream, and sees sunlight just beginning to spill across the floor. Eduardo’s pressed lightly against his back, the clock reads 7:47 a.m., and Mark’s about to settle back down for another hour or two (it’s summer, and more to the point, it’s Saturday) when he remembers what day it is.
Eduardo’s breath is warm in the hollow of his shoulder and Mark just smiles, because, finally.
Carefully, so carefully, he disentangles himself and climbs out of bed. On impulse, he leans back in to tuck the covers more securely around Eduardo, then pads quietly into the bathroom and closes the door behind him.
He showers quickly, if a little more thoroughly than usual, then crawls back into bed, still being careful not to disturb Eduardo.
Mark is notoriously not a morning person; really, it’s best for everyone involved if he avoids human interaction until he’s halfway through his third cup of coffee and has had a chance to stretch his fingers over a keyboard. Over the years, Eduardo has managed to become an exception to that rule and many others-if pressed, Mark might even admit he feels out of sorts in the morning without the comfortable familiarity of Eduardo’s presence, and even their fragments of conversation.
This morning isn’t quite like the others, though.
Mark is-not overwhelmed, not exactly, but there are feelings that need sorting through. He’s gotten better at the emotion thing in the past few years, meaning he can generally put a name on what he’s feeing and figure out where it’s coming from, but he still needs time and space to process things in his own way. Eduardo has learned to give him that space; Mark, in turn, has learned about being open, and being honest (both easier in theory than in practice), and about saying things.
He loved Eduardo for so long before he finally managed to say it.
They’d been together for nearly a year by then. It felt like things between them had finally healed over, and for weeks Mark had been toying with the idea of asking Eduardo to move in. They’d spent a long weekend in Napa in late August, and on their last night, he’d finally brought it up over dinner.
Are you sure? Eduardo had asked. If I weren’t sure I wouldn’t have asked, Mark had replied, a little impatiently because he’d still been figuring out the whole sensitivity thing back then (and the romance thing had yet to even occur to him), but Eduardo had just laughed and said, Then yes, of course, yes. They’d kissed, and when they parted Mark remembers looking into Eduardo’s eyes and seeing nothing held back, no hesitation, just warmth and affection and trust, and Mark had said, I love you.
You do? Eduardo had asked, his face going all soft in a way that had made Mark feel choked up and sort of blurry, and he hadn’t been able to say anything at at all so he’d just nodded. Eduardo had said Mark, and looked at him in this way that Mark will never, ever forget, and then, I love you, too.
So maybe it took him a while, but he finally did get there, and since then Mark has really tried to get better at saying what he’s feeling.
He and Eduardo are so different in so many ways, but the biggest thing, and the one that came between them most often early on, is the fact that Mark is deeply self-contained by nature while Eduardo is, like, missing some kind of insular layer. Mark’s emotions are boxed and labeled and he can take them out and put them away at will; Eduardo’s feelings are all over the place, all the time. They both would have had to work to overcome those tendencies in any relationship; being in a relationship with each other, they’ve had to work that much harder.
It wasn’t ever going to be easy, Mark thinks, but they’ve come so far-and these days, even when the inevitable conflict arises, it still feels like they’re on solid ground.
Mark still isn’t sure why they had to gut each other to get here. It probably has something to do with learning and growing and things they had to go through to end up where they are, but looking at Eduardo, whose entire body is sort of angled and oriented toward Mark even in sleep, it seems as though it should always have been easy.
On the other hand, he knows with absolute certainty that they can get through the very worst things and still love each other and still be okay because, really, they already have.
They’re ready, Mark thinks, just as his phone buzzes softly on the nightstand.
From: Chris
Sent: 8:57 AM
Subject: Wake up call.
I’ll pick you up in half an hour. For once in your life, be on time.
On any other morning, Mark might have rolled his eyes. Today, he just laughs to himself and starts to type a response, but before he can send it, Eduardo shifts and blinks, and Mark forgets all about answering Chris and just stares.
He will never, ever get tired of watching Eduardo wake up. (Or sleep, or laugh, or talk, or-anything, really.)
“Mmm.” Eduardo stretches languidly beside him. “Are you seriously working? You do know what day it is, right?”
“I do, and I’m not.” Mark presses a kiss into his shoulder. “It’s just Chris. He’ll be here in half an hour.”
“I’d better get out of here, then, seeing as Chris thinks I’m across town in a hotel room.”
“Stay.” Mark traces one finger down Eduardo’s cheek, lingering. “Traditions are stupid.”
“Is that so?” Eduardo smiles up at him. “I think that’s a bit hypocritical, all things considered.”
“I don’t care,” Mark says, a little petulantly, and Eduardo just laughs, wraps one hand around the back of Mark’s neck and pulls him down for a kiss.
“So,” he murmurs against Mark’s lips, walking his fingers down Mark’s chest. “Half an hour, hm?”
“Not what I had in mind.” Mark catches Eduardo by the wrist before his hand can wander lower.
“That’s a first.” Eduardo raises an eyebrow and shifts his hips slightly, meaningfully.
Mark tries to glare and fails entirely.
“I mean it,” he says firmly. “Later. Tonight.”
“You’d be more convincing if you could stop smiling for ten seconds,” Eduardo teases, but his eyes are warm and soft and Mark loves him so much in this moment, so much that he’s pretty sure his heart is going to climb out of his chest or explode or something and he really doesn’t care, like, at all.
“I love you,” he says, because sometimes he can’t not say it, although right now the words feel hopelessly inadequate.
Eduardo gives him this radiant smile, like Mark hasn’t said so more times than either of them could possibly count. “I love you, too.”
*
Fifteen minutes later they’re standing at the door, saying goodbye until the afternoon. They kiss, slow and easy, Mark’s arms twined loosely around Eduardo’s waist.
When Eduardo pulls back, he’s smiling. “You realize the next time we do that--”
“I know,” Mark tells him, his stomach doing a not-unpleasant flip at the thought.
“I’ll see you in a few hours, then,” Eduardo says softly. “Try not to be late.”
“I don’t think Chris is going to give me a chance.” Mark starts to step back, then stops, feeling like it’s not enough. Like, if ever he were going to say what he feels, this would be the time to do it. “Wardo. I--”
There aren’t words.
Maybe there are, Mark thinks, maybe someone substantially better at this sort of thing would be able to come up with words that are eloquent and expressive and exactly right, but Mark is not that person and so he goes for honesty instead, because he’s better at that.
“I feel like I should say something,” he tells Eduardo, who gives him this look that’s mostly affectionate and maybe the tiniest bit amused.
“Something like what?”
“Something-I don’t know, profound.” Mark presses his palms lightly into the small of Eduardo’s back, pulling him close again.
Eduardo studies him. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t mean, you know.”
“It’s not that.” Mark meets his eyes. “It’s-there aren’t enough words. For all the things that-that I mean.”
Maybe it’s not profound, exactly, but Eduardo gets this look that reminds Mark of that night in Napa, only more so. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are a little too bright, and when he pulls Mark in for a long, deep kiss Mark thinks maybe he managed to get the point across after all.
*
Chris knocks on the front door at exactly 9:30 a.m.
“Hi,” Mark greets him, holding the door open.
“Hey.” Chris steps inside and immediately glances surreptitiously around.
“Wardo’s not here,” Mark informs him, amused in spite of himself, and Chris raises an eyebrow.
“Really? I have to admit I’m impressed, I figured there was no way you two would be able to--”
“He just left,” Mark confesses.
Chris glares at him. “Of course he did. God, Mark, what did I tell you? It’s bad luck!”
“Eduardo and I don’t need luck.”
“Clearly.” Chris rolls his eyes, but Mark catches the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Okay, well, let’s get going, we have a couple of stops to make. Also, Dustin keeps texting me the names of breakfast foods, which is his idea of a hint, so we’re probably going to have to fit brunch in there somewhere. Do you think you can eat?”
Mark gives him a blank look. “Why wouldn’t I be able to eat?”
“Come on.” Chris eyes him skeptically. “You’re not even a little bit nervous?”
It hasn’t even occurred to Mark to get nervous.
Not to say he never does. He gets nervous about scalability, user experience and pushing big updates. He gets nervous before interviews (less about the interviews themselves than accidentally saying something that will cause Chris to lecture him afterward). Inexplicably, he gets nervous about going to the dentist.
He was definitely nervous the night he asked the question that got them here, to this day.
(Although it’s worth noting that by then, Mark had totally figured out the romance thing. He’s still pretty proud of himself for that one, actually.)
Anyway, there’s no nervousness today. There’s excitement, anticipation, happiness, maybe even something like joy-and something else, too.
Mark’s not sure there’s a word for the feeling you get when, after an impossibly long time, innumerable ups and downs, mistakes and beginning again (and again, and again), you find yourself right where you’re supposed to be.
“I’m good,” he tells Chris, who just shakes his head again.
“If you say so. Hurry up and grab your stuff-Dustin just misspelled ‘frittata,’ which I assume means he’s running out of ideas. Oh, and Mark?” Chris calls after him, as Mark heads back toward the bedroom.
“Yeah?” Mark turns, their eyes meet, and Chris grins at him, warm and bright.
“Happy wedding day.”
*