a little less conversation
Title: A little less conversation
Pairing: Mark/Eduardo
Words: 2,309
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing included in this work of fiction.
Rating: Mature.
Warnings: Sexual themes. Angry!sex, swearing.
Summary: It's the final day of the lawsuit.
.
a little less conversation
best friends, ex-friends til the end,
better off as lovers, but not the other way around.
- Fall Out Boy
Right now, Eduardo would really rather be anywhere else but where he is. The hard weight of the chair presses along his spine, too hot beneath the layers of his suit jacket. The lights are too bright, almost clinical in the way they harshly highlight every line that makes up Mark's face. Every eyelash, every flaw.
He feels like he's been sitting in this same seat forever.
Sure, there have been breaks; hasty lunches, phone calls, private discussions with his lawyer, going home to bed. But all these gaps between sitting opposite Mark feel like they've somehow blurred together imperceptibly: like Eduardo only exists to sit here and battle and strain and stare at the person who was once the best thing to ever happen to him. This guy who's made him incredibly rich, given him opportunity beyond his wildest dreams, met his parents, spooned with him in the cramped space of a car - and stabbed him in the back so quietly and unconcernedly that the world had seemed to spin on a bizarre axis for a while.
Eduardo has studied Mark Zuckerburg closely, not just in the gruelling days of the court case, but for a large fraction of his existence. He knows Mark's face almost well as he knows his own. The dark lines etched almost permanently beneath intelligent eyes; a jutting, sulky mouth constantly being worried by his teeth, madly curling hair that sticks up at stupid angles. Sometimes small red blemishes caused by poor sleep and poor nutrition: the guy lived on tuna, pot noodles and energy drinks in his dorm days.
Despite Eduardo's earlier observations of Mark's face, he thinks he's gotten to know it better in the past days than he ever knew it before. He's seen many emotions flash across those features, so quickly hidden away behind shuttered eyes and a cocky smirk that they'd be invisible if you didn't know what to look for. The slight tightening of his eyes, the wetting of his lips, the curling of his fingertips on the cool marble of the table.
Today is the final day, Eduardo knows. It's all procedure now: contracts and agreements, packing up and going home. This is the last time, sitting in this achingly stable chair opposite Mark. Knowing it's the last time he'll ever feel those eyes so intensely focused on him.
He can't stand to think about this anymore, the bitterness high and sharp in his throat, tinged with an emotion he still struggles to accept.
He knows Mark still isn't fucking sorry, which is what keeps him in his place while the lawyers read over papers and study the small print. He knows that he's won: he's getting what he wanted, but he's still so angry he can barely see. It doesn't feel like justice when he hasn't made Mark regret anything.
He can still feel Mark's gaze fixed on him, achingly familiar, and suddenly he's looking back and all he can see is red. He hates Mark- no, hates the idea of Mark, so much that he wants to hammer his fists into the table and sob out the angry tears he can feel brewing behind his sleep-deprived eyes.
He supposes that when he'd set out in the lawsuit proceedings, he'd assumed that he would emerge from it victorious - having made Mark pay. Made Mark actually get his head out of a computer for a minute and pay in attention as well as in cash. He'd figured that Mark had owed him that much. But now it's the final day and he doesn't feel like a winner: Mark's signing papers to make him even filthier rich, hands steady as he stares hollow and quiet across the table. But this is just a little blip in his incredibly important schedule, right? Eduardo can so easily see him walk out of the pristine offices, stupid sweatshirt all baggy and ridiculous, already buried inside his own little world of statistics and plans, as if Eduardo hadn't ever existed for him.
When the lawyers have shaken hands and the official settlement has been verified by the bank, Eduardo is left feeling dazed and standing stock still as the men in suits shake his hands and say "congratulations" a lot. He feels sleepy, slightly sick. When he snaps out of it, he looks to see Mark's outline swiftly exiting - he's striding through the adjacent carpeted corridor, visible through the transparent walls. He can make out headphone wires already dangling from his ears, shutting out the world, hand tight in his pocket.
Before Eduardo knows what he's doing, he's stumbling away, hand dropping from the grip of someone official, feet carrying him after Mark's retreating back. He dimly makes out a call of "Mr. Saverin?" before a door is shutting behind him and he's at the beginning of the corridor, suddenly facing Mark's hunched shoulders. He's standing at the elevator doors, finger pressing hard on the 'down' button although it's already lit up. So impatient, his ostentatiously ratty old sneakers tapping into the expensive floor.
Eduardo is still so angry as he takes in Mark's oblivious shape, he obviously just doesn't give a shit.
Eduardo can't move, it's like he's caught between two alternate universes as Mark shuffles his feet, presses down on the button again. Waits.
The elevator dings, the doors slide open and Eduardo is on Mark before he really registers what he's doing. Mark grunts in surprise, choking a little as Eduardo's weight shoves him head first into the brightly lit lift. Piped classical music is playing through speakers, the mirrored walls reflecting their frames as Eduardo falls on Mark in a parody of a rugby tackle. His head bounces in the space between Mark's head and the floor, chin bumping bony shoulder.
"Wardo-" Mark's voice is a bit strained, muffled by Eduardo's weight and choking a little on the carpet of the lift floor. How posh is this place? Carpeted lifts
Eduardo eases up, not for relief, just so he can see properly. He yanks Mark roughly to his feet, slams him into the gold brass handrail attached to the wall and presses into his space. Their chests bump together and Eduardo is satisfied to see colour rising in Mark's cheeks. Good. He's feeling something.
"Wardo, wha-what is this?"
Eduardo feels another sharp thrill of pleasure. He's never seen Mark Zuckerburg subjected to such speechlessness, such confusion before. He likes that he's the one to do this, to make him tongue-tied and vulnerable, pushed into a corner with nowhere to run.
Eduardo doesn't kiss Mark, it'd be safer to say he attacks his mouth. It must hurt - the first onslaught of biting, messy love on parted, confused lips. He doesn't let up, though. He moves his arms and flattens his palms to the wall either side of Mark's head, trapping him with his body and breathing harsh down Mark's throat. Mark is motionless, bewildered as Eduardo goes at it again, crushing their bodies together violently, their hips clicking together as Mark struggles to brace himself against something solid. Eduardo pulls back for a moment, Mark speechless, and jabs a whole bunch of buttons on the keypad so the lift doors close and they start to move.
"Eduardo, stop..." Mark manages.
"Shut up." Eduardo bites Mark's jawbone, hopes it leaves a mark as he moves his hands down Mark's shuddering chest. He's still so angry, but this feels like he's going to feel better. And Mark is definitely responding, if the laboured breathing and suppressed moans are anything to go by.
"You don't wan't-"
"Don't fucking tell me what I don't want." He growls, shoves a hand down over Mark's stomach and into the V of his old jeans. He pushes insistently past the scratch of a zip, the annoyance of underwear. He runs his mouth along the arch of Mark's straining neck, tightens the arm he's using to keep them both upright. The expensive material of his expensive suit is becoming increasingly more uncomfortable, he wants to shed it and shed this layer of exhausted skin. He shoves his own suit jacket off his shoulder, smart black dress shirt already a couple of buttons undone.
"Anyone could see." Mark hisses as Eduardo makes quick work of Mark's hoodie. He has to move back a little to do this, release his hold on Mark's jeans, but Mark doesn't move an inch from where he's pressed against the handrail. Eduardo knows there are probably cameras in the lift, but is so far beyond caring it's hilarious.
"You don't want this to stop." Eduardo states, half in wonderment because whatever he'd been expecting it certainly wasn't this. He presses a few more buttons on the lift, causing it's course to change confusingly as Mark's cheeks seem to redden even more.
"No, not particularly. I just didn't expect that this would be a situation I'd ever find myself in. You said you never wanted to see me again. You sued me for millions of dolla-"
Eduardo grabs Mark's face, fingers digging into the back of his skull so hard he can feel the pressure beneath his fingertips. He's seething as he yanks Mark forward into a bruising kiss, pulling on his neck in a way that brings all Mark's tendons up to the surface.
"This isn't about money, Mark." He says against his mouth, alternating between snarling and biting: licking little flecks of blood that well up from Mark's bottom lip. "This isn't a business deal. This is just something I am doing." And with that, he flicks open the catch of his own trousers and shoves his hips against Mark's.
The feeling is more than sexual: it's a bone-deep, pulsing spike of something that wells up in every cell of his body. It hurts a little in it's ferocity, but most of the feeling is made up of a need finally satisfied, a fantastic peak of pleasure-pain. It feels so good, so perfect, that Eduardo feels a tug of sorrow: all the things they could have had, all the things they could have been. To the world. To each other.
He moves a hand under Mark's leg, still using the other to brace them against the wall, and pulls it to wrap around his own waist. This makes the angle easier, means he can press all his strength into the push of his motion. The fast, desperate jerk of his waist and hips and thighs. The warm, heady friction. It only takes him a moment to realise that Mark is reciprocating: the sharp, needy circular movements he can feel meeting the greedy, angry lines he's drawing with his body.
He moves his head, bashing their noses together painfully, to get at Mark's mouth. Before he tries it Mark is parting his lips for him, tilting his head back when Eduardo sucks on his tongue as they grind against each other like they're dying. It feels too good. It's a waste.
"Why?" Eduardo suddenly finds himself asking, as they struggle for oxygen and continue their pace."Why, Mark? You were everything." He almost sounds like he's pleading now, because it's the one thing Mark has never explained. Was it because of Sean's influence? Or maybe jealousy of Eduardo getting punched by the Phoenix? Was it something Eduardo did? Was he too crabby, too emotional, too judgemental? He supposes it shouldn't matter now, he's won, but it's really the only thing he's cared about in the entirety of the law proceedings.
Mark doesn't answer, just lets out another stifled groan as Eduardo continues his siege on Mark's body. He wants to leave traces, sore spots - little reminders of what is and what will never be. The pressure increases, their movements more erratic and Mark's knuckles are white where they're gripping the handrail, Eduardo pressing him bodily into the metal.
"We could have had this." Eduardo snarls, and then they're crashing over the edge of something huge as the lift continues to soar from floor to floor. Eduardo's stomach drops and his knees buckle, only Mark's leg draped over his hip keeping him from butt-planting on the carpet. He steadies himself with a hand clenched around the back of Mark's neck, fingers curled in the sweaty curls of his hair. He leans in, suckles curiously on his mouth to see if it tastes the same when they're not caught up in that crazy energy.
It does. It's better, which makes everything worse.
Eduardo leans away.
Mark looks about five years younger when his eyes crash into his. His expression is so open and vulnerable that Eduardo almost wants to curl himself around Mark, forgive and forget and just breathe him in. He takes in the soft, pale skin of his face and the raw red mess of his mouth. Eduardo did that, there is visible proof. And he isn't satisfied, but at least he understands now.
He pulls himself back from Mark, shaky and off balance. He runs a hand through his own dishevelled hair, can feel the sticky weight in his boxers and knows he will never, ever forget this day.
He takes Mark's face in one more time, the ashen cheeks and fluttering eyelashes, before turning away and exiting the lift as the doors open. He has the urge to say something witty like "Facebook me", but thinks that the broken look in his ex-friend's eyes is enough. This wasn't an act of revenge, because it's hurting him just as much, Eduardo tells himself.
The door of the lift closes and Eduardo hears it move off again. He's left facing smooth, expensive walls in his smooth, expensive suit. He mourns tuna and energy drinks and curly hair and things he'll never ever know.
The fly of his trousers is easy to fasten.
The ache in his chest will remain for a while, yet.
does it comfort you to know you fought the good fight?
basking in your victory, hollow and alone,
while you boast your bitter bragging rights to anyone who'll listen,
while you're left with nothing tangible to gain.
- Dashboard Confessional
Fin.
Notes: Gotta say, this isn't worded very well. I just got home from seeing TSN for the third time and wrote down all the garbage that was in my head. I haven't edited it over yet because I'm exhausted, but would love to hear your thoughts! <3