The Notebook 1/1 (Eduardo/Mark, Pg-13)
Title: The Notebook
Author: Kurt Couper
Rating: Pg-13+
Pairing(s): Eduardo/Mark
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine.
Summary: Set Post-TSN. Mark's therapist suggests keeping a notebook around so he can jot down ideas and emotions. He never realized it would be centered around Wardo. Or what he'd actually do with it once he was done.
Author's Note: It came to me in class while I was trying to do my homework. This was suppose to be my homework but it kind of got cracky and fluffy and took a splurge to the tsn fandom and then I couldn't turn it in, so I had to finish it. And fast because I still have to do my English homework... so excuse the rush and mistakes.
PPS: No resemblance to the movie/book with the same name.
-----
It never was meant to be this, Mark decided as he stared at the addressed manila envelope. It was bulky, wrinkled, and creased, he had carried it around too much, waiting and dreading this moment. This whole thing... It sort of metastasized, evolved and formed into this growing monstrosities. It is now a part of him, unwilling as he may be about it.
It was heavy in his hands and, okay, he was exaggerating a bit, but he's allowed. This was half of his soul right here. This could get him two places: It could get him everything he wanted which, he'll admit, is not likely. Or it could receive zero response. Or it could somehow end up in a big blow out and there will be more computer smashings and headlines and possibly another movie made and he'll look more like a complete idiot and all the stockholders will sell and wild dogs will eat his young, dead corpse and no one will know for months.
Okay, so three ways this could go. And a bit dramatic, but he lives in California. They have dog gangs that roam the streets. So it's not too out of the ordinary to think that a rabid pack of dogs could easily sneak into his house, by lure of redvines and redbull alone, and that would be the end.
Yeah, he's too young and too rich to die. He still has to learn Mandarin Chinese and how to swim! He still has goals to achieve, wrongs to amend. Mark pauses and realizes that's why he's sending the stupid thing in the first place.
But the rabid dogs! The stockholders!!
He palms the flesh of the package and makes up his mind. Next week. He can wait to send it until then. Or maybe even next month. It's not really going to change anything. He's been putting it off for three months now so it's not like one more month will hurt. Besides, now there's the possibility of rabid dogs. Way more plausible than his last realization that this thing could result in a hitman.
Eduardo wasn't a big fan of violence, anyway.
Placing the large envelope in a desk drawer, he can finally take a deep breath and get back to coding. God knows it never meant to start out like this.
---
He has a therapist. He normally hates therapists because what can they tell him that he doesn't already know. But, Chris says that it's necessary and looks good especially a lot of shit has started to go down at the Facebook offices.
Basically this thing is Dr. Slater's (Yes that's his real name and yes he hates it when Mark calls him AJ Slater or asks him where's Zack Morris is) fault. He told him that Mark should carry around a little notebook that would be there to just jot down notes or emotions that he can recall to discuss later. It sounded stupid because he always has his computer with him or some sort of electronic device and that should be enough to take some few notes. But he carried around the notebook, an old one that he still had from college (and okay, if he was getting real because Dr. Slater makes him be, Wardo gave it to him before they started to meet with advertisers so that he could seem professional) with a hard moleskin cover and lightly yellowed pages with lines of gold. And one day, he was walking from some bar to some other bar and he had this brilliant layout idea and he was a bit tipsy and he couldn't quickly sketch it out on his laptop or iphone, so he pulled out the notebook and bam... it was so easy.
It started out like that at first. Just simple thoughts or random ideas. It was easier to bring into his millions of meetings and he looked as if he was taking notes about the shares or investments or whathaveyou and not doodling or aligning code or making stupid jokes that Wardo would find so inappropriate at the moment but would laugh with him later on after a beer or two.
That's how it happens. He's in a meeting one day and it's been catered with a pretty good array of food. But when he looks down at his plate and he realizes it's chicken, he's suddenly not hungry and decides to spend his time with an algorithm he's been working on.
I can't eat chicken anymore because it reminds me of you.
The words come out smooth and thoughtless as the black ballpoint pen draws out the letters and he's not even sure what exactly he's written until he stares at it.
Huh.
It startles him and he slams the notebook shut and he looks around a bit shaky as if everyone can see what he wrote like it's blinking in red lights above his head.
It happens more often once he realizes that no one can really read his doctor scratch of handwriting nor is anyone looking over his shoulder. He's the boss. He can really do whatever he wants as long as it looks like he's working...
So sometimes he writes little things about Eduardo. Sometimes he draws instead. He's never been extremely good at it and he hates himself because of it because he likes to be good at everything he does because, well, he can. But he likes to doodle and soon he's sketching eyes and lips and hands and it's not too long before he realizes they are mainly people he knows. He's seen them so many times that they're burnt into his brain. Some are of his great grandfather who he used to stay with during the summer. Sometimes they are of his first grade teacher, Mrs. Whipple. A few times it has been of his father. But most are Wardo's, soft expressions and never harsh.
It continues on like this. Sketches and writings and sometimes things actually dealing with meetings. He'd write notes to his assistant, I need for you to get me the fuck out of here, or to Chris, If you don't get me fucking out of here soon, I will go on a firing rampage but leave you on so you'd have to fix my mess.
But a lot of the times it'd be just quick little snippets to Wardo.
You've always been easy to me, like coding. It was always simple and effortless in becoming best friends. I could lose myself in you, within lines of your own code.
You are always in mine. Still.
Sometimes he wouldn't even be in a meeting, but mindlessly at home, playing videogames or trying to lose himself in a movie because Chris said no more work.
I bought your favorite beer. Well, it somehow ended up in my fridge. There were 24 bottles and there's two left. Waiting for you and me.
There was also that time that they were in the same goddamn meeting and no one had warned him before hand. It was the first time they had been in the same room for a year. He couldn't remember a goddamn thing about the meeting, just scribbles and thoughts and furiously writing to get his mind off of anything else.
You're 7 chairs away from me, to my left. I'm at the head of the table, pretending to write notes because I now have to act like the business man, not just the creator.
I just, I want you to look up at me. But you won't.
You should be sitting beside me, my right side.
I-I fucked it all up beyond repair.
Once he went on a drinking binge during his birthday because there's only room for one at his pity party. He drew rabidly, anything he could do to get his mind off what was wrong. He even tried his hands at some haiku, that he fucked up in the end because he always did that.
I am really drunk
There is no, 'Go to bed, Mark'
I took you for grant-ed.
After a grueling day with his therapist and memories would come up and even though he wouldn't talk about it with Dr. Slater, he'd work through some of them with the paper. Cathartic or whatever nonsense Slater says.
What would you have done differently if I told you I remember that night? I was drunk until you kissed me. Then I felt absolutely sober. It was my nerves that made me vomit. Not you.
You didn't say anything so neither did I. But if it was different... would you be here in my bed with me now?
And then, he really didn't have any more to say. He had had this notebook for a little bit over a year. Every thought, no matter important, stupid, pointless, mindless, and everything in between, littered the 194 pages. Most were done in ink, so there was no fading. The pages, because Eduardo always buys nice things, were acid free and Mark doubted they would decay save for the idea that our atmosphere changes. There was actually no direct names so no one could plant this on him (he learned that one time with his blog), but it was real and permanent and it felt heavy when he held it because it was different than something on the internet. This was... real.
Whatever this was, this notebook, this project, this forgiveness... it was important to him. He kept the notes that Wardo wrote him back at school, just a few. Ones that make him smile and realize where he came from. He also kept a card his great-grandfather sent him during his Bar Mitzvah and a note from his mother that she stuck in between the pages of his science book, wishing him a good exam. Dustin once made a joke about it being Mark's diary and he kicked them all out of his office. It's more than a diary. It's him. These pages reflected more than any mirror could.
There were 6 pages left, blank and crisp and clean. Mark wrote until his hand cramped, until he realized he had tears sliding down his face,
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...."
And then it was complete.
The end.
Fuck his stupid therapist.
He was better off without one.
----
Becky, his perfect and smart assistant, who normally does everything he wants her to do perfectly... The one who pencils in eating and sleeping in his schedule, The one who doesn't take his shit, The one who deals with Sean when Mark doesn't want to deal with Sean, the one who pulls almost as many nights as Mark does... sent the goddamn package that was in his drawer.
"It was addressed, Mark," she says as if it makes all the sense in the world. "If people want things sent, they put an address on it. If they don't want it sent, then they don't. It's simple."
He's pretty sure he's hyper-ventilating, but all he sees are spots and he can't actually remember ever hyper-ventilating before so he's not sure what it feels like. But if it feels like the world is closing in on him and he can't get enough air and hear a pack of dogs barking in the background...then he's hyper-ventilating.
"It probably got lost in the mail. I sent it around 3 weeks ago, first class, and if Mr, Saverin hasn't gotten it by now-"
That never occurred to him. Mark never thought about the fault being all in the postal service. It has been rather shit lately and no one uses it, not when there's facebook and email... Maybe he should make a facebook email address...
"-especially your shit handwriting," the brunette finishes, seemingly more pissed off then she started.
Mark loved Becky. In fact, he was pretty sure he was going to give her a raise. Best assistant he's ever had.
----
A month later, Mark changed his mind. Becky was by far the worst assistant he's ever had.
Not only had the package reached Mr. Saverin, but the man in question was actually holding said packaging. The packaging made it from and to his office. Fuck you, US Postal Service!
But BECKY HAD LET Mr. SAVERIN INTO HIS OFFICE. WITHOUT WARNING. Without a, "Mark, you have a-" and then she'd point to the person who wanted to talk to him. No, she didn't do that.
Mark sure hoped she could read minds because he's screaming at her to pack up her things and get gone. But at first find a replacement and train them, because she did have some redeeming qualities.
It wasn't until Eduardo shoved the notebook in his face, notes and cards flying everywhere, that Mark broke his train of thought.
"What the hell, Mark?"
"Rabid dogs might have been better," he mumbles and it's the wrong thing to say because Eduardo is pissed and shoving the book further into his face. His lips are tight and his face looks tired.
"Mark-" he warns and it's then that Mark doesn't even know what to say.
"My assistant accidentally sent it," and it's out of his mouth before he can stop it.
"Oh, and she happened to write it all out in your shit handwriting too?" is all Eduardo can say.
"No, well, I-I don't know -"
"Mark, Mark... we haven't spoken to each other in over two years. Out of the blue I get this package from Facebook. I just had it on my desk, to give to my lawyer, figuring it was something to do with stocks. But she'd been on maternity leave and I figured I can- And I get this."
He's flipping through the pages now, shoving them all in Mark's face and it seems different from this point of view. It's a bit too intimate. It's as if someone was showing him his own shit. Okay, actually, it was nothing like that at all.
Eduardo must hate it because he's shaking his head and Mark feels a bit of him compress. He's not exactly sure what he hoped to convey, hoped to get out of it all. Maybe this was one of those things that was better for him than others.
"I'm sorry if it upse-"
But Mark can't talk anymore because there are lips on his. Lips that belong to Wardo. And they're a bit dry and full, but they feel so nice. Before he's out of his shock and could really do anything bout it, Wardo is pulling back and holding Mark's head close enough that Mark's vision is making Eduardo into a Picasso.
"Did you mean every word?" Wardo asks, his breath puffing against Mark's skin and he doesn't mind. He normally would mind, but it's Wardo and he's here and he's touching Mark and Mark has never really cared about Wardo in his personal space.
"Of course." Because Mark did. Mark always means what he says and Ed/Wardo knows that.
Mark must have said the right thing because Eduardo is kissing him again and there are hands and touching this time and Mark can finally retaliate. It's sloppy and messy and a bit desperate, and hot. It's everything he's imagined and if by what he feels pressing hot against his belly, then it's living up to what Wardo has imagined too.
"Wardo," he smiled and then all of a sudden, it's dark. It was past sunset the last time Mark had looked outside and now all the lights were out in the building.
"What the-" Wardo starts but doesn't get to finish, because he's interrupted by Becky.
"The servers are still on, Mark. Don't worry; I just thought you deserved privacy. It'll take them about two hours for them to figure how to turn the lights back on."
Mark then realizes that, he was wrong. Becky is by far the best assistant he's ever had and he's giving her another raise with a paid vacation.
But then Wardo is kissing him again and-woah-sure glad the lights are off because that's definitely not a place a stockholder's hand should be seen holding.
The last clear thought Mark has before he's seeing stars behind his eyes is questioning if he could give his therapist a raise, too?