TSN: Mobile Emergency IT Support (2/2)
Link to Part 1
"Zuckerberg, you free for a pickup?"
Mark stares blearily at his phone even though Joe can't see him. He hates doing pickups, and she knows it. They make him feel like he is prostituting himself to do the jobs not even the customers' significant others or children, susceptible to emotional blackmail and threats of grounding, could be forced to do.
Also, and more importantly, it's six in the evening. Mark might have taken the car with him that morning for a check-up but he isn't on shift for another four hours.
"No."
"I'll connect you!" Joe's bubblegum-and-fake-nails cheer disconnects before Mark can object. Fuck. He has a deal with Mario. Mark works hard, takes the night shifts, and keeps Mario's from slipping back into the 20th century (it will forever remain a mystery to him how they survived for so long without a properly functioning computer system), and in turn he isn't expected to make small talk or forced to interact with people more than necessary for the actual drives.
The lines clicks over.
"Hey, Mark?"
"…Wardo?" At this point, getting calls from Eduardo isn't that unusual, but this time Mark isn't so sure he recognizes the voice at the other end of the phone.
"Yeah, it's me."
"You sound-" A sudden noise comes through the line, loud and crackling, and it takes Mark a moment to identify it as coughing and not interference. "Never mind. Do you need me to pick you up?"
"No, I'm at the hotel." Eduardo pauses, clearing his throat. "Can you drive by a pharmacy for me and pick up stuff? Just get the receipt."
"'Stuff'?" Eduardo sounds as if 'stuff' is much needed, but Mark could use some elaboration.
"Cold stuff? I don't know. What do people take for colds? Can you ask them?" Eduardo snuffles through the line. It sounds disgusting, and Mark pulls the phone away from his ear and makes a face at it.
"I'll ask them. Cold or flu?"
"Uh. How do I know?"
It's the same helpless confusion Eduardo always display when faced with computer problems, but for once Mark is trying not to judge him for his blatant display of incompetence. He's obviously incapacitated at the moment and not in control of his faculties. "Do you have a fever?"
"I don't… know?" He coughs, deep, rattling, hackling sounds that make Mark's throat ache in sympathy.
"It's okay, Wardo, I'll get you something for both. And a thermometer. Go back to bed."
His phone rings again as soon as he's hung up on Eduardo, and Joe tells him to come in, she'll make sure he has one of the cars waiting for him. He could take the bus, or just have one of the drivers do the trip for him, instead he tells her he'll be there in twenty. It's more convenient; there's a pharmacy right on his way.
Mark has driven up to the main entrance of the hotel enough times that he lost track, but so far he's only ever stopped to let Eduardo out.
This time he grabs his wallet and the paper bag from the pharmacy, hands his keys over to the uniformed kid looking baffled at having to park a taxi (what does he expect Mark to do, block the entrance until he's done his drop), and then walks in to ask for Eduardo's room number. The primed woman at the reception eyes his with obvious distaste and suspicion and insists on escorting him up and then spending the elevator ride trying to set his sweats in fire with her looks and walking up to Eduardo's room with him like a guard, her heels clicking along behind the rhythmic slapping of the flipflops he thoughtlessly shoved his feet into when he left the house even though he usually takes care to wear sensible footgear when he's driving.
Eduardo opens the door wearing plaid pajamas and a robe - not one of the fluffy, white hotel bathing robes that make you look like you are wearing a snuggy made of towels, but a tailored robe cut from heavy cloth, the outfit making him look like a refuge from the 50s on a Sunday morning. He's standing to the side, door opened just a hand-width, and Mark slips in and closes the door into the face of the heeled receptionist because he knows Eduardo well enough by now to be aware that it must make him uncomfortable to have people see him like this, even though he is still dressed more neatly than Mark.
Mark tries to push the bag at him but Eduardo gets lost coughing his greeting first, and Mark uses the opportunity to look around the room. Eduardo's supposedly temporary quarters turn out to be less of a room and more a suite, and Eduardo seems to have built himself a nest on the couch, blankets and pillows, laptop and prints, and a room service cart with bottles and bowls and mugs and thermoses with soup and tea by his side so he doesn't have to keep calling them up for every single refill. There's a wastebasket of snot-filled tissues on the floor. At this point Mark is just relieved Eduardo doesn't insist on reusable monographed handkerchiefs, to be honest.
Eduardo gets his breathing under control and tries to grab at the bag, but Mark holds it out of his reach and herds him back to the couch first before he falls over.
"You are disgusting."
No one looks good sick, and Eduardo is no exception. His hair is a stringy unkempt mess, standing up in some places and flattened to his head in others, his eyes are small and heavy-lidded, with darker shadows around them than Mark has seen on him even the week after his cousin's wedding, and his face is pasty and pale under the stubble covering its lower half, lips dry and chapped, the only spot of colour his raw-looking nose.
Eduardo sinks into the pillows like a fainting diva, complete with a hand thrown over his eyes (though that is most likely due to a headache more than anything else) and a pained sigh, and croaks, "no one asked you to come in. You practically took advantage of my plague-weakened state to force your way into my room."
Sick Eduardo is a drama queen. Mark hasn't been this delighted by a revelation since he found the picture of his ginger college roommate in a kiddy pool and dressed as Ariel. It made perfect blackmail material for years until Dustin threw the last of his shame out of the window and wouldn't be embarrassed by baby pictures anymore.
"You sound like a melodramatic twelve-year-old." He puts the bag down and drags a blanket over Eduardo's legs to keep him from trying to get up again and bashing his head in falling over his own feet.
Eduardo doesn't even seem to notice as he rubs his chin. "I'm not, look, I have stubble, I am ruggedly handsome."
Then the significance of his current bedraggled state seems to return to him and he pulls a face when he remembers that he currently looks like a normal human being instead of the bastard of a fashion model and a Fortune 500 company, and groans into his hand. "You still shouldn't have come in; you'll get sick too." He flaps his hand in the direction of the door before letting it fall back to cover his eyes. "Leave. Go away. Shoo."
It's pathetic. If Mark left now Eduardo would most likely just pity himself to death. Instead he steps around Eduardo's legs and gingerly sits down on the couch, careful not to jostle it too much, upending the bag of medicine in his lap. "I don't get sick. Haven't since I was a kid."
"Mh, yeah, you mentioned that when I made you eat vegetables." He whines when Mark presses the thermometer to his temple and tries to turn his head away, because clearly he's too delicate for a touch thermometer that was developed for fussy babies. Mark's sisters handle being sick more gracefully. "That's so unfair, with the way you eat."
The thermometer beeps and Mark checks the display, then throws Eduardo a critical look and begins to sort through his pile of meds. "Mh, sure."
Eduardo tries to curl his legs beneath him but aborts the movement with a disappointed sound when he notices he'd end up sitting on some of his papers. "It's like your mutant power. Super health, no matter how many vitamin deficiencies you should have. Those activate with puberty after all."
Mark pauses in his perusal of side effects and stares at the disgusting, snotty closeted nerd on the other side of the couch.
"You geek!" It's not like Eduardo lied to him. Geekery has just never come up in their conversations. Still, Mark feels betrayed that workaholic business shark Eduardo is a secret geek and he never even knew.
"Mh, but I was always very good at pretending I was one of the cool kids." Eduardo grins from beneath his hand, the dry skin of his lips stretching in a way that looks painful.
"Here." Mark fills one of the empty mugs with bottled water and holds it out to Eduardo. "Drink this, and take these."
He grabs the hand of Eduardo's not reaching for the mug and shakes two pills into it, and then uses Eduardo's unhappiness at having to swallow to clear away his papers and close his laptop, putting it safely out of his reach. He's in no state to work, and anything he did now he'd only mess up and have to do again later. As expected Eduardo tries to object once he's done taking his pills, but Mark silences him by making him drink a cup of syrup and then pressing the tv remote into his hand. "Pick something."
Eduardo settles on the weather channel of all things, and then refuses to hand the remote back unless he can trade it for his laptop, which Mark won't agree to, so he questions Eduardo's ability to make channel-picking decisions while under the influence. Eduardo apparently earned his first 300.000$ watching tv, but either the fever or the meds are taking their toll and the story Eduardo is trying to tell, gesturing at the screen, doesn't make any sense.
In a stand-off Eduardo keeps the remote on his side of the couch, away from Mark and his superior tv choices, and Mark resigns himself to staying and holding the laptop hostage until Eduardo has lulled himself to sleep watching weather reports.
In the end Mark leaves the receipt from the pharmacy with Eduardo's assortment of medicine, but when he leaves a congested and mouth-breathing Eduardo in his room and gets his taxi back in front of the hotel he resets the meter without bothering to check the numbers.
//
"Did you always want to go into business?"
Eduardo smiles, still half-asleep in the seat next to Mark. It's almost six. Eduardo is coming in early for another international call, and Mark is about to clock off. He figures for once Mark may be as tired as he is. When I was little, I wanted to be something different every week. An astronaut, a circus director, once even a ship's cook." He turns to Mark. They are alone in the car, of course, but it still feels more close, more private that way. "Back then we still lived in Brazil. My grandmother had been visiting, and she took me out one day on a ship, one of those big sailing ships. It had three masts. Took out tourists for daytrips or cruises, I guess, but my grandmother rented the whole ship so that the crew didn't take any other passengers that day, just us. We had sandwiches, and when I asked if people on the ship didn't get tired of always eating sandwiches she told me big ships also had cooks. We went home that evening and I walked up to my father and declared I was going to be a ship's cook when I grew up. I don't think he was as excited about the prospect as I was."
For the whole summer Eduardo had been determined to stick with this plan. Then school had started up again and he'd had to put his wool-gathering aside and focus on his studies again.
"Honestly? Childish dreams aside, I think I never really wanted to be anything else, so I just went with the program. I didn't not want it. I'm good at it. And most of the time I like it."
Most of the time being when he gets to focus on the job at hand and just do it to the best of his abilities (which are good, and Eduardo likes being good at things) and not talk to his father on the phone about how he still hasn't heard anything regarding the Boston office, because apparently if Eduardo were good enough he'd have gotten the job offered already even though the decision isn't due to be made before spring.
Those are the bad times. The okay times are when Eduardo has to get up at half past four to be in for an international conference call, or stay another six hours after his assistant has gone home. The good times are when he can juggle numbers and projections and find a way to make them do what he wants. The good times are when he can make others see what the numbers are supposed to do and they agree to make them do it for him in the next quarter.
In college Eduardo once made 300.000$ betting on oil futures after watching the weather channel all summer.
Summers always were the best times. He's going to miss the heat if he goes back north for Boston.
He clears his throat. Maudlin sentimentalism never got anything done.
"So, why…," Eduardo spreads his arms to encompass everything around them, "this?" Turnaround is fair play, after all.
Mark is silent for a beat, two, long enough that Eduardo is beginning to think he's not going to answer. "I'm good at it, no one tells me what to do, and I don't have to make nice for anybody."
He's looking at his hands though as he says it, not at Eduardo, the piercing gaze of the last few minutes when Eduardo was trying to explain why he did a job that gave him insomnia and worked towards a promotion that would give him ulcers too.
"I tried something else once, in college, but it didn't work out."
There's obviously a story there, but Eduardo isn't sure if he should drop it or encourage Mark to keep talking.
"With computers?" It makes sense, Mark may be a taxi driver, but he has computer magazines stuffed into the pocket of the driver's door to read in between passengers, and the way he keeps fine-tuning Eduardo's laptop whenever Eduardo holds it out to him with a helpless plea speaks of familiarity.
"It wasn't the part with the computers that was the problem. It was. I had this idea for a site, and tried to get it off the ground. But I couldn't give it the momentum it needed, I couldn't get the money to push it, or have someone push it for me, then I didn't have the money to keep it going, and. The window passed," Mark pauses for a moment, then adds, "I don't mind though. Not anymore. This isn't what I wanted out of life, but I'm okay."
//
"It's Wednesday." Mark throws an accusing glare to his right, where Eduardo is all but hanging in his seat, held up by the belt more than sitting under his own power.
"And tomorrow is Thursday. Today." He heaves a heavy sigh as if the effort is almost too much for him and rolls his head around to face Mark. "Your point?"
"The week is three days in, and you've stayed past midnight all three of them." Mark isn't judging. But back at home and later in college he had the people he co-habited with to disapprove of his slightly skewed work-ethics and annoy him into keeping to a schedule not entirely medically unsound, and Eduardo lives in a hotel. He doubts the maids click their tongues at him every time he catches less than six hours of sleep.
"Mh, yeah. I wasn't in last Friday or during the weekend and have to make up for that." He flops a tired hand into Mark's direction. "Your disapproval is noted. Believe me, I don't like it either."
"If you took the weekend off because you accidentally slept for three days straight this isn't the most logical course of action to avoid a repeat." Mark takes a hand off the wheel during a straight stretch of road and grasps for the glove compartment, fishing out a pack of Twizzlers and dropping it in Eduardo's lap. "Here." Hopefully the sugar will give him enough of a kick to not fall asleep in Mark's car. He did that once, and waking Eduardo up again in front of the hotel took longer than the ride itself.
Eduardo perks up promisingly and fiddles with the wrapper for a bit, the rustle of plastic filling the car, until he gives in and rips it open with his teeth. "My cousin got married." He bites off a piece of candy and chews enthusiastically and loudly next to Mark, apparently too tired to remember his manners and not speak an chew at the same time. "Well, one of them. Big extended family. It's always a huge affair, who has shown up and is doing what, wearing what, still unmarried, or, worse, single. How long have I been in San Francisco now, how old am I, don't I want to settle down with a pretty, appropriate wife, 1.5 kids, and a vacation home in the Hamptons and a vila back in Brazil." He takes another bite and sinks deeper into his seat even though the sugar seems to be doing its job. "It's exhausting."
Mark hums sympathetically. He gets the same urging, more or less subtle, at Zuckerberg family reunions. "Well-meaning aunts trying to set you up?" Every single time he is in Dobbs Ferry. Where all those nice Jewish girls of marriageable age are coming from he has no idea.
"Not so much. I am using a ruse." Eduardo wiggles the fingers of his free hand at that like a magician ready to woe his audience, and it's so ridiculous and unguarded a gesture that Mark has to bite his lips to keep from snorting out a laugh and alerting Eduardo how far his mask of collected professionalism is slipping. "I'm always taking my ex. Christy."
Mark has to break abruptly. He didn't even see the traffic light change; Eduardo's waving hands must have been obscuring his view.
Eduardo doesn't seem to notice when he's thrown against the seatbelt though and keeps talking, hands flying animatedly in bigger and bigger swoops. "She's perfect, you know. Everything a potential trophy wife should be - beautiful, sharp, very conscious of social status, and because of our history whenever someone mentions settling down her presence is like a compromise. I might officially be disappointingly single, but maybe I'm secretly back together with that nice suitable young woman I came with. And Christy can be kind of vicious, which keeps the strategic set-ups with the daughters of business partners down."
The light changes to green again, and Mark checks left, right left, according to regulations, accelerates smoothly, and keeps his hands positioned correctly on the wheel instead of reaching for Eduardo's arm when it flails towards him with the Twizzler again and taking a bite. He's feeling irrationally possessive all of a sudden. Then again, it's his candy, if he wants some he's allowed to have it.
Eduardo continues, oblivious to the fact that Mark is coming dangerously close to pulling over and making him sit on his annoying hands.
"Our friendship is much better than our relationship. Few expectations, we cover each other's back from family, and it's very low-maintenance and long-distance. That's very reassuring. As a couple we were kind of a mess. I didn't have any time for her - I've always worked a lot, even in college, she didn't trust me, and, I mean, there were sparks, there were definitely sparks, but sometimes too many." He stuffs the end of the candy into his mouth and chews a couple of times, crunching up the wrapper in his hand before he talks on. "I did mention she's vicious, right? Our breakup was heated. Literally. Look, I've still got the scar."
Eduardo pushes back his sleeves and hold his arm out, and Mark steps on the breaks hard enough that the strap of his seatbelt digs into his chest even though his shirt and sweater. "Fuck!"
They both sit still for a few second, dazed, then Mark shakes himself and parks them at the side of the car. He turns the key and silences the motor, turns on the interior light, and pulls Eduardo's arm in, pushing the sleeves out of the way and angling it until the light catches on the uneven, shiny skin of a burn scar.
It's not that big. But it's there, unmistakably.
He turns the unresisting limb, but the scar remains. "Forget what I said about your job, you need better friends."
"She's a good friend, she's a great friend!" Eduardo pulls weakly at his arm, trying to take it back, but Mark twists it around and shows him his own mutilated skin to prove his point.
"She set you on fire!"
Eduardo rolls his eyes, clearly not impressed. "Technically she set my bed on fire. And I wasn't even in it. Besides, I did probably deserve it; I wasn't a very good boyfriend."
Mark has read about this, people trivializing and justifying abuse in relationships, and he digs his fingers into Eduardo's arm and repeats, enunciating clearly, "you have a burn scar."
His hands are locked around Eduardo's arm above and below the scar in question, keeping it angled into the light and the cuffs of his clothes pushed back. One of his fingers almost touches the edge of the small patch of reddish, naked skin that looks so different from the rest of Eduardo's arm, tan and smooth and covered in a thin, even layer of smooth dark hair.
"Just a small one. I've got worse on my knees from trying to ride my bike without training wheels."
Eduardo smiles at him, reassuring and with circles under his eyes, and when he shrugs Mark gives in and lets the movement pull his arm from Mark's grip to drop in his lap.
Mark reaches over and takes the balled-up plastic wrapper from his hand, putting it into the little garbage bag he keeps in the middle console for that exact purpose before he takes Eduardo to his hotel to sleep.
//
Despite what certain people might claim sleep is sacred to Eduardo. He values it. He savors it. He cherishes it.
When he can get it.
Much as he wants to though he can't ignore the ringing of his phone just because he himself is at home and in bed. Someone else is not, and might have a valid reason to need to talk to Eduardo right away. Possibly someone from a different time zone.
He rolls over and, with a longing glance back at his pillow, pushes himself up on one arm and snatches his phone off the nightstand with the other.
Or someone with a San Francisco area code.
He rubs a hand over his face, wasting time in the hope that the phone will stop ringing by itself. It keeps going though, and he can't just decline the call.
"Saverin."
"Wardo." The name is familiar, as is the voice and the one-word greeting.
Eduardo halts. "Mark? Did we- I'm sorry, I'm already home."
"I figured. Hoped. You said you have a car." Wherever Mark is, it's loud, white noise filtering through the phone in a low hum of bustling people.
Eduardo works his way up until he's sitting in bed. "I did. I do. Why?"
"I need a ride." That is different. Eduardo blinks, mouth possibly hanging open for a few seconds in confusion at this role reversal, but if it is no one is there to see. He must be silent for too long, because Mark speaks on, faster now, and breathless, leaving no more breaks for Eduardo to reply. "Nevermind. You don't have to. It's not your job to drive me around, and I know you don't like driving when it's late. Forget about it. I wasn't thinking. You were probably already in bed. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I just didn't want Mario to have to pull another one of his night drivers to pick me up from the hospital. I'll go take-"
"Wait, Mark, wait, hospital?" Eduardo is wide awake all of a sudden, his heart hammering in his throat.
"Are you okay? What happened? You are okay, right?" He almost falls, trying to get out of bed with his legs still tangles in the covers, and ends up clambering out of bed gracelessly, phone clutched to his ear and feet already carrying him out of the bedroom.
"I'm fine, yeah, it's nothing. Some drunk idiot ran into me. The car's got a dent and needs a light and the airbags replaced, and I've got a concussion. Look, just go back to bed, I'm good."
"No, wait, I'm coming." Eduardo shrugs into his coat and toes on his shoes, grabbing his keys and leaving his rooms with flapping shoelaces.
"I'll pick you up. Are you sure you are okay? Do you want me to stay on the phone and keep talking? I have a headset in the car, I can do that!" He needs a moment to orient himself in the garage and find his car. He can probably count the times he's actually driven it using his fingers.
"I'm sure, Wardo. It's just a concussion, I'm already checked out. You don't need to stay on the line. I'm not going to move towards any bright lights if you hang up. See you there."
Then Mark hangs up on him. If he left his cell in the cab and was calling from the hospital it makes sense that he couldn't block the phone for everybody else who needed to call someone, but Eduardo would have felt better if he'd stayed on.
The drive feels surreal, blown up and overexposed. It's the opposite of foggy or a rush that Eduardo can't remember once he arrives, instead he's conscious of every detail, every crossing, every turn he takes, every other car. The whole ride is thrown into stark light, and it ends with the no less strange many-rhythmic bright flashes of ambulances driving to and from the same place Eduardo is aiming at.
Mark is standing a ways down the street, his familiar slim figure with its loose sweats and shaggy crown of hair removed from the bustle of the main entrance. At first he doesn't notice Eduardo driving up to him and keeps staring into the distance, but when the BMW slows and comes to a stop in front of him his face sharpens and he steps around the car, getting in without prompting or visible wear.
"Wardo. Thanks for picking me up." He closes the door and buckles in, apparently unconcerned with the way Eduardo is trying to x-ray him with his eyes alone.
"Mark." He wants to ask if Mark is okay, again, but he looks okay, he acts okay, and he's told Eduardo he is several times already, do he doesn't.
Mark zeroes in on the GPS and types in his address without prompting, then leans back in his seat, and Eduardo checks his route and turns the car, taking off.
"Are you okay?" It just slips out. He tried.
Mark doesn't move, and Eduardo doesn't trust himself to take his eyes off the road and look over, so he can't see his face. "I'm fine. It's a mild concussion. I've got a bump, that's it."His voice sounds calm though, more reassuring than annoyed with Eduardo's repeated question. "Mario's given me tomorrow off, then I can go straight back to work."
"Are you sure that's such a good idea? Shouldn't you take time to recover?" The car purrs like a cat around them. It handles like a dream, and Eduardo likes driving it, he does, but for once he can't concentrate on the experience at all.
"It's fine. They would have kept me in otherwise. I'll go to bed and set my alarm."
"You said you'd take the day of!" His hands grip the wheel tighter. He'd really like to look over to Mark. He's not used to being the one who can't look his share during their rides.
"Concussion. Gotta wake up every couple of hours." There's a shrug there, even if Eduardo hears it more than he sees it, so casual, as if Mark isn't taking this serious at all.
"I'm staying." He's got his phone, he'll call in sick.
"Wardo, don't be stupid, I'm fine, you don't need to babysit me-"
"No, I'm staying. Either that, or I'm driving you back to the hospital." Where the nurses would probably let Mark go again the second Eduardo turned around, but he's not budging on this.
"You have to work."
"I'll take a sick day," he explains. It's not like anyone will say something; he's got enough overtime that he could take off a whole month.
"You are not sick."
"Nowhere does it stipulate that I have to be the sick person. I'm staying." He ends the discussion by coming to a halt in front if Mark's building, pulling the key, and getting out of the car before Mark is done undoing his seatbelt.
So he stays and spends the rest of the night and the whole next morning in Mark's flat, despite continued reassurances that Mark's alarm is just as qualified at making sure Mark doesn't slip into a coma and die in his sleep.
The flat is tiny and cramped. It comes equipped with a huge flatscreen, consoles, one desktop computer, one laptop, and one pad, but doesn't have a couch big enough for Eduardo to lie down on, let alone a guest bed. Eduardo wakes Mark up twice before Mark growls at him to just lie down on the bed next to him, his head hurts already without having to look at Wardo's tired face and the pinched lines around his eyes he always gets on days when he didn't sleep at least a couple of hours the night before and has a migraine he's trying to disappear by ignoring it. Eduardo decides it's wiser to humor the patient than it is to preserve both their dignity, pushes his shoes off his naked feet and the jacket off his shoulders and slips into bed next to Mark, Eduardo in the pajamas he never changed out of when he got Mark's call and under the red, yellow, green, and blue comforter Mark had on his couch that he says was a gag gift, and Mark in boxers, a t-shirt, under his own blankets, and hogging the only pillow.
At some point around noon Eduardo is done waking Mark up every hour; he should be fine now. They drift out of sleep next to each other, faces familiar with the blur of the dim light of the blind-darkened bedroom but the atmosphere different from their usual taxi meetings, more quiet, slower, languid.
"It is a very nice car," Mark croaks, mouth dry and voice rough with the remnants of sleep, and Eduardo hums in agreement.
He does of course end up working through the weekend to make up for the lost time. And then some. The two-month mark is coming up, and soon the higher-ups will have to decide whom to send to Boston for the job of assistant director. Eduardo can't be slacking now. And not slacking means not doing good but exceptional work, which takes time. Thoughts of the Boston office have turned bittersweet though. It's everything he's supposed to want, but he catches himself thinking about going home at the end of the work day when he pulls out his phone to call Mark, not just a hotel.
"I should just leave you there." Mark's greetings tend to be mercurial, but this one is abrupt enough that Eduardo pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it, making sure the display still show's that he's connected to Mario's and didn't switch to an audio play without noticing.
"What? Why?" He looks around his desk for a hint where this is coming from, but he's got nothing.
"Negative reinforcement. If I keep picking you up at all times you will never learn to abide by a regular schedule and work normal hours."
"…Isn't that a bit hypocritical coming from you, who is always working until early in the morning? Unlike me, who only works overtime when he has to." He makes it out with the regular crowd a couple of times a week. That's not too shabby, he used to work more in New York. And when he stays late he's usually leaving around midnight. These calls at three are the exception. Besides, he told Mark he'd be late today.
"I thought we already established that my body is indestructible no matter how I treat it. And excluding outside influences like other cars crashing into me through no fault of my own. Besides, I'm on night shift, I'm supposed to work these hours, and you 'have to' stay late at least three nights a week. Not counting the times when I have to pick you up on the weekend. I'm here."
He hangs up. Eduardo stares at his phone some more, wondering what bee got into Mark's bonnet, before he remembers that Mark is waiting for him downstairs and he hasn't even put his shoes back on (that lap desk is perfect for stretching out on the couch and working sitting up against the arm rest).
When he makes it to the car he gets in quietly, and the ride starts with an uncomfortable air the likes of which hasn't hung between them since the early days.
"You need a life." If the words are supposed to be a peace offering they are a horrible one; clipped tone and stiff shoulders turning them into an accusation more than anything else, and Mark chokes them out as if they are being pulled from him against his will.
What would Eduardo even do with a life? Go out with a friend? Mark would still be working.
"I have you," he eventually replies.
Mark bites his lip, and Eduardo wonders if that means he said the right thing, or the opposite. The earlier tension is broken though, and when Eduardo gets out and bids Mark a careful goodbye Mark wishes him a good night and tells him to call tomorrow.
Eduardo doesn't need a ride the next night, but he calls anyway, sitting in bed and watching tv, and they are fine again the next time they meet, even though Eduardo keeps working late more often than not. It goes to extremes the time he has to stay in a whole night for a negotiation with overseas and only calls Mark to let him know and tell him he'd see him tomorrow, but Mark tells him he'll still be at Mario's until midmorning anyway to something something network (there are words, Eduardo probably wouldn't be able to remember them even if he weren't simultaneously cross-checking three different versions of a contract).
Mark picks him up at eight in the morning. Eduardo has been up for 26 hours, not counting his power naps (he'll never admit it, but even those can onto do so much), and he's sitting in Mark's cab (that he has been told is at this point usually Mari's cab but she needed a morning off) in front of Mario's waiting for Mark to come back out because he insists on treating Mark to a proper breakfast for doing an extra-curricular ride for him.
Then the back door opens, man he doesn't recognize drops into the back seat while Mark is in the building, hackling with Joe about shift changes that she refused to budge on over the phone, and Eduardo freezes.
"Are you Wardo?"
The man appears harmless enough, unkempt red hair that could use a cut, pale arms with no visible muscle definition, wearing shorts and a t-shirt with the print of a logo Eduardo doesn't recognize that stretches over what looks like a slightly pudgy stomach, but he keeps looking at Eduardo expectantly, and it makes Eduardo uncomfortable when people expect something from him and he doesn't know what.
"Uhm." Technically he could be Wardo, but only Mark calls him that, and this stranger clearly isn't Mark, so how likely is it that Eduardo is the Wardo he is looking for?
"Oh God, you are. This is what he meant about the eyes, I see it now." The stranger leans back and raises a hand in defense of… Eduardo's eyes?
"Sorry?" At this point he can honestly say that he is confused.
"Ah, it's okay." The man sits up again and waves Eduardo off, apparently taking Eduardo's comment for an apology and not a polite request for clarification. Luckily though he seems to think the ice has been sufficiently broken for him to introduce himself. "I'm Dustin. I'm Mark's friend, I came out from Palo Alto to see for myself if Mark actually picked up a stray puppy that he fed once and that now keeps coming back and looking at him, with his eyes, emphasis Mark but now I totally get it, or if he made you up. And by 'fed' I mean 'fixed your laptop'."
"…What?"
Luckily for Eduardo that is when the door the man - Dustin - entered through opens again and Mark's arm shoots in, grabbing a handful of t-shirt and yanking at it so its wearer falls back and out with a yelp, one mostly naked, flipflop-clad foot all that remains in Eduardo's field of vision before that is pulled back too and the door is pushed shut. Then the driver's door opens, Mark jumps in, bangs the door closed, and is uncharacteristically already on the road before he's buckled in again.
"I apologize for Dustin. He was supposed to stay in front of the tv with everybody else whose mental age is eight or younger but wandered off. Ignore everything he might have said pertaining to real boys, he is tragically obsessed with Pinocchio."
Mark sounds vaguely apologetic, but the words rush out of him too quickly to not carry some kind of urgency, and Mark's face is red, from his ears to the tip of his nose.
It's adorable. It makes Mark look ten years younger, and Eduardo want to reach out and touch to check if he can feel the rush of blood he can see beneath Mark's skin. It also makes him wonder if Mark blushes a lot and he's only missed it so far because they don't usually see each other in the daylight.
"He didn't." Eduardo narrows his eyes, and leans an inch closer. He called me a stray puppy you picked up and said he wanted to make sure you didn't make me up."
Mark's Adam's apple bops as he swallows, and the blush travels deeper.
"He's troubled. It's tragic. Now, breakfast?" Eduardo has half a mind to keep Mark on the hook some more, because this is Mark out of his depth, out of control, this is Mark embarrassed, and it's a side of him Eduardo so far hasn't been privy to, but he doesn't. He takes in Mark's fingers clenching and unclenching around the wheel where they usually hold their position so securely, and the way his voice rises on the last syllable, and thinks that Mark probably likes feeling out of his depth just as little as Eduardo does.
"Breakfast." He leans back in his seat and tries not to fall asleep on the way to the hotel (the restaurant does a great breakfast, and he'll make Mark try the whole-wheat pancakes).
//
Mark isn't sure how he got into this situation. No, he knows. A Wedding, Eduardo's ex, the burn scar on his arm, and telling him he needed better friends. Mark stands by that.
He didn't mean to imply he'd like to fill the role of Eduardo's plus one at the next family function (because while Eduardo may be a single child the stereotype about huge South-American families of course holds true for the rest of the Saverin clan and someone marries, is born, or dies all the time). Still, when Eduardo asked him if he'd like to accompany him, he thought of Christy, whom Eduardo's family finds appropriate even though she's clearly a psychopath or at the very least an arsonist, and said yes.
This is how Mark finds himself standing in his living room five hours before they need to leave for the airport getting eyed critically. He has assured Eduardo that his suit will pass muster. It's his only suit, but it's the one he had made and checked for a refit for two Zuckerberg weddings. Eduardo wasn't convinced though and had insisted on coming by early in case they needed to go out for some last-minute shopping. It was that, or letting Eduardo drag him to his tailor (and of course Eduardo has a tailor) right away, which, no. Mark has no desire to have his inseam measured again.
So now he stands in front of Eduardo and gets his tie redone because the last time Mark wore one was for his bar mitzvah and his knot is admittedly not as effortlessly smooth as Eduardo's more practiced one.
Eduardo stands in front of him, close enough that it's clearer than usual that he's barely taller than mark, and they'd be looking straight into each other's eyes except Eduardo's are lowered to the strip of silk around Mark's neck he keeps tugging on so that from Mark's point of view it almost looks as they are closed, lids lowered and lashes resting on the thin skin below that is showing a maze of faint lines and the beginning of crow's feet in the corners.
The closeness makes Mark flush hot, and he curses his pale skin that will betray his blush the moment Eduardo looks up.
As if on command Eduardo pulls the knot tight against Mark's throat and tucks the tie into his jacket. He folds Mark's collar back, strokes over his lapels to straighten them, and steps back. Then he looks, just looks, and Mark can't do anything but stare back while this small, secret smile slowly grows on Eduardo's face.
Eventually Mark grows tired of standing still and being stared at for amusement. "Do I pass muster?"
"You pass. Just about, but you pass." His smile breaks open then, and it adds new lines around Eduardo's eyes and makes Mark's mouth dry up. "It's not you at all though."
"I'm doing this as a favor to you, convention dictates you show some gratitude," Mark tells him around the weight of his sandpaper tongue.
"I didn't say it was a bad thing. Normal you is fine. Normal you is great. I like normal you." Eduardo's eyes crinkle up further and then grow big and soft.
He steps close again, strokes his fingers over the silky-smooth fabric of the tie and tugs at it, pulls the ends out of Mark's jacket he just minutes ago tidied them away in and pulls Mark in while pushing forward and pressing their mouths together.
It lasts one, two, three heartbeats, One, two, three heartbeats, long enough to make sure it can't be interpreted as anything but deliberate, but lips soft and dry and still, an offer, not a demand. The he lets the tie slip through his fingers and puts enough space between them that Mark can't feel the soft puffs of his breath on his face anymore. "I like normal you."
Mark licks his lips, eyes stuck on Eduardo's as if he could taste them on his own if he just looked closely enough and willed them back, then he reaches up and undoes the tie around his neck. The know is ruined by now, and it's too tight suddenly, it won't let Mark swallow and he needs to because his mouth is isn't all that dry anymore. His fingers feel stiff and uncoordinated, a far cry from how quick and sure they usually fly over keys, even typing blind, but eventually it comes loose and he pulls it off to dangle uselessly by his side. "Why don't you kiss normal me then?"
And Eduardo does just that. He starts with a quick peck, as if he still needs to gauge Mark's reaction, but his eyes are stuck on Mark's mouth again, and then he crowds Mark up against the wall and gives Mark's oral fixation something to play with.
Eduardo is humming and groaning and moving, constantly moving, hands all over Mark, in his hair, on his neck, holding onto his shoulders, like he doesn't know what to do with the energy sparking between them. Mark is appreciative, he is, and he sucks on his tongue, lets himself get distracted nibbling on his lower lip, is reminded of his tongue and follows it, licking into Eduardo's mouth and mapping it, thoroughly and methodically committing every nook and cranny, the shape of every tooth, to memory, just in case, and when he has that, and only then, does he uncurl his own fists from Eduardo's shirt and shamelessly, greedily palms between Eduard's legs, his dick as hot and hard beneath his slacks as Mark's own feels, thrumming low with hunger how that he's had a taste.
That, of course, is when Eduardo takes his hands away, takes his mouth away from Mark, and steps back.
"Wait. Shouldn't we go on a date first?"
He's kidding. He's got to be kidding. Mark is hard, Eduardo is hard, and Eduardo is right here and so obviously willing, his mouth shiny and red, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes dark enough with arousal that Mark could get lost in them and should probably kiss Eduardo until he closes them again, just to be safe. "I know how much you work. You don't have time to date."
He cranes his neck, moving forward to chase that mouth, but Eduardo shakes his head, and Mark. Stops. Confused, wanting, and with doubt beginning to niggle at the edges of his mind.
"I don't want to just- I don't want-," Eduardo breaks off with an exasperated sigh, hand rubbing his face like he can wipe away the fog that stands between him and the words he wants to say but can't grasp.
"I meant it, Mark. I like you. I want to do this right."
Mark doesn't feel dizzy, but it's a close thing for a moment as his blood doesn't know if it wants to pool in his stomach or lower. Mark has always prided himself of his intelligence though, and even deprived as it is his brain comes up with an argument that doing this now and doing this right are not mutually exclusive.
"The first time we had take-out together, the time I let you get snot and this winter season's influenza virus all over me on your couch, and the time you had a migraine in my bed and woke me up every hour so I'd have to share your pain. Three dates, that counts as doing it right."
His hands twitch impatiently by his side, greedy to reach out and pull Eduardo in, or push against him, either way, just touch, touch and hold and feel and taste, but he needs the go for this, if they are doing this, and doing it right, which Mark is very much in favor of, then he needs to know he's allowed. After a moment of hesitation - and another look down at Mark's mouth that Mark notes with great satisfaction - Eduardo delivers.
"Okay. Okay, good, okay." He licks his lips, and Mark inhales sharply because those are now his lips to lick, when Eduardo continues. "Do you have…?"
Mark whines at the unfairness, his hands curling into fists tight enough that he feels even his short-clipped nails dig into his palms. "Do I have what?" He bites his own lips because those at least are there.
"Condoms. Lube," Eduardo says, eyes on Mark's mouth, again, still, and, oh. Oh. "Either? ..Neither? Why don't you have anything?"
This time it's Eduardo whom a pained noise escapes, and Mark sympathizes, he does, but he still feels the need to defend himself, and he does so after a quick swipe of his tongue just to see if he can make Eduardo make that noise again (he can't, but the one he does make is even better). "I'm not exactly a social person. I have hand lotion. That is cheaper and sufficient for my needs. Why don't you?"
Eduardo throws up his hands, his ever-wandering hands that have been off Mark for too long, and Mark could think of better uses for those fingers. "I don't live here!"
Semantics. Eduardo can move in right now. But about that…
"Do you have anything at the hotel?" Desperate times. Mark doesn't particularly want to drive around and trudge up to Eduardo's suite with a boner, but he wants to go and buy supplies with a boner even less. Suits don't hide anything.
"The hotel? No! I have maid service! Denise or Consuela or nice old Mrs. Habberton could have found it! Besides, I don't exactly go out much either."
That is not what Mark wanted to hear. It's so far from what he wanted to hear that the niggling comes back with whispers and questions. "Why."
"Because I work a lot?" It's hesitant more than sarcastic, and he must have caught something in Mark's voice, or in the way his fingers have stilled, because the doubt that's creeping into the pit of heat in Mark's stomach is mirrored in his eyes now.
"Why do you care what your maids might find? They work in a hotel. They are used to catching people mid-act, or at least finding come stains." Mark swallows, and isn't sure he even wants to know, because this was good, for a moment this was so good. "Are you even out to your family?"
The way Eduardo presses his lips together, in a wobbly excuse of an apologetic smile, tells Mark all that he needs to know. "Technically? No one has ever asked."
Mark gets the impression that Eduardo's family doesn't ask a lot of things. Right now he doesn't want to care.
"But I expected questions when I decided to show up with you at the wedding." His horrible smile turns shakily hopeful, and Mark decides that works for him.
"Good enough." Eduardo beams at him, bright and fond, and Mark foregoes making grabby hands some more to smile back because he did agree to doing this the right way.
Thankfully then Eduardo winks at him and steps up to Mark, pushing their bodies together and pressing his hips against Mark's just so, making Mark need to move and get some friction going. "Now, that lotion?"
"That won't work." It won't; Mark didn't always live with only his own right hand for company, he knows the limits of improvised sex, but he appreciates the sentiment, he does, and he takes a hold of Eduardo's head to show him just how much, hands framing the side of his face, noses bumping, and his mouth finally back in front of Mark's, only letting up when they are both red-faced and breathless.
"Hand lotion," Eduardo breathes against Mark's lips. "Handjobs. Naked handjobs. Unless you'd prefer dry-humping in our suits. I'll buy you a new o-oh, uh. Nevermind."
Naked, as it turns out, is good. And hand lotion works just fine for intercrural.
They are both on edge, and everything is rushed and frenzied, too hot, too bright, and over way too soon, but Mark gets to touch his share and taste and drink Eduardo in like a drowning man who has finally decided to let go and breath in that lungful of water because he's waited for too long and can't hold on anymore.
All in all, it takes maybe half an hour.
They have plenty of time to clean up and catch their flight, and Mark brings Eduardo back a wet towel from the bathroom because he looks like he's not quite ready to get back on his feet, dropping it on his stomach and then turning to find his clothes.
"Is this awkward now?"
The words stop Mark in his tracks and he freezes, one leg in the slacks of his rented tux, new pair of boxers on his hips and one for Eduardo left next to him on the bed (he didn't come in them but there's no need to wear anything with a wet spot when he has a drawer full of fresh ones).
"Why would it be awkward?"
"Because…," Eduardo gestures between them, from Mark, who is half dressed and half ready to go, to himself, still in bed, the blanket no longer tangled around his feet but pulled up mid-chest (that must have happened while Mark wasn't looking, squatting down to rummage for and pick up his socks). He's lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, his free hand still fluttering to and fro between them and everything from the rumpled clothes on the ground over the rumpled bed to their rumpled selves. "This," he eventually finishes lamely when it must have become obvious Mark was waiting for him to continue his reply.
Mark lets his eyes sweep the room to take in all of this, then they come to rest on Eduardo, with his I do yoga, it helps me unwind arms, his waxed once a month for no reason chest (because no one but his esthetician has seen him with his shirt off since New York, at least before now), the red lips that both him and Mark have bitten into their current swollen state, his lowered eyes (that, too, must have happened while Mark wasn't looking) and the dark halo of unruly hair framing his face. He makes something inside of Mark clench and tug, and getting back into bed seems infinitely more appealing that pulling up his pants. Mark doesn't want this to be awkward. "We are going to miss our flight."
Eduardo shrinks back at that, minutely, and blinks, warmth and pliantness gone as if Mark had upended a glass of cold water over him. His mouth falls open, working silently for a few seconds, and Mark figures what he's trying to get out is the declaration of awkwardness.
"You are terrible at this." There. There it is. Because Mark may be okay with being who and where and how he is, but others aren't as biased in favor of normal Mark and sooner or later decide to cut back on interactions with him. Mark swallows around a lump in his throat. He didn't expect it to be so soon.
"Really terrible. Or possibly too good. I'm not sure." Eduardo collapses back on the bed, eyes falling closed and heaving a heavy breath before talking to the ceiling. "Screw the flight. My extended family is huge; there'll be at least one other wedding this year."
Mark wavers, trying to decipher layers of meanings and implications because this is what he's not good at and maybe he's just hearing what he wants to hear, but then Eduardo pulls the blanket to the side in something that is clearly meant to be interpreted as an invitation, and Mark lets his slacks drop back to the floor and steps out of them.
His hands are cold from having stood around mostly naked, but the skin of Eduardo's stomach is still hot to the touch when Mark climbs back on the bed and slides them under the cover and across it. He shuffles closer, awkward after all, uncoordinated and aware that he's overthinking where to put his legs and arms and body, but Eduardo pulls the blanket over him and pushes closer so they move into and against each other in restless shifting before they settle. legs tangled, one of Mark's arms around Eduardo's waist, his head tucked under his chin, and Eduardo's hand a grounding weight in the small of his back, Mark would be hard pressed to say which one of them it is holding the other close.
They stay like that, and the tension of something about to break that had been building in the room slowly ebbs away until the relaxation, the pleasant hum and ache and heaviness, that Mark had tried to wipe away with his boxers, takes hold again and the afterglow lulls them.
"Mmmh." Eduardo hums sleepily, and his chest vibrates and rumples under Mark like a purring cat. "Not terrible." His chin nudges against Mark's skull for a moment before he exhales, deflating, and grows silent and soft. The careful, tentative air that hung between them since Eduardo pulled Mark in by his tie changes with him, into something content and solid.
Mark has never been what you could call smooth, and behind his suits and work ethic Eduardo isn't much better. Maybe they can handle things being a little awkward.
They stay in bed.
They doze, order pizza that Mark accepts at the door clad in nothing but boxers and covered in hickeys because Eduardo won't be seen like this even by a delivery guy, and eventually Eduardo calls up his freshly-married cousin to congratulate and excuse their absence, shamelessly calling while Mark is still half-draped over his chest, and marks up the next family event - a silver wedding anniversary - in his calendar once he gets off the phone.
Mark can't see Eduardo's face from where he's lying, but he's got a good view of his phone.
"March is coming up."
Mark is aware of this. He has been for a while.
The 15th is a block of red on the otherwise black and white screen - the only job-related notice against the more demure notes of birthday reminders. Eduardo must be keeping his work calendar on his laptop. Or maybe his assistant keeps it for him.
"I've been thinking. The office I have here is pretty nice too, even if I don't have the biggest desk, and I could always get a smaller chair to make it look bigger. Who knows what kind of office I'd get in Boston?"
"You would be the one picking out the offices, so, any office you want," Mark mumbles into his skin. He doesn't move his head.
Eduardo huffs into his hair."I'm asking if you want me to stay, Mark. Some more enthusiasm would be appreciated."
Mark's heart takes off and jackrabbits against his ribs, but he only heaves a theatric sigh, as if having to put up with Eduardo's perfectly normal need for affirmation is such a chore and he's a saint for putting up with it. Then he shifts up until he's lying all the way on top of Eduardo and blanketing him, head tucked under his chin, the sheet tangled uselessly between their legs, and his lips brush Eduardo's collarbone. "The climate's a lot nicer in California of course."
"Of course. And I always did have the best of times during summer." Eduardo blows a stray curl away from where its tips were tickling the skin below his lips, then curls his arm around Mark and holds him closer, humming, warm and lazy and willing to not go anywhere. "IT department's crap here though. Working normal hours and never available when I need them. I'll just have to hope nothing happens that can't wait and that I can't fix by turning my laptop off and on again."
Mark bites into the ridge of skin and bone that is lying under his mouth, just because it's there and he can. Eduardo laughs and swats a his back, then contradicts himself by trailing his hand up and curling it around the back of Mark's head, keeping it in place.
//
The card tucked into Eduardo's wallet reads Mark Zuckerberg, mobile emergency IT support. He keeps it there even though he doesn't need it. The number is programmed into his phone, the first one on his speed dial.
"Zuckerberg, you free for a pickup?"
Mark stares blearily at his phone even though Joe can't see him. He hates doing pickups, and she knows it. They make him feel like he is prostituting himself to do the jobs not even the customers' significant others or children, susceptible to emotional blackmail and threats of grounding, could be forced to do.
Also, and more importantly, it's six in the evening. Mark might have taken the car with him that morning for a check-up but he isn't on shift for another four hours.
"No."
"I'll connect you!" Joe's bubblegum-and-fake-nails cheer disconnects before Mark can object. Fuck. He has a deal with Mario. Mark works hard, takes the night shifts, and keeps Mario's from slipping back into the 20th century (it will forever remain a mystery to him how they survived for so long without a properly functioning computer system), and in turn he isn't expected to make small talk or forced to interact with people more than necessary for the actual drives.
The lines clicks over.
"Hey, Mark?"
"…Wardo?" At this point, getting calls from Eduardo isn't that unusual, but this time Mark isn't so sure he recognizes the voice at the other end of the phone.
"Yeah, it's me."
"You sound-" A sudden noise comes through the line, loud and crackling, and it takes Mark a moment to identify it as coughing and not interference. "Never mind. Do you need me to pick you up?"
"No, I'm at the hotel." Eduardo pauses, clearing his throat. "Can you drive by a pharmacy for me and pick up stuff? Just get the receipt."
"'Stuff'?" Eduardo sounds as if 'stuff' is much needed, but Mark could use some elaboration.
"Cold stuff? I don't know. What do people take for colds? Can you ask them?" Eduardo snuffles through the line. It sounds disgusting, and Mark pulls the phone away from his ear and makes a face at it.
"I'll ask them. Cold or flu?"
"Uh. How do I know?"
It's the same helpless confusion Eduardo always display when faced with computer problems, but for once Mark is trying not to judge him for his blatant display of incompetence. He's obviously incapacitated at the moment and not in control of his faculties. "Do you have a fever?"
"I don't… know?" He coughs, deep, rattling, hackling sounds that make Mark's throat ache in sympathy.
"It's okay, Wardo, I'll get you something for both. And a thermometer. Go back to bed."
His phone rings again as soon as he's hung up on Eduardo, and Joe tells him to come in, she'll make sure he has one of the cars waiting for him. He could take the bus, or just have one of the drivers do the trip for him, instead he tells her he'll be there in twenty. It's more convenient; there's a pharmacy right on his way.
Mark has driven up to the main entrance of the hotel enough times that he lost track, but so far he's only ever stopped to let Eduardo out.
This time he grabs his wallet and the paper bag from the pharmacy, hands his keys over to the uniformed kid looking baffled at having to park a taxi (what does he expect Mark to do, block the entrance until he's done his drop), and then walks in to ask for Eduardo's room number. The primed woman at the reception eyes his with obvious distaste and suspicion and insists on escorting him up and then spending the elevator ride trying to set his sweats in fire with her looks and walking up to Eduardo's room with him like a guard, her heels clicking along behind the rhythmic slapping of the flipflops he thoughtlessly shoved his feet into when he left the house even though he usually takes care to wear sensible footgear when he's driving.
Eduardo opens the door wearing plaid pajamas and a robe - not one of the fluffy, white hotel bathing robes that make you look like you are wearing a snuggy made of towels, but a tailored robe cut from heavy cloth, the outfit making him look like a refuge from the 50s on a Sunday morning. He's standing to the side, door opened just a hand-width, and Mark slips in and closes the door into the face of the heeled receptionist because he knows Eduardo well enough by now to be aware that it must make him uncomfortable to have people see him like this, even though he is still dressed more neatly than Mark.
Mark tries to push the bag at him but Eduardo gets lost coughing his greeting first, and Mark uses the opportunity to look around the room. Eduardo's supposedly temporary quarters turn out to be less of a room and more a suite, and Eduardo seems to have built himself a nest on the couch, blankets and pillows, laptop and prints, and a room service cart with bottles and bowls and mugs and thermoses with soup and tea by his side so he doesn't have to keep calling them up for every single refill. There's a wastebasket of snot-filled tissues on the floor. At this point Mark is just relieved Eduardo doesn't insist on reusable monographed handkerchiefs, to be honest.
Eduardo gets his breathing under control and tries to grab at the bag, but Mark holds it out of his reach and herds him back to the couch first before he falls over.
"You are disgusting."
No one looks good sick, and Eduardo is no exception. His hair is a stringy unkempt mess, standing up in some places and flattened to his head in others, his eyes are small and heavy-lidded, with darker shadows around them than Mark has seen on him even the week after his cousin's wedding, and his face is pasty and pale under the stubble covering its lower half, lips dry and chapped, the only spot of colour his raw-looking nose.
Eduardo sinks into the pillows like a fainting diva, complete with a hand thrown over his eyes (though that is most likely due to a headache more than anything else) and a pained sigh, and croaks, "no one asked you to come in. You practically took advantage of my plague-weakened state to force your way into my room."
Sick Eduardo is a drama queen. Mark hasn't been this delighted by a revelation since he found the picture of his ginger college roommate in a kiddy pool and dressed as Ariel. It made perfect blackmail material for years until Dustin threw the last of his shame out of the window and wouldn't be embarrassed by baby pictures anymore.
"You sound like a melodramatic twelve-year-old." He puts the bag down and drags a blanket over Eduardo's legs to keep him from trying to get up again and bashing his head in falling over his own feet.
Eduardo doesn't even seem to notice as he rubs his chin. "I'm not, look, I have stubble, I am ruggedly handsome."
Then the significance of his current bedraggled state seems to return to him and he pulls a face when he remembers that he currently looks like a normal human being instead of the bastard of a fashion model and a Fortune 500 company, and groans into his hand. "You still shouldn't have come in; you'll get sick too." He flaps his hand in the direction of the door before letting it fall back to cover his eyes. "Leave. Go away. Shoo."
It's pathetic. If Mark left now Eduardo would most likely just pity himself to death. Instead he steps around Eduardo's legs and gingerly sits down on the couch, careful not to jostle it too much, upending the bag of medicine in his lap. "I don't get sick. Haven't since I was a kid."
"Mh, yeah, you mentioned that when I made you eat vegetables." He whines when Mark presses the thermometer to his temple and tries to turn his head away, because clearly he's too delicate for a touch thermometer that was developed for fussy babies. Mark's sisters handle being sick more gracefully. "That's so unfair, with the way you eat."
The thermometer beeps and Mark checks the display, then throws Eduardo a critical look and begins to sort through his pile of meds. "Mh, sure."
Eduardo tries to curl his legs beneath him but aborts the movement with a disappointed sound when he notices he'd end up sitting on some of his papers. "It's like your mutant power. Super health, no matter how many vitamin deficiencies you should have. Those activate with puberty after all."
Mark pauses in his perusal of side effects and stares at the disgusting, snotty closeted nerd on the other side of the couch.
"You geek!" It's not like Eduardo lied to him. Geekery has just never come up in their conversations. Still, Mark feels betrayed that workaholic business shark Eduardo is a secret geek and he never even knew.
"Mh, but I was always very good at pretending I was one of the cool kids." Eduardo grins from beneath his hand, the dry skin of his lips stretching in a way that looks painful.
"Here." Mark fills one of the empty mugs with bottled water and holds it out to Eduardo. "Drink this, and take these."
He grabs the hand of Eduardo's not reaching for the mug and shakes two pills into it, and then uses Eduardo's unhappiness at having to swallow to clear away his papers and close his laptop, putting it safely out of his reach. He's in no state to work, and anything he did now he'd only mess up and have to do again later. As expected Eduardo tries to object once he's done taking his pills, but Mark silences him by making him drink a cup of syrup and then pressing the tv remote into his hand. "Pick something."
Eduardo settles on the weather channel of all things, and then refuses to hand the remote back unless he can trade it for his laptop, which Mark won't agree to, so he questions Eduardo's ability to make channel-picking decisions while under the influence. Eduardo apparently earned his first 300.000$ watching tv, but either the fever or the meds are taking their toll and the story Eduardo is trying to tell, gesturing at the screen, doesn't make any sense.
In a stand-off Eduardo keeps the remote on his side of the couch, away from Mark and his superior tv choices, and Mark resigns himself to staying and holding the laptop hostage until Eduardo has lulled himself to sleep watching weather reports.
In the end Mark leaves the receipt from the pharmacy with Eduardo's assortment of medicine, but when he leaves a congested and mouth-breathing Eduardo in his room and gets his taxi back in front of the hotel he resets the meter without bothering to check the numbers.
//
"Did you always want to go into business?"
Eduardo smiles, still half-asleep in the seat next to Mark. It's almost six. Eduardo is coming in early for another international call, and Mark is about to clock off. He figures for once Mark may be as tired as he is. When I was little, I wanted to be something different every week. An astronaut, a circus director, once even a ship's cook." He turns to Mark. They are alone in the car, of course, but it still feels more close, more private that way. "Back then we still lived in Brazil. My grandmother had been visiting, and she took me out one day on a ship, one of those big sailing ships. It had three masts. Took out tourists for daytrips or cruises, I guess, but my grandmother rented the whole ship so that the crew didn't take any other passengers that day, just us. We had sandwiches, and when I asked if people on the ship didn't get tired of always eating sandwiches she told me big ships also had cooks. We went home that evening and I walked up to my father and declared I was going to be a ship's cook when I grew up. I don't think he was as excited about the prospect as I was."
For the whole summer Eduardo had been determined to stick with this plan. Then school had started up again and he'd had to put his wool-gathering aside and focus on his studies again.
"Honestly? Childish dreams aside, I think I never really wanted to be anything else, so I just went with the program. I didn't not want it. I'm good at it. And most of the time I like it."
Most of the time being when he gets to focus on the job at hand and just do it to the best of his abilities (which are good, and Eduardo likes being good at things) and not talk to his father on the phone about how he still hasn't heard anything regarding the Boston office, because apparently if Eduardo were good enough he'd have gotten the job offered already even though the decision isn't due to be made before spring.
Those are the bad times. The okay times are when Eduardo has to get up at half past four to be in for an international conference call, or stay another six hours after his assistant has gone home. The good times are when he can juggle numbers and projections and find a way to make them do what he wants. The good times are when he can make others see what the numbers are supposed to do and they agree to make them do it for him in the next quarter.
In college Eduardo once made 300.000$ betting on oil futures after watching the weather channel all summer.
Summers always were the best times. He's going to miss the heat if he goes back north for Boston.
He clears his throat. Maudlin sentimentalism never got anything done.
"So, why…," Eduardo spreads his arms to encompass everything around them, "this?" Turnaround is fair play, after all.
Mark is silent for a beat, two, long enough that Eduardo is beginning to think he's not going to answer. "I'm good at it, no one tells me what to do, and I don't have to make nice for anybody."
He's looking at his hands though as he says it, not at Eduardo, the piercing gaze of the last few minutes when Eduardo was trying to explain why he did a job that gave him insomnia and worked towards a promotion that would give him ulcers too.
"I tried something else once, in college, but it didn't work out."
There's obviously a story there, but Eduardo isn't sure if he should drop it or encourage Mark to keep talking.
"With computers?" It makes sense, Mark may be a taxi driver, but he has computer magazines stuffed into the pocket of the driver's door to read in between passengers, and the way he keeps fine-tuning Eduardo's laptop whenever Eduardo holds it out to him with a helpless plea speaks of familiarity.
"It wasn't the part with the computers that was the problem. It was. I had this idea for a site, and tried to get it off the ground. But I couldn't give it the momentum it needed, I couldn't get the money to push it, or have someone push it for me, then I didn't have the money to keep it going, and. The window passed," Mark pauses for a moment, then adds, "I don't mind though. Not anymore. This isn't what I wanted out of life, but I'm okay."
//
"It's Wednesday." Mark throws an accusing glare to his right, where Eduardo is all but hanging in his seat, held up by the belt more than sitting under his own power.
"And tomorrow is Thursday. Today." He heaves a heavy sigh as if the effort is almost too much for him and rolls his head around to face Mark. "Your point?"
"The week is three days in, and you've stayed past midnight all three of them." Mark isn't judging. But back at home and later in college he had the people he co-habited with to disapprove of his slightly skewed work-ethics and annoy him into keeping to a schedule not entirely medically unsound, and Eduardo lives in a hotel. He doubts the maids click their tongues at him every time he catches less than six hours of sleep.
"Mh, yeah. I wasn't in last Friday or during the weekend and have to make up for that." He flops a tired hand into Mark's direction. "Your disapproval is noted. Believe me, I don't like it either."
"If you took the weekend off because you accidentally slept for three days straight this isn't the most logical course of action to avoid a repeat." Mark takes a hand off the wheel during a straight stretch of road and grasps for the glove compartment, fishing out a pack of Twizzlers and dropping it in Eduardo's lap. "Here." Hopefully the sugar will give him enough of a kick to not fall asleep in Mark's car. He did that once, and waking Eduardo up again in front of the hotel took longer than the ride itself.
Eduardo perks up promisingly and fiddles with the wrapper for a bit, the rustle of plastic filling the car, until he gives in and rips it open with his teeth. "My cousin got married." He bites off a piece of candy and chews enthusiastically and loudly next to Mark, apparently too tired to remember his manners and not speak an chew at the same time. "Well, one of them. Big extended family. It's always a huge affair, who has shown up and is doing what, wearing what, still unmarried, or, worse, single. How long have I been in San Francisco now, how old am I, don't I want to settle down with a pretty, appropriate wife, 1.5 kids, and a vacation home in the Hamptons and a vila back in Brazil." He takes another bite and sinks deeper into his seat even though the sugar seems to be doing its job. "It's exhausting."
Mark hums sympathetically. He gets the same urging, more or less subtle, at Zuckerberg family reunions. "Well-meaning aunts trying to set you up?" Every single time he is in Dobbs Ferry. Where all those nice Jewish girls of marriageable age are coming from he has no idea.
"Not so much. I am using a ruse." Eduardo wiggles the fingers of his free hand at that like a magician ready to woe his audience, and it's so ridiculous and unguarded a gesture that Mark has to bite his lips to keep from snorting out a laugh and alerting Eduardo how far his mask of collected professionalism is slipping. "I'm always taking my ex. Christy."
Mark has to break abruptly. He didn't even see the traffic light change; Eduardo's waving hands must have been obscuring his view.
Eduardo doesn't seem to notice when he's thrown against the seatbelt though and keeps talking, hands flying animatedly in bigger and bigger swoops. "She's perfect, you know. Everything a potential trophy wife should be - beautiful, sharp, very conscious of social status, and because of our history whenever someone mentions settling down her presence is like a compromise. I might officially be disappointingly single, but maybe I'm secretly back together with that nice suitable young woman I came with. And Christy can be kind of vicious, which keeps the strategic set-ups with the daughters of business partners down."
The light changes to green again, and Mark checks left, right left, according to regulations, accelerates smoothly, and keeps his hands positioned correctly on the wheel instead of reaching for Eduardo's arm when it flails towards him with the Twizzler again and taking a bite. He's feeling irrationally possessive all of a sudden. Then again, it's his candy, if he wants some he's allowed to have it.
Eduardo continues, oblivious to the fact that Mark is coming dangerously close to pulling over and making him sit on his annoying hands.
"Our friendship is much better than our relationship. Few expectations, we cover each other's back from family, and it's very low-maintenance and long-distance. That's very reassuring. As a couple we were kind of a mess. I didn't have any time for her - I've always worked a lot, even in college, she didn't trust me, and, I mean, there were sparks, there were definitely sparks, but sometimes too many." He stuffs the end of the candy into his mouth and chews a couple of times, crunching up the wrapper in his hand before he talks on. "I did mention she's vicious, right? Our breakup was heated. Literally. Look, I've still got the scar."
Eduardo pushes back his sleeves and hold his arm out, and Mark steps on the breaks hard enough that the strap of his seatbelt digs into his chest even though his shirt and sweater. "Fuck!"
They both sit still for a few second, dazed, then Mark shakes himself and parks them at the side of the car. He turns the key and silences the motor, turns on the interior light, and pulls Eduardo's arm in, pushing the sleeves out of the way and angling it until the light catches on the uneven, shiny skin of a burn scar.
It's not that big. But it's there, unmistakably.
He turns the unresisting limb, but the scar remains. "Forget what I said about your job, you need better friends."
"She's a good friend, she's a great friend!" Eduardo pulls weakly at his arm, trying to take it back, but Mark twists it around and shows him his own mutilated skin to prove his point.
"She set you on fire!"
Eduardo rolls his eyes, clearly not impressed. "Technically she set my bed on fire. And I wasn't even in it. Besides, I did probably deserve it; I wasn't a very good boyfriend."
Mark has read about this, people trivializing and justifying abuse in relationships, and he digs his fingers into Eduardo's arm and repeats, enunciating clearly, "you have a burn scar."
His hands are locked around Eduardo's arm above and below the scar in question, keeping it angled into the light and the cuffs of his clothes pushed back. One of his fingers almost touches the edge of the small patch of reddish, naked skin that looks so different from the rest of Eduardo's arm, tan and smooth and covered in a thin, even layer of smooth dark hair.
"Just a small one. I've got worse on my knees from trying to ride my bike without training wheels."
Eduardo smiles at him, reassuring and with circles under his eyes, and when he shrugs Mark gives in and lets the movement pull his arm from Mark's grip to drop in his lap.
Mark reaches over and takes the balled-up plastic wrapper from his hand, putting it into the little garbage bag he keeps in the middle console for that exact purpose before he takes Eduardo to his hotel to sleep.
//
Despite what certain people might claim sleep is sacred to Eduardo. He values it. He savors it. He cherishes it.
When he can get it.
Much as he wants to though he can't ignore the ringing of his phone just because he himself is at home and in bed. Someone else is not, and might have a valid reason to need to talk to Eduardo right away. Possibly someone from a different time zone.
He rolls over and, with a longing glance back at his pillow, pushes himself up on one arm and snatches his phone off the nightstand with the other.
Or someone with a San Francisco area code.
He rubs a hand over his face, wasting time in the hope that the phone will stop ringing by itself. It keeps going though, and he can't just decline the call.
"Saverin."
"Wardo." The name is familiar, as is the voice and the one-word greeting.
Eduardo halts. "Mark? Did we- I'm sorry, I'm already home."
"I figured. Hoped. You said you have a car." Wherever Mark is, it's loud, white noise filtering through the phone in a low hum of bustling people.
Eduardo works his way up until he's sitting in bed. "I did. I do. Why?"
"I need a ride." That is different. Eduardo blinks, mouth possibly hanging open for a few seconds in confusion at this role reversal, but if it is no one is there to see. He must be silent for too long, because Mark speaks on, faster now, and breathless, leaving no more breaks for Eduardo to reply. "Nevermind. You don't have to. It's not your job to drive me around, and I know you don't like driving when it's late. Forget about it. I wasn't thinking. You were probably already in bed. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I just didn't want Mario to have to pull another one of his night drivers to pick me up from the hospital. I'll go take-"
"Wait, Mark, wait, hospital?" Eduardo is wide awake all of a sudden, his heart hammering in his throat.
"Are you okay? What happened? You are okay, right?" He almost falls, trying to get out of bed with his legs still tangles in the covers, and ends up clambering out of bed gracelessly, phone clutched to his ear and feet already carrying him out of the bedroom.
"I'm fine, yeah, it's nothing. Some drunk idiot ran into me. The car's got a dent and needs a light and the airbags replaced, and I've got a concussion. Look, just go back to bed, I'm good."
"No, wait, I'm coming." Eduardo shrugs into his coat and toes on his shoes, grabbing his keys and leaving his rooms with flapping shoelaces.
"I'll pick you up. Are you sure you are okay? Do you want me to stay on the phone and keep talking? I have a headset in the car, I can do that!" He needs a moment to orient himself in the garage and find his car. He can probably count the times he's actually driven it using his fingers.
"I'm sure, Wardo. It's just a concussion, I'm already checked out. You don't need to stay on the line. I'm not going to move towards any bright lights if you hang up. See you there."
Then Mark hangs up on him. If he left his cell in the cab and was calling from the hospital it makes sense that he couldn't block the phone for everybody else who needed to call someone, but Eduardo would have felt better if he'd stayed on.
The drive feels surreal, blown up and overexposed. It's the opposite of foggy or a rush that Eduardo can't remember once he arrives, instead he's conscious of every detail, every crossing, every turn he takes, every other car. The whole ride is thrown into stark light, and it ends with the no less strange many-rhythmic bright flashes of ambulances driving to and from the same place Eduardo is aiming at.
Mark is standing a ways down the street, his familiar slim figure with its loose sweats and shaggy crown of hair removed from the bustle of the main entrance. At first he doesn't notice Eduardo driving up to him and keeps staring into the distance, but when the BMW slows and comes to a stop in front of him his face sharpens and he steps around the car, getting in without prompting or visible wear.
"Wardo. Thanks for picking me up." He closes the door and buckles in, apparently unconcerned with the way Eduardo is trying to x-ray him with his eyes alone.
"Mark." He wants to ask if Mark is okay, again, but he looks okay, he acts okay, and he's told Eduardo he is several times already, do he doesn't.
Mark zeroes in on the GPS and types in his address without prompting, then leans back in his seat, and Eduardo checks his route and turns the car, taking off.
"Are you okay?" It just slips out. He tried.
Mark doesn't move, and Eduardo doesn't trust himself to take his eyes off the road and look over, so he can't see his face. "I'm fine. It's a mild concussion. I've got a bump, that's it."His voice sounds calm though, more reassuring than annoyed with Eduardo's repeated question. "Mario's given me tomorrow off, then I can go straight back to work."
"Are you sure that's such a good idea? Shouldn't you take time to recover?" The car purrs like a cat around them. It handles like a dream, and Eduardo likes driving it, he does, but for once he can't concentrate on the experience at all.
"It's fine. They would have kept me in otherwise. I'll go to bed and set my alarm."
"You said you'd take the day of!" His hands grip the wheel tighter. He'd really like to look over to Mark. He's not used to being the one who can't look his share during their rides.
"Concussion. Gotta wake up every couple of hours." There's a shrug there, even if Eduardo hears it more than he sees it, so casual, as if Mark isn't taking this serious at all.
"I'm staying." He's got his phone, he'll call in sick.
"Wardo, don't be stupid, I'm fine, you don't need to babysit me-"
"No, I'm staying. Either that, or I'm driving you back to the hospital." Where the nurses would probably let Mark go again the second Eduardo turned around, but he's not budging on this.
"You have to work."
"I'll take a sick day," he explains. It's not like anyone will say something; he's got enough overtime that he could take off a whole month.
"You are not sick."
"Nowhere does it stipulate that I have to be the sick person. I'm staying." He ends the discussion by coming to a halt in front if Mark's building, pulling the key, and getting out of the car before Mark is done undoing his seatbelt.
So he stays and spends the rest of the night and the whole next morning in Mark's flat, despite continued reassurances that Mark's alarm is just as qualified at making sure Mark doesn't slip into a coma and die in his sleep.
The flat is tiny and cramped. It comes equipped with a huge flatscreen, consoles, one desktop computer, one laptop, and one pad, but doesn't have a couch big enough for Eduardo to lie down on, let alone a guest bed. Eduardo wakes Mark up twice before Mark growls at him to just lie down on the bed next to him, his head hurts already without having to look at Wardo's tired face and the pinched lines around his eyes he always gets on days when he didn't sleep at least a couple of hours the night before and has a migraine he's trying to disappear by ignoring it. Eduardo decides it's wiser to humor the patient than it is to preserve both their dignity, pushes his shoes off his naked feet and the jacket off his shoulders and slips into bed next to Mark, Eduardo in the pajamas he never changed out of when he got Mark's call and under the red, yellow, green, and blue comforter Mark had on his couch that he says was a gag gift, and Mark in boxers, a t-shirt, under his own blankets, and hogging the only pillow.
At some point around noon Eduardo is done waking Mark up every hour; he should be fine now. They drift out of sleep next to each other, faces familiar with the blur of the dim light of the blind-darkened bedroom but the atmosphere different from their usual taxi meetings, more quiet, slower, languid.
"It is a very nice car," Mark croaks, mouth dry and voice rough with the remnants of sleep, and Eduardo hums in agreement.
He does of course end up working through the weekend to make up for the lost time. And then some. The two-month mark is coming up, and soon the higher-ups will have to decide whom to send to Boston for the job of assistant director. Eduardo can't be slacking now. And not slacking means not doing good but exceptional work, which takes time. Thoughts of the Boston office have turned bittersweet though. It's everything he's supposed to want, but he catches himself thinking about going home at the end of the work day when he pulls out his phone to call Mark, not just a hotel.
"I should just leave you there." Mark's greetings tend to be mercurial, but this one is abrupt enough that Eduardo pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it, making sure the display still show's that he's connected to Mario's and didn't switch to an audio play without noticing.
"What? Why?" He looks around his desk for a hint where this is coming from, but he's got nothing.
"Negative reinforcement. If I keep picking you up at all times you will never learn to abide by a regular schedule and work normal hours."
"…Isn't that a bit hypocritical coming from you, who is always working until early in the morning? Unlike me, who only works overtime when he has to." He makes it out with the regular crowd a couple of times a week. That's not too shabby, he used to work more in New York. And when he stays late he's usually leaving around midnight. These calls at three are the exception. Besides, he told Mark he'd be late today.
"I thought we already established that my body is indestructible no matter how I treat it. And excluding outside influences like other cars crashing into me through no fault of my own. Besides, I'm on night shift, I'm supposed to work these hours, and you 'have to' stay late at least three nights a week. Not counting the times when I have to pick you up on the weekend. I'm here."
He hangs up. Eduardo stares at his phone some more, wondering what bee got into Mark's bonnet, before he remembers that Mark is waiting for him downstairs and he hasn't even put his shoes back on (that lap desk is perfect for stretching out on the couch and working sitting up against the arm rest).
When he makes it to the car he gets in quietly, and the ride starts with an uncomfortable air the likes of which hasn't hung between them since the early days.
"You need a life." If the words are supposed to be a peace offering they are a horrible one; clipped tone and stiff shoulders turning them into an accusation more than anything else, and Mark chokes them out as if they are being pulled from him against his will.
What would Eduardo even do with a life? Go out with a friend? Mark would still be working.
"I have you," he eventually replies.
Mark bites his lip, and Eduardo wonders if that means he said the right thing, or the opposite. The earlier tension is broken though, and when Eduardo gets out and bids Mark a careful goodbye Mark wishes him a good night and tells him to call tomorrow.
Eduardo doesn't need a ride the next night, but he calls anyway, sitting in bed and watching tv, and they are fine again the next time they meet, even though Eduardo keeps working late more often than not. It goes to extremes the time he has to stay in a whole night for a negotiation with overseas and only calls Mark to let him know and tell him he'd see him tomorrow, but Mark tells him he'll still be at Mario's until midmorning anyway to something something network (there are words, Eduardo probably wouldn't be able to remember them even if he weren't simultaneously cross-checking three different versions of a contract).
Mark picks him up at eight in the morning. Eduardo has been up for 26 hours, not counting his power naps (he'll never admit it, but even those can onto do so much), and he's sitting in Mark's cab (that he has been told is at this point usually Mari's cab but she needed a morning off) in front of Mario's waiting for Mark to come back out because he insists on treating Mark to a proper breakfast for doing an extra-curricular ride for him.
Then the back door opens, man he doesn't recognize drops into the back seat while Mark is in the building, hackling with Joe about shift changes that she refused to budge on over the phone, and Eduardo freezes.
"Are you Wardo?"
The man appears harmless enough, unkempt red hair that could use a cut, pale arms with no visible muscle definition, wearing shorts and a t-shirt with the print of a logo Eduardo doesn't recognize that stretches over what looks like a slightly pudgy stomach, but he keeps looking at Eduardo expectantly, and it makes Eduardo uncomfortable when people expect something from him and he doesn't know what.
"Uhm." Technically he could be Wardo, but only Mark calls him that, and this stranger clearly isn't Mark, so how likely is it that Eduardo is the Wardo he is looking for?
"Oh God, you are. This is what he meant about the eyes, I see it now." The stranger leans back and raises a hand in defense of… Eduardo's eyes?
"Sorry?" At this point he can honestly say that he is confused.
"Ah, it's okay." The man sits up again and waves Eduardo off, apparently taking Eduardo's comment for an apology and not a polite request for clarification. Luckily though he seems to think the ice has been sufficiently broken for him to introduce himself. "I'm Dustin. I'm Mark's friend, I came out from Palo Alto to see for myself if Mark actually picked up a stray puppy that he fed once and that now keeps coming back and looking at him, with his eyes, emphasis Mark but now I totally get it, or if he made you up. And by 'fed' I mean 'fixed your laptop'."
"…What?"
Luckily for Eduardo that is when the door the man - Dustin - entered through opens again and Mark's arm shoots in, grabbing a handful of t-shirt and yanking at it so its wearer falls back and out with a yelp, one mostly naked, flipflop-clad foot all that remains in Eduardo's field of vision before that is pulled back too and the door is pushed shut. Then the driver's door opens, Mark jumps in, bangs the door closed, and is uncharacteristically already on the road before he's buckled in again.
"I apologize for Dustin. He was supposed to stay in front of the tv with everybody else whose mental age is eight or younger but wandered off. Ignore everything he might have said pertaining to real boys, he is tragically obsessed with Pinocchio."
Mark sounds vaguely apologetic, but the words rush out of him too quickly to not carry some kind of urgency, and Mark's face is red, from his ears to the tip of his nose.
It's adorable. It makes Mark look ten years younger, and Eduardo want to reach out and touch to check if he can feel the rush of blood he can see beneath Mark's skin. It also makes him wonder if Mark blushes a lot and he's only missed it so far because they don't usually see each other in the daylight.
"He didn't." Eduardo narrows his eyes, and leans an inch closer. He called me a stray puppy you picked up and said he wanted to make sure you didn't make me up."
Mark's Adam's apple bops as he swallows, and the blush travels deeper.
"He's troubled. It's tragic. Now, breakfast?" Eduardo has half a mind to keep Mark on the hook some more, because this is Mark out of his depth, out of control, this is Mark embarrassed, and it's a side of him Eduardo so far hasn't been privy to, but he doesn't. He takes in Mark's fingers clenching and unclenching around the wheel where they usually hold their position so securely, and the way his voice rises on the last syllable, and thinks that Mark probably likes feeling out of his depth just as little as Eduardo does.
"Breakfast." He leans back in his seat and tries not to fall asleep on the way to the hotel (the restaurant does a great breakfast, and he'll make Mark try the whole-wheat pancakes).
//
Mark isn't sure how he got into this situation. No, he knows. A Wedding, Eduardo's ex, the burn scar on his arm, and telling him he needed better friends. Mark stands by that.
He didn't mean to imply he'd like to fill the role of Eduardo's plus one at the next family function (because while Eduardo may be a single child the stereotype about huge South-American families of course holds true for the rest of the Saverin clan and someone marries, is born, or dies all the time). Still, when Eduardo asked him if he'd like to accompany him, he thought of Christy, whom Eduardo's family finds appropriate even though she's clearly a psychopath or at the very least an arsonist, and said yes.
This is how Mark finds himself standing in his living room five hours before they need to leave for the airport getting eyed critically. He has assured Eduardo that his suit will pass muster. It's his only suit, but it's the one he had made and checked for a refit for two Zuckerberg weddings. Eduardo wasn't convinced though and had insisted on coming by early in case they needed to go out for some last-minute shopping. It was that, or letting Eduardo drag him to his tailor (and of course Eduardo has a tailor) right away, which, no. Mark has no desire to have his inseam measured again.
So now he stands in front of Eduardo and gets his tie redone because the last time Mark wore one was for his bar mitzvah and his knot is admittedly not as effortlessly smooth as Eduardo's more practiced one.
Eduardo stands in front of him, close enough that it's clearer than usual that he's barely taller than mark, and they'd be looking straight into each other's eyes except Eduardo's are lowered to the strip of silk around Mark's neck he keeps tugging on so that from Mark's point of view it almost looks as they are closed, lids lowered and lashes resting on the thin skin below that is showing a maze of faint lines and the beginning of crow's feet in the corners.
The closeness makes Mark flush hot, and he curses his pale skin that will betray his blush the moment Eduardo looks up.
As if on command Eduardo pulls the knot tight against Mark's throat and tucks the tie into his jacket. He folds Mark's collar back, strokes over his lapels to straighten them, and steps back. Then he looks, just looks, and Mark can't do anything but stare back while this small, secret smile slowly grows on Eduardo's face.
Eventually Mark grows tired of standing still and being stared at for amusement. "Do I pass muster?"
"You pass. Just about, but you pass." His smile breaks open then, and it adds new lines around Eduardo's eyes and makes Mark's mouth dry up. "It's not you at all though."
"I'm doing this as a favor to you, convention dictates you show some gratitude," Mark tells him around the weight of his sandpaper tongue.
"I didn't say it was a bad thing. Normal you is fine. Normal you is great. I like normal you." Eduardo's eyes crinkle up further and then grow big and soft.
He steps close again, strokes his fingers over the silky-smooth fabric of the tie and tugs at it, pulls the ends out of Mark's jacket he just minutes ago tidied them away in and pulls Mark in while pushing forward and pressing their mouths together.
It lasts one, two, three heartbeats, One, two, three heartbeats, long enough to make sure it can't be interpreted as anything but deliberate, but lips soft and dry and still, an offer, not a demand. The he lets the tie slip through his fingers and puts enough space between them that Mark can't feel the soft puffs of his breath on his face anymore. "I like normal you."
Mark licks his lips, eyes stuck on Eduardo's as if he could taste them on his own if he just looked closely enough and willed them back, then he reaches up and undoes the tie around his neck. The know is ruined by now, and it's too tight suddenly, it won't let Mark swallow and he needs to because his mouth is isn't all that dry anymore. His fingers feel stiff and uncoordinated, a far cry from how quick and sure they usually fly over keys, even typing blind, but eventually it comes loose and he pulls it off to dangle uselessly by his side. "Why don't you kiss normal me then?"
And Eduardo does just that. He starts with a quick peck, as if he still needs to gauge Mark's reaction, but his eyes are stuck on Mark's mouth again, and then he crowds Mark up against the wall and gives Mark's oral fixation something to play with.
Eduardo is humming and groaning and moving, constantly moving, hands all over Mark, in his hair, on his neck, holding onto his shoulders, like he doesn't know what to do with the energy sparking between them. Mark is appreciative, he is, and he sucks on his tongue, lets himself get distracted nibbling on his lower lip, is reminded of his tongue and follows it, licking into Eduardo's mouth and mapping it, thoroughly and methodically committing every nook and cranny, the shape of every tooth, to memory, just in case, and when he has that, and only then, does he uncurl his own fists from Eduardo's shirt and shamelessly, greedily palms between Eduard's legs, his dick as hot and hard beneath his slacks as Mark's own feels, thrumming low with hunger how that he's had a taste.
That, of course, is when Eduardo takes his hands away, takes his mouth away from Mark, and steps back.
"Wait. Shouldn't we go on a date first?"
He's kidding. He's got to be kidding. Mark is hard, Eduardo is hard, and Eduardo is right here and so obviously willing, his mouth shiny and red, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes dark enough with arousal that Mark could get lost in them and should probably kiss Eduardo until he closes them again, just to be safe. "I know how much you work. You don't have time to date."
He cranes his neck, moving forward to chase that mouth, but Eduardo shakes his head, and Mark. Stops. Confused, wanting, and with doubt beginning to niggle at the edges of his mind.
"I don't want to just- I don't want-," Eduardo breaks off with an exasperated sigh, hand rubbing his face like he can wipe away the fog that stands between him and the words he wants to say but can't grasp.
"I meant it, Mark. I like you. I want to do this right."
Mark doesn't feel dizzy, but it's a close thing for a moment as his blood doesn't know if it wants to pool in his stomach or lower. Mark has always prided himself of his intelligence though, and even deprived as it is his brain comes up with an argument that doing this now and doing this right are not mutually exclusive.
"The first time we had take-out together, the time I let you get snot and this winter season's influenza virus all over me on your couch, and the time you had a migraine in my bed and woke me up every hour so I'd have to share your pain. Three dates, that counts as doing it right."
His hands twitch impatiently by his side, greedy to reach out and pull Eduardo in, or push against him, either way, just touch, touch and hold and feel and taste, but he needs the go for this, if they are doing this, and doing it right, which Mark is very much in favor of, then he needs to know he's allowed. After a moment of hesitation - and another look down at Mark's mouth that Mark notes with great satisfaction - Eduardo delivers.
"Okay. Okay, good, okay." He licks his lips, and Mark inhales sharply because those are now his lips to lick, when Eduardo continues. "Do you have…?"
Mark whines at the unfairness, his hands curling into fists tight enough that he feels even his short-clipped nails dig into his palms. "Do I have what?" He bites his own lips because those at least are there.
"Condoms. Lube," Eduardo says, eyes on Mark's mouth, again, still, and, oh. Oh. "Either? ..Neither? Why don't you have anything?"
This time it's Eduardo whom a pained noise escapes, and Mark sympathizes, he does, but he still feels the need to defend himself, and he does so after a quick swipe of his tongue just to see if he can make Eduardo make that noise again (he can't, but the one he does make is even better). "I'm not exactly a social person. I have hand lotion. That is cheaper and sufficient for my needs. Why don't you?"
Eduardo throws up his hands, his ever-wandering hands that have been off Mark for too long, and Mark could think of better uses for those fingers. "I don't live here!"
Semantics. Eduardo can move in right now. But about that…
"Do you have anything at the hotel?" Desperate times. Mark doesn't particularly want to drive around and trudge up to Eduardo's suite with a boner, but he wants to go and buy supplies with a boner even less. Suits don't hide anything.
"The hotel? No! I have maid service! Denise or Consuela or nice old Mrs. Habberton could have found it! Besides, I don't exactly go out much either."
That is not what Mark wanted to hear. It's so far from what he wanted to hear that the niggling comes back with whispers and questions. "Why."
"Because I work a lot?" It's hesitant more than sarcastic, and he must have caught something in Mark's voice, or in the way his fingers have stilled, because the doubt that's creeping into the pit of heat in Mark's stomach is mirrored in his eyes now.
"Why do you care what your maids might find? They work in a hotel. They are used to catching people mid-act, or at least finding come stains." Mark swallows, and isn't sure he even wants to know, because this was good, for a moment this was so good. "Are you even out to your family?"
The way Eduardo presses his lips together, in a wobbly excuse of an apologetic smile, tells Mark all that he needs to know. "Technically? No one has ever asked."
Mark gets the impression that Eduardo's family doesn't ask a lot of things. Right now he doesn't want to care.
"But I expected questions when I decided to show up with you at the wedding." His horrible smile turns shakily hopeful, and Mark decides that works for him.
"Good enough." Eduardo beams at him, bright and fond, and Mark foregoes making grabby hands some more to smile back because he did agree to doing this the right way.
Thankfully then Eduardo winks at him and steps up to Mark, pushing their bodies together and pressing his hips against Mark's just so, making Mark need to move and get some friction going. "Now, that lotion?"
"That won't work." It won't; Mark didn't always live with only his own right hand for company, he knows the limits of improvised sex, but he appreciates the sentiment, he does, and he takes a hold of Eduardo's head to show him just how much, hands framing the side of his face, noses bumping, and his mouth finally back in front of Mark's, only letting up when they are both red-faced and breathless.
"Hand lotion," Eduardo breathes against Mark's lips. "Handjobs. Naked handjobs. Unless you'd prefer dry-humping in our suits. I'll buy you a new o-oh, uh. Nevermind."
Naked, as it turns out, is good. And hand lotion works just fine for intercrural.
They are both on edge, and everything is rushed and frenzied, too hot, too bright, and over way too soon, but Mark gets to touch his share and taste and drink Eduardo in like a drowning man who has finally decided to let go and breath in that lungful of water because he's waited for too long and can't hold on anymore.
All in all, it takes maybe half an hour.
They have plenty of time to clean up and catch their flight, and Mark brings Eduardo back a wet towel from the bathroom because he looks like he's not quite ready to get back on his feet, dropping it on his stomach and then turning to find his clothes.
"Is this awkward now?"
The words stop Mark in his tracks and he freezes, one leg in the slacks of his rented tux, new pair of boxers on his hips and one for Eduardo left next to him on the bed (he didn't come in them but there's no need to wear anything with a wet spot when he has a drawer full of fresh ones).
"Why would it be awkward?"
"Because…," Eduardo gestures between them, from Mark, who is half dressed and half ready to go, to himself, still in bed, the blanket no longer tangled around his feet but pulled up mid-chest (that must have happened while Mark wasn't looking, squatting down to rummage for and pick up his socks). He's lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, his free hand still fluttering to and fro between them and everything from the rumpled clothes on the ground over the rumpled bed to their rumpled selves. "This," he eventually finishes lamely when it must have become obvious Mark was waiting for him to continue his reply.
Mark lets his eyes sweep the room to take in all of this, then they come to rest on Eduardo, with his I do yoga, it helps me unwind arms, his waxed once a month for no reason chest (because no one but his esthetician has seen him with his shirt off since New York, at least before now), the red lips that both him and Mark have bitten into their current swollen state, his lowered eyes (that, too, must have happened while Mark wasn't looking) and the dark halo of unruly hair framing his face. He makes something inside of Mark clench and tug, and getting back into bed seems infinitely more appealing that pulling up his pants. Mark doesn't want this to be awkward. "We are going to miss our flight."
Eduardo shrinks back at that, minutely, and blinks, warmth and pliantness gone as if Mark had upended a glass of cold water over him. His mouth falls open, working silently for a few seconds, and Mark figures what he's trying to get out is the declaration of awkwardness.
"You are terrible at this." There. There it is. Because Mark may be okay with being who and where and how he is, but others aren't as biased in favor of normal Mark and sooner or later decide to cut back on interactions with him. Mark swallows around a lump in his throat. He didn't expect it to be so soon.
"Really terrible. Or possibly too good. I'm not sure." Eduardo collapses back on the bed, eyes falling closed and heaving a heavy breath before talking to the ceiling. "Screw the flight. My extended family is huge; there'll be at least one other wedding this year."
Mark wavers, trying to decipher layers of meanings and implications because this is what he's not good at and maybe he's just hearing what he wants to hear, but then Eduardo pulls the blanket to the side in something that is clearly meant to be interpreted as an invitation, and Mark lets his slacks drop back to the floor and steps out of them.
His hands are cold from having stood around mostly naked, but the skin of Eduardo's stomach is still hot to the touch when Mark climbs back on the bed and slides them under the cover and across it. He shuffles closer, awkward after all, uncoordinated and aware that he's overthinking where to put his legs and arms and body, but Eduardo pulls the blanket over him and pushes closer so they move into and against each other in restless shifting before they settle. legs tangled, one of Mark's arms around Eduardo's waist, his head tucked under his chin, and Eduardo's hand a grounding weight in the small of his back, Mark would be hard pressed to say which one of them it is holding the other close.
They stay like that, and the tension of something about to break that had been building in the room slowly ebbs away until the relaxation, the pleasant hum and ache and heaviness, that Mark had tried to wipe away with his boxers, takes hold again and the afterglow lulls them.
"Mmmh." Eduardo hums sleepily, and his chest vibrates and rumples under Mark like a purring cat. "Not terrible." His chin nudges against Mark's skull for a moment before he exhales, deflating, and grows silent and soft. The careful, tentative air that hung between them since Eduardo pulled Mark in by his tie changes with him, into something content and solid.
Mark has never been what you could call smooth, and behind his suits and work ethic Eduardo isn't much better. Maybe they can handle things being a little awkward.
They stay in bed.
They doze, order pizza that Mark accepts at the door clad in nothing but boxers and covered in hickeys because Eduardo won't be seen like this even by a delivery guy, and eventually Eduardo calls up his freshly-married cousin to congratulate and excuse their absence, shamelessly calling while Mark is still half-draped over his chest, and marks up the next family event - a silver wedding anniversary - in his calendar once he gets off the phone.
Mark can't see Eduardo's face from where he's lying, but he's got a good view of his phone.
"March is coming up."
Mark is aware of this. He has been for a while.
The 15th is a block of red on the otherwise black and white screen - the only job-related notice against the more demure notes of birthday reminders. Eduardo must be keeping his work calendar on his laptop. Or maybe his assistant keeps it for him.
"I've been thinking. The office I have here is pretty nice too, even if I don't have the biggest desk, and I could always get a smaller chair to make it look bigger. Who knows what kind of office I'd get in Boston?"
"You would be the one picking out the offices, so, any office you want," Mark mumbles into his skin. He doesn't move his head.
Eduardo huffs into his hair."I'm asking if you want me to stay, Mark. Some more enthusiasm would be appreciated."
Mark's heart takes off and jackrabbits against his ribs, but he only heaves a theatric sigh, as if having to put up with Eduardo's perfectly normal need for affirmation is such a chore and he's a saint for putting up with it. Then he shifts up until he's lying all the way on top of Eduardo and blanketing him, head tucked under his chin, the sheet tangled uselessly between their legs, and his lips brush Eduardo's collarbone. "The climate's a lot nicer in California of course."
"Of course. And I always did have the best of times during summer." Eduardo blows a stray curl away from where its tips were tickling the skin below his lips, then curls his arm around Mark and holds him closer, humming, warm and lazy and willing to not go anywhere. "IT department's crap here though. Working normal hours and never available when I need them. I'll just have to hope nothing happens that can't wait and that I can't fix by turning my laptop off and on again."
Mark bites into the ridge of skin and bone that is lying under his mouth, just because it's there and he can. Eduardo laughs and swats a his back, then contradicts himself by trailing his hand up and curling it around the back of Mark's head, keeping it in place.
//
The card tucked into Eduardo's wallet reads Mark Zuckerberg, mobile emergency IT support. He keeps it there even though he doesn't need it. The number is programmed into his phone, the first one on his speed dial.