fic: it takes heart to love the rose
fic: it takes heart to love the rose
fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
notes: the one where eduardo has a heart condition! AU!
title is from the stars song, "look up". and is quite punny
so, this has been chilling for a while, because of various posting issues and various mornings spent cursing livejournal to hell. um, i honestly don't think it's all that great, now that i re-read it, but i want to post it because it's kind of like a thorn in my side at this point, hahaha.
it became a bit less about the heart condition and more about feelings. SHOCKING.
"You set me up," Eduardo whispers, and his chest squeezes. He closes his eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He thought he had this under control.
"You're gonna blame me because you were the business end of the company and you made a bad business deal with your own company?" Mark says, and Eduardo shakes his head, digging his fingers into his chest for a second, taking surreptitious deep breaths. Oh fuck oh fuck it is going to happen again, like it did last summer in Brazil.
"You better lawyer up, asshole," he spits, heart thumping irregularly, each beat dragged out, sending hot sparks up the inside of his chest like someone's scraping their fingernails over his ribs.
"Because I'm not coming back for thirty percent, I'm coming back for everything."
He stares at Mark, and turns on his heel and everything goes black.
He comes to and sees Dustin goggling at him. There are others above him. Eduardo can't see Sean anywhere. Thank the fucking Lord.
"He's awake!" Dustin calls when he sees Eduardo blink. "Guys, he's awake!"
"I told you, it's not a big deal," Mark says cuttingly. "He got like this all the time at Harvard."
"You asshole," Eduardo tries to say, but he can't speak. He can barely breathe. It feels like his heart is too big for his chest, and it's blocking all the air. He knows that's not how it works, that's not what the condition is. Stress-induced arrhythmia, the doctor had said in his heavily accented English, and his father had scoffed in the back of his throat, turned away.
"Dustin," he tries to gasp, breath coming faster in panic, and his heart is pounding thump- thump thump thump --- thump- each beat a stunning bright shock of pain, and he cannot get the words out. "Dustin, Dustin, please," he keeps saying, but it's just hisses, it is like a nightmare.
It is like last summer, when his father told him he'd have to start paying his own way at Harvard if he didn't switch his major to business. Eduardo had grabbed the back of the heavy wooden chair in his father's study and nodded, chest burning, and his face had gotten hot and he'd fallen, bringing the chair down on top of him.
He'd broken his nose, collapsing to the ground of the study.
He had a fucking heart attack.
He can not be having another heart attack no no no no-
"Mark, you need to call an ambulance," Dustin says, and Eduardo clamps a hand around Dustin's shirt, shakes his head. He can deal with this. He needs to be able to breathe. If he can breathe it will stop.
His face is hot, not just from the frantic irregular pounding in his chest, but because he's supposed to be making a furious exit right about now. Mark has just fucked him over, cut him out of Facebook, and he's on the floor of the fucking offices. It's pathetic.
"Wardo," Mark says, voice tight and mean and defensive. "Get up."
His fingernails scrabble on the floor. He has never felt this useless. He cannot breathe. The inside of his chest is burning fiercely. It hurts so fucking much.
Above him, Dustin's calling 911.
"Yeah, we have a guy and he just collapsed and I think it might have been a heart attack or something like that, except he's really young, and, fuck, he's my friend," Dustin babbles, and Mark turns away.
Eduardo's vision is going black at the edges. He puts a hand to his chest like that'll help, and passes out again.
Chris is above him the next time he wakes up. He's chewing his fingernails, a leg tucked up under him in a seat, and Eduardo breathes out slowly, carefully.
His chest feels vaguely numb, still tight but not crushing, and he keeps breathing for a couple minutes.
"Wardo," Chris says, pulling his chair over to Eduardo's hospital bed. Shit- shit, they're in a hospital. This is the worst angry dramatic exit of all time.
"You okay? How're you feeling?"
"Better," Eduardo says, taking another deep breath, feeling the hitch in his lungs.
"You scared the shit out of us," Chris says. Eduardo turns his head on the pillow, away from Chris.
"Sorry," he says automatically.
"Don't apologize. Mark's talking to the doctors."
"Why?" Eduardo says, trying to sound bitter and above it all, but his voice just comes out breathy and weak.
"Freaking out because you were still asleep. Wondering why the ambulance didn't come fast enough. Can you move your arm? Right one."
Eduardo flexes his fingers. They're stiff, but they respond. Chris exhales.
"We were worried."
"Why is Mark even here?" Eduardo asks, still in that quiet voice. Chris looks at him.
"For what it's worth, I didn't know he was doing it," Chris says. "I swear to God I didn't know."
Eduardo nods, chest clenching briefly, and he closes his eyes, heaves a breath.
"You okay? Should I- Should I call someone in?"
"I'm fine," Eduardo says, gritting his teeth. "It's happened before. I'll get more meds."
"It happened before?" Chris says concernedly. "When?"
"Last summer. In Brazil."
"You never told us."
"Why would I- there was no reason for you to know."
Chris looks a little indignant. "Yeah, it wouldn't have been of any help yesterday when you passed out in the offices," he says, shaking his head.
"Yesterday?"
"Yeah, Wardo. You had a heart attack. They had to see if they needed to do a surgery. They didn't, but Jesus, Wardo, you really fucking scared us."
His voice is defensive and scared and protective. It confuses Eduardo, makes him tired.
"Sorry," Eduardo says again, and winces.
Mark comes in then, face inscrutable. Chris leaves, squeezing his hand briefly, and Eduardo wants to ask him to stay, but he can't, not with Mark there.
He doesn't like laying down, weak and defenseless and pathetic, in front of Mark. This Mark with his cold, bloodshot eyes and hunched shoulders. He is angry, he wants anger to flood through him, make him strong.
He just feels weak and small and limp.
"Hi," Mark says flatly.
"Don't feel obligated to be nice to me," Eduardo says in response, with as much rage as he can muster. He claps a hand over his chest, takes a deep breath. "You can leave."
"Don't be an idiot, Wardo."
"Don't you fucking call me that," Eduardo hisses, and closes his eyes, inhaling deeply again. It hurts vaguely, in that scary far-off way it does sometimes, like if he takes his mind off it for a second his heart will squeeze so tight he'll just up and die, immediately, just expire like a balloon pricked by a pin, hissing its way to impotency.
"Wardo, stop being all angry."
Eduardo laughs. "Oh yes, screw me out of Facebook and then ask me not to be angry. That's completely plausible."
Mark sighs hard, frustrated. "Just- Wardo, stop-" he says, because Eduardo is breathing faster and faster, thinking about it, how he doesn't have- oh God he's not the CFO, he's not even on the masthead. He is nothing. He is- his chest clenches, a muscle in his shoulder twinges sharply, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
"Wardo, Jesus Christ," Mark says, and Eduardo's probably imagining it but Mark sounds concerned.
Which isn't possible.
And then he is opening his eyes, desperately, huffing out breaths now, and Mark is looming over him, staring at him. He finds Eduardo's nurse's button and presses it.
"What's going on?" the man says as he comes in, and Mark motions to Eduardo, head twisted back, muscles in his neck corded and sticking out, breathing quickly.
"Uh oh," the nurse says absentmindedly, and he adjusts the medicine dripping into the IV in Eduardo's hand. "He's a little worked up, isn't he."
Eduardo tries to glare at him, because it's all Mark's fucking fault, but he passes out again before he can turn his head.
---
He wakes up to Mark yelling. How pleasant.
"I'm not going to leave! He's staying with me!"
"Mr Zuckerberg, you've obviously been a great source of stress to the-"
"Bullshit. I'm not leaving."
"We've already contacted his parents."
"Oh, fantastic. They don't stress him out at all. What'd they even say?"
"He can wait here until he's able to fly. His father's health insurance covers the hospital time-"
"So they're not coming out, so I'm taking him home. He's not going to sit in a fucking hospital for a week."
"Mr. Zuckerberg-" and Mark sees Eduardo's awake. He leaves the room abruptly, face red.
The doctor sighs at the empty doorway and comes over to Eduardo's bedside.
"You'll need to stay for another couple days, to acclimate you to your new meds. They didn't work at first, since you were still experiencing some serious arrhythmia, but we've adjusted the dosage and I've written you a new prescription."
"Beta blockers?" Eduardo asks hoarsely, and the doctor hands him a cup of water.
"Yes. A stronger form than the kind you were on. This means, of course, that the side effects will be magnified."
Eduardo hates the side effects. For some reason he gets the worst of them- dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, nausea. His father never believed in that, though, said they were all in Eduardo's mind.
Eduardo really, really hates the side effects.
"Were you taking your beta blockers regularly before the incident?" the doctor asks reprovingly.
"I left them in New York," Eduardo admits. The doctor shakes his head.
"I didn't think- I didn't think I'd be stressed," Eduardo says. "It was a surprise."
"So I've heard," the doctor says, peering over his glasses. "That's why I'm extremely hesitant about releasing you into the care of Mr. Zuckerberg."
Eduardo hesitates.
He really hates Mark right now.
He is alone. He doesn't have Facebook and he doesn't have his friends and he is across the country from his apartment and from Harvard.
"You said my parents-" he stops.
"They expressed an interest that you would return to the East Coast when you're recovered."
Not even an invitation home. Well, of course. Eduardo's father never thinks it's real, Eduardo's little dizzy spells.
"I should stay with Mark for a while," Eduardo says determinedly. The doctor looks skeptical.
He is not quite sure what he's doing.
He just wants everything to be back to normal. His feet kicked up on the table in Mark's room, Dustin passed out on his thigh, Chris watching the Discovery Channel and eating ramen, and Mark typing at his desk.
It hasn't been like that for a summer, though. Three fucking months.
"Really. I can stay with Mark. Until I- until I'm good to fly."
He doesn't even know where he'll go after that. To Harvard, he thinks. Harvard without Chris or Mark or Dustin. Harvard, where Christy is still a sophomore. Shit.
"That'll be around ten days. Mr. Saverin, you need to take your medication regularly. Absolutely no exceptions."
"I know," Eduardo says, a little pettily.
"Morning and night. With food. You're aware of the side effects?"
"Yes," Eduardo says. "I get a lot of them."
The doctor writes something on his chart.
"Well, they're going to be a bit stronger, like I said. This medication is powerful. Two heart attacks in two years is not good for anyone, Mr. Saverin."
"Oh really," Eduardo mutters sarcastically.
"If it happens again…" the doctor sighs. "We'd almost definitely have to perform an angioplasty. Which I don't want to have to do."
"But I hope you still will, if you have to," Eduardo says, dryly, feeling curiously light, almost giddy.
The doctor shoots him an unimpressed look, makes a note on his chart.
"I'm going to find Mr. Zuckerberg," he says, and leaves.
---
Eduardo doesn't see Mark for the next three days. He sleeps, mostly. Eats bland hospital food and gets weirdly invested in the lives of the characters on General Hospital.
He doesn't ask after Mark because he does not care, but Chris visits him every day and tells him, "Mark's basically working like an insane person so he can stay home when you get out."
Eduardo does not know how to feel about that.
In any case, he doesn't have any more episodes. His meds suck, but he's kept on IV and he's asleep most of the time so he only pukes three times.
He mostly just feels exhausted, and vaguely sick, and weak to the bone.
And- and he is a little bit terrified, to go home with Mark.
On Thursday, Mark shows up in a hoodie and jeans, his hair a mess, and Eduardo is taken out the hospital door in a wheelchair. He stumbles out of it as soon as they let him, because Mark seeing him in a fucking wheelchair, it's just pathetic.
Mark drives him to a big-ish house, not far from the offices.
"Sean, uh, found it for me," he says, pulling into the garage, and Eduardo nods, stomach sinking.
"I thought, um, the couch. Chris helped me make it up. And- and Dustin lent some clothes."
Eduardo nods again, and Mark gestures at the living room again, and disappears upstairs.
----
He doesn't come down until the next morning, shoves a box of cereal at Eduardo, nods, eyes averted, and disappears again.
what was the point of him doing work if he stays upstairs on his laptop anyway?, Eduardo sends to Chris after the second day like that.
Not that he cares. But he is bored out of his fucking mind. School doesn't start for two weeks; he's scheduled to fly back to Boston in ten days.
He thinks a lot, about Facebook, about what happened. About what it meant to him. About how maybe it was Mark who meant something.
He doesn't let himself think about that for too long, though, just turns on General Hospital and sleeps.
Chris texts him back, are you fucking serious? ugh. i will fix it.
Eduardo's stomach flips when he reads that, and stays quivering because just twenty minutes later he hears footsteps on the stairs.
Mark gives Eduardo one of the bland frozen meals Chris had stocked Mark's never-before-used freezer with, and sits down on the armchair.
Eduardo eats in wary, awkward, silence, until it's too much and he blurts-
"So, you're - uh. Not going back to Harvard, right?"
Mark sends him a blank, flat look. "No," he says.
They lapse into silence again.
Eduardo is not sure if he wants to scream at Mark.
He is so angry. It hurts when he thinks about it, makes his chest tighten and his head throb.
Mostly, though, he is exhausted.
"I've been watching General Hospital, for the last couple days. Weirdly addictive," he says into the silence.
Mark snorts unexpectedly, and Eduardo cracks another joke, and then somehow they're just talking. Not about Facebook, or users, or shares, or the awful thing that just happened. Just talking. About soap operas, then the stock market, and then the admissions spike in Ivy League applications. Random shit.
Eduardo ignores the un-random shit, the Facebook or shares or betrayal, and finds after five minutes it's not that hard.
He doesn't know whether to be happy or frustrated with himself, that he can do it that easily.
---
"I used to get seizures, when I was a kid," Eduardo says randomly a half hour later, when their conversation about the merits of the various Star Wars movies trails off. Mark doesn't move.
He's not sure why. It's not that he wants Mark's pity, exactly, he just- fuck. He doesn't know.
"It was never a huge deal, but my father- he didn't. He didn't even think it was a real thing."
"Idiot," Mark says harshly. Eduardo laughs.
"Yeah. I seized in front of him when I was ten. He left the room. I bit, right here-" he gestures at his bottom lip. "Nearly all the way through my lip."
"They trailed off, when I was in high school. My meds for those, though, sort of fucked up my heart. And apparently I was high-strung."
Mark snorts softly.
"Why are you telling me this," he says quietly, and then- "Why- why did you come home with me?"
"I can't tell how much of a bad person you are, and it's confusing," Eduardo says slowly.
Mark looks away defensively, rolling his eyes.
"Because we were best friends," Eduardo says. Mark doesn't look at him. "And I just. How is it possible that we're not going to be, all of a sudden."
"It's not personal, Wardo," Mark says, but it sounds weak.
"That's- that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard," Eduardo says, still in a calm slow voice because he needs to not get worked up again. "I don't know if you noticed, but I took it personally."
Mark's face is laid open for once, defiance and contempt and sadness all there for Eduardo to see.
"And I know - Sean - " Eduardo takes a deep breath. It sucks, that one person can make his heart speed up that much. And not in a good way, like when he and Mark used to make out, drunk and laughing, on the couch on Saturday nights.
"Never mind," he says, because he can't talk about Sean.
"I didn't know you'd- Sean was getting meetings out here, Eduardo-"
"Can we please not talk about Sean," Eduardo says in one breath, and puts his hands on his thighs, focuses on breathing.
"Yeah," Mark says, and stands up. "I gotta work." He disappears upstairs.
Eduardo doesn't know what's going to happen. It's like a weird limbo.
He hasn't signed the papers, yet. His death sentence.
He remembers Sean, smirking, we will get the signature, and his heart throbs painfully.
No. No. He cannot think about that.
This whole thing is so fucking frustrating, what he can and can't do, can and can't talk about. While he's down, Mark's going to stab him in the back.
Except- wait. Mark already did that, the stabbing, and Eduardo didn't even need to be in a hospital bed.
He's weak and pathetic every day, not just after he's had an attack.
Great.
--
The next night, Chris drops off food and they eat in silence. Eduardo has to eat soup, and plain pale chicken, and other bland boring shit he hates. It's not fair. Mark is scooping lo mein into his mouth, washing it down with a Beck's. Asshole.
Mark takes the plate when they're done, and Eduardo takes a sip of water and leans his head back against the couch, closes his eyes.
He feels rather than sees Mark come back into the room.
"Why didn't you tell me, last year. About what happened that summer."
"It wasn't a big deal," Eduardo says with his eyes closed. Mark snorts without humor.
"Don't be such a victim, Wardo," he says meanly, reflexively, and it hits Eduardo right in the gut. Because that's not what he wanted to be, but it's what he is, and he can't control it. Fuck, he hates himself sometimes.
"That was rude," Mark says grudgingly.
"Whatever," Eduardo says weakly, too fucking tired to fight about it. He's not going to say that, though, because Mark'll just call him a victim again.
"I didn't tell you because it was over. I was on my meds, I was fine. How does one bring that up in conversation, anyway? Oh, yeah, my summer was great, I went to Brazil, I had a heart attack, no big deal-"
"Why did it happen? That time?"
Eduardo is exhausted.
"Just some shit with my father," he says vaguely.
Mark is shaking his head knowingly. "I can't believe the doctor wanted them to come," he says angrily. "Fucking-"
"Yeah, they're my parents, Mark."
"And he made you have a heart attack."
Neither of them say it, the obvious. Mark just goes red, looks away, and Eduardo closes his eyes.
"We don't have to talk about it anymore," he says, opening his eyes and grabbing his Blackberry off the table.
There is a pause, then Mark clears his throat and speaks.
"Are you going to sue?" he asks, voice low.
Eduardo huffs out a heavy breath. "Haven't signed any papers yet," he says, and Mark turns away, shuffles quickly out of the room.
Are they in some kind of a stand-off?
Mark's going to win, if they are. Mark always wins.
Eduardo won't sue. He already knows that. He tries to picture himself in a deposition room, talking about Facebook. Mark across from him, staring at him, cold and snake-like and terrifying the way he gets when someone challenges him and he knows he's right.
His arrhythmia would get so bad, like worse than finals last year.
Speaking of- his beta blockers are on the kitchen table.
He stands up and nearly stumbles. He's been sitting for several hours. His circulation is fucked.
"Shit," he mutters, and takes a cautious step. His right foot is fully asleep, and it prickles sharply.
Eduardo grits his teeth and grabs the couch, takes a step onto the foot and everything spins.
He falls. Not far, he catches himself, but he ends up on the floor caught between the couch and the table.
He listens, carefully, not quite sure if he'd actually prefer Mark to have heard.
No one comes though, so he heaves a sigh of relief and pulls himself up, except nope, his right foot is still numb, and he sits back down heavily.
Okay. He'll just. Stay there. His head's spinning, swirling, and he closes his eyes.
He wakes up to Mark practically shaking him.
"What the fuck, Wardo!"
"What?" he mumbles, and his neck is painfully stiff. He looks around. He's still on the floor, legs stretched in front of him. He shakes the right one experimentally. It's not as numb, though a few hot sparks go through it, aftereffects.
"What happened?" Mark is saying, and Eduardo tries to focus on him. His head still feels heavy, brain sluggish.
"Nothing," Eduardo says. "I was just grabbing my meds. I sat down."
Mark thrusts the bottle of pills at him, and Eduardo grabs his Blackberry. Fuck, he's three hours overdue. He's not sure if he should just wait till morning, or- he needs food to take it with, or he'll throw up, he always has. And his chest hurts.
Fucking fantastic.
"Um, I should just wait, until the morning," he says, fumbling to put the bottle back on the table.
Mark stares at him.
"I'm fine," Eduardo says pointedly.
"Wardo, you're on the floor."
Eduardo looks around him.
"Yeah," he says, swallowing. His mouth is dry. He forgot how much beta blockers suck for the first couple months.
Mark is still hovering over him.
Eduardo doesn't say anything, just lolls his head back against the couch. His stomach feels empty and his chest pulses slightly, painfully, and he's so tired.
"You can't fall asleep again, what the fuck-" Mark says, and Eduardo just nods at him dismissively, eyes slipping shut.
He wakes up again quickly when Mark takes him under the arms and tries to push him back up on the couch.
"What," he mumbles, and Mark says, "Get on the fucking couch, Wardo."
His voice might be a little panicky, he's not sure.
Eduardo stretches out and drops off into drowsy, light sleep. He can hear Mark from the kitchen, on the phone.
"He passed out on the floor- yes, I am aware of the side effects! But he couldn't even get up! Don't tell me it's not a big fucking deal. I'll curse if I want to. He- he missed one dose. What the fuck do you know?"
Eduardo pushes his face into the couch, trying to make him shut up with his mind, and falls asleep.
---
He wakes up to Dustin staring anxiously at him, about six inches from his face.
"Jesus, Dustin," he says, backing away, and Dustin grins wide.
"He's awake!" he calls. Mark grunts affirmatively. Chris comes over from the kitchen, with an oven mitt on his hand.
"Why is it such a celebration I'm awake?" Eduardo asks blearily, pushing himself up to sitting.
Chris hands him a muffin.
"Careful, they're hot," he says, and Eduardo nods.
"Mark, toss me the pills," Dustin says, and Chris rolls his eyes, goes to the kitchen and grabs them.
"Here," he says, handing Eduardo two. Eduardo takes them.
"No, stupid, after you eat the muffin," Dustin instructs, and pushes a glass of water at him. Eduardo washes them down quickly, grimacing at the taste.
"Basically, we're not letting Mark take care of you, because he's incompetent and couldn't keep a plant alive," Chris explains.
"I'm fine," Eduardo says, and Dustin shoves a muffin into Eduardo's mouth, giggling like a kid.
"Dustin," Chris says exasperatedly, and Eduardo rolls his eyes and pulls it out, chewing.
"Good," he notes, and Chris smiles.
"You feel okay?" Dustin says, sitting next to him. Eduardo nods.
"I'm fine. Seriously. I can probably fly back in a week, if I keep taking aspirin."
Chris stares concernedly at him.
"Go back?" Dustin says. "No way. You'll stay here, right?"
Eduardo is hit with an overwhelming wave of anger, and it hurts.
"We're all pretending to be friends right now, making fucking muffins or whatever, but you're avoiding the fact that I'm not part of your fucking company any more," he spits out.
Dustin and Chris are suddenly very interested in other things. Mark's in the doorway of the kitchen, back rigid, shoulders hunched.
"So I don't want to be around you," Eduardo says weakly. He takes a deep breath. Dustin hands him the water again and Eduardo pushes it away, nearly spills it.
"Fuck off," he says, and staggers to his feet.
"I need to leave," he says, chest constricting. He can't be in this fucking house, with fucking Mark and these people he barely even knows anymore. He can't.
"Eduardo, come on," Dustin says quietly. "Sit down."
"Just fuck all of you," he says, and walks, a little unsteadily, past Mark into the kitchen.
He has to stop and balance himself on the counter, heave out three breaths, but he grabs his phone, calls a cab.
"Wardo, what are you doing?" Chris says, standing up, and Eduardo holds up a finger to shush him.
"Yeah, a cab, please," he says, giving them Mark's address. Mark is looking at him, eyes hooded, and Dustin runs over to him, wrenches the phone out of his hand and says, "Just kidding!" into the receiver and hangs up.
"You're such an asshole," Eduardo says breathily, barely even aware of how he's leaning heavily on the counter now, nearly doubled over.
"Please sit down," Dustin says pleadingly, and takes Eduardo's arm in his like he's a little old lady.
Eduardo's head and stomach are spinning dizzily. He shakes his head. He did not eat enough.
Which means- fuck.
He pushes away from Dustin, shaking his head, and stumbles to the sink and throws up, retches liquid and the remains of his dinner from last night.
It's just routine, because of the pills hitting his system, but it still sucks, and God they're all staring at him, don't they have work or something? He is not a fucking freak show.
Dustin steps closer and rubs his back with one hand, gives him a glass of water, and Eduardo rinses and spits, eyes watering, leaning back against the counter.
"Was it the muffin?" Dustin asks, glaring at Chris.
"The meds," Chris says. "I read the side-effects. Has to be taken with soluble fat or it's not good for the stomach."
"You're staying," Dustin says, still with a hand on his back, and Eduardo doesn't even know if Dustin knew about the dilution.
He can't fucking trust any of these people, and they're all he has.
---
Mark works downstairs that day, and Eduardo slips in and out of sleep with the steady warm click-clack of Mark's typing flitting in from the kitchen.
He dreams about Harvard, about craning over a computer screen, eyes blurry, back aching, and saying, "Shit that looks good that looks really good."
And then he has a confusing real-feeling dream where he wakes up, gets off the couch and goes to the kitchen and says, "I'm going to sue and I'm going to take everything from you, you fucking piece of shit."
In the dream Mark exhales like he's been punched and Eduardo immediately, sharply regrets it.
He wakes up with a jerk, eyes snapping open, and he must make some kind of noise because Mark hovers in the doorway, says, "Hey- do you- do you want some water?"
He coughs, throat dry, and says, "Sure."
Mark sets down a glass in front of him a moment later, and then Eduardo says, "Mark-"
Mark turns apprehensively to him.
"Bring me the papers," Eduardo says, skin prickling.
"What?"
"Mark. Bring me the papers. I'm not going to not know, anymore. I just want this to be over."
Mark doesn't say anything.
"Are you going to sue," he says finally, low in his throat.
Eduardo leans his head back against the couch.
"No."
"Why?" Mark whispers.
"Just bring me the fucking papers. Make me sign a goddamn contract saying I won't sue, I don't care, but don't fucking ask me that, okay, Mark?"
Mark doesn't fight back like Eduardo wants him to, just shrugs, shoulders hunched, and leaves the room.
----
They don't talk the rest of the night. At midnight the doorbell rings, and Eduardo wakes up from a drowse, hears pounding.
"Hey buddy," someone says to Mark, and Eduardo lifts his head, blinking.
It's Sean.
Something physically jerks in his chest, which scares the shit out of him, and he doesn't know whether to pretend to be asleep or to get up and punch Sean in the fucking face.
It doesn't matter, because Sean sees him.
"How's our little patient?" he says, coming to stand over him. Mark is hovering in the doorway, chewing the string of his hoodie.
Eduardo doesn't say anything, just sits up, swings his legs off the couch. His face is hot.
"Silent treatment, huh?" Sean says, and claps Eduardo on the shoulder.
Eduardo sucks in a breath, keeping his eyes down.
"Mark told me you came around. Smart decision. Here we go-" he pushes Eduardo's discarded mug of tea off to the side, on the coffee table, and sets out some papers.
"It'd be better if a lawyer were present, but Mark didn't want them here in your delicate state."
"I told you to just drop the papers off, Sean," Mark says, voice small. Sean laughs.
"And not see how our little CFO is doing? Oh, I couldn't."
Eduardo closes his eyes, pen in hand. His breathing is labored.
"Okay, so you're gonna have to sign eight times. Here, here, here-" he points out the various lines and Eduardo knows where to fucking sign, he is an econ major, but he can't move his hand. His right hand is seizing up. Fuck.
"Mark," Eduardo says unwillingly. He just needs Mark to understand exactly what he's feeling, and get Sean the fuck out of the room.
"Sean," Mark says. Sean laughs again.
"You told me yourself it wasn't a big deal, Mark," he says jovially. Eduardo looks at him in shock. Mark doesn't meet his eyes.
"I'll tear the contracts if you don't leave," Eduardo says, taking the papers up in his left hand, right still frozen around the pen.
"So touchy," Sean says, rolling his eyes, and walks out into the kitchen.
Eduardo stares at the contracts, eyes blurring. His head aches steadily, in time with his heart.
This is it, then.
The end of Facebook, of this stupid wonderful idea Mark shared with Eduardo, would ramble on about when Eduardo made him sleep, curled around him on Mark's bed in Kirkland.
That thrill of excitement when they hit each new milestone- 1000, 10,000, 150,000.
Mark excited, Mark grinning, Mark drinking and coding and kissing him.
He'll never do that again.
His father will probably never speak to him again.
It's worth it, maybe. To be free of all this bullshit. Eduardo is not sure if it is worth it, but it's something.
He'll go back to Harvard, get a job. He has enough money left from last summer to pay for his last year, if he sells some stock.
It won't be awful. He's not like Mark. He had friends, at school.
None like Mark, though.
He remembers Mark saying it's nothing personal and he doesn't understand that. He cannot understand that.
Is Mark his friend, now? What held them together, before this?
He bites his lip and his heart stutters relentlessly, painfully.
He signs his name eight times. Eduardo Luis Saverin.
He leans back against the couch, breathing deep. He can't tell if he's relieved, or-
He breathes. He breathes. Mark stands in the doorway, staring.
"There you go," he says eventually, and throws the pen onto the table, massages his stiff right hand with his left.
"Eduardo-"
"There. It's not a big deal, right? That's what you said."
"I didn't mean it."
"Oh Christ, Mark, it doesn't matter. Take your fucking papers. When I can fly I'll leave. It's over."
He wonders what Mark is thinking. If Mark is maybe thinking I still want to be your friend, or I still want to have sex with you. Or maybe he's more predictable, just, he's signed the contracts, how soon can I get the pathetic fucker out of here?
It would be so much easier if Mark would just be predictable.
Eduardo has no idea, and he is so exhausted by it all.
"I can find a hotel room for a week," he says.
"Don't be an idiot," Mark says, voice rough. Eduardo is glad for the darkness of the room, lit only by the kitchen now.
"Sean here?" Eduardo says, pushing the contracts across the table.
"No."
"Why did you say that to him," Eduardo says, and his voice shakes. "You think that? Did you ever give a shit? Was I- I just. Was I a bank account?"
"Why the fuck can't you see that you and Facebook are two different things?" Mark says hotly, stumbling over the words.
"Because we're not all robots, Mark!"
"I'm not a fucking robot!" Mark screams, unexpected and sharp, and Eduardo flinches. "I don't want you to go back to Harvard! I want you here, all the time, and I hate it! Is that enough fucking emotion for you?"
Eduardo stumbles to his feet, driven by some urgent impulse, and his head spins.
"You're so- goddamnit, Mark, you're so stupid," he says, walking carefully, shakily, towards him and Mark quivers before him and then he's pushing Mark against the wall and kissing him.
Mark makes a desperate, wanting sound in his throat and flattens against the wall, wrapping his hands around Eduardo's waist. Slices of light from the kitchen illuminate his nose, his jaw. Eduardo is dizzy.
Mark licks and bites at his mouth, and Eduardo pushes back as hard as he can until he has to gasp out a breath. His heart is pounding frantically, too fast.
But Mark tastes good, and he's planting kisses all over Eduardo's neck, around Eduardo's pulse.
Eduardo is not supposed to have sex for a month. He remembers that.
"Mark," he says, and the inside of his chest burns for a moment. Mark kisses him full on the lips again, warm and soft.
"I have to-" Eduardo motions to the couch, voice rising, and suddenly Mark's supporting his weight. What the fuck.
"Jesus," Mark gasps out, and practically drags him back to the couch.
"Wardo, Wardo-" he's chanting, and Eduardo's right side is numb. Well, fuck.
"It's fine," he says and moves his arm. It lifts. That's a good start. "I'm sorry. The first month sucks. I'm really sorry."
"Why the fuck are you apologizing?" Mark says, angry but not really. Mark has different types of anger, like contempt-anger and defensive-anger and concerned-anger and flat out rage.
Eduardo forgot about this. It's hard, once you spend time away from him, and more around normal people.
Mark takes decoding. Eduardo forgot. Or maybe he just didn't want to try, because it's easier to take what Mark says at face value, easier to believe he's just an irredeemable asshole.
If he actually thinks about it, thinks about why Mark might have drawn up those contracts- it's terrifying.
Mark brings him a glass of water, mouth set in a tight unhappy line.
Eduardo sighs and leans his head back against the couch, watches Mark pick up takeout boxes and empty cups and muffin wrappers.
"If you want me here, why did you do it?" he asks quietly. Mark freezes.
"I need to think about Facebook," Mark says. "All the time, Wardo."
Eduardo waits for the familiar rush of anger. It doesn't come.
"And I- I don't know exactly what I think about you and. This. Us. But you weren't helping the company. You tried to monetize, Wardo. It's not the time."
Eduardo wants to defend himself, wants to make a picky, asshole-ish list of every reason why Mark is an idiot and he is right.
He is so tired. He is not a part of Facebook, and he's at a point where he can accept it, accept that this idiotic person in front of him is still going to be a major part of his life because he just can't not be.
Or he can ignore it and leave and never see Mark again. Those are the two choices.
"I need to graduate," he says.
Mark nods, hands full of trash.
"I don't- I don't know what you want," Eduardo says helplessly.
"I don't know either, okay?" Mark says defensively, and throws everything away, comes back into the room and hovers in the doorway.
"Just- Facebook is-"
"-your life, I get it, Mark," Eduardo says wearily.
"But I feel better when you're here," Mark says. He goes red, turns away.
Eduardo's head hurts, a dull low ache.
"Can you come here," he asks flatly.
Mark hesitates. Eduardo pats the space on the couch next to him with one hand.
Mark gets close enough, leans down, says, "Are you okay?" and Eduardo pulls him onto the couch by the front of his shirt.
Mark is warm. He's in a thin worn gray t-shirt and his skin is flushed with heat. Eduardo buries his face in Mark's neck, inhales.
Mark smells like - like shampoo, and basic un-flowery soap and Chinese food and fabric softener and like college, like Harvard, like nights spent lying on his back on Mark's bed while Mark laid on his belly next to him, typing.
Like nights when he'd rub the back of Mark's shin with his ankle, put a hand on his back, talk at him about whatever.
Eduardo is so nostalgic. It is a problem. Because Mark fucked him over, Mark lives in Palo Alto now. Mark has Sean, now.
But right then when he's inhaling Mark's familiar scent and Mark is curling a hesitant hand around Eduardo's back and Mark is so warm, so solid- it's hard to remember that.
"Eduardo," Mark says softly, and puts a hand on Eduardo's chest, over his heart.
"I don't know," Eduardo says. He closes his eyes.
"What did you think I was going to ask?" Mark says, slightly amused.
"What we're doing. If I'm okay. Why I just-" he exhales. "The answer's I don't know. To all of them."
Mark huffs out a laugh, and Eduardo swears he feels Mark press a kiss onto the juncture between neck and shoulder.
"What the fuck are we doing," Eduardo says desperately, but his chest feels looser than it has in a week. Mark keeps holding him. How can he be such an asshole when he talks, and then hold Eduardo like that?
Like he's breakable.
It makes Eduardo feel strong and weak all at once.
He is so confused.
"I meant it when I said I need you out here," Mark says quietly, secretly, into the space below Eduardo's ear.
Eduardo shudders, and Mark pulls back, one hand still on the back of Eduardo's neck.
"You okay?" he says. Eduardo nods.
"I just don't get you sometimes," he says. Mark stares at him, eyes dark.
Eduardo can't stand Mark looking at him like that.
"I need to graduate," he says, too loud into the silence. Mark's face shutters.
"Yeah," he says coldly, and takes his hand off Eduardo's neck.
"I have one year left," Eduardo says. Mark makes an irritated little sound, like, I know, I'm not an idiot.
"I- Mark, I'd come to California," Eduardo says, and what the fuck is he saying?
"I don't think I'm going to grad school- can't- can't really afford it, but, fuck, I'd come out, Mark. Mark, do you-"
Mark has his face turned around. Eduardo cannot make it out.
"I just ruined your life," he says flatly. "I screwed you out of Facebook. And you want to wait a year just to be with me."
Eduardo's cheeks go hot.
"I thought that's what you wanted," he whispers.
"I said I don't know what I want," Mark says sharply.
Then, more quietly, "I don't get why you want me."
"I don't know either," Eduardo says honestly. Mark recoils visibly, hurt.
"Okay," he says, shoulders stiffening, turning away. Eduardo grabs his arm.
"Can't you just take it for what it is, though? Because you just- yeah, you screwed me out of Facebook and I'm still asking you to wait for me. Doesn't that- can't you just-"
He breaks off, not sure what he wants to say.
He still wants Mark so, so much. He will never not want Mark, not Facebook but Mark, and it's not fucking fair.
"You don't have the best track record, Wardo, so excuse me if I don't take your wanting me as some kind of validation," Mark says, seemingly out of nowhere, and Eduardo interjects-
"Wait, what?"
"Your father. The psycho girlfriend. I can't tell if you actually like me or if you're just a masochist."
Eduardo exhales shakily. His head pounds, throbs near the base of his neck.
Mark stands up.
"Just want to be with you," Eduardo says helplessly, and how is he the one begging? He's fucking begging for Mark's approval. Everything is flipped. His head will not stop hurting.
Mark doesn't say anything, just leaves.
Eduardo pushes his face into the couch, swallows a stupid dry choky sob. It sits like a lump in his chest.
He falls asleep like that, breathing wetly against the fabric, and he wakes up sometime in the night to Mark pushing him gently down to lying.
"Mark," he murmurs, and Mark doesn't say anything at all, just puts a blanket on him and lets his hand linger on Eduardo's chest for a moment.
Mark's palm is warm and Eduardo wants to have them be together, pushed together, for a while, for Mark to be wriggled into every crevice of his body, skin to skin. He is tired and incoherent and he can only open his eyes halfway, and Mark is gone before he can wake up.
Eduardo's heart thumps, a heavy beat, then goes back to normal. He exhales, and sleeps.
---
When he wakes up the next morning, Mark is gone.
There are pans clinking in the kitchen, and Eduardo picks himself up with difficulty, leans against the doorframe.
Chris is cooking.
"Morning," Eduardo says, and Chris wheels around, spoon in hand.
"Wardo!" he says, and pushes a plate of eggs across the table.
"EggBeaters," he says, turning back to the stove. "They taste kind of weird, but I put cheese in them so they should be better."
Eduardo sits down at the table.
"You don't have to do all this," he says, and Chris rolls his eyes.
"It's not a big deal, Wardo."
"I just- I don't get why you guys are still here," Wardo says quietly, and takes a bite of eggs.
Chris turns around, pan in his hand, eyes steely.
"You're a good person, Eduardo," he says, and Eduardo stops chewing. "You're a good friend. You're all of our's friend. We actually give a shit about you. So just- just stop acting like you don't deserve it."
He turns around again. Eduardo puts another bite in his mouth, because he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to say anything for once. He wants to accept it.
He really, really, wants to think he deserves it.
"I told Mark I'd come out to California last night," Eduardo says, and Chris drops the spoon on the floor with a loud clatter.
"What?" he says, turning around, picking it up, and throwing it in the sink. How very Chris, to have a little breakdown and then move briskly past it.
"I asked him if he wanted me to come to California. I said I would, after I graduate."
"Wait, wait, wait. What the fuck happened last night?" Chris asks, eyes wide. "Did Mark get a personality transplant or something?"
Eduardo snorts. "No. He doesn't get it. He said- said I was a masochist."
He looks away after that, and Chris shakes his head.
"Mark, you are such an idiot," he mutters to the air. Eduardo laughs again, rough and unamused.
"I signed the papers," he admits. "I'm not- I'm not a part of Facebook, anymore."
"And you still said you'd come out?" Chris says incredulously, and Eduardo nods.
"Oh fuck," Chris breathes, realizing. "You two are. Again. Okay. Wow." He huffs out a laugh, smiles helplessly. "I just- I didn't think he'd ever get you back."
Eduardo doesn't know what to say to that.
"Turns out it only took a week," he says, wistful and maybe happy and a little bit of self-loathing mixed in too.
Chris pushes the pill bottle across the table.
Eduardo nods, takes them, washes them down with another bite of eggs.
"And so now Mark is being an idiot, and avoiding you, and being a wimp," Chris says, dipping his fork into Eduardo's eggs and putting it in his mouth thoughtfully.
"He was so fucking scared," Chris says. "When you- with your thing. I know he acted like a dick. But, fuck, Wardo, he was terrified."
"I aim to please," Eduardo mutters.
"Don't be obtuse. You know what I mean."
"Dustin would so make fun of you right now for saying obtuse," Eduardo says.
"Yeah, well, Dustin would think I was referring to an angle, so no. If I conformed to what Dustin thinks I should say, I'd be speaking in grunts."
"Kinky," Eduardo says, and Chris laughs unexpectedly, grins at him. Eduardo forgot, this summer, how much he genuinely likes these people. It was easy to forget, in New York, when all he got were drunk texts from Dustin (mark swam 30 lasp drunk we thouht he drowned but chris savd him or dude dude due hooked upwiht hottest girle ver srsly , followed by a grainy picture of what Eduardo assumed was the girl) or curt, business-like emails from Mark.
He missed talking with them, conversations about stuff he understood, not perl or coding but normal fucking topics where they listened to him and responded and he actually felt like a valued human being.
"I'm going back to Harvard, next semester, in January," Chris says. "I need to get a degree. If I work as Facebook's PR forever, I will go gray by twenty five."
Eduardo laughs, pushing his fork through the leftover eggs.
Chris' Blackberry buzzes, and he picks it up, sighs heavily as he reads.
"Make that twenty-three," he says wearily, and picks up his jacket. "I gotta run. You feeling alright?"
Eduardo nods, and Chris fishes a bottle of Dasani out of the fridge, puts it in front of him.
"Drink. I'll make Mark come home soon."
Eduardo just nods again, feeling curiously loved. He is not accustomed to having someone who gives a shit about his happiness.
"Thanks," he says, before Chris leaves. Chris nods distractedly, typing on his Blackberry, and shoots him a quick grin.
"Go back to sleep," Chris says. "Call, text, anything. Seriously, Wardo. Mark should be back soon. You still shouldn't be alone-"
"Chris, I'm fine."
----
Eduardo watches TV, curls up on the couch with his bare feet pressed against the end of it. He's wearing a pair of Mark's sweatpants, and they're too short. He looks at his ankles, lifts one curiously. He has okay ankles. They're very tan. Christy liked that about him.
He's watching General Hospital when Mark gets back, half-asleep.
He's woken up by Mark turning the television off, but he doesn't open his eyes.
"Still drowsy," Mark murmurs, almost to himself. Eduardo keeps his eyes closed, but his heart rate spikes.
Mark puts a hand over his heart again, and his thumb rubs gently over Eduardo's nipple. Eduardo's next slow breath is shuddery, tenuous.
Mark leans forward and down, and his lips brush Eduardo's.
Eduardo opens his eyes, curls a hand finger-by-finger around the back of Mark's neck, keeps him there.
Mark makes a noise of surprise in his throat, and Eduardo licks into his mouth, kisses him squarely, warm and soft. Maybe it's the food he ate, the fact that he kept his meds down for the first time in two days, the way the sun's warming him gently through the window and he's curling his bare toes in the rough fabric of the couch, but it just feels good. Fuck, it feels good. His skin prickles deliciously. Mark tastes like spit and the faintest traces of Red Bull. Familiar, human.
"You shouldn't," Mark says, pulling away, and Eduardo nods, keeps touching him, though, rubbing his fingers down Mark's neck, under the hem of his T-shirt onto his pale back.
"Did sex- uh, when we used to- did that hurt? Your heart, I mean?" Mark asks, and Eduardo shakes his head.
"Felt better. Felt more relaxed."
Mark nods, and his mouth quirks up at the edges, amused.
"Not that I can- now," Eduardo stammers.
"I know."
Eduardo sits up, takes a swig of the Dasani bottle on the table. Mark stands awkwardly over him, hovers over the arm of the couch.
"Chris is going back to Harvard next semester," Eduardo says, voice flat but something rising in his stomach, like excitement. His chest squeezes, but not in a bad way. A pleasant tightness, a reminder.
"I know," Mark says again. He is still hovering.
"So, uh. What if I did that too?"
Mark sits down on the armchair. "You'd take a semester off?" he says. Eduardo waits for him to freak out, in his Mark way.
"Yeah. It's just. Just one. I could find an internship out here."
Mark doesn't say anything.
"Mark?" Eduardo asks cautiously.
"Yes. I'm just- thinking about what I want to say. Chris told me to."
Eduardo laughs, so unreasonably fond of him.
"Okay. Wardo. I want to be with you. I don't regret what I did with Facebook. But your friendship, and uh, our- uh, our relationship is very important to me."
Eduardo nods, eyes wide. Mark pauses, swallows several times.
"I don't think you should take a semester off. Because- because it's important to you, to graduate from Harvard, and- you won't be fulfilling your potential if you stay out here." He pauses, rolls his eyes, shakes his head.
"Chris told me to say the thing about potential," he says flatly, and Eduardo laughs.
"But um. If you go back to Harvard. Which you should. I would- you could come back, next year. Or I could come visit you. Because it's not really fair that you'll leave before you can start having sex again."
Eduardo laughs again, and puts a hand out, grabs Mark's in his. Mark looks down, swallowing again. His fingers twitch in Eduardo's, like he's itching to pull away.
Eduardo doesn't let him.
"What I'm saying is," Mark continues, stuttering a little. "I want to try to have a- a relationship with you."
It has never been this formal, between them, and it is so strange.
But Eduardo is grinning, helplessly, mouth curling up of its own accord.
A relationship. A relationship. Where they're not in business together and they're not just fucking on Friday nights. Where Mark doesn't owe Eduardo any money and Eduardo doesn't have to pretend for the 800th time that he knows anything about perl.
Eduardo is a little terrified, because his last relationship ended, quite literally, in flames.
But fuck. Mark's already given him a heart attack (again, literally, which is a little sad). What's the worst he can do?
Mark is chewing his cuticles nervously.
"Yeah," Eduardo says, coughs, pushes himself up more upright.
"Yeah-"
"Yeah, we can- we can try this." It sounds so ridiculous, all summed up like that, two years of drunken hook-ups and smoking weed and study sessions and video game marathons and talking about everything and then- and then Facebook.
Eduardo is kind of willing to stop thinking about the Facebook part. Facebook is not what- Facebook does not have to be it. It is so freeing when he realizes he feels that way.
Mark is nodding, shifting from foot to foot.
"Come here," Eduardo says, and Mark stumbles nervously towards him.
It is only ten minutes later when Mark pulls away from a soft kiss, lips catching sweet on the stubble on Eduardo's chin, that he says, unexpectedly, low into the hollow of Eduardo's throat, "I'm sorry, for not-"
He stops and shakes his head, exhales in frustration. "I'm sorry."
He doesn't say anything else, just breathes cautiously into Eduardo's neck. Eduardo squeezes his eyes shut, chest warm with something unidentifiable, spreading slowly under his skin.
"It's gonna be okay," he says, to himself or to Mark, he's not sure.
"It's just a year," Mark says quietly, and Eduardo pulls back, surprised.
Mark goes red and looks away.
"I'll come out and visit," Eduardo says gently, like the giant sap he is, and Mark rolls his eyes but scooches up on the couch and kisses Eduardo again, touches Eduardo's chest, over the heart.
Eduardo is slipping a slow tongue into Mark's mouth, and Mark is running his fingertips up Eduardo's neck, when he hears, from the doorway, "Shit, that was fast!"
Eduardo arches his neck and sees Dustin's upside down face, grinning.
"Hi," he says, waving. "How you feeling, Wardo?"
"Better," Eduardo says, Mark's palm still curled possessively around the base of his neck.
"Chris, check it out, you totally called it," Dustin calls into the kitchen, and Chris comes out, a grocery bag in each hand.
He gives them a glance, nods approvingly, and says, "Hey, Dustin, help me unload this stuff."
"Yes sir!" Dustin says, winking at Mark and Eduardo, and slips back into the kitchen.
Eduardo laughs, and Mark kisses him again, pulls back and puts his head to Eduardo's chest, gently, not exerting pressure.
He pauses and Eduardo gets the feeling he is listening for something.
"Just a year," he says, flat and almost hesitant, and abruptly stands up and away.
Eduardo leans back and stretches, yawns. He doesn't really know what's going to happen and yeah, most books or girl magazines or whatever would probably say that starting off a relationship with a year-long absence is not exactly a recipe for success, but fuck it.
At least it's something.
And Christ, it's just one year.
It's Mark. It's not- it's not like there's ever going to be anyone else. It's just Mark.
Three days later he flies back to Boston.
epilogue
fandom: the social network
pairing: mark/eduardo
notes: the one where eduardo has a heart condition! AU!
title is from the stars song, "look up". and is quite punny
so, this has been chilling for a while, because of various posting issues and various mornings spent cursing livejournal to hell. um, i honestly don't think it's all that great, now that i re-read it, but i want to post it because it's kind of like a thorn in my side at this point, hahaha.
it became a bit less about the heart condition and more about feelings. SHOCKING.
"You set me up," Eduardo whispers, and his chest squeezes. He closes his eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He thought he had this under control.
"You're gonna blame me because you were the business end of the company and you made a bad business deal with your own company?" Mark says, and Eduardo shakes his head, digging his fingers into his chest for a second, taking surreptitious deep breaths. Oh fuck oh fuck it is going to happen again, like it did last summer in Brazil.
"You better lawyer up, asshole," he spits, heart thumping irregularly, each beat dragged out, sending hot sparks up the inside of his chest like someone's scraping their fingernails over his ribs.
"Because I'm not coming back for thirty percent, I'm coming back for everything."
He stares at Mark, and turns on his heel and everything goes black.
He comes to and sees Dustin goggling at him. There are others above him. Eduardo can't see Sean anywhere. Thank the fucking Lord.
"He's awake!" Dustin calls when he sees Eduardo blink. "Guys, he's awake!"
"I told you, it's not a big deal," Mark says cuttingly. "He got like this all the time at Harvard."
"You asshole," Eduardo tries to say, but he can't speak. He can barely breathe. It feels like his heart is too big for his chest, and it's blocking all the air. He knows that's not how it works, that's not what the condition is. Stress-induced arrhythmia, the doctor had said in his heavily accented English, and his father had scoffed in the back of his throat, turned away.
"Dustin," he tries to gasp, breath coming faster in panic, and his heart is pounding thump- thump thump thump --- thump- each beat a stunning bright shock of pain, and he cannot get the words out. "Dustin, Dustin, please," he keeps saying, but it's just hisses, it is like a nightmare.
It is like last summer, when his father told him he'd have to start paying his own way at Harvard if he didn't switch his major to business. Eduardo had grabbed the back of the heavy wooden chair in his father's study and nodded, chest burning, and his face had gotten hot and he'd fallen, bringing the chair down on top of him.
He'd broken his nose, collapsing to the ground of the study.
He had a fucking heart attack.
He can not be having another heart attack no no no no-
"Mark, you need to call an ambulance," Dustin says, and Eduardo clamps a hand around Dustin's shirt, shakes his head. He can deal with this. He needs to be able to breathe. If he can breathe it will stop.
His face is hot, not just from the frantic irregular pounding in his chest, but because he's supposed to be making a furious exit right about now. Mark has just fucked him over, cut him out of Facebook, and he's on the floor of the fucking offices. It's pathetic.
"Wardo," Mark says, voice tight and mean and defensive. "Get up."
His fingernails scrabble on the floor. He has never felt this useless. He cannot breathe. The inside of his chest is burning fiercely. It hurts so fucking much.
Above him, Dustin's calling 911.
"Yeah, we have a guy and he just collapsed and I think it might have been a heart attack or something like that, except he's really young, and, fuck, he's my friend," Dustin babbles, and Mark turns away.
Eduardo's vision is going black at the edges. He puts a hand to his chest like that'll help, and passes out again.
Chris is above him the next time he wakes up. He's chewing his fingernails, a leg tucked up under him in a seat, and Eduardo breathes out slowly, carefully.
His chest feels vaguely numb, still tight but not crushing, and he keeps breathing for a couple minutes.
"Wardo," Chris says, pulling his chair over to Eduardo's hospital bed. Shit- shit, they're in a hospital. This is the worst angry dramatic exit of all time.
"You okay? How're you feeling?"
"Better," Eduardo says, taking another deep breath, feeling the hitch in his lungs.
"You scared the shit out of us," Chris says. Eduardo turns his head on the pillow, away from Chris.
"Sorry," he says automatically.
"Don't apologize. Mark's talking to the doctors."
"Why?" Eduardo says, trying to sound bitter and above it all, but his voice just comes out breathy and weak.
"Freaking out because you were still asleep. Wondering why the ambulance didn't come fast enough. Can you move your arm? Right one."
Eduardo flexes his fingers. They're stiff, but they respond. Chris exhales.
"We were worried."
"Why is Mark even here?" Eduardo asks, still in that quiet voice. Chris looks at him.
"For what it's worth, I didn't know he was doing it," Chris says. "I swear to God I didn't know."
Eduardo nods, chest clenching briefly, and he closes his eyes, heaves a breath.
"You okay? Should I- Should I call someone in?"
"I'm fine," Eduardo says, gritting his teeth. "It's happened before. I'll get more meds."
"It happened before?" Chris says concernedly. "When?"
"Last summer. In Brazil."
"You never told us."
"Why would I- there was no reason for you to know."
Chris looks a little indignant. "Yeah, it wouldn't have been of any help yesterday when you passed out in the offices," he says, shaking his head.
"Yesterday?"
"Yeah, Wardo. You had a heart attack. They had to see if they needed to do a surgery. They didn't, but Jesus, Wardo, you really fucking scared us."
His voice is defensive and scared and protective. It confuses Eduardo, makes him tired.
"Sorry," Eduardo says again, and winces.
Mark comes in then, face inscrutable. Chris leaves, squeezing his hand briefly, and Eduardo wants to ask him to stay, but he can't, not with Mark there.
He doesn't like laying down, weak and defenseless and pathetic, in front of Mark. This Mark with his cold, bloodshot eyes and hunched shoulders. He is angry, he wants anger to flood through him, make him strong.
He just feels weak and small and limp.
"Hi," Mark says flatly.
"Don't feel obligated to be nice to me," Eduardo says in response, with as much rage as he can muster. He claps a hand over his chest, takes a deep breath. "You can leave."
"Don't be an idiot, Wardo."
"Don't you fucking call me that," Eduardo hisses, and closes his eyes, inhaling deeply again. It hurts vaguely, in that scary far-off way it does sometimes, like if he takes his mind off it for a second his heart will squeeze so tight he'll just up and die, immediately, just expire like a balloon pricked by a pin, hissing its way to impotency.
"Wardo, stop being all angry."
Eduardo laughs. "Oh yes, screw me out of Facebook and then ask me not to be angry. That's completely plausible."
Mark sighs hard, frustrated. "Just- Wardo, stop-" he says, because Eduardo is breathing faster and faster, thinking about it, how he doesn't have- oh God he's not the CFO, he's not even on the masthead. He is nothing. He is- his chest clenches, a muscle in his shoulder twinges sharply, and he squeezes his eyes shut.
"Wardo, Jesus Christ," Mark says, and Eduardo's probably imagining it but Mark sounds concerned.
Which isn't possible.
And then he is opening his eyes, desperately, huffing out breaths now, and Mark is looming over him, staring at him. He finds Eduardo's nurse's button and presses it.
"What's going on?" the man says as he comes in, and Mark motions to Eduardo, head twisted back, muscles in his neck corded and sticking out, breathing quickly.
"Uh oh," the nurse says absentmindedly, and he adjusts the medicine dripping into the IV in Eduardo's hand. "He's a little worked up, isn't he."
Eduardo tries to glare at him, because it's all Mark's fucking fault, but he passes out again before he can turn his head.
---
He wakes up to Mark yelling. How pleasant.
"I'm not going to leave! He's staying with me!"
"Mr Zuckerberg, you've obviously been a great source of stress to the-"
"Bullshit. I'm not leaving."
"We've already contacted his parents."
"Oh, fantastic. They don't stress him out at all. What'd they even say?"
"He can wait here until he's able to fly. His father's health insurance covers the hospital time-"
"So they're not coming out, so I'm taking him home. He's not going to sit in a fucking hospital for a week."
"Mr. Zuckerberg-" and Mark sees Eduardo's awake. He leaves the room abruptly, face red.
The doctor sighs at the empty doorway and comes over to Eduardo's bedside.
"You'll need to stay for another couple days, to acclimate you to your new meds. They didn't work at first, since you were still experiencing some serious arrhythmia, but we've adjusted the dosage and I've written you a new prescription."
"Beta blockers?" Eduardo asks hoarsely, and the doctor hands him a cup of water.
"Yes. A stronger form than the kind you were on. This means, of course, that the side effects will be magnified."
Eduardo hates the side effects. For some reason he gets the worst of them- dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, nausea. His father never believed in that, though, said they were all in Eduardo's mind.
Eduardo really, really hates the side effects.
"Were you taking your beta blockers regularly before the incident?" the doctor asks reprovingly.
"I left them in New York," Eduardo admits. The doctor shakes his head.
"I didn't think- I didn't think I'd be stressed," Eduardo says. "It was a surprise."
"So I've heard," the doctor says, peering over his glasses. "That's why I'm extremely hesitant about releasing you into the care of Mr. Zuckerberg."
Eduardo hesitates.
He really hates Mark right now.
He is alone. He doesn't have Facebook and he doesn't have his friends and he is across the country from his apartment and from Harvard.
"You said my parents-" he stops.
"They expressed an interest that you would return to the East Coast when you're recovered."
Not even an invitation home. Well, of course. Eduardo's father never thinks it's real, Eduardo's little dizzy spells.
"I should stay with Mark for a while," Eduardo says determinedly. The doctor looks skeptical.
He is not quite sure what he's doing.
He just wants everything to be back to normal. His feet kicked up on the table in Mark's room, Dustin passed out on his thigh, Chris watching the Discovery Channel and eating ramen, and Mark typing at his desk.
It hasn't been like that for a summer, though. Three fucking months.
"Really. I can stay with Mark. Until I- until I'm good to fly."
He doesn't even know where he'll go after that. To Harvard, he thinks. Harvard without Chris or Mark or Dustin. Harvard, where Christy is still a sophomore. Shit.
"That'll be around ten days. Mr. Saverin, you need to take your medication regularly. Absolutely no exceptions."
"I know," Eduardo says, a little pettily.
"Morning and night. With food. You're aware of the side effects?"
"Yes," Eduardo says. "I get a lot of them."
The doctor writes something on his chart.
"Well, they're going to be a bit stronger, like I said. This medication is powerful. Two heart attacks in two years is not good for anyone, Mr. Saverin."
"Oh really," Eduardo mutters sarcastically.
"If it happens again…" the doctor sighs. "We'd almost definitely have to perform an angioplasty. Which I don't want to have to do."
"But I hope you still will, if you have to," Eduardo says, dryly, feeling curiously light, almost giddy.
The doctor shoots him an unimpressed look, makes a note on his chart.
"I'm going to find Mr. Zuckerberg," he says, and leaves.
---
Eduardo doesn't see Mark for the next three days. He sleeps, mostly. Eats bland hospital food and gets weirdly invested in the lives of the characters on General Hospital.
He doesn't ask after Mark because he does not care, but Chris visits him every day and tells him, "Mark's basically working like an insane person so he can stay home when you get out."
Eduardo does not know how to feel about that.
In any case, he doesn't have any more episodes. His meds suck, but he's kept on IV and he's asleep most of the time so he only pukes three times.
He mostly just feels exhausted, and vaguely sick, and weak to the bone.
And- and he is a little bit terrified, to go home with Mark.
On Thursday, Mark shows up in a hoodie and jeans, his hair a mess, and Eduardo is taken out the hospital door in a wheelchair. He stumbles out of it as soon as they let him, because Mark seeing him in a fucking wheelchair, it's just pathetic.
Mark drives him to a big-ish house, not far from the offices.
"Sean, uh, found it for me," he says, pulling into the garage, and Eduardo nods, stomach sinking.
"I thought, um, the couch. Chris helped me make it up. And- and Dustin lent some clothes."
Eduardo nods again, and Mark gestures at the living room again, and disappears upstairs.
----
He doesn't come down until the next morning, shoves a box of cereal at Eduardo, nods, eyes averted, and disappears again.
what was the point of him doing work if he stays upstairs on his laptop anyway?, Eduardo sends to Chris after the second day like that.
Not that he cares. But he is bored out of his fucking mind. School doesn't start for two weeks; he's scheduled to fly back to Boston in ten days.
He thinks a lot, about Facebook, about what happened. About what it meant to him. About how maybe it was Mark who meant something.
He doesn't let himself think about that for too long, though, just turns on General Hospital and sleeps.
Chris texts him back, are you fucking serious? ugh. i will fix it.
Eduardo's stomach flips when he reads that, and stays quivering because just twenty minutes later he hears footsteps on the stairs.
Mark gives Eduardo one of the bland frozen meals Chris had stocked Mark's never-before-used freezer with, and sits down on the armchair.
Eduardo eats in wary, awkward, silence, until it's too much and he blurts-
"So, you're - uh. Not going back to Harvard, right?"
Mark sends him a blank, flat look. "No," he says.
They lapse into silence again.
Eduardo is not sure if he wants to scream at Mark.
He is so angry. It hurts when he thinks about it, makes his chest tighten and his head throb.
Mostly, though, he is exhausted.
"I've been watching General Hospital, for the last couple days. Weirdly addictive," he says into the silence.
Mark snorts unexpectedly, and Eduardo cracks another joke, and then somehow they're just talking. Not about Facebook, or users, or shares, or the awful thing that just happened. Just talking. About soap operas, then the stock market, and then the admissions spike in Ivy League applications. Random shit.
Eduardo ignores the un-random shit, the Facebook or shares or betrayal, and finds after five minutes it's not that hard.
He doesn't know whether to be happy or frustrated with himself, that he can do it that easily.
---
"I used to get seizures, when I was a kid," Eduardo says randomly a half hour later, when their conversation about the merits of the various Star Wars movies trails off. Mark doesn't move.
He's not sure why. It's not that he wants Mark's pity, exactly, he just- fuck. He doesn't know.
"It was never a huge deal, but my father- he didn't. He didn't even think it was a real thing."
"Idiot," Mark says harshly. Eduardo laughs.
"Yeah. I seized in front of him when I was ten. He left the room. I bit, right here-" he gestures at his bottom lip. "Nearly all the way through my lip."
"They trailed off, when I was in high school. My meds for those, though, sort of fucked up my heart. And apparently I was high-strung."
Mark snorts softly.
"Why are you telling me this," he says quietly, and then- "Why- why did you come home with me?"
"I can't tell how much of a bad person you are, and it's confusing," Eduardo says slowly.
Mark looks away defensively, rolling his eyes.
"Because we were best friends," Eduardo says. Mark doesn't look at him. "And I just. How is it possible that we're not going to be, all of a sudden."
"It's not personal, Wardo," Mark says, but it sounds weak.
"That's- that's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard," Eduardo says, still in a calm slow voice because he needs to not get worked up again. "I don't know if you noticed, but I took it personally."
Mark's face is laid open for once, defiance and contempt and sadness all there for Eduardo to see.
"And I know - Sean - " Eduardo takes a deep breath. It sucks, that one person can make his heart speed up that much. And not in a good way, like when he and Mark used to make out, drunk and laughing, on the couch on Saturday nights.
"Never mind," he says, because he can't talk about Sean.
"I didn't know you'd- Sean was getting meetings out here, Eduardo-"
"Can we please not talk about Sean," Eduardo says in one breath, and puts his hands on his thighs, focuses on breathing.
"Yeah," Mark says, and stands up. "I gotta work." He disappears upstairs.
Eduardo doesn't know what's going to happen. It's like a weird limbo.
He hasn't signed the papers, yet. His death sentence.
He remembers Sean, smirking, we will get the signature, and his heart throbs painfully.
No. No. He cannot think about that.
This whole thing is so fucking frustrating, what he can and can't do, can and can't talk about. While he's down, Mark's going to stab him in the back.
Except- wait. Mark already did that, the stabbing, and Eduardo didn't even need to be in a hospital bed.
He's weak and pathetic every day, not just after he's had an attack.
Great.
--
The next night, Chris drops off food and they eat in silence. Eduardo has to eat soup, and plain pale chicken, and other bland boring shit he hates. It's not fair. Mark is scooping lo mein into his mouth, washing it down with a Beck's. Asshole.
Mark takes the plate when they're done, and Eduardo takes a sip of water and leans his head back against the couch, closes his eyes.
He feels rather than sees Mark come back into the room.
"Why didn't you tell me, last year. About what happened that summer."
"It wasn't a big deal," Eduardo says with his eyes closed. Mark snorts without humor.
"Don't be such a victim, Wardo," he says meanly, reflexively, and it hits Eduardo right in the gut. Because that's not what he wanted to be, but it's what he is, and he can't control it. Fuck, he hates himself sometimes.
"That was rude," Mark says grudgingly.
"Whatever," Eduardo says weakly, too fucking tired to fight about it. He's not going to say that, though, because Mark'll just call him a victim again.
"I didn't tell you because it was over. I was on my meds, I was fine. How does one bring that up in conversation, anyway? Oh, yeah, my summer was great, I went to Brazil, I had a heart attack, no big deal-"
"Why did it happen? That time?"
Eduardo is exhausted.
"Just some shit with my father," he says vaguely.
Mark is shaking his head knowingly. "I can't believe the doctor wanted them to come," he says angrily. "Fucking-"
"Yeah, they're my parents, Mark."
"And he made you have a heart attack."
Neither of them say it, the obvious. Mark just goes red, looks away, and Eduardo closes his eyes.
"We don't have to talk about it anymore," he says, opening his eyes and grabbing his Blackberry off the table.
There is a pause, then Mark clears his throat and speaks.
"Are you going to sue?" he asks, voice low.
Eduardo huffs out a heavy breath. "Haven't signed any papers yet," he says, and Mark turns away, shuffles quickly out of the room.
Are they in some kind of a stand-off?
Mark's going to win, if they are. Mark always wins.
Eduardo won't sue. He already knows that. He tries to picture himself in a deposition room, talking about Facebook. Mark across from him, staring at him, cold and snake-like and terrifying the way he gets when someone challenges him and he knows he's right.
His arrhythmia would get so bad, like worse than finals last year.
Speaking of- his beta blockers are on the kitchen table.
He stands up and nearly stumbles. He's been sitting for several hours. His circulation is fucked.
"Shit," he mutters, and takes a cautious step. His right foot is fully asleep, and it prickles sharply.
Eduardo grits his teeth and grabs the couch, takes a step onto the foot and everything spins.
He falls. Not far, he catches himself, but he ends up on the floor caught between the couch and the table.
He listens, carefully, not quite sure if he'd actually prefer Mark to have heard.
No one comes though, so he heaves a sigh of relief and pulls himself up, except nope, his right foot is still numb, and he sits back down heavily.
Okay. He'll just. Stay there. His head's spinning, swirling, and he closes his eyes.
He wakes up to Mark practically shaking him.
"What the fuck, Wardo!"
"What?" he mumbles, and his neck is painfully stiff. He looks around. He's still on the floor, legs stretched in front of him. He shakes the right one experimentally. It's not as numb, though a few hot sparks go through it, aftereffects.
"What happened?" Mark is saying, and Eduardo tries to focus on him. His head still feels heavy, brain sluggish.
"Nothing," Eduardo says. "I was just grabbing my meds. I sat down."
Mark thrusts the bottle of pills at him, and Eduardo grabs his Blackberry. Fuck, he's three hours overdue. He's not sure if he should just wait till morning, or- he needs food to take it with, or he'll throw up, he always has. And his chest hurts.
Fucking fantastic.
"Um, I should just wait, until the morning," he says, fumbling to put the bottle back on the table.
Mark stares at him.
"I'm fine," Eduardo says pointedly.
"Wardo, you're on the floor."
Eduardo looks around him.
"Yeah," he says, swallowing. His mouth is dry. He forgot how much beta blockers suck for the first couple months.
Mark is still hovering over him.
Eduardo doesn't say anything, just lolls his head back against the couch. His stomach feels empty and his chest pulses slightly, painfully, and he's so tired.
"You can't fall asleep again, what the fuck-" Mark says, and Eduardo just nods at him dismissively, eyes slipping shut.
He wakes up again quickly when Mark takes him under the arms and tries to push him back up on the couch.
"What," he mumbles, and Mark says, "Get on the fucking couch, Wardo."
His voice might be a little panicky, he's not sure.
Eduardo stretches out and drops off into drowsy, light sleep. He can hear Mark from the kitchen, on the phone.
"He passed out on the floor- yes, I am aware of the side effects! But he couldn't even get up! Don't tell me it's not a big fucking deal. I'll curse if I want to. He- he missed one dose. What the fuck do you know?"
Eduardo pushes his face into the couch, trying to make him shut up with his mind, and falls asleep.
---
He wakes up to Dustin staring anxiously at him, about six inches from his face.
"Jesus, Dustin," he says, backing away, and Dustin grins wide.
"He's awake!" he calls. Mark grunts affirmatively. Chris comes over from the kitchen, with an oven mitt on his hand.
"Why is it such a celebration I'm awake?" Eduardo asks blearily, pushing himself up to sitting.
Chris hands him a muffin.
"Careful, they're hot," he says, and Eduardo nods.
"Mark, toss me the pills," Dustin says, and Chris rolls his eyes, goes to the kitchen and grabs them.
"Here," he says, handing Eduardo two. Eduardo takes them.
"No, stupid, after you eat the muffin," Dustin instructs, and pushes a glass of water at him. Eduardo washes them down quickly, grimacing at the taste.
"Basically, we're not letting Mark take care of you, because he's incompetent and couldn't keep a plant alive," Chris explains.
"I'm fine," Eduardo says, and Dustin shoves a muffin into Eduardo's mouth, giggling like a kid.
"Dustin," Chris says exasperatedly, and Eduardo rolls his eyes and pulls it out, chewing.
"Good," he notes, and Chris smiles.
"You feel okay?" Dustin says, sitting next to him. Eduardo nods.
"I'm fine. Seriously. I can probably fly back in a week, if I keep taking aspirin."
Chris stares concernedly at him.
"Go back?" Dustin says. "No way. You'll stay here, right?"
Eduardo is hit with an overwhelming wave of anger, and it hurts.
"We're all pretending to be friends right now, making fucking muffins or whatever, but you're avoiding the fact that I'm not part of your fucking company any more," he spits out.
Dustin and Chris are suddenly very interested in other things. Mark's in the doorway of the kitchen, back rigid, shoulders hunched.
"So I don't want to be around you," Eduardo says weakly. He takes a deep breath. Dustin hands him the water again and Eduardo pushes it away, nearly spills it.
"Fuck off," he says, and staggers to his feet.
"I need to leave," he says, chest constricting. He can't be in this fucking house, with fucking Mark and these people he barely even knows anymore. He can't.
"Eduardo, come on," Dustin says quietly. "Sit down."
"Just fuck all of you," he says, and walks, a little unsteadily, past Mark into the kitchen.
He has to stop and balance himself on the counter, heave out three breaths, but he grabs his phone, calls a cab.
"Wardo, what are you doing?" Chris says, standing up, and Eduardo holds up a finger to shush him.
"Yeah, a cab, please," he says, giving them Mark's address. Mark is looking at him, eyes hooded, and Dustin runs over to him, wrenches the phone out of his hand and says, "Just kidding!" into the receiver and hangs up.
"You're such an asshole," Eduardo says breathily, barely even aware of how he's leaning heavily on the counter now, nearly doubled over.
"Please sit down," Dustin says pleadingly, and takes Eduardo's arm in his like he's a little old lady.
Eduardo's head and stomach are spinning dizzily. He shakes his head. He did not eat enough.
Which means- fuck.
He pushes away from Dustin, shaking his head, and stumbles to the sink and throws up, retches liquid and the remains of his dinner from last night.
It's just routine, because of the pills hitting his system, but it still sucks, and God they're all staring at him, don't they have work or something? He is not a fucking freak show.
Dustin steps closer and rubs his back with one hand, gives him a glass of water, and Eduardo rinses and spits, eyes watering, leaning back against the counter.
"Was it the muffin?" Dustin asks, glaring at Chris.
"The meds," Chris says. "I read the side-effects. Has to be taken with soluble fat or it's not good for the stomach."
"You're staying," Dustin says, still with a hand on his back, and Eduardo doesn't even know if Dustin knew about the dilution.
He can't fucking trust any of these people, and they're all he has.
---
Mark works downstairs that day, and Eduardo slips in and out of sleep with the steady warm click-clack of Mark's typing flitting in from the kitchen.
He dreams about Harvard, about craning over a computer screen, eyes blurry, back aching, and saying, "Shit that looks good that looks really good."
And then he has a confusing real-feeling dream where he wakes up, gets off the couch and goes to the kitchen and says, "I'm going to sue and I'm going to take everything from you, you fucking piece of shit."
In the dream Mark exhales like he's been punched and Eduardo immediately, sharply regrets it.
He wakes up with a jerk, eyes snapping open, and he must make some kind of noise because Mark hovers in the doorway, says, "Hey- do you- do you want some water?"
He coughs, throat dry, and says, "Sure."
Mark sets down a glass in front of him a moment later, and then Eduardo says, "Mark-"
Mark turns apprehensively to him.
"Bring me the papers," Eduardo says, skin prickling.
"What?"
"Mark. Bring me the papers. I'm not going to not know, anymore. I just want this to be over."
Mark doesn't say anything.
"Are you going to sue," he says finally, low in his throat.
Eduardo leans his head back against the couch.
"No."
"Why?" Mark whispers.
"Just bring me the fucking papers. Make me sign a goddamn contract saying I won't sue, I don't care, but don't fucking ask me that, okay, Mark?"
Mark doesn't fight back like Eduardo wants him to, just shrugs, shoulders hunched, and leaves the room.
----
They don't talk the rest of the night. At midnight the doorbell rings, and Eduardo wakes up from a drowse, hears pounding.
"Hey buddy," someone says to Mark, and Eduardo lifts his head, blinking.
It's Sean.
Something physically jerks in his chest, which scares the shit out of him, and he doesn't know whether to pretend to be asleep or to get up and punch Sean in the fucking face.
It doesn't matter, because Sean sees him.
"How's our little patient?" he says, coming to stand over him. Mark is hovering in the doorway, chewing the string of his hoodie.
Eduardo doesn't say anything, just sits up, swings his legs off the couch. His face is hot.
"Silent treatment, huh?" Sean says, and claps Eduardo on the shoulder.
Eduardo sucks in a breath, keeping his eyes down.
"Mark told me you came around. Smart decision. Here we go-" he pushes Eduardo's discarded mug of tea off to the side, on the coffee table, and sets out some papers.
"It'd be better if a lawyer were present, but Mark didn't want them here in your delicate state."
"I told you to just drop the papers off, Sean," Mark says, voice small. Sean laughs.
"And not see how our little CFO is doing? Oh, I couldn't."
Eduardo closes his eyes, pen in hand. His breathing is labored.
"Okay, so you're gonna have to sign eight times. Here, here, here-" he points out the various lines and Eduardo knows where to fucking sign, he is an econ major, but he can't move his hand. His right hand is seizing up. Fuck.
"Mark," Eduardo says unwillingly. He just needs Mark to understand exactly what he's feeling, and get Sean the fuck out of the room.
"Sean," Mark says. Sean laughs again.
"You told me yourself it wasn't a big deal, Mark," he says jovially. Eduardo looks at him in shock. Mark doesn't meet his eyes.
"I'll tear the contracts if you don't leave," Eduardo says, taking the papers up in his left hand, right still frozen around the pen.
"So touchy," Sean says, rolling his eyes, and walks out into the kitchen.
Eduardo stares at the contracts, eyes blurring. His head aches steadily, in time with his heart.
This is it, then.
The end of Facebook, of this stupid wonderful idea Mark shared with Eduardo, would ramble on about when Eduardo made him sleep, curled around him on Mark's bed in Kirkland.
That thrill of excitement when they hit each new milestone- 1000, 10,000, 150,000.
Mark excited, Mark grinning, Mark drinking and coding and kissing him.
He'll never do that again.
His father will probably never speak to him again.
It's worth it, maybe. To be free of all this bullshit. Eduardo is not sure if it is worth it, but it's something.
He'll go back to Harvard, get a job. He has enough money left from last summer to pay for his last year, if he sells some stock.
It won't be awful. He's not like Mark. He had friends, at school.
None like Mark, though.
He remembers Mark saying it's nothing personal and he doesn't understand that. He cannot understand that.
Is Mark his friend, now? What held them together, before this?
He bites his lip and his heart stutters relentlessly, painfully.
He signs his name eight times. Eduardo Luis Saverin.
He leans back against the couch, breathing deep. He can't tell if he's relieved, or-
He breathes. He breathes. Mark stands in the doorway, staring.
"There you go," he says eventually, and throws the pen onto the table, massages his stiff right hand with his left.
"Eduardo-"
"There. It's not a big deal, right? That's what you said."
"I didn't mean it."
"Oh Christ, Mark, it doesn't matter. Take your fucking papers. When I can fly I'll leave. It's over."
He wonders what Mark is thinking. If Mark is maybe thinking I still want to be your friend, or I still want to have sex with you. Or maybe he's more predictable, just, he's signed the contracts, how soon can I get the pathetic fucker out of here?
It would be so much easier if Mark would just be predictable.
Eduardo has no idea, and he is so exhausted by it all.
"I can find a hotel room for a week," he says.
"Don't be an idiot," Mark says, voice rough. Eduardo is glad for the darkness of the room, lit only by the kitchen now.
"Sean here?" Eduardo says, pushing the contracts across the table.
"No."
"Why did you say that to him," Eduardo says, and his voice shakes. "You think that? Did you ever give a shit? Was I- I just. Was I a bank account?"
"Why the fuck can't you see that you and Facebook are two different things?" Mark says hotly, stumbling over the words.
"Because we're not all robots, Mark!"
"I'm not a fucking robot!" Mark screams, unexpected and sharp, and Eduardo flinches. "I don't want you to go back to Harvard! I want you here, all the time, and I hate it! Is that enough fucking emotion for you?"
Eduardo stumbles to his feet, driven by some urgent impulse, and his head spins.
"You're so- goddamnit, Mark, you're so stupid," he says, walking carefully, shakily, towards him and Mark quivers before him and then he's pushing Mark against the wall and kissing him.
Mark makes a desperate, wanting sound in his throat and flattens against the wall, wrapping his hands around Eduardo's waist. Slices of light from the kitchen illuminate his nose, his jaw. Eduardo is dizzy.
Mark licks and bites at his mouth, and Eduardo pushes back as hard as he can until he has to gasp out a breath. His heart is pounding frantically, too fast.
But Mark tastes good, and he's planting kisses all over Eduardo's neck, around Eduardo's pulse.
Eduardo is not supposed to have sex for a month. He remembers that.
"Mark," he says, and the inside of his chest burns for a moment. Mark kisses him full on the lips again, warm and soft.
"I have to-" Eduardo motions to the couch, voice rising, and suddenly Mark's supporting his weight. What the fuck.
"Jesus," Mark gasps out, and practically drags him back to the couch.
"Wardo, Wardo-" he's chanting, and Eduardo's right side is numb. Well, fuck.
"It's fine," he says and moves his arm. It lifts. That's a good start. "I'm sorry. The first month sucks. I'm really sorry."
"Why the fuck are you apologizing?" Mark says, angry but not really. Mark has different types of anger, like contempt-anger and defensive-anger and concerned-anger and flat out rage.
Eduardo forgot about this. It's hard, once you spend time away from him, and more around normal people.
Mark takes decoding. Eduardo forgot. Or maybe he just didn't want to try, because it's easier to take what Mark says at face value, easier to believe he's just an irredeemable asshole.
If he actually thinks about it, thinks about why Mark might have drawn up those contracts- it's terrifying.
Mark brings him a glass of water, mouth set in a tight unhappy line.
Eduardo sighs and leans his head back against the couch, watches Mark pick up takeout boxes and empty cups and muffin wrappers.
"If you want me here, why did you do it?" he asks quietly. Mark freezes.
"I need to think about Facebook," Mark says. "All the time, Wardo."
Eduardo waits for the familiar rush of anger. It doesn't come.
"And I- I don't know exactly what I think about you and. This. Us. But you weren't helping the company. You tried to monetize, Wardo. It's not the time."
Eduardo wants to defend himself, wants to make a picky, asshole-ish list of every reason why Mark is an idiot and he is right.
He is so tired. He is not a part of Facebook, and he's at a point where he can accept it, accept that this idiotic person in front of him is still going to be a major part of his life because he just can't not be.
Or he can ignore it and leave and never see Mark again. Those are the two choices.
"I need to graduate," he says.
Mark nods, hands full of trash.
"I don't- I don't know what you want," Eduardo says helplessly.
"I don't know either, okay?" Mark says defensively, and throws everything away, comes back into the room and hovers in the doorway.
"Just- Facebook is-"
"-your life, I get it, Mark," Eduardo says wearily.
"But I feel better when you're here," Mark says. He goes red, turns away.
Eduardo's head hurts, a dull low ache.
"Can you come here," he asks flatly.
Mark hesitates. Eduardo pats the space on the couch next to him with one hand.
Mark gets close enough, leans down, says, "Are you okay?" and Eduardo pulls him onto the couch by the front of his shirt.
Mark is warm. He's in a thin worn gray t-shirt and his skin is flushed with heat. Eduardo buries his face in Mark's neck, inhales.
Mark smells like - like shampoo, and basic un-flowery soap and Chinese food and fabric softener and like college, like Harvard, like nights spent lying on his back on Mark's bed while Mark laid on his belly next to him, typing.
Like nights when he'd rub the back of Mark's shin with his ankle, put a hand on his back, talk at him about whatever.
Eduardo is so nostalgic. It is a problem. Because Mark fucked him over, Mark lives in Palo Alto now. Mark has Sean, now.
But right then when he's inhaling Mark's familiar scent and Mark is curling a hesitant hand around Eduardo's back and Mark is so warm, so solid- it's hard to remember that.
"Eduardo," Mark says softly, and puts a hand on Eduardo's chest, over his heart.
"I don't know," Eduardo says. He closes his eyes.
"What did you think I was going to ask?" Mark says, slightly amused.
"What we're doing. If I'm okay. Why I just-" he exhales. "The answer's I don't know. To all of them."
Mark huffs out a laugh, and Eduardo swears he feels Mark press a kiss onto the juncture between neck and shoulder.
"What the fuck are we doing," Eduardo says desperately, but his chest feels looser than it has in a week. Mark keeps holding him. How can he be such an asshole when he talks, and then hold Eduardo like that?
Like he's breakable.
It makes Eduardo feel strong and weak all at once.
He is so confused.
"I meant it when I said I need you out here," Mark says quietly, secretly, into the space below Eduardo's ear.
Eduardo shudders, and Mark pulls back, one hand still on the back of Eduardo's neck.
"You okay?" he says. Eduardo nods.
"I just don't get you sometimes," he says. Mark stares at him, eyes dark.
Eduardo can't stand Mark looking at him like that.
"I need to graduate," he says, too loud into the silence. Mark's face shutters.
"Yeah," he says coldly, and takes his hand off Eduardo's neck.
"I have one year left," Eduardo says. Mark makes an irritated little sound, like, I know, I'm not an idiot.
"I- Mark, I'd come to California," Eduardo says, and what the fuck is he saying?
"I don't think I'm going to grad school- can't- can't really afford it, but, fuck, I'd come out, Mark. Mark, do you-"
Mark has his face turned around. Eduardo cannot make it out.
"I just ruined your life," he says flatly. "I screwed you out of Facebook. And you want to wait a year just to be with me."
Eduardo's cheeks go hot.
"I thought that's what you wanted," he whispers.
"I said I don't know what I want," Mark says sharply.
Then, more quietly, "I don't get why you want me."
"I don't know either," Eduardo says honestly. Mark recoils visibly, hurt.
"Okay," he says, shoulders stiffening, turning away. Eduardo grabs his arm.
"Can't you just take it for what it is, though? Because you just- yeah, you screwed me out of Facebook and I'm still asking you to wait for me. Doesn't that- can't you just-"
He breaks off, not sure what he wants to say.
He still wants Mark so, so much. He will never not want Mark, not Facebook but Mark, and it's not fucking fair.
"You don't have the best track record, Wardo, so excuse me if I don't take your wanting me as some kind of validation," Mark says, seemingly out of nowhere, and Eduardo interjects-
"Wait, what?"
"Your father. The psycho girlfriend. I can't tell if you actually like me or if you're just a masochist."
Eduardo exhales shakily. His head pounds, throbs near the base of his neck.
Mark stands up.
"Just want to be with you," Eduardo says helplessly, and how is he the one begging? He's fucking begging for Mark's approval. Everything is flipped. His head will not stop hurting.
Mark doesn't say anything, just leaves.
Eduardo pushes his face into the couch, swallows a stupid dry choky sob. It sits like a lump in his chest.
He falls asleep like that, breathing wetly against the fabric, and he wakes up sometime in the night to Mark pushing him gently down to lying.
"Mark," he murmurs, and Mark doesn't say anything at all, just puts a blanket on him and lets his hand linger on Eduardo's chest for a moment.
Mark's palm is warm and Eduardo wants to have them be together, pushed together, for a while, for Mark to be wriggled into every crevice of his body, skin to skin. He is tired and incoherent and he can only open his eyes halfway, and Mark is gone before he can wake up.
Eduardo's heart thumps, a heavy beat, then goes back to normal. He exhales, and sleeps.
---
When he wakes up the next morning, Mark is gone.
There are pans clinking in the kitchen, and Eduardo picks himself up with difficulty, leans against the doorframe.
Chris is cooking.
"Morning," Eduardo says, and Chris wheels around, spoon in hand.
"Wardo!" he says, and pushes a plate of eggs across the table.
"EggBeaters," he says, turning back to the stove. "They taste kind of weird, but I put cheese in them so they should be better."
Eduardo sits down at the table.
"You don't have to do all this," he says, and Chris rolls his eyes.
"It's not a big deal, Wardo."
"I just- I don't get why you guys are still here," Wardo says quietly, and takes a bite of eggs.
Chris turns around, pan in his hand, eyes steely.
"You're a good person, Eduardo," he says, and Eduardo stops chewing. "You're a good friend. You're all of our's friend. We actually give a shit about you. So just- just stop acting like you don't deserve it."
He turns around again. Eduardo puts another bite in his mouth, because he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't want to say anything for once. He wants to accept it.
He really, really, wants to think he deserves it.
"I told Mark I'd come out to California last night," Eduardo says, and Chris drops the spoon on the floor with a loud clatter.
"What?" he says, turning around, picking it up, and throwing it in the sink. How very Chris, to have a little breakdown and then move briskly past it.
"I asked him if he wanted me to come to California. I said I would, after I graduate."
"Wait, wait, wait. What the fuck happened last night?" Chris asks, eyes wide. "Did Mark get a personality transplant or something?"
Eduardo snorts. "No. He doesn't get it. He said- said I was a masochist."
He looks away after that, and Chris shakes his head.
"Mark, you are such an idiot," he mutters to the air. Eduardo laughs again, rough and unamused.
"I signed the papers," he admits. "I'm not- I'm not a part of Facebook, anymore."
"And you still said you'd come out?" Chris says incredulously, and Eduardo nods.
"Oh fuck," Chris breathes, realizing. "You two are. Again. Okay. Wow." He huffs out a laugh, smiles helplessly. "I just- I didn't think he'd ever get you back."
Eduardo doesn't know what to say to that.
"Turns out it only took a week," he says, wistful and maybe happy and a little bit of self-loathing mixed in too.
Chris pushes the pill bottle across the table.
Eduardo nods, takes them, washes them down with another bite of eggs.
"And so now Mark is being an idiot, and avoiding you, and being a wimp," Chris says, dipping his fork into Eduardo's eggs and putting it in his mouth thoughtfully.
"He was so fucking scared," Chris says. "When you- with your thing. I know he acted like a dick. But, fuck, Wardo, he was terrified."
"I aim to please," Eduardo mutters.
"Don't be obtuse. You know what I mean."
"Dustin would so make fun of you right now for saying obtuse," Eduardo says.
"Yeah, well, Dustin would think I was referring to an angle, so no. If I conformed to what Dustin thinks I should say, I'd be speaking in grunts."
"Kinky," Eduardo says, and Chris laughs unexpectedly, grins at him. Eduardo forgot, this summer, how much he genuinely likes these people. It was easy to forget, in New York, when all he got were drunk texts from Dustin (mark swam 30 lasp drunk we thouht he drowned but chris savd him or dude dude due hooked upwiht hottest girle ver srsly , followed by a grainy picture of what Eduardo assumed was the girl) or curt, business-like emails from Mark.
He missed talking with them, conversations about stuff he understood, not perl or coding but normal fucking topics where they listened to him and responded and he actually felt like a valued human being.
"I'm going back to Harvard, next semester, in January," Chris says. "I need to get a degree. If I work as Facebook's PR forever, I will go gray by twenty five."
Eduardo laughs, pushing his fork through the leftover eggs.
Chris' Blackberry buzzes, and he picks it up, sighs heavily as he reads.
"Make that twenty-three," he says wearily, and picks up his jacket. "I gotta run. You feeling alright?"
Eduardo nods, and Chris fishes a bottle of Dasani out of the fridge, puts it in front of him.
"Drink. I'll make Mark come home soon."
Eduardo just nods again, feeling curiously loved. He is not accustomed to having someone who gives a shit about his happiness.
"Thanks," he says, before Chris leaves. Chris nods distractedly, typing on his Blackberry, and shoots him a quick grin.
"Go back to sleep," Chris says. "Call, text, anything. Seriously, Wardo. Mark should be back soon. You still shouldn't be alone-"
"Chris, I'm fine."
----
Eduardo watches TV, curls up on the couch with his bare feet pressed against the end of it. He's wearing a pair of Mark's sweatpants, and they're too short. He looks at his ankles, lifts one curiously. He has okay ankles. They're very tan. Christy liked that about him.
He's watching General Hospital when Mark gets back, half-asleep.
He's woken up by Mark turning the television off, but he doesn't open his eyes.
"Still drowsy," Mark murmurs, almost to himself. Eduardo keeps his eyes closed, but his heart rate spikes.
Mark puts a hand over his heart again, and his thumb rubs gently over Eduardo's nipple. Eduardo's next slow breath is shuddery, tenuous.
Mark leans forward and down, and his lips brush Eduardo's.
Eduardo opens his eyes, curls a hand finger-by-finger around the back of Mark's neck, keeps him there.
Mark makes a noise of surprise in his throat, and Eduardo licks into his mouth, kisses him squarely, warm and soft. Maybe it's the food he ate, the fact that he kept his meds down for the first time in two days, the way the sun's warming him gently through the window and he's curling his bare toes in the rough fabric of the couch, but it just feels good. Fuck, it feels good. His skin prickles deliciously. Mark tastes like spit and the faintest traces of Red Bull. Familiar, human.
"You shouldn't," Mark says, pulling away, and Eduardo nods, keeps touching him, though, rubbing his fingers down Mark's neck, under the hem of his T-shirt onto his pale back.
"Did sex- uh, when we used to- did that hurt? Your heart, I mean?" Mark asks, and Eduardo shakes his head.
"Felt better. Felt more relaxed."
Mark nods, and his mouth quirks up at the edges, amused.
"Not that I can- now," Eduardo stammers.
"I know."
Eduardo sits up, takes a swig of the Dasani bottle on the table. Mark stands awkwardly over him, hovers over the arm of the couch.
"Chris is going back to Harvard next semester," Eduardo says, voice flat but something rising in his stomach, like excitement. His chest squeezes, but not in a bad way. A pleasant tightness, a reminder.
"I know," Mark says again. He is still hovering.
"So, uh. What if I did that too?"
Mark sits down on the armchair. "You'd take a semester off?" he says. Eduardo waits for him to freak out, in his Mark way.
"Yeah. It's just. Just one. I could find an internship out here."
Mark doesn't say anything.
"Mark?" Eduardo asks cautiously.
"Yes. I'm just- thinking about what I want to say. Chris told me to."
Eduardo laughs, so unreasonably fond of him.
"Okay. Wardo. I want to be with you. I don't regret what I did with Facebook. But your friendship, and uh, our- uh, our relationship is very important to me."
Eduardo nods, eyes wide. Mark pauses, swallows several times.
"I don't think you should take a semester off. Because- because it's important to you, to graduate from Harvard, and- you won't be fulfilling your potential if you stay out here." He pauses, rolls his eyes, shakes his head.
"Chris told me to say the thing about potential," he says flatly, and Eduardo laughs.
"But um. If you go back to Harvard. Which you should. I would- you could come back, next year. Or I could come visit you. Because it's not really fair that you'll leave before you can start having sex again."
Eduardo laughs again, and puts a hand out, grabs Mark's in his. Mark looks down, swallowing again. His fingers twitch in Eduardo's, like he's itching to pull away.
Eduardo doesn't let him.
"What I'm saying is," Mark continues, stuttering a little. "I want to try to have a- a relationship with you."
It has never been this formal, between them, and it is so strange.
But Eduardo is grinning, helplessly, mouth curling up of its own accord.
A relationship. A relationship. Where they're not in business together and they're not just fucking on Friday nights. Where Mark doesn't owe Eduardo any money and Eduardo doesn't have to pretend for the 800th time that he knows anything about perl.
Eduardo is a little terrified, because his last relationship ended, quite literally, in flames.
But fuck. Mark's already given him a heart attack (again, literally, which is a little sad). What's the worst he can do?
Mark is chewing his cuticles nervously.
"Yeah," Eduardo says, coughs, pushes himself up more upright.
"Yeah-"
"Yeah, we can- we can try this." It sounds so ridiculous, all summed up like that, two years of drunken hook-ups and smoking weed and study sessions and video game marathons and talking about everything and then- and then Facebook.
Eduardo is kind of willing to stop thinking about the Facebook part. Facebook is not what- Facebook does not have to be it. It is so freeing when he realizes he feels that way.
Mark is nodding, shifting from foot to foot.
"Come here," Eduardo says, and Mark stumbles nervously towards him.
It is only ten minutes later when Mark pulls away from a soft kiss, lips catching sweet on the stubble on Eduardo's chin, that he says, unexpectedly, low into the hollow of Eduardo's throat, "I'm sorry, for not-"
He stops and shakes his head, exhales in frustration. "I'm sorry."
He doesn't say anything else, just breathes cautiously into Eduardo's neck. Eduardo squeezes his eyes shut, chest warm with something unidentifiable, spreading slowly under his skin.
"It's gonna be okay," he says, to himself or to Mark, he's not sure.
"It's just a year," Mark says quietly, and Eduardo pulls back, surprised.
Mark goes red and looks away.
"I'll come out and visit," Eduardo says gently, like the giant sap he is, and Mark rolls his eyes but scooches up on the couch and kisses Eduardo again, touches Eduardo's chest, over the heart.
Eduardo is slipping a slow tongue into Mark's mouth, and Mark is running his fingertips up Eduardo's neck, when he hears, from the doorway, "Shit, that was fast!"
Eduardo arches his neck and sees Dustin's upside down face, grinning.
"Hi," he says, waving. "How you feeling, Wardo?"
"Better," Eduardo says, Mark's palm still curled possessively around the base of his neck.
"Chris, check it out, you totally called it," Dustin calls into the kitchen, and Chris comes out, a grocery bag in each hand.
He gives them a glance, nods approvingly, and says, "Hey, Dustin, help me unload this stuff."
"Yes sir!" Dustin says, winking at Mark and Eduardo, and slips back into the kitchen.
Eduardo laughs, and Mark kisses him again, pulls back and puts his head to Eduardo's chest, gently, not exerting pressure.
He pauses and Eduardo gets the feeling he is listening for something.
"Just a year," he says, flat and almost hesitant, and abruptly stands up and away.
Eduardo leans back and stretches, yawns. He doesn't really know what's going to happen and yeah, most books or girl magazines or whatever would probably say that starting off a relationship with a year-long absence is not exactly a recipe for success, but fuck it.
At least it's something.
And Christ, it's just one year.
It's Mark. It's not- it's not like there's ever going to be anyone else. It's just Mark.
Three days later he flies back to Boston.
epilogue