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Eduardo always forgets how easy it is to fall back under Mark’s spell. How easy it is for the anger to slip off his shoulders and for his eyes to follow Mark around with awe only seen before in Disney movies.
For someone who had always hated public speaking and had self-proclaimed miserable social skills, Mark knew how to hold a crowd. Maybe it was because he was Facebook, but maybe it was his net worth hanging above his head in everyone's eyes, or maybe Mark has developed some social skills and alongside that, he gave up the assholery and dropped his egomaniac personality on the way into the hall.
Knowing the man (or previously having known him), Eduardo doubts this is the case.
Nevertheless, it still leaves him wondering when he sees the way Mark causes pearly whites to flash, and laughs to be stifled into perfectly pressed handkerchiefs, the way shined Italian leather crowds around him on the marble floors, standing out next to his laced-up sneakers. The clinking of crystal glasses against each other, the sloshing of fluid as they chase down their joy with liquid confidence.
He never thought he would be jealous of Mark Zuckerberg mingling, but then again, he never thought his life would end up like this.
The bitter guy who sits at the bar, glaring at the life of the party and sipping on booze that tastes like herbs. It’s never nice to be that guy. The guy that everyone secretly hates. Eduardo never wanted to be that guy, but when anger turns to resentment and hatred sits on his tongue… it’s hard not to be that guy.
There’s a black cloud sitting in the heavens above them. The weather has been miserable ever since he arrived in Paris three days ago, and he doesn’t expect it to change. That’s the one thing Eduardo always looks forward to after another mixed night of business and clipped small talk, the forecasts.
There was a time when he could be calm, collected, the bigger person. A time when he wasn’t condemned to his primal emotions by just seeing Mark. A time when their roles were swapped, and he was on the other end of Mark’s cutting anger, numbly facing every hit the other man threw at him. It’s hard to not carry anger when it’s been over three years and there hasn’t been a word between them.
And Mark is still everybody’s favorite. Mark the genius. Mark the wonder boy, the billionaire, the prophet–all he needs to do is look at any newsstand to see Mark’s face and whatever worshiping adjective they’ve selected for that day as a header. For every critique, for every controversy, for every lawsuit he’s been involved in, the praises outweigh them. There’s a never-ending flood regarding Facebook, and Eduardo just can’t seem to get away.
Maybe that’s how he ended up at this conference in Paris, despite knowing that Mark would be there, he finally accepted his fate. Eventually, you realize you can’t outrun the devil, you can only shield your eyes from his face.
—
He runs into Mark while getting his fifth drink at the bar. Not that he’s been counting, but he knows himself well enough. And it wasn’t so much of a run-in as it was a failed escape attempt on Eduardo’s side.
As he was waiting for his drink, he watches Mark part from his date with a few words and a brief motion with his hand. Mark looks apologetic almost, the way he bows his crown of curls towards her as he spoke and the way she squeezes his shoulder before slipping away.
Eduardo didn’t even notice Mark was coming his way until the bartender was asking the younger man what he wanted and Mark was answering in a low voice with a forgetful ‘please,’ after his order. He nearly grimaces when he sees the way Mark tries to smile, but gives up, catching himself in the mirror behind the bar. He forgot how self-aware Mark was in situations like this, always looking at every angle to predict what comes next, what is the next problem for him to solve.
Mark, as much as he may think he does, is not capable of predicting things before they happen.
Staring is rude, Eduardo knows that, so he focuses on Mark’s pale fingers tap-tap-tapping away at the table. It would come off as inpatient to anyone who didn’t know Mark, but Eduardo knew this was just his way of expressing his energy. If Mark wasn’t tapping away at his keyboard, he would be on any other surface that came under his deft fingers.
Eduardo knew this because he had spent too many hours of his youth, staring at Mark’s hands in various of circumstances.
Somewhere in his alcohol-riddled state, he forgets about his surroundings, and with his Berluti sleeve, he brushes the glass of his whiskey off the bar. He doesn’t even realize this, the glass is already falling by the time he feels contact with it. There’s a scatter of looks from the surrounding mass, but nobody can be bothered too much by it, as they quickly turn back to their own little bubbles.
The crash of glass, the splatter of liquid, and the chatter of the crowd pull his attention away from Mark, and towards his own mishap. He has had too much to drink.
A waiter reassures him that it’s okay and gets to work cleaning up the mess, while Eduardo eventually pulls his eyes away and turns towards the bar again. As he does so, the bartender places another drink in front of him, identical to the one he had before. Mark, is nowhere to be seen, the only thing remaining is his drink, the salt on the rim hadn’t even been touched.
“Excuse me,” Eduardo pulls on his best face and sounds out the words carefully, addressing the bartender, “Did you see where the guy who ordered this drink went?” He motions to the glass.
She nods curtly, putting down the glass she had been cleaning with a towel, “He went out the employee exit,” she gestures towards a door that is partially hidden behind a large piece of greenery. “Seemed a bit alarmed when the drink fell, startled almost.” She gives him an expression that he is too drunk to understand, so he thanks her.
Eduardo takes his glass and slips back into the crowd, deciding to get the necessary socializing that he was here for over with. As much as he hated traveling for these conferences, Paris was a beautiful city filled with many opportunities. It would take more than a shattered glass and a spooked ex-best friend to ruin that for him.
The discussions he weaves in and out of are like second nature to him, his father raised him a businessman, and as much as he resented that, he did reflect what his father had instilled in him. The chatter was second nature to him, drawing in people, and keeping them entertained without losing the plot. The laughter, the clinking glasses, the winks behind their shoulders—Eduardo forgets how good he is at what he does, Mark always distracts him from that, and that always makes him feel like he’s 20 again.
He does end up with the numbers in his pocket he wanted to leave with, but he also knows he pushed the limits of his mask of sobriety. They were all drinking, so he figured he was safe, it had reached the time of the gathering where the only people who remained were rubbing elbows. Most of the young people that Eduardo had seen earlier, crowding around Mark, had vanished.
As he circled around the room, heading back to the bar for another drink, he spotted Mark’s date.
In all honestly, he believed she had been paid to be there, as he didn’t think anyone would willingly subject themselves to Mark. Especially at an event like this.
When the bartender slid him his drink, Eduardo places down his last twenty and tells her to keep the change as he heads back to the lone table to continue watching Mark’s date. By the time he arrives there, she is gone. He stares grimly into his drink and swirls the ice cubes.
“Were you planning to talk to me or were you just going to stare?” a voice from behind him startles him, and he almost drops his glass for the second time that night.
When he turns around, he’s faced with Mark’s date. She doesn’t look as peppy and interested as she had earlier when she was talking to Mark and touching his arm. Eduardo doesn’t expect it of her either.
“I wasn’t staring, I was just wondering where your date went,” he answers, taking a sip from his drink.
“It’s none of your concern,” she spouts, defensively, placing her glass on the table and crossing her arms in front of her chest.
Eduardo shrugs, “No, but shouldn’t everyone be chasing after the life of the party? He is mister popular.” Even he can hear how snarky his voice sounds, but he doesn’t see any sense in regulating it.
“He’s doing his job, and I’m sure you know as much as I do that he hates these events. I’m not here as his date, I’m here as his friend. Why are you here?”
“Mark doesn’t have friends, or at least when he does he won’t treat you like one, be prepared to be treated like shit, if you’re his friend you should get used to it,” he says bitterly, almost spitting the words. “He’s fucked off because he got bored, and now you’re picking up the pieces.”
The look she gives him makes him want to shrink back into his suit jacket. He’s not sure if it’s anger or just disgust, but he’s seen this look directed at Mark very often, it’s shocking to be on the other side of it. Even drunk with confidence, he feels uncomfortable.
“You may have had the benefit of the doubt all these years, but Mark is not the person you once knew. From what I’ve seen, you’ve spent your entire evening getting drunk and entertaining investors that couldn’t care less about you. If you could take a second to not be an asshole, I would have told you where Mark was,” she picks up her glass again and holds it out in a mock ‘cheers’. “Have a nice night, Eduardo.”
He tries not to take her words to heart, but eventually, he decides he’s had enough of the stuffy room. Loosening his tie, he finds the same employee exit that he had been pointed to earlier. As he weaves through the corridors and past the bustling workers, he finds an exit to a back alley. The rain had stopped, but the cobblestones were still damp and Eduardo could feel it in the air that the rain wold pick up again.
The aluminum cigarette holder in his breast pocket had been weighing him down all evening, so he slips one out and pressed it between his lips. His Italian leather shoes tap the damp cobblestone of the Paris alleyway as he lights the cigarette.
The first nicotine-laced breaths rejuvenate his body, his shoulders roll back and he hums happily. There was nothing that compared to a good smoke after a night full of drinking.
“Can you put that out?” A voice echoed from behind him, it was so familiar that it makes Eduardo’s skin crawl.
He doesn’t comply with the request, instead, he sucks on the filtered end as he turns around. Partially shielded behind a dumpster, he recognizes that curly mop even in the dimly lit environment. As he gets closer, he realizes that Mark’s suit jacket is gone, his tie had been discarded as well. The cold was already nipping at Eduardo’s wrists and his ankles, so he wondered how Mark wasn’t shivering.
Actually, maybe he was. Eduardo could see his shoulders shaking, as Mark rocked slowly in his place, it wasn’t a quick movement, instead, it was like a tree swaying in the wind.
“I said put it out!” Mark barked, though his eyes were trained on the cobblestones beneath him, his voice was still cutting.
With a scoff, Eduardo takes another puff of his cigarette, they really don’t taste as good as his Lucky Strikes back in the states.
Mark moves quickly, Eduardo doesn’t even realize the younger man is on his feet until they’re at eye level. He’s still drunk, and noticeably so. Staggering towards him, Eduardo blinks, trying to react and by the time he takes a step back himself, Mark shoves him. He’s unsure if Mark is actually strong enough to push him, or if it’s just the booze that makes him unsteady on his feet.
As he stumbles back, he does drop his cigarette and Mark is quick to stomp it out and then he just stands there.
It doesn’t hurt too bad when Eduardo falls onto his ass, but he is a bit upset that his suit has now been dirtied. He wants to pull out another cigarette and light it, just to fuck with Mark, but then he actually looks at the man. Blinking rapidly, and the typical strong broad shoulders that Eduardo knew, were curled upon himself. He was still swaying, but it was increasing in speed. Clenched fist, tight jaw, Eduardo remembered this stance.
—
Eduardo was supposed to pick Mark up after his last class, they were going to walk to the library together. Instead, he got caught up while running into a few of his fellow Phoenix members. By the time he managed to talk his way out of going drinking with them, forty minutes had passed.
Still, he put his Italian soles to the cobblestones and made his way to the lecture hall where Mark was supposed to be at. As soon as he got to the door, he could hear the sound of another class, he ducked away, not wanting to disturb them. Down the hall, a door was ajar, and that was not typical of this building.
As he approached the opened lecture hall, he noticed it seemed empty and the lights were flickering as they often did in this building. He glanced in any way, just to make sure it was empty, and he was glad he did.
Mark was three rows down, sitting there and staring at the front of the room as if there was a professor speaking. His head pointed as it was when he was paying attention to something.
There was nothing though, the lecture hall was empty and there was nobody else present.
Sighing, he started to walk toward his friend, and as he did, he noticed that Mark’s laptop wasn’t out and his bag didn’t seem to be with him either. If he knew his friend, he knew that Mark spent every spare minute he had available to him on his laptop.
“Mark?”
The younger man barely reacted to Eduardo’s touch on his shoulder, just a shrug that seemed more like a reflex than a voluntary movement.
“Mark,” he sat down on the empty chair and watched Mark stare ahead. He was still breathing and blinking every few seconds, but there was no sign that he heard Eduardo.
So after a few more minutes, Eduardo pulled out the chapter he meant to be reading while in the library with Mark.
He got through a few pages before Mark bumped his book, which brought him out of his concentration. It didn’t seem like Mark had intentionally bumped him, as he was rocking in his seat. His eyes were closed and Mark lead the rocking with his head, the rest of his body followed. Eduardo had seen this a very times before, and in similar moments to this, Mark wouldn’t respond to his name or really anything else.
Usually, Eduardo would just go back to his work or wait until Mark came back to himself.
“Mark?” He tried again anyway after he placed his bookmark in between the pages so if Mark bumped it again he wouldn’t lose his place.
“Do you want to go back to Kirkland? I don’t know how long this hall is going to be empty,” he put a hand on Mark’s shoulder, and while it didn’t stop the rocking, Mark didn’t pull away from the touch which made Eduardo feel like he was doing the right thing.
It was another 15 minutes before he decides to make a move. He packed his own bag and finally spotted Mark’s a few rows behind them, Mark must have dropped it when he entered.
“I’m going to take you back to my dorm, it’s closer,” Eduardo told him, but it felt more like he was talking to himself. Carefully, he took Mark’s hand and helped him onto his feet. He shifted his bag onto his shoulder as he wrapped his other arm around Mark, to guide him to the door, he made sure to pick up the ratty backpack on their way out.
Although the bags had been heavy on his shoulders, the walk back went better than he expected it to. Mark was easy enough to guide, and Eduardo continued talking to him, if for himself more than Mark. He recalled his day, and why he had been late, apologizing for that as he brought them into Elliot.
When they finally reached his door, he had to dig through his bag to find his key. Mark rocked on his feet again, his eyes following Eduardo’s rustling as he desperately attempted to find that damned key. Eduardo knew he was being watched, but he welcomed it, at least Mark was aware of what was going on.
At least he trusted Eduardo to bring him to a safe place.
Finally, Eduardo dropped the bags near his desk and guided Mark to his bed, the least he could do for his guest. After digging through Mark’s bag, he found his cell. He ignored the texts he had sent about his tardiness and texted Chris that Mark was with him.
When he turned around, Mark was staring at him.
“Do you want to lie down?” He asked, placing Mark’s cell on his desk as he sat down on his desk chair. He flipped the light on that he used for studying
Mark blinked at him a few times but didn’t answer, he turned his head away from the lamp and his blinking sped up. Then Mark started rocking again, his fingers grasped at his jeans, it looked uncomfortable.
“I’m going to study, if you need anything, I’m here.” He pulled his bag over to the desk and started to work. Mark’s bag was close enough to the bed that he could grab his laptop if that was what he wanted. Not wanting to bother his friend, he kept his head down and pulled out his highlighter.
Once he had finished his chapter, he unfolded his limbs out of his chair and got up to stretch. Mark had been silent and Eduardo hadn’t heard the sound of typing, so he assumed the younger man had turned to sleep. If Mark wasn’t on his laptop, Eduardo would assume he was sleeping.
When he turned, he saw how mistaken he was.
Mark had pressed himself into the corner of Eduardo’s bed, his face towards the wall and his knees pulled up to his chest. He twisted the light, to point it towards the bed, so he could see Mark better. The light was barely enough to illuminate the room, but as soon as he turned it onto Mark, the first noise he had heard all night emerged from his friend.
It was a muffled sob or whimper, Eduardo hadn’t been quite sure, but it sounded painful. The hands that had been tightly gripping his jeans, went to his head, squashing his crown of curls. Mark rocked his body so hard his head started hitting the wall.
“Fuck,” Eduardo felt his heart drop, he just wanted to help Mark but it didn’t seem like anything he had done was helpful. It did seem like the light bothered him, so Eduardo switched it off and hoped that the light from underneath the door and the streetlamps outside were enough to keep him from breaking anything.
He crawled onto his bed and sat next to Mark. Unsure if he should stop him or not, he just sat there and hoped his presence and the removal of the light would be helpful. He was really out of his depth.
“You weren’t there,” Mark rasped after a few minutes. Eduardo had been watching his shadow move back and forth, while no longer hitting his head against the wall. “I waited. You weren’t there,” Mark swallowed audibly, “there were so many of them, and you weren’t there.”
“I’m sorry,” Eduardo said, barely above a whisper.
Mark didn’t respond, so Eduardo was shocked when he leaned against him, he almost fell into Eduardo’s open arms.
As Mark buried his face in Eduardo’s shirt, Eduardo carefully wrapped his arms around his back. He wasn’t sure if this was what Mark wanted, but since he had initiated the contact, he assumed it was. They weren’t particularly touchy, Eduardo couldn’t remember if he had ever hugged Mark or seen him initiate a hug with someone. Eduardo attempted to anyway, because as he tightened his embrace, Mark inched even closer until he was grasping at Eduardo and squeezing him just as tight.
He didn’t say anything when Mark’s muffled sounds started up again, he just rubbed his back and breathed deeply. They didn’t talk about it after that day. Even though Mark fell asleep in his arms.
—
“Do you want me to take you back to your hotel?” Eduardo asks, dusting himself off and rebuttoning his suit jacket.
“Leave me alone,” Mark spits, his hands clenching uncomfortably at his sides, his arms stiff. It was as if Mark was trying to force his body to be still, but his muscles were fighting it.
Scoffing, Eduardo takes a few steps toward him. “You’re being foolish if you think I’m going to leave you here alone, so either I take you back to your hotel, or I’ll go back in there and get your date.”
“She’s not my date!” Mark yells, then immediately staggers backward, shoving his hands into his pockets. “She’s not my date,” he repeats at a lower volume, staring at the ground.
“Okay,” Eduardo nods and pulls out his phone, he starts walking down the alley. “Come on, I’m calling us a cab.”
“I’m not coming with you—”
“That door is locked,” Eduardo says over his shoulder as he pulls up a Paris cab service on google, “It closed when I came out. C’mon,” he keeps walking and after a few seconds, he hears Mark’s footsteps behind him.
They get to the main street, and Mark shields his eyes from the headlights. Eduardo pats his breast pocket and pulls out the sunglasses he assumed he would need for his hangover, he thrusts them into Mark’s hand. As Mark plays with them, considering if he should put them on, Eduardo spots the cab he ordered and flags it down.
It’s embarrassing, him waving his arms about, as Mark stands there next to him, rocking on the balls of his feet. They’re very obviously tourists because the cab driver addresses them in English.
“Mark, what hotel are you at?” Eduardo hisses when he realizes he doesn’t have an address to give the man. The response he gets is just a blank stare, of course, Mark doesn’t even know where he’s staying. So Eduardo sloppily supplies the one to his hotel and pulls Mark into the backseat. He has to help him get his seatbelt on because it keeps slipping out of Mark’s fingers.
It’s a quick drive, but seemingly not quick enough for Mark, as he puts his head in between his knees and groans audibly. Eduardo wants to groan himself, his last drink was really starting to hit him, and being inside a moving vehicle didn’t help his nausea.
Once they do arrive, Eduardo struggles to count the euros and just gives the man a red bill with a 50 on it and pulls Mark towards the hotel entrance. Mark is quick to squirm out of his grip which Eduardo honestly doesn’t mind. He tries to ignore the stares they get in the lobby and guides Mark to the elevator.
Once inside, Mark’s shoulders slump and he leans against the wall as if he was barely able to hold his body up.
“What is wrong with you?” Eduardo asks, but it comes out more like an insult, a jab to the stomach that is probably deserved but not appropriate.
“Nothing,” Mark mutters and steps out of the elevator when they reach the floor Eduardo had selected.
“Yeah, sure,” he mutters back and pulls out his hotel card. They finally reach the door and Eduardo lets Mark into the suite, following behind. He locks the door and slips the key into the slot by the door, the lights flicker on, first in the hall and then in the bedroom where Mark is struggling to get his shoes off.
Eduardo knows what he’s doing though, he knows the lights are an issue and flips them off. To make sure they aren’t stumbling around in the dark, he turns on the bathroom light in the hall and leaves the door half open. Slipping out of his own shoes with ease, and hanging his suit jacket up, he turns to face Mark.
Audibly frustrated, Mark pulls at his shoes with no avail, he hadn’t even gotten the laces loose.
Sighing, Eduardo crouches down in front of him and softly bats Mark’s hands away. “Let me do it,” he says.
Once Mark’s shoes are off, and his hoodie had been discarded (Eduardo wonders where he got it because the man had been in a full suit and tie when he first saw him that night), Eduardo helps him undo the buttons of his shirt. Mark doesn’t want to accept his help, but he does, he needs it. Just as how Eduardo doesn’t want to be around Mark, yet here he is, helping the man get his shirt off.
“I have cotton shorts and a shirt you can wear,” he says, getting them from his luggage. Mark grabs them from him without a word and gets to undressing. Eduardo doesn’t let himself stare, he turns just as Mark gets his slacks off and fetches a new drink from the mini-fridge.
“Don’t,” Mark says, just as he’s about to open the little bottle of pinot noir. “I can still smell your drinks from earlier, if you open that, I might as well go sleep in the bathtub.” He sits on the made bed, in the clothes that Eduardo had just given him, and he looks helpless. Sitting on his own hands, shoulders curled inwards, makes his broad frame look remote.
“I’m not here to appease you,” he spits, his voice louder than he intended it to be. He only recognizes this because Mark’s hands instinctually go to cover his ears, the hands that he had been sitting on, trying to keep still.
Eduardo feels the same hurt in his chest that he had in his dorm room all those years ago.
“Then why did you bring me here?” Mark asks, his lips pressed into a straight line, it's the only time they’ve made eye contact that night.
Putting the bottle back into the mini fridge, he walks to the window to admire the view, but mostly so he can stop looking at Mark. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he grips the windowsill, taking deep breaths to calm himself. He knows the exercises like the back of his hand, keeping his composure is something he’s been trained in, but why is it so hard when he’s around Mark?
What seems to be an ear-splitting ringtone. His phone is always on silent, so it must be Mark’s. The ringing is coming from Mark’s suit jacket on the bed, but the younger man isn’t answering it. His hands were back over his ears, knees pulled up to his chest and his head tucked in between his knees.
Eduardo takes that as a sign to answer the phone, “Hello?”
“Who are you and where is Mark?” A voice on the other end demands, it’s the woman he had spoken to earlier that night, Mark’s not-date, Selene, from what the display said.
“Mark is with me. He will talk to you tomorrow,” he glances over at the younger man, not sure if that’s actually true, “Goodbye.” After hanging up, he puts Mark’s phone on silent and on the bedside table.
With a sigh, he sits on the bed and watches Mark’s nails dig into his scalp.
“I brought you here because you needed help, and you were vulnerable. As much as I dislike you, I wasn’t going to let something happen to you in this state,” he admits after Mark eventually removes his hands from his ears. He goes back to sitting on them.
“What a savior,” Mark says bitterly, his shoulders stiffening.
He scoffs, “Only you would be a complete ass about someone trying to help you while you’re having a breakdown, or whatever the fuck this is.” It comes off as snarky, he didn’t intend that.
Mark raises his head to get in a quick glare but then dips it again, staring at the sheets, “I didn’t ask for your help. I was out there because that’s what I do if I’m having a sensory overload, I remove myself from the situation or— it doesn’t matter, I didn’t need your help.”
“Well, you got it,” Eduardo mutters and gets off the bed. “I’m going down to the bar, do whatever you need to, call me if you don’t need my help.” Now he did mean to be snarky.
Just as he’s about to exit, Mark calls out for him to stay, and despite every cell in his body screaming at him to go get a drink, he doesn’t. He stays. Instead of facing Mark, he heads to the shower and leaves him to his own suffering.
Soaking under the hot water, he washes off the entire night with the lemongrass-scented body gel and brushes his teeth until he doesn’t taste craving of another drink. It clears his mind a bit, but also tells him he’s going to have a miserable morning, a hangover is imminent. Swallowing an Advil from his toiletries kit, he combs through his hair and wraps himself with a robe. He forgot to bring clothes in.
When he reenters the bedroom, Mark had completely uprooted the made bed and surrounded himself with the decorative pillows, Eduardo couldn’t see his head or his hands, just the subtle movement underneath the pillows.
“Don’t suffocate yourself, not sure how I’d explain that to room service,” he jokes as he pulls on joggers and a shirt. He plugs in his phone next to the bed and slips in under the covers that Mark had already disturbed. The hotel room is almost pitch dark, but there’s still light coming in from the window.
So when Mark peeks his head out from the pillow stack, Eduardo sees him fairly clearly.
“I need you to hold me,” Mark says with such firmness that Eduardo is taken back.
“Are you—”
“I’m not fucking joking, you did it before, now do it again,” Mark pushes some of the pillows away as if he was allowing Eduardo space inside his nest. “The pillows aren’t enough, okay?”
“A lot has happened between that and now,” he spits but before he can say more, Mark has wormed his way into Eduardo’s personal space and tucks his face into his neck.
“Just pretend like it hasn’t,” Mark whispers.
He wants to say it doesn’t work like that, he wants to tell Mark that he can’t just ignore it, shove him off, and spread himself out in his bed. He also knows that he said he wanted to help Mark, so either he was lying to Mark, or himself.
Not wanting to know the answer, he just wraps his arms around Mark’s back and squeezes him until Mark hums in an affirmative manner. It takes a while for them to find a comfortable position, a lot of squirming and Eduardo gets dangerously close to kneeing Mark in the balls, but by the time they figure it out, Mark’s breath has slowed.
He had been on the brink of hyperventilating all evening, so it’s a good sign. It tells Eduardo that he has helped.
Eventually, Mark’s fingers, which had been so tightly curled around his shirt, loosen and his body becomes slack. The small noises of discomfort that he had been making ever since Eduardo found him in the alley were replaced with the sound of his breathing. In the light from the window, Eduardo could see the dark circles under Mark’s eyes and the wrinkles near them, his sharp cheekbones, and cracked lips. Though it had been half a decade since he first met the man, he always looked peaceful in his sleep, and he still did.
Carefully, with the tips of his fingers, he traces Mark’s hairline, to his cheekbones, to his jaw. He rests his hand against the flushed skin of his cheek and watches Mark shift into his palm in his sleep. It made Eduardo’s heart ache, it upset him that he was this close to the man, but he also felt protective. He drew his hand away and shifted onto his back from his side, pulling Mark with him and bearing the pressure from before around his torso.
Eduardo turned to sleep before he spent his entire night staring at his old best friend.
—
He wakes up with a splitting headache, as expected. As he slowly blinks the sleep out of his eyes, he realizes Mark is no longer next to him. The room is dim, it seems like the curtain had been drawn, and there’s also the mixed smell of coffee and fresh bread.
Rubbing his face as he tries to sit up, he spots Mark in a lounge chair across the room speaking into his phone. It’s as if there is a thick bubble around his head because he can barely make out what the man is saying.
There’s a cart with food on it near the entrance, so he figures Mark ordered room service. He grabs the half-empty bottle of water on the nightstand and chugs it. By the time he’s finished, Mark’s finishing up his call with some final words Eduardo thinks are French.
“Hangover?” Mark asks, placing his phone down.
Eduardo nods, swinging his feet over the edge of the mattress to get some food. Mark seems to be reading his mind because he pulls the cart to the edge of the bed and climbs onto the sheets. Eduardo tries not to stare at the flash of Mark’s pale thigh, the shorts were definitely not very fitting.
“I ordered room service, though it took me a while to convince them that I was your guest,” he hands Eduardo a plate and takes his own, which already has some spare crumbs on it. “I’m feeling better, thanks for asking.”
Eduardo didn’t ask.
Mark just shrugged it off and ripped off a piece of the baguette, dropping it onto his plate. Sloppily, he applied jam from a tiny plastic package and then started to eat. Mark ate the entire thing before Eduardo realized he was staring.
“I’m hungry,” Mark says, almost shamefully taking more bread. There’s also a Red Bull on the tray which is so out of place amongst the fancy bread and cheeses and shiny dishes.
“Why are you still here?” He asks after watching Mark continue his breakfast. He goes for the coffee, instead of food, not sure if he will be able to hold anything down anyway. The coffee is rich and still steaming hot when he pours it, it floods his nose but Mark pulls away. Shielding his nose with his hand.
“I’m feeling better, but I don’t really want to talk to anyone,” Mark shrugs, putting a few strawberries on his plate.
“You’re talking to me,” Eduardo points out, taking a strawberry for himself.
Mark acknowledges it with a nod, taking a sip of his Red Bull. “You don’t count. It’s not the same.”
He nods in return and goes back to his coffee and strawberries. Eventually, he does have a slice of bread with butter, but chews it slowly and chases it with water in between every bite.
Eventually, Mark’s phone rings again and he takes it into the bathroom.
While he’s gone, Eduardo tries to wake himself up. Slapping his cheeks and groaning into the pillow, even pressing one of the hot towels that were on the tray to his face. He has no idea how Mark is staying so calm, but he figures it’s better than him being mad, or something else.
Eduardo doesn’t know if he would have preferred it if Mark had just left before he even woke up.
At least they wouldn’t be doing this awkward song and dance.
When Mark returns, he’s rubbing at his neck with a grimace. If Eduardo is reading his body language properly, he was in pain.
“It’s funny, the same way I was feeling last night, the way I’m feeling now, your hangover is mimicking. It’s why I closed the curtains and dimmed the lights—your senses are still overloaded, but at least some of the elements have been removed,” Mark remarks, sitting on the edge of the bed, staring down at the floor.
Eduardo stares at him, but Mark doesn’t even notice. He never did notice when Eduardo was watching him.
“I don’t think what I’m experiencing right now is in any way comparable to what you live through,” he says in a soft voice, unsure where the sudden compassion was coming from.
Mark turns, glancing at him briefly, “We don’t have to compare, I’m just trying to explain—”
“You don’t have to,” he says curtly, interrupting the younger man, “After that first time, I did some research—well, I did a lot. I should have been better yesterday, but I was drunk and angry—” ”I get it,” Mark responds. “You don’t have to apologize, I’m surprised you helped me at all.”
“I’m not apologizing,” there’s his arrogance again, his father's voice in the back of his mind, telling him to keep the upper hand while he’s got it. He ignores that. “I’m just saying that I was acting like a dick when I know what’s wrong with you, and it certainly made things worse. I shouldn’t have done that,”
Mark nods, sitting on his hands again. “Thanks,” he follows it up quickly with, “For your help. Not just yesterday but back then—it was a lot, I was a lot worse back then—I didn’t have the support I do now. You didn’t have to help me, you didn’t have to sit with me, or bring me back to your dorm. I wasn’t even speaking, but you did…” Mark swallows and Eduardo can see his Adam's apple bob as he does so.
Eduardo can’t look at him, he can’t say anything. It’s not his pounding headache that’s stopping him, it’s the giant lump in his throat and the mental block preventing him from even looking at Mark. Cradling his coffee, he looks out the window from where the curtains haven’t been completely shut, he can see a sliver of the city and he can hear it as well. The cars faintly bustling around, the honking, the screeches of the tires. If he can hear it, he doesn’t want to imagine everything that Mark can hear.
‘Difficulties in filtering out sensory input.’
He remembers that one from his research, despite it being almost six years ago, he tries not to think about it too much or he gets upset. All of the things that he always got mad at Mark for, formed a mirroring list from his research. If he didn’t stop himself from thinking about it, he would fall into a cave of ‘What if’s?’ What if Mark had told him, what if he had asked, what if they had established his struggles from the beginning of the friendship, would that have changed anything?
“I think about it a lot. What you did,” Mark speaks again, his hands smoothing out the sheets next to him with precision. He moves his hands back and forth, even when the sheet is already flat, he uses the palm of his hand and then the back of his fingers, it’s almost soothing to watch. “You were the first person to ever do that, help me when I was like that. People get mad when they think you’re ignoring them, I guess, and I understand why they wouldn’t want to deal with it,”
Mark notices that Eduardo is watching his hands and freezes. Just as he’s about to sit on them again, Eduardo blurts out, “You don’t have to do that— I mean, you don’t have to stop on my account. If it makes you comfortable, you know—” it’s awkward and he cringes at his own word choice, but it seems to relax Mark.
His fingers tap carefully against the sheet before he goes back to smoothing it out.
“Why did you help me?”
Eduardo doesn’t owe Mark anything, he doesn’t owe him an answer and he doesn’t owe him an explanation. He was also never good at saying no to the man, and he could never fight the urge to explain himself.
“Because I loved you,” he answers honestly and overrides his mental block to finally look at Mark.
His hands were still, but only momentarily. Mark’s jaw tightens and his lower lip wobbles, they’re searching for something in each other's eyes. Eduardo has laid himself bare for Mark, and Mark is still trying to understand what his actions mean.
They never were good at this, communication, even when they said the words out loud. There was an ocean between them, and the waves were so loud, it drowned out the message.
All Eduardo could hear was the crashing against the shore, as Mark pulled away.
—
After Mark left, Eduardo drowned himself in his hangover and spent a few hours in bed. He answered a few calls, but ultimately, shut his phone off and turned on the TV onto the BBC for the background noise as he wallowed in self-hatred. It was his own fault, his headache, his sour mood, but he also couldn’t bring himself to do anything to counteract them.
By the time evening rolled around, Eduardo had barely left his bed and decided he would just call in dinner to his room. The tray that Mark had ordered for breakfast was still standing in the corner.
Just as he was about to pick up the phone to call reception, there was a knock at the door.
Pulling his robe tight around his waist, he clamors out of bed and makes his way to the hotel door. Noticing how it wasn’t locked, but ignoring his own stupidity, he opens the door.
Standing outside of his hotel room is Mark. He has a backpack over his shoulder and a hood over his head, but it’s indisputably him. As he’s staring, Mark holds up a bag that smells like food.
“From what I understand, it’s customary to invite people in,” Mark says, quirking a smile that makes Eduardo feel confused. He steps aside anyway and lets the younger man into his hotel room.
Mark seems unusually peppy, for someone who had just had a complete shutdown the night prior. Eduardo watches him take his hood off, and droplets of water fall onto the carpet. He hadn’t left the hotel all day, but it looks like it was still raining.
“My peace offering,” Mark set the food on the bed and then put his backpack down. He rummaged through it until he produced the clothing that Eduardo had given him the night prior. “Clean,” he announces as he places the folded clothes on the bed. “Thai food, I don’t know if you still like it— but I’ve been eating a lot of it, and we used to—” Mark stops and zips his backpack again. “You don’t have to eat it, just an offer.”
Eduardo sighs and takes the bag, he isn’t going to say no to free food. It had been at least six years since he had takeout like this. As he unpacks the food at the small table in the room, Mark stands there awkwardly shifting on the balls of his feet.
“Sit down, Jesus. You’re giving me anxiety,” he mutters as he sits down and examines at what Mark had picked out for him. It looks good, so he starts eating and Mark eventually settles down opposite him.
“I shouldn't have shoved you yesterday, but to be honest, it was your fault,” Mark says, unpacking his own food.
Eduardo swallows his mouthful and stares at the younger man for a few seconds, “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Okay,” Mark seems content and uses chopsticks to pick at his food. Eduardo’s already finished half his dish by the time Mark starts eating his own, with a colorful assortment of veggies on the side, presumably not to be eaten.
“Are you going to eat those?” He asks after he finishes his meal and has shoved the trash into the too-tiny hotel bin.
Mark shakes his head so Eduardo leans over and starts to eat what Mark had picked out. It’s been a while since Eduardo had eaten with anyone, not involved with work, so it’s strange to be sitting in silence. He doesn’t have the urge to break it though, and Mark seems fairly content.
There’s still simmering anger under Eduardo’s skin, and he’s asking himself where Mark got the audacity to show up at his hotel room after walking out like that. Eduardo had admitted that he loved him, and Mark walked out as if turning down a bad business proposal.
It reminded Eduardo that there was a reason why it was in the past. Loved, no longer in love. In his defense, the only love he grew up with eventually grew into anger, so he was just fulfilling the prophecy his father had laid before him.
“Selene said I should thank you, for helping me. I agree, but I don’t think you want to hear it,” Mark eventually breaks his train of thought. He’s sitting stiffly in the hotel chair, back straight and hands folded in his lap. The mask of professionalism that Mark always wore so poorly. “I don’t think you really helped me, if I’m being honest, your tact was inadequate for the situation, but I don’t hold it against you.”
“Are you serious?” Eduardo slumps down in his chair even further, his robe spilling open a bit.
Mark nods, tapping his fingers against his knuckles for a few seconds before he continues. “I don’t hold it against you for being ill-prepared, I want to teach you.”
He doesn’t know how to respond, Mark has taken the words from him.
With a smile, that’s just as uncomfortable as his stiff stance, Mark steadies himself on his feet and pulls his backpack on again. “You should know these things. I know I’m your first autistic friend, but there are a lot of us in the world.”
“Who said you’re my friend?” Eduardo asks, stunned at Mark’s statement. He watches the younger man rock on the balls of his feet for a few seconds, as he reaches the hotel door where he had just entered from.
“You accepted my peace offering, I thanked you, and you ate my vegetables. We are friends,” Mark says with such certainty, it leaves Eduardo too shocked to move, to even argue as Mark leaves the room with a click of the door.
After a few minutes of trying to figure out what the fuck just happened, Eduardo retreats to the bed and kicks the clothes that Mark had folded on the bed off. As the fabric goes flying, a paper floats in the air, swinging as it complies with gravity and ends up on the floor.
On the back of the receipt for the food, Mark has scribbled his number with a note ‘don’t call, text :)’