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Eduardo shakes his head, over and over, because this? This is not real, this is not happening, and Mark is breaking his heart. Mark is breaking his heart again, because that’s what Mark does. He waltz’s into Eduardo’s life and shreds everything in his path. “I don’t believe you,” Eduardo says, involuntary, but it’s true. He can’t believe anything Mark says anymore, not since that corridor in Palo Alto and you’ll get left behind.
“I’ve never wasted time saying things I don’t mean,” Mark says, like it’s nothing, like it’s okay for him to just show up and say things like that, like he can’t see every barrier Eduardo built falling brick by brick apart; “Why would I start now?”
Eduardo’s hands fist and he can feel his forehead tightening. “I need to you leave,” but Mark just stands there, so he says, “Mark,” and, “Mark,” and, “Please. I need you to leave.”
“Wardo, I miss you,” Mark says, and Eduardo has to squeeze his eyes shut so he doesn’t fold, because he always folds when it’s Mark, always always always, ever since the beginning, and he can’t keep doing it.
He allows himself, “I miss you too,” but it’s not enough, it’s not nearly enough to make them okay again and he says so.
Mark’s eyes narrow in frustration, and, “What can I do?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” Eduardo says. “I don’t know. Give me time?”
“Remember the algorithm on the window at Kirkland?” Mark says, fast and like he isn’t listening, and Eduardo feels a rage so sudden and so deep he almost punches him.
........and then a friend requested that i fix it and this happened:
awwww, d’you want me to fix them all proper like? <3 It’s okay, in my head, Eduardo manages to convince Mark that he needs some space to deal with Mark showing up out of the blue and apologising, and then they start their friendship again real slow. So they hang out a little and then a lot and then suddenly they’re sitting across a table in a restaurant Eduardo’s not really sure how Mark knows he loves and Mark is underdressed—a hoodie and old jeans, like old times—and Eduardo just. Something in his brain clicks and he asks, “Is this—I mean. Are we on a date?”
And Mark shrugs and looks away, but Eduardo’s always known Mark better than anyone, better than maybe he should because he shouldn’t have paid as much attention to Mark as he did back at Harvard. Mark is embarrassed. Mark is acting like he’s been caught.
Eduardo was always a little more in love with Mark than he should have been too; he thought he was over that, but the way Mark avoids his eyes makes his heart pound in his chest. He has to bite his lip to stop himself saying anything: Mark needs to be the next one to speak. Maybe Eduardo sees now that he wasn’t the right guy to be Facebook’s CFO, maybe Eduardo gets why Mark edged him out, but it doesn’t change how he did it. It doesn’t change the fact that Mark separated Eduardo-the-CFO and Eduardo-the-best-friend too well to see that how he was doing it was going to fuck them both over.
He needs Mark to answer him, because he can’t give and give and give himself to Mark and get nothing back, not anymore.
“Wardo, I—” Mark says, like it hurts. “Wardo.”
“Mark,” Eduardo says, “I need you to say it.”
His fingers are twisting the fabric of his trousers—they’re going to be a wrinkled mess by the end of dinner—and he can feel his pulse in his throat, in his wrists, in his head, but Mark nods, sharply, once and says, “I want this.”
He’s a little evasive at best, but this is Mark and Eduardo’s sort of doomed to always struggle to understand the layers beneath every word Mark chooses to use.
Eduardo looks at him, really looks, and he can see that this isn’t the same Mark from Harvard, not really. He’s still Mark, unequivocally, but he’s changed, he’s matured. So: “I want this too,” he says, and finally, finally lets himself.