fic: tsn; sweet on you (PG-13/R) (1b/3)

[mooging]

(continued from here)

//


Mark sort of hangs around awkwardly that evening while Eduardo cleans the shop counter and locks up for the night, and then they walk a couple of blocks to a place Eduardo says he knows. Eduardo slings an arm over Mark's shoulders, natural, like he does it all the time, and Mark tries not to do anything embarrassing like leaning too far into his touch.

Inside, Eduardo says he'll get the drinks and Mark tries to insist on paying, because billionaire, and because he sort of wants to, but Eduardo gives him a mock-stern look and he pretends to relent before shoving a couple of dollars in Eduardo's coat pocket when he goes up to the bar and isn't looking.

He half expects Eduardo to get some girly drink, something pink with sugar round the rim of the glass, because he still can't shake the whole baking-is-for-girls thing even though rationally he knows it's stupid. Eduardo comes back from the bar with two bottles of beer, and Mark is pleasantly surprised.

"Cheers," Eduardo says, and they clink the tops of the bottles together and drink.

Mark watches Eduardo take a pull, his lips wrapping around the glass neck, and actually goes hot.

Over the course of the evening, Eduardo tells him about earning three hundred thousand dollars by predicting the fucking weather, and using it to start up the bakery.

"What the hell," Mark says, possibly slightly drunk. "Three hundred thousand dollars by predicting the weather?"

Eduardo shrugs. "Betting oil futures."

"Jesus."

Eduardo laughs, taking a drag from his beer. Mark thinks this is maybe the third round, but he can't be sure. Maybe it's the fourth. Mark's been getting the drinks since the first, insisting over Eduardo's - jokingly, gesticulatory - vehement protestations, so he should really know how many they've had, but it's been a while since he's been out like this, maybe not since Harvard. The first summer in Palo Alto was mostly just coding, and parties somehow springing up or maybe just never dying out at the house, so that wasn't so much going out as maintaining a fluctuating state of being more or less buzzed. He's sort of missed this though, sitting in a bar with someone. He looks up and sees Eduardo looking back, leaning forward on his elbows to listen to Mark, and Mark thinks maybe he's never had something quite like this to miss. He wishes he could tell what Eduardo thinks this is.

"This coming from the guy who invented Facebook?"

"That wasn't about the money," Mark says.

Eduardo looks like he's not sure whether to believe him. Mark gets that it does sound pretty ridiculous, especially since he's, like, the youngest billionaire in the world or something. He gets that people who weren't there, who didn't see it rise up out of a shared suite at Harvard and nights passing without sleep and enough Red Bulls to make him nauseous and glances out of his window to see guys being hazed while he initiated himself into his own new servers, those people might well doubt that it wasn't about the money. But it wasn't.

"It wasn't," Mark insists. And, okay, it's stupid, and, okay, he's more than a little buzzed right now, but he really wants Eduardo to get it, to understand. He reaches out across the water-ringed table and grabs Eduardo's wrist. He can feel the curve of wrist bone under his thumb.

"Wardo," he says, slipping the first syllable like sobriety, "it wasn't about the money."

Eduardo looks down at Mark's hand. Mark looks at Eduardo's dark eyelashes fanning out across the upper curve of his cheekbones.

"All right," says Eduardo. "It wasn't about the money."

Mark levels a glance at him.

Eduardo puts his hand on top of Mark's. "Seriously," he says. His voice is all low. Mark notices that the Portuguese catch to his accent is stronger the less sober he gets. "Seriously," Eduardo says. He laughs again, letting Mark's hand go, and Mark feels its absence even in the heat of the bar. "What, you think I run a bakery for the money?"

He takes another swig from his beer, and Mark draws his hand back to his side of the table. He feels odd, like when you walk into a room someone's just walked out of and, just for a second, you catch their mood. He feels like that, like he's just missed something. He shivers. He wants to ask Eduardo why he does run a bakery, wants to ask him things he's never asked anyone, to know him, but there's something about the way Eduardo holds his shoulders when he sets the beer back down, something defensive that Mark is pretty sure he hasn't entirely caused, that convinces him to change tack.

"I would have thought your bakery was quite lucrative," he says, and he stumbles on some of the consonants, halfway to slurring. "I mean, my staff seem to buy enough cake to get you at least, like, a pony or something."

Eduardo laughs again, tipping his head back, tension relaxing out, and Mark watches the strong line of his throat and laughs too, because it's infectious. He's still so happy, sitting here with drinks and Eduardo, and it's maybe the longest he's gone without thinking about code since before CourseMatch.

"I don't want a pony," Eduardo says, shaking his head for emphasis.

"No?"

"Nope."

"You look like the kind of person who would want a pony."

"Yeah?"

"You know," Mark waves a hand in Eduardo's general direction. "Big eyes. Stupid, happy face. If you were a girl you'd have, like, pink ribbons in your hair."

Eduardo looks like he's considering this, and Mark drains the last of his beer.

"I do have a hairnet," Eduardo offers.

Mark snorts with laughter, and Eduardo looks pleased.

"Is it pink?"

"What, my hairnet?"

"Yes, your hairnet." Hairnet doesn't even sound like a word anymore. They're both giggling ridiculously, childishly. Mark doesn't even feel self-conscious about it, like he might do ordinarily, and he thinks maybe he could feel like this all the time, if Eduardo were with him, but then maybe that could just be the beer.

Eduardo rubs a hand over his mouth, but his smile doesn't go away.

"Fuck," he says, unevenly, like the laugh is still trying to break through. "What's the time?"

It's harder than it should be for Mark to shove the sleeve of his hoodie up off his wrist so he can see his watch.

"Almost eleven?" Mark sometimes -- usually, who is he trying to kid - hasn't even left his desk yet.

"Fuck," Eduardo says, again, and he tips back the last of his drink. "I have to be up early tomorrow."

Mark twists in his seat a little, out of the blue feeling like a girl at the end of a date. That's ridiculous on two levels, because Mark's still unsure what this actually was, and because Mark's not a girl, but. It still feels like a brush-off.

"All right," Mark shrugs, reaching down under his chair for his backpack. "Yeah, I mean, I should be getting off too."

Eduardo's mouth looks like he's trying to keep back a grin. "Yeah?"

Mark can feel himself going red. "I meant - "

Eduardo kicks him gently under the table. "I know what you meant."

Mark doesn't know what's supposed to happen now. In college, the end of a night usually meant the end of an AEPi thing where everyone sort of tipped out back to their dorms in various degrees of sobriety, or leaving a bar with Dustin and Chris, listening to Dustin babble drunkenly about how he totally had a chance with that girl, didn't they see how she was totally flirting with him, while Mark helped Chris help Dustin not fall into bushes or anything on the way back to the dorm and then passed out on his bed in his clothes. At the end of dates, everything was more awkward, Mark trying to figure out what was wanted of him. He's not socially unaware, he can read other people better than they appreciate, but he can't parse them when they turn themselves on him. What he's saying is, he has no frame of reference for this, vacillating between a date and grabbing a drink, and he doesn't - he doesn't know what he should do.

Eduardo's pulling on his coat, a well-cut black affair with deep pockets and neat lapels. It suits him. Mark stands up and folds his arms across himself, his slightly dingy hoody the only thing between him and the cold.

They walk out onto the pavement and scan the street for taxis. Eduardo promises they come by this way quite regularly, and Mark is drunk enough that he doesn't fancy walking anywhere else to find one, and so they settle back against the wall of the bar.

Mark doesn't quite know what to say now.

Eduardo looks over at him. "Hey," he says. "You know, I really do have to be up early tomorrow."

Mark shrugs. "It's fine."

"No," Eduardo says, and he actually reaches out and touches Mark's elbow, getting him to turn and look up. "I run a bakery. Early starts are part of the job." He smiles. "I do some of my best work in the mornings."

"It's fine," Mark says again, embarrassed, glancing away from the earnest way Eduardo is looking at him. "I'm still not a girl. That hasn't changed."

"But you'd look so pretty with pink ribbons in your hair," Eduardo teases, tugging at one of Mark's curls, and Mark didn't realise it was possible to go this red but apparently it is. Eduardo's thumb brushes Mark's temple as he lets go of Mark's hair, and Mark turns to him, tilting his face up like a question, and he swears Eduardo starts to lean in - but then there's the sweep of headlights round the corner, and a taxi coming down the road, and Mark leaps to the edge of the curb, arm out to flag it down. He won't let himself have this unless he's sure, unless Eduardo's sure. Right now, they're drunk, or at least, Mark is - and drunk is not sure.

He opens the door to the cab and looks back at Eduardo. "You take it," he offers, surprising himself, fighting to keep his voice steady, trying not to think about Eduardo's thumb against his skin.

Eduardo steps back. "You go ahead," he says. "I don't live far, I'll be fine."

And Mark is still a deep, flushed red, and his heart is pounding harder than it should be even for the number of beers he's had, and Eduardo is looking at him with his dark, gentle eyes, and this wasn't a date, and Mark is quite drunk, and it's all too much. He jumps in the back of the taxi and gives his address, and then, unable to help it, he turns to look out the rearview window to see Eduardo standing and watching the cab pull away, getting lost in the shadows in his dark coat. Mark raises a hand like he's about to wave, and Eduardo makes this daft salute back, and then the cab rounds the next corner and Mark is left slumped in his seat with the beginnings of regret, and an odd, tight feeling in his chest.

//

Mark is less than useless in the morning. He jerks awake at, like, six, and he is so not a morning person unless he's seeing it from the perspective of having been up all night that it takes him a few bleary minutes of staring accusatorily at the blinking green numbers on his clock before they actually tell him anything. His hangover at least does him the decency of letting him stagger into his bathroom before he pukes everywhere, which is nice.

He spends half an hour propping up the tiles on his bathroom wall, unwilling to tempt fate by getting up and leaving and then goes back to bed with a pillow over his face. When he wakes up again, his clock is telling him it's ten fifteen, which is news he receives with much less animosity and also less nausea, which is even better.

He showers and drinks, like, four cups of coffee and finds some clothes in his wardrobe that have both been washed recently and also put away properly from the laundry, and heads out to work.

Since college, Mark has had this thing where, however bad his hangover pretends to be in the morning when it's like a team of small, angry dwarves have taken up residence in his skull and vented Nordic, axe-swinging rage on his gray matter, when he's fit enough to shower and force down some inhumanely strong coffee, it starts to wane. He has fond, fond memories of that first Palo Alto summer, everyone else collapsed and useless over various items of living-room furniture while he got wired-in with his headphones on, and did enough work to make everyone wide-eyed when they eventually came down and/or recovered, respectively. This is different, though. Now he has less fond and more excruciating memories of being like "hurr you like ponies" and also a memory that twinges something in his stomach and makes his throat hurt, the side of Eduardo's thumb against the thin skin at his temple, warm in the late night air.

When Mark gets into the office, he does what he normally does when he doesn't know what to do about something, which is to code hard enough that his field of vision actually narrows down to the laptop screen and he jumps when Dustin comes in, a couple of hours later.

He shoves a familiar-looking bakery box under Mark's nose, lid open.

"Cookie?" he asks. "They're not warm anymore, but they're still good."

Mark shakes his head, not looking, and tries to refocus.

"Your loss," Dustin shrugs, and chews his way through at least two more before Mark sighs, and gives up, and looks up at him properly.

"What did we do before Eduardo?" Dustin wonders. His mouth is full. Mark can see bits of cookie rolling around inside it.

"Is this going to be important, or is this just you trying to get me to eat something?"

Dustin shrugs again. "Go about your business," he says. "I'm on a break. A cookie break. A delicious, chocolate chip, novelty-shaped cookie break."

Mark starts to get a niggling feeling of worry in the back of his mind. It's one that he associates with half-remembering a mis-pressed key near twenty minutes back but not knowing quite where, and with having to scan back over lines and lines of code to find it, and trying to hang on to what he wants to type next but without losing track of what he's looking for now. It's like that, but distinctly more Eduardo-flavoured.

"Novelty-shaped?" he echoes.

Dustin doesn't seem to be paying attention.

"Yeah, Mark, you wouldn't happen to know why the cookies are shaped like ponies today, would you?" he asks, off-hand, like he's not expecting an answer - but then he probably starts expecting one really fast when Mark freezes up.

"What?" says Mark, because: what?

Dustin puts the box of cookies carefully to one side and then gets very close to Mark's face. Mark would be more bothered about this if he wasn't too busy being bothered about the fact that he made a stupid crack about ponies under the influence and now Eduardo has baked pony-shaped cookies and presumably basically everyone in the office has eaten them.

"You do know!" Dustin crows, gleefully triumphant. "Oh my god, Mark, tell me everything."

"No," Mark says, trying to shrug him off and get back to his laptop. "No, I don't know. Just enjoy your equine-shaped baked goods and leave me alone."

Dustin refuses to be shrugged off. "Gossip! Everything! Tell me right now, Mark Zuckerberg, I shared a suite with you, we have no secrets."

Mark thinks of Dustin's disturbing drunken habit of walking around buck-naked. "Maybe there should be more secrets," he says, still trying to elbow Dustin out of the way. "More secrets and also more clothing."

"I bet you didn't say that to Eduardo," Dustin says, and Mark makes a wordless noise of horrified protest and glances up to see Dustin's face undergo a truly remarkable expression of delight and victory.

"I knew it!" he cries, and whips out his phone.

"What the hell are you doing?" Mark says, furious, grabbing for it, but Dustin just lifts the phone over his head and by the time Mark has stood up from his chair and snatched it out of his hands, Dustin has already pressed send.

Dustin lets him flounder apoplectically for another few seconds before he says, "Dude, chill, I just texted Chris."

Mark sinks back down into his chair. While he would much rather this conversation stopped right here, involved no other people and also was erased from both of their minds, he guesses that Dustin only texting Chris about it is about as close to that scenario as the real world will allow.

Chris arrives a couple of minutes later.

"Mark is Eduardo's stallion, come quick," he reads, looking faintly aghast and proffering his phone to Mark. "Can someone please explain this to me? And can that someone please not be Dustin?"

Mark actually chokes. Sadly, this gives Dustin the opportunity to leap in front of Chris and brandish the open box of cookies at him. He shakes the box so all the little cookie ponies slide about, and Mark squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to imagine tiny chocolate chip hooves darting around the box.

Chris makes a noise that is the spirit animal of everything going on in Mark's head right now. When Mark opens his eyes, Chris has shoved his way past Dustin and is rubbing his temples like he's staving off a migraine. He leans against Mark's desk, and asks, "Mark? Can you - say some words, please?"

Mark starts with, "It wasn't a date," which may or may not be true, but either way, it's not how he really wanted to open this whole thing.

Dustin looks so incredibly glad to be hearing this conversation that it makes Chris's pained expression look even more agonized by contrast.

Mark feels slightly affronted. "It's not like I can have done anything bad for PR in one night," he says. "We just went out for drinks, Chris. Stop looking like I've killed a puppy."

Dustin shoves his fist in his mouth.

Chris ignores this. "I didn't say you'd done anything wrong," he says, "although I am willing to place money on the fact that you are capable of doing many things that are puppy-killing levels of terrible for PR in one night, but that's not the point."

Mark is busy, and his mouth still tastes like morning breath and too much coffee, and he has better things to be doing with his time than this. "What is the point?"

"You went on a date with Eduardo!"

"Dustin! It wasn't a date. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a date. Maybe."

Dustin looks like he's filled with a sense of unholy satisfaction. Mark swears.

"Shut up," he says, weakly, feeling like they're in college again, and Dustin says, sliding easily into being supportive, "Okay, let's work this out."

He sits down on the arm of Mark's sofa and starts listing things off on his fingers. "Did you go out together?"

"Yes."

"Just the two of you?"

"Yes, but - "

"And you had drinks?"

"Yes, but - "

"And what did you talk about?"

"Just stuff, I don't know, what people normally talk about. He told me about making money by betting oil futures one summer, is that - "

"And did you pay?"

Mark hesitates.

"Did you go stag?"

"We - I - I got most of the drinks," Mark says, stumbling, uncomfortable. "He thinks he bought the first round but I shoved some money in his pocket when he wasn't looking - Jesus, Dustin, take that fucking look off your face."

Chris looks conflicted. "You - put some money in his pocket?"

"Yes," says Mark, defensive, not sure whether this was the right thing to do.

Chris starts to say something, but pauses. "I - I have been friends with you for too long, Mark, I can't decide whether that's really offensive or secretly charming."

Dustin clasps his hands together, and Chris rolls his eyes.

Dustin looks at him for a long minute, deliberately making Mark squirm.

"Well?" Mark demands, finally, impatient.

"Well," Dustin begins, faux thoughtful, drawing it out, but he cracks, and grins. "Seriously, Mark, that was a fucking date!"

Mark thinks about watching Eduardo's mouth move around the top of his beer, and about catching hold of Eduardo's wrist over the table, and about Eduardo's thumb light against his skin, and puts his head in his hands.

"Oh my god," he says. "It was a date."

Dustin punches the air so wildly he almost falls off the sofa.

Mark is admittedly not the most in tune with his emotions, but right now he actually has no fucking idea what his feelings are doing, wobbling between cautious delight and jangling despair. "It was a date and I didn't notice."

Chris puts a hand on his shoulder. "If it's any consolation," he says. "The cookies are really fucking good."

"Seriously," says Dustin. "They really are. Your boyfriend's great, I approve."

"He's not my boyfriend," Mark mutters, into his hands.

Dustin continues, ignoring him, "Are you going to bring him home to meet the family? And by "home" I mean "to the office" and by "the family" I mean us. And by "meet" I mean "dispense baked goods on command"."

"Shut up," Mark groans. "Please shut up."

Someone peels his hands away from his face, and when he looks up to glare, it's Chris, pressing a cookie into his hand. Its little chocolate-chip-flecked legs mock him. There's actually a pink iced ribbon around its iced-on mane. Mark doesn't know how to feel about any of this, other than really, really wanting another cup of coffee and to be left alone forever, or for at least the foreseeable future.

Chris, who is a god among men and whom Mark should appreciate more, starts to steer Dustin towards the door. "We'll leave you with your thoughts," he says, and Dustin starts to protest but Chris pinches him or something, and he shuts up.

Chris turns round before he closes the door. "Mark," he says, in an entirely different tone of voice that makes Mark instantly suspicious, "do you really like Eduardo?"

Mark doesn't say anything, thinking about Eduardo's wide, warm smile, and apparently this shows on his face, because Chris smiles back at him, softly.

"I was only really mad about the whole stallion imagery thing," he says, grinning, and then, "Seriously, I'm happy for you! Just don't scare him off or we'll all die of sugar withdrawal."

Mark only manages to resist the urge to put his head on his keyboard because he doesn't want to have to delete a whole bunch of nonsense from the code he's been working on all day.

//

from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: if you're not going to eat that cookie can i have it???

seriously mark it's like you're not human, those things are fucking delicious

just try a leg

or a hoof

or just GIVE IT TO MEEEEE I CAN TASTE IT FROM HERE MARK IT IS THE LAST ONE PLEASE DON'T LET IT GO TO WASTE IT WILL MISS ITS FRIENDS ALL IT WANTS IS TO BE EATEN AND FROLIC IN FIELDS OF STOMACH ACID LIKE ALL THE OTHER PONIES.



from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
subj: go away

Do you ever do any actual work here?



from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: ITS A CRUEL CRUEL SUMMER NOW YOU'VE EATEN MY PONY COOKIE

I am an invaluable part of this team, Mark Zuckerberg

now hand over that cookie

unless you've eaten it, I mean. You can keep it then.



from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
subj: at least get your seasons right

It's fall


//

Eduardo is in the kitchen at the back when Mark walks in. The curtain is open and Mark can see straight through to Eduardo drying dishes by the sink, his shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Mark doesn't know what he's supposed to open with in situations like this. It's not like Mark's never hooked up with a guy before - college, drinking, horny and eighteen, horny and nineteen, just fucking horny - but he's definitely never dated one before.

Okay, yeah, and another thing: is this dating or was that just a date?

Mark cannot think the word date anymore.

He hesitates for long enough that Eduardo looks up and catches sight of him, and immediately breaks into a smile. There is no-one who looks as consistently happy to see Mark as Eduardo does. It makes Mark fidget, unaccustomed to it.

Eduardo comes through into the shop, slinging the dishcloth over his shoulder, and it reminds Mark so strongly of the first time he saw him that for a moment he actually can't speak, which is ridiculous.

"Hello," Eduardo says, apparently unaware of Mark's sudden mutism, coming round to lean against Mark's side of the counter, and Mark abruptly has no idea what he normally does with his hands.

Eduardo has these big eyes and broad smile and long, long limbs, and Mark thinks, if it was a date, Eduardo might sort of like him too. Mark sort of really, really hopes he's right about that, so much so that he can't think about it too much, like skirting around server options without financial backing, not letting himself want something he isn't sure he can have.

"Why did you make ponies?" he says, rapid-fire, just so he can fucking say something, and Eduardo looks instantly amused.

"Sorry?"

"Your cookies." Mark waves a hand at the plates in the display. "You made pony cookies. Or they could be horses, I don't know, I'm not an expert in the relative sizes of equine-shaped consumables, so - " He takes a breath, because Eduardo is still looking at him like he's trying not to laugh, and it's riling Mark up more than it should.

"Go on," Eduardo prompts, the corners of his mouth twitching.

"Most people don't mock the drunken behaviour of their friends by sending them cookies," Mark says, and folds his arms.

"I didn't send you cookies," Eduardo points out, after a beat. "Your assistant came to get the office something, and she picked them. What can I say, I make a mean pony cookie."

"They had pink iced ribbons in their little iced manes," Mark says. "Those ponies had never been mean in their lives."

Eduardo laughs properly. Mark stares at his mouth.

"Were we on a date?" he blurts, needing to know right then how far he can let himself take that train of thought. "Are we dating now?"

"Did you think it was a date?" Eduardo asks, evenly, folding his arms exactly like Mark has done.

"I don't," says Mark, "I just," and he doesn't normally trip over his own tongue like this, and it's really fucking frustrating. He sighs, hard, and just goes for honesty. "I hope it was."

Eduardo's face lights up immediately, and Mark's heart is pounding, and he deflects, because he can't cope with anything right now.

"Why?" he demands, and Eduardo looks slightly confused.

"Why what?"

"The ponies," Mark says, and this whole conversation is ridiculous but Mark can't get it back under control. "Why did you make them?"

There's a real grin tugging at Eduardo's mouth, full-fledged but hiding, and his eyes are really, really dark. "I thought it would be funny," he says.

Mark is so fucking attracted to him it feels like he is actually losing brain cells.

He can't come up with anything better fast enough, so: "That wasn't very nice." He winces as he hears himself hear it, but whatever, it's not like Mark has been flush with dignity today. He tries not to mind.

Eduardo shrugs. "I wasn't mocking you," he says, like he knows Mark needs to hear it, and he crooks one finger to get Mark to lean forward. Mark knows he's gone red, knows Eduardo makes him blush more than anyone he's ever met, but he does it anyway.

Eduardo's mouth brushes the curve of Mark's ear; Mark thinks determinedly about printer ink and whiteboards and math, willing his heart rate down. Eduardo says, his voice practically obscene, "I'm not always very nice," and holy shit, what is Mark supposed to do with that other than try not to just expire on the spot.

Eduardo pulls away, looking exceptionally pleased with himself. Mark's stomach feels like there's a whole herd of ponies trampling over everything in there.

"Yeah?" Mark says, fighting to keep his voice steady, standing his ground. "Well, neither am I."

They stare at each other for a minute, and it's so charged it's like someone has ripped all the air out of the room just to make Mark's pulse skyrocket, but then a car horn sounds outside, and they both jump, and the air comes rushing back in. They both laugh, sort of shakily, and Eduardo rubs a hand over his face.

"Jesus," he says.

"Jesus fucking Christ," says Mark, because he always tries to go one better, and Eduardo flashes him a grin through his fingers like he knows.

Mark says, pretty sure now, "So, we're dating, right?" and Eduardo says, "We'd damn well better be."

Mark hasn't felt this good since he stepped foot in the first official Facebook offices.

"I think," he says, "I think we should do it again soon. We should have another date now we both know it's a date. Like, really soon."

Eduardo laughs again, and Mark laughs too, but his eyes go straight to how Eduardo's shirt pulls away from where it's tucked loosely into his pants as Eduardo moves, showing a cent-sized flash of tan skin. He wants to reach out and press his fingers to Eduardo's hips, work his way up under the sides of his shirt and make him shiver. He wants to code, because he always wants to code, but he wants Eduardo too.

"All right," Eduardo says, and he's looking at Mark so fondly that Mark almost wants to look over his shoulder, check it's not misdirected. "Come over tonight."

"Tonight?" says Mark, because he can't help it. "Someone's keen."

Eduardo goes red this time, but says, undeterred, "I'll cook."

"Nothing animal-shaped, right?" Mark asks.

"Not a pony in sight."

Mark looks at his watch. There's really not a lot to be done tonight - the latest game went up on Thursday and nothing's blown up on them so far, and it's really just maintenance and tweaking for a couple of days - and Mark abruptly tells himself to stop considering these things when he looks up and finds Eduardo smiling at him like he can't help it, the corners of his mouth curving up of their own accord.

"All right," Mark says. He folds his arms, suddenly self-conscious again, out on a limb. "Where do you live?"

Eduardo points directly above his head.

"What," Mark says, "are you telling me you're Jesus? Because baking is not exactly the same as feeding the masses with a couple of fish, you know."

Eduardo bats at him with the dishtowel. "No, you idiot. I live upstairs, there's an apartment that comes with the store."

Mark lifts an eyebrow. "Very Gilmore Girls."

"Shut up, Lorelai."

There's this stupid sort of moment where they're just grinning at each other, and Mark has absolutely no idea what he's supposed to do next but he's still unreasonably annoyed when his phone goes off in his pocket.

It's Dustin.

dude if you're not banging him on the counter rn could you get more cookies? but not if you're playing the biscuit game, there are limits to my cravings

Mark makes a strangled noise, and slams his phone shut.

"What's up?" says Eduardo, which doesn't help at all.

"Nothing," says Mark, "work stuff." He doesn't need to be the colour of Mars for this to be an obvious lie: anyone who's been around him for more than about thirty seconds in his life would probably balk at hearing him use the words "work" and "nothing" in the same sentence without, like, having a stroke or something. Eduardo seems to be having a similar reaction, only with his eyebrow. It's really fucking impressive.

"See," says Eduardo, "this is why I don't work in an office." He grins. "Too much stuff."

"I run the office, actually," says Mark.

"I run a bakery," says Eduardo. "So there." He is still smiling. How is it even possible for one person to smile this much? It's like there's a smile tree somewhere and Eduardo has stolen all the branches. Eduardo is also making him stupid, and Mark doesn't know how to feel about that.

Mark's feelings have gone back and forth so many times in so few minutes he feels like he's got emotional whiplash.

His head is swimming. He defaults. "I have to get back."

Eduardo gives him this big-eyed, understanding look, like he knows exactly what's going on in Mark's head, which means that it must be deliberate when he pitches his voice low and says, "See you tonight, then."

Mark's mouth is dry, anticipatory, and he says, "Yeah," and, oh god, he is in so freaking far over his head.

//

Mark's phone bleeps when he's talking to Dustin, which is unfortunate, because the text says, seven okay? and Mark grins sort of helplessly down at it and Dustin takes this moment of weakness as an opportunity to snatch the phone out of Mark's hand and flail at it.

"What's happening at seven?" he asks, waving Mark's phone at him. "Oh my god, Mark, are you leaving the office at seven?" His eyes are so wide it is ridiculous.

Mark grabs for his phone, but Dustin wrestles it back.

Mark says, "I could fire you, you know."

"I know," says Dustin, cheerfully. "But you won't. You'd miss my verve and charm."

"No-one would miss those things, Dustin."

"You'd miss your phone," Dustin rejoins, holding it away from Mark, "because you're not getting it back until you give me some details! And if you fire me I'll drop it in the water cooler, so. Spill."

"Spill?" says Mark. "What are you, fourteen?"

"You're the one going all gooey over a two word text," Dustin points out, not inaccurately.

Mark makes another grab for his phone, but Dustin darts out of reach.

"Mark," he says. "Come on. We both know how this is going to end."

"With you on the unemployment line," Mark grumbles, but relents, because mostly it really is just easier to give Dustin what he wants. "I'm not leaving at seven," he says. "There's too much - it's too early, okay."

"Is it not romantic enough?" Dustin asks, and Mark can practically see him drawing hearts in his mind.

"Eight," Mark says, finally wresting his phone back as Dustin grins, pleased, at him. "I'll leave at eight." He starts heading back to his office, thumbing out a text.

Eight's better.

Eduardo sends back eight's great :) which is stupid and rhymes and there's a stupid smiley face, and Mark can't stop smiling back at it.

"Wear protection!" Dustin yells.


~end part one~

COMING UP IN PART TWO! MORE SCHMOOP! MORE DUSTIN! MORE FROSTING IN INAPPROPRIATE PLACES!

Comments

[who-love.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD

I saw the words Bakery AU and knew it would be right up my street but HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T EXPECT TO LOVE IT THIS MUCH!! DUSTIN IS HILARIOUS AND I FIND MYSELF FLAILING AND BITING MY FIST JUST LIKE HIM AT TIMES OMGGGG

NEED THE NEXT PART LIKE I NEED TO BREATHE

[moogle62.livejournal.com]

(LOOK AT YOUR TANGLED ICON, IT IS SO ADORBS ♥♥♥)

THIS COMMENT IS RIDICULOUSLY LOVELY, I AM GRINNING LIKE A LUNATIC. Super glad you liked Dustin, he was like the most fun thing to write ever. <333 SO GLAD YOU ENJOYED THE FIC! Part two should be up relatively soon. <333