fic: tsn; sweet on you (NC-17) (3b/3)

[mooging]

(continued from here)

//

Another injustice in Mark's life is that Eduardo apparently has the constitution of a Brazilian ox or something, because while Mark is spending his obligatory few hours unable to pry himself off the bathroom floor, Eduardo, who had had just as much to drink as Mark, seems fine. It makes Mark go red, because heaving into a toilet is not the most attractive thing he's ever done in his life, but Eduardo sits in the bathroom with him and rubs circles on his lower back, and doesn't say anything about the general smell, and, basically, Mark has to keep reminding himself that he's CEO, bitch, because otherwise, this could be a little bit too much for him to cope with.

At about one in the afternoon, when Mark has a rattling headache but a steady stomach, Eduardo pries him up from the floor and pushes him gently into the shower, and when Mark goes back downstairs with wet hair and an aversion to all light, Eduardo gives him a cup of coffee. Mark sips belligerently at it, and it's strong enough to make him wince.

Eduardo lets him finish the whole cup before he starts talking. Mark is so in love with him -- in general, granted, but also specifically for that.

"Morning," he says.

"I think it's the afternoon now," Mark tells him, tipping the cup back in case he's somehow missed another gulp or twenty. "But I can't be sure."

Eduardo takes the cup away from him, and twines his hand in with Mark's. "Better?"

Mark eyes their joined hands with some suspicion. "Yes?"

"Great," says Eduardo. "Did you say something about sex?"

Mark's brain is still hangover slow, so when he just turns to gape at Eduardo, Eduardo stretches out over the couch, his shirt riding up his stomach, his legs flung out over Mark's lap.

Mark stares at the strip of exposed skin, the jut of Eduardo's hipbones as Eduardo arches his back. He swallows. The coffee is starting to kick in, and he's brushed his teeth, and, basically, yes, sex sounds like an excellent plan. Mark tells him this, and then Eduardo grabs a handful of Mark's t-shirt, and drags him down to kiss him. Eduardo's mouth tastes like toothpaste and coffee, the same as Mark's, and the journey from upright to lying against Eduardo makes Mark's head pound, but he doesn't care in the slightest.

"Bed," he says, in an incredibly undignified high pitch, when Eduardo arches up again, deliberately, this time, against him.

Eduardo hooks a leg around Mark's thigh and pulls him closer. "We're on a couch," he points out.

"It's a new year," Mark says, determined even despite Eduardo snaking a hand up the back of his t-shirt. "I want to do this in a bed."

"But why?" Eduardo asks, his hands migrating south, and Mark swears, and stands up before he loses the ability to do anything but touch Eduardo, get his voice high-pitched too.

Stretched out over the couch with his legs spread where Mark was just lying, mouth kissed red and his shirt still exposing most of his stomach, Eduardo looks like every wet dream Mark has ever had, or ever will have, except that his wet dreams clearly sucked, because Eduardo is probably quantifiably the hottest thing Mark will ever see. There must be some way to prove that, Mark thinks, distractedly, and then Eduardo puts a finger in his mouth, hollows his cheeks around it like a cheat and locks his eyes on Mark's and Mark swears again, more vehemently, and drags him to his feet. He's jittery from the coffee, and it's thrumming under his veins, like remembering a mistake ten lines of code back and not being able to find it again. This is different, though, this is good.

"We are doing this in a bed," he says, as Eduardo laughs and gets his hands back on Mark's waist, shoving his t-shirt up again so it's skin on skin. "Wardo - I want to do this right, okay, come the fuck to bed."

Eduardo grins against Mark's ear, keeping his mouth on Mark's skin as Mark holds his wrist to lead him out of the room, and they both tumble down the corridor, and then Eduardo just shoves Mark down onto the bed as soon as they get through the door, and Mark is arching up to meet him when Eduardo swings his legs over Mark's thighs, straddles him.

"You want to do this right?" Eduardo asks, while Mark is busy trying to unbutton Eduardo's shirt with hangover-slow fingers. "What does that mean?"

Why can Eduardo never wear anything with buttons that will cooperate with Mark? Mark swears, and Eduardo laughs, and undoes them himself, shrugging the shirt onto the floor. Mark gets his hands back on Eduardo, and Eduardo full on groans, just from that, just from Mark's palms on his stomach, his ribs, his chest.

"You know," Mark pants, as Eduardo gets him on his back, runs a hand under the waistband of Mark's jeans. "You're supposed to fuck in beds, Wardo."

"Yeah, well," says Eduardo, not entirely steadily, shucking Mark's jeans off, "that's not really been our M.O. so far, has it?"

He pauses with his hands on the top of Mark's boxers, and Mark swears and kicks at him, half sitting up and yanking his own t-shirt over his head. "Less abbreviations, more sex," he says, and Eduardo grins wickedly up at him.

"Whatever you say," he says, in a tone that implies Mark is not the one that is going to be actually calling the shots for very much longer, and then gets Mark's boxers round his knees and his mouth on Mark's dick, and Mark makes this horrendously embarrassing strangled sort of yelp, and lets his head fall back just beneath the pillows.

Eduardo has his hands on the tops of Mark's thighs, and he keeps pulling off to kiss the dip of Mark's stomach, run his hands up the backs of Mark's legs, over his chest, and Mark is trembling, from the coffee, or from Eduardo, or both.

"Come here," he says, and his voice is sort of shaking too, but he ignores it in favour of tugging Eduardo down against him and licking into his mouth as Eduardo drags his hands all over him, like he doesn't want to let Mark go. Mark knows the feeling.

He rolls them over in a spectacular feat of hangover-defiance so Eduardo's back hits the mattress, and lets his own hands wander where they want to, all over him. He palms across Eduardo's chest, the inside of his forearms, the sides of his thighs. He pulls his mouth away from Eduardo's to press open-mouthed, wet kisses against the base of Eduardo's stomach, just above the waistband of his pants, which --

"Why did you wear these?" Mark asks, running a hand up the inside of Eduardo's thigh, and Eduardo bucks a little, and says, a little breathless, "What?"

Mark will never get sick of making him sound like that, like his thoughts are slowing down to just Mark, and Mark's hands, and Mark's voice. Mark does not want to be the only thing Eduardo thinks about, because that's not a good thing to want, he knows, but he does want that occasionally. Like now. And -- okay, so a lot of other times too. Mark is good at giving his undivided attention to things; it stands to reason he'd like to get it back sometimes.

"It wasn't a suit thing," Mark explains, mouthing down the crease between Eduardo's hip and thigh. "You could have worn jeans. I wore jeans."

"Yeah," says Eduardo, not keeping his hips still at all, "but you think jeans are formalwear, so I don't think you're in a position to be doling out sartorial advice."

"If you can still say sartorial," Mark says, fumbling with Eduardo's stupid complicated belt, "I'm doing something wrong."

Eduardo laughs, and knocks Mark's hands out of the way, and then lifts his hips up so Mark can drag his pants off, his boxers too, and then Eduardo is just naked and there, on Mark's bed, for Mark, and that's another thing Mark is never going to get sick of.

He takes a second just to look, at Eduardo's flushed cheeks and tanned chest, his stupid toned arms, his stupid skinny hips, his stupid face --

"You are stupid," Mark tells him, because he feels like he's thinking fast and slow at once, the remnants of the hangover jostling around the edges of the caffeine rush, and Eduardo just laughs, and strokes Mark's leg with his toes, and that shouldn't be hot, but it is. Eduardo makes most things hot, apparently.

Mark hasn't checked Facebook since he woke up. It feels like he's wired in to Eduardo instead. He can think of Eduardo like code now, kind of, knows which keys to press to make him breath out fast, to make him swear, the most efficient structures. Like this, if Mark dips his head and just takes the tip of Eduardo's cock in his mouth, not even the whole head of it, that makes Eduardo shudder through his whole body, and if Mark pulls off and tongues at the vein, that makes Eduardo make fists in the bed sheets, and if Mark pulls off altogether and sits back on his haunches and looks at him like this, just enough of a smirk, it makes Eduardo sit up and flip them over again, shoving Mark back into the mattress.

Mark breathes out on impact, Eduardo already working his way down Mark's body, rubbing his moisturized-smooth palms over Mark's nipples so he gasps, high and entirely undignified and pleased.

"There's lube in the top drawer," Mark says, shamelessly, gesturing, and Eduardo leans straight over him to reach for it, slicking up his fingers at once.

"Don't think I don't know what you were doing," he says, in this want-rough voice that makes Mark shiver, because he is that easy, now, for Eduardo. "You are such a cheat.'

"Yeah," Mark admits, as Eduardo presses Mark's thighs apart, "but so are - fuck."

"So are fuck?" Eduardo asks, working another finger inside him, and Mark just nods, because, okay, he is not actually superhuman, and that is really, really good.

Adjectives are stupid, Mark has decided. Who needs to describe things when you can just feel them? He tries not to close his eyes, because Eduardo's eyes are dark and he sticks his tongue out when he concentrates, like when he's piping intricate patterns on cookies, on decorative birthday cakes or whatever it is he does, and if Eduardo is code to Mark, Mark must be a pattern to Eduardo too.

It is possible they both have work issues, but what the fuck ever, Mark is not in a position to really care about anything at this point other than Eduardo moving his fingers slowly enough that Mark thinks he must be trying to kill him. He's so hard the air is uncomfortable against his skin. It's his turn to grip the bed sheets, and he swears.

"Come on, Wardo," he says, because there is a time and a place for taking it slow, and this -- in Mark's incredibly unbiased opinion -- is definitely not it. He spreads his legs wider, because he is subtle like that, but Eduardo just completely ignores him, and adds a third finger.

Mark actually moans.

Eduardo ducks his head like he's laughing, and Mark laughs too, because, seriously, sex noises are just stupid, but then Eduardo crooks his fingers inside Mark, still smiling, and Mark stops laughing and also breathing, just for a second.

"Jesus fuck," Mark manages, one breath, and twists the duvet in his fists, shuddering. He can't lie still any more, can't keep the line of his back against the bed, taking his weight into his shoulders, his heels, arching up so that Eduardo has to hold him down.

Eduardo crooks his fingers again, twice more, and he's looking at Mark like Mark is much more than the sweating, red-cheeked, desperate mess he feels, and he says, "Mark," sort of reverently as he curls his fingers around Mark's cock, and Mark comes all over his hand before Eduardo can even get a stroke in.

His back actually hurts when he takes the curve out of it, lies flat against the bed again. Eduardo slips his fingers out slowly, and crawls up to kiss him, sloppy, open-mouthed, and Mark groans, and hooks a leg around his thigh, and kisses back.

"Go on, then," says Eduardo, against Mark's mouth, grinning. "How are you going to top that?"

Mark hates him so much.

"Can't," says Mark, wiped and mulish. "Pillows."

Eduardo shifts, and he's still hard, and Mark groans. "Pillows," he says, again, nonsensically. "Good."

Eduardo eyes him. Mark wants to go to sleep at once, caffeine high or no caffeine high, but Eduardo is sweat-slick and dark-eyed, and Mark can't close his eyes to that. Eduardo gives him a grin, all teeth, dangerous, and Mark groans again, heartfelt, because he's lost to that every fucking time.

"I hate you," he says, and doesn't mean it even a little bit.

"I know," Eduardo says, and then he spreads his legs and lets Mark watch him get himself off, deliberate strokes. Mark shifts his hips, too tired to want to be turned on again, but helpless against it.

"You are a horrible person," he moans, and levers himself up on shaky forearms and crawls over to Eduardo, falls heavily on him, pushing them both down again, upside down on the end of the bed. Eduardo pants happily against Mark's chest, and Mark refuses to get hard again, that has to be impossible, he cannot have that sort of recovery time.

Mark is wiped, and spent, and slow, but he is determined enough and Eduardo close enough that it only takes Mark a few imprecise pulls before Eduardo is coming, shivering all over. Mark wipes his hands on the bed sheets, and kisses him, and Eduardo pulls him down properly so they're lying chest to chest, and they lie there, sticky, and Mark kisses Eduardo's collarbone, the side of his neck.

"So," Eduardo asks, as Mark drags the sheets in between them to wipe half-heartedly at their stomachs, "best New Year's sex, or best New Year's sex ever?"

Mark hits him, and Eduardo laughs, and they stay just like that for a while, curled up in the ruined bed sheets, breathing each other in.

Eduardo does maybe have a point.

//

After a while, Mark has to go and take his second shower of the day to get clean, and Eduardo gets in there with him, and then there is less getting clean and more getting off, but eventually they make it downstairs to the couch. Mark wants to check in with work, but even he knows better than to try to code when he's like this, thinking slow and distracted, and so he lets Eduardo throw his legs back over his lap and flip through the holiday movies until he finds one he approves of, and Mark is too sated, too content, to really mind which one it is.

He puts up a token protest anyway, because he does have a reputation to uphold, but Eduardo isn't stupid and Mark doesn't have his laptop attached to his fingers, and he gives Mark this look, like, shut up I have broken you with sex, be quiet and watch this charming movie about happiness and snow, and Mark shuts up.

"Can I ask," Eduardo says after a while, absently rubbing Mark's thigh with his heel, and Mark fights down the insane little urge to say yes, anything, all the time, "um, Chris and Dustin, are they - "

He stops. It actually takes Mark a second to extrapolate the end of that question, mostly because Eduardo's foot has migrated further up Mark's thigh, and he's trying to stop his brain short-circuiting in case he just starts molesting Eduardo again and then never does anything else with his life. The day feels like one long afterglow, a devastating combination of morning after and just after, and Eduardo is there, and Mark thinks about whiteboards, and the smell in the old Kirkland staircases to get his heart rate down, and then tries to think about what Eduardo actually said.

When he gets it, he laughs. "No," he says, "they're really not."

Eduardo says, in a tone of some large amount of sceptism, "Really?"

"Really," Mark says. "Although, there were people in Harvard taking bets on whether they were or not, but they weren't. They're not. No."

"People were taking bets on it, though."

"People took bets on whether I'd get kicked out, after FaceMash," Mark tells him, and Eduardo laughs. "What? They did."

"Were they that couple?" Eduardo asks. "Chris and Dustin, I mean."

"Which couple?"

"You know," says Eduardo, "the Ross and Rachel."

Mark snorts. "No. Really, really, no."

"I think the lady doth protest too much," says Eduardo, and then laughs when Mark hits him with a cushion.

"I will not stand for this," Eduardo tells him, his voice wavering all over the place with laughter, and then amends: "Or lie down for this, come - here -” and then he wrests the cushion out of Mark's grip as Mark is rolling his eyes, and administers retaliatory justice until Mark is red-faced and trying to squirm away.

Eduardo drops the pillow off the side of the couch and covers Mark's chest with his own, kissing him into submission, which is definitely cheating.

"Who's cheating now?" Mark asks, when Eduardo settles back down again.

"You're not complaining," Eduardo points out, and Mark grumbles back into silence.

Somehow, this is Mark's life. He is not spending New Year's Day with his website, but having a cushion fight with a stupidly attractive baker. Mark hasn't had a pillow fight since he was, like, four. He isn't sure that he minds, though. It's juvenile and ridiculous, but Mark hadn't been juvenile and ridiculous for a while before Eduardo. He thinks maybe it's good that he can be, now. He's relaxed.

Obviously Eduardo has beaten something loose in Mark's brain, because this is unnecessarily sappy. Mark tries to think about dignified things like smooth lines of code, like seeing the first user sign up to theFacebook, but he's derailed by Eduardo leaning over to pick cushion fluff out of his curls. He scowls, and pretends to shrug him off, but Eduardo just bats at his shoulders until he lies still.

If this is starting a year as you mean to go on, Mark worries for the sanctity of his work, because clearly he and his primate, fluff-picking boyfriend are never leaving the house again.

Eduardo keeps going like there wasn't just a cushion smackdown interlude. Mark admires his focus. Among other things. Mark does not feel very focused right now.

"They're very close," Eduardo says. "Chris and Dustin. They're very - "

"Yeah," says Mark. He makes a valiant mental effort to get his head back into this conversation, and shifts a bit, awkward. "I mean, we all are, kind of. We sort of - took care of each other, in college."

"Yeah?"

Mark shrugs as best he can when he's lying down. "Chris is scared of insects. Dustin has to group-study or he never gets anything done. I'm - "

" - you," Eduardo finishes, half-teasing, and Mark kicks him.

Eduardo nuzzles in closer, and Mark abruptly loses his train of thought. He doesn't need it for the next few minutes though, because Eduardo is apparently content just to lie there and breathe against Mark's side. Mark is aware that they are also basically playing footsie right now, but he's warm enough and happy enough that he doesn't really mind, and also he has had sex in the last few minutes, so he figures that racks up some masculinity points he can use on tangling his feet round Eduardo's in the crumpled comforter at the end of the couch. It's sort of cramped, even on Mark's ostentatiously huge sofa, but Eduardo is this warm weight between Mark's side and the back cushions, and Mark doesn't really mind.

After a few minutes, Eduardo takes his hand. Mark turns his head to look at him properly.

"What?" he asks.

Eduardo says, "I wish I'd known you in college too." He looks sort of wistful, and Mark thinks of himself in college, wired-in and checked out, thinks about the way Eduardo looks at him sometimes, about the way he might not have noticed, and thinks, I'm glad you didn't.

"I'm glad I know you now," he says, on a rush of pink-cheeked honesty, and Eduardo grins down at him, because he is a soft-centered idiot who likes it when Mark says these horrifying things, and says, "Me too."

//

It's a new year, and the little bugs that have cropped up from the last profile update are making themselves known here and there, itching in Mark's otherwise irritant-free existence, and he starts playing around with a second update, a patch. Other than that, the site is running well, and so Mark can give most of his time to the fix. Eduardo's away at some baker conference or other -- Mark doesn't know what the fuck bakers need to confer about (cake still good? yep. great.) but whatever, he's being supportive -- and so he camps down in his office for the weekend and tries to make as much headway as he can, alternating Red Bulls and water because apparently his assistant and Eduardo are in cahoots now, which is mildly terrifying, and definitely not something Mark can kid himself he has any ability to defy, CEO or not.

He's still working on the profile update when he looks up on Sunday and it's like fuck off o'clock at night, and he doesn't want to maybe wake Eduardo, so he goes to his own house and crashes in his own bed. He doesn't have any missed calls in the morning, which doesn't mean anything, because it's not like Mark was expecting Eduardo to call, because they are separate functioning human beings and don't need to check on each other or anything ridiculous like that, so he just turns up at Eduardo's at about eight am, which is when he's usually been open for half an hour -- and the bakery is closed. Mark doesn't knock - because if Eduardo were in, the shop would be open - but he does call, standing outside on the street and looking up at Eduardo's apartment windows, their curtains drawn, listening to the phone ringing on the other end of the line.

There's no answer, but there could be any one of a handful of reasons for that. Maybe he's off looking at new suppliers and can't talk right now. Maybe he's running late and doesn't have the time to answer his phone. Maybe he's overslept, and is still asleep, and didn't hear the phone. Except, Eduardo likes his regular suppliers and he's hardly ever late and Mark doesn't think he'd ever be late for anything to do with his business, and that rules out over-sleeping as well - and also, Mark has had the unparalleled pleasure of waking up to the sound of Eduardo's alarm, and it is heinous and clanging and fucking ribald, and nothing, not even the clichéd proverbial dead could sleep through that fucker - and Mark sort of frets for a minute, there on the sidewalk, trying to decide whether he should let himself in, but ultimately goes to work, because it's not like he can force Eduardo to answer his phone by, like, stalking him.

Just as he gets into his office, his phone buzzes and he flips it open before the vibrate even switches to the ring.

"Wardo?" he asks, not even checking the display. It's usually Eduardo calling him, now, and if it's not, Mark would like it to be. He also has thoughts like that, but will steadfastly deny it if pressed.

"Hi," comes this voice, wrecked, and okay, so it is Eduardo, but maybe Eduardo after, like, bathing in poisonous gas-emitting fungus or something. "Hi, Mark."

"Wardo," Mark says again, turning away from his glass wall. "What - you sound like shit."

"Sick," says Eduardo, apparently too tired for full sentences. "You called?"

"Yeah," says Mark, "you weren't open, obviously - look, what's wrong?"

"I'm sure it's nothing," Eduardo croaks, which is the most obvious lie Mark has heard since Dustin said I can beat Chris at Pacman, easy. "I'll be fine."

"Yeah," says Mark. "That's happening soon."

Eduardo coughs for about five straight minutes.

"Just," Mark says, looking helplessly at his untouched keyboard, "stay the fuck in bed, okay?"

"Wasn't planning on running a marathon," Eduardo says, and abruptly hangs up.

Mark presses the stupid buzzer thing on his desk that his assistant had installed when she got sick of listening to him yell on the few occasions he's called her in before she's just come in herself. He presses it so hard his knuckle, bent inverse, goes white, which is new.

He sends Lauren out for chicken soup, and seconds later Chris shows up in his office, which is slightly unexpected and also not soup. Mark just wants the soup to get here already. He's got a full day of code ahead; he doesn't have time to wait around much longer.

"What?" he snaps, in Chris's direction. He wants to start typing, but he knows if he starts now and gets interrupted, he won't get his train of thought back. He's waiting. His laptop is right fucking there, but he's waiting.

"Lauren tells me you asked for chicken soup," Chris says, eyeing him like he's trying to x-ray out the problem. "Are you sick?"

"No," says Mark, jiggling his leg up and down, impatient, trying not to look at the clock. "And why did she tell you that?"

Chris waves a hand at him, coming over to peer into his face. Mark bears this with very poor grace, but it's Chris, and Chris is used to it, and Mark is used to him, and so it all passes without comment. Chris straightens up again. "She tells me if you ask for anything that's not made of sugar or caffeine," he says. "Mostly because I think she thinks you might be dying. Or bringing about the robot uprising, but that's a different thing to the chicken soup thing."

"It's Eduardo," Mark says, mostly to stop Chris talking. He knows Chris does it on purpose, but there's a reason for that, and the reason is: it works. "Wardo's sick."

"And you're getting him chicken soup?" Chris says, his face doing something funny, like he's trying to look sympathetic and proud at the same time. "You're - going to take him chicken soup?"

"Yes," Mark snaps, because this is fucking obvious. "He's sick enough to admit he's sick, so I need to make sure he's not, I don't know, passed out in the bathroom or something. What if he doesn't wake up to get himself a drink and dehydrates?"

Chris's mouth is twitching. Mark stares accusatorily at it.

"What?"

"Nothing," Chris says. "Except I sort of wish you were organising the robot uprising so that time travel would come next, and I could John Connor my way back to Harvard and play myself what you just said."

"Would that scenario make me Sarah Connor?" Mark asks, temporarily distracted. "Because if so, I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with it."

"Your virtue's safe with me," Chris says. "Besides, you're taken."

"I wasn't then," Mark says.

"Yes, you were," Chris tells him. "And if you're going to pretend you've not essentially fucked a website into creation, we are ending this conversation right now."

"You've been spending too much time with Dustin," Mark says, mildly disturbed, but luckily for everyone involved, Lauren turns up bearing a takeaway soup container from the canteen before Chris can say anything in reply.

"Took you long enough," Mark mutters, standing up with his backpack already over his shoulder, taking the soup from Lauren's hands before she even clears the doorway.

"Excuse me?"

"Ignore him," Chris says, in his customary Mark doesn't understand people voice. "He's distracted by love and snot."

"I am going to pretend to understand," Lauren says, slowly. "But I'm really glad I don't."

Mark says, twisting over his shoulder before the door shuts behind him, "I'm going to be out of the office today, email me if anything explodes," and leaves properly before Chris can do anything more than give him a thumbs-up. He really has been spending too much time with Dustin. This is probably because someone needs to pull Dustin away from the Pacman machine sometimes, before he hits it like it's Whack-a-mole after game after game of Chris's score being actually galactically unbeatable.

Mark is sometimes really proud of his friends.

He navigates the locked bakery door with difficulty some minutes later as he tries to juggle keys and backpack and soup at the same time, but he manages to get inside and lock the door and turn the alarm off without breaking his laptop or his spine, or spilling any soup, and heads up the stairs without turning on a light. It hasn't been long enough since he did this for the first time for the thrill of novelty to wear off, much as he would point-blank refuse to admit that to anyone (mostly to Dustin), but it's tempered by the slight knot of worry in his stomach, the stupid, pointless knot of worry in his stomach, because Eduardo is a fully grown adult and will not perish because of a cold, but Mark can't rationalize it loose.

"Wardo?" he says, pushing open the apartment door, going into Eduardo's living room and kicking off his sneakers. "Are you dead?"

There's a muffled, snot-fuelled noise to the contrary coming from the bedroom, so Mark pads through the kitchen in his socks and pauses in the doorway.

Eduardo is sitting up and wrapped in the duvet, doing something on his laptop that Mark is fairly sure he is too sweaty to be doing, and he looks up with red-rimmed eyes as Mark says, "What the fuck are you doing?"

His bedside manner may need some work, he will admit.

"Working," says Eduardo, only it comes out like wurkinb, and Mark raises an eyebrow.

"Okay," he says, watching Eduardo shiver even though there's an unhealthy bloom of colour in his cheeks. "Working. Why?"

"I can't serve customers like this," Eduardo explains, in his new ridiculous voice. "It'd be bad for business."

"So you're snotting all over your keyboard instead?" Mark is one to talk -- his laptop is frequently unpleasantly sticky from various sugary residues left on Mark's fingers from wet red vines -- but whatever, Mark's never claimed not to be a hypocrite.

"I'm researching for Valentine's Day," Eduardo tells him, and then coughs into the crook of his elbow while Mark tries to stop his eyebrows doing something presumptive and lewd. "Recipes, you terrible pervert. It's the busiest time of year for bakeries, I've heard."

"What about all the pies?" Mark asks, distracted from his health-related line of questioning by momentary nauseatedly nostalgic pie-related flashbacks. "Wasn't Thanksgiving pretty busy?"

"People can make pies," Eduardo says, shivering some more, and Mark comes and sits on the opposite side of the bed and wonders if there's a wrong way to check someone's temperature with the back of your hand. It seems to come so easily to everyone else; Mark's hands are pretty much only good for typing, and - well, other, equally keyboard-sticky, things. Eduardo continues, "Making pie is sort of the point. The point of Valentine's Day is to buy stuff."

"Stuff?" Mark repeats, skeptical, and then winces and takes Eduardo's laptop away from him as he sneezes. Even sick, Eduardo gives him this look like I have touched your keyboard, Mark, and it may have given me salmonella but Mark ignores it, and picks up the polystyrene cup of soup.

"Here," he says, pushing it at Eduardo. "You need food."

Eduardo cups his hands around it as Mark takes the lid off. "You brought me chicken soup?" he asks, in an odd, happy sort of voice, and Mark feels hot and uncomfortable and a bit like he's pretending to be a person, so he's a little bit tetchy when he says, "No, Wardo, it's an octopus."

"Mmm," says Eduardo, playing along. "I am sure calamari has plenty of healing properties."

"That's squid, genius," Mark says, but Eduardo sneezes again and Mark puts the back of his hand against Eduardo's gross sweaty forehead without giving it much more thought.

"You are disgusting," he complains, as Eduardo makes this surprised little sound like he wasn't expecting Mark to actually attempt anything so banally caring. "Now my hand's all sweaty."

"Sorry," says Eduardo, not sounding it. "Is my disease causing you problems?"

"Yes," says Mark. "I should be working and instead I am here with a carrier of the plague who doesn't know when to turn his fucking laptop off and go the fuck to sleep."

The irony is not lost on Mark here, but he still feels that the look Eduardo gives him is a little too smug to be called for.

"Get me a spoon," Eduardo says. "I refuse to drink my soup."

Mark huffs and sighs and tells him he's being difficult, but goes back into the kitchen to rummage in the cutlery drawer. Eduardo doesn't seem as bad as he'd sounded on the phone. Mark is pretty sure he's coded through worse, like the time Chris had found him passed out on his desk with a 101 degree fever, and shouted at him as soon as he was awake for things like abusing his body and idiotic lack of self-awareness and not drinking enough fluids, and then manhandled him into bed in a way that made all Mark's sore joints hurt, and shoved a thermometer in his mouth. He thinks maybe he could go back to work, and Eduardo could go to sleep, and then he could come back and make sure Eduardo is still not dead in the evening, like normal, except Eduardo would sneeze more and Mark would have to pick up take-out instead of watching Eduardo cook something complicated and apparently, oxymoronically, effortless to make.

He changes his mind about this entirely when he goes back into the bedroom and Eduardo has his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the headboard, the soup container still held loosely in his hands, and he looks awful. Mark doesn't know what his own face looks like, but apparently it's slightly more worried than he'd like, because when Eduardo opens his eyes, he laughs all croakily, making grabby hands for the spoon Mark is holding.

"Shut up," he says. "I'll be fine."

"I'm not worried," Mark lies, watching Eduardo's eyes flicker closed again as he sips at the soup. "I just think it would be awkward for me to have to dispose of your body, that's all."

"Your concern is touching," says Eduardo, and Mark says, "Although, I mean, I am a billionaire, I could probably pay someone to dump you in a river or something," and Eduardo snorts into his spoon so that soup splatters the duvet. Mark is not a paragon of cleanliness so he doesn't really mind, but Eduardo looks a little put out.

"You can wash the sheets later," Mark says, helpfully, and Eduardo says, "Thank you for your care and contribution to the household chores."

Eduardo does fall asleep, after Mark has nagged him into finishing all the soup -- it's kind of nice to be on the other end of that equation, guilt-tripping calculation rather than grudging, sulky outcome -- and Mark boots up his own laptop and gets on with his work right there while Eduardo burrows further down into the roll of duvet and sweats and snores and sweats some more on the other side of the bed.


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: hey nurse nancy

how's the patient?


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: why are sick people so disgusting

revolting but okay, I think.

don't tell Dustin where I am.


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: are you wearing an apron? do you have a pocket watch? are you a naughty, naughty nurse?

HAVE YOU TAKEN HIS TEMPERATURE

DO YOU KNOW THEY'RE NOT ANALGESICS

DOES HE GIVE YOU LOVE LIKE A FEVER OR JUST THE ACTUAL FLU

IS HE A HOT PATOOTIE OR JUST HOT

IS HIS LOVE A DRUG OR IS HE JUST ON TYLENOL

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW IF HE LOVES YOU SO IT'S IN HIS KISS





BUT SO IS THE PLAGUE


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: BEYOND THE PALE, CHRISTOPHER

find him. hurt him. no questions will be asked.


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: your penchant for pain is mildly alarming, does wardo know?

i am bruised, mark. BRUISED. next time don't recruit chris to injure me. do it yourself if it gives you so much satisfaction. chris is lethal and you are weak and puny.

which is probably lucky for eduardo but not so much for me.


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
subj: you are one to talk

you just like it when chris touches you, stop bitching. you would let him bruise you any day of the week.


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: WHY DO YOU INFLICT THESE THINGS UPON ME

tell Dustin to quit saying horrifying things to me or I will quit and leave you to fend for yourself and then you will see how necessary I am and how unabused I should be.


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: fwd: CHRIS CHRIS CHRISSSSSTOPHER

MARK SAYS I LIKE IT WHEN YOU HURT ME

BUT I DON'T

I AM EASILY WOUNDED LIKE PUDDING BUT ALSO STRONG AND MANLY LIKE A BOAR

A SEXY BOAR

DON'T HURT ME I AM A SEXY PUDDING BOAR.


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: re: fwd: CHRIS CHRIS CHRISSSSSSTOPHER

I am being sneezed on by a disease-riddled baker

deal with your own problems


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: YOUR GRATITUDE FOR MY SUPERB EXISTENCE HAS BEEN DULY NOTED

YOU GIGANTIC INGRATE


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: I am CEO, I don't have to be grateful

gigantic is right.


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: next time I am letting you flounder

don't come crying to me when you can't deal with your feelings. THE CHRIS HUGHES FOUNDATION FOR THE EMOTIONALLY-STUNTED IS NOW CLOSED. TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE.

WE HEAR THE DUSTIN MOSKOVITZ CLINIC OF TORMENT IS ACCEPTING OUR ERSTWHILE CLIENTS.


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: I am a founder but I never flounder

you would know all about the Dustin Moskovitz clinic of torment.


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: oh my god, mark, your wordplay is so astoundingly funny

I hope you are not insinuating what I think you are insinuating


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: god your sarcasm is so subtle and delicate

I am insinuating nothing. Bow to the truth.

fuck okay Eduardo is waking up, go back to work.


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: delicate like your tiny brittle bones

message received stop

mockery on hold till further notice stop

make sure he drinks enough

don't let him take painkillers on an empty stomach

you are a good person really. if I say this enough times will you actually give me that raise?


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: I HOPE YOU GET THE PLAGUE

but don't let Eduardo die, because I need cake like I need air.

MY LIFE WOULD BE EMPTY WITHOUT CAKE MARK BUT IT WOULD BE ONLY MARGINALLY LESS FULL THAN NORMAL WITHOUT YOU.

BEAR THAT IN MIND

ALSO FUCKING DOES NOT CURE ANYONE

STOP TRYING TO HEAL HIM WITH YOUR DICK.


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; dustinohyeahitdustin@facebook,com
subj: messages unfortunately received

over and out

(no-one is getting any raises until there are fewer dick-related messages in my inbox)


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: (no subject)

I KNOW WHOSE DICK-RELATED MESSAGE YOU WANT IN YOUR INBOX

IT'S EDUARDO'S

AND BY "DICK-RELATED" I JUST MEAN "PENIS".



OH YEAH BABY SEND THAT MESSAGE SEND IT HARDER THAT'S REALLY HITTING MY INBOX


ETC ETC ETC


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: already on it

pain express, last stop: moskovitz central


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: taste my gratitude

you are a cherished employee


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: I'd really rather not

about fucking time too.

//

Eduardo is less noticeably contagious the next day, but Mark forces him to take another day off.

"No-one wants to eat plague cake," he says. "Apart from maybe Dustin, but there's clearly something wrong with him."

"I really have to work, Mark," says Eduardo, in a much stronger voice than the day before, but he goes with it when Mark bodily shoves him back against the pillows.

"Tomorrow," says Mark, firmly. "If you die or something, I think Dustin might quit and as irritating as he is, I do actually need him to stay."

"I am going to tell him you said that," Eduardo says, eyelids already flickering closed -- Mark is so fucking right about all things he wonders why people even bother arguing with him anymore -- and Mark says, "Don't you dare," because he's supposed to, and Eduardo pats his hand as he drifts off to sleep.

Mark goes into the office, because Eduardo is looking less like something from Dawn of the Dead and more like he just needs to sleep for a week, and Mark's typing probably isn't going to help with that endeavor, and also because he doesn't like being away for too long, ridiculous sick boyfriend or not.

There's a new raft of game updates going up that afternoon, and even after all this time Mark is still wary about third party code, and Dustin comes to sit with him when the changes go live.

He squeezes Mark's shoulder, and gives him a Red Bull.

"It'll be fine, Marky Mark," he says. "It's always fine."

"I know," Mark grouses, staring at his screen, daring something to go wrong. "I was actually here for the last few years, Dustin."

His phone bleeps.

game updates go okay? :)

Dustin grabs Mark's phone straight out of his hand; Mark swears, and tries to grab it back.

Dustin's mouth is doing something funny whereby it can't hold one shape. "I," he says. "He. You."

"Excellent pronouns," says Mark. "Please don't attach them to sentences, you'll ruin the pronominal moment."

Dustin gives him his phone back wordlessly, and Mark is feeling magnanimous because nothing on his site has broken due to someone else's incompetence, so he lets him watch over his shoulder as he types back.

okay so far. are you in bed??

why? comes the reply. do you want me to be?

"Okay!" says Mark, slamming his hand down over his phone as Dustin makes some sort of system failure noise behind him. "Grown up time is over now, get out."

"Why?" says Dustin, grinning more widely than Mark feels is necessary. Dustin is the only person Mark knows who can grin and leer at the same time, which would be impressive if it wasn't so horrifying. "Do you want me to?"

Mark flicks him off, and turns back to his phone.

I am not fucking the infected, he sends.

braaaaains, sends Eduardo, and Mark grins down at the screen and is glad Dustin is out of the room.


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: elvis has left the building

continue with your sexting


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
subj: tell me I put something in your contract forbidding you to sing elvis at work

you don't look good jealous

which is unfortunate for you, because it is your only epithet.


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: YOU'RE ALL SHOOK UP AH HUH HUH

AH HUH

YEAH YEAH


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
subj: you are not the king

you ain't nothing but a hound dog

crying all the time


from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: you ain't nothing but a hound dog

crying all the time


from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: well you ain't never caught a rabbit

and you ain't no friend of mine


from: dustinohyeahitsdustin@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com; chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: GRAMMAR SAYS OTHERWISE

THAT'S A DOUBLE NEGATIVE.

YOU ARE ONLY CONFIRMING YOUR LOVE FOR MEEEEEEE.

//


(continued here)