fic: tsn; sweet on you (NC-17) (3e/3)
Apr. 27th, 2011 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mooging(continued from here)
//
Afterwards, when Mark is sticky and trying to catch his breath and vaguely aware that he is going to be sore all over in the morning, Eduardo makes him go shower while he orders take-out. Mark says, "What happened to the healthy option, Wardo?" in as deadpan a voice as he can find when he's still reeling, and Eduardo hits him with a pillow and tells him sometimes a person just really fucking needs some noodles.
Mark showers, and thinks about saying I love you, and doesn't feel stupid about it. Mostly he just feels stupid for not saying it earlier. He can feel Chris being proud of him, which is a little weird, but whatever. He's sort of proud of himself, a bit, for getting the fuck out of his own way.
They balance the take-out on their knees on the couch and watch a terrible movie because the synopsis sounds so god-awful they can't resist it -- when ice-dancing sensation Mariella starts receiving threatening letters at the ice-rink, can she solve her own murder before it's too late? (Mark picks holes in the grammar; Eduardo wants to know if Mark will be able to solve the murder before Mariella does; Mark says, "The butler did it," and Eduardo laughs, and steals a piece of his chicken) -- and Eduardo sits closer to Mark than is really necessary for the size of the couch, and Mark leans in against him as they both maneuver chopsticks around sleep-heavy fingers. The movie ends --
("How did you know there would be a butler?" Eduardo asks, incredulous. "You are the luckiest man on the planet."
Mark is fucked out and boneless and still turning over potential update problems, and he can't quite stop himself from thinking, sleep-drunk, yeah, maybe I am.
Instead, he shrugs, and says, "I'm just that good," and Eduardo squawks and pokes him in the side with a chopstick, leaving a little round szechuan stain on Mark's hoodie.)
-- and Mark is still picking at noodles he hasn't quite finished yet, still tapping at his laptop, because despite any grand gestures he may have made earlier in the day, he's never going to be able to switch that part of himself off completely.
Eduardo reaches over and puts a hand on Mark's, arched pianist-graceful over the keyboard. Mark looks up, blinking.
"So," says Eduardo, a little pink-cheeked, "I didn't get a chance to say it earlier - "
"Yeah," Mark interrupts, "because you jumped me."
Eduardo swats at him. "Shut up," he says. "I just, I didn't say that - "
Mark shoves more noodles in his face in case they can cure feelings-related embarrassment. They can't, it turns out, but they do taste really good.
Eduardo kisses Mark's neck, and Mark almost drops his plate, almost kicks his laptop off the coffee table, reflexes sleep-slow.
"I could have choked on my noodles, Wardo," he says, trying for admonishment and not even getting anywhere close.
Eduardo does it again, not even a little repentant.
"I love you," he says, against the curve of Mark's neck, and Mark actually does fumble his chopsticks. Eduardo laughs, softly. "Or, you know," he says, while Mark is going red and hot and flustered and grinning, "if you're going to get all emotionally stunted about it, I can say it in Portuguese and you can pretend not to understand me."
"Yeah," says Mark, shoving his plate onto the coffee table as Eduardo laughs and presses his forehead against Mark's shoulder. "Yeah, let's go with that plan."
Eduardo shifts round so he's straddling Mark, and Mark's hands go to his waist, instinctive. Less instinctive and more deliberate is the way he pushes Eduardo's shirt up so he can get his palms on Eduardo's skin, so that Eduardo rocks against him, and smiles so hugely it makes Mark go dizzy. This whole conversation is making him a little dizzy.
"Eu te amo," Eduardo tells him, cupping Mark's face in his hands, and Mark swallows hard, and turns his face to kiss Eduardo's palm.
"Eu te amo," he says, in case it means more in Portuguese, because he wants to say it every way he can. "I - you - Wardo - "
Eduardo's bright, genuine smile looks a little watery, and Mark rolls his eyes at him, at himself, because Eduardo is ridiculous and Mark is in love with him, so that probably says something about Mark that he should spend some time thinking about, but right now Eduardo is leaning down to lick his way into Mark's mouth as Mark falls against the back of the couch and tugs Eduardo down against him, so introspection can probably wait till later.
Later, Eduardo is shirtless and sweaty and grinning, and Mark is sacked out over his chest, and distantly aware that this couch has seen a number of things it probably shouldn't have, and Eduardo makes this little sleepy, satisfied noise, and Mark throws an arm over his waist, pressing closer. He isn't worried anymore, about code, or potential crashes, or - or - anything else.
"I mean it, you know," he says, quietly, in case Eduardo is asleep already. "I really mean it."
"Shh," says Eduardo, calm and sleep-slurred. "I know. Me too."
Eduardo makes it sound easy, and Mark thinks, drifting off himself, that maybe it always was.
//
Mark stops by Dustin's desk on his way into his office the next morning.
"Dustin," he says, standing behind Dustin's chair, and Dustin, who was there in the bar when Erica Albright said the internet isn't written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink, Dustin, who linked his arm through Mark's while Mark was angry and hurt and humiliated and walked Mark home even though they were out with a group and listened to him talk about expanding to Yale and Columbia, Dustin, who said it was time they saw theFacebook in California, Dustin, who made Eduardo give Mark his number-- he spins round in his silly swivel chair and takes one look at Mark's face and knows. Mark doesn't even have to say anything, and Dustin knows.
"Oh my god," he says, in a voice entirely different to his ordinary exuberance, and then he throws his arms around Mark, and holds on tight.
Mark lets him.
"Well done," Dustin says, quietly, into the side of Mark's neck. Mark could maybe be insulted by that, he thinks, but he's not. He clears his throat and pats Dustin on the back like men do when they hug in movies, but Dustin doesn't let go of him.
"Hold your fucking horses," he tells Mark, as Mark starts to go red, because Dustin's desk is out on the main floor and people are staring. "I'm not done being proud yet, give me a second."
"I'm not a child," Mark grumbles. "You don't need to be proud of me."
"Shut the fuck up," says Dustin. "We're having a moment."
When he does let Mark go, he sits back down in his chair and grins up at him.
"Back to work, peons!" he commands. "Don't be jealous, there's more than enough of the Dustinator to go around."
Mark groans, and starts walking away, but something bounces off his back, and he turns around again, eyebrow raised.
Dustin gives him the thumbs up, and a much more Dustin-like wink, and Mark can't help grinning back at him.
//
from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: and then we never speak of it
I told him.
He said it back.
THIS EMAIL NEVER HAPPENED.
from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: I am not speaking about it
but if I were, I would say, OF COURSE HE DID.
and well done.
and I should quit right now and start my own advice column.
from: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
to: chris.hughes@facebook.com
subj: no-one's stopping you
but.
thank you.
from: chris.hughes@facebook.com
to: mark.zuckerberg@facebook.com
subj: don't hurt yourself on the feelings wheel
but.
you're welcome.
//
Valentine's Day is coming up, and if Mark had thought Thanksgiving was bad, it had nothing on this. Eduardo spends practically every waking second with his nose in his scrapbook, scribbling in pink pen on every page, endless sugar cookie refinements, ideas for novelty cupcakes, rough sketches of figurines annotated with incomprehensible shorthand scrawls, marzip? fdt? ed ppr? Mark peers over his shoulder and Eduardo nibbles the end of his pen and furrows his eyebrows at the pages and reaches up with his free hand to pat Mark's arm absently, and Mark has a sudden sympathy for anyone who's around him while he's wired in. Not a lasting sympathy, obviously, because his job is much more important than anything trivial like cleaning the kitchen or whatever it was Chris used to try and get his attention for while he was first building theFacebook, but still. At least Eduardo pats his hand once in a while, or looks up to give him sheepish, tired smiles with his mouth all covered in pink ink where he's bitten through the end of the pen without noticing. Mark does not look up when he's wired in, apart from when Eduardo falls asleep on his shoulder on the couch, and lets his scrapbook slip from sleep-loose fingers onto the floor. Mark picks up all the newspaper cuttings and picture printouts that fall out onto the floor, and prods Eduardo awake to get him into bed.
Eduardo is so tired some nights at the moment that he crawls into bed and collapses against Mark's shoulder, pressing exhausted, open-mouthed kisses against the curve of bone and falling bonelessly asleep in minutes. Mark had always thought that falling asleep before your head hits the pillows was just an expression, but Eduardo seems to be managing it, conked out almost as soon as he hits the mattress. On the one hand, Mark is wondering whether he should maybe be a little bit worried at the same time as being aware that this is exceptionally black pot et cetera, and on the other, he's missing the sex. On a third hand, which Mark needs to grow to make this work and which would also make eating while coding a lot more efficient, he sort of likes Eduardo making his arm go numb, the weight of him against his side. Eduardo loves him. Mark loves Eduardo. As far as Mark is concerned, Eduardo could make his entire body go numb.
He apparently actually does make Mark's brain go numb, because that is a ridiculous thing to think.
Admittedly it is sort of amusing to see someone else work like Mark does, but the main thing about this is -- they haven't had sex in, like, weeks.
Okay, maybe it's only been ten days, but that is practically weeks, especially when Eduardo keeps stretching out tired muscles on the couch and his stupid expensive shirt rides up over his stupid tan stomach, or when Eduardo is asleep all over Mark and smells really good, part cologne, part cake, or when Eduardo is just generally in Mark's vicinity and not having sex with him. Mark doesn't want to be, whatever, a needy loser or anything, but he said I love you and then the sex stopped. He's pretty sure that's not the right way round.
But he lets Eduardo work himself into the ground, because as tired as he is at night, it seems to make him happy to trundle up the stairs to the apartment covered in flour and the odd fleck of frosting, or to look up from his third new recipe of the night to see Mark sitting on the bakery kitchen table with his legs dangling off the edge and coding, keeping him company, and Mark is not going to be the person who gets in the way of Eduardo being happy.
He's just saying. There could be more sex.
Enough is sort of enough after about three more days of this, and Mark follows Eduardo into the shower one morning, shucking off boxers and t-shirt and leaving them in a heap on the kitchen floor on the way. Eduardo is standing under the spray, half-dazed because it genuinely does take him a twenty-minute shower to become a human in the morning. Eduardo also owns, like, hair product and body moisturizer, but Mark's time ratio of waking up to being a functioning human is not at all favourable to his not snapping and committing mass homicide before his second cup of coffee, some days his third, so he's not going to begrudge a guy his morning coping mechanism.
All this means is that Eduardo is still heavy-eyed and slow when Mark steps into the shower behind him, pressing himself along the long, wet line of Eduardo's back and running his hands flat, deliberate, down Eduardo's chest.
"What," says Eduardo, sleepily, rough, half turning his head to look back at Mark, and Mark kisses him gently on his jaw line, just behind his ear, the corner of his mouth he can reach, and says, muffled, "It's been two weeks, Wardo, okay," and reaches around and down for Eduardo's dick. He's hard already, and Mark doesn't know whether it's for him or just because Eduardo is like that in the mornings, but either way, it makes Eduardo groan and lean his head further back against Mark's shoulder, his throat already working round a swallow.
"Mark," Eduardo says, still in his sleep-rough voice, and Mark kisses him again, starting to move his hand, slow, careful, and says, "Just, shut up, Wardo," and Eduardo makes this content, turned-on sound, and brings an arm back to stroke Mark's cheek. Mark presses further into Eduardo's back, and lets the water run down over them both, and brings Eduardo off as slowly as he can until Eduardo is making these choked, needy little noises right by Mark's ear, and Mark is so turned on and the shower is so steam-filled that he thinks he might legitimately pass out.
Eduardo's knees actually buckles when he comes, and Mark will take the opportunity later to mock him endlessly for it, but right now he just groans and comes too, holding on hard to Eduardo's hips to keep them both upright, leaning heavily against the tiled wall.
"Mark," says Eduardo, sort of breathlessly chiding, when Mark presses kisses to the back of Eduardo's neck, breathing in water droplets and morning sweat, unwilling to let him go yet, "Mark, I'm going to be late."
"Mmph," Mark contradicts, muffled by Eduardo's skin against his mouth, running a palm over the top of Eduardo's thigh, trying to touch all of him at once. "Not important."
"It's - fuck - sort of important," Eduardo insists, but then he leans back a little further, and Mark curls round him to wash Eduardo's stomach clean, his inner thighs. Eduardo bites his lip and shifts against him, and it's almost worth going without sex for a while, for this.
Not that Mark is a huge advocate of going without sex in general, obviously. Just - this is almost definitely worth it.
The bakery only opens ten minutes late that day, which Mark considers a great testament to his powers of self-restraint. Eduardo laughs when he says this, later, and tells him he doesn't have a self-restraining bone in his body, and Mark makes some horrendously easy and crude remark about all the boners in his body, and Eduardo bites at his earlobe, which should not be as sexy as it is, and then they don't say much of anything comprehensible for a while.
//
There's a pre-Valentine's Day mixer or something in the office that Thursday, although Mark is pretty sure that the heart-shaped banners slung hastily over doorways in the afternoon are just to give this whole thing unfounded legitimacy as a front for people getting drunk and making poor decisions in the name of socializing or team-building or something else unnecessary. Mark can socialize if he wants to, and he's already built a team by hiring people in the first place, so he definitely doesn't need to trust fall into their arms or anything. He’s pretty sure not everyone would catch him, at that. He thinks, out of nowhere, that Eduardo would catch him.
Anyway.
There had actually been a conversation about whether or not it was politic to call it a Valentine's Day party, with Chris, as ever, erring on the side of caution with the temper of a man who sees what bullshit his job can occasionally be, and Dustin throwing himself dramatically over desks and bewailing that if greeting card companies got to make shit loads of money making single people feel bad, why couldn't they spent a small amount of money on making sure the single people on the Facebook staff felt excellent because they had access to a large amount of spiked punch and office party gossip? Chris had given in mostly to make Dustin shut up, Mark is pretty sure, and also because Chris gives in to Dustin more than he would like to admit.
Mark was mostly just deeply chagrined that that conversation needed to be a part of his life at all, and coded some more in case that would make it stop.
Eduardo even promised to surface from his haze of delicately colour-coordinating frosting to come to the thing. Mark didn't so much ask as mention it was happening, and Eduardo had said, "Sounds great, I'd love to come," in a way that wasn't so much presumptuous as it was understanding Mark's way of asking him, which was handy, because Mark had no desire to sound like he's asking Eduardo to prom or anything.
Dustin comes in and drapes a paper chain of hearts around Mark's neck like a lei around four Thursday afternoon, and when Mark looks snappishly up at him, he sees everyone else already abandoning their desks. Dustin grins down at him.
"Come celebrate love and happiness, Mark," he says. "I am single and need reassurance around this time of year, or I start thinking about Alsatians chewing on my decomposing shins and then I accidently drink all the vodka."
"You always drink all the vodka," Mark tells him, but he gets up from his desk anyway.
He goes out into the main office, and just as someone turns on some music, something popular that Mark doesn't know or like, the door from the stairwell opens, and Eduardo walks in. He looks around for a minute like he's taking it all in, like Chris and Dustin had when they first had a real office, the first big office after the angel investment, like they couldn't believe what they'd been part of. Eduardo looks like that, but a little different. He doesn't look disbelieving, and he's been here before so it's not, like, the holy shit this is Facebook thing that some people get when they walk in, relatives of some of the programmers or whatever - this is - Mark thinks - it's -
Well, whatever it is, it is tempered by the unbelievably ridiculous dance Eduardo does in his direction, his arms wide, one of the stupid things he does to horrible music in the kitchen while he bakes.
Mark is grinning at him despite himself before he can do anything about it.
"I am so proud of you," Eduardo tells him, drawing closer, with his customary earnestness, and Mark goes pink to his ears, and Dustin makes a sound like he wants to kiss Eduardo on the mouth.
Mark actually does kiss Eduardo on the mouth, because he is his to kiss.
"Why?" he says, pulling back after a second, when he's gotten both his point across and Eduardo's mouth red.
"Why what?" says Eduardo. In the background, Dustin squeaks, "Oh my god, Mark, you kissed his pride away, you are a kissing magician," but Mark is spared having to fire him or stand on his foot because Chris blessedly materializes and drags him away to the unnecessarily pink bowl of punch. Dustin doesn't need any help in finding his way to the punch, Mark thinks, mostly because he's pretty sure Dustin's already sampled some of that particular alcoholic ware, but it does at least get him to go away, so Mark's going to give that one a pass.
"Oh, right," says Eduardo, rubbing a sheepish hand over the back of his neck. "The being proud thing."
"Yes," says Mark. "I mean, apart from the obvious."
"The obvious?"
Mark waves a hand to indicate all the computers, their Wall, the big screen display. "Facebook," he says, and Eduardo laughs.
"Oh yeah," he says. "That."
"You disparage my life's work," Mark says.
Eduardo says, "You constantly mock my profession."
"But I'm CEO," says Mark, deadpan. "You're a baker."
"I could bake you," says Eduardo, which doesn't make any sense, but he's smiling, and Mark is smiling, and there are pink paper hearts all over the walls, and it doesn't really matter.
"Getting back to my original point," Mark says, because he doesn't let things go easily, "although I wouldn't mind a detour into an explanation for the dancing, but you sounded like you were about to give me a compliment, so let's go back to that."
Eduardo smiles, because he apparently likes it when Mark says things like that. Mark likes that.
"Because," he says, and he reaches out and takes Mark's hand, "I wasn't there to be proud when you started Facebook. Consider it making up for lost time."
The hearts on the walls have nothing on the colour of Mark's face right now. "Oh," he says, which is a reasonable reaction in anyone's book. Mark's book is Facebook and short reactions are definitely okay in that one. "Okay, I guess."
He thinks about Eduardo saying I want him to be proud of me, and I don't know if he is., it suddenly means more, what Eduardo is saying. It means a lot anyway, because Mark has been ruined by feelings, but that still makes a difference.
"You too," Mark says, in a hot, flustered rush. "I mean, I am. Of you. You should probably know that."
Eduardo laughs, but squeezes his fingers. "You are a ridiculous human being," he says.
"Dustin is chasing people with mistletoe in February," Mark tells him, changing the subject as quickly as he can, spotting Dustin doing just that over Eduardo's shoulder. "I should get points for not doing that, at least."
"I'll bear that in mind," says Eduardo, and kisses him again.
At some point Mark is going to have to remember that when he's at work he should be professional or something, but he is unprofessional enough to turn up to work unshowered and in yesterday's clothes when there's a big enough problem or when he's just not gone home overnight, so he thinks his employees should be able to deal with him kissing Eduardo in the middle of the office. No-one's really looking, anyway. Mark thinks the lure of the punch bowl is stronger than the thought of watching their boss get macked on by a skinny, beaming, mop-haired idiot, and then he thinks he maybe needs to hire better employees, because anyone who would choose punch, or anything, over Eduardo is clearly not in full possession of their intellectual faculties.
Then he reconsiders that again, because his employees have enough sense not to gawk at their boss while he's forgetting himself and letting his hands wander all over Eduardo in the middle of the office party, and that counts a whole lot in their favour.
"Mark," says Eduardo, grinning against his jaw, "not that I'm complaining, but do you think you should maybe get your hands off me while we're in public?"
"Shan't," says Mark, churlishly, but he lets his hands drop to his sides anyway.
Over Eduardo's shoulder, he can see Dustin bearing down on an unsuspecting Chris with a piece of mistletoe almost bigger than his head. Where did he get mistletoe in February anyway?
Not that Mark really cares.
"So," he says, and Eduardo must hear the new tone in his voice just in that one word, because he's going anticipatorily pink, which just makes Mark want to molest him in front of his entire staff with callous abandon. "We're in public, then."
Eduardo laces his fingers in with Mark's; Mark is shivering, just slightly, keyed up. He can't stop grinning. Eduardo says, leaning down close to Mark's ear, "Do you want to talk to me alone for a minute?"
"Sure," says Mark, like it's no big deal, and they make their way to the bathroom.
If they're followed out into the corridor by a Chris-flavoured squawk of indignation, well, then, Chris should have taken better anti-Dustin precautions.
//
Valentine's Day is a Saturday, and Mark wakes up alone in Eduardo's bed at about midday. Even from the opposite end of the apartment to the stairs he can smell brownies. He's pulling on a t-shirt when he bumps against the end of the bed, and something falls out from the duvet. It's a scrap of paper, and it says, in Eduardo's scrawling handwriting, DO NOT COME DOWNSTAIRS BEFORE SIX, I AM WARNING YOU. love, ?
Mark snorts, and rummages through the heap of his clothes on the floor to find his phone, and types out, my secret admirer is so demanding.
Eduardo replies, and also a total mystery, I am sure.
Five minutes later, when Mark is standing in front of the door to the stairs, he gets, I AM SERIOUS MARK DO NOT COME DOWN THESE STAIRS GET BACK TO YOUR LAPTOP.
you are not the boss of me, he sends back, but he obligingly goes and codes, listening to the coffee machine downstairs make rocket launching noises on and off throughout the afternoon.
He showers, at five, because it seems like a good idea, and then definitely does not jump when his phone goes again, half an hour later.
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY MARKY MARK, Dustin has sent. I HOPE YOU VALEN WARDO'S TINE.
And then, before Mark can even hit reply: VALEN HIM GOOD. TINE HIM HARD. TINE HIM ALL OVER HIS GIRAFFE NECK.
what is your deal with zoo animals? Mark sends, and Dustin replies, whatever dude you are a panda, play nice.
Mark turns his phone off.
//
At six, he goes down into the bakery kitchen to find Eduardo looking rumpled and a little harried, but his face breaks into a smile when Mark walks through the door.
Mark blurts, out of nowhere, "Do I still have a tab?"
"Sorry?" says Eduardo, who is tracking the length of Mark's body with promisingly dark eyes, making Mark bite his lip to keep his grin in check. "What?"
"A tab," Mark repeats. "You said I had a clean slate, do you remember?"
Eduardo leans back against the table. "Yeah," he says, and Mark trembles, overcome, just for a second, with how far they've come.
That's stupid. He must have caught some kind of Valentine's Day disease -- but, looking at Eduardo in his wrinkled blue-grey shirt leaning against the kitchen table, he decides he can live with that, for now.
Eduardo says, "How opposed are you to the idea of getting dirty?"
"I just had a shower," Mark says, inanely, and then, taking in the colour rising in Eduardo's cheeks, "Why?"
Eduardo moves to one side, and there is a glass bowl filled with Valentine-pink frosting behind him on the table. Eduardo raises an eyebrow at him, and Mark hears, again, because it's never far from his mind, I'm not always very nice.
And okay, maybe it takes Mark a second to click properly, because he has spent the last couple of weeks watching Eduardo make so much frosting that he just expects the glass bowl to be sitting on the bakery table all the time, but then he looks at the curl to Eduardo's mouth, how dark his eyes are, and he gets the message fast.
He shrugs, as casually as he can. "Not especially," he says, and Eduardo takes one step across the room to him, and kisses him, messy, rough, until Mark's head is spinning.
"Good," he says, "because I was thinking of fucking you on the floor."
Mark laughs, a little reflexive thing, shocked, wanting.
"That's hygienic," he says, exhilarated, delighted. "Could you get closed down for that?"
Eduardo takes Mark's face in his hands and licks into Mark's mouth again, dirty, until Mark inhales sharply and grabs his hips with tight, desperate fingers. "I won't tell if you won't," says Eduardo, grinning wickedly at him, and tugs him down to the floor.
And so that is how Mark ends up lying on his back on a bakery's kitchen floor, covered in mostly licked off frosting, with Eduardo nosing up under his jaw, biting his way back down, and yes, okay, he should definitely have seen this coming from the moment he started hiding behind his laptop to watch Eduardo lick frosting off his fingertips.
This is one time Mark does not care in the slightest about not being three steps ahead of the game because Eduardo is currently licking frosting off the inside curve of Mark's right elbow, holding Mark's wrist over his head against the hard tile floor, which should probably be more sticky and less of a turn on than it is. And, because Eduardo is a high-achiever or whatever, he's also balls-deep inside Mark and just not moving, and Mark is bright red and whining, and, fuck it, if anyone thinks they could stay unmoved by any of that, then they are clinically insane.
"Fuck," says Mark, wrecked, bucking his hips up arrhythmically, taking shallow breaths, "Wardo, fuck - please - "
Eduardo leans down, holding Mark's gaze, and bites at Mark's nipple, swirling his tongue over the frosting with exaggerated relish. He starts jerking Mark off in earnest, curling pulls of his hand, and snaps his hips, and Mark comes all over his own stomach, strung out, body bowing up off the kitchen floor. He heaves in huge, airless breaths; Eduardo smirks against his chest and Mark doesn't even have the energy to be indignant.
He's actually got pins and needles in his toes, which should possibly be vaguely alarming, but the fucks that Mark gives at this moment are utterly and completely negligible. He shudders as Eduardo slides out of him, and shudders harder when Eduardo slips his fingers inside instead, crooking them to press just there.
"Fuck," Mark says, in a rasp of a voice, trembling. "Jesus, Wardo."
Eduardo crooks his fingers again, deliberate, and Mark shakes, everything too much, with jangling, too sharp pleasure.
"Good?" Eduardo asks, sliding his fingers out, and Mark bites down on a doubtlessly ruined noise, refusing to let Eduardo win, because, even now, he's just that petty.
"That is such a redundant question," Mark says, because, seriously, he's splayed out and sweating against the kitchen tiles, and his voice sounds like it's mostly rough breath, and Eduardo is grinning, self-satisfied, and it's simultaneously ridiculously attractive and unbelievably infuriating. The two sort of work together to make Mark want to blow him till he's sobbing Mark's name, undone.
"It's all right if you need to take a moment," says Eduardo, crawling up to bite at Mark's collarbone while Mark tries to remember how to make his limbs work again, and he sounds so pleased, so smug, so fucking self-composed despite the fact that Mark can feel how hard he is, his hips pressing insistently against Mark's thigh, that Mark groans and rolls them over right then, muscles protesting, pushing at Eduardo's chest with one hand until Eduardo's shoulders hit the tile. Eduardo grins, and fumbles the condom off, and, okay, Mark is definitely not cleaning this fucking kitchen after this. He will watch. And laugh. But not clean.
He bends at the waist and just takes Eduardo straight in his mouth, before he can say anything else, and Eduardo goes, "Fuck," gratifyingly, straight away. Mark isn't gentle, and he uses his teeth more than is polite and twists his hand around the base too sharply, and Eduardo bucks up and says, brokenly, "Mark, Mark," and comes.
Mark collapses back on the floor the moment Eduardo's done, and throws an arm over his eyes.
"So," he says, as steadily as he can, listening to Eduardo panting unevenly, coming down, beside him. "Happy Valentine's Day, I guess."
Eduardo pants out a laugh, and rolls sloppily over to put his face on Mark's chest despite the fact that Mark is slowly becoming uncomfortably aware of how sticky he is, just all over, smeared frosting and cooling sweat and come, his inner thighs wet, the tile against his back wet too, and how the hell did this become his life?
Not that he's complaining.
Eduardo presses kisses against the centre of Mark's chest, throwing an arm over Mark's waist. Soon, Mark is going to start being bothered about how naked he is on the floor of Eduardo's fucking place of work, but that's going to be another minute at least. For now, he just puts an arm over Eduardo's shoulders, and lets himself have this.
"Happy Valentine's Day," Eduardo says, completely sincerely, and Mark is in a relationship with a guy who spent the last three weeks researching the best way to make fondant hearts, and he is so fucking in love it is just plain stupid.
//
Seriously.
Fondant hearts.
//
Mark wakes up with the duvet twisted around his legs and his face mashed into the space between the two sets of pillows, and it takes him a minute, grimacing around the taste of his own breath and adjusting to the idea of being conscious, to notice the other side of the bed is empty. He's rolling over, bleary, when there's a voice from the doorway. Mark blinks until Eduardo comes into focus, morning-rumpled.
"Morning," says Eduardo, standing there at the foot of the bed with a tray in his hands, wearing a tee and black boxer-briefs and nothing else, with his hair still stupid from sleep and the marks of the pillows still pressed faintly pink into his cheeks, like he rolled straight out of bed and into the kitchen, to make this before Mark could wake up and get up too. He adds, redundantly, "I made pancakes."
"I see that," Mark says.
He's thinking distantly about the added traffic to the site overnight, this morning, relationship statuses changing and wall posts multiplying with congratulations, celebrations, commiserations, the potential holiday crash always looming in his mind, but he's also looking at Eduardo holding a breakfast tray and smiling at him, and he thinks, if he gets this wrong, he'll be the stupidest man alive.
Eduardo rolls his eyes, warmheartedly, and comes to sit down on the side of the bed.
Somehow Mark has got himself not only an actual person who actively wants to spend time with him, but who also bakes and makes pancakes and cuts them into hearts for the morning after Valentine's Day and brings fucking breakfast to bed on a tray with maple syrup in a little heart-shaped ramekin. It's so revolting, and so lovely, and the sort of thing a million girls would probably kill to use as their Facebook status, and it's almost too saccharine for Mark to put up with, but he supposes he can find it in himself to tolerate it.
Mark raises himself up on his elbows and just leans over to kiss the pillow creases on Eduardo's face, and then to kiss his mouth, and to slide a hand up under the worn blue cotton of his tee, and Eduardo makes a sound of acquiescence and also of forgetting about the pancakes, and presses Mark down onto his back, and leans in to suck a hickey just under his jaw.
Half a lazy, handsy hour later, Eduardo hangs over the edge of the bed to pick up the breakfast tray and frowns.
"The pancakes will be cold now," he says, like no-one ever invented the microwave, and Mark leans over to grab the tray off him, and then he actually looks properly at the pancakes for the first time.
Oh, god.
Okay, is that -- are they --
"Wardo," Mark says, in this not entirely even voice, "are they pony-shaped pancakes?"
"I don't know," says Eduardo, grinning wickedly, self-satisfied, and Mark's stomach is hot and he's so stupidly in love. "They could be horses. I'm not an expert in equine-shaped consumables."
"I hate you," says Mark, and Eduardo throws his head back and laughs, and then Mark drags him back down onto the bed.
When they surface again -- because, okay, there is morning sex and then there is the fact that Eduardo has made pancakes and no-one is eating them -- Mark gingerly picks up a pony pancake by its little flimsy leg.
"Please don't eat me," says Eduardo, in this stupid high-pitched voice, resting his chin on Mark's shoulder. "I'm too young to die!"
"Fuck off," Mark tells the pancake, and takes a bite.
Eduardo is laughing into the crook of Mark's neck. "Pony murderer," he accuses.
Mark leans over and folds another pancake in half, eating it with his fingers and no syrup. It tastes fine. It tastes like a regular pancake, but cold, and a little sticky. He makes exaggerated chewing noises, puffs his cheeks out just to watch Eduardo squawk and roll his eyes all fondly.
"At least let me warm them up," Eduardo says. "Let them go warmly to their deaths."
"They're fine," Mark says, reaching over to dip the bitten end of the pancake in the little syrup ramekin. "See?"
Eduardo makes a face, but then he darts in and bites into the pancake roll in Mark's hand before Mark can, licking deliberately at Mark's fingers. Mark makes a noise of outrage, and dips his finger in the syrup and draws a sticky line down Eduardo's cheek, and then Eduardo just laughs and tips the whole ramekin over Mark's bare chest, sleep-warm, and just as Mark is reacting, he ducks down and starts to lick the syrup away. Mark swats at Eduardo's head in fake protest, but he lets himself be pushed back into the mess of pillows and duvet, and neither of them bat an eyelid when the breakfast tray gets kicked to the floor.
/fin/
*
eu te amo: I love you
\o/ \o/ \o/ thank you for reading, this was a labour of love and also excessive sugar consumption.
also apologies for the abject lack of promised unicorns, but, um, oh god, all I can say to that is watch this space, but maybe not for a while. YOU DID NOT SEE THAT.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Insane Review of Insanity, Part 1/?
Date: 2011-04-27 02:59 am (UTC)Okay, I know that everyone in the universe has been praising your characterization of Mark, but it still bears repeating: your write him beautifully. He has a very clear thought process and it’s understandable, it’s just so different from other people’s.
There's no point in giving someone a key if they're not supposed to use it. It'd be like giving someone a box and expecting them not to open it, or like only inviting someone into a bike room and expecting them not to bite back.
I like the lingering bitterness behind that, and the vague sense of entitlement behind the whole thought. Obviously, Eduardo wanted him to use the key, because he’s Eduardo, but Mark definitely has a sense of entitlement going on, and I love the way you work that in.
how the fuck do you not know where you live??
Long-suffering, put-upon Chris is basically the BEST.
It's possible that the same people who would leave that hypothetical box closed would also have some issues with Mark's ideas of personal boundaries
NO. SHIT. But actually, I like this insight a lot; it’s Mark knowing that he’s wired differently than a lot of people, that there ARE people who would leave the box shut. And him knowing that matters.
Okay, I’m going to have self-control and not quote every single line that shows how freaking much I adore your Mark and how I kind of want to hug him constantly
and marry him a little bit but I think Eduardo kind of has dibs on that so yeah. But he’s amazing. Confident with everything except Eduardo, and that dynamic is kind of the best ever."Have you missed me? I have missed you, my sweet baker-banging friend."
I retract my earlier statement that Chris is the best, because clearly inappropriate, hilarious Dustin is the BEST EVER.
I figure that should cover all my bases, so I can reach some bases, and then abandon all sports metaphors for having lots of sex.
OH MY GOD THIS LINE. I AM LAUGHING SO HARD THAT MY OATH OF COHERENT REVIEWING HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN BROKEN. ILY DUSTIN.
I NEVER SLEEP I AM LIKE A SLOTH BUT THE OPPOSITE. I AM A HTOLS. AWAKE FOREVER, MURDERED NEVER. IF IT RHYMES IT'S TRUE.
This is the part where I confess to laughing so hard that my roommate had to leave to go work on her paper due in four hours because I COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING. HTOLS. *giggle*
Also, may I kidnap your Dustin and marry him? Because I like a guy who doesn’t take life too seriously.
WHERE IS YOUR CHRISTMAS SPIRIT?
Given that your last name, Dustin, is Moskovitz and I am legitimately struggling to think of a MORE Jewish last name, I think you might want to reevaluate that question.
Chris, we cannot fight, we must unite against mutual hypoglycemic shock
MORAL OF THIS FIC.
BOYFRIENDS UNITED AGAINST HYPOGLYCEMIC SHOCK.Is it weird that I’m shipping Chris and Dustin in this fic? I mean, to be fair, I exist in a near-constant state of shipping Chris and Dustin, but I’m not certain you don’t mean for me to want them to hook up and have lots of wild monkey sex, preferably while still making fun of each other.
(At this point in my reading, I took a short break to get some dinner and while I was doing that, my brain concocted a whole grand complex Chris/Dustin backstory in which the first time Dustin confessed his love for Chris, he was ~totally serious, but Chris took it has a joke so Dustin played along and it became a running joke but behind the whole thing, Dustin is pining so hard.)
"You know," says Eduardo, "the Ross and Rachel."
See? SEE? Eduardo is on board with my shipping of Chris and Dustin.
Basically all the wonderfulness of Mark and Eduardo has broken me, so to try and stay coherent I’m focusing on the ship that isn’t actually in your story. But don’t worry, everything about Mark and Eduardo and their diabetes-inducing FACES is lovely.
Insane Review of Insanity, Part 2/4
Date: 2011-04-27 03:01 am (UTC)Can I marry this line and have its sappy, canon-referencing, PERFECT babies? I love that line so much. Eduardo being all with his I-want-to-be-with-you-always self and Mark GETTING IT, that he was a jackass in college and that maybe things wouldn’t have gone so well without him having the chance to grow up (and he doesn’t know this bit, but Eduardo having the chance to grow up was good too).
"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."
Bad idea, older!Chris. Younger!Chris would die of shock, and then where would you be? DEAD. THAT’S WHERE YOU’D BE.
don't tell Dustin where I am.
YOU ASKED FOR IT, MARK.
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.
This broke me. In all seriousness, I am curled up laughing uncontrollably right now. I can’t stop and I’m really glad my roommate isn’t in here because I can’t breathe and I’m making scary noises. A SEXY PUDDING BOAR. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?
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.
This email exchange is the best email exchange of all the exchanges of emails that were ever exchanged.
See? Broken.
AND IT KEEPS GETTING BETTER. But I will not quote all of it to you because you wrote it and you know it already. BUT ALL OF IT IS AMAZING, YOU SEXY PUDDING BOAR.
Eduardo was witness to the Great Grilled Cheese Disaster of early November
Oh dear lord, I am a little curious about what Mark did to the grilled cheese. :P
I am not going to quote all of Dustin’s CAPSLOCK emails but they are all wonderful and my earlier wish to marry Dustin still stands. I also still ship him with Chris, but I’m a little unclear on how this is going to work out.
Also, I love that you have made Chris a video game GOD. It is hilarious. And genius.
And I may or may not be stealing it for my fic brb making Chris a gaming genius.Eduardo eats his from the crust in, which Mark points out is an abomination. Eduardo shrugs, and says he likes having the best bit to look forward to; Mark likes having the best bit now.
THAT’S HOW I EAT MY PIZZA. Because clearly the tip/middle bit is the best part and should be saved for last, whereas the crust is just sort of okay-ish.
The whole pizza-Lady-and-the-Tramp-Dustin-sharing-calendar-alerts part of SHEER ADORABLE was the CUTEST THING EVER. BRB DYING OF DIABETES.
Dustin fell asleep on Chris's lap in the middle of finals
CLEARLY YOU JUST WANT ME TO SHIP THEM.
"So," Eduardo says, "essentially you want me to teach you dirty Portuguese."
"Yes," says Mark.
Eduardo shrugs. "Sounds like a plan."
THIS IS LEGITMATELY THE CUTEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO BE. I AM NOW DEAD. SORRY IF THE REST OF THIS REVIEW IS INCOHERENT. BLAME IT ON YOU HAVING KILLED ME.
I saw the bit with the phrase book falling open to the I love you page coming a mile away but it still made me smile like the giant sap I really, really am. JSYK.
And related to that. Mark. MARK. MARK. His inability to just SPIT IT OUT that he’s in love with Eduardo is so endearing I don’t even have words for it. It’s also perfect, which goes very nicely with the part where your Mark is ALWAYS perfect. So much perfection. So much adorable. My promise to be coherent is really not working out all that well.
OH MY GOD THE SCENE WHERE EDUARDO FINALLY TELLS HIM. I DIED. You know again. It was the best most amazing most wonderful perfect thing that exists in the world AND THEN MARK GAVE HIM THE PICTURE AND MY EYES TURNED INTO GIANT HEARTS AND I THINK THEY’RE STUCK THAT WAY I CAN’T MAKE THEM STOP.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 2/4
Date: 2011-04-29 07:31 pm (UTC)YES SO HARD.
THANK YOUUUUUUU, YOUR WORDS ARE THE BEST. YES, THIS EXACTLY. That's one of the things I thought about most when I was writing this, you know, that it could work and be all cake and rainbows because they were that bit older, and Mark had rattled the first few intense years of Facebook out of his system and was still entrenched in it but not to the extent that there wasn't room in his head for anything else, and Eduardo had taken that step for himself in breaking away from what his father wanted him to do and opened the bakery, and they could give themselves to a relationship in an actual healthy amount for both of them.
ANYWAY SHUT UP, ME.
I THINK YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU ARE THE SEXY PUDDING BOAR HERE.
ajhsgfhjs CHRIS IS AWESOME AT VIDEO GAMES, it is the bane of Dustin's life. I support the furthering of Chris's video-goddery so much.
AND HOW DO YOU EAT PIZZA LIKE THAT?? I wish I could, but I can never manage it without all the topping sliding off DDD:
\o/ \o/ CALENDAR ALERT SCHMOOP. Eduardo has to keep stealing Mark's phone! At some point, Mark totally notices him doing it and then pretends he hasn't, just so Eduardo can be happy and he can be happy when he gets the alert the next day and then rainbows explode through the windows.
CLEARLY YOU JUST WANT ME TO SHIP THEM. - HAAA YOUR LOVE FOR CHRIS/DUSTIN IN THIS IS LEGITIMATELY MAKING MY LIFE. HSGDFJHGS MY ~FEELINGS~
Glad the I love you page worked for you! I COULD NOT RESIST, I AM THE SAPPIEST OF THE SAPS.
OH MY GOD THE SCENE WHERE EDUARDO FINALLY TELLS HIM. I DIED. You know again. It was the best most amazing most wonderful perfect thing that exists in the world AND THEN MARK GAVE HIM THE PICTURE AND MY EYES TURNED INTO GIANT HEARTS AND I THINK THEY’RE STUCK THAT WAY I CAN’T MAKE THEM STOP. - AHHHHH AUUUUGH AHHHH OH MY GOD, YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH THAT MEEEEANS, UGH UGH UGH THE AMOUNT OF TIME I SPENT FLAILING AROUND IN A PANIC ABOUT WRITING WARDO'S DADDY ISSUES IN THIS WAS ACTUALLY RIDICULOUS. Because, like, I didn't want it to be like "oh poor wardo, he is a broken cupcake", because he just is not, but even having taken that step for himself, and even with his dad actually supporting him in his own gruff way, like - if you have that sort of insecurity in a relationship, it's not just going away, and no matter how ~self-actualized~ or whatever you get, it's always going to be there a little bit BUT THEN I didn't want to be too heavy handed with it BUT THEN I needed to include something about it because it's a part of his character, you know, and then ahsfghjsd THIS STUPID RUN-ON SENTENCE AND MANY LIKE IT LOOPED ROUND MY BRAIN FOREVER. So there we go. I AM SO GLAD IT WORKED FOR YOUUUUU.
And ajhsgfhjs Mark giving him the picture jsdgfjh HOORAY YOU LIKED THAT TOO. I have this whole scene in my head where Mark had to ask his mother for it, because she's hidden it from him for years because of his crusade to have it eradicated from this earth, and then she was all "... why?" and he has to shuffle his feet a bit and explain that he wants to give it to Wardo, and his mother is like "HERE IT IS BRING HIM HERE AT ONCE I NEED TO CHUCK HIS CHEEKS AND THANK HIM FOR MAKING MY SON LESS EMOTIONALLY STUNTED" and Mark is just like "mooooooooom" but at the same time pleased to have the picture and glad his mother approves of his plans to stay with Eduardo forever and ever the end. YOU SEEEE, I AM A LUNATIC, I SHOULD DELETE THIS WHOLE COMMENT, BUT NO, NO, YOU ARE GETTING ALL THIS NONSENSE, APOLOGIES.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 2/4
Date: 2011-04-29 07:53 pm (UTC)URGH, YOUR WORDS ARE GIVING ME ALL THESE FEELINGS OF LOVE. I keep having all these THOUGHTS about them and how young they were because I'm nineteen and I do stupid rash shit all the time and lash out and say things I shouldn't and I can't imagine of those things were, like, SHAPING MY FUTURE.
I accept your claim that I am a sexy pudding boar only because you invented it and therefore have sexy-pudding-boar-naming privileges but YOU ARTE ALSO A SEXY PUDDING BOAR.
SAPPY THINGS ARE WONDERFUL. I AM ALSO THE SAPPIEST OF SAPS. I AM SUCH A SAP MY MOTHER MAKES FUN OF ME FOR IT.
... I am now imagining Wardo as a broken cupcake. IT IS THE CUTEST THING.
HEE MARK'S MOM. YES. WARDO IS JUST THAT AMAZING.
YOU SEEEE, I AM A LUNATIC, I SHOULD DELETE THIS WHOLE COMMENT, BUT NO, NO, YOU ARE GETTING ALL THIS NONSENSE, APOLOGIES. BEST LUNACY EVER.
Insane Review of Insanity, Part 3/4
Date: 2011-04-27 03:02 am (UTC)He wants to kiss him so much of the time that it is actively interfering with his having other thoughts, which is inconvenient but also inconveniently unpreventable.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This thought is so cute that I can’t form words, sorry.
the correct term for combining butter and sugar is not coalescing but creaming, which Mark doesn't hesitate to point out is unnecessarily pornographic
So I actually managed to survive 19.5 years of loving to bake AND having an exceptionally dirty mind without ever putting those two uses of the word “creaming” together and realizing that they’re the same word. DAMN YOU now baking is always going to seem slightly dirty to me.
It really hits him here, listening to Eduardo snuffle into the pillows, that this is it. Eduardo is it. He has no back-up plan.
MY HEART. IT IS SINGING. SINGING SONGS OF JOY AND RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS AND PUPPIES AND OTHER HAPPY THINGS.
monetize it early to string out the maxed out credit cards he and Chris and Dustin were already straining
This is a great touch, a lovely reference to canon, because for all that Facebook was a good idea and Mark probably could have gotten start-up money elsewhere, he wouldn’t have gotten carte blanche from anyone who didn’t have absolute faith in him and his idea. Someone else might have given him the first grand, maybe, but the 18 thousand for the summer? Without monetizing the site? That was not the money of a wise investor, that was a move that reeked of best friend. (Sorry for random ramble, shutting up now.)
"Home?" says Eduardo, in this funny tone of voice, and Mark grits his teeth, and refuses to take it back.
This is only one line of it, but the whole exchange this was from is so incredibly sweet and perfect and heartwarming that I’m close to tears. My heart hurts; I think it grew three sizes. You turned me into the motherfucking Grinch, you sexy pudding boar. I don’t plan to cease calling you that.
… And then Mark told Eduardo he loves him FINALLY and my heart grew even more sizes. I am crying of happiness. My level of emotional investment in this fic is thoroughly unhealthy.
And then it got cuter and there was Portuguese and I am legitimately unable to coherently tell you how much I love this. YOU BROKE ME.
THIS: "Eu te amo," he says, in case it means more in Portuguese, because he wants to say it every way he can.
THIS BROKE ME. I AM NO LONGER A FUNCTIONING HUMAN BECAUSE MY HEART HAS GROWN TOO MANY SIZES AND HAS TAKEN OVER THE PLANET.
"Dustin," he says, standing behind Dustin's chair, and Dustin, who was there in the bar when Erica Albright said the internet isn't written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink, Dustin, who linked his arm through Mark's while Mark was angry and hurt and humiliated and walked Mark home even though they were out with a group and listened to him talk about expanding to Yale and Columbia, Dustin, who said it was time they saw theFacebook in California, Dustin, who made Eduardo give Mark his number-- he spins round in his silly swivel chair and takes one look at Mark's face and knows. Mark doesn't even have to say anything, and Dustin knows.
So you know how like 1500 words of review ago, I said I wanted to marry a phrase? I TAKE IT BACK. I TAKE IT ALL BACK. I WANT TO MARRY THIS PARAGRAPH. Dustin may be replacement!Eduardo, but he’s the best replacement!Eduardo ever in this moment and he knows. I also want to marry Dustin. I’m working on the polyandry laws, nbd nbd.
On a third hand, which Mark needs to grow to make this work and which would also make eating while coding a lot more efficient
1. If you work out how, please tell me, Mark. I could use this information.
2. Hee, Mark, your thought process. :D
Chris had given in mostly to make Dustin shut up, Mark is pretty sure, and also because Chris gives in to Dustin more than he would like to admit.
SO MUCH SHIPPING. SO FREAKING MUCH SHIPPING.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 3/4
Date: 2011-04-29 07:49 pm (UTC)DAMN YOU now baking is always going to seem slightly dirty to me. - HA HA SUCCESS. ALSO I have just noticed I have not friended you yet, jfc self, what is with that, HANG ON DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THAT.
MY HEART. IT IS SINGING. SINGING SONGS OF JOY AND RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS AND PUPPIES AND OTHER HAPPY THINGS. - THIS WAS THE ENTIRE GOAL OF THIS FIC. TRIUMPH! SUCCESS! VICTORY! I JUST - their faces throughout the whole film tear my soul into weeping, useless shreds and on my umpteen billion embarrassing rewatches (the film as a whole is one of my favourites, just, HOW SO TALENTED, EVERYONE INVOLVED? ugh we are not even going into the whole Best Director thing, I cannot even. I QUESTION YOUR JUDGEMENT, ACADAMY AWARDS) picking out the little moments where, if one of them had just said one thing differently or listened slightly harder, the whole thing might have been avoided has made me want to legitimately perish, and then MARK'S FUCKING FACE IN THE BREAK-UP SCENE, and EDUARDO'S FACE THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING, jfc, GET A FILTER WARDO YOU ARE BREAKING MY SOUL. aghjsegfj ANYWAY, SONGS OF RAINBOW UNICORN PUPPY JOY were essentially what I wanted. <3333
That was not the money of a wise investor, that was a move that reeked of best friend. - ; ______ ; YES, MY ENDLESS CREYS, LET ME SHOW YOU THEM. lolol also obviously this is a ramble friendly zone. I have no shut up button.
\o/ \o/ \o/ FLAILY HANDS, I am so super psyched that Mark finally removing the huge emotional stopper from his brain and saying it, and YES IT IS HOME, and the Portuguese all worked for youuuu. WRITING THE END OF THIS FIC FELT LIKE EXORCIZING SUGAR FROM MY SOUL. MARK CAN SAY IT NOW, HE JUST WANTS TO SAY IT ALL THE TIME FOREVER IN CASE MAYBE WARDO FORGETS AND ALSO BECAUSE HE CAN, ISN'T HE CLEVER, HE HAS LEARNED HOW TO SAY A FEELING, WARDO, CAN HE HAVE A COOKIE?
lolol by all means please marry Dustin, but, um, Chris might have something to say about that. JS JS also sjhgfj BECAUSE YOU ARE THE BEST, I feel like I should tell you that there is a word doc on my computer entitled "DUSTIN POV BAKERY NONSENSE WHYYYYY", so, um. THAT'S A THING THAT IS IN THE PROCESS OF HAPPENING.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 3/4
Date: 2011-04-29 08:02 pm (UTC)and my job for the summer doesn't pay me jfc self why did I agree to that?(Sometimes I wish what's-his-face won Best Director for Black Swan because that was SUCH a director's movie blah blah but also TKS was awesome but FINCHER URGH. My feelings about this are very conflicted, can you tell?) IF THEY HAD JUST USED THEIR WORDS, IT WOULD ALL HAVE BEEN OKAY. MARK WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE "WARDO, THIS IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO" AND WARDO WOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE "I HAVE THIS COMPULSIVE NEED TO PLEASE MY FATHER BUT FOR YOU, MARK, I WILL LET THAT TAKE A BACKSEAT BUT ONLY IF WE HAVE LOTS OF SEX RIGHT THE FUCK NOW." And it would all have been puppies and rainbows.THE PORTUGUESE MADE ME CRY. THERE WERE TEARS OF HAPPY. (Also yes of course Mark can have a cookie for learning to say a feeling.)
I am working on the polyandry laws, I am sure it will all be okay
except I am kind of not Chris's type but that is a bridge I will cross when I come to itbecause I MUST MARRY DUSTIN RIGHT NOW.OH. MY. GOD. OH. MY. GOD. BEST. THING. EVER. (Will it have unicorns? HAVE YOU SEEN THE PICTURE ON THE INTERNET OF HOW A UNICORN IS THE CHILD OF A HORSE AND A NARWAL I BET DUSTIN HAS.)
Insane Review of Insanity, Part 4/4
Date: 2011-04-27 03:05 am (UTC)Right now, I am picturing that scene in my head and Mark and Eduardo’s stupid grins and “They want to have drinks tah-night” and every part that was stupidly wonderful before it all went to hell, and I’m thinking about how much better it is this way and WHY ISN’T THIS FIC CANON?
If they're followed out into the corridor by a Chris-flavoured squawk of indignation, well, then, Chris should have taken better anti-Dustin precautions.
It’s like a warning label or something. Engage with the Dustin at your own risk, owners not liable for any inappropriate kissing and/or excessive drinking in which the Dustin might engage.
I HOPE YOU VALEN WARDO'S TINE.
MARRY ME, DUSTIN MOSKOVITZ.
Seriously. Any man who can turn “Valentine” into an innuendo is my type of man.
OH MY GOD. They’re going to have sex WITH ICING. I mean, not like that but like there will be sex and icing at the same time. JESUS.
I kind of knew this was coming because of the opening and all but STILL.Okay, in all seriousness, this is one of my favorite fics ever. I reread parts 1 and 2 about four times each in the last couple of weeks, while I was waiting for part 3 to get posted. Everything is baked goods and nothing hurts, basically. Every moment of this was practically flawless, the characters and the story and the freaking EMOTIONAL PAYOFF and the … well, it felt like denouement, the last section, because Mark finally managing to spit out his eu te amo was definitely the emotional climax, and the everything else was just (oh god this is an awful metaphor, given the nature of the fic) icing on the cake.
I’m going to conclude this review now, because I’m writing it in Word so I know how long it actually is, and I’m a little afraid you’ll think I’m a crazy stalker person, which isn’t strictly true, it’s just that you wrote one of the best things I’ve ever read that happened to make me happier than should be legal. Is all.
*wait patiently for unicorns*
(On a slightly less OH MY GOD THIS FIC IS AMAZING AND NOTHING HURTS note, would you be horribly offended if I pointed out a couple of moments where your British showed?)
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 4/4
Date: 2011-04-27 03:41 pm (UTC)(I WILL COME BACK, MOOG, I WILL, AND REVIEW THIS FOR REAL. I WILL. EVENTUALLY.)
BUT SERIOUSLY, DAISY: MOTHERFUCKING CO-SIGNED TO ALL OF THE ABOVE. EVERY SINGLE THING. YOU ARE THE OVERENTHUSIASTIC DUSTIN OF MY HEART RIGHT NOW AND I AM THE MARK, FEELING ALL OF THE FEELINGS BUT TOO TIRED (AND NOT IN THE MOOD) TO SAY THEM.
SO YEAH. I'LL SLEEP NOW AND STOP PIGGY-BACKING LATER. HOPE YOU DON'T MIND MY LITTLE TAG-A-LONG SELF. ;)
♥♥♥♥♥ (for both of you lovely people)
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 4/4
Date: 2011-04-27 04:11 pm (UTC)that clocked in at about 2500 words what is my life. :DETA: Except Dustin. You're not allowed to piggyback on the part where I'm marrying Dustin because I AM NOT SHARING HIM.
JSYK.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 4/4
Date: 2011-04-29 07:52 pm (UTC)Mark and Eduardo’s stupid grins and “They want to have drinks tah-night” - nooooo my heartttt whyyyyy would you do this to meeeeee. TAH-NIGHT. OH WARDO.
sjhdgfjhds I CANNOT EVEN, YOUR COMMENTS, YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN MY FACE. IT WAS LIKE DUSTIN'S FACE WHEN WARDO PROVIDES HIM WITH WARM BROWNIES, ONLY HAPPIER. Thank you so, so much. I CANNOT SAY THAT ENOUGH, HERE, LET ME SAY IT IN CAPS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. ♥ ♥ ♥ This started as a stupid thing to make me feel less gutted like a fish by the movie, and then grew into a crazy, soul-consuming monster, so the fact that you liked it enough to leave THESE AMAZING COMMENTS is actually unbelievable. I cannot. THANK YOU.
everything else was just (oh god this is an awful metaphor, given the nature of the fic) icing on the cake. - ALSO I LOVE YOU. ♥
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 4/4
Date: 2011-04-29 08:05 pm (UTC)You are so very very very welcome! IT WAS AMAZING AND WORTHY OF ALL THE INSANE COMMENTS EVER.
I LOVE YOU TOO. IT IS ALL GOOD. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Insane Review of Insanity, Appendix A
Date: 2011-04-27 04:25 pm (UTC)But first, I noticed this just now:
Chris, we cannot fight, we must unite against mutual hypoglycemic shock
I think you may mean hyperglycemic shock, because hypoglycemic is low blood sugar. Didn't catch it as I was reading, but now my head is all academicy because I'm about to start a paper and it jumped out at me.
mostly so he can stop hearing himself think horrible Mills and Boon style things
Mills and Boon is not an American thing; in the US we have Harlequin novels. Same idea: clichéd, predictable stories with lots of sex and titles like The Duke's Pregnant Mistress and The Billionaire's Ex-Wife (the latter of these is clearly canon!Eduardo ...)
The plan is to play Halo till five to the hour, and then watch the ball drop in Times Square
This is not, strictly speaking, a Britishism, and I haven't had time to do my due diligence to check if it's actually an issue (because my lazy bum West Coast friends aren't online yet, LOSERS), but New York is three hours ahead of California, so when the ball is dropping there it's only 9 PM for our lovely boys. If you like, I can confer with my West Coast friends and find out what actual people from that time zone do for the New Year.
IS HIS LOVE A DRUG OR IS HE JUST ON PARACETAMOL
1. Please tell me this is a Ke$ha reference.
2. In the States, we call it "acetaminophen," but because that's a MOUTHFUL, most people just use the brand name Tylenol to refer to all of it, whether it's generic or actually Tylenol.
I am not an completely sedentary human being
Not a Britishism at all, just a typo.
feelings as intensely as low budget American movies would like him to
As an American, I can say with confidence that we don't think of them as American movies. They're just movies. :P
Mark hates films, and real life, and the vast, guideless gulf between the two
It's very unusual for an American who is not also a terribly pretentious film critic (or making fun of pretentious film critics) to refer to movies as "films." I can see why the world is useful in prose, because it keeps you from using the word "movies" over and over, but it was jarring for me to try and think of Mark using "film" in his internal monologue.
and I should quit right now and become an agony aunt
This might be a regional thing or something, but I've NEVER heard the phrase "agony aunt" (actually, I looked it up to make sure it's what I thought it was); a more common phrase would probably be "advice columnist" or if you want something vaguely less PC, maybe "Dear Abby" or "Ask Amy" (two well-known newspaper advice columnists).
And okay, maybe it takes Mark a second to twig properly
"Twig" in the sense of "understand" or "make sense of" is a turn of phrase with which I am not familiar (and it sounds distinctly British to my ear).
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Appendix A
Date: 2011-04-27 05:38 pm (UTC)I changed the typo/hyperglycemic/Mills and Boon/films/agony aunt/twig etc (thank youuu) and then LOL WHAT I EVEN LOOKED UP THE TIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIA AND STILL FORGOT, OH GOD, THERE IS A SILENCE IN MY BRAIN. I have just shunted it all back three hours in the fic, so, thank you for drawing my attention to that fail moment! <3333
ALSO HOMGGG I KNOW I SAID THIS BEFORE BUT YOUUUR EPIIIIC COMMENTTTT, I AM GOING TO BE ALL OVER THAT ASAP. :DDD thank you so much, you are amazing/a wonder/a sparkle cupcake.
(and yes, it is a Ke$ha reference, because that song infected my braaain)
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Appendix A
Date: 2011-04-27 05:45 pm (UTC)It's possible that they, like, show the ball dropping on a delay on the West Coast or something. I DON'T KNOW THESE THINGS I'M FROM THE PROPER COAST WHERE IT JUST HAPPENS AT FUCKING MIDNIGHT. And my West-coast-based friend is NOT GETTING HIS SCRAWNY UNHELPFUL ASS ONLINE. :P
I'm so excited for your response! That comment was, like, the most fun ever to write.
(That song. WHY IS IT SO CATCHY? I had it stuck in my head for a week once, which was really awkward because I don't actually listen to Ke$ha so all I knew was "Your love your love your love is my drug.")
ETA: So I have conferred with my West-coast friend, who says that they get the ball drop on a three-hour tape delay. Which, incidentally, I totally imagine would bother four East-coast natives. It would feel like cheating or something. :P
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Appendix A
Date: 2011-04-29 07:33 pm (UTC)You are THE ACTUAL BEST, I may have to pester you for other American/common sense fic beta jobs in the future, if that would be okay? YOU ARE SO A+++
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Appendix A
Date: 2011-04-29 07:37 pm (UTC)stupidAWESOME comments are making me ridic happy which is problematic because I AM IN PUBLIC GRINNING AT MY LAPTOP LIKE A DOOFUS. BUT PLEASE NEVER STOP.ABSOLUTELY. I love doing things like that SO MUCH. I have seriously considered becoming a literary agent so that people would PAY ME to do it ALL THE TIME. :P
You are even more A++++++++. YOU MADE THIS FIC HAPPEN. Also, you appear to be generally awesome.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 1/?
Date: 2011-04-29 07:16 pm (UTC)First of all, can I just say how unbelievably happy it makes me to hear that Mark worked for you? BECAUSE UGH oh god whose bright idea was it to write this from Mark's POV OH WAIT MINE. I have so much ridiculous slightly to the left of canon, backstory for everyone in this au that I had to just keep reminding myself of (HAAAAA I will spare you all my stupid thoughts about a Mark who went through Harvard without Wardo because they are LEGION), and then just forging forward and trying not to panic everywhere. MARK Y U DO THIS 2 ME etc etc. like the lingering bitterness behind that, and the vague sense of entitlement behind the whole thought...Mark definitely has a sense of entitlement going on - sjhdgfhjsdg YOUUUUU, how do you do this to me. YES. Despite occasionally making me panic all over the place, Mark was the most interesting to write, so I am just endlessly glad it worked for other people. <33333
Relatedly: Mark knowing that he’s wired differently than a lot of people, that there ARE people who would leave the box shut. And him knowing that matters. - HELLO YOU ARTICULATED THIS SO WELL, YES, THIS. I CANNOT MAKE WORDS TO SAVE MY LIFE, SO YESSS, THIS.
ALSO THIS: Confident with everything except Eduardo, and that dynamic is kind of the best ever. - UGHHH your words are better than the fic, you are the besttt. ♥
ajhgfhjs GLAD YOU FOUND THIS FUNNYYYYY.
HA HA HA I ALSO HAVE ENDLESS ENDLESS RIDICULOUS UNNECESSARY THOUGHTS ABOUT CHRIS/DUSTIN IN THIS 'VERSE, JFC. I am super glad you liked their dynamic in this! It was one of my favourite things to write. (EDUARDO IS SO ON BOARD WITH SHIPPING THEM, FOR SRS. I mean, he is totally playing the Dustin to Chris, and, like, sending him endless stupid texts about Dustin's face with Disney lyrics and things, and Chris is like ajgdhjsgf SHUT UP YOU ARE TAPPING MARK, YOU CLEARLY HAVE NO JUDGEMENT FOR THESE THINGS). I cannot go into the my feelings re: Chris/Dustin in general and Chris/Dustin in this or I will actually be here all night, but AGAIN THANK YOU FOR YOUR THOUGHTS ON THEM IN THIIIIIIS, I LOVED WRITING THEM SO MUH HUH HUUUUCH.
Re: Insane Review of Insanity, Part 1/?
Date: 2011-04-29 07:45 pm (UTC)Haha oh you, writing from Mark's POV. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT EVER? I AM TERRIFIED OF TRYING TO WRITE MARK BECAUSE HE IS JUST ... I don't even know. But you did such a nuanced job writing him. It was A+.
your words are better than the fic - haha thank you
IT WAS ALL SO FUNNY. I LAUGHED SO MUCH.
AHAHA CHRIS. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. Best: SHUT UP YOU ARE TAPPING MARK, YOU CLEARLY HAVE NO JUDGEMENT FOR THESE THINGS. Also, YOU SHOULD TELL ME ALL YOUR FEELINGS. ALL. OF. THEM. I love talking about ~feelings, especially when they are Chris/Dustin ~feelings. Unless it's that Chris never gives into to his TWOO LAV for Dustin, in which case I prefer what happens in my head.