Work Text:
"Hi, Chris. It's Maggie."
"Hi, gorgeous! How are you? How are the kids?"
"I'm afraid this is not a social call, sweetie."
Chris’s blood immediately drains from his face. He knows that tone, he's used it plenty of times himself.
"What is it?"
"I've bought some... delicate material today." Translation: involves sex, hard drugs, or both. "Directly from the source." Translation: caught in time. "It was a clean transaction, and I pulled out all the stops with the contracts." Translation: very, very expensive.
"How bad."
She's silent for a moment. Oh, God. "For him? Pretty much lethal."
For him. Fuck. So this isn’t about your garden-variety Silicon Valley slut. "Fuck."
"Yeah. Listen, you should probably hop on the first plane to LA."
"I wasn’t planning on flying commercial."
"Even better."
"How much?"
"Three hundred, plus our usual agency commission. I hate to charge you for that but it's the only way to make sure it's filed as a confidential transaction."
"What about your share?"
"Having your guy owe me big is payment enough. Just don't make it a habit, okay?"
"Thank you, Maggie. I—"
"Yeah, yeah, thank God or karma or the fucking Tooth Fairy, whoever's responsible for them coming to me first. Just get your ass down here ASA-fucking-P, Hughes."
:::
"Mark."
"Hmn?"
"Stop typing."
"We’ve been through this. I can type and listen at the same time."
"Mark."
"Yeah?"
Chris circles the desk and softly nudges the lid of Mark's laptop. "Not for this. We need to talk," he says and strides towards Mark’s sound-proof office. Chris sometimes wonders why Mark even keeps an office when he barely ever leaves his desk on the main floor, although he admits that might be partly his fault – Mark probably associates his office with the kind of scolding that has to be done in private.
"So talk," Mark says once they’re inside.
"Before you start bitching about the interruption, I'd like you to think very carefully about anything you might've done lately that's worth over a quarter mill and has the potential to ruin both your life and the company."
"What?"
"Do you remember Josh, my ex?"
Mark stares at him blankly. Of course he doesn’t.
"His sister runs a news agency. One of the big ones. She's also a very good friend of mine. She's bought some pictures for you to take them off the market."
Mark is frozen in place.
"I'll ask once again, is there anything you need to tell me?"
Mark grimaces at that, then closes his eyes as if in pain. "How much."
"Three fifty. Cash, if you have it or can get it in less than two hours. And I'll need a PJ."
Mark nods once, curtly.
“Mark,” Chris starts hesitantly, “I'm your publicist, but above all I'm your friend, you know that. Whatever I'm about to see… wouldn't you rather tell me yourself?"
He seems to consider this for a minute. "Just bring back the fucking pictures, Chris."
:::
Chris pushes away the manila folder, as if the gesture could make its contents disappear.
"You didn't know." Maggie sounds equal parts pitying and surprised. It's an unusual combination for someone in her line of work.
"Mark is a shitty client with no understanding of the kind of stuff he's supposed to keep me posted on, bless his heart."
"Does he at least carry around contracts for this sort of thing?"
"I did send him one. Not that I really thought any of those professional gold diggers in Palo Alto were likely to sign them." His laughter sounds slightly hysterical even to his own ears.
"Most of the asses I save are coked-out Hollywood airheads, but Mark… how can someone be a genius and pull this kind of idiotic shit?"
"No idea. But the day he figures it out is the day I'll be out of a job, so…"
Maggie smiles and squeezes his shoulder. "Come on, let's go fix this mess."
:::
Chris slouches in the back of the town car, the photos in his hand making no more sense to him than they did when he first saw them. They aren’t particularly racy, not really. Mark and another man talking seriously under a streetlight, then kissing, then climbing into Mark’s car and driving away.
It’s everything else in them that constitutes the kind of nightmare haunting PR experts the world over.
At first, Chris’s reaction had been, ‘wow, Wardo’s sure rocking those jeans’. Closely followed by, ‘wait, that can’t be Eduardo Saverin’, and then ‘please God, let that street just look like the wrong end of the Castro’.
The truly ironic part is that, in the great PR scheme of things, if Mark had been caught doing lines off a stripper’s ass and proceeded to drive under the influence with said stripper sitting on his lap, it would’ve meant a much lesser potential scandal than discreetly fucking a hooker who’s a dead ringer for the former best friend who sued you for a billion dollars.
Chris enjoys his job, he really does. Most of his days revolve around making the company save face when one of Mark’s ideas is too much for the users to handle or generally covering up for Mark’s total lack of social graces. In short, he’s basically filling in for what Eduardo did in Harvard. And that’s what makes this situation so ridiculously fucked up. Mark is his friend. And in these five years, sure, he’s seen what losing Eduardo did to him, how it changed him, regardless or blame. He also knows there hasn’t been anyone since then. Dustin may be the one to make the jokes about the lawsuit being a bad divorce when they’re alone, but Chris privately agrees with him. Not that he or Dustin were supposed to know back in school, let alone after the deluge.
That’s what will keep him up at night in the weeks and months to come, he knows. Not the PR nightmare, but the knowledge that Mark had been lonely or desperate or crazy enough to resort to… that.
And that he never noticed.
:::
The sky is almost completely dark by the time Chris arrives back in Palo Alto. Mark’s assistant sent him an email reminding him to please check in with Mark as soon as he’s back. As if there was anywhere else he was planning to go. Mark is waiting for him in his office, and he must not be as engrossed in his coding as he looks, because he takes his headphones off as soon as Chris walks through the door.
“Did you fix it?”
“I’ll have to do a bit of follow-up tomorrow, but yeah. It’s gone.”
“Good.”
“Mark. I hate to ask, but as your publicist I need to know… could there be more photos like these out there?”
“Is that your polite way of asking if I make it a habit of picking up hookers, Chris?”
“No, the polite part was leaving out who that particular hooker looks like.”
Mark purses his lips so tightly they’re almost white. “That is none of your business.”
“Oh, really? Then I’ll make sure the next time this happens they sell the pictures to fucking US Weekly.”
“There won’t be a next time.” A pause. “And there are… that was once. Just once.”
“So. Are you gay now?”
“What?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not gonna launch into a gay rights tirade, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t give a fuck whether you’re planning to come out tomorrow or live in the closet the rest of your life. But you need to tell me what I’m up against, Mark, because the next time I get a call like Maggie’s it probably won’t be from her, and I don’t want to lose my cool in front of a paparazzo because I was facing him bare-assed, if you don’t mind.”
“I said there won’t be a next time.”
“Are you sure?”
“It was a one-time thing. I promise.”
Chris breathes a little easier for the first time since Maggie’s call. “Good.” Then, “Do you remember the confidentiality agreement I sent you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he—”
“Yes. It’s in my safe. I’ll give it to you tomorrow, if you want.”
“Good,” Chris says again. To be honest, it’s much more than he was expecting.
Mark nods and starts to put on his headphones again.
“Wait. We’re not done. Or, I’m done as the head of your PR, but I still want to talk to you as your friend.”
Mark visibly flinches.
“That’s not the healthy way to get over him, Mark.”
Mark doesn’t answer, just raises his chin further.
“It’s been five years.”
“So?”
“So you should probably ask yourself if it’s maybe time to—”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”
“I can guess. The general idea, at any rate. And the answer is still no.” He turns his back on Chris to start typing again. “Leave it be, Chris. Please.” And Chris does because, by Mark Zuckerberg’s standards, that’s almost begging on his knees.
:::
“I know sushi is a whole philosophy and all, but I’m pretty sure that California roll doesn’t hold the answers to the universe, Chris.”
Chris looks up, startled. The restaurant is deserted, but he and Dustin are used to eating at strange hours by now.
“Sorry, I’m a little tired,” he says and rubs his eyes wearily.
“You’ve had five days. Spill.”
“What?”
“I’ve been waiting for five whole days for either you or Mark to tell me what the fuck’s going on, and believe me, I’ve come up with all sorts of crazy stories in the meantime.”
“Oh, I believe you.”
“So? What is it?”
“Dustin…”
“Obviously it’s a PR disaster. It could be Sean, but you wouldn’t be this worried about him. Is it Lauren from Systems? Does she run a meth lab on the side? She does seem a little... twitchy whenever someone mentions that mountain cabin of hers.”
“That’s because she’s afraid you’ll invite yourself for the weekend.”
“Oh. Okay. Who’s next? Oh, I know! That tall guy in Finance, whatshisface… Jake, right? Does he have like a whole different family in Louisiana?”
“He’s from Georgia, and no.”
“Chris… is it… is it you? I mean, I can’t imagine what you could’ve done, but…”
“It’s Mark.”
“Mark doesn’t want you to tell me?”
“No. It’s about Mark.”
“Yeah, good one. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine, b—”
“Dustin.”
“Seriously?”
Chris nods.
“But… I don’t get it. What has he done? Pissed off the CIA again?”
Chris doesn’t know where to start. So he closes his eyes and goes through the whole thing as sparsely as he can without leaving anything out, no need to sugarcoat it for Dustin, after all.
“That’s…”
“I know.”
“But how…”
“I don’t know.”
“God. How did we not know about…”
Chris raises his eyebrows, and Dustin waves his hand dismissively. “No, I don’t mean about… you know. I mean… how lonely is he?”
“Yeah, that’s what’s been killing me.”
“And the fact that the guy looked like…”
“That’s pretty revealing, too.”
“But I thought he hated Wardo, he doesn’t even mention him. Ever.”
“I don’t think Mark’s truly capable of hating anyone, least of all Wardo.”
“So, you think Mark’s still… you know.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“Wow.”
“I know.”
“So. What are we doing about this?”
“It’s all taken care of.”
“No, not that. I meant… about Mark.”
“Er… nothing?”
Dustin looks at him as if Chris tortured kittens in his spare time.
“What do you want us to do?”
“I don’t know! Something! Anything!”
“Mark would kill us if we tried to talk to him about it. Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“What about if we talked t—”
“If you say Wardo, it’ll mean that you’re not just stupid, but also have a death wish.”
“So the plan is to sit back and watch him fuck it all up.”
“Pretty much.”
“I’d say I’m experiencing déjà vu, but it’s happened too many times before, I don’t think it applies.”
Chris raises his sake cup and toasts to that with a sad smile. “You should know by now we’re like the Greek chorus, man. We watch it all happen and no one ever listens to us.”
:::
Chris really hates these charity galas. It probably makes him a very bad person, but on the other hand, it would make him a very bad publicist if he was there to enjoy himself. Still, when an important call means he can sneak outside for a couple of minutes of not-mingling, not-drinking and not-pretending to be having fun, he's nothing but grateful.
He’s forcing his feet to drag him back inside when he spots Mark, sitting by all himself in the hotel lobby, staring intently at his iPhone.
“Mark?”
Mark looks up in surprise. His movements are suspiciously sluggish. Wonderful. Nothing to round off a great evening like dealing with an intoxicated Mark Zuckerberg.
“Are you alright?”
Mark tilts his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Good, the potential for disdain means he’s not too shitfaced, at least. “You’re sitting here alone?”
“Oh. I’m waiting for my car,” he answers and shoves his phone in Chris’s face, as if those two things added up to an acceptable explanation.
Before he can say anything else, however, Mark’s phone rings.
“Good. I’ll be right outside,” Mark says and stands on wobbly legs. Chris is at his side in a second, steadying him by the elbow.
“You’re mad at me because I didn’t stay longer, aren’t you?”
“No, Mark, you did just fine.”
Mark nods gravely. “Those mojitos really helped, though.”
“I bet they did.”
By now they’ve reached the driveway, where a uniformed driver is hurrying to hold the door open for Mark.
“Hi, Jim,” Mark mumbles.
“C’mon, Mr. Zuckerberg, let’s get you home.” Jim manoeuvres him into the backseat with surprising ease, and ever more surprisingly, without earning a single word of protest. “There,” he says and pushes the door shut.
A thought assaults Chris. “Excuse me, have you… you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”
“I’ve been Mr. Zuckerberg’s driver before, yes.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
The driver looks at him stoically. “I know, sir, but I can’t answer that. I’m sorry.”
“I’m his PR. Chris Hughes.”
“You went to Harvard with him, right?”
Chris is surprised. “Yeah. We’ve been friends for a long time.”
“He’s mentioned you before.”
There’s the familiar whoosh of a window sliding open, and a second later Mark’s head pops out.
“Jiiiiiim. The car’s not moving. Why is the car not moving?” He has somehow managed to squeeze most of his upper body through the window, as if he was trying to climb out of the car that way.
“Get back inside, Mark, you’re going to hurt yourself!” Chris yells.
Mark grumbles but obeys, and the window slides shut again.
“I better go,” Jim says and starts walking back around the limo. Before opening the driver’s door, he turns to look back at Chris across the shiny black roof. “Mr. Hughes?”
“Yes?”
“You really should try to find him a nice girl. Whoever did this number on him doesn’t deserve him throwing his life away like this.”
Chris is speechless. “Wh…”
“I’ve been through two very bad divorces. I can read the signs.”
:::
Signs.
It’s all about signs these days. Now that Chris knows what to look for, it’s as if signs couldn’t stop popping up everywhere. He’s starting to fear he’s one step away from creepy mountain-shaped mashed potatoes. He blames Dustin.
Chris walks into the office kitchen and almost bumps into Mark, who’s standing in the middle of the room, staring seemingly at nothing. This is by no means an unusual occurrence, so he just sidesteps him and goes straight for the coffeemaker.
When he turns around holding a steaming coffee mug, however, he notices that Mark is not in fact staring at empty space, but at the small Tupperware in his hand.
“Mark?”
“Did… do you know if Sofia brought this?” Mark asks through gritted teeth.
Sofia is a graphic designer who joined the company about three years ago. Chris likes her quite a lot. She’s kind and hard-working, knows every shade of blue imaginable, and even managed to find the time to help with translating the site into her… oh. He peers at the contents of the Tupperware Mark seems to be so offended by and sighs.
What is he supposed to do? Issue a new company policy forbidding employees from bringing their own region-specific comfort food to the office, oh, but only if their homeland happens to be a Portuguese-speaking country, because it might upset the CEO?
Slowly, he pries the container away from Mark’s grip, just to be safe, because he’s pretty sure he recognizes those small round buns (and who’s allergic to yuca, seriously, only Mark) and he’d rather not risk him going into anaphylactic shock for the sake of nostalgia.
:::
“Dustin, if you don’t stop emailing me Sad Keanu macros, I swear to God I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
“I’m trying to make you see the resemblance!”
“We’re not doing anything, Dustin. Find a way to get that through your thick skull.”
“You know how Mark hates lukewarm Red Bull?”
Chris sighs. “Yeah?” He knows where this is going. Ever since Chris told him, Dustin’s been on Sign Watch, too. Dustin’s name. Same as Chris except for the part where he feels the need to recount his findings in excruciating detail.
“Well, this morning there was only one can left in the fridge, and… he didn’t fight me for it. He didn’t even complain. He took one from the shelf and returned to his desk. Keanu has nothing on Mark, Chris!”
“You’re thinking about making Sad Mark macros, aren’t you?”
“No?”
“Dustin.”
“Well, excuse me for being a visionary genius!”
“Listen up, genius. I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer like a responsible adult would, not as yourself. I’ve met people who seem to respect you and live under the impression that you’re not entirely unhinged, so you at least must know how to occasionally fake it.”
“Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel special, Chris. I’m starting to see how the gay thing came about.”
“Fuck you and answer the goddamned question, Moskovitz.”
“Fire away.”
“If you knew, and I mean knew with reasonable certainty, okay? Not guessed, or inferred, or decided after projecting your matchmaking delusions, all right? If you knew that Eduardo hasn’t had a serious relationship in the past five years, and is every bit as miserable as someone else we know, what would you do?”
“How would I know all of this, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“This is a hypothetical scenario, Dustin.”
“Sure it is.” A beat. “What would I do? You mean, in general, as in ‘get them to admit they’re still in pathetic nerd love with each other and have them name their firstborn after me’ or specifically, as in ‘kidnap Eduardo and lock them up in Mark’s office until sex noises can be heard or blood flows from under the door’?”
“So you would try to get them back together.”
“If I knew for a fact …”
“Then?”
“Then yes. Why is this even a question? Wouldn’t you?”
Chris exhales loudly.
“Soooo…” Dustin says, “does this mean we’re finally gonna start kicking ass and taking names?”
“I’m not sure what part of meddling in other people’s love lives can be described as kicking ass, but yes.”
Dustin whoops. “Oh, God. I’m so excited.”
“I can see that. And to be honest, I’m a little worried about how excited you are.”
“You’re just as excited as I am, Hughes, you just can’t admit it because of that whole ice queen thing you’ve got going on.”
“That’s offensive on so many levels, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Yeah, yeah… now what?”
“Why don’t you drop by, it’s weird to discuss this over the phone.”
There’s no reply. Judging by the ten seconds it takes for Dustin to show up in Chris’s office, he probably dropped his phone before Chris even finished the sentence.
“Tell me, how are your hacking skills these days?”
Dustin makes an offended face. “Please. I'd need a gif to properly express how insulting that question is.”
“Okay, okay,” Chris says, holding up his hands in mock apology. “Do whatever it is you nerds are always bragging about. I’ll deal with the personal stuff that, believe it or not, can’t be obtained through a computer.”
Dustin lets out an exaggerated gasp. “You mean you can’t learn everything there is to know about someone from their Facebook page and credit card statements? How dare you imply such a thing?” He staggers backwards and out of Chris’s office, right hand clutching his chest all the while.
Chris simply flips him off with one hand as he pulls up the number he needs on his phone with the other. He stares at the backlit screen for a long time. Generally, he doesn’t give much thought to the kind of characters he has access to in this strange world of spin doctoring. Perhaps all these years by Mark’s side have taught him a thing or two about compartmentalizing. Or perhaps Dustin’s right and he’s lost a part of his soul along the way. The first option sounds much more dignified, so that’s the one Chris chooses to stick with.
It takes him barely two minutes to explain what he wants and get an estimation of how much time and money it’ll mean. There’s a profound irony somewhere in the fact that these people with questionable jobs tend to prove more focused and efficient than most of the people he deals with on a daily basis.
“Is that all?”
“Oh, one last thing. You’re reporting exclusively to me, this is not a company matter.” Which is a bold-faced lie - there’s no such thing as a separation of Mark and Facebook.
Barely a week later, Dustin and Chris meet at Chris’s house (because Chris’s ability to compartmentalize doesn’t extend as far as bringing something like this to the office) to compare notes. And by notes he means as much information on Eduardo Saverin as it is humanly and semi-legally possible to gather without kidnapping him and feeding him truth serum.
“So he’s as miserable as Mark is,” Dustin concludes.
“We don’t know that.”
“Three girlfriends, one boyfriend, none of them for more than a couple of months, and a string of one-night stands. No one at all in the last ten months. And,” he flips through the pages, “according to his former cleaner, who quit last month to work at the Raffles, he used to drink only wine at home, but lately there are around three empty bottles of vodka a week in the trash. Would you say this is the portrait of a happy person?”
“Maybe he had guests?”
“Like who? Amy Winehouse?”
“It’s just… I don’t understand. You were there, Mark didn’t exactly go out of his way to make Eduardo happy when they were… whatever it is they were. And later… well.”
“Look. Far be it from me to call Mark a desirable partner. But that doesn’t change the fact that Wardo’s clearly not over him. And neither is Mark, apparently. Unless there’s a side-effect to Red Bull overdose that includes depression symptoms and would explain everything away.”
“There’s one more thing,” Chris says and dives into the sea of paper his dining table is presently buried under. “Last month he made the down payment for an apartment in Park Avenue.”
“In New York?”
“No, Park Avenue in Singapore, Dustin.”
Dustin rolls his eyes, not even remotely affected by the sarcasm. “So he wants to come back.”
“Everyone knows he only left the States because he wanted to disappear after the settlement,” Chris says and takes a sip of red wine. “Why New York, though?”
“What do you mean?” Dustin asks.
“Wouldn’t Miami make more sense?”
“There isn’t record of a single call to his father’s cell number in the last two years.”
“Seriously?”
Dustin nods wearily. Chris gets up and walks into the kitchen for more wine. When he returns, Dustin is looking at him expectantly.
“So,” Dustin begins, “now that your hypothetical question has been answered, what about my hypothetical answer?”
“Mark is gonna kill us,” Chris groans as he lets himself fall on his chair.
“Pfffft, don’t be overdramatic. What’s the worst he can do?”
“Eh… actually killing us?”
:::
“In case you’re wondering, Mark, this is what an intervention looks like.”
Chris leans against the closed door of Mark’s office, while Dustin goes to sit on the couch.
“I got that. I just don’t see what you’re intervening on.”
“Look, Mark,” Chris says, taking two steps towards Mark’s desk. “We know you, we know Facebook is your life and there’s nothing in the world you enjoy more than coding. But lately… it’s like you’re barely alive. I can’t remember the last time you went anywhere but home or the office that didn’t involve me forcing you to attend an event.”
“This can’t go on,” Dustin adds, and Mark glares at him with an expression that clearly conveys et tu, Dustin.
“Are you happy, Mark?”
“What?”
“Just answer the question.”
Mark scoffs. “Of course I’m happy. I’ve single-handedly redefined not just online interaction but human interaction in general. I’ve built a 50 billion company from nothing all by myself and I’m not even thirty. Of course I’m happy.”
“That doesn’t really answer our question, though,” Chris says.
“No,” Dustin agrees. “And also, it’s not true. Oh, and by the way, fuck you very much for completely dismissing the six years of hard work I’ve put into the company. But my point was, you didn’t build Facebook from nothing, Mark. You built it from nineteen thousand dollars. That Wardo gave you purely because you asked.”
“Dustin,” he warns, raising his chin defiantly. “You don’t wanna go there.”
“No, you’re wrong. That’s exactly where I, where we wanna go. What’s more, the fact that it’s come up so early in the conversation might even simplify matters.”
Mark rounds on Chris. “You told him, didn’t you?”
Before Chris can answer, Dustin snaps, “Of course he told me. And I hope you won’t insult Chris by assuming he was gossiping. He told me because he’s worried about you, Mark.”
“Wow, I’d no idea my having a sex life was such a source of distress.”
“Don’t... don’t do that,” Chris says.
“Do what?”
“Pretend you don’t know there’s something wrong.”
“Or that this is about the sex,” Dustin adds.
“So I don’t have a personal life.” Mark keeps doing that strange jerking motion with his neck that means he feels cornered. “Big whoop. I work eighteen hours a day, six days a week. Where the fuck do you think I should be squeezing in the wife and kids? I’m happy with the way my life is, even if it doesn’t meet your surprisingly cookie-cutter expectations of what a happy life entails.”
“We wouldn’t be here if we thought you were happy with the life you have, Mark,” Dustin says.
“Yes,” Chris adds, “and the fact remains that you built a website that runs the lives of five hundred million people but you’re incapable of running your own. I’m sure even you can appreciate the irony in that.”
“So you’re volunteering to do it for me? How thoughtful of you.”
“You can throw all the hissy fits you like. But this is it. This is where we put our foot down.”
Chris steps in. “You have one week, Mark. Either you try to contact Eduardo again and somehow get him back, or we’ll make sure he sees those pictures.”
Mark looks appalled. “You… you can’t do that. I’ll… I’ll fire you. I swear, I’ll fire you and make sure you’ll never work again.”
“Tough shit. You already made me rich with the shares, and if you fire Chris there’ll be a line of clients from here to the Golden Bridge begging him to accept their offer. All of whom, may I add, will be much easier to manage than you.”
Chris gapes at Dustin. He hasn’t ever, not once, made a single appreciative comment about his work. Neither has he about Dustin’s, to be fair.
Chris shakes his head to get over the shock. “We’re sorry, Mark, but this is the only way we could find of getting through to you,” he says, idly wondering when he started playing Good Cop to Dustin’s Badass Lieutenant.
“One week,” Dustin repeats as they leave.
:::
Naturally, Mark’s first reaction is to go on a coding marathon. He’s on his third day without sleep, locked in his office for once, with no contact with anyone besides his assistant, who silently provides a steady supply of food Mark barely touches and Red Bull he practically inhales. After that, he goes home and sleeps for almost two days. Or, they all gather he’s sleeping, because even his landline is disconnected. The next morning, he comes back to the office, seemingly determined to do it all over again.
When the week runs up, Mark is wired in inside his office. Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe he’s aware of what day it is. Even the blinds are down over the glass walls, as if Mark was attempting to be the world’s richest ostrich.
Chris and Dustin shuffle in determinedly and stand in front of Mark’s desk. Mark doesn’t look away from his laptop, of course. Chris reaches towards Mark and removes his headphones. Mark barely flinches.
“You know why we’re here, Mark.”
“Because you have nothing better to do? Rather worrying, considering you’re my employees.”
“Cute. But no,” Dustin says.
“It’s Wednesday.”
“So?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“Here are his numbers,” Chris says, sticking a post-it on Mark’s mouse pad. “Personal cell, business cell, and his apartment. It’s around 10 pm in Singapore right now so he’s probably home.”
Mark stares blankly at the yellow post-it, which means he’s considering his options, probably including which Facebook employees would be most likely to help him hide a body. Two bodies. Those interns worship the ground he walks on, so they’d be a safe bet.
“Here, use my phone,” Dustin says. Mark takes it, lips pursed and chin high, but the inevitable verbal lashing never comes. He punches the number with a little more force than necessary.
“Hey. No, it’s… me,” Mark is saying as Chris ushers Dustin out of the office and closes the door behind them.
For the first couple of minutes, no matter how much they strain their ears, they can’t hear anything beyond the usual murmurs of quiet conversation. Obviously, it was too good to last. It starts with a sarcastic, “Oh, really?” and it’s all downhill from there.
“And what about freezing the fucking account, huh? Oh, no, don’t turn this around on me!”
It occurs to Chris that Eduardo must be really pissed off to breach the confidentiality agreement by discussing anything from that time over the phone.
“That wasn’t about needing to get my attention! That was you being the spoilt little rich kid you are and taking your fucking toys away!”
“Oh, God,” Dustin moans beside him, and Chris must admit he echoes the sentiment.
“No, it WASN’T! I told you I needed… leave Sean out of this!”
Shit. If they’re discussing Sean this is about to get really ugly, really quickly. His hand is already reaching for the doorknob when they hear, “WELL ME NEITHER!”, and Mark stomps out of his office, looking positively livid, literally thrumming with anger.
“Happy?” Mark says as he forcefully throws the phone in Dustin’s general direction. “Don’t you ever, ever dare to give me an ultimatum again,” he growls. And with that, he spins on his heel and storms back into his office, slamming the door behind him.
“So…” Dustin starts.
“That went well,” Chris agrees.
:::
They don’t talk about it. They work so hard at not talking about it that they end up barely talking at all, for fear of stumbling upon the subject.
Then, three days later, Dustin perches himself on Chris’s desk with an expression that can only mean one thing. Well, two. Either he has met a girl, or he’s planning something.
“So. Now what?”
“I’m hoping you’re talking about the new app we’ve just implemented.”
“Of course I am,” Dustin deadpans. “So. What do we do now?”
“You already have a plan, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. We’re showing Wardo the pictures.”
“What?”
“Whatever we might tell him, he’s not gonna believe us. We need something he can’t possibly dismiss.”
“We can’t…”
“What else can we do?”
Chris is silent for a long moment. Then, “When.”
“He’s got a ticket to JFK for Thursday. Probably to finalize the buy of the new apartment, because the deadline is next week, and the realtor just emailed him a reminder.”
Chris is silent for a long moment. Long enough for Dustin to take it as acquiescence.
“Perfect. We’re going.”
Chris sighs. “A week from now, I’ll be pointing to this moment and wishing I’d dissuaded you, won’t I?”
:::
“Is this a joke?” Eduardo keeps clenching and unclenching his jaw. He sounds forcefully calm, as if he was doing an epic effort to stop himself from shouting. Or hitting Chris and Dustin with something heavy.
“I don’t think we’d joke about something like this,” Chris says.
“You can’t just dump this shit on me!” He throws the folder across the room and the pictures scatter over the beige carpet of Dustin’s hotel suite. This’ll teach Chris to go with Dustin’s ideas. “You call me to have a quiet talk, and instead… instead… THIS!”
“Ward—”
“Mark is out of my life, okay? He’s not—”
“How long did it take you to answer when we told you there was something concerning Mark that we wanted to discuss with you, Wardo?”
“What?”
“Why is it so hard to admit that you—”
“I thought you were worried he was going to sell to Microsoft and needed my vote or something, I didn’t… look, I’m not doing this. I’m not getting involved. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have a life, okay?”
“Do you?” Dustin asks tersely.
“What?”
“Do you have a girlfriend, Eduardo? A boyfriend? Your closest friend is your sister and you’ve put a fucking ocean between you.”
Eduardo is speechless, it's unclear whether with anger or surprise. Possibly both.
“What Dustin is trying to say,” Chris steps in and shoots Dustin a murderous look, “is that we wouldn’t have resorted to this if we believed we would be disrupting another relationship.” Chris feels the PR in him take over. “If we didn’t think what we’re trying to give back to you was better than what you already have.”
“Look. Why can’t you just accept that that ship has sailed? There’s no way we’ll ever…” he trails off. “His call, last week. I’m assuming it had something to do with this?”
Chris and Dustin exchange guilty looks.
“Then you know how well that went.”
“Mark has some issues communicating if he feels he’s in a position of—”
Eduardo lets out a bitter laugh. “Leaving aside the obscene understatement, I really don’t need to be schooled in Mark’s issues, Chris.” He rubs a weary hand over his eyes and looks at the side of the room where the pictures lay scattered. “I… I’m sorry. I know you guys mean well, but I just can’t do this,” he says and starts to leave.
“Are you over him?” Dustin asks abruptly. Chris gapes at him and mouths 'subtle'.
Eduardo’s shoulders tense and he slowly turns around to face them. “What?”
“I’m trying to understand what you’re saying here,” Dustin says, shrugging. “You’re not in love with him anymore. You saw those pictures and felt nothing at all. You don’t give a fuck what they might mean. Is that it?”
“Of course I’m not in lo—”
Dustin throws his hands in the air. “Wardo. Please.”
Eduardo sighs. “What does it matter anyway?”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. You should walk out that door, find a nice girl or a nice boy, settle down, have a baby and a house and a dog. Oh, wait. You can’t. Because if you could, you would’ve already.”
“Dustin,” Eduardo hisses as a warning.
“Or maybe… or maybe you can acknowledge the fact that you’re both miserable without each other.”
“Mark…” A long pause. “Mark doesn’t--”
Dustin snorts. “You mean like you ‘don’t’?”
The look Eduardo throws him could probably curdle milk, but he doesn’t answer. He just sighs and cards a hand though his hair.
“You don’t understand. For as long as I can remember, my life has revolved around Mark. Taking care of him, hating him, running away from him, trying to hurt him like he… it’s always been about him. Even now.” A beat. “I don’t think I can go back to that.” After a moment, he sighs again and says, “I’m sorry.”
And with one last look at Chris and Dustin, he walks out, the soft click of the door sliding shut sounding impossibly loud in the silence.
:::
From: 'Eduardo Saverin'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Dustin Moskovitz'
I’m really sorry about the other day. I shouldn’t have lashed out at you. Call me the next time you’re in town and I’ll buy you dinner.
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Dustin Moskovitz' ; 'Eduardo Saverin'
Wardo,
Perhaps we went about it the wrong way, but our concern for Mark is very real.
From: 'Eduardo Saverin'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Dustin Moskovitz'
I still think you’re overreacting and making a huge deal out of what I’m assuming was an isolated incident. Let it go.
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
Is it me or is he pumping us for details?
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
Stop projecting, Dustin.
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Eduardo Saverin' ; 'Dustin Moskovitz'
I’m not sure how much detail you’re willing to hear, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
Are you… TEASING HIM???? OMG Hughes!!! I didn’t know you had it in you, I’m so proud!!
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
Would I do something like that?
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
I don’t know, WOULD YOU?? (Because I’d definitely approve if you did)
Eduardo doesn’t reply to the last email. Chris takes it to mean he really wasn’t willing to hear any more details. Dustin takes it to mean he’s wallowing in guilt.
They don’t hear from him again until two weeks later.
From: 'Eduardo Saverin'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Dustin Moskovitz'
How is Mark doing?
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
Please let me send him a Sad Mark macro. PLEASE.
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
You really, really don’t want to do that, Dustin. REALLY.
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
You’re no fun.
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
You’re fun for the both of us.
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
How can you convey sarcasm so effectively without emoticons? Is it like a secret PR ninja trick?
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Eduardo Saverin'
Last week he caught a nasty flu. One night he was fine, having pizza with us at Ramona’s, and the next morning he was literally dying, but he refused to see a doctor because he needs to run the stability checks for the new profile personally. Anyway, I forbid him to set foot in the office until the red rashes on his neck and face were gone and he’d managed to eat something without throwing up - he was scaring the interns to death and we didn’t want our valuation plummeting because the CEO is rumored to have bubonic plague. He's fully recovered, which is more than I can say about the interns.
From: 'Eduardo Saverin'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Dustin Moskovitz'
It wasn’t the flu, it was the anchovies in the pizza mixed with wine. The next time it happens, give him cinitapride and withhold alcohol for at least two days.
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
Oh, God.
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes'
Yeah. I got nothing.
From: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Eduardo Saverin'
Thank you. You were always much better at Mark-sitting than us.
Almost a month after that, Dustin and Chris are still licking the wounds of their matchmaking failure.
Chris had slipped a hand-written note into Eduardo’s invitation for the upcoming fundraiser. (I can’t ask you to come because of him, but it’s a great cause, so I’ll just ask you to not stop coming because of him.) Dustin keeps hacking into the event planner’s email to check if Eduardo has RSVP’d. Chris has pretty much lost hope, and also renewed his vow to never, ever go with Dustin’s ideas.
They’re taking a coffee break in Chris’s office. Dustin’s sprawling on the couch, fiddling with his iPhone. Suddenly, he sits up and starts batting Chris’s arm.
“Look! Look!” he says, shoving the phone in Chris’s face.
From: 'Eduardo Saverin'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Dustin Moskovitz'
I’ll think about it.
Chris is so relieved he can’t even mock Dustin’s ridiculous victory dance.
:::
Facebook is throwing a huge fundraiser for California schools. Mark has vowed to match the amount collected tonight, and it seems everyone whose name has ever been on Valleywag flocked en masse to the call of Mark Zuckerberg flaunting his money for once. Typical.
Eduardo RSVP’d after all. Sort of. Meaning, Chris knows he did but it conveniently slipped his mind to send the usual ‘Caution, Eduardo Saverin in attendance!’ email to Mark’s assistant.
“I don’t think a party has made me this nervous since my prom,” Dustin says, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Is that why you decided to wear the same suit? Or is the lack of fashion sense your way to telegraph your straightness to every desperate woman in the Valley?”
“Fuck you, Chris.”
But the truth is, Chris is as nervous as Dustin says he is. It’s not as if Mark and Eduardo hadn’t seen each other since the lawsuit. Far from it. Benefits, meetings, conferences and parties, they’ve grown used to running into each other in public. They’ve also developed an interesting system of avoiding each other at events without looking like they’re avoiding each other to the untrained eye – the trained eye being Chris and Dustin. But the point is, they have perfected the art of stilted conversation and “oh, sorry, I’m afraid an assistant/VP/random journalist/imaginary friend seems to be looking for me” type of excuses.
Mark in a tux could easily be mistaken for an undergrad with a weekend job as a waiter. Chris knows he feels just as uncomfortable now as he did at his first benefit. He’s just become much better at hiding it.
Magnanimously, he decides Mark has suffered enough at the hands of the balding real state mogul he’s been talking to for the past ten minutes, so he walks briskly towards them and grabs Mark by the elbow. “I’m terribly sorry to interrupt,” he says as he starts dragging Mark away, “but I have to steal Mr. Zuckerberg away. Host duties, you can imagine.” Without giving the man the chance to protest, he steers Mark back towards Dustin and, more importantly, the bar.
“What took you so long?” Mark snaps after ordering a vodka tonic. Double.
“Oh, thank you so much, Chris,” Chris drawls in an exaggerated voice. “You’re such a magnificent PR, always looking out for me, always making sure I d—”
Mark smirks and looks at him over the rim of his glass.
Suddenly, Dustin elbows him sharply and Chris looks up to see Eduardo approaching them with a champagne glass and a tentative smile. Mark goes so still next to Chris that he has to stop himself from checking for a pulse.
“Guys,” Eduardo says, gesturing at Chris and Dustin with his glass. “Hi, Mark.”
Mark nods in acknowledgment.
“Congratulations on the party. This was a great idea.”
“It was Chris’s idea, actually,” Mark answers tersely. Chris does a double take, because it really wasn’t.
“No, it really wasn’t,” Dustin says and Chris wonders whether he reads minds now. “It was all Mark.”
Eduardo looks back at Mark and his eyes soften. Yeah, it’s on. “Why don’t you want to take credit for it? It’s a wonderful initiative.”
“I’m a California resident.” Mark shrugs. “It made no sense to donate anywhere else after Newark.”
“And you’re all about the tax breaks, aren’t you?” Eduardo sounds amused.
Mark is purposefully not looking at him. Chris is assaulted by the hysterical thought that this is like observing the strange mating rituals of the most awkward species on earth. He has a sudden flashback to ridiculous Hawaiian shirts and straw hats and takes a sip of champagne to cover up his sniggering.
“So,” Dustin says to break the awkward silence. “How are things in Singapore?”
“Oh, actually… I’m moving back to New York soon.”
Mark’s head snaps up at that, but he doesn’t comment.
“Really?” says Chris, in an overenthusiastic tone. This is why he sucks at poker.
“Yeah. I figured… it was time,” Eduardo answers, looking straight at Mark now.
Mark remains silent. He’s staring intently at a point somewhere beyond Eduardo’s left shoulder.
“Look, Mark,” Eduardo begins, leaning forward and lowering his voice slightly. “About the other day…”
Mark finally looks Eduardo in the eye and frowns. “There’s no need to discuss that.”
“Maybe.” Eduardo shrugs. “But I’d still like to, if you don’t mind.”
Mark is clearly torn between the threat of personal confrontation if he agrees and the danger of Eduardo leaving if he doesn’t.
“I… I don’t think this is the place.”
Eduardo smiles and nods, once. “Agreed. Wanna get some fresh air?”
Chris’s side will be covered in bruises tomorrow from Dustin’s constant elbowing.
Mark looks surprised. “I… yeah. Yes. I’d like that,” he mumbles, and Eduardo’s smile grows even brighter.
They start walking towards the veranda that overlooks the garden. Thankfully, most guests are too preoccupied with whoever it is that’s giving a speech, so they don’t attract too many curious stares.
As soon as they’re out of sight, Dustin starts jumping up and down like a monkey on steroids. “God, I wish I was gay because I really want to kiss you right now!”
“Why, Mr. Moskovitz, I ain’t that kind of girl!”
“Oh, fuck it!” Dustin says and plants a big, sloppy kiss on his cheek.
Chris laughs out loud. “I’d rather wait until they come back with all their inner organs intact, if you don’t mind.”
“You’re such a grinch.”
“Oh, shut up, Dustin.”
:::
Little candles line every gravel path in the garden, like a parade of fireflies marching in perfect formation. Mark and Eduardo walk side by side in silence until the music and the noise of the party become a distant echo. They stop next to the illuminated pool. Eduardo idly kicks the pebbles with the tip of his shiny dress shoes.
“The other day,” Mark says out of the blue. “On the phone. I shouldn’t have said those things about you.”
“Yeah, well. Some of the things I said were pretty out of line, too.”
Mark nods.
“I didn’t fly all the way here to resume that argument, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he says, smiling.
“Good… that’s good.” Mark keeps nodding and brushing the sides of his jacket, unsuccessfully trying to bury his hands in the still-sewn pockets.
“Listen, Mark. There’s something… something you need to know.”
Mark tilts his head to the right, expectant.
“A couple of months ago, Chris and Dustin met me in New York. They… there was something they wanted to show me.”
And just like that, Mark shuts down. He takes a step away from Eduardo. “Hilarious, wasn’t it?”
“What?”
“You think I want your pity?”
“My p… Mark. Mark. What are you…”
“You can climb right back on your high horse with your motherfucking pity and ride all the way back to Singapore or wherever the fuck it is you went into hiding with the millions you stole from me!”
Eduardo looks as if Mark had physically hit him. “Mark…”
“I DON’T WANT YOUR FUCKING PITY, WARDO!”
At first, Eduardo isn’t nearly as surprised by Mark’s words as he is about the fact that he’s shouting. Mark never shouts. He doesn’t need to. His verbal cruelty can cut people effectively enough by itself, without the added impulse of shouting. But as silence stretches between them and the words start to sink in, Eduardo can feel the thrum of anger building up inside him.
“You… you… you ASSHOLE!” he finally erupts. “You think because there wasn’t some guy hiding in the bushes snapping pictures I’ve never done anything I’m ashamed of because of you?”
“Oh, no, don’t you dare turn this around on me like you always do! You came here under false pretences and I can’t just…”
“So basically, what you’re saying is that you can’t give us another try thinking I came back because of those fucking pictures? Well, I can’t help you with that, because I did, okay? I did come because of them!”
Mark starts walking back towards the building but Eduardo steps in his way.
“Don’t you get it, Mark? I’ve spent all these years thinking you didn’t care! That I’d always handed you everything you asked for and you never gave a fuck about me, about us, that you just used me for my money just like you used the Winklevosses’ concept or Sean’s connections, just to toss us aside once you got what you wanted. And th—”
“Do you really think that?”
“What?”
“That I used you, and Sean and the Winklevii? Is that really what you think about me?”
“No! Jesus, Mark. I… back then, during the lawsuit, I… I didn’t know what to think. One day I woke up and everything I cared about was just… gone. Everything. I spent five years trying to find an explanation.”
“But you obviously believed me capable of using everyone around me, no matter what.”
“I’d spent so long listening to Gretchen search for ways to demonize you, going through the worst days of my life over and over and over again… I guess at some point I started believing the way they saw you.”
“I think it’s best if we just forget about all of this,” Mark says as he tries to sidestep him, but Eduardo moves again to block his path.
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m not wasting any more time, Mark. I don’t know how to make you see that the only difference between us is that no one bothered to take pictures of me. And so help me God, you’re not going back inside that party until you understand that.”
Mark doesn’t answer, but at least he’s not trying to walk away again. Eduardo counts it as a win.
“Mark, I know you’re angry, and I know you didn’t want me to find out, but… I was angry at first, too.”
Mark scoffs. “Angry. You.”
“Did you think I had fun seeing you with a fucking hooker, Mark? When you could’ve—” he cuts himself off and takes a deep breath. “It wasn’t pleasant, okay? It really wasn’t.”
Mark is clenching and unclenching his right fist. He clearly doesn’t know what to do.
“Do you believe in signs?” Eduardo asks, out of the blue. There’s honest surprise on Mark’s face. “Don’t answer that, I know you don’t. But I do. Call me superstitious, or stupid, or irrational… I don’t care. I honestly believe that sometimes the universe throws us a bone, something that we might dismiss as random but it’s actually pointing us in the right direction. And I know you’re gonna say—”
“Stephanie Attis,” Mark says suddenly, looking out to the illuminated pool. The ripples in the water make his expression even harder to read.
“What?”
“She was… Dustin… nevermind. Yes. I know what you mean. It doesn’t have anything to do with fate, of course, it’s purely a random string of events, but I know what you mean.”
“Well. Would you be open to consider this… random string of events as a second chance?”
The silence is so long anyone who didn’t know Mark would believe he has checked out of the conversation. Eduardo doesn’t say anything because he can tell from the way he’s chewing his lower lip that he’s actually mulling over everything he just said.
Mark finally looks up. “Did you rehearse that speech?” The corner of his mouth twitches slightly. Eduardo exhales.
“It’s a long flight from Singapore. They had a lot of Meg Ryan movies.”
They’re now standing very close, chests almost brushing. It’s funny, Eduardo thinks, how they’ve done this a million times before and still he’s hesitating, as if he didn’t know quite how to breach the distance. In the end it doesn’t really matter, because they meet halfway. Mark still kisses just like Eduardo remembered, determined and unyielding. He cards his hands through Eduardo’s hair and there’s no way he’s not going to look as if he’s been doing exactly what he’s been doing when they go back to the party.
“Mark. Mark. The party.”
“Fuck the party,” Mark murmurs and kisses him again.
“It’s your party, Mark,” he says once they come up for air. Mark answers with a noise of protest. “C’mon, let’s go back inside.” Mark is clutching the lapels of Eduardo’s tux jacket, clearly without any intention of moving. Eduardo smiles. “I’ll be here when you’re done saving the school system and shit.”
“I can see how deeply you care about the cause.”
Eduardo laughs and takes Mark’s hand, pulling him back towards the building. When the music starts to grow louder and faint laughter can be heard through the open windows, Mark stops abruptly. Eduardo turns around and sees him staring intently at the gravel ground.
“Will you?” Mark asks in a quiet voice.
“Will I what?”
“Be here.”
Eduardo feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, Mark. I will.”
:::
“Well. They look pretty healthy to me. No visible damage, unless we’re counting the loss of Eduardo’s perfectly engineered hairstyle, but personally I think that’s a win.”
Chris snorts.
“In fact,” Dustin continues, “I’d say they’re positively glowing.” Chris glances at Dustin and, sure enough, he’s waggling his eyebrows in a quite disturbing way.
Mark and Eduardo are walking back towards them and on the way Eduardo takes two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and hands one over to Mark, who smiles thankfully.
“Damn. I should’ve bet you something.”
“Why, trying to win back those fifty bucks from freshman year?”
Dustin groans. “That was so unfair! I was off for like, two days!”
“You should’ve learned by then to leave it to the experts, Moskovitz.”
“Weren’t you the one to tell me that whole gays-have-better-gaydars thing was a myth?”
“Actually, by experts I meant normal humans.”
Chris is spared Dustin’s no doubt venomous comeback by the arrival of the lovebirds. Chris can’t believe he just thought that. He’s clearly spending too much time around Dustin.
“Sooooo, did you guys have a nice… chat?”
“Dustin, please stop doing that with your eyebrows, they’re gonna get stuck like that,” Mark says, and Eduardo chuckles into his champagne glass. Mark looks back at him and smirks.
“Anyway!” Chris jumps in. “You made it back just in time for the speech!”
Mark groans.
“You have to give a speech?” Eduardo asks.
Mark nods glumly.
“The sooner you get it over and done with the sooner you guys can leave.” Chris is grudgingly impressed by just how much innuendo Dustin manages to infuse into a regular-sized sentence.
“I just don’t see what the point is.”
“We’ve been through this, Mark,” Chris moans. “Just… remember what the coaches taught you and look at the fucking teleprompter instead of staring into space.”
“I don’t want to do the joke. Why do I have to do the joke?”
“You know why,” Dustin says in a long-suffering tone. “It fools people into thinking you’re actually human.” Chris glares at him.
“Just... let’s just go,” Chris says and starts steering Mark towards the small stage, but after two steps, Mark turns back around to Eduardo, looking as if he wanted to say something quite badly but struggling to find the right words.
“I…”
“I’ll wait for you at the bar,” says Eduardo. Which seems to be exactly what Mark wanted to hear, because he smiles at him and starts walking again without Chris even having to drag him.
Chris delivers Mark to the stern-looking lady already waiting for him on stage, and she introduces him among rounds of enthusiastic applause.
“Thank you,” Mark begins. He has come a long way in pretending public speaking isn’t a fate worse than death. His smile almost looks genuine. “First of all, let me assure you that I’m very aware of the irony of a college drop-out lecturing anyone on the importance of education,” Mark starts in what has to be the most awkward delivery in the history of humour. Thankfully it doesn’t matter, because the crowd follows the script and laughs politely.
Chris tunes out the rest of the speech as he makes his way back to Eduardo and Dustin, who thank God has a fresh glass of scotch ready for him.
“How much training did that take?” Eduardo asks, gesturing towards the stage.
“You don’t want to know,” Chris answers and takes a long sip of his drink.
“The last coach is still in therapy, I’m told,” Dustin quips.
Eduardo chuckles.
“Sooooo,” Dustin begins and Chris innerly groans.
“I know you’re trying to tone it down, Dustin, but you’re radiating smugness in waves right now,” Eduardo says.
“Well…”
Eduardo sighs and holds up one hand. “Just… thank you.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me repeat it. Thank you. Both of you. I would never have come back if it wasn’t for your meddling. And now we’ll pretend we never had this conversation.”
It’s rather obvious that Dustin isn’t willing to let it go so easily, but Mark’s speech comes to an end so they have to dutifully join the applause and by the time it dies down, Mark has managed to ditch most people dying to congratulate him and is back with them. Eduardo wordlessly offers him his drink and Mark downs it in one long gulp.
“Those coaches must be extraordinary, you’re practically ready for a joint session of Congress,” Eduardo says, smiling. Mark glares at him for a second but the effect is ruined when the corners of his mouth start pulling up. They're standing side by side, brushing from shoulder to hip and not-so-discreetly leaning against each other. Eduardo's grin could probably power a small country and Mark is... well. Doing what passes for a happy expression in Mark-world. It's both scary and endearing.
“We’re leaving,” Mark announces abruptly.
“Thank God,” Chris says. “I'm good but not even I can spin the CEO and the co-founder fucking on the buffet table, and I'd like to spend tomorrow nursing my hangover in peace, if you don't mind."
Dustin is nodding enthusiastically. “Yes. But I guess even a table covered in mini quiches looks good after five years of sexual frustration."
Chris splutters and Mark narrows his eyes at Dustin, but Eduardo is just quietly laughing to himself.
“I think we'll be taking that as our cue to leave," he says.
“I'd tell you to have fun, but I'm actively trying to avoid thinking about Mark's sex life." Dustin is having way too much fun with this.
“I can still fire you, you know.”
Chris scoffs. “Sure you can.”
“Oh, and, maybe you could come in a little late tomorrow? Say, after lunch? You know, because maybe some of us would like to stay here and enjoy the party.”
“Don’t worry, Dustin. He’ll be quite late, if I have a say,” Eduardo says.
Mark’s ears turn an interesting shade of red. Eduardo laughs and puts his hand on the small of Mark’s back, smoothly angling him towards the exit, and Mark leans into the touch unconsciously. “Why don’t we just leave before anyone gets fired.”
Mark just nods. “Chris, make sure Dustin doesn’t do anything that might end up youtube.”
Dustin clutches his chest dramatically. “You wound me, fearless leader of ours!”
“Just stay away from the mike and we’ll be fine.”
“Have fun, guys!” Eduardo cuts in with the slightest edge of impatience and tugs at Mark’s elbow. Mark makes a vague waving gesture and turns to follow Eduardo out.
They’re barely out of earshot when Dustin says, “So, how long till they set up the registry, you think?”
“Is the part where I say something about counting chickens?”
“Yeah. Except for how they were already married in Harvard, anyway. And also, please remember that, as Facebook employees, we’re not allowed to mention chickens ever, unless it’s somehow related to Farmville, so you’ll have to find another, poultry-free metaphor.”
Chris snorts. “Very true. On both counts.”
“You know, if we ever do get fired from Facebook, we could start our own matchmaking site.”
“Like what, nerdlove4u.com?”
“It does have a nice ring to it.”
“Shouldn’t you find nerd love of your own, first?”
“Is that an offer, Miss Hughes?”
“I’m not that drunk.”
“Ohhhh, we better get you a refill, then!”
Chris’s answer is snagging a tiny crabcake from a nearby table and throwing it at Dustin’s head.
:::
six months later
Eduardo has been away on business for a whole week. Normally, Mark doesn’t pay much attention to what day it is, or even what hour it is, to be honest, other than to remind himself to occasionally eat and sleep. Sometimes. Now that Eduardo’s back in his life, his workdays are bracketed by Eduardo’s coffee-flavored good mornings and him calling in the evening so Mark gets his ass home. Home. Yeah, they should probably have a conversation about that sometime soon. Mark checks the time on his iPhone once again. 10:53. The plane landed at 10:28, what the hell are they doing, flying back to New York?
Finally, finally, the doors open and passengers start to file out, dishevelled and bleary-eyed from the long flight.
Eduardo’s shirt looks a little rumpled, but other than that you wouldn’t be able to tell he’s been in a plane for six hours. His face breaks into a bright smile as soon as he spots Mark.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
Mark goes for an awkward one-armed hug and before they step away from each other, Eduardo places a quick kiss on his cheek. Mark knows he’s blushing and he hates it. They walk side by side across the terminal towards the parking lot, shoulders bumping more often than necessary. Mark keeps stealing sideway glances at Eduardo, as if he expected him to look different after a week apart.
When they reach Mark’s car and Eduardo has safely stashed his carry-on and suit bag in the trunk, Mark pushes him against the side of the car in a sudden movement and kisses him the way he’s been thinking about since Eduardo set foot in California.
“Hi,” Mark says inanely when they pull away.
“Now that’s what I call a welcome committee. Be careful, people might think that you’d actually missed me.”
“There’s a flight back to New York in an hour, maybe you should check it out.”
Eduardo just laughs and grabs the front of Mark’s hoodie, pulling him in for another kiss.
:::
It’s mid-afternoon when they finally drag themselves out of bed. No one is expecting Mark back at the offices today because he’s spent there pretty much every waking moment this past week — and to be honest, the few sleeping ones, too. Chris went from eyeing him with something dangerously close to pity to making death threats if Mark didn’t at least eat and take a nap every eight hours of coding.
Eduardo is making a very late lunch, puttering around the kitchen in his boxers and a ratty Exeter PE t-shirt. Mark sets up his laptop on the side of the island and starts going through his inbox. There’s a new email from Chris with the subject ‘READ THIS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE’. Mark frowns. As a rule, Chris hates using capslock.
From: 'Chris Hughes'
To: Mark Zuckerberg' [email protected]>; 'Eduardo Saverin'
Re: READ THIS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE
Unless Brangelina split tomorrow, these will be on the cover of People next Wednesday. Let me know if you want me to kill the story.
Although personally, I think we shouldn’t.
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arrivals_SFO_5.jpg (1781 Kb)
“Wardo?”
“Hmn?”
“You might want to have a look at this.”
Eduardo stirs something in one of the pans a couple of times and walks towards Mark. He rests his chin on Mark’s shoulder to look at the screen, and Mark can tell the exact moment he realizes what’s going on because Eduardo instantly tenses behind him.
“Oh, God. Oh, God.” Eduardo's breath is coming in sharp gasps. He steps away from Mark and starts pacing around the kitchen, tugging at his hair and repeating oh, God every few seconds. Mark gets up from his stool and turns off the stove before their lunch catches fire (he can't cook but that doesn't mean he can't spot a potential household accident).
“Okay,” Eduardo says. “Don't worry. Don't freak out. We'll call Chris. I'm sure he can fix this, it’s gonna be okay, and... "
“I can tell you really believe that," Mark interjects caustically. Not that Eduardo is listening.
“... yes, it'll probably cost you but there's no reason to panic, don't worry, we'll get it under control, and... wait." Eduardo rounds on him, narrowing his eyes. "You're not freaking out. Why aren't you freaking out?”
“Why are you? They were bound to find out sooner or later, Wardo.”
Eduardo blinks at him.
“And you… don’t mind?”
Mark looks Eduardo straight in the eye. This is one of those very few times he wishes he could do a third of the emoting Eduardo does with his eyebrows alone. “No. Not at all.” And apparently it worked, because Eduardo’s grin is blinding as he grabs the back of Mark’s neck and kisses him.
From: 'Mark Zuckerberg'
To: 'Chris Hughes' ; 'Eduardo Saverin'
Cc: 'Dustin Moskovitz'
Wardo says he likes the third one, probably because he’s a girl and from that angle it looks as if we were holding hands even though we really weren’t. I hope they use the last one, because Wardo trying to buy out every issue in Dade County before his mother can see him making out in a parking lot like a teenager is going to be priceless.
And since I’m sure you already composed a very tasteful press release, we can look it over tomorrow.
ps. Chris, did you seriously think you could blind copy Dustin without me finding out?
:: the end ::