This feels familiar, and it doesn't take a clear mind for Mark to see that. As flippantly as Mark has always treated the matter, the fact is that Eduardo's admittance into the Phoenix definitely smarted Mark at the time, and the excitement from his best friend doubly so, feeling for all the world like Eduardo was graduating to a higher circle. And not just that, but one toward which Mark could make no earnest and meaningful efforts toward being selected. High test scores meant nothing, 1600s littered the campus as much as acorns from trees, and programmers were ultimately a dime a dozen. (Which, hey, is still better than over at MIT, where a programmer probably doesn't even merit a penny. It's their own fault, Mark thinks most days, for calling their school an 'Institute of Technology,' something that's going to get them labeled in the layman's sense whether they like it or not. He remembers that time, back home, when one of his mother's friends asked him if it was a community college, upon hearing that Mark got in. Yeah. That was interesting.)
The point being that not getting punched by the Phoenix sucked, but what was almost worse than that was how quickly Eduardo was willing to brush it aside for Mark, as though Mark needed that kind of sugarcoating or padding to deal with it. And it's happening here again. It's a habit of Eduardo's that Mark acknowledges as dangerous to their friendship, because if there's something consistently true for the both of them, it's that Eduardo's adherence to principle is almost airtight, but that Mark's need to test limits may be the only thing stronger.
"Most things don't. Even MySpace met its downfall," Mark shrugs, before his face perks up at the sudden arrival of burgers, Mark immediately reaching for the top bun and peeking at what lies underneath. "Looks good. I'm surprised that they've got enough cows here to do this."
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Date: 2011-05-21 02:19 am (UTC)The point being that not getting punched by the Phoenix sucked, but what was almost worse than that was how quickly Eduardo was willing to brush it aside for Mark, as though Mark needed that kind of sugarcoating or padding to deal with it. And it's happening here again. It's a habit of Eduardo's that Mark acknowledges as dangerous to their friendship, because if there's something consistently true for the both of them, it's that Eduardo's adherence to principle is almost airtight, but that Mark's need to test limits may be the only thing stronger.
"Most things don't. Even MySpace met its downfall," Mark shrugs, before his face perks up at the sudden arrival of burgers, Mark immediately reaching for the top bun and peeking at what lies underneath. "Looks good. I'm surprised that they've got enough cows here to do this."