"Mark, wait," Eduardo blurts out, some half-formed survival instinct pushing the words from his mouth, sending his chair a few inches back from the table and pulling him to his feet, the motion so quick that it nearly leaves him off-balance, too. What he's supposed to do, to say, to fix this, he hasn't got the first idea, but things haven't changed so much that he can't realize that he has to. He's just between a rock and a fucking hard place. (Don't make me choose, he wants to say. He can't pick Mark over Olive when the latter has been so good, so kind, so steady, but he won't pick Olive over Mark, either.) One thing he does know, though, is that the blame here is at least mostly on him. He knows Mark, maybe not as well as he once thought he did, but enough to know that he couldn't have meant anything malicious in what he said. Eduardo's patience is just thinner than it once was, and protecting Olive is a strong instinct, though a new one.
Holding on to Mark, being willing to do whatever it takes (even freezing a bank account in an attempt to make himself important), that's an older one, no less familiar for the time they've spent apart. Looking out for him is, too. On a purely practical level, it makes no sense for Mark to go wandering off into the night, drunk and in a place he doesn't know. Maybe they aren't what they were, but Eduardo can't bear the thought of something happening to him, knows that it would be his fault if it did. He just has to hope that it isn't too late, that this wasn't somehow the final straw. (Surely they've gotten through worse. There's no way, no fucking way, that talk about Olive could be what drives them apart for good. At least, Eduardo certainly hopes that's the case.)
"I'm sorry," he continues, just as abrupt, gaze pleading. It isn't what he means at all. I love you, too, you asshole, would be more accurate, but on the heels of such a statement about Olive, saying so would almost definitely be misconstrued, or at least cause Mark to scoff in disdain and tell him not to be so sentimental. He can't help it, though. Besides the fact that he's never wanted to stick his tongue down Mark's throat, the feelings run so the same, a level of utter, intense devotion that he's only ever directed at those two people, that he can't imagine giving one up for the other. Especially not now, with Mark. They've made it this far already; that has to count for something, to mean that they're not past hope.
It's then he realizes that he doesn't want them to be, that he has every intention of sticking this out until the end. If that makes him the world's biggest fool, so fucking be it. He has a choice, stay or go, and he chooses Mark each and every time. He just also, now, chooses Olive, too.
Mark will probably say he's desperate, or think it, but maybe he is; he doesn't care. He's been desperate before. This time, he won't let that desperation go misunderstood. "I shouldn't — I shouldn't have snapped," he stammers, caring even less that they're standing in the middle of a restaurant. "It just sounded like — shit, just — don't go, okay? I don't want you to go."
(Maybe it's what he should have said from the start, all that time ago back when Facebook was new, don't go, stay here with me, instead of making it about someone else.)
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Date: 2011-05-21 03:21 am (UTC)Holding on to Mark, being willing to do whatever it takes (even freezing a bank account in an attempt to make himself important), that's an older one, no less familiar for the time they've spent apart. Looking out for him is, too. On a purely practical level, it makes no sense for Mark to go wandering off into the night, drunk and in a place he doesn't know. Maybe they aren't what they were, but Eduardo can't bear the thought of something happening to him, knows that it would be his fault if it did. He just has to hope that it isn't too late, that this wasn't somehow the final straw. (Surely they've gotten through worse. There's no way, no fucking way, that talk about Olive could be what drives them apart for good. At least, Eduardo certainly hopes that's the case.)
"I'm sorry," he continues, just as abrupt, gaze pleading. It isn't what he means at all. I love you, too, you asshole, would be more accurate, but on the heels of such a statement about Olive, saying so would almost definitely be misconstrued, or at least cause Mark to scoff in disdain and tell him not to be so sentimental. He can't help it, though. Besides the fact that he's never wanted to stick his tongue down Mark's throat, the feelings run so the same, a level of utter, intense devotion that he's only ever directed at those two people, that he can't imagine giving one up for the other. Especially not now, with Mark. They've made it this far already; that has to count for something, to mean that they're not past hope.
It's then he realizes that he doesn't want them to be, that he has every intention of sticking this out until the end. If that makes him the world's biggest fool, so fucking be it. He has a choice, stay or go, and he chooses Mark each and every time. He just also, now, chooses Olive, too.
Mark will probably say he's desperate, or think it, but maybe he is; he doesn't care. He's been desperate before. This time, he won't let that desperation go misunderstood. "I shouldn't — I shouldn't have snapped," he stammers, caring even less that they're standing in the middle of a restaurant. "It just sounded like — shit, just — don't go, okay? I don't want you to go."
(Maybe it's what he should have said from the start, all that time ago back when Facebook was new, don't go, stay here with me, instead of making it about someone else.)